Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah

Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah PDF Author: Jonathan Garb
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226282074
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Theory of shamanism, trance, and modern Kabbalah -- The shamanic process: descent and fiery transformations -- Empowerment through trance -- Shamanic Hasidism -- Hasidic trance -- Trance and the nomian.

Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah

Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah PDF Author: Jonathan Garb
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226282074
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Theory of shamanism, trance, and modern Kabbalah -- The shamanic process: descent and fiery transformations -- Empowerment through trance -- Shamanic Hasidism -- Hasidic trance -- Trance and the nomian.

Mystifying Kabbalah

Mystifying Kabbalah PDF Author: Boaz Huss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190086971
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Most scholars of Judaism take the term "Jewish mysticism" for granted, and do not engage in a critical discussion of the essentialist perceptions that underlie it. Mystifying Kabbalah studies the evolution of the concept of Jewish mysticism. It examines the major developments in the academic study of Jewish mysticism and its impact on modern Kabbalistic movements in the contexts of Jewish nationalism and New Age spirituality. Boaz Huss argues that Jewish mysticism is a modern discursive construct and that the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as forms of mysticism, which appeared for the first time in the nineteenth century and has become prevalent since the early twentieth, shaped the way in which Kabbalah and Hasidism are perceived and studied today. The notion of Jewish mysticism was established when western scholars accepted the modern idea that mysticism is a universal religious phenomenon of a direct experience of a divine or transcendent reality and applied it to Kabbalah and Hasidism. "Jewish mysticism" gradually became the defining category in the modern academic research of these topics. This book clarifies the historical, cultural, and political contexts that led to the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as Jewish mysticism, exposing the underlying ideological and theological presuppositions and revealing the impact of this "mystification" on contemporary forms of Kabbalah and Hasidism.

Imagery Techniques in Modern Jewish Mysticism

Imagery Techniques in Modern Jewish Mysticism PDF Author: Daniel Reiser
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110534088
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
This book analyzes and describes the development and aspects of imagery techniques, a primary mode of mystical experience, in twentieth century Jewish mysticism. These techniques, in contrast to linguistic techniques in medieval Kabbalah and in contrast to early Hasidism, have all the characteristics of a full screenplay, a long and complicated plot woven together from many scenes, a kind of a feature film. Research on this development and nature of the imagery experience is carried out through comparison to similar developments in philosophy and psychology and is fruitfully contextualized within broader trends of western and eastern mysticism.

Yearnings of the Soul

Yearnings of the Soul PDF Author: Jonathan Garb
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022629580X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Jonathan Garb's "Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah" is an original, path-breaking study of the renderings of the "heart and soul" in the works of major, minor, and obscure but important figures of modern Kabbalah. Garb has unearthed a treasure-trove of neglected figures and texts, bringing into dialogue their views on heart and soul with those found in other religious and secular authorities. There is no other study that comes close to the territory Garb covers or, for that matter, provides the historical and cultural context necessary for understanding the rise of such psychological renderings in the works of the modern Kabbalists. His analysis shows that any attempt to essentialize the multiple and varied understandings of heart and soul in Jewish mysticism is mistaken. Analyzing text and figure in context on a case-by-case basis Garb is able to provide comparison without being reductive. This is an invaluable contribution to the discipline that cements Garb as the leading scholar of modern Kabbalah.

“And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On The Language of Mystical Union in Judaism

“And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On The Language of Mystical Union in Judaism PDF Author: Adam Afterman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004328734
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
In “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism, Adam Afterman offers an extensive study of mystical union and embodiment in Judaism. Afterman argues that Philo was the first to articulate the notion of unio mystica in Judaism and is the source of the henōsis mysticism in the later Neoplatonic tradition. The study provides a detailed analysis of the Jewish medieval trends that developed different forms of mystical union and mystical embodiment through the divine name and spirit. The book argues that the development of unitive mysticism in Judaism is the fruit of the creative synthesis of rabbinic Judaism and Hellenistic and Arab philosophy, and a natural outcome of the theological articulation of the idea of monotheism itself.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem PDF Author: Merav Mack
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300245211
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
A captivating journey through the hidden libraries of Jerusalem, where some of the world’s most enduring ideas were put into words In this enthralling book, Merav Mack and Benjamin Balint explore Jerusalem’s libraries to tell the story of this city as a place where some of the world’s most enduring ideas were put into words. The writers of Jerusalem, although renowned the world over, are not usually thought of as a distinct school; their stories as Jerusalemites have never before been woven into a single narrative. Nor have the stories of the custodians, past and present, who safeguard Jerusalem’s literary legacies. By showing how Jerusalem has been imagined by its writers and shelved by its librarians, Mack and Balint tell the untold history of how the peoples of the book have populated the city with texts. In their hands, Jerusalem itself—perched between East and West, antiquity and modernity, violence and piety—comes alive as a kind of labyrinthine library.

Envisioning Howard Finster

Envisioning Howard Finster PDF Author: Norman J. Girardot
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520961072
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
The Reverend Howard Finster (1916–2001) was called the "backwoods William Blake" and the "Andy Warhol of the South," and he is considered the godfather of contemporary American folk and visionary art. This book is the first interpretive analysis of the intertwined artistic and religious significance of Finster’s work within the context of the American "outsider art" tradition. Finster began preaching as a teenager in the South in the 1930s. But it was not until he received a revelation from God at the age of sixty that he began to make sacred art. A modern-day Noah who saw his art as a religious crusade to save the world before it was too late, Finster worked around the clock, often subsisting on a diet of peanut butter and instant coffee. He spent the last years of his life feverishly creating his environmental artwork called Paradise Garden and what would ultimately number almost fifty thousand works of "bad and nasty art." This was visionary work that obsessively combined images and text and featured apocalyptic biblical imagery, flying saucers from outer space, and popular cultural icons such as Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Henry Ford, Mona Lisa, and George Washington. In the 1980s and 90s, he developed cult celebrity status, and he appeared in the Venice Biennale and on the Tonight Show. His work graced the album covers of bands such as R.E.M. and Talking Heads. This book explores the life and religious-artistic significance of Finster and his work from the personal perspective of religion scholar Norman Girardot, friend to Finster and his family during the later years of the artist’s life.

A History of Kabbalah

A History of Kabbalah PDF Author: Jonathan Garb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108882978
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
Jonathan Garb's A History of Kabbalah: From the Early Modern Period to the Present Day is a lucid and sophisticated account of the multifaceted nature of Jewish mysticism, focusing on its development from the spiritual revolution that took place in Safed in the sixteenth century until the present. Opening the secrets of the kabbalah to a wider audience, Garb judiciously argued that how important the mystical and esoteric tradition has been in Jewish history and in the cultural and intellectual life of Europe more generally. One of the more methodologically innovative aspects of Garb's book is his contention that kabbalah became a major factor in the religious life of Jews in the modern age due to print and others forms of rapid communication, a process that has magnified significantly in recent years due to the digital revolution. Informative and provocative, A History of Kabbalah will surely be of interest to a wide readership.

Hasidism

Hasidism PDF Author: David Biale
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202443
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 890

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Book Description
A must-read book for understanding this vibrant and influential modern Jewish movement Hasidism originated in southeastern Poland, in mystical circles centered on the figure of Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, but it was only after his death in 1760 that a movement began to spread. Today, Hasidism is witnessing a remarkable renaissance around the world. This book provides the first comprehensive history of the pietistic movement that shaped modern Judaism. Written by an international team of scholars, its unique blend of intellectual, religious, and social history demonstrates that, far from being a throwback to the Middle Ages, Hasidism is a product of modernity that forged its identity as a radical alternative to the secular world.

When God Talks Back

When God Talks Back PDF Author: T.M. Luhrmann
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307277275
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012 A bold approach to understanding the American evangelical experience from an anthropological and psychological perspective by one of the country's most prominent anthropologists. Through a series of intimate, illuminating interviews with various members of the Vineyard, an evangelical church with hundreds of congregations across the country, Tanya Luhrmann leaps into the heart of evangelical faith. Combined with scientific research that studies the effect that intensely practiced prayer can have on the mind, When God Talks Back examines how normal, sensible people—from college students to accountants to housewives, all functioning perfectly well within our society—can attest to having the signs and wonders of the supernatural become as quotidian and as ordinary as laundry. Astute, sensitive, and extraordinarily measured in its approach to the interface between science and religion, Luhrmann's book is sure to generate as much conversation as it will praise.