Love, Drugs, Art, Religion

Love, Drugs, Art, Religion PDF Author: Brian R. Clack
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317103173
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
In this original and far-reaching contribution to the philosophy of religion, Brian R. Clack examines the manner in which religious belief emerges from the turbulence and anxiety of human existence. Taking his cue from Freud's suggestion that human life is so hard to bear that it requires nothing short of cultural and psychological palliative care, Clack explores each of the 'palliative measures' Freud catalogues - intoxicants, religion, art and love - and evaluates their role in the mitigation of suffering and the provision of the assistance required for an endurable life. This examination provides the context for an investigation into the meaning and function of religious belief when considered as a palliative. Clack initially subjects religion to ferocious critique, defending the psychoanalytic judgment that religious beliefs operate as wish-fulfilling illusions, but then elaborates a revised understanding of religion, one in which comforting illusions are banished and in which religious belief faces up to reality and reconciles us both to the pains and disappointments of existence and to our nullity and inevitable annihilation. in this genuinely interdisciplinary work, Clack breaks new ground by using detailed explorations of the phenomena of drug-use, romantic love and the enjoyment of art in order to throw light on the meaning and nature of religion. This book will be vital reading for anyone concerned with the fundamental questions of religious belief, the psychoanalytic approach to culture, or simply the unavoidable existential problems lying at the very heart of human life.

Love, Drugs, Art, Religion

Love, Drugs, Art, Religion PDF Author: Brian R. Clack
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317103173
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this original and far-reaching contribution to the philosophy of religion, Brian R. Clack examines the manner in which religious belief emerges from the turbulence and anxiety of human existence. Taking his cue from Freud's suggestion that human life is so hard to bear that it requires nothing short of cultural and psychological palliative care, Clack explores each of the 'palliative measures' Freud catalogues - intoxicants, religion, art and love - and evaluates their role in the mitigation of suffering and the provision of the assistance required for an endurable life. This examination provides the context for an investigation into the meaning and function of religious belief when considered as a palliative. Clack initially subjects religion to ferocious critique, defending the psychoanalytic judgment that religious beliefs operate as wish-fulfilling illusions, but then elaborates a revised understanding of religion, one in which comforting illusions are banished and in which religious belief faces up to reality and reconciles us both to the pains and disappointments of existence and to our nullity and inevitable annihilation. in this genuinely interdisciplinary work, Clack breaks new ground by using detailed explorations of the phenomena of drug-use, romantic love and the enjoyment of art in order to throw light on the meaning and nature of religion. This book will be vital reading for anyone concerned with the fundamental questions of religious belief, the psychoanalytic approach to culture, or simply the unavoidable existential problems lying at the very heart of human life.

Love, Drugs, Art, Religion

Love, Drugs, Art, Religion PDF Author: Mr Brian R Clack
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1472405099
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
In this genuinely interdisciplinary work, Clack breaks new ground by using detailed explorations of the phenomena of drug-use, romantic love and the enjoyment of art in order to throw light on the meaning and nature of religion. This book will be vital reading for anyone concerned with the fundamental questions of religious belief, the psychoanalytic approach to culture, or simply the unavoidable existential problems lying at the very heart of human life.

Love, Drugs, Art, Religion

Love, Drugs, Art, Religion PDF Author: Brian R. Clack
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317103181
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
In this original and far-reaching contribution to the philosophy of religion, Brian R. Clack examines the manner in which religious belief emerges from the turbulence and anxiety of human existence. Taking his cue from Freud's suggestion that human life is so hard to bear that it requires nothing short of cultural and psychological palliative care, Clack explores each of the 'palliative measures' Freud catalogues - intoxicants, religion, art and love - and evaluates their role in the mitigation of suffering and the provision of the assistance required for an endurable life. This examination provides the context for an investigation into the meaning and function of religious belief when considered as a palliative. Clack initially subjects religion to ferocious critique, defending the psychoanalytic judgment that religious beliefs operate as wish-fulfilling illusions, but then elaborates a revised understanding of religion, one in which comforting illusions are banished and in which religious belief faces up to reality and reconciles us both to the pains and disappointments of existence and to our nullity and inevitable annihilation. in this genuinely interdisciplinary work, Clack breaks new ground by using detailed explorations of the phenomena of drug-use, romantic love and the enjoyment of art in order to throw light on the meaning and nature of religion. This book will be vital reading for anyone concerned with the fundamental questions of religious belief, the psychoanalytic approach to culture, or simply the unavoidable existential problems lying at the very heart of human life.

The Beauty and the Horror

The Beauty and the Horror PDF Author: Richard Harries
Publisher: SPCK
ISBN: 0281076944
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Life is at once wonderful and appalling, beautiful and horrific. Although we can all give meaning to our lives by trying to live well, is there some given meaning to be discovered? Science cannot answer this question, and philosophical arguments leave the issue open. The monotheistic religions claim that the meaning has been revealed to us, and Christians see this is above all in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Described by Rowan Williams as ‘that rarity, a Christian public intellectual’, Richard Harries considers the Christian claim in the context of an in-depth discussion of the nature of evil and how this is to be reconciled with a just and loving God. Drawing on a wide range of modern literature, he argues that belief in the resurrection and hope in the face of death is fundamental to faith, and suggests that while there is no final intellectual answer to the problem of evil, we must all, believer and nonbeliever alike, protest against the world and seek to change it, rather than accept it as it is.

Freud, the Contemporary Super-ego, and Western Morality

Freud, the Contemporary Super-ego, and Western Morality PDF Author: Giosuè Ghisalberti
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000967492
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Freud, the Contemporary Super-ego, and Western Morality traces the origins of the relationship between the morality of the super-ego and the destructive impulse of the death drive in the liberal democracies of the 21st century. Giosuè Ghisalberti begins by refuting the analysis by contemporary social theorists of the phenomenon described as "the return of the religious," presenting instead a comprehensive set of ideas as outlined by Freud in the writings of the 1920s and the analysis of a contemporary theological-political unconscious. Ghisalberti argues that the psyche of the liberal West has regressed to an infantile and primitive present, driven by an unconscious hostility towards the Oedipus complex and, more comprehensively, to Western civilization as a whole. The book re-examines Freud’s psychoanalytic ideas on the nature of obsessions, interpreted first from the murder of the primal father in Totem and Taboo, and turns to his grounding ideals of intelligence, creativity, and freedom as the affirmation of the coming-to-be-human in modernity. Freud, the Contemporary Super-ego, and Western Morality will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training. It will also be key reading for academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, philosophy, political theory and the humanities.

Radical Theology and Emerging Christianity

Radical Theology and Emerging Christianity PDF Author: Katharine Sarah Moody
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317071824
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
The ’theological turn’ in continental philosophy and the ’turn to Paul’ in political philosophy have occasioned a return to radical theology, a tradition whose philosophical heritage can be traced to the death of God announced in the work of Nietzsche and Hegel. John D. Caputo’s deconstructive theology and Slavoj Zizek’s materialist theology are two radical theologies that explore what it might mean to pass through the death of God and to abandon this experience as specifically Christian. Radical Theology and Emerging Christianity demonstrates how these theologies are transforming everyday religious practices through an examination of the work of Peter Rollins and Kester Brewin, two figures at the radical margins of a contemporary expression of Western religiosity called emerging Christianity. The author uses her analysis of all four figures to argue that deconstructive practices can enable religious communities to become part of a wider materialist collective in which the death of God continues to resonate. Pushing the methodological boundaries of philosophy of religion by examining religious practices as the site of philosophical signification, the book challenges scholars and practitioners alike to a new and more demanding dialogue between theory and practice.

How to be a Failure and Still Live Well

How to be a Failure and Still Live Well PDF Author: Beverley Clack
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350030708
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
In consumer economies, success has increasingly been defined in terms of material attainment and the achievement of status. This model of 'the good life' and its formulas for success ignore the haunting possibility that one may not succeed and as a result be deemed 'a failure'. How to be a Failure and Still Live Well explores that often neglected theme of failure, not just as the opposite of achievement, but also, and more importantly, how it has been conflated with loss: that which haunts all transient, mortal human experience. Understanding loss as a form of failure affects our ability to cope with the everyday losses that permeate existence as a result of the natural processes of ageing, death, and decay. Engaging with loss and thinking about what it inevitability means for our lives and commitments, allows different values to emerge than those connected to success as attainment. Relationships, spontaneity, and generosity are explored as qualities that arise from taking seriously our vulnerability and that form the basis for richer accounts of what it might mean to 'live well'.

The Immortality Key

The Immortality Key PDF Author: Brian C. Muraresku
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 125027091X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience! A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations. The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist – the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2.5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet. Religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of Christianity’s founding event. And after centuries of debate, to solve history’s greatest puzzle. Before the birth of Jesus, the Ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites that led initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest from Athens and Rome flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a holy beer unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god. In the 1970s, renegade scholars claimed this beer and wine – the original sacraments of Western civilization – were spiked with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The constantly advancing fields of archaeobotany and archaeochemistry have hinted at the enduring use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. But the smoking gun remains elusive. If these sacraments survived for thousands of years in our remote prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Ancient Greeks, did they also survive into the age of Jesus? Was the Eucharist of the earliest Christians, in fact, a psychedelic Eucharist? With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku takes the reader on his twelve-year global hunt for proof. He tours the ruins of Greece with its government archaeologists. He gains access to the hidden collections of the Louvre to show the continuity from pagan to Christian wine. He unravels the Ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He spelunks into the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He breaches the secret archives of the Vatican to unearth manuscripts never before translated into English. And with leads from the archaeological chemists at UPenn and MIT, he unveils the first scientific data for the ritual use of psychedelic drugs in classical antiquity. The Immortality Key reconstructs the suppressed history of women consecrating a forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Church Fathers. Women who were then targeted as witches during the Inquisition, when Europe’s sacred pharmacology largely disappeared. If the scientists of today have resurrected this technology, then Christianity is in crisis. Unless it returns to its roots. Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the NYT bestselling author of America Before.

A Jungian Perspective on the Therapist-Patient Relationship in Film

A Jungian Perspective on the Therapist-Patient Relationship in Film PDF Author: Ruth Netzer
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040024823
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Within this book, Ruth Netzer explores the archetypal components of therapist-patient relations in cinema from the perspective of Jungian archetypal symbolism, and within the context of myth and ritual. Film is a medium that is attracted to the extremes of this specific relationship, depicting the collapse of the accepted boundaries of therapyp; though on the other hand, cinema also loves the fantasy of therapy as intimacy. Through the medium of film, and employing examples from over 45 well-known films, the author analyzes the successes and failures of therapists within film, and reviews the concepts of transference and counter-transference and their therapeutic and redemptive powers, in contrast to their potential for destruction and exploitation within the context of a patient-therapist relationship. This book will be a fascinating read for Jungian analysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists with an interest in the link between cinema and therapy, as well as filmmakers and students and teachers of film studies.

I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die

I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die PDF Author: Sarah J. Robinson
Publisher: WaterBrook
ISBN: 0593193539
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.