City of Saints and Madmen

City of Saints and Madmen PDF Author: Jeff VanderMeer
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 0374721157
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 674

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Book Description
From Jeff VanderMeer, the author of Borne and Annihilation, comes the paperback reissue of his cult classic City of Saints and Madmen. In this reinvention of the literature of the fantastic, you hold in your hands an invitation to a place unlike any you’ve ever visited—an invitation delivered by one of our most audacious and astonishing literary magicians. City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading—and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced that he’s made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago . . . By turns sensuous and terrifying, filled with exotica and eroticism, this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports invokes a universe within a puzzle box where you can lose—and find—yourself again.

City of Saints and Madmen

City of Saints and Madmen PDF Author: Jeff VanderMeer
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 0374721157
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 674

Get Book Here

Book Description
From Jeff VanderMeer, the author of Borne and Annihilation, comes the paperback reissue of his cult classic City of Saints and Madmen. In this reinvention of the literature of the fantastic, you hold in your hands an invitation to a place unlike any you’ve ever visited—an invitation delivered by one of our most audacious and astonishing literary magicians. City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading—and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced that he’s made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago . . . By turns sensuous and terrifying, filled with exotica and eroticism, this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports invokes a universe within a puzzle box where you can lose—and find—yourself again.

The Yogin and the Madman

The Yogin and the Madman PDF Author: Andrew Quintman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231535538
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Tibetan biographers began writing Jetsun Milarepa's (1052–1135) life story shortly after his death, initiating a literary tradition that turned the poet and saint into a model of virtuosic Buddhist practice throughout the Himalayan world. Andrew Quintman traces this history and its innovations in narrative and aesthetic representation across four centuries, culminating in a detailed analysis of the genre's most famous example, composed in 1488 by Tsangnyön Heruka, or the "Madman of Western Tibet." Quintman imagines these works as a kind of physical body supplanting the yogin's corporeal relics.

The madman of St. James', tr. from the Germ. of Philip Galen, by T.H.

The madman of St. James', tr. from the Germ. of Philip Galen, by T.H. PDF Author: Ernst Philipp K. Lange
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description


Saints and Madmen

Saints and Madmen PDF Author: Russell Shorto
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453265910
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
From the New York Times–bestselling author: “Each chapter . . . offers a window on a different intersection of psychiatry and spirituality” (New Age). In Saints and Madmen, bestselling author Russell Shorto explains how modern science is beginning to reconcile centuries of religious experiences with current psychiatric theories. Psychotic patients sometimes believe they’re developing mystical powers, speaking to animals or conversing with God during their episodes. As one patient said, psychosis can be life’s greatest joy, and also its worst hell. Traditional psychiatry has approached the existence of these occurrences as a treatable medical problem, a case of unbalanced chemicals in the brain. But could it be more? In Saints and Madmen, Shorto writes about the scientists who reject the Freudian view of religious experience as narrow-minded, and shows us how their findings could change how we understand our own minds and spirits.

The Life of the Madman of Ü

The Life of the Madman of Ü PDF Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190244038
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
The Life of the Madman of Ü is a complete English translation of the biography of the Tibetan Buddhist ascetic Künga Zangpo (1458-1532), who was renowned for adopting an extreme and unique form of tantric asceticism.

The Holy Madmen of Tibet

The Holy Madmen of Tibet PDF Author: David M. DiValerio
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199391203
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Throughout the past millennium, certain Tibetan Buddhist yogins have taken on profoundly norm-overturning modes of dress and behavior, including draping themselves in human remains, consuming filth, provoking others to violence, and even performing sacrilege. They became known far and wide as "madmen" (smyon pa, pronounced nyönpa), achieving a degree of saintliness in the process. This book offers the first comprehensive study of Tibet's "holy madmen" drawing on their biographies and writings, as well as tantric commentaries, later histories, oral traditions, and more. Much of The Holy Madmen of Tibet is dedicated to examining the lives and legacies of the three most famous "holy madmen" who were all of the Kagyü sect: the Madman of Tsang (author of The Life of Milarepa), the Madman of Ü, and Drukpa Künlé, Madman of the Drukpa Kagyü. Each born in the 1450s, they rose to prominence during a period of civil war and of great shifts in Tibet's religious culture. By focusing on literature written by and about the "holy madmen" and on the yogins' relationships with their public, this book offers in-depth looks at the narrative and social processes out of which sainthood arises, and at the role biographical literature can play in the formation of sectarian identities. By showing how understandings of the "madmen" have changed over time, this study allows for new insights into current notions of "crazy wisdom." In the end, the "holy madmen" are seen as self-aware and purposeful individuals who were anything but insane.

Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman

Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman PDF Author: Carola Lorea
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004324712
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
This book explores historical and cultural aspects of modern and contemporary Bengal through the performance-centred study of a particular repertoire: the songs of the saint-composer Bhaba Pagla (1902-1984), who is particularly revered among Baul and Fakir singers. The author shows how songs, if examined as 'sacred scriptures', represent multi-dimensional texts for the study of South Asian religions. Revealing how previous studies about Bauls mirror the history of folkloristics in Bengal, this book presents sacred songs as a precious symbolic capital for a marginalized community of dislocated and unorthodox Hindus, who consider the practice of singing in itself an integral part of the path towards self-realization.

Majnūn

Majnūn PDF Author: Michael Walters Dols
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 572

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Book Description
This is a study of madness in the medieval Islamic world. Using a wide variety of sources--historical, literary, and art--the late Michael Dols explores beliefs about madness in Islamic society and examines attitudes towards individuals afflicted by mental illness or disability. The book demonstrates the links between Christian and Muslim medical beliefs and practices, and traces the influence of certain Christian beliefs, such as miracle-working, on Islamic practices. It breaks new ground in analyzing the notions of the romantic fool, the wise fool, and the holy fool in medieval Islam within the framework of perceptions of mental illness. It shows that the madman was not regarded as a pariah, an outcast, or a scapegoat. This is a comprehensive and original work, with insights into magic, medicine, and religion that combine to broaden our understanding of medieval Islamic society.

The Madman's Gallery

The Madman's Gallery PDF Author: Edward Brooke-Hitching
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1797222686
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Brought to light from the depths of libraries, museums, dealers, and galleries around the world, these forgotten artistic treasures include portraits of oddballs such as the British explorer with a penchant for riding crocodiles, and the Italian monk who levitated so often he's recognized as the patron saint of airplane passengers. Discover impossible medieval land yachts, floating churches, and eagle-powered airships. Encounter dog-headed holy men, armies of German giants, 18th-century stuntmen, human chessboards, screaming ghost heads, and more marvels of the human imagination. A captivating odditorium of obscure and engaging characters and works, each expertly brought to life by historian and curator of the strange Edward Brooke-Hitching, here is a richly illustrated and entertaining gallery for lovers of outré art and history.

The Yogin and the Madman

The Yogin and the Madman PDF Author: Andrew Quintman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231164157
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Tibetan biographers began writing Jetsun Milarepa’s (1052–1135) life story shortly after his death, initiating a literary tradition that turned the poet and saint into a model of virtuosic Buddhist practice throughout the Himalayan world. Andrew Quintman traces this history and its innovations in narrative and aesthetic representation across four centuries, culminating in a detailed analysis of the genre’s most famous example, composed in 1488 by Tsangnyön Heruka, or the “Madman of Western Tibet.” Quintman imagines these works as a kind of physical body supplanting the yogin’s corporeal relics.