Exploring the religious impulse known as mysticism the "silent cry" at the heart of all the world's religions.Mysticism, in the sense of a "longing for God," has been present in all times, cultures, and religions. But Soelle believes it has never been more important than in this age of materialism and fundamentalism. The antiauthoritarian mystical ......
How does the mind experience the sacred? What biological mechanisms are involved in mystical states and trances? Is there a neurological basis for patterns in comparative religions? Does religion have an evolutionary function? This pathbreaking work by two leading medical researchers explores the neurophysiology of religious experience. Building ......
Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts
Examines the works of two Sufi Muslim scholars, Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (d. 1811) and his son Sidi Muhammad (d. 1826), focusing on their cosmology and metaphysics of the realm of the unseen, in relation to the history of magical discourses within the Hellenistic and Arabo-Islamic worlds.
Theology and Spirituality at the Heart of Christian Belief
A spiritual introduction to Christian theology Christian belief can be understood neither entirely through doctrine nor entirely apart from it. Doctrine is the starting point, the seed of faith, from which springs forth flourishing life in the fellowship of the church. But that growth occurs only when theology and spirituality are held together ......
Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts
Sorcery or Science? examines how two Sufi Muslim theologians who rose to prominence in the western Sahara Desert in the late eighteenth century, Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (d. 1811) and his son and successor, Sidi Muhammad al-Kunti (d. 1826), decisively influenced the development of Sufi Muslim thought in West Africa. Known as the Kunta scholars, ......
In 2011 at the age of sixty-nine Gerard Catherin hung up his chef's whites for the last time to full time on his main passion his fifteen-year-long dream of finding the elusive diamond pipe in the barren country of northern New South Wales Australia. But still simmering away in his brain was a chance discovery made in 2003 on his way to ......
Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts
The mythical story of fallen angels preserved in 1 Enoch and related literature was profoundly influential during the Second Temple period. In this volume renowned scholar Loren Stuckenbruck explores aspects of that influence and demonstrates how the myth was reused and adapted to address new religious and cultural contexts. Stuckenbruck considers ......
The Legacy of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross
The theme of Enkindling Love is God's desire for partnership with us. Excerpts from the seven moradas of Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle are interspersed with brief selections from John of the Cross's mystical trilogy in order to show the seven stages of growth and transformation.
