The Quest of the Radical Spiritualist


Book Description

Discovering the Power of the True Self, Living in the Now, Walking the Path through Metaphysics to Higher Consciousness, Spirit Communications, Astral Travel and Understanding the Universal Mind. The book is laced with a number of the author's own unusual experiences.Honored with "Award Finalist" in 2009 National Best Books by USA Book News, Spirituality Category.




Sex Radicals and the Quest for Women's Equality


Book Description

Passet shows that the majority of correspondents who participated in the sex radical movement resided in the Midwest and the Great Plains states, where ideas of individual freedom and sovereignty resonated particularly strongly.".




Spiritualism in Antebellum America


Book Description

Explores the origins, beliefs, practices, and significance of Spiritualism, a colorful religious ideology centered on spirit communication and spirit activity. Looks at Spiritualism as a reflection of and a reaction to many currents in antebellum American life, such as democratic conceptions of religious authority, the revolt against religious formalism, the growing power of science, and the rise of commercial capitalism. Includes bandw illustrations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Spiritualism in Antebellum America


Book Description

"At a time when the New Age movement is starting to make good on the Spiritualists' vision of America as a 'grand clairvoyant nation', Carroll's work raises provocative questions about the tension betwen freedom and authority in the harmonial religions of today." -- Church History "... offers the most comprehensive, sane examination of its topic yet available, no mean achievement for a subject long afflicted by religious partisanship and now perhaps in danger of sympathetic attraction." -- Journal of American History "... fascinating reading it will be for those with a taste for good scholarly writing and a love of the American past and the manifold varieties of the spiritual quest." -- The Quest "In addition to being an excellent introduction to mid-19th-century Spiritualism, Carroll's work also offers scholars a new vantage point from which to view the religious creativity that was so prominent in antebellum America in general." -- Choice During the decade before the Civil War, a growing number of Americans gathered around tables in dimly lit rooms, joined hands, and sought enlightening contact with spirits. The result was Spiritualism, a distinctly colorful religious ideology centered on spirit communication and spirit activity. Spiritualism in Antebellum America analyzes the attempt by spiritually restless Americans of the 1840s and 1850s to negotiate a satisfying combination of freedom and authority as they sought a sense of harmony with the universe.




The Radical Reformation, 3rd ed.


Book Description

George Williams' monumental The Radical Reformation has been an essential reference work for historians of early modern Europe, narrating in rich, interpretative detail the interconnected stories of radical groups operating at the margins of the mainline Reformation. In its scope—spanning all of Europe from Spain to Poland, from Denmark to Italy—and its erudition, The Radical Reformation is without peer. Now in paperback format, Williams' magnum opus should be considered for any university-level course on the Reformation.




Spiritual Atheist


Book Description

For the millions who want to find peace, love, and purpose without religion, Cambridge-educated leadership guru and philosopher Nick Jankel sets out a radical new life philosophy that reunites cutting-edge science with timeless spiritual wisdom to help us make better life choices and transform our life, love, and leadership challenges so we thrive.




The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna


Book Description

A young writer travels to Maine to tell the unusual story of America’s longest-running camp devoted to mysticism and the world beyond. They believed they would live forever. So begins Mira Ptacin’s haunting account of the women of Camp Etna—an otherworldly community in the woods of Maine that has, since 1876, played host to generations of Spiritualists and mediums dedicated to preserving the links between the mortal realm and the afterlife. Beginning her narrative in 1848 with two sisters who claimed they could speak to the dead, Ptacin reveals how Spiritualism first blossomed into a national practice during the Civil War, yet continues—even thrives—to this very day. Immersing herself in this community and its practices—from ghost hunting to releasing trapped spirits to water witching— Ptacin sheds new light on our ongoing struggle with faith, uncertainty, and mortality. Blending memoir, ethnography, and investigative reportage, The In-Betweens offers a vital portrait of Camp Etna and its enduring hold on a modern culture that remains as starved for a deeper sense of connection and otherworldliness as ever.




From Radicals to Survivors


Book Description

This is the first extensive study of Strasbourg's diverse religious nonconformists beyond 1543, and the first to explore their continuities and discontinuities over two generations. Based on vast archival records in Strasbourg and secondary sources, it moves beyond the political and theological emphases of earlier works to include social history, portraits of village life, and the second generation to 1570. Derksen finds that second generation nonconformists were substantially different from the first. Their social profile changed; from an urban mix of leaders, intellectuals and artisans, they became largely rural folk composed of lower class artisans. Further, in outlook their view narrowed from "radicals" who sought to change church and society at its root to dissenters concerned mainly to survive. At the same time there were continuities. When the revolts of the 1525 Peasants' War were crushed, dissident ideals found new expression in spiritualist, sectarian and apocalyptic streams. In these streams, into the 1560s and beyond, nonconformists continued their call for social and economic justice and meaningful participation in religion. The book will be of interest to historians of the Early Modern period, the Reformation's radicals, popular religion, sixteenth-century society and Strasbourg, and to those interested in the free church tradition.




Silence


Book Description

A provocative meditation on the role of silence in Christian tradition by the New York Times bestselling author of Christianity We live in a world dominated by noise. Religion is, for many, a haven from the clamor of everyday life, allowing us to pause for silent contemplation. But as Diarmaid MacCulloch shows, there are many forms of religious silence, from contemplation and prayer to repression and evasion. In his latest work, MacCulloch considers Jesus’s strategic use of silence in his confrontation with Pontius Pilate and traces the impact of the first mystics in Syria on monastic tradition. He discusses the complicated fate of silence in Protestant and evangelical tradition and confronts the more sinister institutional forms of silence. A groundbreaking book by one of our greatest historians, Silence challenges our fundamental views of spirituality and illuminates the deepest mysteries of faith.




The Holy Spirit: Medieval Roman Catholic and Reformation Traditions


Book Description

The Holy Spirit: Medieval Roman Catholic and Reformation Traditions (Sixth-Sixteenth Centuries) is the third in a series of three volumes devoted to the history of Christian pneumatology. In the first volume, The Holy Spirit: Ancient Christian Traditions (formerly titled The Spirit and the Church: Antiquity), Stanley M. Burgess detailed Christian efforts from the end of the first century to the end of the fifth century A.D. to understand the divine Third Person. Volume 1 explored the tensions between the developing institutional order and various prophetic elements in the Church. The second volume, The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions, brought together a wealth of material on the Spirit from Eastern Christian traditions, a rich heritage often overlooked in Western Christianity. By exploring the various ways in which Eastern theologians understood the Third Person of the Trinity, volume 2 showed how modern Christians can gain a wider vision and fuller understanding of the workings of the Holy Spirit in history and in our own generation. This concluding volume examines medieval Roman Catholic and Reformation attitudes toward the Holy Spirit beginning with the writings of medieval Catholic theologians from Gregory the Great and Bede to Aquinas and Bonaventure. Subsequent sections describe the contributions of influential women such Hildegard of Bingen, Birgitta of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena; "fringe" figures such as Joachim of Fiore and the Cathars; the magisterial reformers Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin; leading Catholic reformers such as Ignatius of Loyola; and the "radical reformers" Thomas Muntzer and Menno Simons.