Author: Jordan Paper File Type: pdf Explores the human experience of mysticism and looks at it within the spiritual traditions around the world. The mystic, zero, or void experiencethe ecstatic disappearance of self along with everything elseis considered by those who have had it to be the most beautiful, blissful, positive, profound, and significant experience of their lives. Offering both a descriptive and a comparative perspective, this book explores the mystic experience across cultures as both a human and cultural event. The book begins and ends with descriptions of the authors own mystical experiences, and looks at self-reported experiences by individuals who do not link their experiences to a religious tradition, to determine characteristics of this universal human experience. These characteristics are compared to statements of acknowledged mystics in diverse religious traditions. The mystic experience is also situated within other ecstatic religious experiences to distinguish it from similar, but distinct, experiences such as lucid dreams, shamanism, and mediumism. Jordan Paper goes on to look at how the mystic experience has been considered in various fields, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, biology, and comparative religious studies. Jordan Paper is Professor Emeritus of Humanities at York University and Associate Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria. He has written several books, including Offering Smoke The Sacred Pipe and Native American Religion and The Chinese Way in Religion, Second Edition (coedited with Laurence G. Thompson). Preface Acknowledgments ollIntroduction lolblockquoteAn Eventbr General Characteristics of the Eventbr A Name for the Experiencebr The Mystic Experience in Cultural Contextbr A Caution to Readers blockquoteollPhenomenology (Descriptive Analysis) of the Mystic Experience lolblockquoteNaive Reportsbr Reports by Professional Mysticsbr Conclusions blockquoteollThe Varieties of Ecstatic Experience lolblockquoteHuman Nature and Ecstatic Experiencesbr Functional Ecstasies blockquoteVisions, Lucid Dreams, and Problem-Solvingbr Dreamsbr Shamanismbr Mediumism br Prophecy blockquoteNonfunctional Ecstasies blockquoteUnitive Experiencesbr Pure Consciousnessbr The Mystic Experience blockquoteblockquoteollPrevious Studies lolblockquotePhilosophical Analysesbr Psychological Analysesbr Sociological Analysesbr Anthropological Analyses br Combined Approaches Anthropology and Psychologybr Biological Analysesbr Near-Death Experience Studiesbr Comparative Religion Studies blockquoteollEthnohermeneutics I Non-West lolblockquoteShamanistic and Mediumistic Traditionsbr South Asia blockquoteThe Upanishadsbr Hinduismbr Buddhism blockquoteChinese Religion blockquoteollEthnohermeneutics II West lolblockquotePlotinusbr Judaism blockquoteChristianitybr Catholicism blockquoteOrthodoxybr Islambr Modern Secular Mysticism blockquoteCosmic Consciousnessbr Absolute Consciousness blockquoteblockquoteollConclusions The Mystic Experience and Human Nature lolblockquoteA Phenomenological Assessmentbr Comparative Ethnohermeneuticsbr Summary blockquoteWorks Consulted Index **

Author: Keith Thomas File Type: epub Throughout the ages man has struggled with his perceived place in the natural world. The idea of humans cultivating the Earth to suit specific needs is one of the greatest points of contention in this struggle. For how would have civilization progressed, if not by the clearance of the forests, the cultivation of the soil, and the conservation of wild landscape into human settlement? Yet what of the healing powers of unexploited nature, its long-term importance in the perpetuation of human civilization, and the inherent beauty of wild scenery? At no time were these questions addressed as pointedly and with such great consequence as in England between the sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. Between 1500 and 1800 there occurred a whole cluster of changes in the way in which men and women, at all social levels, perceived and classified the natural world around them, explains Keith Thomas. New sensibilities arose toward animals, plants, and landscape. The relationship of man to other species was redefined and his right to exploit those species for his own advantage was sharply challenged. Man and the Natural World aims not just to explain present interest in preserving the environment and protecting the rights of animals, but to reconstruct an earlier mental world. Thomas seeks to expose the assumptions beneath the perceptions, reasonings, and feelings of the inhabitants of early modern England toward the animals, birds, vegetation, and physical landscape among which they spent their lives, often in conditions of proximity which are now difficult for us to appreciate. It was a time when a conviction of mans ascendancy over the natural world gave way to a new concern for the environment and sense of kinship with other species. Here, for example, Thomas illustrates the changing attitudes toward the woodlands. John Morton observed in 1712, In a country full of civilized inhabitants timber could not be suffered to grow. It must give way to fields and pastures, which are of more immediate use and concern to life. Shortly thereafter, in 1763, Edwin Lascelles pronounced the The beauty of a country consists chiefly in the wood. Peoples relationships with animals were also in the process of dramatic change as seen in their growing obsession with pet keeping. The use of human names for animals, the fact that pets were rarely eaten, though not for gastronomic reasons, and pets being included in family portraits and often fed better than the servants all demonstrated a major shift in mans position on human uniqueness. The issues raised in this fascinating work are even more alive today than they were just ten years ago. Preserving the environment, saving the rain forests, and preventing the extinction of species may seem like fairly recent concerns, however, Man and the Natural World explores how these ideas took root long ago. These issues have much to offer not only environmental activists, but historians as well, for it is impossible to disentangle what the people of the past thought about plants and animals from what they thought about themselves. **