Through a rigorous analysis of original scriptures and later commentaries, this open access book unearths a cornucopia of idiosyncratic motifs pervading the famous Tibetan sky-gazing meditation known as "Skullward Leap" (thod rgal). Flavio Geisshuesler argues that these motifs suggest that the practice did not originate in the context of Buddhism, but rather within indigenous Tibetan culture and in close contact with the early Boen tradition. The book argues that Dzogchen once belonged to a cult centered on the quest for vitality, which involved the worship of the sky as primordial source of life and endorsed the hunting of animals, as they were believed to be endowed with the ability to move in between the divine realm of the heavens and the world of humans.

The book also traces the historical development of the Great Perfection, delineating a complex process of buddhicization that started with the introduction of Buddhism in the 7th century, intensified with the rise of new schools in the 11th century, and reached its climax in the systematization of the teachings by the great scholar-yogi Longchenpa in the 14th century. The study advances an innovative model of meditation as an open-ended practice that animates practitioners to face the most challenging moments of their lives with courage and curiosity, imagination and creativity, and playfulness and excitement; qualities that are oftentimes overlooked in contemporary descriptions of contemplation.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Emmanuel Falque, one of the foremost philosophers working in the continental philosophy of religion today, takes us by the hand into the very heart of 12th-century monastic spirituality.

Translated into English for the first time, The Book of Experience weaves together contemporary phenomenological questions with medieval theology, revealing undiscovered dialogues already underway between Hugh of St. Victor and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, between Richard of St. Victor and Emmanuel Levinas, between Aelred of Rievaulx and Michel Henry, and not least between Bernard of Clairvaux and the trio of Descartes, Heidegger, and Jean-Luc Marion, consummating in a masterful phenomenological reading of Bernard's sermons on the Song of Songs.

Whether it is a question of 'the idea that comes to God' (Anselm of Canterbury) or actively 'feeling oneself fully alive' (Aelred of Rievaulx or Bernard of Clairvaux), Falque uses these encounters to shed light on both parties, medieval and modern, theological and philosophical.

Leading us through works of art, landscapes, architectures, and liturgies, this major contemporary philosopher of religion clarifies mysteries and discovers experience lying at the heart of the medieval tradition.

This book documents the structure of religious diversity in Australia and examines this diversity in the context of the law, migration, education, policing, the media and interfaith communities.

Focusing on Melbourne and Tasmania, it articulates the benefits and opportunities of diversity, alongside the challenges that confront religious and ethnic minorities, including discrimination and structural inequalities generated by Christian and other
forms of privilege. It articulates constructive strategies that are deployed, including
encouraging forms of belonging, structured ways of negotiating disagreement and respectful engagement with difference.

While scholars across the West are increasingly attuned to the problems and promises of growing religious diversity in a global age, in-depth empirical research on the consequences of that diversity in Australia is lacking. This book provides a rich, well-researched, and timely intervention.

William C. Hackett provides a renewed reading of Christian theology by evaluating the role of anthropomorphism in shaping negative theology. Through this theological history, he addresses the fear of anthropomorphism that prompted early philosophers and theologians to adopt abstract understandings of God.

Hackett charts the wide-ranging importance of anthropomorphism to theology through figures including Balthasar, Bultmann, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Cyril of Alexandria. He argues that anthropomorphism highlights the unique conceptual problem between divine presence and absence. By exploring the turn away from practical and embodied views of God in Scripture, this book focuses on anthropomorphic views of God in symbols, images, and narratives. Emphasising these forms promotes an intellectual vision of Christianity that challenges theoretical and conceptual abstraction. Anthropomorphism in Christian Theology further traces the nuances between human and angelic intellect, modern philosophy and theology, negative theology and the concept of transcendence.

Consciousness Mattering presents a contemporary Buddhist theory in which brains, bodies, environments, and cultures are relational infrastructures for human consciousness. Drawing on insights from meditation, neuroscience, physics, and evolutionary theory, it demonstrates that human consciousness is not something that occurs only in our heads and consists in the creative elaboration of relations among sensed and sensing presences, and more fundamentally between matter and what matters. Hershock argues that without consciousness there would only be either unordered sameness or nothing at all. Evolution is consciousness mattering.
Shedding new light on the co-emergence of subjective awareness and culture, the possibility of machine consciousness, the risks of algorithmic consciousness hacking, and the potentials of intentionally altered states of consciousness, Hershock invites us to consider how freely, wisely, and compassionately consciousness matters.

An indispensable resource for readers investigating how religion has influenced societies and cultures, this three-volume encyclopedia assesses and synthesizes the many ways in which religious faith has shaped societies from the ancient world to today.

Each volume of the set focuses on a different era of world history, ranging through the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. Every volume is filled with essays that focus on religious themes from different geographical regions. For example, volume one includes essays considering religion in ancient Rome, while volume three features essays focused on religion in modern Africa. This accessible layout makes it easy for readers to learn more about the ways that religion and society have intersected over the centuries, as well as specific religious trends, events, and milestones in a particular era and place in world history.

Taken as a a whole, this ambitious and wide-ranging work gathers more than 500 essays from more than 150 scholars who share their expertise and knowledge about religious faiths, tenets, people, places, and events that have influenced the development of civilization over the course of recorded human history.

Buddhism is often the religion that teachers have the least confidence in teaching despite being the sixth largest religion in the UK and being commonly regarded as one of the six major religions to be taught in schools throughout the country. This book explores the beliefs and practices of Buddhism as a lived religion in the UK. This book engages with Buddhist beliefs and practices and provides students and teachers with the confidence to address misconceptions and recognise the importance of beliefs in the lives of believers, in a way that will enable readers to go forward with confidence. Aspects of Buddhism explored include the concepts that form the central beliefs of Buddhism, and then the expression of these beliefs in worship, daily life, and the ethics of Buddhists in the modern day. Each chapter includes authentic voices of believers today and provides opportunities for the reader to consider the concepts and how they can be respected and taught and in the classroom.

The book forms part of the Teaching Religions and Worldviews series of guides, each one designed to build teachers' confidence and expertise in teaching a different religion or worldview in the classroom..

Featuring a range of scholars in the field of religion and ecology, over 95 images, and a glossary of key terms, this book provides a survey of the key topics and religious traditions in the study of religion and nature in the North American context. Students are introduced to the ways in which religions have shaped our thinking about the many dimensions of nature and affected the socio-political and ecological landscapes of North America.

This overview explores the impacts of European colonialism on indigenous peoples, and the enslaving of black peoples, that still reverberate in contemporary issues of environmental justice and climate change, and the breadth of intersectional environmentalisms that include race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and place. Contributing authors also explore the range of religious and spiritual values and sentiments that shape human engagement with the more-than-human natural worlds.

With guidance for further reading accompanying each chapter, the book is divided into three parts: Traditions, Embodiments and Identities, and Themes and Issues. Individual chapters include topics such as animals and religion, indigenous language and ecology, Asian religions, petrocultures and Christianity, and globalization and ethics.

The chapters in this book were first published in the digital collection Bloomsbury Religion in North America. Covering North America's diverse religious traditions, this digital collection provides reliable and peer-reviewed articles and ebooks for students and instructors. Learn more and get access for your library at www.theologyandreligiononline.com/bloomsbury-religion-in-north-america

A revealing account of the lives and work of Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrims in sixteenth-century Rome, examining how this African diasporic community navigated the challenges of religious pluralism in the capital of Latin Christianity.

Tucked behind the apse of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome is the ancient church of Santo Stefano. During the sixteenth century, Santo Stefano hosted an unusual community: a group of Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrims whose faith and culture were both like and unlike those of Latin Europe. The pilgrims of Santo Stefano were the only African community in premodern Europe to leave extensive documents in their own language (G???z). They also frequently collaborated with Latin Christians to disseminate their expert knowledge of Ethiopia and Ethiopian Christianity, negotiating the era's heated debates over the boundaries of religious belonging.

Translating Faith is the first book-length study of this community in nearly a century. Drawing on G???z and European-language sources, Samantha Kelly documents how pilgrims maintained Ethiopian Orthodox practices while adapting to a society increasingly committed to Catholic conformity. Focusing especially on the pilgrims' scholarly collaborations, Kelly shows how they came to produce and share Ethiopian knowledge-as well as how Latin Christian assumptions and priorities transformed that knowledge in unexpected ways. The ambivalent legacies of these exchanges linger today in the European tradition of Ethiopian Studies, which Santo Stefano is credited with founding.

Kelly's account of the Santo Stefano pilgrim community is a rich tale about the possibilities and pitfalls of ecumenical dialogue, as well as a timely history in our own age marked by intensive and often violent negotiations of religious and racial difference.

Recording the history of the belief in the existence of Satan, this book draws from the Bible, the poetry of Dante and Milton, the legend of Faust, and from modern novels and plays such as the works of Mark Twain and G.B. Shaw, and the spiritual writing of C. S. Lewis. Fintan Lyons O.S.B. chronicles the decline of that belief through the centuries as well as the attempts to treat the problem of evil philosophically, using the insights of thinkers such as Karl Barth.

At the heart of this book is the attempt to synthesise or reconcile traditional belief with contemporary concern or even alarm regarding evil in the world. Lyons argues that evidence for the persistence of evil has been striking in modern times in wars and atrocities, while phenomena such as Satanic Cults and possible or real diabolical possession have continued to increase. The Catholic Church reacted to this situation in 1998 with a revision of the 1614 Rite of Exorcism, analysed in this book from both theological and psychological standpoints. By arguing that the transition from belief in Satan to personification of evil in historical regimes and characters brings contemporary culture into sharp focus, this book chronicles the history of humanity's attempt to understand the disturbing and mysterious reality of evil.

Drawing on their wide experience in the undergraduate classroom, the contributors address basic but current issues in university teaching. This book provides practical commentary and invites instructors to consider how to address the learning needs of their students, while taking into account the wider structural requirements of administrations, governments, or credentialing agencies.

Consisting of about forty, readable, short entries - on topics ranging from curriculum, grading, group work, digital humanities and large lectures, to learning management systems, office hours, online/remote courses, recruiting and seminars - this book provides a wealth of practical help and reassurance to teachers working with undergraduate students.

This book is a valuable tool for early instructors in universities and colleges, showing them how to impact a class's success. It provides a critical background on the issues involved whilst also offering suggestions on how to navigate the competing demands on teachers.

Considering the striking similarities between the treatment of the dead and conceptions of the netherworld in ancient Egypt and China, how can we compare the two traditions?

Mu-chou Poo considers this question, and provides a new perspective on archaeological materials, including tomb structures and funerary texts, by addressing them in the context of universal human problems such as death, the future of the dead, and the search for happiness in life.

Poo chronologically reconstructs the emergence of the idea of the netherworld and its evolution in both ancient Egypt and ancient China. He explores the relationship between religious beliefs and social ethics in these civilizations, considers why similar social and material conditions could have produced varied expressions of the afterlife, and what such variations reveal about each culture.

Poo argues that a comparison between both visions of the netherworld and their relationship to life experience gives further insight into the nature of each civilization. Through this analysis, Poo shows that thematic comparison of ancient civilizations is not only possible, but also relevant to modern society.

This book offers a generative and hospitable theological methodology rooted in the distinctives of pentecostal spirituality, enlivened by a Spirited imagination and opened toward critical, constructive, and conciliatory dialogue with the wider Christian tradition. This inter- and cross-disciplinary work is careful yet generous, drawing together of knowledge and wisdom from different domains-historical, philosophical, and theological-in ways recognizably pentecostal and effectively missional.

The book begins with a description of the essence of pentecostal spirituality that holds true across the various pentecostalisms. Drawing largely on an innovative engagement with the insights of Rudolph Otto and an exploration of the dialectic between religious experience and theological development, this book contends for an identifiable but mysterious "something" that makes pentecostalism truly pentecostal-that is, something more than one might sum up in any set of peculiar practices, beliefs, or behaviors.

The book also provides an overview of the intellectual history of English-speaking pentecostalism, specifying and assessing the movement's major philosophical underpinnings and socio-cultural motivations. Finally, funded by an explicitly pentecostal metaphysics, the book sets forth a significant and boldly original pneumatological theological methodology, shaped by discerning conversation with the works of Amos Yong, L. William Oliverio, Jr., Wolfgang Vondey, and Simo Frestadius, among others.

The origin of our universe is the greatest mystery of all. How do we find ourselves existing, let alone enveloped in a cosmos enriched with such order and complexity? For religious philosophers, despite the incredible advances of modern physics, we are no closer to a scientific explanation of where the universe came from. 'God', they affirm, 'is the best solution to the mystery.' Yet, there are those who call for patience. The new atheists remind us that science has a habit of explaining what was once unexplainable. In the meantime, we should not delude ourselves into contentment. 'Religion', they say, 'is the opium of the people and the enemy of progress. In fact, God may be the nastiest idea in human history.'

This book is a short, engaging and accessible guide to the mystery of existence. Featuring remastered interviews and original essays from the world's most influential and respected thinkers, Philosophers on God explores the most fascinating and innovative research in all of philosophy and science. In doing so, it sheds new light on the nature, purpose and ultimate destination of our universe.

Contributors: Susan Blackmore, William Lane Craig, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Daniel J. Hill, Jessica Frazier, Silvia Jonas, Asha Lancaster-Thomas, Stephen Law, Casey Logue, Yujin Nagasawa, Richard Swinburne, Jack Symes, Mohammad Saleh Zarepour.

This study guide introduces students to the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. Megan Warner examines the book's structure and characteristics and covers the latest Biblical scholarship, including historical and interpretive issues.

Discussing the nature of Genesis, its creation and purpose and its position within the Hebrew Bible, the themes and theology of creation/uncreation and promise/impossibility, Warner culminates with a number of approaches in which Genesis can be read in the postmodern world, from intersectional and intertextual to political and ecological.

With suggestions of further reading at the end of each chapter, this guide is an essential accompaniment to study of the Book of Genesis.

Named One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year

A vivid account of the past, present, and future of economic growth, showing how and why we must continue to pursue it while responding to the challenges it creates.

Over the past two centuries, economic growth has freed billions from the struggle for subsistence and made our lives far healthier and longer. Yet prosperity has come at a price: environmental destruction, desolation of local cultures, the rise of vast inequalities and destabilizing technologies. Faced with such damage, many now claim that the only way forward is through "degrowth," deliberately shrinking our economic footprint. But to abandon humanity's progress would be folly. Instead, Daniel Susskind argues, we must keep growth but redirect it, making it better reflect what we truly value.

In a sweeping analysis full of historical insight, Susskind shows how policymaking came to revolve around a single-minded quest for greater GDP. This is a surprisingly recent development: economic growth was barely discussed until the second half of the twentieth century. And our understanding of what drives it is more recent still. Only lately have we come to see how humankind emerged from its millennia of stagnation: through the sustained discovery of powerful and productive new ideas.

This insight undermines the mantra that "we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet," for the world of ideas is infinitely vast. Yet growth's critics are right to insist that we can no longer focus on its upsides alone. We must confront the tradeoffs, Susskind contends: sometimes, societies will have to deliberately pursue less growth for the sake of other goals. These will be moral decisions, not simply economic ones, demanding the engagement not just of politicians and experts but of all citizens.

This major volume aims to re-colour the European world of dress, c.1300-1800. New dyes created one of the most important visual experiences of the period, yet their story has been side-lined by a focus on visual experiences shaped by the high arts. Meanwhile, theatrical productions and period films still abound with broad assumptions about the growing dominance of black clothing for elites during the period, while ordinary people are imagined having worn coarse greys and bleached garments. This volume presents clear evidence that even the clothing of the middle classes could be much more expensive than paintings, and that coloured clothing and accessories were ubiquitous across society.

Contributors shed new light on the economic, environmental, and cultural dimensions of colour in dress. The range of dyes expanded considerably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, drawing on Asian and Mediterranean knowledge, new collections of recipes, and the greater diversity of plants available through New World trade. Working creatively with organic plant, animal, and mineral materials to make colours involved considerable knowledge, pleasure and skill. The creation of colour through dyes thus reveals a whole range of global agricultural and craft technologies that can inspire future material worlds and transforms our understanding of Europe?s cultural heritage.

Appalachian Englishes (AEs) possess an array of linguistic features that distinguish them from other American Englishes, yet the rich history of language in the United States has created a wealth of linguistic resources through factors such as immigration and contact, providing the environment for AEs to grow and adapt in ways that are also similar to other varieties of English. AEs have a long history of representation in linguistic literature, but until now no single work has examined the interplay of language production and perception with an eye toward the role that language plays in the construction of personal and social identities.

The Social Life of Appalachian Englishes takes a sociolinguistic/sociocultural approach to exploring specific linguistic features highlighted in the Linguistic Atlas Projects and the social life of Appalachian varieties in terms of perceptions and use. Focusing on the single theme of the social life of language in Appalachia, the book aims to explore the implications of the kinds of variation found, reinforce the notion that social meaning and variation are inseparable, and illustrate how linguistic production and perception are interrelated. It uses new data to amplify this theme, presenting a novel combination of data from different sociolinguistic traditions (specifically, perceptual dialectology and traditional atlas-style dialectology). Opportunities for engagement are provided through QR codes linking to additional resources and discussion questions and exercises at the end of each chapter.

This book is designed for students and researchers interested in general linguistics, sociolinguistics, American Englishes, language variation, linguistic anthropology, and Appalachian studies.