Author: Thomas R. Bierowski
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786485523
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
This critical text considers Jack Kerouac as writer-shaman, exploring the content and ecstatic technique of the novels and two experimental volumes that represent critical phases of his development. Thomas Bierowski also examines the reception of Kerouac's work, arguing that his rise and fall reflect not only the usual changes in literary taste but the precarious position of the shamanic figure in modern America.
Author: Diana Stein
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000464733
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 561
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Book Description
For millennia, people have universally engaged in ecstatic experience as an essential element in ritual practice, spiritual belief and cultural identification. This volume offers the first systematic investigation of its myriad roles and manifestations in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. The twenty-nine contributors represent a broad range of scholarly disciplines, seeking answers to fundamental questions regarding the patterns and commonalities of this vital aspect of the past. How was the experience construed and by what means was it achieved? Who was involved? Where and when were rites carried out? How was it reflected in pictorial arts and written records? What was its relation to other components of the sociocultural compact? In proposing responses, the authors draw upon a wealth of original research in many fields, generating new perspectives and thought-provoking, often surprising, conclusions. With their abundant cross-cultural and cross-temporal references, the chapters mutually enrich each other and collectively deepen our understanding of ecstatic phenomena thousands of years ago. Another noteworthy feature of the book is its illustrative content, including commissioned reconstructions of ecstatic scenarios and pairings of works of Bronze Age and modern psychedelic art. Scholars, students and other readers interested in antiquity, comparative religion and the social and cognitive sciences will find much to explore in the fascinating realm of ecstatic experience in the ancient world.
Author: Kenneth Maly
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791423554
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
This is the first anthology of commentary on Sallis that shows what is genuinely unique in his thought: the transformative relation of reason and imagination in thinking "after Heidegger."
Author: Carl A. P. Ruck
Publisher: Ronin Publishing
ISBN: 1579511643
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 129
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Book Description
ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS is a much needed accessible exploration into the role of psychoactive sacraments - entheogens - in religion, mythology, and history, and also includes most treatments of the subject focus on modern scientific research, psychotherapy, are auto-bibliographic accounts, or are agenda-driven or otherwise naive and myopic. A great mystery of altered states of consciousness and species development is expanding with new archeological and anthropological discoveries. Religious story telling (myth) is a timeless journey. Surprisingly it’s not about truth. It’s about finding one’s self in the midst of the discovery of the “Other.” It is the story of what is separate and unknown that creates self-consciousness. Our entire life consists ultimately in the discovery of the “Other,” which gives meaning to the discovery of the self. The arts and language are the fossil remnants scattered on our path. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS discusses the influence of psychoactive substances on consciousness, human evolution and mystical experiences. It explores how religion, mythology, art and culture stem from entheogenic consciousness and why it's important to us today. "Entheogens, or psychoactive sacraments, have a long, storied history that has played an essential role in the evolution of consciousness, mythology, culture, religion, art - and even history and politics. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS outlines this suppressed - yet seminal - undercurrent of history, giving examples of the role of entheogens from the primal shamanic religions through, the historical religions, esoteric mystical traditions including the Mystery Religions, alchemy and Freemasonry, and into contemporary expressions. Authors Ruck and Hoffman draw upon decades of research and personal experience in discussing the best documented examples of historically important entheogenic evidences, various ongoing threads of research and speculation to muse upon the 'meaning' of it all..." Our hominid ancestors experienced a spiritual wakening at the very dawn of consciousness that set them apart from the other creatures of our planet. It was a journey to another realm induced by a special food that belonged to the gods. This was a plant that was animate with the spirit of deity. It was an entheogen. It was the visionary vehicle for the trip of the first shaman. The story was told over and over again until it achieved the perfect form of a myth. The realm was imagined as a topographical place, the outer limit of the cosmos, the fiery empyrean, or its geocentric opposite, our own planet Gaia. Myths multiplied over time, but they always preserved this primordial truth. These myths provide a road map, a scenario, if you can read them, for whoever today wants to follow. However, it is not an easy journey, and it is also fraught with many dangers, of getting lost, of finding no return. Access to the entheogens is now largely prohibited or strictly licensed. The restrictions constitute an infringement of cognitive freedom, limiting the further evolution of human potential into productive creative imagination and experiences that lie beyond the normal, the traditional province of shamans, who can understand the speech of plants and animals, change shape at will, and journey, both physically and in the spirit, to distant exotic realms. In addition, religions have staked out territorial claims to this realm of spiritual consciousness. They have colonized it, identified it with their god, often reserving the access for their own elite. Similarly, trade in drugs, both medicinal and illegal, has colonized the etheogens, making them only chemicals, rationally depriving them of their spirit. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS is a guide for the curious that provides a historical overview of the role that entheogens have played in the development of our unique supremacy as a species and offers also pathways and advice for reconnecting with the primordial sources of nature’s power. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS investigates the role entheogens have played in the evolution of humankind’s attempt to define reality in a context of metaphysical or theological dimensions. Although other botanical intoxicants will be considered (cannabis, daphne, opium, Syrian rue, datura, mandrake), none, with the possible exception of mandrake, seem to have lent themselves so readily to metaphoric personifications, which make this the subject for a course on mythology. The source of humankind’s fascination and repulsion for fungi, indeed, leads to a fundamental consideration of the psychological nature of mankind’s fascination or awareness of what in the categorization of religions is termed animism and rituals of ecstatic shamanism. In addition, the linking of bread and wine as sacramental foods is due to parallel concepts of controlled fungal growth as a simulacrum of the cosmos itself. The goal is not so much to acquire factual knowledge of this vast subject, but to open up pathways for reflection upon the basic nature of human existence and consciousness. The narrative is the awesome history of discovery and the findings of ancient rituals that meld into twentieth-century controversy and criticism of psychedelics. The future of humanity and the direction of twenty-first century brain science is challenged as well as our sense of social convention. Entheogens have been deemed be prohibited controlled substances and as such is an infringement of cognitive freedom. Whatever the danger of potential abuse, the substance is not the fault, but the user. The hammer is not guilty, but the carpenter who misuses it because of deficient training. In order to exonerate the executioner in Classical antiquity, the axe was brought to trial and found guilty. The prohibition has drastically retarded the investigation into the therapeutic potential of proscribed drugs, including their efficacy in curing addiction. Some of these substances also offer the potential for accessing levels of cognition and consciousness beyond the ordinary, the traditional provenance of mystics and shamans, like bilocation, clairvoyance, and zoomorphism.
Author: Paul Bishop
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351403427
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 315
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Book Description
The word ‘archaic’ derives from the Greek arkhaios, which in turn is related to the word archē, meaning ‘principle’, ‘origin’, or ‘cause’; the notion of ecstasy, or ekstasis, implies standing outside or beyond oneself, a self-transcendence. How these two concepts are articulated and co-implicated constitutes the core question underlying this edited collection, which examines both the present day and antiquity in order to trace the insistent presence of the ecstatic amid the archaic. Presented in three parts, the contributors to this diverse book take the concept of the archaic in an entirely new direction. Part I, 'Ecstasy and the psychological', covers topics including Jung, Freud, ancient psychotherapy, desire, and theatre. Part II, 'Ecstatic-archaic history', considers Ludwig Klages, Orestes and Dionysus. Finally, Part III, 'Ancient ecstatic in other worlds', examines Luo Guanzhong’s Three Kingdoms and Enki at Eridu. The collection offers a distinctive contextualisation of the dimension of the archaic in relation to the ecstatic experience. The Ecstatic and the Archaic will appeal to readers interested in the relationship between ancient and postmodern worlds, and in how the past manifests itself in the present. It will be of great interest to academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian ideas, classical religions and the history of ideas, as well as practitioners of analytical psychology and psychoanalysis.
Author: Paul Bishop
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315522470
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 406
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Book Description
This book provides a unique overview of and introduction to the work of the German psychologist and philosopher Ludwig Klages (1872-1956), an astonishing figure in the history of German ideas. Central to intellectual life in turn-of-the-century Munich, he went on to establish a reputation for himself as an original and provocative thinker. Nowadays he is often overlooked, partly because of the absence of an accessible and authoritative introduction to his thought; this volume offers just such a point of entry. With an emphasis on applicability and utility, Paul Bishop reinvigorates the discourse surrounding Klages, providing a neutral and compact account of his intellectual development and his impact on psychology and philosophy. Part 1 offers an overview of Klages’s life, visiting the major stations of his intellectual development. Part 2 examines in turn nine major conceptual ‘tools’ found in Klages’s extensive writings, aiming to clarify Klages’s terminology, to demystify his discourse, and to sift through Klages’s credentials as a psychological thinker. Part 3 consists of extracts from Klages’s writings, thematically oriented; these showcase the aphoristic and lyrical, as well as psychological and philosophical, qualities of Klages’s writing, including his interest in aesthetics. Taken together, all three parts constitute a vitalist ‘toolkit’ — to build a fuller, richer life. Drawing on previous studies of Klages that have only been available in German, Ludwig Klages and the Philosophy of Life provides a non-polemical account of Klages’s life and work, with explanations and commentaries to guide the reader through extracts from his writings. The book accessibly explains the most important ideas and concepts found in Klages’s work, including soul, spirit, character, expression, will, and consciousness, and it reveals Klages to be a serious figure whose thought remains relevant to many disciplines today. It will stimulate interest in his work and create a new readership for his remarkable worldview.
Author: D.J. Moores
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786478160
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
This work is not only a general inquiry into ecstatic states of consciousness and an historical outline of the ecstatic poetic tradition but also an intensive study of five representative poets--Rumi, Wordsworth, Whitman, Dickinson, and Tagore. In a refreshingly original, wide-ranging engagement with concepts in psychology, religion, philosophy, aesthetics, sociology and history, this book demonstrates that the poetics and aesthetics of ecstasy represent an ancient, ubiquitous theory of poetry that continues to influence writers in the current century.
Author: Marcel Detienne
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
The acclaimed French classicist Marcel Detienne's first book traces the odyssey of "truth," aletheia, from mytho-religious concept to philosophical thought in archaic Greece. Detienne begins by examining how truth in Greek literature first emerges as an enigma. He then looks at the movement from a religious to a secular thinking about truth in the speech of the sophists and orators. His study culminates with an original interpretation of Parmenides' poem on Being.
Author: Eranos Foundation
Publisher: Daimon
ISBN: 3856309993
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 550
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Book Description
The 74th volume of the Eranos Yearbooks, The Age of Immediacy at the Test of Meaning, presents to the public the work of the last two years of activities at the Eranos Foundation (2017–2018). The book gathers the lectures presented at the occasion of the 2017 Eranos Conference, Where is the World Going? The Uncertain Future, between Traditional Knowledge and Scientific Thought, the 2018 Eranos Conference, Space for Thinking and Thinking about Space. Reflections on the Relations between the Soul and Places at the Time of the Anthropocene, the 2017 Eranos-Jung Lectures, Who is Afraid of Interiority? A Journey through Literature, Philosophy, and Psychology, the 2018 Eranos-Jung Lectures, Who is Stealing our Time? The Age of Immediacy at the Test of Meaning, and the 2018 Eranos School seminar, The Mechanisms of Heresy: Old and New Forms of Exclusion and Repression. The volume includes essays by Valery Afanassiev, Stephen Aizenstat, Arnaldo Benini, Paul Bishop, Roberto Casati, Adriano Fabris, Franco Ferrari, Giuseppe O. Longo, Jaap Mansfeld, Panos Mantziaras, Grazia Shōgen Marchianò, Massimo Mori, Guy Pelletier, Antonio Prete, Francesca Rigotti, René Roux, Silvano Tagliagambe, Yannis Tsiomis, Amelia Valtolina, Matteo Vegetti, Antonio Vitolo, Samaneh Yasaei, and Chiara Zamboni.
Author: Paul Bishop
Publisher: Chiron Publications
ISBN: 1630518603
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 438
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Book Description
This book explores the history of the idea of the midlife crisis, using the writings of C.G. Jung and Goethe to investigate its relevance for today. Tracing how “the ages of humankind” became “the stages of life” in which the midlife crisis represents a pivotal moment, Paul Bishop offers a detailed analysis of a paper by Jung on this subject. He then shifts the focus to Goethe’s interest in Orphic wisdom, and one of Goethe’s major later poems, “Primal Words. Orphic” (Urworte Orphisch). Using Jungian ideas to explore the psychological implications of this poem, Bishop draws on Goethe’s own commentary, and other background material, to uncover its vital message. Reading Goethe at Midlife reveals the remarkable symmetry between the ideas and Jung and Goethe. Jung’s analysis of the stages of life, and his advice to heed the “call of the self,” are brought into the conjunction with Goethe’s emphasis on the importance of hope, showing an underlying continuity of thought and relevance from ancient wisdom, via German classicism to analytical psychology. At a time when many Jungians are turning to neuroscience to provide an external underpinning for Analytical Psychology, this scholarly book is very welcome: it returns to psychology’s home territory, placing Jung firmly in a long cultural tradition. Impressively well-read in many fields extending from literature and the history of ideas to psychoanalysis and Jungian studies, Paul Bishop allows a text by Jung and a late poem by Goethe to mirror and enhance each other, demonstrating Jung's intellectual proximity to the tradition of German classicism. The wealth of “amplifications” that Bishop brings to the many themes treated allows us to experience a living reality—a continuity of ideas across different times and cultures.
