The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies

by Ferrer, Jorge N.; Sherman, Jacob H.

• ISBN13: 9780791476017
• ISBN10: 0791476014
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-11-24
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

"Can we take seriously religious experience, spirituality, and mysticism, without reducing them to either cultural-linguistic by-products or simply asserting their validity as a dogmatic fact? The contributors to this volume argue that we can, and they offer a new way: the "participatory turn," which proposes that individuals and communities have an integral and irreducible role in bringing forth ontologically rich religious worlds. They explore the ways this approach weaves together and gives voice to a number of robust trends in contemporary religious scholarship, including the renewed study of lived spirituality, the postmodern emphasis on embodied and gendered subjectivity, the admission of alternate epistemic perspectives, the irreducibility of religious pluralism, and the pragmatist emphasis on transformation all trends that raise serious challenges to the currently prevalent linguistic paradigm."--BOOK JACKET.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: The Participatory Turn in Spirituality, Mysticism, and Religious Studies	p. 1
Participation and Spirit: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives
A Genealogy of Participation	p. 81
Participation, Complexity, and the Study of Religion	p. 113
Spiritual Knowing as Participatory Enaction: An Answer to the Question of Religious Pluralism	p. 135
Surveying the Traditions: Participatory Engagements
Engaging with the Mind of God: The Participatory Path of Jewish Mysticism	p. 173
Esoteric Paradigms and Participatory Spirituality in the Teachings of Mikhael Aivanhov	p. 197
Wound of Love: Feminine Theosis and Embodied Mysticism in Teresa of Avila	p. 225
Ibn al-'Arabi on Participating in the Mystery	p. 245
One Spirit, One Body: Jesus' Participatory Revolution	p. 265
Participation Comes of Age: Owen Barfield and the Bhagavad Gita	p. 293
Pulsating with Life: The Paradoxical Intuitions of Henri Bergson	p. 321
Connecting Inner and Outer Transformation: Toward an Extended Model of Buddhist Practice	p. 349
Contributors	p. 371
Index	p. 375
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