The new metaphysicals : spirituality and the American religious imagination / Courtney Bender.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bender, Courtney.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Experience (Religion).

Religion and sociology--United States--Case studies.

Religion and sociology.

Spirituality--Massachusetts--Cambridge.

Spirituality.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (266 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

American spirituality-with its focus on individual meaning, experience, and exploration-is usually thought to be a product of the postmodern era. But, as The New Metaphysicals makes clear, contemporary American spirituality has historic roots in the nineteenth century and a great deal in common with traditional religious movements. To explore this world, Courtney Bender combines research into the history of the movement with fieldwork in Cambridge, Massachusetts-a key site of alternative religious inquiry from Emerson and William James to today. Through her ethnographic analysis, Bender discovers that a focus on the new, on progress, and on the way spiritual beliefs intersect with science obscures the historical roots of spirituality from its practitioners and those who study it alike-and shape an enduring set of modern religious possibilities in the process.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Long Shadows

1. Shamans in the Meetinghouse: Locating Contemporary Spirituality

2. Becoming Mystics

3. Tuning the Body

4. Karmic Laundry: Imagining and Embodying Spiritual History

5. "Zooming Around": Mystical Lands and Cosmopolitanisms

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786612678967

9781282678965

1282678965

9780226043173

0226043177

OCLC:

650529673