Innocent Ecstasy, Updated Edition

Innocent Ecstasy, Updated Edition PDF Author: Peter Gardella
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190609427
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Though they disagree on virtually everything else, evangelicals and gays, Catholics and agnostics all agree that sex should be innocent and ecstatic. For most of Western history people have not had such expectations. Innocent Ecstasy shows how Christianity led Americans to hope for so much from sex. The book explains how the sexual revolution could have occurred in a nation so deeply imbued with Christian ethical values. Tracing our strange journey from the hands of Jonathan Edward's angry Puritan God to the loving embrace of Marabel Morgan's Total Woman, Gardella draws his surprising evidence from widely disparate sources, ranging from Catholic confessionals to methodist revival meetings, from evangelical romances to The Song of Bernadette. He reveals the sexual messages of mainstream Protestant theology and the religious aspirations of medical texts found at the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research. He sheds new light on such well-known figures as Henry Adams, Margaret Sanger, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and introduces us to such fascinating, lesser-known characters as Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and Sylvester Graham, inventors of corn flakes and Graham crackers, who devised their products as anti-aphrodisiacs. While detailing the development of moral obligations to pursue sexual pleasure and to follow certain patterns of sexual practice, Gardella incidentally provides one of the few books to bring together the liberal Protestant, Roman Catholic, and evangelical perspectives on any aspect of American culture. Gardella attributes the American ethic of sexual pleasure to the eagerness of Americans to overcome original sin. This led to a quest for perfection, or complete freedom from guilt, combined with a quest for ecstatic experience. The result, he maintains, is an attitude that looks to sex for what was once expected from religion. In this new edition, a new conclusion explores how popular music, gay liberation, and recovery from sexual abuse have substantially expanded innocent ecstasy during the past thirty years while continuing the Christian themes of redemption and mission. A new afterword deals with contemporary developments in popular culture and offers thoughts about the future

Innocent Ecstasy

Innocent Ecstasy PDF Author: Peter Gardella
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190609400
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Moving between theology, medical treatments, psychological theories, feminist movements and popular culture, Innocent Ecstasy demonstrates how Christianity has shaped Americans' sexual expectations-and laid the foundations for the sexual revolution.

Mariette in Ecstasy

Mariette in Ecstasy PDF Author: Ron Hansen
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061978280
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
The highly acclaimed and provocatively rendered story of a young postulant's claim to divine possession and religious ecstasy.

Savage Ecstasy

Savage Ecstasy PDF Author: Janelle Taylor
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN: 1420127586
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
A Native American warrior and a young settler woman find a passion as wild as the frontier in the New York Times bestselling author’s romance series debut. It was like lightning striking, the first time they looked into each other's eyes: Gray Eagle, the captured Oglala warrior, and Alisha, the beautiful young settler. To her fellow settlers, Grey Eagle is nothing more than a savage. But to her, he is a proud, strong, handsome man who takes her breath away. Meanwhile, the fair vision of Alisha’s beauty awakens Grey Eagle’s darkest desires. Despite the horrors of captivity, the warrior is consumed with a longing to possess her. But even as Alisha saves his life, Grey Eagle knows that her home is among the enemy. Soon enough, however, the tables turn. And when Alisha is the captive, a fierce passion is unleashed . . .

Innocent Ecstasy

Innocent Ecstasy PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190609436
Category : Sex
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Moving between theology, medical treatments, psychological theories, feminist movements and popular culture, 'Innocent Ecstasy' demonstrates how Christianity has shaped Americans' sexual expectations and laid the foundations for the sexual revolution

Listening to Ecstasy

Listening to Ecstasy PDF Author: Charles Wininger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1644111179
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
A personal narrative and guide to the safe, responsible use of MDMA for personal healing and social transformation • Details the author’s 50 years of responsible experimentation with mind-altering substances and how Ecstasy has helped him become a better therapist • Explains how he and his wife found Ecstasy to be the key to renewing and enriching their lives and marriage as they entered their senior years • Describes what the experience actually feels like and provides protocols for the safe, responsible, recreational, and celebrational use of MDMA for individuals and groups In a world that keeps us separate from each other, MDMA is the chemical of connection. Aptly known in popular culture as “Ecstasy,” MDMA helps us rediscover our own true loving nature, often obscured by the traumas of life. On its way to becoming a prescription medication due to groundbreaking research on its use to treat PTSD, Ecstasy can offer benefits for all adult life stages, from 20-somethings to seniors. In this memoir and guide to safe use, Charles Wininger, a licensed psychoanalyst and mental health counselor, details the countless ways that Ecstasy has helped him become a better therapist and husband. He recounts his coming of age in the 1960s counterculture, his 50 years of responsible experimentation with mind-altering substances, and his immersion in the new psychedelic renaissance. He explains how he and his wife found Ecstasy to be the key to renewing and enriching their lives as they entered their senior years. It also strengthened the bonds of their marriage. Countering the fearful propaganda that surrounds this drug, Wininger describes what the experience actually feels like and explores the value of Ecstasy and similar substances for helping psychologically healthy individuals live a more “optimal” life. He provides protocols for the responsible, recreational, and celebrational use of MDMA, including how to perfect the experience, maximize the benefits and minimize the risks, and how it may not be for everyone. He reveals how MDMA has revitalized his marriage, both erotically and emotionally, and describes how pleasure, fun, and joy can be profound bonding and transformative experiences. Revealing MDMA’s versatility when it comes to bringing lasting renewal, pleasure, and inspiration to one’s life, Wininger shows that recognizing the transformative power of happiness-inducing experiences can be the first step on the path to healing.

Ethics and Christian Musicking

Ethics and Christian Musicking PDF Author: Nathan Myrick
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000360121
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
The relationship between musical activity and ethical significance occupies long traditions of thought and reflection both within Christianity and beyond. From concerns regarding music and the passions in early Christian writings through to moral panics regarding rock music in the 20th century, Christians have often gravitated to the view that music can become morally weighted, building a range of normative practices and prescriptions upon particular modes of ethical judgment. But how should we think about ethics and Christian musical activity in the contemporary world? As studies of Christian musicking have moved to incorporate the experiences, agencies, and relationships of congregations, ethical questions have become implicit in new ways in a range of recent research - how do communities negotiate questions of value in music? How are processes of encounter with a variety of different others negotiated through musical activity? What responsibilities arise within musical communities? This volume seeks to expand this conversation. Divided into four sections, the book covers the relationship of Christian musicking to the body; responsibilities and values; identity and encounter; and notions of the self. The result is a wide-ranging perspective on music as an ethical practice, particularly as it relates to contemporary religious and spiritual communities. This collection is an important milestone at the intersection of ethnomusicology, musicology, religious studies and theology. It will be a vital reference for scholars and practitioners reflecting on the values and practices of worshipping communities in the contemporary world.

Agony/Ecstasy

Agony/Ecstasy PDF Author: Jane Litte
Publisher: Berkley
ISBN: 9780425243459
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
With historical, contemporary and futuristic backdrops, this outrageously diverse collection of original stories explores every conceivable variation of BDSM erotica - from knitting circles to the Titanic to the retelling of The Little Mermaid. Agony/Ecstasy features all-new tales by some of the hottest names in romance and erotica, as well as a host of newcomers. Authors include Meljean Brook, Jean Johnson, Bettie Sharp and many more.

The Innocent

The Innocent PDF Author: Taylor Stevens
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307717143
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Vanessa Michael Munroe—the fearless heroine of the New York Times bestseller The Informationist—returns in a gripping new thriller. Eight years ago, five-year old Hannah was spirited out of school and into the closed world of a cult known as The Chosen. Ever since, followers of its leader have hidden the child and shielded her abductor. Now, childhood survivors of The Chosen who have escaped to make a life for themselves on the outside know here to find Hannah and turn to Vanessa Michael Munroe for help. Munroe reluctantly takes the job, and travels to Buenos Aires to infiltrate the cult and save the girl. Inducted in to a world unlike anything she has faced before, Munroe must navigate unpredictable members and their dangerous cohorts, the impatient survivors who hired her, and the struggle against her own increasingly violent nature so she can rescue the child before the window of opportunity closes and Hannah is lost forever. Now with an excerpt from the latest Vanessa Michael Munroe novel, The Catch

Eternal Ecstasy

Eternal Ecstasy PDF Author: Setta Jay
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781542840514
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
*This is the finale of the Guardians and the Realms series and is not meant to be read as a standalone title* As the ruling God of Thule, Hroarr's priority is the survival of his world. Gifted with the ancient ability of sj�, he has seen the birth and destruction of hundreds of worlds. This incredible power comes at an enormous cost, yet its toll seems to ease in the presence of a hauntingly seductive healer from Earth. Sirena's life is comprised of duty. Duty to her Guardian family, to healing those of her world and, most of all, the overwhelming duty to right the wrongs of her secret and vile bloodline. With everything on her plate a ruthless warlord God from another world is the last thing she needs, no matter what fate and her heated body demands. Will a dark Destroyer of Worlds bring upon the end of Earth and Thule or will two strong-minded beings fight and discover their own eternal ecstasy? Warning: Take one possessive, dirty talking Warrior God and one smart, no nonsense Healer; combine and shake things up for explosive results and scorching content meant for mature audiences!

Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality

Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality PDF Author: Felicitas D. Goodman
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253014638
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
A cross-disciplinary exploration of comparative religion that offers a “unified field theory” of religion as human behavior. In this book, anthropologist and spiritual explorer Felicitas Goodman examines ritual, the religious trance, alternate reality, ethics and moral code, and the named category designating religion. The analysis is divided into two sections. The first reviews species-wide human traits that form the basis for religious behavior. Goodman, in speculative examination, traces the origins of religion to the dawn of human history, when religious ritual was accompanied by gesture rather than full-fledged modern speech. Ritual is seen as being the expression of the vastness of the drama of human life, death, birth, and procreation. The common neurophysiological basis for religious experience is seen to be a particular type of brain “tuning,” the religious altered state of consciousness, a trance facilitating contact with an alternate reality. The content of this other reality is shown to vary according to the type of adaptation to the habitat. The second section describes the religious systems of the world, dividing them according to societal type. A systematic comparison shows that religions vary according to whether people are hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, agriculturalists, nomadic pastoralists, or city dwellers. “An important book which deserves the careful attention of serious students of religion.” —Religious Studies Review “Very few such global interpretations are ever attempted—and this one succeeds . . . The book’s importance is in the interpretation as well as in the rich data base materials the book presents.” —Willard Johnson