Religion And The Subtle Body In Asia And The West


Religion And The Subtle Body In Asia And The West
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Religion And The Subtle Body In Asia And The West


Religion And The Subtle Body In Asia And The West
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Author : Geoffrey Samuel
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2013-04-12

Religion And The Subtle Body In Asia And The West written by Geoffrey Samuel and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013-04-12 with Religion categories.


Subtle-body practices are found particularly in Indian, Indo-Tibetan and East Asian societies, but have become increasingly familiar in Western societies, especially through the various healing and yogic techniques and exercises associated with them. This book explores subtle-body practices from a variety of perspectives, and includes both studies of these practices in Asian and Western contexts. The book discusses how subtle-body practices assume a quasi-material level of human existence that is intermediate between conventional concepts of body and mind. Often, this level is conceived of in terms of an invisible structure of channels, associated with the human body, through which flows of quasi-material substance take place. Contributors look at how subtle-body concepts form the basic explanatory structure for a wide range of practices. These include forms of healing, modes of exercise and martial arts as well as religious practices aimed at the refinement and transformation of the human mindbody complex. By highlighting how subtle-body practices of many kinds have been introduced into Western societies in recent years, the book explores the possibilities for new models of understanding which these concepts open up. It is a useful contribution to studies on Asian Religion and Philosophy.



Transformational Embodiment In Asian Religions


Transformational Embodiment In Asian Religions
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Author : George Pati
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2019-10-28

Transformational Embodiment In Asian Religions written by George Pati and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019-10-28 with Religion categories.


This volume examines several theoretical concerns of embodiment in the context of Asian religious practice. Looking at both subtle and spatial bodies, it explores how both types of embodiment are engaged as sites for transformation, transaction and transgression. Collectively bridging ancient and modern conceptualizations of embodiment in religious practice, the book offers a complex mapping of how body is defined. It revisits more traditional, mystical religious systems, including Hindu Tantra and Yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Bon, Chinese Daoism and Persian Sufism and distinctively juxtaposes these inquiries alongside analyses of racial, gendered, and colonized bodies. Such a multifaceted subject requires a diverse approach, and so perspectives from phenomenology and neuroscience as well as critical race theory and feminist theology are utilised to create more precise analytical tools for the scholarly engagement of embodied religious epistemologies. This a nuanced and interdisciplinary exploration of the myriad issues around bodies within religion. As such it will be a key resource for any scholar of Religious Studies, Asian Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, and Gender Studies.



The Subtle Body


The Subtle Body
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Author : Simon Cox
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2022-05-18

The Subtle Body written by Simon Cox and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2022-05-18 with Religion categories.


How does the soul relate to the body? Through the ages, innumerable religious and intellectual movements have proposed answers to this question. Many have gravitated to the notion of the "subtle body," positing some sort of subtle entity that is neither soul nor body, but some mixture of the two. Simon Cox traces the history of this idea from the late Roman Empire to the present day, touching on how philosophers, wizards, scholars, occultists, psychologists, and mystics have engaged with the idea over the past two thousand years. This study is an intellectual history of the subtle body concept from its origins in late antiquity through the Renaissance into the Euro-American counterculture of the 1960's and 70's. It begins with a prehistory of the idea, rooted as it is in third-century Neoplatonism. It then proceeds to the signifier "subtle body" in its earliest English uses amongst the Cambridge Platonists. After that, it looks forward to those Orientalist fathers of Indology, who, in their earliest translations of Sanskrit philosophy relied heavily on the Cambridge Platonist lexicon, and thereby brought Indian philosophy into what had hitherto been a distinctly platonic discourse. At this point, the story takes a little reflexive stroll into the source of the author's own interest in this strange concept, looking at Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophical import, expression, and popularization of the concept. Cox then zeroes in on Aleister Crowley, focusing on the subtle body in fin de siècle occultism. Finally, he turns to Carl Jung, his colleague Frederic Spiegelberg, and the popularization of the idea of the subtle body in the Euro-American counterculture. This book is for anyone interested in yogic, somatic, or energetic practices, and will be very useful to scholars and area specialists who rely on this term in dealing with Hindu, Daoist, and Buddhist texts.



The Modern Spirit Of Asia


The Modern Spirit Of Asia
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Author : Peter van der Veer
language : en
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Release Date : 2014

The Modern Spirit Of Asia written by Peter van der Veer and has been published by Princeton University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014 with History categories.


A comparative look at religion and spirituality in postcolonial China and India The Modern Spirit of Asia challenges the notion that modernity in China and India are derivative imitations of the West, arguing that these societies have transformed their ancient traditions in unique and distinctive ways. Peter van der Veer begins with nineteenth-century imperial history, exploring how Western concepts of spirituality, secularity, religion, and magic were used to translate the traditions of India and China. He traces how modern Western notions of religion and magic were incorporated into the respective nation-building projects of Chinese and Indian nationalist intellectuals, yet how modernity in China and India is by no means uniform. While religion is a centerpiece of Indian nationalism, it is viewed in China as an obstacle to progress that must be marginalized and controlled. The Modern Spirit of Asia moves deftly from Kandinsky's understanding of spirituality in art to Indian yoga and Chinese qi gong, from modern theories of secularism to histories of Christian conversion, from Orientalist constructions of religion to Chinese campaigns against magic and superstition, and from Muslim Kashmir to Muslim Xinjiang. Van der Veer, an outspoken proponent of the importance of comparative studies of religion and society, eloquently makes his case in this groundbreaking examination of the spiritual and the secular in China and India.



The Doctrine Of The Subtle Body In Western Tradition


The Doctrine Of The Subtle Body In Western Tradition
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Author : George Robert Stow Mead
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 1967

The Doctrine Of The Subtle Body In Western Tradition written by George Robert Stow Mead and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1967 with Astral body categories.




Ritual Embodiment In Modern Western Magic


Ritual Embodiment In Modern Western Magic
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Author : Damon Zacharias Lycourinos
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2017-11-15

Ritual Embodiment In Modern Western Magic written by Damon Zacharias Lycourinos and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-11-15 with Religion categories.


In the Western world, magic has often functioned as an umbrella term for various religious beliefs and ritual practices that seek to influence events by harnessing supernatural power. The definition of these myriad occult and esoteric traditions have, however, usually come from those that are opposed to its practice; notably authorities in religious, legal and intellectual spheres. This book seeks to provide a new perspective, directly from the practitioners of modern Western magic, by exploring how a distinctive mode of embodiment and consciousness can produce a transition from an ‘ordinary’ to a ‘magical’ worldview. Starting with an introduction to the study of magic in the Western academy, the book then presents the author’s own participant observation of five ethnographic case studies of modern Western magic. The focus of these ethnographic case studies is directed towards ideas and methods the informants employ to self-legitimise and self-represent as ‘magicians’. It concludes by discussing the phenomenological implications and issues around embodiment that are inherent to the contemporary practice of magic. This is a unique insight into the lived experience of practitioners of modern magic. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars of the Occult and New Religious Movements, as well as Religious Studies academics examining issues around the embodiment and the anthropology of religion.



The Doctrine Of The Subtle Body In Western Tradition


The Doctrine Of The Subtle Body In Western Tradition
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Author : G. R. S. Mead
language : en
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
Release Date : 2005-11-01

The Doctrine Of The Subtle Body In Western Tradition written by G. R. S. Mead and has been published by Cosimo, Inc. this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2005-11-01 with Religion categories.


What... is the use, in the resurrection, of a body of flesh, blood, sinews, and bones, of limbs and organs for functions of the flesh, such as eating and drinking, excretion and procreation? Are we to continue to do all these things for eternity?-from "The Resurrection-Body"The concept that the physical body is but a manifestation of a more numinous expression of the soul sounds very Eastern to modern ears, but in fact it was one of the foundations of Christianity that the tradition abandoned long ago. In this short but profound study, first published in 1919, one of the greatest thinkers on the origins of Christianity and a renowned expert on Gnostic and Hermetic literature reconnects us with an ancient belief in the divine within us all that is, surprisingly, powerfully reflected in modern ideas about psychology and biology. No mystic himself, Mead instead finds a middle ground between superstitions of old and the oddities of advanced scientific thinking.Also available from Cosimo Classics: Mead's The Hymn of Jesus and Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?British scholar and philosopher GEORGE ROBERT STOW MEAD (1863-1933) was educated at Cambridge University. He served as editor of The Theosophical Society's Theosophical Review, and later formed The Quest Society and edited its journal, The Quest Review. He is also the author of Notes on Nirvana (1893) and an 1896 translation of The Upanishads.



The Words And World Of Ge Bcags Nunnery


The Words And World Of Ge Bcags Nunnery
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Author : Elizabeth McDougal
language : en
Publisher: BRILL
Release Date : 2024-02-06

The Words And World Of Ge Bcags Nunnery written by Elizabeth McDougal and has been published by BRILL this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2024-02-06 with Religion categories.


Ge bcags (Gebchak) dgon pa, founded in 1892 in Nang chen, Khams (Qinghai Province, PRC), is still active today with around 250 nuns practising intensive Vajrayāna rituals, yogas and meditation. The nuns’ knowledge goal is embodied, nonconceptual awareness, yet they spend many hours daily reading texts as part of their training. By investigating the whole context of the nuns’ lifeworld and ways of learning, this ethnography questions the role of reading in Ge bcags’ tacit knowledge tradition. At a time when Tibetan learning practices are quickly modernising, this book demonstrates a Buddhist tradition whose textual knowledge is not exactly literal, but cultivated through continuous, whole person learning.



The Matter Of Wonder


The Matter Of Wonder
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Author : Loriliai Biernacki
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2023

The Matter Of Wonder written by Loriliai Biernacki and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2023 with Religion categories.


"The current discourse of New Materialism seeks to chart a way of addressing our contemporary predicament around environmental destruction through reassessing our relationship and attitudes to matter. This book argues that the panentheism of the 11th century Indian Hindu thinker Abhinavagupta offers a cogent philosophical model that gives us new ways of thinking about matter, which can help a contemporary New Materialist thought. What makes panentheism an attractive model for Abhinavagupta's philosophy is its Tantric impetus towards both the materiality of the world and the transcendence of divinity, proposing a philosophy that finds consciousness-a subjectivity as, and at the very core of matter. With this, Abhinavagupta's articulation of a foundational and encompassing subjectivity proposes a panentheist solution to a familiar conundrum, one we still grapple with today-that is: how does consciousness, which is so unlike matter, how does it actually connect to the materiality of our world? In familar 21st century terms, how does mind connect to body? This book brings this question to bear in comparative fashion on contemporary issues: our current concerns around what is sentient-animals? viruses? artificial intelligence?-set in relation to Abhinavagupta's articulation of what gives rise to sentience via his use of the term vimarśa; our current conceptions of information as data-articulated in juxtaposition to Abhinavagupta's theology of mantra, mystic sound; examining Abhinavagupta's use of wonder (camatkāra) as as a philosophical concept, and how his cosmological system (tattva) underwrites his understanding of a foundational subjectivity"--



Inhaling Spirit


Inhaling Spirit
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Author : Anya P. Foxen
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2020-03-02

Inhaling Spirit written by Anya P. Foxen and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020-03-02 with Religion categories.


Recent scholarship has shown that modern postural yoga is the outcome of a complex process of transcultural exchange and syncretism. This book doubles down on those claims and digs even deeper, looking to uncover the disparate but entangled roots of modern yoga practice. Anya Foxen shows that some of what we call yoga, especially in North America and Europe, is genealogically only slightly related to pre-modern Indian yoga traditions. Rather, it is equally, if not more so, grounded in Hellenistic theories of the subtle body, Western esotericism and magic, pre-modern European medicine, and late-nineteenth-century women's wellness programs. The book begins by examining concepts arising out of Greek philosophy and religion, including Pythagoreanism, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Galenic medicine, theurgy, and other cultural currents that have traditionally been categorized as "Western esotericism," as well as the more recent examples which scholars of American traditions have labeled "metaphysical religion." Marshaling these under the umbrella category of "harmonialism," Foxen argues that they represent a history of practices that were gradually subsumed into the language of yoga. Orientalism and gender become important categories of analysis as this narrative moves into the nineteenth century. Women considerably outnumber men in all studies of yoga except those conducted in India, and modern anglophone yoga exhibits important continuities with women's physical culture, feminist reform, and white women's engagement with Orientalism. Foxen's study allows us to recontextualize the peculiarities of American yoga--its focus on aesthetic representation, its privileging of bodily posture and unsystematic incorporation of breathwork, and above all its overwhelmingly white female demographic. In this context it addresses the ongoing conversation about cultural appropriation within the yoga community.