Andrei A. Znamenski
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195172317
- eISBN:
- 9780199785759
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195172317.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The increased attention given to shamanism in humanities studies and in popular culture since the 1960s is usually associated with two names: Mircea Eliade and Carlos Castaneda. Eliade, a ...
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The increased attention given to shamanism in humanities studies and in popular culture since the 1960s is usually associated with two names: Mircea Eliade and Carlos Castaneda. Eliade, a Romanian-born philosopher and religious scholar, released Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaiques de l'extase, the first grand treatise on shamanism, which became an academic bestseller after its revised translation was published in English as Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964). Also an immigrant, Castaneda published an experiential novel, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968), he captivated the minds of numerous spiritual seekers and served as an inspiration for many literary emulators. Eventually, Castaneda became one of the informal apostles of the “New Age” community. This chapter discusses the contribution of Eliade and Castaneda to shamanology and places them in the context of a time that contributed to the rise of interest in shamanism.Less
The increased attention given to shamanism in humanities studies and in popular culture since the 1960s is usually associated with two names: Mircea Eliade and Carlos Castaneda. Eliade, a Romanian-born philosopher and religious scholar, released Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaiques de l'extase, the first grand treatise on shamanism, which became an academic bestseller after its revised translation was published in English as Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964). Also an immigrant, Castaneda published an experiential novel, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968), he captivated the minds of numerous spiritual seekers and served as an inspiration for many literary emulators. Eventually, Castaneda became one of the informal apostles of the “New Age” community. This chapter discusses the contribution of Eliade and Castaneda to shamanology and places them in the context of a time that contributed to the rise of interest in shamanism.
Matthew Levering
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199535293
- eISBN:
- 9780191715839
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199535293.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
If natural law is natural, how and why should one speak of it in the context of biblical revelation and the grace of the Holy Spirit? What is the relationship of natural law and supernatural charity? ...
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If natural law is natural, how and why should one speak of it in the context of biblical revelation and the grace of the Holy Spirit? What is the relationship of natural law and supernatural charity? This chapter begins by probing modern assumptions about the relationship of love and law, which tend to be viewed as ultimately incompatible. Drawing upon the theology of Thomas Aquinas, it argues that the recovery of natural law which the chapter is urging enhances rather than constricts the human person's ability to give himself or herself in love. It explains more fully the consequences of the understanding of a God-centered and teleological natural law grounded in created receptivity.Less
If natural law is natural, how and why should one speak of it in the context of biblical revelation and the grace of the Holy Spirit? What is the relationship of natural law and supernatural charity? This chapter begins by probing modern assumptions about the relationship of love and law, which tend to be viewed as ultimately incompatible. Drawing upon the theology of Thomas Aquinas, it argues that the recovery of natural law which the chapter is urging enhances rather than constricts the human person's ability to give himself or herself in love. It explains more fully the consequences of the understanding of a God-centered and teleological natural law grounded in created receptivity.
Matthew Levering
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199535293
- eISBN:
- 9780191715839
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199535293.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This final chapter draws together the arguments presented in the book and makes some conclusions. Through exegesis of biblical texts and through philosophical and theological discussion, the chapters ...
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This final chapter draws together the arguments presented in the book and makes some conclusions. Through exegesis of biblical texts and through philosophical and theological discussion, the chapters of the book have defended a theocentric, teleological natural law whose lineaments are revealed in the Decalogue and which conforms to the graced life's pattern of ecstasis. All human beings know natural law experientially, clouded though this knowledge is by human fallenness, and so philosophers (paradigmatically Cicero) have been able to develop natural law doctrine without the aid of biblical revelation. The book has argued that biblical revelation enriches the intelligibility and persuasiveness of natural law doctrine, and especially that a rejection of biblical faith inclines one toward rejection of any fruitful sense of ‘natural law’.Less
This final chapter draws together the arguments presented in the book and makes some conclusions. Through exegesis of biblical texts and through philosophical and theological discussion, the chapters of the book have defended a theocentric, teleological natural law whose lineaments are revealed in the Decalogue and which conforms to the graced life's pattern of ecstasis. All human beings know natural law experientially, clouded though this knowledge is by human fallenness, and so philosophers (paradigmatically Cicero) have been able to develop natural law doctrine without the aid of biblical revelation. The book has argued that biblical revelation enriches the intelligibility and persuasiveness of natural law doctrine, and especially that a rejection of biblical faith inclines one toward rejection of any fruitful sense of ‘natural law’.
Gary L. Wenk
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195388541
- eISBN:
- 9780199863587
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388541.003.0003
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience, Neuroendocrine and Autonomic
The neurotransmitter norepinephrine influences your level of arousal while dopamine controls the experience of reward and pleasure. Amphetamine induces the release of norepinephrine and dopamine from ...
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The neurotransmitter norepinephrine influences your level of arousal while dopamine controls the experience of reward and pleasure. Amphetamine induces the release of norepinephrine and dopamine from neurons and greatly slows their inactivation; this produces heightened alertness, euphoria, depressed appetite, and insomnia. Naturally occurring substances that act similarly to amphetamine include ephedrine, khat, peyote, kava kava, asarone, and a large variety of common herbs. Cocaine also acts similarly to amphetamine. Over 100 years ago it became popular to mix wine with extracts from the coca plant; this lead to the appearance of a range of beverages, including Coca-Cola and Vin Mariani. In the 1950s, scientists discovered that blocking the actions of the dopamine in the brain was an effective way of treating the symptoms of psychosis. By considering how the extracts from various plants manipulate the actions of norepinephrine and dopamine within the brain, scientists have discovered some consistent patterns that allow us to make predictions about what to expect when specific types of chemicals are consumed.Less
The neurotransmitter norepinephrine influences your level of arousal while dopamine controls the experience of reward and pleasure. Amphetamine induces the release of norepinephrine and dopamine from neurons and greatly slows their inactivation; this produces heightened alertness, euphoria, depressed appetite, and insomnia. Naturally occurring substances that act similarly to amphetamine include ephedrine, khat, peyote, kava kava, asarone, and a large variety of common herbs. Cocaine also acts similarly to amphetamine. Over 100 years ago it became popular to mix wine with extracts from the coca plant; this lead to the appearance of a range of beverages, including Coca-Cola and Vin Mariani. In the 1950s, scientists discovered that blocking the actions of the dopamine in the brain was an effective way of treating the symptoms of psychosis. By considering how the extracts from various plants manipulate the actions of norepinephrine and dopamine within the brain, scientists have discovered some consistent patterns that allow us to make predictions about what to expect when specific types of chemicals are consumed.
Elliott Antokoletz
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195365825
- eISBN:
- 9780199868865
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195365825.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter first looks at Act IV, Scene 1, a room in the castle. This scene anticipates Pelléas's fate as foreseen by his father. It then next looks at Act IV, Scene 2, which presents Mélisande as ...
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This chapter first looks at Act IV, Scene 1, a room in the castle. This scene anticipates Pelléas's fate as foreseen by his father. It then next looks at Act IV, Scene 2, which presents Mélisande as symbol of resurrection as foreseen by Arkel, while Golaud's vengeance and Mélisande's hair are presented as a symbol of the Crucifixion. Next the chapter turns to Act IV, Scene 3 — a well in the park — which provides a symbol of the sacrificial lamb. Scene 4 is based on the love duet and the death of Pelléas. Finally, the chapter looks at Act IV, Scene 4, which addresses structure and proportion in the service of musico-dramatic development and emotional climax. This scene presents the “Shadows” motif and “Ecstasy” motif. The fusion of light and dark is represented by octatonic fusion of pentatonic and whole-tone sets. The scene culminates with Golaud's vengeance and the fulfillment of fate.Less
This chapter first looks at Act IV, Scene 1, a room in the castle. This scene anticipates Pelléas's fate as foreseen by his father. It then next looks at Act IV, Scene 2, which presents Mélisande as symbol of resurrection as foreseen by Arkel, while Golaud's vengeance and Mélisande's hair are presented as a symbol of the Crucifixion. Next the chapter turns to Act IV, Scene 3 — a well in the park — which provides a symbol of the sacrificial lamb. Scene 4 is based on the love duet and the death of Pelléas. Finally, the chapter looks at Act IV, Scene 4, which addresses structure and proportion in the service of musico-dramatic development and emotional climax. This scene presents the “Shadows” motif and “Ecstasy” motif. The fusion of light and dark is represented by octatonic fusion of pentatonic and whole-tone sets. The scene culminates with Golaud's vengeance and the fulfillment of fate.
Patrik Hagman
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199593194
- eISBN:
- 9780191595677
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199593194.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
The goals of the ascetic life can be described in various ways, and in this chapter three such symbols are studied. Ecstasy is described by Isaac variously as the experience of leaving both the body ...
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The goals of the ascetic life can be described in various ways, and in this chapter three such symbols are studied. Ecstasy is described by Isaac variously as the experience of leaving both the body and the world behind, which based on chapters three and four adds important knowledge to the connection between asceticism and Isaac's criticism of society. Spiritual knowledge for Isaac is understood as a foretaste of life in the coming world, and thus have a strong character of mystical union. Humility is the most important goal of the transformation process asceticism involves, as is ultimately about becoming an icon of the triune God, whose humility is apparent in the Incarnation.Less
The goals of the ascetic life can be described in various ways, and in this chapter three such symbols are studied. Ecstasy is described by Isaac variously as the experience of leaving both the body and the world behind, which based on chapters three and four adds important knowledge to the connection between asceticism and Isaac's criticism of society. Spiritual knowledge for Isaac is understood as a foretaste of life in the coming world, and thus have a strong character of mystical union. Humility is the most important goal of the transformation process asceticism involves, as is ultimately about becoming an icon of the triune God, whose humility is apparent in the Incarnation.
Frida Beckman (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748642618
- eISBN:
- 9780748671755
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748642618.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
For Deleuze, sexuality is a force that can capture as well as liberate life. Its flows tend to be repressed and contained in specific forms while at the same time they retain revolutionary potential. ...
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For Deleuze, sexuality is a force that can capture as well as liberate life. Its flows tend to be repressed and contained in specific forms while at the same time they retain revolutionary potential. There is immense power in the thousand sexes of desiring-machines, and sexuality is seen as a source of becoming. This book gathers prominent Deleuze scholars to explore the restricting and liberating forces of sexuality in relation to a spread of central themes in Deleuze's philosophy, including politics, psychoanalysis and friendship as well as specific topics such as the body-machine, disability, feminism and erotics.Less
For Deleuze, sexuality is a force that can capture as well as liberate life. Its flows tend to be repressed and contained in specific forms while at the same time they retain revolutionary potential. There is immense power in the thousand sexes of desiring-machines, and sexuality is seen as a source of becoming. This book gathers prominent Deleuze scholars to explore the restricting and liberating forces of sexuality in relation to a spread of central themes in Deleuze's philosophy, including politics, psychoanalysis and friendship as well as specific topics such as the body-machine, disability, feminism and erotics.
Anna Powell
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748632824
- eISBN:
- 9780748651139
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748632824.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book offers a typology of altered states, defining dream, hallucination, memory, trance and ecstasy in their cinematic expression, and presenting altered states films as significant ...
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This book offers a typology of altered states, defining dream, hallucination, memory, trance and ecstasy in their cinematic expression, and presenting altered states films as significant neurological, psychological and philosophical experiences. Chapters engage with films that simultaneously present and induce altered consciousness, and consider dream states and the popularisation of alterity in drugs films. The altered bodies of erotic arousal and trance states are explored, using haptics and synaesthesia. Cinematic distortions of space and time, as well as new digital and fractal directions, are opened up. The text's distinctive re-mapping of the film experience as altered state uses a Deleuzian approach to explore how cinema alters us by ‘affective contamination’. Arguing that specific cinematic techniques derange the senses and the mind, the author makes an assemblage of philosophy and art, counter-cultural writers and filmmakers to provide insights into the cinematic event as intoxication. The book applies Deleuze, alone and with Guattari, to mainstream films such as Donnie Darko, as well as arthouse and experimental cinema. Offering innovative readings of ‘classic’ altered states movies such as 2001, Performance and Easy Rider, it includes ‘avant-garde’ and ‘underground’ work. The book asserts the Deleuzian approach as itself a kind of altered state that explodes habitual ways of thinking and feeling.Less
This book offers a typology of altered states, defining dream, hallucination, memory, trance and ecstasy in their cinematic expression, and presenting altered states films as significant neurological, psychological and philosophical experiences. Chapters engage with films that simultaneously present and induce altered consciousness, and consider dream states and the popularisation of alterity in drugs films. The altered bodies of erotic arousal and trance states are explored, using haptics and synaesthesia. Cinematic distortions of space and time, as well as new digital and fractal directions, are opened up. The text's distinctive re-mapping of the film experience as altered state uses a Deleuzian approach to explore how cinema alters us by ‘affective contamination’. Arguing that specific cinematic techniques derange the senses and the mind, the author makes an assemblage of philosophy and art, counter-cultural writers and filmmakers to provide insights into the cinematic event as intoxication. The book applies Deleuze, alone and with Guattari, to mainstream films such as Donnie Darko, as well as arthouse and experimental cinema. Offering innovative readings of ‘classic’ altered states movies such as 2001, Performance and Easy Rider, it includes ‘avant-garde’ and ‘underground’ work. The book asserts the Deleuzian approach as itself a kind of altered state that explodes habitual ways of thinking and feeling.
Peter J. Thuesen
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195174274
- eISBN:
- 9780199872138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195174274.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, Church History
This chapter begins by examining the predestinarian orthodoxy, codified by the confessions of Dort and Westminster, that Puritans brought to America. As Calvinists, Puritans insisted on unconditional ...
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This chapter begins by examining the predestinarian orthodoxy, codified by the confessions of Dort and Westminster, that Puritans brought to America. As Calvinists, Puritans insisted on unconditional election—the counter to the Arminian position that God elected persons conditionally, or based on his foresight of their faith—but they disagreed on the logic of God's electing decrees. Thus arose the debate between supralapsarians and infralapsarians over whether God's electing choice came before or after his decrees of Creation and the Fall. The concept of the covenant, which demanded a response to God even in the face absolute predestination, introduced another layer of complexity. The chapter then turns to the covenant's everyday consequences for individuals, revisiting the question (made famous by sociologist Max Weber) of whether predestination engendered agony or ecstasy. In fact, Puritanism indoctrinated both—an elusive hybrid of anxiety and assurance.Less
This chapter begins by examining the predestinarian orthodoxy, codified by the confessions of Dort and Westminster, that Puritans brought to America. As Calvinists, Puritans insisted on unconditional election—the counter to the Arminian position that God elected persons conditionally, or based on his foresight of their faith—but they disagreed on the logic of God's electing decrees. Thus arose the debate between supralapsarians and infralapsarians over whether God's electing choice came before or after his decrees of Creation and the Fall. The concept of the covenant, which demanded a response to God even in the face absolute predestination, introduced another layer of complexity. The chapter then turns to the covenant's everyday consequences for individuals, revisiting the question (made famous by sociologist Max Weber) of whether predestination engendered agony or ecstasy. In fact, Puritanism indoctrinated both—an elusive hybrid of anxiety and assurance.
Stephen Halliwell
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199570560
- eISBN:
- 9780191738753
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570560.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book offers a series of detailed, challenging interpretations of some of the most important texts in the history of ancient Greek poetics: the Homeric epics, Aristophanes' Frogs, Plato's ...
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This book offers a series of detailed, challenging interpretations of some of the most important texts in the history of ancient Greek poetics: the Homeric epics, Aristophanes' Frogs, Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Poetics, Gorgias' Helen, Isocrates' treatises, Philodemus' On Poems, and Longinus, On the Sublime. Its fundamental concern is with how the Greeks conceptualized the experience of poetry and debated the value of that experience. The book's organizing theme is a recurrent Greek dialectic between ideas of poetry as, on the one hand, a powerfully enthralling experience in its own right (a kind of ‘ecstasy’) and, on the other, a medium for the expression of truths which can exercise lasting influence on its audiences' views of the world. Citing a wide range of modern scholarship, and making frequent connections with later periods of literary theory and aesthetics, the book questions many orthodoxies and received opinions about the texts it analyses. The resulting perspective casts new light on ways in which Greeks attempted to make sense of the psychology of poetic experience—including the roles of emotion, ethics, imagination, and knowledge—in the life of their culture. This also shows that we ourselves still have much to learn from re-engaging with those attempts.Less
This book offers a series of detailed, challenging interpretations of some of the most important texts in the history of ancient Greek poetics: the Homeric epics, Aristophanes' Frogs, Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Poetics, Gorgias' Helen, Isocrates' treatises, Philodemus' On Poems, and Longinus, On the Sublime. Its fundamental concern is with how the Greeks conceptualized the experience of poetry and debated the value of that experience. The book's organizing theme is a recurrent Greek dialectic between ideas of poetry as, on the one hand, a powerfully enthralling experience in its own right (a kind of ‘ecstasy’) and, on the other, a medium for the expression of truths which can exercise lasting influence on its audiences' views of the world. Citing a wide range of modern scholarship, and making frequent connections with later periods of literary theory and aesthetics, the book questions many orthodoxies and received opinions about the texts it analyses. The resulting perspective casts new light on ways in which Greeks attempted to make sense of the psychology of poetic experience—including the roles of emotion, ethics, imagination, and knowledge—in the life of their culture. This also shows that we ourselves still have much to learn from re-engaging with those attempts.
Lindsay V. Reckson
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479803323
- eISBN:
- 9781479842452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479803323.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
The coda offers a reflection on the extent to which ecstasy abuts terror in post-Reconstruction realism. Rather than rehearsing fantasies of transcendence—of getting beyond histories of racial ...
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The coda offers a reflection on the extent to which ecstasy abuts terror in post-Reconstruction realism. Rather than rehearsing fantasies of transcendence—of getting beyond histories of racial slavery, colonialism, genocide, and removal—ecstasy signals our being beside and within them.Less
The coda offers a reflection on the extent to which ecstasy abuts terror in post-Reconstruction realism. Rather than rehearsing fantasies of transcendence—of getting beyond histories of racial slavery, colonialism, genocide, and removal—ecstasy signals our being beside and within them.
Lindsay V. Reckson
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479803323
- eISBN:
- 9781479842452
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479803323.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Realist Ecstasy: Religion, Race, and Performance in American Literature recovers a series of ecstatic performances in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American realism. From camp meetings ...
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Realist Ecstasy: Religion, Race, and Performance in American Literature recovers a series of ecstatic performances in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American realism. From camp meetings to Native American ghost dances to storefront church revivals, Realist Ecstasy explores how realism represents ecstatic bodies as objects of fascination, transforming spiritual experience into the very material of realist description. In an era of “separate but equal” religious pluralism and systematic racial terror, realism mobilized the gestural and performative idioms of religious ecstasy to confront ongoing histories of violence and imagine new modes of social affiliation. Realist Ecstasy demonstrates how the realist imagining of possessed bodies helped produce and naturalize racial difference, while excavating the complex, shifting, and dynamic possibilities embedded in ecstatic performance. Approaching realism as both an unruly archive of performance and a wide-ranging repertoire of media practices, Realist Ecstasy argues that the real was repetitively enacted and reenacted through bodily practice, at a moment when the body’s capacity to reliably signify was everywhere at stake. Interrogating realist practices that worked to order, disorder, and reify racial and religious difference under Jim Crow, Realist Ecstasy challenges and transforms conventional understandings of realism’s relationship to histories of secularization, while reframing secularism itself as a densely heterogeneous set of performances and representations.Less
Realist Ecstasy: Religion, Race, and Performance in American Literature recovers a series of ecstatic performances in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American realism. From camp meetings to Native American ghost dances to storefront church revivals, Realist Ecstasy explores how realism represents ecstatic bodies as objects of fascination, transforming spiritual experience into the very material of realist description. In an era of “separate but equal” religious pluralism and systematic racial terror, realism mobilized the gestural and performative idioms of religious ecstasy to confront ongoing histories of violence and imagine new modes of social affiliation. Realist Ecstasy demonstrates how the realist imagining of possessed bodies helped produce and naturalize racial difference, while excavating the complex, shifting, and dynamic possibilities embedded in ecstatic performance. Approaching realism as both an unruly archive of performance and a wide-ranging repertoire of media practices, Realist Ecstasy argues that the real was repetitively enacted and reenacted through bodily practice, at a moment when the body’s capacity to reliably signify was everywhere at stake. Interrogating realist practices that worked to order, disorder, and reify racial and religious difference under Jim Crow, Realist Ecstasy challenges and transforms conventional understandings of realism’s relationship to histories of secularization, while reframing secularism itself as a densely heterogeneous set of performances and representations.
Tony James
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151883
- eISBN:
- 9780191672873
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151883.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, European Literature
This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by 19th-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of ...
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This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by 19th-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of madness, wrote Voltaire, should observe their dreams. The relationship between the dream-state and madness is a key theme of 19th-century European, and specifically French, thought. The meaning of dreams and associated phenomena such as somnambulism, ecstasy, and hallucinations (including those induced by hashish) preoccupied writers, philosophers, and psychiatrists. This book shows how doctors (such as Esquirol, Lélut, and Janet), thinkers (including Maine de Biran and Taine), and writers (for example, Balzac, Nerval, Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, and Rimbaud) grappled in very different ways with the problems raised by the so-called ‘phenomena of sleep’. Were historical figures such as Socrates or Pascal in fact mad? Might dreaming be a source of creativity, rather than a merely subsidiary, ‘automatic’ function? What of lucid dreaming? By exploring these questions, this book makes good a considerable gap in the history of pre-Freudian psychology.Less
This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by 19th-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of madness, wrote Voltaire, should observe their dreams. The relationship between the dream-state and madness is a key theme of 19th-century European, and specifically French, thought. The meaning of dreams and associated phenomena such as somnambulism, ecstasy, and hallucinations (including those induced by hashish) preoccupied writers, philosophers, and psychiatrists. This book shows how doctors (such as Esquirol, Lélut, and Janet), thinkers (including Maine de Biran and Taine), and writers (for example, Balzac, Nerval, Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, and Rimbaud) grappled in very different ways with the problems raised by the so-called ‘phenomena of sleep’. Were historical figures such as Socrates or Pascal in fact mad? Might dreaming be a source of creativity, rather than a merely subsidiary, ‘automatic’ function? What of lucid dreaming? By exploring these questions, this book makes good a considerable gap in the history of pre-Freudian psychology.
Stephen Halliwell
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199570560
- eISBN:
- 9780191738753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570560.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Starting from the song of Phemius in Odyssey 1, with the divergent reactions to it of the suitors, Penelope, and Telemachus, this chapter introduces some of the competing views of poetry which ...
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Starting from the song of Phemius in Odyssey 1, with the divergent reactions to it of the suitors, Penelope, and Telemachus, this chapter introduces some of the competing views of poetry which developed in ancient Greek culture. In particular, it formulates the book's organizing contrast between the values of ‘ecstasy’ (poetic experience as a transformative act of imaginative and emotional engagement) and ‘truth’ (whether descriptive or normative). In considering ideas of poetry's relationship to reality, the chapter also poses the complex question whether ancient Greeks had a concept of fiction. The themes of the book are illustrated through two preliminary case studies: the Muses' message to Hesiod in the Theogony, and the counterpoint between poetry and history in Thucydides. There is also a full synopsis of the remaining chapters.Less
Starting from the song of Phemius in Odyssey 1, with the divergent reactions to it of the suitors, Penelope, and Telemachus, this chapter introduces some of the competing views of poetry which developed in ancient Greek culture. In particular, it formulates the book's organizing contrast between the values of ‘ecstasy’ (poetic experience as a transformative act of imaginative and emotional engagement) and ‘truth’ (whether descriptive or normative). In considering ideas of poetry's relationship to reality, the chapter also poses the complex question whether ancient Greeks had a concept of fiction. The themes of the book are illustrated through two preliminary case studies: the Muses' message to Hesiod in the Theogony, and the counterpoint between poetry and history in Thucydides. There is also a full synopsis of the remaining chapters.
Stephen Halliwell
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199570560
- eISBN:
- 9780191738753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570560.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter argues that the treatise On the Sublime combines ecstasy (the ‘thunderbolt’ impact of the sublime) with truth (an expansion of the mind's grasp of reality) into a distinctive paradigm of ...
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This chapter argues that the treatise On the Sublime combines ecstasy (the ‘thunderbolt’ impact of the sublime) with truth (an expansion of the mind's grasp of reality) into a distinctive paradigm of the creative power of language. The sublime has a basis of intersubjectivity in the transformative echoes of ‘great thought’ communicated between author and audience; it also generates a surplus of meaning for renewed contemplation. What counts as the truth of the sublime is carefully explicated: it emerges not as a matter of particular propositional beliefs but an amalgam of intuition, emotion, and metaphysics. The sublime is ultimately an experience of the mind's own infinity, its capacity to transcend even the boundaries of the cosmos in a heightened awareness of the processes of thought and feeling.Less
This chapter argues that the treatise On the Sublime combines ecstasy (the ‘thunderbolt’ impact of the sublime) with truth (an expansion of the mind's grasp of reality) into a distinctive paradigm of the creative power of language. The sublime has a basis of intersubjectivity in the transformative echoes of ‘great thought’ communicated between author and audience; it also generates a surplus of meaning for renewed contemplation. What counts as the truth of the sublime is carefully explicated: it emerges not as a matter of particular propositional beliefs but an amalgam of intuition, emotion, and metaphysics. The sublime is ultimately an experience of the mind's own infinity, its capacity to transcend even the boundaries of the cosmos in a heightened awareness of the processes of thought and feeling.
Susannah Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199579358
- eISBN:
- 9780191595226
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579358.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries), European Literature
This chapter examines the case of Pauline Lair Lamotte, a self‐proclaimed mystic under the care of Pierre Janet at the Salpêtrière during the 1880s and 1890s. This patient experienced stigmata and ...
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This chapter examines the case of Pauline Lair Lamotte, a self‐proclaimed mystic under the care of Pierre Janet at the Salpêtrière during the 1880s and 1890s. This patient experienced stigmata and religious ecstasies, interpreted by Janet as a ‘délire d'union avec Dieu’. The shifting mental states described by Lamotte are examined in three sections: first, her ‘état de consolation’ is read as a manifestation of narrative energy being inwardly directed, constructing a textual refusal of reality and retreat into blissful isolation; second, the ‘état de torture’ or ‘délire de séparation avec Dieu’ is considered as a painful form of refusal, in which energy is outwardly directed; finally, the intermediary states are read simultaneously as a subversive voice in dialogue and a passive voice of resignation. Although Lamotte was a marginal figure and not a member of the women's movement, this chapter concludes that her writing reflected the feminist concerns of its era: hope for change and a challenge to patriarchy. Lamotte's delusions serve the purpose of metaphorically reversing her limited status by providing a realm of rich and dramatic experience denied her in ‘reality’.Less
This chapter examines the case of Pauline Lair Lamotte, a self‐proclaimed mystic under the care of Pierre Janet at the Salpêtrière during the 1880s and 1890s. This patient experienced stigmata and religious ecstasies, interpreted by Janet as a ‘délire d'union avec Dieu’. The shifting mental states described by Lamotte are examined in three sections: first, her ‘état de consolation’ is read as a manifestation of narrative energy being inwardly directed, constructing a textual refusal of reality and retreat into blissful isolation; second, the ‘état de torture’ or ‘délire de séparation avec Dieu’ is considered as a painful form of refusal, in which energy is outwardly directed; finally, the intermediary states are read simultaneously as a subversive voice in dialogue and a passive voice of resignation. Although Lamotte was a marginal figure and not a member of the women's movement, this chapter concludes that her writing reflected the feminist concerns of its era: hope for change and a challenge to patriarchy. Lamotte's delusions serve the purpose of metaphorically reversing her limited status by providing a realm of rich and dramatic experience denied her in ‘reality’.
Tony James
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151883
- eISBN:
- 9780191672873
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151883.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, European Literature
This chapter focuses on Alexandre Bertrand. Bertrand, trained as a doctor and engineer, had a practical and scientific attitude towards the study of mesmerism and somnambulism, even so he did not ...
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This chapter focuses on Alexandre Bertrand. Bertrand, trained as a doctor and engineer, had a practical and scientific attitude towards the study of mesmerism and somnambulism, even so he did not hesitate to change some of his initial beliefs. He published two important works. One was the Traité du somnambulisme (1823) and the other was his Histoire critique du magnétisme animal en France (1826). This work explains how he had been led to the conclusion that animal magnetism does not exist, thus changing the opinion he had held in his previous work and in his public lectures. Bertrand was a major contributor on medical matters to the ‘liberal romantic’ journal Le Globe and the series of articles he wrote in 1825 publicized his revised ideas before they became available in book form. His distinctive contribution was to see somnambulism as a kind of ecstasy, and he used historical material.Less
This chapter focuses on Alexandre Bertrand. Bertrand, trained as a doctor and engineer, had a practical and scientific attitude towards the study of mesmerism and somnambulism, even so he did not hesitate to change some of his initial beliefs. He published two important works. One was the Traité du somnambulisme (1823) and the other was his Histoire critique du magnétisme animal en France (1826). This work explains how he had been led to the conclusion that animal magnetism does not exist, thus changing the opinion he had held in his previous work and in his public lectures. Bertrand was a major contributor on medical matters to the ‘liberal romantic’ journal Le Globe and the series of articles he wrote in 1825 publicized his revised ideas before they became available in book form. His distinctive contribution was to see somnambulism as a kind of ecstasy, and he used historical material.
Shahar Arzy and Moshe Idel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300152364
- eISBN:
- 9780300152371
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300152364.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
The second chapter highlights the central role of ecstasy in mysticism and subsequently presents the four main Kabbalistic ecstatic experiences: autoscopic ecstasy, ascension ecstasy, unitive ...
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The second chapter highlights the central role of ecstasy in mysticism and subsequently presents the four main Kabbalistic ecstatic experiences: autoscopic ecstasy, ascension ecstasy, unitive ecstasy, and dissociative ecstasy.Less
The second chapter highlights the central role of ecstasy in mysticism and subsequently presents the four main Kabbalistic ecstatic experiences: autoscopic ecstasy, ascension ecstasy, unitive ecstasy, and dissociative ecstasy.
David L. Weddle
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780814764916
- eISBN:
- 9780814762813
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814764916.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
Sacrifice is the cost of religion, paid in many ways, including donations, ascetic self-denial, prayer, fasting, mystical ecstasy, imitative suffering, ritual offerings, and martyrdom. Common ...
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Sacrifice is the cost of religion, paid in many ways, including donations, ascetic self-denial, prayer, fasting, mystical ecstasy, imitative suffering, ritual offerings, and martyrdom. Common religious discourse uses “sacrifice” to describe a wide array of events and actions that exhibit common features, such as reference to transcendence, conditionality of the offering, and an element of self-giving. For Judaism, Christianity, and Islam a guiding example of sacrifice is the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, who was willing to offer his son to God as a burnt offering. Each tradition appropriates the story in different ways, but they all uphold sacrifice as a means of relating to the sacred and as an ideal of human conduct. Most theories of sacrifice locate its function in the formation of social order, but this book focuses on sacrifice as the exchange of concrete natural and human goods for abstract spiritual benefits. As such, sacrifice both signifies a transcendent ideal of individual or communal fulfilment and poses a moral danger of sanctioning the imposition of that ideal on others. In Judaism and Christianity, animal sacrifice is displaced by acts of devotion to God and charity toward others; in Islam, animal sacrifice remains a religious duty during pilgrimage to Mecca but is understood as an expression of gratitude to God and a donation to those in need throughout the Islamic world. Thus, each tradition interprets sacrifice as both religious ideal and moral obligation.Less
Sacrifice is the cost of religion, paid in many ways, including donations, ascetic self-denial, prayer, fasting, mystical ecstasy, imitative suffering, ritual offerings, and martyrdom. Common religious discourse uses “sacrifice” to describe a wide array of events and actions that exhibit common features, such as reference to transcendence, conditionality of the offering, and an element of self-giving. For Judaism, Christianity, and Islam a guiding example of sacrifice is the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, who was willing to offer his son to God as a burnt offering. Each tradition appropriates the story in different ways, but they all uphold sacrifice as a means of relating to the sacred and as an ideal of human conduct. Most theories of sacrifice locate its function in the formation of social order, but this book focuses on sacrifice as the exchange of concrete natural and human goods for abstract spiritual benefits. As such, sacrifice both signifies a transcendent ideal of individual or communal fulfilment and poses a moral danger of sanctioning the imposition of that ideal on others. In Judaism and Christianity, animal sacrifice is displaced by acts of devotion to God and charity toward others; in Islam, animal sacrifice remains a religious duty during pilgrimage to Mecca but is understood as an expression of gratitude to God and a donation to those in need throughout the Islamic world. Thus, each tradition interprets sacrifice as both religious ideal and moral obligation.
Keith E. McNeal
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037363
- eISBN:
- 9780813042121
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037363.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
The prologue launches the book with two anecdotes experienced by the author engaging with African and Hindu spirit mediums, which introduce the reader to the practice of trance performance as well as ...
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The prologue launches the book with two anecdotes experienced by the author engaging with African and Hindu spirit mediums, which introduce the reader to the practice of trance performance as well as the local traditions of spirit mediumship in Trinidad focused upon here: Orisha Worship and Shakti Puja. The notion of ecstasy used throughout is also introduced.Less
The prologue launches the book with two anecdotes experienced by the author engaging with African and Hindu spirit mediums, which introduce the reader to the practice of trance performance as well as the local traditions of spirit mediumship in Trinidad focused upon here: Orisha Worship and Shakti Puja. The notion of ecstasy used throughout is also introduced.
