Emotions and Spirituality in Religions and Spiritual Movements

Emotions and Spirituality in Religions and Spiritual Movements PDF Author: Erika Wilson
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761859500
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Applying recent psychological and neuropsychological studies of emotions, Erika Wilson explores the role of emotions in major Eastern, Western, and primal religions, as well as in some contemporary spiritual movements. The book tries to answer the following questions: What kinds of emotions and spiritual experiences arise in individuals and groups during prayer, conversions, rituals, meditations, and other spiritual practices? Which positive emotions are valued most in a particular religion or spiritual movement? How do these attitudes relate to their respective historical context? And finally, how does each religious or spiritual teaching recommend handling negative emotions?

Emotions and Spirituality in Religions and Spiritual Movements

Emotions and Spirituality in Religions and Spiritual Movements PDF Author: Erika Wilson
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761859500
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Get Book

Book Description
Applying recent psychological and neuropsychological studies of emotions, Erika Wilson explores the role of emotions in major Eastern, Western, and primal religions, as well as in some contemporary spiritual movements. The book tries to answer the following questions: What kinds of emotions and spiritual experiences arise in individuals and groups during prayer, conversions, rituals, meditations, and other spiritual practices? Which positive emotions are valued most in a particular religion or spiritual movement? How do these attitudes relate to their respective historical context? And finally, how does each religious or spiritual teaching recommend handling negative emotions?

White Utopias

White Utopias PDF Author: Amanda J. Lucia
Publisher:
ISBN: 0520376951
Category : Festivals
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Transformational festivals, from Burning Man to Lightning in a Bottle, Bhakti Fest, and Wanderlust, are massive events that attract thousands of participants to sites around the world. In this groundbreaking book, Amanda J. Lucia shows how these festivals operate as religious institutions for "spiritual, but not religious" (SBNR) communities. Whereas previous research into SBNR practices and New Age religion has not addressed the predominantly white makeup of these communities, White Utopias examines the complicated, often contradictory relationships with race at these events, presenting an engrossing ethnography of SBNR practices. Lucia contends that participants create temporary utopias through their shared commitments to spiritual growth and human connection. But they also participate in religious exoticism by adopting Indigenous and Indic spiritualities, a practice that ultimately renders them exclusive, white utopias. Focusing on yoga's role in disseminating SBNR values, Lucia offers new ways of comprehending transformational festivals as significant cultural phenomena.

Spirituality: A Very Short Introduction

Spirituality: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Philip Sheldrake
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191642436
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
It has been suggested that 'spirituality' has become a word that 'can define an era'. Why? Because paradoxically, alongside a decline in traditional religious affiliations, the growing interest in spirituality and the use of the word in a variety of contexts is a striking aspect of contemporary western cultures. Indeed, spirituality is sometimes contrasted attractively with religion, although this is problematic and implies that religion is essentially dogma, moralism, institutions, buildings, and hierarchies. The notion of spirituality expresses the fact that many people are driven by goals that concern more than material satisfaction. Broadly, it refers to the deepest values and sense of meaning by which people seek to live. Sometimes these values are conventionally religious. Sometimes they are associated with what is understood as 'the sacred' in a broader sense - that is, of ultimate rather than merely instrumental importance. This Very Short Introduction, written by one of the most eminent scholars and writers on spirituality, explores the historical foundations of the thought and considers how it came to have the significance it is developing today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

New Religious Movements and Counselling

New Religious Movements and Counselling PDF Author: Sarah Harvey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317088085
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
There are many different ways in which minority religions and counselling may interact. In some cases there can be antagonism between counselling services and minority religions, with each suspecting they are ideologically threatened by the other, but it can be argued that the most common relationship is one of ignorance – mental health professionals do not pay much attention to religion and often do not ask or consider their client’s religious affiliation. To date, the understanding of this relationship has focused on the ‘anti-cult movement’ and the perceived need for members of minority religions to undergo some form of ‘exit counselling’. In line with the series, this volume takes a non-judgemental approach and instead highlights the variety of issues, religious groups and counselling approaches that are relevant at the interface between minority religion and counselling. The volume is divided into four parts: Part I offers perspectives on counselling from different professions; Part II offers chapters from the field leaders directly involved in counselling former members of minority religions; Part III offers unique personal accounts by members and former members of a number of different new religions; while Part IV offers chapters on some of the most pertinent current issues in the counselling/minority religions fields, written by new and established academics. In every section, the volume seeks to explore different permutations of the counsellor-client relationship when religious identities are taken into account. This includes not only ‘secular’ therapists counselling former members of religion, but the complexities of the former member turned counsellor, as well as counselling practised both within religious movements and by religious movements that offer counselling services to the ‘outside’ world.

New Age Spirituality

New Age Spirituality PDF Author: Steven J. Sutcliffe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317546237
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
New Age and holistic beliefs and practices - sometimes called the "new spirituality" - are widely distributed across modern global society. The fluid and popular nature of new age makes these movements a very challenging field to understand using traditional models of religious analysis. Rather than treating new age as an exotic specimen on the margins of 'proper' religion, "New Age Spirituality" examines these movements as a form of everyday or lived religion. The book brings together an international range of scholars to explore the key issues: insight, healing, divination, meditation, gnosis, extraordinary experiences, and interactions with gods, spirits and superhuman powers. Combining discussion of contemporary beliefs and practices with cutting-edge theoretical analysis, the book repositions new age spirituality at the forefront of the contemporary study of religion.

Beyond Religion and the Secular

Beyond Religion and the Secular PDF Author: Wayne Hudson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350331732
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Deploying a distinctive disaggregative approach to the study of 'religion', this volume shows that spiritual movements with extensive counterfactual beliefs have been much more creative than one might expect. Specifically, Wayne Hudson explores the creativity of six spiritual movements: the Bahá'ís, a Persian movement; Soka Gakkai, a Japanese movement; Ananda Marga and the Brahma Kumaris, two reformed Hindu movements; and two controversial American churches, The Church Universal and Triumphant and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of these movements have counterintuitive features that have led Western scholars making Enlightenment assumptions to dismiss them as irrational and/or inconsequential. However, this book reveals that these movements have responded to modernity in ways that are creative and practical, resulting in a wide range of social, educational and cultural initiatives. Building on research surrounding the ways in which spiritual movements engage in cultural productions, this book takes the international research in a new direction by exploring the utopian intentionality such cultural productions reveal.

Dispirited

Dispirited PDF Author: David Webster
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1780994893
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 99

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Book Description
Dave Webster’s book is a counter-blast against the culturally accepted norm that spirituality is a vital and important factor in human life. Rejecting the idea of human wellbeing as predicated on the spiritual, the book seeks to identify the toxic impact of spiritual discourses on our lives. Spirituality makes us confused, apolitical and miserable - whether that spirituality is from conventional religious roots, from a new-age buffet of beliefs, or from some re-imagined ancient system of belief. Looking beyond this dismissal, the book looks towards atheistic existentialism, Theravada Buddhism and political engagement as a means to imagine what a post-spiritual world view could look like. ,

Emotion Regulation and Well-Being

Emotion Regulation and Well-Being PDF Author: Ivan Nyklíček
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441969535
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Emotion is a basic phenomenon of human functioning, most of the time having an adaptive value enhancing our effectiveness in pursuing our goals in the broadest sense. Regulation of these emotions, however, is essential for adaptive functioning, and suboptimal or dysfunctional emotion regulation may even be counterproductive and result in adverse consequences, including a poor well-being and ill health. This volume provides a state-of-the art overview of issues related to the association between emotion regulation and both mental and physical well-being. It covers various areas of research highly relevant to both researchers in the field and clinicians working with emotion regulation issues in their practice. Included topics are arranged along four major areas: • (Neuro-)biological processes involved in the generation and regulation of emotions • Psychological processes and mechanisms related to the link between emotion regulation and psychological well-being as well as physical health • Social perspective on emotion regulation pertaining to well-being and social functioning across the life span • Clinical aspects of emotion regulation and specific mental and physical health problems This broad scope offers the possibility to include research findings and thought-provoking views of leading experts from different fields of research, such as cognitive neuroscience, clinical psychology, psychophysiology, social psychology, and psychiatry on specific topics such as nonconscious emotion regulation, emotional body language, self-control, rumination, mindfulness, social sharing, positive emotions, intergroup emotions, and attachment in their relation to well-being and health. Chapters are based on the “Fourth International Conference on the (Non) Expression of Emotions in Health and Disease” held at Tilburg University in October 2007. In 2007 Springer published “Emotion Regulation: Conceptual and Clinical Issues” based on the Third International Conference on the (Non) Expression of Emotion in Health and Disease,” held at Tilburg University in October 2003. It is anticipated that, depending on sales, we may continue to publish the advances deriving from this conference.

The New Metaphysicals

The New Metaphysicals PDF Author: Courtney Bender
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226043177
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
American spirituality—with its focus on individual meaning, experience, and exploration—is usually thought to be a product of the postmodern era. But, as The New Metaphysicals makes clear, contemporary American spirituality has historic roots in the nineteenth century and a great deal in common with traditional religious movements. To explore this world, Courtney Bender combines research into the history of the movement with fieldwork in Cambridge, Massachusetts—a key site of alternative religious inquiry from Emerson and William James to today. Through her ethnographic analysis, Bender discovers that a focus on the new, on progress, and on the way spiritual beliefs intersect with science obscures the historical roots of spirituality from its practitioners and those who study it alike—and shape an enduring set of modern religious possibilities in the process.

Reflections of Amma

Reflections of Amma PDF Author: Amanda J. Lucia
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520281144
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
"Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) is the face of religion in the a new global age. Born in 1953 to a low-caste family in a southern Indian fishing village, she has catapulted to international prominence in recent decades through her travels, humanitarian programs, and the ever-increasing explosion of new centers in and outside of India, including the US, Canada, Europe, East Asia, Africa, and South America. Today 8-10 million people around the world identify as Amma devotees. Known throughout the world as the "hugging saint," she is famous for her elaborate darshan ceremonies, where as many as 50,000 people are embraced by the guru one at a time -- an event that can take up to three days and nights nonstop. This book is an in-depth examination of the Amma phenomenon and her American devotees. Amanda J. Huffer suggests that standard dichotomies within American religious studies are being broken down as notions of self and other, Asia and the West, goddess and human, become unsettled by way of Amma's highly performative darshan events. Huffer argues that an unprecedented egalitarian impulse is taking shape within the community, one that challenges long-held interpretations of Hindu religiosity and goddess worship. Through an in-depth ethnographic encounter with Amma devotees, she skillfully examines the new face of this fast-growing global religious movement"--