World invisible / Pryns Hopkins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hopkins, Pryns, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religious life.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (42 pages)

Place of Publication:

Penobscot, Me. : Penobscot, Me., 1963.

Summary:

"During the years when I lectured on psychology at University College, London, and at the Claremont College of Graduate Studies, I took particular pleasure in my courses in the Comparative and Psychological Study of Religions, because in my own youth there had been conflicts in this field. I had now a legitimate reason for gathering data bearing on this subject, for interviewing religious personages, and even for making extensive journeys in order to experience at first hand the "feel" of religions other than the forms of Christianity in which I chanced to have been raised. At this time my acquaintance with cults outside the Christian sects amounted only to such contacts as may befall a traveler in India, Ceylon, and China, plus initiation into some mystical cults in London and Paris. My trips motivated by the deliberate intention of investigating religious phenomena and experiencing religious influences at first hand may be said to have begun in 1947. In that and subsequent years they included Iran, Iraq, India, Ceylon, Japan, Burma, Nepal, and Thailand. In my study of religious personages and religious communities, my primary purpose was to equip myself better to teach my university classes. My second was to see whether there existed anywhere any metaphysical system to which a scientifically cautious but open-minded thinker could give adherence without substantial reservations. My third was to assess the claims made by certain schools to possess valid techniques more effective than we have in the west for improving one's mental, volitional, and emotional capabilities. My procedure was to discuss with authorities and pundits the evidence on which they based their beliefs, to experiment with methods which they claimed to be conducive to enlightenment, and to submit myself to such disciplines as they imposed, including exercises maintaining uncomfortable postures, abstinence from food or sleep, and full participation in the monkish life with residence in ashram or monastery"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Contents:

Saints of my mother's faith

Mystics and occultists

South Indian temple

Hindu holy men

Sainthood in Ceylon

More southern Buddhists

Priests of Zen and Ryo Butsu Shu.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.