Ann Taves
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691131016
- eISBN:
- 9781400884469
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691131016.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
Unseen presences. Apparitions. Hearing voices. Although some people would find such experiences to be distressing and seek clinical help, others perceive them as transformative. Occasionally, these ...
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Unseen presences. Apparitions. Hearing voices. Although some people would find such experiences to be distressing and seek clinical help, others perceive them as transformative. Occasionally, these unusual phenomena give rise to new spiritual paths or religious movements. This book provides fresh insights into what is perhaps the bedrock of all religious belief—the claim that otherworldly powers are active in human affairs. The book looks at Mormonism, Alcoholics Anonymous, and A Course in Miracles—three cases in which insiders claimed that a spiritual presence guided the emergence of a new spiritual path. In the 1820s, Joseph Smith, Jr. reportedly translated the Book of Mormon from ancient gold plates unearthed with the help of an angel. Bill Wilson cofounded AA after having an ecstatic experience while hospitalized for alcoholism in 1934. Helen Schucman scribed the words of an inner voice that she attributed to Jesus, which formed the basis of her 1976 best-selling self-study course. In each case, the book argues, the sense of a guiding presence emerged through a complex, creative interaction between a founding figure with unusual mental abilities and an initial set of collaborators who were drawn into the process by diverse motives of their own. This book traces the very human processes behind such events.Less
Unseen presences. Apparitions. Hearing voices. Although some people would find such experiences to be distressing and seek clinical help, others perceive them as transformative. Occasionally, these unusual phenomena give rise to new spiritual paths or religious movements. This book provides fresh insights into what is perhaps the bedrock of all religious belief—the claim that otherworldly powers are active in human affairs. The book looks at Mormonism, Alcoholics Anonymous, and A Course in Miracles—three cases in which insiders claimed that a spiritual presence guided the emergence of a new spiritual path. In the 1820s, Joseph Smith, Jr. reportedly translated the Book of Mormon from ancient gold plates unearthed with the help of an angel. Bill Wilson cofounded AA after having an ecstatic experience while hospitalized for alcoholism in 1934. Helen Schucman scribed the words of an inner voice that she attributed to Jesus, which formed the basis of her 1976 best-selling self-study course. In each case, the book argues, the sense of a guiding presence emerged through a complex, creative interaction between a founding figure with unusual mental abilities and an initial set of collaborators who were drawn into the process by diverse motives of their own. This book traces the very human processes behind such events.
Thomas Buckley
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520233584
- eISBN:
- 9780520936447
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520233584.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter is a descriptive account detailing the typology of communal spiritual experts, the “doctors,” based on native testimony, statements, and storytelling. In the ethnographic accounts, ...
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This chapter is a descriptive account detailing the typology of communal spiritual experts, the “doctors,” based on native testimony, statements, and storytelling. In the ethnographic accounts, “doctor” is projected as an exemplar of those commanding power. The chapter follows a continuum, one that continues to form an associational field in contemporary local discourse on “doctors.” Based on this continuum, doctors arise along a gamut of people with increasing powers to “do” things, “on purpose, every time,” at “higher and higher” levels. Many Indian people in northwestern California have had a variety of extraordinary “powers” gained through the inheritance or purchase of set prayers. These prayers, usually used in conjunction with herbs, have been the bases for making medicine toward a variety of ends, both good and bad. Thus, Yurok Indian doctors have risen along a continuum of human practitioners and powers and spiritual presences.Less
This chapter is a descriptive account detailing the typology of communal spiritual experts, the “doctors,” based on native testimony, statements, and storytelling. In the ethnographic accounts, “doctor” is projected as an exemplar of those commanding power. The chapter follows a continuum, one that continues to form an associational field in contemporary local discourse on “doctors.” Based on this continuum, doctors arise along a gamut of people with increasing powers to “do” things, “on purpose, every time,” at “higher and higher” levels. Many Indian people in northwestern California have had a variety of extraordinary “powers” gained through the inheritance or purchase of set prayers. These prayers, usually used in conjunction with herbs, have been the bases for making medicine toward a variety of ends, both good and bad. Thus, Yurok Indian doctors have risen along a continuum of human practitioners and powers and spiritual presences.
Peter C. Hodgson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198754176
- eISBN:
- 9780191815904
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198754176.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, Biblical Studies
The third period falls into the latter part of the second century. Baur’s first book in NT studies was on the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus); he concluded that these Epistles could not ...
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The third period falls into the latter part of the second century. Baur’s first book in NT studies was on the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus); he concluded that these Epistles could not have been written by Paul because of their polemic against Gnostic heretics. The greater part of Baur’s discussion here focuses on the Gospel of John, which he interprets as a culmination of the NT writings with its claim that Jesus is the incarnate Logos (Word) of God. The stories about Jesus’ teachings and healings are not historical reports but rather devices for the elaboration of the Johannine christology. The Gospel expresses an ideality relating to faith, love, eternal life, and spiritual presence, but it does so at the price of a polemic against the Jews and an idealizing of Jesus. In both positive and negative aspects, it has powerfully impacted on Christian theology.Less
The third period falls into the latter part of the second century. Baur’s first book in NT studies was on the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus); he concluded that these Epistles could not have been written by Paul because of their polemic against Gnostic heretics. The greater part of Baur’s discussion here focuses on the Gospel of John, which he interprets as a culmination of the NT writings with its claim that Jesus is the incarnate Logos (Word) of God. The stories about Jesus’ teachings and healings are not historical reports but rather devices for the elaboration of the Johannine christology. The Gospel expresses an ideality relating to faith, love, eternal life, and spiritual presence, but it does so at the price of a polemic against the Jews and an idealizing of Jesus. In both positive and negative aspects, it has powerfully impacted on Christian theology.
