Author: Keith Edward Cantú
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197665470
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 497
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Book Description
"This book reconstructs the tantalizing tale of Sri Sabhapati Swami (ca. 1828-1923/4), today a little-known swami who was originally from Tamil Nadu in southern India, and historically contextualizes a fascinating type of yoga that Sabhapati claimed would lead to an experience of being "like a tree universally spread." The practical method of having this experience, in technical terms called the samadhi or "composure" of sivarajayoga or the "Royal yoga for siva," was published in English and multiple Indic languages and lavishly illustrated in diagrams on subtle and physical bodies. This book is the first book-length treatment on Sabhapati Swami, scholarly or otherwise, and uses critically-edited sources printed in Tamil, Devanagari, and Bengali scripts to reveal the expansion of his literature across South Asia and globally, the vast majority of which has never before been considered in any scholarly work to date. The book shows how intertwined Sabhapati's yoga is with historical Tamil saiva and Siddha movements, including the mythos of the rishi Agastya, and also with Hathayoga and mantra-based ritual. It also takes into account his and his followers' wrestling with the Victorian scientific worldview and their rationalization of Hindu philosophical discourses in the colonial period. Finally, the book demonstrates the extent to which Sabhapati's teachings were integrated into esoteric religious movements such as the Theosophical Society, the Thelema of Aleister Crowley, and New Thought, and suggests that a reappraisal of scholarship on the roots of yoga in these movements is long overdue"--
Author: Tobias Churton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620557975
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 747
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Book Description
Follow Aleister Crowley through his mystical travels in India, which profoundly influenced his magical system as well as the larger occult world • Shares excerpts from Crowley’s unpublished diaries and details his travels in India, Burma, and Sri Lanka from 1901 to 1906 • Reveals how Crowley incorporated what he learned in India--jnana yoga, Vedantist, Tantric, and Buddhist philosophy--into his own school of Magick • Explores the world of Theosophy, yogis, Hindu traditions, and the first Buddhist sangha to the West as well as the first pioneering expeditions to K2 and Kangchenjunga in 1901 and 1905 Early in life, Aleister Crowley’s dissociation from fundamentalist Christianity led him toward esoteric and magical spirituality. In 1901, he made the first of three voyages to the Indian subcontinent, searching for deeper knowledge and experience. His religious and magical system, Thelema, shows clear influence of his thorough experimental absorption in Indian mystical practices. Sharing excerpts from Crowley’s unpublished diaries, Tobias Churton tells the true story of Crowley’s adventures in India from 1901 to 1906, culminating in his first experience of the supreme trance of jnana (“gnostic”) yoga, Samadhi: divine union. Churton shows how Vedantist and Advaitist philosophies, Hindu religious practices, yoga, and Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism informed Crowley’s spiritual system and reveals how he built on Madame Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott’s prior work in India. Churton illuminates links between these beliefs and ancient Gnostic systems and shows how they informed the O.T.O. system through Franz Hartmann and Theodor Reuss. Churton explores Crowley’s early breakthrough in consciousness research with a Dhyana trance in Sri Lanka, becoming a devotee of Shiva and Bhavani, fierce avatar of the goddess Parvati. Recounting Crowley’s travels to the temples of Madurai, Anuradhapura, and Benares, Churton looks at the gurus of yoga and astrology Crowley met, while revealing his adventures with British architect, Edward Thornton. Churton also details Crowley’s mountaineering feats in India, including the record-breaking attempt on Chogo Ri (K2) in 1902 and the Kangchenjunga disaster of 1905. Revealing how Crowley incorporated what he learned in India into his own school of Magick, including an extensive look at his theory of correspondences, the symbology of 777, and the Thelemic synthesis, Churton sheds light on one of the most profoundly mystical periods in Crowley’s life as well as how it influenced the larger occult world.
Author: Sarah Perez
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311090988X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
This book offers new theoretical insights into religious, esoteric, and philosophical practices and narratives that deal with "intentional transformative experiences." Exceptional life-changing experiences are often believed to be beyond the individual's control--they are thought to "simply happen." However, many individuals actively and self-reflectively search for transformative experiences. Intentional Transformative Experiences provides analyses of such intentionally sought experiences in different spiritual, religious, and esoteric milieus. Case studies range from South and Central Asian traditions to Western esoteric practices, compare autobiographical narratives of self-cultivation, and explore attempts to systematize intentional transformative experiences. Next to applying established theoretical frameworks, such as the cognitive science of religion and philosophy, this volume also includes considerations on subsets of transformative experiences such as the dichotomy of intentionality and unintentionality, risk and failure, as well as the transformation of others instead of one's own self. The result is an important contribution for researchers who deal with narratives or practices that include "transformative experiences."
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004681043
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 458
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Book Description
The concept of deviance has been central to the academic study of (Western) esotericism since its inception. This book, being the proceedings of the 6th Biennial Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), explores the relationship between esotericism and various forms of deviance (as concept, category, and practice) from antiquity until late modernity. The volume is the first to combine incisive conceptual explorations of the concept of deviance and how it informs and challenges the study of esotericism alongside a wide range of empirically grounded case discussions.
Author: TIMOTHY. GRIEVE-CARLSON
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197765564
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
American Aurora explores the impact of climate change on early modern radical religious groups during the height of the Little Ice Age in the seventeenth century. Focusing on the life and legacy of Johannes Kelpius (1667-1707), an enormously influential but comprehensively misunderstood theologian who settled outside of Philadelphia from 1604 to 1707, Timothy Grieve-Carlson explores the Hermetic and alchemical dimensions of Kelpius's Christianity before turning to his legacy in American religion and literature. This engaging analysis showcases Kelpius's forgotten theological intricacies, spiritual revelations, and cosmic observations, illuminating the complexity and foresight of an important colonial mystic. As radical Protestants during Kelpius's lifetime struggled to understand their changing climate and a seemingly eschatological cosmos, esoteric texts became crucial sources of meaning. Grieve-Carlson presents original translations of Kelpius's university writings, which have never been published in English, along with analyses and translations of other important sources from the period in German and Latin. Ultimately, American Aurora points toward a time and place when climate change caused an eruption of esoteric thought and practice-and how this moment has been largely forgotten.
Author: Sravana Borkataky-Varma
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000878627
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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Book Description
Living Folk Religions presents cutting-edge contributions from a range of disciplines to examine religious folkways across cultures. This collection embraces the non-elite and non-sanctioned, the oral, fluid, accessible, evolving religions of people (volk) on the ground. Split into five sections, this book covers: What Is Folk Religion? Spirit Beings and Deities Performance and Ritual Praxis Possession and Exorcism Health, Healing, and Lifestyle Topics include demons and ambivalent gods, tree and nature spirits, revolutionary renunciates, oral lore, possession and exorcism, divination, midwestern American spiritualism, festivals, queer sexuality among ritual specialists, the dead returned, vernacular religions, diaspora adaptations, esoteric influences underlying public cultures, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), music and sound experiences, death rituals, and body and wellness cultures. Living Folk Religions is a must-read for those studying Comparative Religions, World Religions, and Religious Studies, and it will also interest specialists and general readers, particularly enthusiastic readers of Anthropology, Folklore and Folk Studies, Global Studies, and Sociology.
Author: Richard Kaczynski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197694004
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 497
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Book Description
Rebelling against Victorian religious and social strictures, occultist Aleister Crowley, soldier J. F. C. Fuller, and poet Victor Neuburg were active contributors and participants in the British secularist movement at the dawn of the twentieth century. Friendship in Doubt examines how the Agnostic movement inspired and introduced them to each other as foundational figures in the new religious movement of Thelema.
Author: Deja Whitehouse
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197645143
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
Although Lady Harris is acknowledged as the artist of Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth, to date, most studies have focused predominantly on Harris's role as Crowley's 'artist executant'. Whitehouse argues that Harris's involvement extended far beyond the artwork itself. The Book of Thoth was a collaboration in which each partner fulfilled a variety of roles; building on Crowley's magical theories and practices, and Harris's artistic skills and social awareness that enabled her to promote and exhibit their work as it evolved. The author presents a study of Harris's life and works, seeking to assess her true contribution to Western Esotericism.
Author: Martin P. Starr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197744516
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 457
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Book Description
The Unknown God gives a view into the twentieth-century North American occult underground influenced by the English occultist and prophet Aleister Crowley, as told through the biography of his disciple in the USA, Wilfred Talbot Smith (1885--1957). It draws on accounts from Smith's social network, which encompassed Caltech rocket scientist Jack Parsons, the Rosicrucian leader H. Spencer Lewis, the Hollywood actor John Carradine, and gay liberationist Harry Hay. Students of esoteric Freemasonry, the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, and the Crowley-based occult orders will find The Unknown God a fascinating resource--this is the book that connects them all.
Author: Swami Sabhapaty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Vedanta
Languages : en
Pages : 82
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Book Description
