Digital Commons Network^™

In Search Of A New Indigeneity: Archaeological And Spiritual Heritage In Highland Bolivia, Isabel Scarborough

Isabel Scarborough

The Social Effects Of Psychism: Spiritual Experience And The Construction Of Privatized Religion, Marty Laubach

Marty Laubach

What is the relationship between spiritual experiences and privatized religion? This study defines spiritual experiences in terms of “psychism,” or psychic intrusions in the stream of consciousness that are not perceived by the actor as originating within the “self.” Intrusions interpreted as psychism are regarded by the actor as having the same facticity as empirical experience and are regarded as “proof” of an esoteric belief system. Psychism originated beliefs are therefore resistant to refutation or change, and support spiritual autonomy. Psychism theory is tested using 1988 GSS data on religious beliefs, where psychism is measured using GSS questions on “paranormal” …

Building A Spiritual Home: Religious Engagement Of Former Vincentian Volunteers, Scott Kelley, Patricia A. Wittberg Sc

Scott Kelley

The Epistemology Of Esoteric Culture: Spiritual Claim-Making Within The American Neopagan Community, Marty Laubach

Marty Laubach

Non-institutionalised religious communities within western esotericism, such as New Age or Neopagan subcultures, are dynamic marketplaces for knowledge construction that may appear to be chaotic and governed only by the rule of caveat emptor. However, a close examination reveals authorization processes developing along similar lines as those followed by scientific empiricism during the seventeenth century. Claims of esoteric knowledge are developed from psychism experiences, and are authenticated by examining the claimant’s social standing, the narrative structure of the claim and the interests of the claimant and the judge. Such claims are authorized by incorporation into collective action, publications, workshops and …

Wild Things: Stories, Transition And The Sacred In Ecological Social Movements, Luigi Russi

Luigi Russi

This article examines the role of stories in ecological activism. It first situates stories inside object ecologies, encompassing relationships of reliance, care and maintenance of things. It suggests that ecologies of this sort work as an extended mind where our cognition takes place and meaning is apprehended, so that what we can think of is always a function of what we have Ôat handÕ. The article then considers how these ecologies are impacted by discourses on climate change and peak oil, which stress the impossibility to keep ordering our lives through the same entanglements that have supported them so far. …

The Genealogy, Ideology, And Future Of Isil And Its Derivatives, Ahmed E. Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

The Cult Of Liberation: The Berkeley Free Church And The Radical Church Movement 1967-1972 Volume 1, Harlan Stelmach

Harlan Stelmach

The Berkeley Free Church was a major actor in the drama of church social action in the sixties. The emergence of the Free Church coincided with the high water mark of social action, and its dissolution paralleled the receding waters of church based social action in the early seventies. The and fall of the Free Church, as this study point out, indicates that there were forces outside the churches that were also dictating the ebb and flow of the waters of church social action. As much as the church activists were involved in social reform movements in the sixties and …

Review: The Mormon Rebellion: America’S First Civil War 1857–1858 By David L. Bigler And Will Bagley, Gene Deerman

Gene Deerman

No abstract provided.

Religious Leaders Who Have Advocated And Engaged In Violence, Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Organisational Control And The Self: Critiques And Normative Expectations, Karin Garrety

Karin Garrety

This article explores the normative assumptions about the self that are implicitly and explicitly embedded in critiques of organisational control. Two problematic aspects of control are examined – the capacity of some organisations to produce unquestioning commitment, and the elicitation of ‘false’ selves. Drawing on the work of Rom Harré, and some examples of organisational-self processes gone awry, I investigate the dynamics involved and how they violate the normative expectations that we hold regarding the self, particularly its moral autonomy and authenticity. The paper concludes by arguing that, despite post-structuralist challenges, some notion of a ‘core’ or ‘real’ self still …

Boko Haram And The Recurring Bomb Attacks In Nigeria: Attempt To Impose, Ali Simon Yusufu Bagaji

Ali Simon Yusufu Bagaji

Attempt to forcefully impose religious ideology and or belief on Nigeria’s secular society is not new. The leader of the Maitatsine sectarian group attempted it in 1981 and eventually led to large scale uprisings. Since the early 1980s and 2012, Nigeria has witnessed other uncountable religious related crises. Beginning from 2009, the country once again, has been stormed by large scale and unimaginable bomb attacks by the Boko Haram movement. Although Boko Haram can be compared in terms of philosophy and objectives to the Maitatsine sectarian group, its organisational planning, armed resistance, and modus operandi is Taliban and attacks executed …

Branding The Devine: Albrech Dürer's Praying Hands And The Branding Of Iconography, Pamela K. Morris, Katya Maslakowski

Pamela K. Morris

In 1508, artist Albrech Dürer sketched a life-study of a pair of hands clasped in prayer. Over 500 years later, the ‘Betende Hände’ can be found all over the United States as knickknacks in private homes, as civic statues and online. The phenomenon is an interesting case study of popular religion, consumer culture and the intersections of public and private worship. Using a blend of advertising and branding theory and iconographic theory, this paper proposes to illuminate the ways that the Praying Hands of Dürer became a lasting symbol of popular devotion across a wide range of media.

An Essay On The Nature And Significance Of Deception And Telling Lies, Sudhanshu K. Mishra

Sudhanshu K Mishra

A lie is an expression at deviance with the truth known or honestly believed by someone with an intention to deceive others for certain purpose, social or personal. An ability to lie might be evolutionary in nature possibly to help in survival, since it is found in the non-human world also. In the biological perspective, each individual is at war against all others. Thus viewed, lies are the cardinal virtues for survival and, by implication, the carriers of evolution. In the human world, lying is morally blameworthy in a relatively un-obscure way. There may be cases of lying to which …

Secular Spirituality/Mundane Media: One Newspaper’S In-Depth Coverage Of Buddhism, Rick Clifton Moore

Rick Clifton Moore

This paper addresses Mark Silk’s theory of "unsecular media" through a case study of a visit the Dalai Lama made to the United States. Silk contends the themes (what he calls "topoi") media use to cover religion are derived from Western faiths. Thus, according to Silk, when Western religious principles are used to write about Western religious practices, those practices are generally evaluated positively. In the analysis that follows I examine the extent to which Silk’s topoi were used to report about Buddhism, an obviously "Eastern" religion. The basic findings suggest that Silk’s topoi were readily applied in the stories …

Reclaiming The Concept Of Culture: A Review Of Recent Thoughts On Cultural Invention And Cultural Change, Denice J. Szafran

Denice J Szafran, Ph.D.

Defining culture as the capacity for humans to symbolically classify, codify, and communicate their common experiences, Boas' "genius of a people" (Bunzl 2004), has yielded to popular understandings of culture as a bounded entity that exists discretely in the world. These latter notions are constructs arising from the imposition of Western cultural notions on examined societies. The concept of culture, once the exclusive tool of anthropological investigations and explanations, finds itself arrogated by "everybody everywhere," facing devaluation of its meaning and rendering it ineffective as an analytical tool, (Marcus 2008) yet reclaiming the more nebulous meanings of the term culture …

From Heresies To Holy Wars: Toward A Theory Of Religious Conflict, Lester R. Kurtz

Lester R. Kurtz

Explores the elements of a theory of religious conflict, starting with Simmel's understanding of conflict as a form of human sociation and religion as content of a conflict (religious rhetoric and framing are used to carry or explain the conflict) vs. the form of religious conflict, in which the conflict itself takes on a sacred nature. I also examine the ritualization of conflict and the nature of conflict symbols, that is highly-charged symbols that become lightning rods for conflict.

Historia Indigena E Do Indigenismo No Alto Rio Negro, Robin M. Wright

Robin M Wright

Capítulo 1: A Escravidão Indígena no Noroeste Amazônico. Capítulo 2: Histórias de Guerras e Alianças Capítulo 3: Kamiko, Profeta Baniwa, e o Canto da Cruz Capítulo 4: “Uma Conspiração contra os Civilizados”. Profetas no Uaupés e Xié Capítulo 5: Uétsu – Profeta de Pariká e Caapi Capítulo 6: O Tempo de Sophie: História e Cosmologia da Conversão Baniwa Capítulo 7: Novas Guerras: Os Baniwa, a Mineração, e o Projeto Calha Norte Capítulo 8: Fontes para a História do Alto Rio Negro Epílogo - 2003

Las Abejas: Pacifist Resistance And Syncretic Identities In A Globalizing Chiapas, Marco Tavanti

Marco Tavanti

Las Abejas came to be known by the international community as the civil counterpart to the neozapatista movements and as a Christian pacifist movement. This book presents the voices of Las Abejas and of numerous collaborators alongside an innovative theoretical analysis of the dynamics of identity construction. The uniqueness of this study is the analysis of the role of international human rights observers in relation to indigenous communities in resistance. In this fascinating study, Marco Tavanti explains how cultural, religious, political, human rights and nonviolent frameworks combine in a syncretic identity of resistance.

Freedom And Domination, Lester R. Kurtz

Lester R. Kurtz

No abstract provided.