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The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain
by Kevin Nelson"Bold, provocative, and highly readable. "-V. S. Ramachandran, M. D. , author of Phantoms in the Brain What are near-death experiences, out-of-body sensations, and spiritual ecstasy? And what do they have in common? Perhaps no one is more qualified to answer these questions than renowned neurobiologist Dr. Kevin Nelson. Drawing on his more than three decades of groundbreaking research into the "borderlands of consciousness," Dr. Nelson offers an unprecedented journey into the site of spiritual experience: the brain. Filled with amazing firsthand accounts as varied as a patient seeing the devil battling with his guardian angel to a man watching the universe synchronize around a pinball machine, The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain is an eloquent examination of our brains' spiritual "hardwiring" that will enthrall believers and skeptics alike. .
Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life
by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Hilary Hart<i>Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life</i> offers inspiring and practical guidance for reconnecting to the sacred in every day life and transforming our relationship with the Earth. Describing the power of simple, daily practices such as Walking, Gardening, Cooking with Love, and Prayer, this small book supports profound changes in how we think about and respond to the ecological crisis of our times.
Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life
by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Hilary HartSpiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life offers inspiring and practical guidance for reconnecting to the sacred in every day life and transforming our relationship with the Earth. Describing the power of simple, daily practices such as Walking, Gardening, Cooking with Love, and Prayer, this small book supports profound changes in how we think about and respond to the ecological crisis of our times.Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life follows our groundbreaking Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, now in its second edition, which included spiritual perspectives on climate change, species loss, deforestation, and other aspects of our present environmental crises from renowned spiritual teachers, scientists, and indigenous leaders. That book drew an overwhelmingly positive reaction from readers, many of whom are asking: "What can I do?"Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life answers that question with inspiring, personal anecdotes from the author – Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee – and simple practices we all can do. Rooted in the mystical foundation of the world's great spiritual traditions, with a particular connection to Sufism, these timeless practices remind readers of our deep connections to life, each other, and the Earth, and invite a return of meaning to our desecrated world.As Rumi says, "there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground," and it is this sacred ground that is calling to us, that needs our living presence, our attentiveness. This small book offers simple ways to reconnect so that we can once again feel the music, the song of our living connection with the Earth.
Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth
by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Sandra Ingerman Joanna Macy Thich Nhat Hanh Bill Plotkin Father Richard Rohr Vandana Shiva Brian Swimme Mary Evelyn Tucker Wendell BerryThe first edition of this book fostered the emergence of the "Spiritual Ecology Movement," which recognizes the need for a spiritual response to our present ecological crisis. It drew an overwhelmingly positive response from readers, many of whom are asking the simple question, "What can I do?" This second expanded edition offers new chapters, including two from younger authors who are putting the principles of spiritual ecology into action, working with their hands as well as their hearts. It also includes a new preface and revised chapter by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, that reference two major recent events: the publication of Pope Francis's encyclical, "On Care for Our Common Home," which brought into the mainstream the idea that "the ecological crisis is essentially a spiritual problem"; and the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference, which saw representatives from nearly 200 countries come together to address global warming, including faith leaders from many traditions. Bringing together voices from Buddhism, Sufism, Christianity, and Native American traditions, as well as from physics, deep psychology, and other environmental disciplines, this book calls on us to reassess our underlying attitudes and beliefs about the Earth and wake up to our spiritual as well as physical responsibilities toward the planet.
Spiritual Economies: Female Monasticism in Later Medieval England (The Middle Ages Series)
by Nancy Bradley WarrenFrom its creation in the early fourteenth century to its dissolution in the sixteenth, the nunnery at Dartford was among the richest in England. Although obliged to support not only its own community but also a priory of Dominican friars at King's Langley, Dartford prospered. Records attest to the business skill of the Dartford nuns, as they managed the house's numerous holdings of land and property, together with the rents and services owed them. That the Dartford nuns were capable businesswomen is not surprising, since the house was also a center of female education.For Nancy Bradley Warren, the story of Dartford exemplifies the vibrancy of nuns' material and spiritual lives in later medieval England. Revising the long-held view that fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English nunneries were impoverished both financially and religiously, Warren clarifies that the women in female monastic communities like Dartford were not woefully incompetent at managing their affairs. Instead, she reveals the complex role of female monasticism in diverse systems of production and exchange. Like the nuns at Dartford, women religious in late medieval England were enmeshed in material, symbolic, political, and spiritual economies that were at times in harmony and at other times in conflict with each other.Building on emerging cross-disciplinary trends in feminist scholarship on medieval religion, Warren extends ongoing debates about textual and economic constructions of women's identities to the rarely considered evidence of monastic theory and practice. To this end, Spiritual Economies emphasizes that the cloister was not impermeable. As worldly forces such as economic trends and political conflicts affected life in the nunneries, so too did religious practices have political impact. In breaking down the convent wall, Warren also succeeds in breaching the boundaries separating the material and the symbolic, the religious and the secular, the literary and the historical. She turns to a wide range of sources—from legislative texts, court records, and financial accounts to devotional treatises and political propaganda—to explore the centrality of female monasticism to the flowering of female spirituality and to the later Middle Ages at large.
A Spiritual Economy: Gift Exchange in the Letters of Paul of Tarsus
by Thomas R. Blanton IVThomas Blanton sheds light on the philosophy surrounding gift giving in Paul's letters and on modern theories of gift exchange through the lens of religion. The exchange of gifts is a fundamental part of society and a foundational element in Greco-Roman religions. Combining theories of gift exchange, both modern and Greco-Roman, Thomas Blanton reveals how religious discourse--in the guise of "spiritual gifts" believed to come from Israel's god--is instrumental in the formation of sociopolitical hierarchies and the assignment of honor and prestige. Blanton uses an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates religion, classics, sociology, and anthropology to investigate the economy of gift exchange shown in Paul's letters.
Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes A Crisis
by Stanislav Grof Christina GrofFrom Spiritual Emergency to Healing and Rebirth Increasing numbers of people involved in personal transformation are experiencing spiritual emergencies -- crises when the process of growth and change becomes chaotic and overwhelming. Individuals experiencing such episodes may feel that their sense of identity is breaking down, that their old values no longer hold true, and that the very ground beneath their personal realities is radically shifting. In many cases, new realms of mystical and spiritual experience enter their lives suddenly and dramatically, resulting in fear and confusion. They may feel tremendous anxiety, have difficulty coping with their daily lives, jobs, and relationships, and may even fear for their own sanity. Unfortunately, much of modern psychiatry has failed to distinguish these episodes from mental illness. As a result, transformational crises are often suppressed by routine psychiatric care, medication, and even institutionalization. However, there is a new perspective developing among many mental health professionals and those studying spiritual development that views such crises as transformative breakthroughs that can hold tremendous potential for physical and emotional healing. When understood and treated in a supportive manner, spiritual emergencies can become gateways to higher levels of functioning and new ways of being. In this book, foremost psychologists, psychiatrists, and spiritual teachers address the following questions: What is spiritual emergency? What is the relationship between spirituality, "madness," and healing? What forms does spiritual emergency take? What are the pitfalls -- and promises -- of spiritual practice? How can people in spiritual emergency be assisted by family, friends, and professionals? This groundbreaking work reveals that within the crisis of spiritual emergency lies the promise of spiritual emergence and renewal.
The Spiritual Emerson
by Ralph Waldo Emerson Jacob NeedlemanThis concise volume collects the core writings that have made Ralph Waldo Emerson into a key source of insight for spiritual seekers of every faith--with an introduction by the bestselling philosopher Jacob Needleman. Here is the essential collection of Emerson's spiritual thought for those readers who understand the transformative quality of ideas. It is concise and suited to years of rereading and contemplation, offering the essays that trace the arc of the inner message brought by America's "Yankee Mystic." The Spiritual Emerson features many of Emerson's landmark works. Yet also included are overlooked classics, such as the essays "Fate" and "Success," which served as major sources of inspiration to some of the leading American metaphysical thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The introduction by religious scholar and philosopher Jacob Needleman frames--historically and philosophically--the development of Emerson's thought and explores why it has such a powerful hold on us today.
Spiritual Empires in Europe and India: Cosmopolitan Religious Movements from 1875 to the Interwar Era
by Perry MyersThis book provides a comparative analysis of cosmopolitan (esoteric) religious movements, such as Theosophy, Groupe Independent des Études Ésotériques, Anthroposophy, and Monism, in England, France, Germany, and India during the late nineteenth-century to the interwar years. Despite their diversity, these factions manifested a set of common features—anti-materialism, embrace of Darwinian evolution, and a belief in universal spirituality—that coalesced in a transnational field of analogous cosmopolitan spiritual affinities. Yet, in each of their geopolitical locations these groups developed vastly different interpretations and applications of their common spiritual tenets. This book explores how such religious innovation intersected with the social (labor and economic renewal), cultural (education and religious innovation) and political (Empire and anti-colonial) dynamics in these vastly different national domains. Ultimately, it illustrates how an innovative religious discourse converged with the secular world and became applied to envision a new social order—to spiritually re-engineer the world.
Spiritual Ends: Religion and the Heart of Dying in Japan (New Interventions in Japanese Studies #4)
by Timothy O. BenedictA free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. What role does religion play at the end of life in Japan? Spiritual Ends draws on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with hospice patients, chaplains, and medical workers to provide an intimate portrayal of how spiritual care is provided to the dying in Japan. Timothy O. Benedict uses both local and cross-cultural perspectives to show how hospice caregivers in Japan are appropriating and reinterpreting global ideas about spirituality and the practice of spiritual care. Benedict relates these findings to a longer story of how Japanese religious groups have pursued vocational roles in medical institutions as a means to demonstrate a so-called "healthy" role in society. By paying attention to how care for the kokoro (heart or mind) is key to the practice of spiritual care, this book enriches conventional understandings of religious identity in Japan while offering a valuable East Asian perspective to global conversations on the ways religion, spirituality, and medicine intersect at death.
The Spiritual Entrepreneur
by Marc Baco Karma Jinpa ZangmoAchieving balance between spiritual practice and the business world is a great challenge – for those who try, it may sometimes feel like attempting to mix oil and water. The Spiritual Entrepreneur by Marc Baco explores Laws of Spirituality and their implications as they relate to business. This book examines by means of four case studies how selected entrepreneurs have built their thriving businesses in accordance with their own spiritual paths. Insights and inspiration are provided for those who wish do the same.
Spiritual Entrepreneurs: 6 Principles for Risking Renewal (Innovators in Ministry Series) (Innovators In Ministry Ser.)
by Mike SlaughterSpiritual Entrepreneurs tells the story of an innovative pastor and leadership team who intentionally led their church to take spiritual risks. By using six principles, renewal can come to any church. These six principles are focus on: (1) Jesus Christ, (2) the Bible, (3) new forms of worship, (4) a commitment to membership, (5) equipping lay people for ministry, and (6) spiritual leadership. Slaughter belives that church leaders are inspired to work tirelessly when they hear or learn of good-news stories. He also believes that covenants, Christianity training, and an innovative small-group structure are vital in producing high-commitment members.
Spiritual Entrepreneurs: Florida's Faith-Based Prisons and the American Carceral State (Where Religion Lives)
by Brad StoddardThe overall rate of incarceration in the United States has been on the rise since 1970s, skyrocketing during Ronald Reagan's presidency, and recently reaching unprecedented highs. Looking for innovative solutions to the crises produced by gigantic prison populations, Florida's Department of Corrections claims to have found a partial remedy in the form of faith and character-based correctional institutions (FCBIs). While claiming to be open to all religious traditions, FCBIs are almost always run by Protestants situated within the politics of the Christian right. The religious programming is typically run by the incarcerated along with volunteers from outside the prison. Stoddard takes the reader deep inside FCBIs, analyzing the subtle meanings and difficult choices with which the incarcerated, prison administrators, staff, and chaplains grapple every day. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research and historical analysis, Brad Stoddard argues that FCBIs build on and demonstrate the compatibility of conservative Christian politics and neoliberal economics.Even without authoritative data on whether FCBIs are assisting rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rates, similar programs are appearing across the nation—only Iowa has declared them illegal under non-establishment-of-religion statutes. Exposing the intricate connections among incarceration, neoliberal economics, and religious freedom, Stoddard makes a timely contribution to debates about religion's role in American society.
Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Fulfilling Your God-Ordained Destiny
by Bill Harrison Mary HarrisonHaving enjoyed succesful careers in three different industries (manufacturing, construction and commercial real estate) I have learned my talents, skills, experience and God-given gifts can be applied in different ways in many diverse situations. All that was required was willingnes to go wherever God led me and to do whatever he asked me to do. In the process of doing I learned God had a plan for my life which was more challenging than my own plan, but also far more exciting and rewarding. My wife Mary’s experience has been similar to mine, as she was afforded opportunities to go places and do things which have gone far beyond what she expected for herself. Based on our life experiences as a married couple with dual professional careers, my wife and I developed the concept we call spiritual entrepreneurship. The challengers we faced in fulfilling the requirements of two separate careers without neglecting our family obligations led us to the principles and practices of this concept. Feel free to visit out website at www.spiritual-entreprenuership.com
Spiritual Envy
by Michael KrasnyAs the host of one of National Public Radio's most popular interview programs, Michael Krasny has spent decades leading conversations on every imaginable topic and discussing life's most important questions with the foremost thinkers of our time. Now he brings his wide-ranging knowledge and perceptive intelligence to a thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of belief; and lack of belief. Many books and pundits advocate for a specific God, while others adamantly declare there is no God. Yet these strident viewpoints often speak right past each other, rarely convincing anyone but the already convinced. In -- Spiritual Envy -- Krasny helps believers and nonbelievers alike understand their own questions about faith and religion, about God and human responsibility. Krasny challenges each of us to look closely at faith and its power, and to examine the positive and negative aspects of religion as expressed in culture, literature, and human relationships. Personal and universal, timely and timeless, this is a deeply wise yet warmly welcoming conversation, an invitation to ask one's own questions; no matter how inconclusive the answers.
Spiritual Equipping for Mission: Thriving as God's Message Bearers
by Ryan ShawGod calls his people to mission. But the demands of crosscultural ministry can be overwhelming and draining, leading to discouragement and burnout. All of our strategies and methodologies for reaching others are useless if we are incapable of living the holy, faithful lives God intends for us. Yet God does not leave us on our own. The Holy Spirit equips us to succeed and thrive spiritually in preparation of becoming God?s message bearers in the world. Spiritual formation and discipleship are at the core of effective and fruitful mission. Mission professional Ryan Shaw unpacks ten fundamental spiritual keys we need to practice to have a successful outer global witness. He shows how we can partner with God to experience Jesus' transforming power and presence, with practical insights for praying, growing and persevering as God's servants in the world. God is calling a new generation to serve long-term to fulfill the Great Commission. The Holy Spirit is at work within us to equip and enable mission workers in and out of the field. Discover how you can become who God wants you to be as his ambassador to the world.
Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith
by George E. VaillantIn our current era of holy terror, passionate faith has come to seem like a present danger. Writers such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens have been happy to throw the baby out with the bathwater and declare that the danger is in religion itself. God, Hitchens writes, is not great. But man, according to George E. Vaillant, M. D. ,isgreat. InSpiritual Evolution, Dr. Vaillant lays out a brilliant defense not of organized religion but of man’s inherent spirituality. Our spirituality, he shows, resides in our uniquely human brain design and in our innate capacity for emotions like love, hope, joy, forgiveness, and compassion, which are selected for by evolution and located in a different part of the brain than dogmatic religious belief. Evolution has made us spiritual creatures over time, he argues, and we are destined to become even more so. Spiritual Evolutionmakes the scientific case for spirituality as a positive force in human evolution, and he predicts for our species an even more loving future. Vaillant traces this positive force in three different kinds of “evolution”: the natural selection of genes over millennia, of course, but also the cultural evolution within recorded history of ideas about the value of human life, and the development of spirituality within the lifetime of each individual. For thirty-five years, Dr. Vaillant directed Harvard’s famous longitudinal study of adult development, which has followed hundreds of men over seven decades of life. The study has yielded important insights into human spirituality, and Dr. Vaillant has drawn on these and on a range of psychological research, behavioral studies, and neuroscience, and on history, anecdote, and quotation to produce a book that is at once a work of scientific argument and a lyrical meditation on what it means to be human. Spiritual Evolutionis a life’s work, and it will restore our belief in faith as an essential human striving.
The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola
by Thomas Corbishley S. J. Saint Ignatius LoyolaIn this unique handbook of Christian literature, the founder of the Jesuits offers a way of "raising the mind and heart to God." Saint Ignatius of Loyola avoids setting a formula for prayer, providing readers with an extensive variety of meditative themes. Although originally intended for those making a retreat under the direction of an experienced master, the spiritual exercises have since become much more widely known and used, and they offer an excellent resource for private devotions.
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
by Avery Dulles St. Ignatius Louis J. Puhl John F. ThorntonA reissue of a classic of the Christian text from the founder of the Jesuit Order.The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyla is the core work of religious formation for members of the Society of Jesus, the single largest religious order within the Roman Catholic Church. For four and a half centuries in many thousands of editions in all languages, The Exercises have embodied fundamental spiritual principles essential to authentic Christian living. The mystical insight informing Ignatius's own relationship with God--which he distilled in The Exercises--is that the divine love of God is providentially present in all the details of our existence. Here Ignatius shows how the faithful can be joined to God in all things, according to the Jesuit motto, Ad majorem Dei gloriam, "For the greater glory of God."
Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit
by Henri J. M. NouwenHenri Nouwen, the world-renowned spiritual guide and counselor, understood the spiritual life as a journey of faith and transformation that is deepened by accountability, community, and relationships. Though he counseled many people during his lifetime, his principles of spiritual formation were never written down. Now, Michael Christensen, one of Nouwen's longtime students, and Rebecca Laird have taken his famous course in spiritual formation and supplemented it with his unpublished writings to create the definitive series on Nouwen's thoughts on the Christian life. The first book in the series, Spiritual Direction, introduced readers to Nouwen's core concepts and how to live the questions of the spiritual life. Now Spiritual Formation reveals Nouwen's sage advice on how to live out the five classical stages of spiritual development. Featuring a unique visio divina to help guide and focus prayer, this volume reveals Nouwen's unparalleled wisdom on how to move from the mind to the heart and live there in the center--the place where God dwells.
Spiritual Formation: A Concise Introduction and Guide
by Corneliu C. SimuțThis book is a multichapter introduction to spiritual formation within the Christian tradition. Corneliu C. Simuț discusses spiritual formation from the views of several Christian thinkers, with a chapter devoted to each thinker. The concluding chapter notes common themes shared by each thinker. The author presents some key Patristic, Medieval, Early Modern, Modern, and Contemporary theologians in a way that is characterized by brevity, concision, and clarity. Thus, this small book is a useful introduction to spiritual formation from a Christian perspective. It would be helpful for a college student or young adult who seeks to be educated on the subject. The conciseness of the book is a benefit. Yet the book raises interesting questions for further pursuit. A very succinct – but comprehensive – historical presentation of sanctification through the lens of spiritual formation, a concept which has been revived in the past two decades, especially in Evangelical circles, this text is useful for a college course in spiritual formation or religion.
Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered: Growing in Christ through Community
by James C. WilhoitThe yearning and restlessness of our souls drive us toward God. This hunger and homesickness is the beginning of spiritual formation, according to James C. Wilhoit. In "Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered," Wilhoit takes a unique approach to the topic. Whereas most books focus on the individual's spiritual transformation, this one intentionally concentrates on how the local church itself is the seedbed of spiritual growth and how the process is a community effort. This book's short chapters, sidebar material, and concluding prayers fit well with readers' busy lives without sacrificing quality and depth of content.
Spiritual Formation as the Hero’s Journey in John of Ruusbroec (Contemporary Theological Explorations in Mysticism)
by Robert PelfreyThis book examines the theology of spiritual formation developed by fourteenth-century Flemish mystic John of Ruusbroec, arguing that his formational path clearly and consistently displays the characteristics of the archetypal narrative structure of the hero’s journey. To start with a hermeneutical dialogue between scholars of the hero’s journey and Ruusbroec is established, employing the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer. The author then examines the stages and tropes of the hero’s journey according to Vladimir Propp, Joseph Campbell, Northrop Frye, René Girard, Dean Miller, and others, exploring the parallels in Ruusbroec’s writing and theology of spiritual formation. The book follows Ruusbroec’s story of answering the divine call, journeying inward and experiencing the trials of spiritual transformation, attaining the treasure of divine union, and returning in loving service to others. Finally, the ramifications of the argument for the interpretation and application of other mystical and heroic narratives are considered. Offering a new perspective on John of Ruusbroec, mystical theology, and the hero’s journey as spiritual quest, this volume will be of interest to scholars of mysticism, theology, formative spirituality, narrative theory, and religious literature of the Low Countries.
Spiritual Formation for the Global Church: A Multi-Denominational, Multi-Ethnic Approach
by John Frederick John Frederick, Ryan A. Brandt Ryan A. BrandtThe church is called to grow in Christ. Yet too often, it ignores the practical dimensions of the faith. The church is one in Christ. Yet too often, it is divided by national, denominational, theological, and racial or ethnic boundaries. The church is a global body of believers. Yet too often, it privileges a few voices and fails to recognize its own diversity. In response, this volume offers a multi-denominational, multi-ethnic vision in which biblical scholars, theologians, and practitioners from around the world join together to pursue a cohesive yet diverse theology and praxis of spiritual formation for the global church. Be fed in your faith by brothers and sisters from around the world.
Spiritual Formation in Emerging Adulthood: A Practical Theology for College and Young Adult Ministry
by David P. Setran and Chris A. KieslingTwo veteran teachers explore spiritual formation of emerging adults, offering insight into the key developmental issues of this stage of life.