Defining The Sacred

Author : Nicola Laneri
Publisher : Oxbow Books
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2015-05-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781782976837

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Defining the Sacred by Nicola Laneri Pdf

Religion is a phenomenon that is inseparable from human society. It brings about a set of emotional, ideological and practical elements that are pervasive in the social fabric of any society and characterizable by a number of features. These include the establishment of intermediaries in the relationship between humans and the divine; the construction of ceremonial places for worshipping the gods and practicing ritual performances; and the creation ritual paraphernalia. Investigating the religious dimensions of ancient societies encounters problems in defining such elements, especially with regard to societies that lack textual evidences and has tended to lead towards the identification of differentiation between the mental dimension, related to religious beliefs, and the material one associated with religious practices, resulting in a separation between scholars able to investigate, and possibly reconstruct, ritual practices (i.e., archaeologists), and those interested in defining the realm of ancient beliefs (i.e., philologists and religious historians). The aim of this collection of papers is to attempt to bridge these two dimensions by breaking down existing boundaries in order to form a more comprehensive vision of religion among ancient Near Eastern societies. This approach requires that a higher consideration be given to those elements (either artificial -- buildings, objects, texts, etc. -- or natural -- landscapes, animals, trees, etc.) that are created through a materialization of religious beliefs and practices enacted by members of communities. These issues are addressed in a series of specific case-studies covering a broad chronological framework that from the Pre-pottery Neolithic to the Iron Age. (Cover illustration © German Archaeological Institute, photo N. Becker)

Author : Sarah Hamilton,Andrew Spicer
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Page : 374 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : History
ISBN : 0754651940

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Defining the Holy by Sarah Hamilton,Andrew Spicer Pdf

Holy sites - churches, monasteries, shrines - defined religious experience and were fundamental to the geography and social history of medieval and early modern Europe. How were these sacred spaces defined? How were they created, used, recognized and tran

Author : Mircea Eliade
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 1959
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 015679201X

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The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade Pdf

Famed historian of religion Mircea Eliade observes that even moderns who proclaim themselves residents of a completely profane world are still unconsciously nourished by the memory of the sacred. Eliade traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times in terms of space, time, nature, and the cosmos. In doing so he shows how the total human experience of the religious man compares with that of the nonreligious. This book serves as an excellent introduction to the history of religion, but its perspective also emcompasses philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. It will appeal to anyone seeking to discover the potential dimensions of human existence. -- P. [4] of cover.

Author : David Morgan
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2023-09-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780520938304

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The Sacred Gaze by David Morgan Pdf

"Sacred gaze" denotes any way of seeing that invests its object—an image, a person, a time, a place—with spiritual significance. Drawing from many different fields, David Morgan investigates key aspects of vision and imagery in a variety of religious traditions. His lively, innovative book explores how viewers absorb and process religious imagery and how their experience contributes to the social, intellectual, and perceptual construction of reality. Ranging widely from thirteenth-century Japan and eighteenth-century Tibet to contemporary America, Thailand, and Africa, The Sacred Gaze discusses the religious functions of images and the tools viewers use to interpret them. Morgan questions how fear and disgust of images relate to one another and explains how scholars study the long and evolving histories of images as they pass from culture to culture. An intriguing strand of the narrative details how images have helped to shape popular conceptions of gender and masculinity. The opening chapter considers definitions of "visual culture" and how these relate to the traditional practice of art history. Amply illustrated with more than seventy images from diverse religious traditions, this masterful interdisciplinary study provides a comprehensive and accessible resource for everyone interested in how religious images and visual practice order space and time, communicate with the transcendent, and embody forms of communion with the divine. The Sacred Gaze is a vital introduction to the study of the visual culture of religions.

Author : Nicola Laneri
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Archaeology and religion
ISBN : 178297850X

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Defining the Sacred by Nicola Laneri Pdf

Author : William Arnal,Russell T. McCutcheon
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780199757114

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The Sacred Is the Profane by William Arnal,Russell T. McCutcheon Pdf

The Sacred is the Profane collects nine essays by William Arnal and Russell McCutcheon that advance current scholarly debates on secularism-debates. The essays return, again and again, to the question of what "religion"—word and concept—accomplishes, now, for those who employ it, whether at the popular, political, or scholarly level. The focus here is on the efficacy, costs, and the tactical work carried out by dividing the world between religious and political, church and state, sacred and profane.

Author : Jeffrey C. Alexander,Philip Smith
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 446 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2005-05-26
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0521806720

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The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim by Jeffrey C. Alexander,Philip Smith Pdf

An authoritative and comprehensive collection of essays redefining the relevance of Durkheim to the human sciences in the twenty-first century.

Author : Arthur L. Greil,David G. Bromley
Publisher : Emerald Group Publishing
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0762309768

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Defining Religion by Arthur L. Greil,David G. Bromley Pdf

The debate over the proper definition of "religion" has occupied the attention of social scientists for many years without shedding much light on the nature of religion. This volume aims to inspire a re-orientation in the way students of religion think about the task of defining religion.

Author : Lawrence Cunningham,John Kelsay
Publisher : Prentice Hall
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0205191312

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The Sacred Quest by Lawrence Cunningham,John Kelsay Pdf

The Sacred Quest takes a thematic and comparative approach to the study of religion. It gives equal weight to theoretical issues and practices reflected in the major world religions. The text identifies the theoretical issues surrounding the study of religion and focuses on fundamental topics such as ritual and sacred language.

Author : William A. Richards
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2015-12-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780231540919

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Sacred Knowledge by William A. Richards Pdf

Sacred Knowledge is the first well-documented, sophisticated account of the effect of psychedelics on biological processes, human consciousness, and revelatory religious experiences. Based on nearly three decades of legal research with volunteers, William A. Richards argues that, if used responsibly and legally, psychedelics have the potential to assuage suffering and constructively affect the quality of human life. Richards's analysis contributes to social and political debates over the responsible integration of psychedelic substances into modern society. His book serves as an invaluable resource for readers who, whether spontaneously or with the facilitation of psychedelics, have encountered meaningful, inspiring, or even disturbing states of consciousness and seek clarity about their experiences. Testing the limits of language and conceptual frameworks, Richards makes the most of experiential phenomena that stretch our understanding of reality, advancing new frontiers in the study of belief, spiritual awakening, psychiatric treatment, and social well-being. His findings enrich humanities and scientific scholarship, expanding work in philosophy, anthropology, theology, and religious studies and bringing depth to research in mental health, psychotherapy, and psychopharmacology.

Author : Thomas Coomans
Publisher : Leuven University Press
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9789058678423

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Loci Sacri by Thomas Coomans Pdf

Sacred places are not static entities but reveal a historical dynamic. This volume explores both the cultural developments that have shaped them and their varied multidimensional levels of significance.

Author : Anne Warfield Rawls
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 371 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2005-05-12
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780511079146

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Epistemology and Practice by Anne Warfield Rawls Pdf

In this original and controversial book Professor Rawls argues that Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is the crowning achievement of his sociological endeavour and that since its publication in English in 1915 it has been consistently misunderstood. Rather than a work on primitive religion or the sociology of knowledge, Rawls asserts that it is an attempt by Durkheim to establish a unique epistemological basis for the study of sociology and moral relations. By privileging social practice over beliefs and ideas, it avoids the dilemmas inherent in philosophical approaches to knowledge and morality that are based on individualism and the tendency to privilege beliefs and ideas over practices, both tendencies that dominate western thought. Based on detailed textual analysis of the primary text, this book will be an important and original contribution to contemporary debates on social theory and philosophy.

Author : Lucas E. Morel
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2000-01-19
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780739157206

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Lincoln's Sacred Effort by Lucas E. Morel Pdf

Lucas Morel examines what the public life of Abraham Lincoln teaches about the role of religion in a self-governing society. Lincoln's understanding of the requirements of republican government led him to accommodate and direct religious sentiment toward responsible self-government. As a successful republic requires a moral or self-controlled people, Lincoln believed, the moral and religious sensibilities of a society should be nurtured.

Author : Martti Nissinen,Risto Uro
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 556 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2008-06-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9781575065724

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Sacred Marriages by Martti Nissinen,Risto Uro Pdf

The title of this volume, Sacred Marriages, consciously plays with the traditional concept of sacred marriage, but the plural form, “sacred marriages,” gives the reader an idea that something more is at stake here than a monomaniacal idea of manifestations deriving from a single prototype. Following the guidelines of one of the contributors, Ruben Zimmermann, the editors tentatively define “sacred marriage” as a “real or symbolic union of two complementary entities, imagined as gendered, in a religious context.” “Sacred marriages” (plural), then, refers to various expressions of this kind of union in different cultures that seek to overcome, to cite Zimmermann again, “the great dualism of human and cosmic existence.” The subtitle indicates that the contributors are primarily interested in different aspects of the divine-human sexual metaphor—that is, the imagining and reenactment of a gendered relationship between the human and divine worlds. This metaphor, which is essentially about relationship rather than sexual acts, can find textual, ritual, mythical, and social expressions in different times and places. Indeed, the sacred marriage ritual itself should be considered not a manifestation of the “sacralized power of sexuality experienced in sexual intercourse” but one way of objectifying the divine-human sexual metaphor.

Author : Margaret Coberly, Ph.D, RN
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2003-02-11
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 9781590300176

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Sacred Passage by Margaret Coberly, Ph.D, RN Pdf

Working as an emergency room nurse, Margaret Coberly came in contact with death on a daily basis. However, it wasn't until her own brother was diagnosed with terminal cancer that she realized she understood very little about the emotional and spiritual aspects of caring for the terminally ill. To fill this gap she turned to the unique wisdom on death and dying found in Tibetan Buddhism. In this book Coberly offers sound, practical advice on meeting the essential needs of the dying, integrating stories from her long career in nursing with useful insights from the Tibetan Buddhist teachings. In the West, death is viewed as a tragic and horrible event. Coberly shows us how this view generates fear and denial, which harm the dying by adding unnecessary loneliness, confusion, and mental anguish to the dying process. Tibetan Buddhism focuses on the nature of death and how to face it with honesty, openness, and courage. In this view, death is not a failure, but a natural part of life that, if properly understood and appreciated, can offer the dying and their loved ones an opportunity to gain valuable insight and wisdom. Coberly argues that the Tibetan Buddhist outlook can be a useful antidote to the culture of fear and denial that surrounds death in the West and can help caregivers become more fully present, fearless, honest, and compassionate. Sacred Passage highlights two very practical teachings on death and dying from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and presents them in clear, nontechnical language. Readers learn about the "eight stages of dissolution leading to death," a detailed roadmap of the dying process that describes the sequence of physical, psychological, and spiritual changes that occur as we die. Coberly also presents the "death meditation," a contemplative exercise for developing a new relationship to death—and life. The book also includes a lengthy, annotated list of recommended readings for added guidance and inspiration. Topics include: • How the terminally ill can experience emotional and spiritual healing even when they can't be cured • Why Western medicine's relentless focus on curing disease has led to inadequate care for the dying • What to expect during the dying process • How our fear and denial of death harm the dying • Techniques to help caregivers promote a peaceful environment for the dying and their loved ones • How to meet the changing physical and emotional needs of the dying • Helpful advice on what to say and how to behave around the terminally ill Registered nurses can earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs) by passing a written test based on this book. For more information, see http://www.shambhala.com/sacredpassage.