Zen, Drugs, and Mysticism

Zen, Drugs, and Mysticism PDF Author: Robert Charles Zaehner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780819172662
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The author, one of the foremost writers in the history of religions, intended this book to be the starting point for those searching for a personal religious experience and begins with an examination of the nature of mystical states and their differentiation from drug-induced states. He proceeds to the question of whether there is religious experience to either state. He offers those impatient with a traditional Christianity alternate routes to explore, by examining Zen, the Upanishads, Huxley, Bonhoeffer, Leary, Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, and commenting upon each with his ascerbic wit. This reprint of the 1972 American edition published by Pantheon contains a new foreword by one of Zaehner's former Oxford students, William L. Newell.

Zen, Drugs, and Mysticism

Zen, Drugs, and Mysticism PDF Author: Robert Charles Zaehner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780819172662
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The author, one of the foremost writers in the history of religions, intended this book to be the starting point for those searching for a personal religious experience and begins with an examination of the nature of mystical states and their differentiation from drug-induced states. He proceeds to the question of whether there is religious experience to either state. He offers those impatient with a traditional Christianity alternate routes to explore, by examining Zen, the Upanishads, Huxley, Bonhoeffer, Leary, Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, and commenting upon each with his ascerbic wit. This reprint of the 1972 American edition published by Pantheon contains a new foreword by one of Zaehner's former Oxford students, William L. Newell.

Glorious Incomprehensible

Glorious Incomprehensible PDF Author: Sheila A. Spector
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 9780838754696
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Traces the evolution of hebraic etymologies and mystical grammars as indicators of a profound shift in Blake's subjective consciousness from the earliest prose tracts, worked on before 1790, to the last years of his life, when he was still completing 'Jerusalem'.

Zig Zag Zen

Zig Zag Zen PDF Author: Allan Hunt Badiner
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 9780811832861
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Buddhism and psychedelic experimentation share a common concern: the liberation of the mind. Zig Zag Zen launches the first serious inquiry into the moral, ethical, doctrinal, and transcendental considerations created by the intersection of Buddhism and psychedelics. With a foreword by renowned Buddhist scholar Stephen Batchelor and a preface by historian of religion Huston Smith, along with numerous essays and interviews, Zig Zag Zen is a provocative and thoughtful exploration of altered states of consciousness and the potential for transformation. Accompanying each essay is a work of visionary art selected by artist Alex Grey, such as a vividly graphic work by Robert Venosa, a contemporary thangka painting by Robert Beer, and an exercise in emptiness in the form of an enso by a 17th-century Zen abbot. Packed with enlightening entries and art that lie outside the scope of mainstream anthologies, Zig Zag Zen offers eye-opening insights into alternate methods of inner exploration.

Mysticism Sacred and Profane

Mysticism Sacred and Profane PDF Author: R C (Robert Charles) 1913 Zaehner
Publisher: Hassell Street Press
ISBN: 9781013534027
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

An Anthology of Christian Mysticism

An Anthology of Christian Mysticism PDF Author: Harvey D. Egan
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 9780814660126
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 736

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Book Description
"A Pueblo book." Includes bibliographical references (p. 610-615) and index.

What Are They Saying About Mysticism?

What Are They Saying About Mysticism? PDF Author: Harvey D. Egan
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666733903
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
Fr. Egan surveys the current scholarship on mysticism, giving special attention to the works Carl Albrecht, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Richard Bucke, Teilhard de Chardin, Harvey Cox, William James, William Johnston, Bernard Lonergan, Thomas Merton, Erich Neumann, Karl Rahner, Walter Stace, Evelyn Underhill, R. C. Zaehner, and many lesser-known authors. The book covers a wide spectrum of modern thinking. It presents authors who treat mysticism as a psychological phenomenon involving pathology and altered states of consciousness, as well as others who understand it as stages of life toward union with the God of Love. Fr. Egan also highlights both those authors who have opened up Christian mysticism to the riches of the Eastern tradition and those critical of this Eastern turn. Finally, he explores the theological reflections of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan for their ability to bring together mystical spirituality and academic theology. These contemporary theologians offer a solid foundation for a new science of mysticism based on the Christian mystical tradition, empirical sciences, East-West dialogue, and contemporary theological pluralism.

Ecomysticism

Ecomysticism PDF Author: Carl von Essen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591439663
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Explores the philosophy, science, and spirituality of nature mysticism and its Green calling • Offers a solid bridge between spiritual practice and environmental activism • Reveals how we can heal the environment by renewing our connection to it • Shows how spiritual encounters in nature are healing the Nature Deficit Disorder of our psyches and bodies Many have been struck by a majestic moment in nature--a sole illuminated flower in a shady grove, an owl swooping silently across a wooded path, or an infinitely starry sky--and found themselves in a state of expanded awareness so profound they can feel the interconnectedness of all life. These trance-like moments of clarity, unity, and wonder often incite a call to protect and preserve the earth--to support Nature as she supports us. Termed “nature mysticism,” people from all cultures have described such experiences. However, the ever-increasing urbanization of the world’s population is threatening this ancient connection as well as the earth itself. In Ecomysticism, Carl von Essen explores nature mysticism through the recorded experiences of outdoor enthusiasts as well as scientific studies in biology, psychology, and neuroscience. Citing consciousness scholar William James and a variety of well-known nature lovers such as Ansel Adams, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, von Essen shows how the spiritual transcendence from an encounter in nature--like other mystical experiences--is healing the Nature Deficit Disorder of our psyches and bodies, leading to an expansion of our worldview and a clearer understanding of our self and of our natural world. Offering a solid bridge between spiritual practice and environmental activism, von Essen’s spiritual ecology reveals how only through a renewal of humanity’s spiritual connection to nature can we effect true environmental healing.

Zen and the Brain

Zen and the Brain PDF Author: James H. Austin
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262260350
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 876

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Book Description
A neuroscientist and Zen practitioner interweaves the latest research on the brain with his personal narrative of Zen. Aldous Huxley called humankind's basic trend toward spiritual growth the "perennial philosophy." In the view of James Austin, the trend implies a "perennial psychophysiology"—because awakening, or enlightenment, occurs only when the human brain undergoes substantial changes. What are the peak experiences of enlightenment? How could these states profoundly enhance, and yet simplify, the workings of the brain? Zen and the Brain presents the latest evidence. In this book Zen Buddhism becomes the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness. In order to understand which brain mechanisms produce Zen states, one needs some understanding of the anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of the brain. Austin, both a neurologist and a Zen practitioner, interweaves the most recent brain research with the personal narrative of his Zen experiences. The science is both inclusive and rigorous; the Zen sections are clear and evocative. Along the way, Austin examines such topics as similar states in other disciplines and religions, sleep and dreams, mental illness, consciousness-altering drugs, and the social consequences of the advanced stage of ongoing enlightenment.

Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom

Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom PDF Author: Jeffrey J. Kripal
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226453781
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
William Blake once wrote that "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." Inspired by these poetic terms, Jeffrey J. Kripal reveals how the works of scholars of mysticism are often rooted in their own mystical experiences, "roads of excess," which can both lead to important insights into these scholars' works and point us to our own "palaces of wisdom." In his new book, Kripal addresses the twentieth-century study of mysticism as a kind of mystical tradition in its own right, with its own unique histories, discourses, sociological dynamics, and rhetorics of secrecy. Fluidly combining autobiography and biography with scholarly exploration, Kripal takes us on a tour of comparative mystical thought by examining the lives and works of five major historians of mysticism—Evelyn Underhill, Louis Massignon, R. C. Zaehner, Agehananda Bharati, and Elliot Wolfson—as well as relating his own mystical experiences. The result, Kripal finds, is seven "palaces of wisdom": the religious power of excess, the necessity of distance in the study of mysticism, the relationship between the mystical and art, the dilemmas of male subjectivity and modern heterosexuality, a call for ethical criticism, the paradox of the insider-outsider problem in the study of religion, and the magical power of texts and their interpretation. An original and penetrating analysis of modern scholarship and scholars of mysticism, Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom is also a persuasive demonstration of the way this scholarly activity is itself a mystical phenomenon.

R. Crumb

R. Crumb PDF Author: David Stephen Calonne
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 149683187X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Robert Crumb (b. 1943) read widely and deeply a long roster of authors including Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens, J. D. Salinger, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg, as well as religious classics including biblical, Buddhist, Hindu, and Gnostic texts. Crumb’s genius, according to author David Stephen Calonne, lies in his ability to absorb a variety of literary, artistic, and spiritual traditions and incorporate them within an original, American mode of discourse that seeks to reveal his personal search for the meaning of life. R. Crumb: Literature, Autobiography, and the Quest for Self contains six chapters that chart Crumb’s intellectual trajectory and explore the recurring philosophical themes that permeate his depictions of literary and biographical works and the ways he responds to them through innovative, dazzling compositional techniques. Calonne explores the ways Crumb develops concepts of solitude, despair, desire, and conflict as aspects of the quest for self in his engagement with the book of Genesis and works by Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre, the Beats, Charles Bukowski, and Philip K. Dick, as well as Crumb’s illustrations of biographies of musicians Jelly Roll Morton and Charley Patton. Calonne demonstrates how Crumb’s love for literature led him to attempt an extremely faithful rendering of the texts he admired while at the same time highlighting for his readers the particular hidden philosophical meanings he found most significant in his own autobiographical quest for identity and his authentic self.