Collingwood has often been depicted as a neglected and isolated thinker whose original ideas on the contextual nature of truth anticipated important trends in postwar thought. The spiritual aspects of his thought, however, have often been problematic, precisely because they seem to conflict with his more influential ideas. Although Collingwood's overtly theological and metaphysical writing can be safely confined to an early, perhaps even juvenile phase of his career, the spiritual dimension of some of his later work, including, for example, (...) the famous doctrine of reenactment, has often been marginalized, repressed, or domesticated in order to preserve Collingwood's historical place in twentieth-century philosophy of history. This radical conflict continues to disrupt both the reception of Collingwood's ideas and attempts to contextualize them historically. However, if the spiritual and theological nature of Collingwood's thought is taken seriously, and not marginalized, it is hard to see his career as discrete stages of development. The problem of transcendent identity was a central concern for Collingwood throughout his career, and it unifies much of his thinking on divergent topics. The problematic idea of reenactment actually opens up a complex connection in Collingwood's thought between ethical action, historical time, and our relationship with divine reality. It is this rediscovery of Collingwood's spiritual ideas on history that leads to a reevaluation of his own historical context, for it becomes clear that these ideas were neither eccentric nor old-fashioned. The problems Collingwood was addressing link him with a much broader movement of European thought in the interwar period, one that was trying to mediate transcendent reality and concrete historicity in a situation of crisis and fragmentation. (shrink)

SummaryThe French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and His Heirs, 1794–1854 is a monograph by Carolina Armenteros describing the historical thought of Joseph de Maistre and recounting its posterity among French traditionalist, socialist and positivist thinkers. This article presents Armenteros's reflections on some of her book's themes and on the place they occupy in current scholarly debates. She notes that commentators today tend to assume politics' primacy over spirituality as a human motivator. A product of the de-spiritualisation of (...) human experience in late modernity, this view is associated with the polarisation of the concepts of tradition and Enlightenment, and with ideas of liberty and reason ill-adapted to interpreting Maistre's thought. Armenteros shows how her portrait of an anti-absolutist, empiricist and reasonable Maistre disappointed with kings and bent on resolving the problem of violence through spiritual means is the necessary consequence of investigating his historical and political thought in context. (shrink)

These lectures are concerned with spiritual forces and influences working in world history and in the karma of human beings. Steiner's penetrating insights into the events and personalities history are one of his major contributions to modern times. Steiner focuses here on the Babylonian and Greek cultures and the connecting threads running between individual personalities and the evolution of humanity as a whole.

These lectures are concerned with spiritual forces and influences working in world history and in the karma of human beings. Steiner's penetrating insights into the events and personalities history are one of his major contributions to modern times. Steiner focuses here on the Babylonian and Greek cultures and the connecting threads running between individual personalities and the evolution of humanity as a whole.

Pierre Viret (1511–1571), one of the leaders of the Calvinist Reformation, claims that the natural theology of his Instruction Chrestienne (1564) dedicated to the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, is a spiritual medicine. This paper shows that such spiritual medicine amounts to a specific expression of Calvinist pastoralism. Viret's natural theology uses natural-historical data as moral examples, thus transforming them into the material fit for his pastoral cure. This cure consists in exhorting his audience to bear the trials of divine (...) Providence by meditating on their own sinful state: such medicine asserts the limits of human reason. (shrink)

(Bibliotheca Humanistica & Reformatorica, Vol. XL). With Frontispiece.

This paper discusses the role of a particular form of philosophical spirituality in the emergence of post-structuralist theory. Initially elaborated in the post-Kantian metaphysics of Husserl and Heidegger, and focused in recondite acts of intellectual self-transformation, this form of spirituality was transposed into a literary hermeneutics that permitted its wider dissemination in the Anglo-american humanities academy. Post-structuralist theory is the result of this historical transformation.

Review of: A not-so-unexciting life: Essays on Benedictine history and spirituality in honor of Michael Casey, OCSO, edited by Carmel Posa, SGS, pp. 426, paperback, $64.95.

Spirituality is a topic of recent interest. Mindfulness, for example, a concept derived from the Buddhist tradition, has captivated the imagination of clinicians who package it in convenient intervention programs for patients. Spirituality and religion have been researched with reference to potential health benefits. Spirituality can be conceptualised as the alignment of the individual with the whole, experientially, motivationally and in action. For spirituality to unfold its true potential it is necessary to align this new movement (...) with the mainstream of science, and vice versa. Hence, both a historical review, and a systematic attempt at integration is called for, which we are trying to give here. It is useful to go back to one of the roots: parapsychology. Parapsychology was founded as a counter movement to the rising materialist paradigm in the 19th century. Adopting the methods of the natural sciences, it tried to prove the direct influence of consciousness on matter. After 125 years this mission must be declared unaccomplished. Surveying the database of parapsychological research it is obvious that it will not convince sceptics: Although there are enough exceptional findings, it has in general not been possible to reproduce them in replication experiments. This is, however, a characteristic signature of a category of effects which we call effects of generalised entanglement, predicted by a theoretical model analogous to quantum theory. Using this perspective, parapsychological effects can be understood, and the original aim of the founding fathers can be recovered, as well as a new, systematic understanding of spirituality be gained. Generalised entanglement is a formal and scientific way of explaining spirituality as alignment of an individual with a whole, which, according to the model, inevitably leads to non-local correlations. (shrink)

This work acknowledges that spirituality is an integral part of adult learning and development. Building on the history of adult education and training, the authors suggest that the profession needs to recover some of its early concerns for holistic and spirituality informed practice.

Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority recounts how philosophers of the late third century C.E. organized the spirit world into hierarchies, positioning themselves as high priests in the process. By establishing themselves as experts on sacred matters, they fortified their authority, prestige, and reputation.

In my paper I will argue for the thesis that spiritual exercises are an essential part of every philosophical life. My arguments are partly historical, partly conceptual in their nature. First, I show that philosophy at each stage of its history was accompanied by spiritual exercises. Next, I provide a definition of spiritual exercises as genuinely philosophical activity. Then I show that the philosophical life cannot be complete if it does not include spiritual exercises.

Spirituality is a topic of recent interest. Mindfulness, for example, a concept derived from the Buddhist tradition, has captivated the imagination of clinicians who package it in convenient intervention programs for patients. Spirituality and religion have been researched with reference to potential health benefits. Spirituality can be conceptualised as the alignment of the individual with the whole, experientially, motivationally and in action. For spirituality to unfold its true potential it is necessary to align this new movement (...) with the mainstream of science, and vice versa. Hence, both a historical review, and a systematic attempt at integration is called for, which we are trying to give here. It is useful to go back to one of the roots: parapsychology. Parapsychology was founded as a counter movement to the rising materialist paradigm in the 19th century. Adopting the methods of the natural sciences, it tried to prove the direct influence of consciousness on matter. After 125 years this mission must be declared unaccomplished. Surveying the database of parapsychological research it is obvious that it will not convince sceptics: Although there are enough exceptional findings, it has in general not been possible to reproduce them in replication experiments. This is, however, a characteristic signature of a category of effects which we call effects of generalised entanglement, predicted by a theoretical model analogous to quantum theory. Using this perspective, parapsychological effects can be understood, and the original aim of the founding fathers can be recovered, as well as a new, systematic understanding of spirituality be gained. Generalised entanglement is a formal and scientific way of explaining spirituality as alignment of an individual with a whole, which, according to the model, inevitably leads to non-local correlations. (shrink)

Cooper, Austin Christian Spirituality can be approached from numerous points on the theological compass: Sacred Scripture is an obvious source, but so are almost any of the theological disciplines. This paper will be concerned with it as emanating from Church History.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spiritual Experience and PsychopathologyMike Jackson and K. W. M. Fulford (bio)AbstractA recent study of the relationship between spiritual experience and psychopathology (reported in detail elsewhere) suggested that psychotic phenomena could occur in the context of spiritual experiences rather than mental illness. In the present paper, this finding is illustrated with three detailed case histories. Its implications are then explored for psychopathology, for psychiatric classification, and for our understanding of (...) the concept of mental illness. It is argued that pathological and spiritual psychotic phenomena cannot be distinguished by 1) form and content alone (as in traditional psychopathology), 2) by their relationship either with other symptoms or with pathological causes (as in psychiatric classification), or 3) by reference to the descriptive criteria of mental illness implied by the “medical” model. The distinction is shown to depend, rather, on the way in which psychotic phenomena themselves are embedded in the values and beliefs of the person concerned. This in turn is shown to have implications for diagnosis (it shows the need for clinicians to attend to the values and beliefs of individual patients), for treatment (it points to a cognitive problem-solving model), and for research in psychopathology (especially as related to the emerging sciences of dynamic brain imaging and cognitive neuroscience).Keywordsfirst rank symptoms, schizophrenia, delusion, hallucination, thought disorder, religious experience, mystical experienceIntroductionThis paper explores some of the conceptual and practical implications of the finding that phenomena which in a medical context would probably be diagnosed as psychotic symptoms, may occur in the context of non-pathological, and indeed essentially benign, spiritual experiences.The existence of non-pathological psychotic experiences of this kind (we will call them “psychotic phenomena” as distinct from “psychotic symptoms”—see also Endnote 1, terminology) was a key finding in a study carried out by one of us (MJ) at the Alister Hardy Research Centre (AHRC) in Oxford. Details are given elsewhere both of the overall empirical findings of the study, including the relationship between spiritual experience and personality variables, and of a hypothetical cognitive problem-solving model of these phenomena (Jackson 1991, and forthcoming a and b). In the present paper, 1) the background to the study is described briefly in relation to earlier work on the possible links between spiritual experience and psychopathology; 2) some of the psychotic phenomena identified are illustrated with three detailed case histories; 3) the significance of these phenomena is reviewed for our understanding respectively of psychopathology, of diagnostic syndromes, and of the concept of mental illness; and 4) some of the practical implications of the study for clinical work and research in psychiatry are indicated.BackgroundIt has long been recognized that there are similarities between spiritual and psychotic experiences. [End Page 41] William James (1902), for example, argued that “in delusional insanity, paranoia as they sometimes call it, we may have a kind of diabolical mysticism, a sort of religious mysticism turned upside down” (426). Other commentators have noted a wide variety of phenomena, such as time distortion, synesthesias, loss of self-object boundaries and the transition from a state of conflict and anxiety to one of sudden “understanding,” all of which are reported in both spiritual and psychotic experiences (Buckley 1981; Watson 1982; Wapnick 1969; and Wootton and Allen 1983).Yet the similarities notwithstanding, the distinction between these two kinds of experience can be crucially important. Spiritual experiences, whether welcome or unwelcome, and whether or not they are psychotic in form, have nothing (directly) to do with medicine (Fulford 1996a). It would be quite wrong, then, to “treat” spiritual psychotic experiences with neuroleptic drugs, just as it is quite wrong to “treat” political dissidents as though they were ill (Fulford, Smirnoff and Snow, 1993). Pathological psychotic experiences, on the other hand, or psychotic symptoms, are by definition a proper object of medical treatment, sometimes even against the wishes of the person concerned. Hence it would be both negligent and, as Wing (1978) put it, morally “repellent,” to leave untreated someone who is genuinely ill (244).Given how much turns on the distinction between spiritual experience and psychopathology, it is perhaps not surprising that scholarly discussion of the relationship between them has at times... (shrink)

This book presents a history of spiritual exercises from Socrates to early Christianity, an account of their decline in modern philosophy, and a discussion of ...

This article examines the important role and historical context of spiritual ‘training’ ( exercitium) in St. Thomas Aquinas’s account of infused virtue growth. The traditional practice of spiritual training or discipline confronted the dangers of mediocrity, lukewarmness and relapse in the moral life, seeking further to train us into virtuous conduct through prayer, fasting, vigils, recitation of psalms, examination of conscience, meditation on Scripture, and so forth. Thomas strongly advocated this praxis as crucial to growth in infused virtue. I examine (...) the concept of spiritual training as he knew it, and in particular bring into view the unfamiliar context and landscape which gave it intelligibility. To this end I articulate the patristic and medieval sources which he relied upon and show what is distinctive in his account relative to that of his contemporaries. While his account is not parochial to Dominican life, I argue that the Order's literature regulating the formation of friars sheds crucial light on how Thomas conceived of spiritual training in practice, and conclude by suggesting some implications for moral theology and virtue theory. (shrink)

This volume offers eleven case studies of contemporary movements from around the world where religious, secular and spiritual dynamics interplay in the postmodern condition of the 21st century, as traditional and contemporary sources are combined in new and dynamic ways.

The study of the cultural activity of the Spiritual missions of the Russian Orthodox Church in various regions of Russia is one of the urgent tasks in the context of the problematic field of the theory of regionalism, cultural studies and socio-philosophical knowledge. Russian settlements on the territory of the Yenisei River basin and the entry of ethnic groups and territories of Yakutia and Buryatia into the Russian Empire has become one of the most important stages of the integration of (...) the ethnic groups of Siberia into a single statehood. The Irkutsk Spiritual Mission received a more perfect organization, institutionalized by increasing the number of missionary camps, which for successful Christian activities carried out among pagans allowed the formation of school educational institutions for the education and upbringing of a new Buryat generation of children in the doctrinal Orthodox canons, and Russian cultural traditions. In this regard, one of the key tasks of the missionaries was to establish a rational view of further life in new Christian-type formations, which was realized in socio-cultural activities: providing medical care to sick representatives of other ethnic groups, a friendly attitude to people of a different faith and a sincere desire to guide them on the path of righteousness, etc. It should be noted that the largest share of foreigners in this territory belonged to Buddhists, which was reflected in the influence of lamas on doctrinal issues, including economic ones. Since Buddhism in the Russian Empire belonged to the section of tolerant religions, direct (administrative) pressure on it was impossible. There remained funds of an exclusively spiritual nature, to which Orthodox missionary work was directed. Today in the Russian Federation, Buddhism, as well as Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as some other faiths belong to the category of traditional religions, which organizationally operate within the framework of the modern Russian Constitution. (shrink)

This paper argues that Jan Patočka and Paul Ricoeur endured their own cognitive-spiritual crisis, particularly during the development and outbreak of war in the 1930s. Their philosophies of history are thus, on the one hand, born of a rethinking of modern philosophy from the time of Galileo and Descartes, and on the other, a suffering of crisis that Europe itself was suffering. Stemming from the historical and philosophical context of Husserl’s epistemology in the Krisis, both Ricoeur and Patočka had to (...) confront history and the decadence of European sciences, as it concerns the difficulty of remembering the past and describing events in history. These responses to the problem of modern philosophy and science in Europe point to the symptom of spiritual crisis due to ‘modern man’ having no unified worldview. By means of care of the soul and the challenging of the state in action, a hermeneutics of peace emerges from their spiritual crises. (shrink)

Background: Spirituality has always been present in the history of nursing and continues to be a topic of nursing interest. Spirituality has ancient roots. The term ‘spirituality’ is interpreted as spirit and is translated as breath and soul, whereas spirituality (immateriality) is spiritual nature. Historically, the term spirituality is associated with the term religiosity, a definition that persists today, and often the two terms are used interchangeably. In the healthcare context, the construct is still. Objective (...) To clarify the concept of spirituality in nursing. Research design In this article spirituality was explored using Rodgers' evolutionary and inductive method of concept analysis. Participants and research context For this analysis, a sample of 71 articles published in English, from 2008 to 2018 from PubMed/Medline, CINAHL Plus with full text, PsycINFO, SciELO databases were retrieved. It was also accomplished an empirical search of dictionaries and e-books. Ethical considerations This study was conducted according to good scientific practice. Findings It emerged that “spirituality” is a dynamic process and has a range of attributes. The cultural dimensions, the religious and spiritual traditions, the ethnic diversity and the influence of the historical and social contexts represent the societal and historical conditions ingrained in the Western thought that influence the emergence of spirituality as a concept. Antecedents, attributes and onsequences appeared to inform and strengthen one another over time. Spirituality is a significant concept for the discipline of nursing with profound consequences for caring patients and for work organizations. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, German writers, philosophers, theologians, and historians turned to Gnosticism to make sense of the modern condition. While some saw this ancient Christian heresy as a way to rethink modernity, most German intellectuals questioned Gnosticism's return in a contemporary setting. In No Spiritual Investment in the World, Willem Styfhals explores the Gnostic worldview's enigmatic place in these discourses on modernity, presenting a comprehensive intellectual history of Gnosticism's role in postwar German thought. Establishing the German-Jewish philosopher Jacob Taubes (...) at the nexus of the debate, Styfhals traces how such figures as Hans Blumenberg, Hans Jonas, Eric Voegelin, Odo Marquard, and Gershom Scholem contended with Gnosticism and its tenets on evil and divine absence as metaphorical detours to address issues of cultural crisis, nihilism, and the legitimacy of the modern world. These concerns, he argues, centered on the difficulty of spiritual engagement in a world from which the divine has withdrawn. Reading Gnosticism against the backdrop of postwar German debates about secularization, political theology, and post-secularism, No Spiritual Investment in the World sheds new light on the historical contours of postwar German philosophy. (shrink)

Spiritual naturalists say that spirit is a natural force. Far from being novel or unconventional, spiritual naturalism spans the entire history of Western thought, from the Stoics, through leading modern thinkers, to the transhumanists. Spirit drives the self-organization of matter. The spirituality of any thing is just its degree of self-organization, which is its evolved complexity. But self-organization is self-regulation and self-control. Many spiritual naturalists, especially the transhumanists, have developed naturalistic phenomenologies of spirit. These are narratives which trace the (...) ideal evolution of complexity from the origin of our universe to its end. They are spiritually optimal possible histories of our universe. During the phases of any spiritually optimal history, humanity will perfect itself. But transhumanists say that the ideal evolution of complexity will greatly surpass humans. We will be surpassed by superhuman animals; but these will be surpassed by superhuman robots and godlike computers. The ideal end of the cosmos is an Omega Point with infinite spirituality. (shrink)

April 29-30, 1995 in the premises of the Ternopil Medical Institute. Academician I.Ya.Gorbachevsky held an international scientific conference with such a title. In her work participated: A. Kolodny, - deputy director of the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, President of the Ukrainian Association of Religious Studies; Employees of the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine - V.Malakhov, V.Klimov, L.Filipovich, O.Sagan, V.Demian, T.Chaika; Lviv Museum of the History of Religion - (...) G. Skop-Drusyuk, L. Skop, I. Petrov; Ternopil universities and institutions Y.Sudersky, O.Gudim, L. Boytsun, and others. Our fellow countryman, Professor Stepan Yarmus, participated in the conference. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spiritual AuthorityA Christian PerspectiveKarl BaierOne could define spiritual authority as the power to support the opening of the entire universe —and especially of the life of human beings—toward union with the redeeming ultimate reality. Christian tradition knows several holders of this power: God, Jesus Christ, the angels, the saints and priests, spiritual guides, and last but not least each and every Christian and person of goodwill. They all are (...) spiritual authorities and together create a field of liberating power with many interdependent centers. One can conceive of spiritual authority in Christianity as a complex interplay between these various forces. The manifestation of spiritual power through them does not take place for its own sake, or to celebrate the holder of spiritual authority, but to empower other centers. Thus, spiritual power is not private property. It is only real insofar as it is passed on to others. In the field of human spiritual authority, tensions and struggles arise if the flow of authority is blocked by a particular center attempting to monopolize spiritual power for the establishment of an illusionary self-identity.Rather than going into an analysis of the entire field, I would like to take a closer look at one of its facets: “spiritual guides,” those who are acknowledged specialists in helping others to a life in the presence of God. Of course, other centers of spiritual authority will sooner or later also come into the picture, because in the field of spiritual power one authority cannot be understood without the others. Fields of other forms of power and their centers of authority (scriptural authority, political authority, etc.) also influence and partially permeate the field of spiritual authority, but that is a subject for another enquiry.Spiritual Guidance in the History of ChristianityA central socioreligious form of spiritual authority manifests itself within relationships of spiritual guidance, or (to use the common Christian phrase) within spiritual direction. The remaining part of this paper deals with concepts of spiritual direction and ways of understanding the authority of the director in his or her relationship to [End Page 107] the directee within Christian spiritual life. Before looking into the current situation, I will highlight some milestones in the history of Christian spiritual guidance.From late antiquity onward, spiritual authority was accepted within Christian communities as a specific form of authority, quite different from other forms and especially different from the authority of the clergy to lead the Church.The earliest context in which this difference appeared coincides with the beginning of spiritual direction. Spiritual direction in Christianity originated as a monastic concept.1 “Historically it was from the movement of desert monasticism that we received the idea of spiritual direction within the framework of Christian practice.”2 As abba (“father”) and amma (“mother”) ascetics, holy men or women, like the hermits of the Egyptian desert who lived on the periphery of the socioreligious zone controlled by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, functioned as independent spiritual authorities for their fellow monks and nuns as well as for people from further afield who visited the desert to ask for spiritual advice. As one can imagine, the relationship between the two forms of authority was complex, and one can observe tensions and attempts at reconciliation between the authority of the charismatic ascetics and the authority of the bishops, as well as between ascetical ideals taken from monasticism and the pastoral care for lay Christians from the fourth to the sixth century.3The Decretum Gelasianum, an official document dating back to the beginning of the sixth century, assessed that the vitae patrum—the books containing narratives of the lives and the spiritual teachings of the desert fathers—were to be accepted by the Church as valid teaching with all honor (cum omni honore suscipimus). The use of the term “father” in this text indirectly confirms that no ordination was necessary to receive this honorary title and the ministry connected to it. Most of the fathers acknowledged by the Decretum Gelasianum have never been ordained priests.When the desert tradition was superseded by organized monasticism, the charismatic authority of the abba or amma became institutionalized in the form of monastery rules, which functioned... (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, German writers, philosophers, theologians, and historians turned to Gnosticism to make sense of the modern condition. While some saw this ancient Christian heresy as a way to rethink modernity, most German intellectuals questioned Gnosticism's return in a contemporary setting. In No Spiritual Investment in the World, Willem Styfhals explores the Gnostic worldview's enigmatic place in these discourses on modernity, presenting a comprehensive intellectual history of Gnosticism's role in postwar German thought. Establishing the German-Jewish philosopher Jacob Taubes (...) at the nexus of the debate, Styfhals traces how such figures as Hans Blumenberg, Hans Jonas, Eric Voegelin, Odo Marquard, and Gershom Scholem contended with Gnosticism and its tenets on evil and divine absence as metaphorical detours to address issues of cultural crisis, nihilism, and the legitimacy of the modern world. These concerns, he argues, centered on the difficulty of spiritual engagement in a world from which the divine has withdrawn. Reading Gnosticism against the backdrop of postwar German debates about secularization, political theology, and post-secularism, No Spiritual Investment in the World sheds new light on the historical contours of postwar German philosophy. (shrink)

The spiritual experience is, somehow, closer to what is proper to the contemporary scientific experiment: both are ways of tryout. A follower of such path needs to meet the requirements comparable with those of scientific experiment : rules and criteria of verification. Yet the result of this spiritual quest is on another level, because it grants access to a reality beyond our common-sense perception. To express the contents of this experience is extremely difficult, and the normal usage of words is (...) inadequate. And, with any generation in history, expressing the specificity of this experience becomes always a question of novelty. This is due to a different cultural and social background, of a different “field of experience”. I consider that nowadays we can better understand the rigor of a spiritual path as well as its concreteness, tracking the significance of spiritual practice for a more complex understanding of reality. But at the same time, new spiritual experiences, made in the actual contexts, can offer new solutions and new answers to the contemporary social and cultural challenges. Spirituality, understood as a practice following a particular religious tradition and aiming personal and community’s betterment, has the ability to provide empathy for the other, because somebody having a spiritual practice can recognize a similar need of any other human. “To reconcile” can have many meanings, from reconciling individuals to reconciling neighborhoods, communities, entire countries, to which the reconciliation with self gathers. (shrink)

The problem of spirituality is one of those philosophical problems that are commonly called "eternal." It is particularly relevant in the dramatic periods of human history that Ukraine is experiencing today, when fundamentally new life phenomena and circumstances adjust the ways and means of life choices, social self-determination of individuals. Radical changes in a person's world-view make everyone personally think of new social realities, define their world-view settings, realize the place and role of the person in the process of (...) social transformation. In such circumstances, the problem of spirituality acquires the most important status in the structure of the spiritual world of the individual. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spiritual AuthorityA Buddhist PerspectiveShenpen HookhamWhom Do Buddhists Look to for Spiritual Authority?I am taking spiritual authority in this context to refer to those to whom the tradition looks for authoritative guidance in regard to following the spiritual path. They constitute a category of people about whom, other than to recount their life stories and teachings, little has been written, even in traditional sources. Whether we call them saints, enlightened (...) or realized people, yogins, practitioners, or gurus, who they are, exactly, is difficult to define, and yet without them the tradition is spiritually dead.Reginald A. Ray, in his groundbreaking work Buddhist Saints in India (1999),1 points out how such people are and have always been important, both in the early tradition and in the developed tradition, even though their place has never been well defined. As we shall see in the course of this paper, it is perhaps impossible to define.Ray chooses to talk in terms of “saints” when referring to enlightened people, since their spiritual authority stems from their exemplary lives and extraordinary spiritual knowledge and powers. There are, however, degrees of enlightenment and realization, so I am choosing to refer to the whole range as yogins, with Mahāsiddhas at the top end in terms of experience and spiritual authority and “practitioners” at the bottom. The term yogin presupposes a yogic process with a body of knowledge and experience in regard to it. “Enlightenment” or “realization,” the fruit of the yogic process, refers to insight into the true nature of reality, which those with realization embody, giving them their spiritual authority.In this paper I shall be writing in general terms for the whole Buddhist tradition on the basis of many personal and in-depth encounters with yogins in all the main traditions. This is an area in need of much further research, and what I propose to do in this paper is to flag the issues and raise pertinent questions. My particular interest is how spiritual authority is going to work in the future, especially in the West now that the Buddhist tradition is establishing itself here. [End Page 121]The tendency in modern scholarship has been to assume that spiritual authority in Buddhism lies with monastics (especially male monastics), who teach and are supported by laypeople who look to them for spiritual guidance. Ray challenges this assumption, pointing out that, throughout history, the most genuine spiritual authority within the tradition is found in the Buddhist saints. These are the yogins, male or female, possibly living within or outside monastic institutions, following any number of lifestyles, be it as wandering renunciates, hermits, householders, or kings. Ray, therefore, in place of the twofold model of monks and lay supporters, speaks of a need for a threefold model, which includes the saints /yogins. This puts into a broader historical perspective, the modern trend for Western Buddhists to not automatically think of themselves as a laity dependent on the spiritual authority of monks.At the time of the Buddha, spiritual authority rested in him and his enlightened disciples. Ray refers to their lifestyle as that of wandering forest renunciates. Over time, Buddhism followed the same pattern as emerged in Brahmanic society with the forest renunciates settling near towns and villages so that a symbiotic relationship could develop between the monks and their lay supporters. As the Buddhist tradition moved from an oral to a written tradition, the monastery became the place of learning, where the texts were kept and a highly organized and ordered lifestyle could develop within and around the monastery, contrasting markedly with the freer, and presumably more diverse and spontaneous, lifestyles of the forest renunciates. Ray argues that, as the writers of texts and commentaries, the learned monks systematically rewrote the values and orientation of early Buddhism in favor of the settled, ordered, lifestyle of the monasteries, regarding the renunciate lifestyle as an exceptional, if not inferior, option. His point is that, in this way, spiritual authority moved from the enlightened wandering, renunciate teacher, such as the person of the Buddha, to scholar monks within the monastic organizational hierarchy. He argues that, in this way, the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 373-380 [Access article in PDF] Spiritual Experience and Psychopathology:Dichotomy or Interaction? Caroline Brett Keywords: mysticism, psychosis, values, phenomenology, spiritual emergence. THE PURPOSE OF Marzanski and Bratton's paper is to challenge Jackson and Fulford's (1997) treatment of the area of spiritual experience and psychosis, specifically the perspective of discriminating pathological from spiritual experiences on the basis of action enhancement in contrast to action failure. (...) In my opinion, they are partially successful in this aim, and in their analysis they further the discussion of this complex and controversial area in an interesting and potentially fruitful way. What the paper does not offer, or attempt to suggest, is an alternative way of making a distinction, and in the following discussion I intend to explain why I think that, on the one hand, the status of specific experiences is of practical importance, and on the other hand any distinction should not be conceptualized as mutually exclusive. I also hope to clarify those issues which I perceive as being raised by both Jackson and Fulford's and Marzanski and Bratton's papers. The Critique Marzanski and Bratton's first, and in my opinion strongest, point is to argue that "values and actions alone cannot always discriminate between religious experience and psychopathology." They demonstrate convincingly that the fact that an individual positively evaluates a certain anomalous experience and shows enhanced function as a result of it, does not in itself mean that the experience should be viewed as "spiritual." Their second and third points relate to the way spirituality ought to be regarded, suggesting that Jackson and Fulford are in error to identify spirituality with experience, and moreover that any judgment of genuine spiritual content or value requires reference to an individual's personal history, and also some spiritual tradition or authority. I believe that the former point, although certainly relevant to the issue, is in danger of broadening the debate too far from the consideration of particular anomalous experiences: namely, those that are phemenologically similar or identical to psychotic symptomatology. Marzanski and Bratton also mount an objection to the psychologization of spiritual experience by Jackson and Fulford, although I am not convinced that they represent these authors' opinions fairly. Whose Values? Action or Ethics? The first point, the refutation of the thesis that a spiritual experience can be distinguished from [End Page 373] psychopathology on the basis of a positive evaluation and preservation of functionality, succeeds in that it is shown both that (1) experiences accepted as spiritual within major religious traditions may actually be distressing and/or disabling; and (2) anomalous experiences that are both positively evaluated by the experient and action enhancing nevertheless may not have genuine spiritual characteristics. The argument proceeds through the use of counterexamples, and it is indeed a problem for the Jackson and Fulford account that suffering and periods of social withdrawal or distress do appear to be historically, anthropologically, and theologically associated with the spiritual journey. Bratton and Marzanski use, among other examples, the "dark night of the soul" of mystics, raising the very interesting point that a person may have experiences that, at least at the time of experiencing, are profoundly disturbing or even disabling, socially or functionally, and yet those same experiences may in some way set the scene for a profound transformation or spiritual renewal. To my mind this concept can be seen reflected in the "terrible" forms of the Wisdom Goddess in Advaita Vedanta (as expressed in my own paper), and can be related to the concept of "breaking down to break through" espoused by transpersonal psychologists such as Grof and Grof (1992).Therefore, on closer examination, it appears that Jackson and Fulford's notion of preserved functionality may play some role after all, even if it does require supplementation: if the breaking through aspect of the process is necessary to distinguish from simply breaking down, then action enhancement may remain a criterion determining the spiritual value of an experience. However, it will need to be observed in the longer term, and as such can only play a role... (shrink)

In contemporary spirituality-related thought and behaviour in Estonia (as well as in a number of other regions), a phenomenon can be observed that I call hop-on hop-off spirituality. This means testing and tasting of various forms of contemporary spirituality (via techniques, courses, lectures, books, etc.) out of curiosity or for fun or just because a friend said that this or that teaching has changed their life. Such experimenting can sometimes result in deeper spiritual involvement or change in (...) worldview but often doesn’t bring along anything that could be defined as deeper spiritual or religious commitment or belonging. Based on interviews, questionnaire responses and written life-history narratives from Estonia from the 1990s to 2020s, I will analyse how the suggested term fits into the context of already existing definitions and terms related to “spirituality”, and how such “hop-on hop-off” participation can be still seen as a learning process that influences one’s values, meaning-making, coping models, and lifestyle. (shrink)

The article examines how recovering drug addicts employ testimonies of conversion and addiction to develop and sustain personal identity and create meaning from varied experiences in life. Drawing on 31 autobiographies of recovering drug addicts we analyze conversion and addiction testimonies in two European contexts. The analysis shows how existing frames of reference and self-understanding are undermined and/or developed. We first describe the substance abuse in participants’ addiction trajectory. Next, we outline the religious aspects and the primary conception of recovering (...) addicts’ conversions as an example of spiritual transformation and narrative change. Moreover, participants select and creatively adapt cultural practices in their testimonies. In many of these examples converts clearly employ elements from their personal and family histories, their ethnic and religious heritages, and their larger cultural and historical context to create a meaningful conversion narrative. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to reveal philosophical ideas in the mythology and folklore of the indigenous peoples of North America. An important question: "Can we assume that the spiritual culture of the American Indians contained philosophical knowledge?" remains relevant today. For example, European philosophy is defined by appeals to philosophers of the past, their texts. The philosophical tradition is characterized by rational argumentation and formulation of philosophical questions that differ from the questions of ordinary language. However, the problem (...) lies in the term "philosophy", which belongs to the so-called "philosophical untranslatability" and has many definitions. The question of whether philosophy is exclusively a phenomenon of European culture is still controversial. In the article, the concept of philosophy is used in a broad sense, which allows the analysis of the intellectual heritage of the culture of the indigenous people of North America for philosophical ideas. Theoretical basis of the study consists of primary sources, which are limited due to the "documentary horizon". It contains myths about the Twins, ritual rhetoric, examples of dream interpretation practices and the practical wisdom of tribal chiefs. The Chronicle of "Vallamolum", or "the Red List", testifies to the special idea of the Indians about history and their own historicity. Analysis of cosmogonical and cosmological ideas reveals the special features of the anthropological ideas of the North American Indians. Combined with the philosophical ideas of the Puritan philosophy of the settlers of New England, this analysis allows us to explore in more detail the processes of acculturation. The study uses critical literature from scholars and leading researchers of the wisdom and philosophy of Native Americans, such as Michael Yellow Bird, J. Baird Callicott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dennis H. McPherson, Lewis Henri Morgan, Thomas M. Norton-Smith, J. Douglas Rabb, Paul Radin, Jon Ewbank Manchip White. The views of early American philosophers: R. Williams, W. Penn, R. W. Emerson, on the problem of the relationship between the culture of settlers and the indigenous people of North America are noteworthy. Originality lies in the application of historical and philosophical methodology, identifying the features of philosophizing in the spiritual culture and worldview of the indigenous people of North America. Conclusions. In the conclusions, the obtained results complement the history of the origin and development of philosophical thought of the early American philosophy. (shrink)