The delight makers : Anglo-American metaphysical religion and the pursuit of happiness / Catherine L. Albanese.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Albanese, Catherine L., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Metaphysics.

United States--Religion--History.

United States.

United States--Church history.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (384 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago, Illinois : University of Chicago Press, [2023]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

An ambitious history of desire in Anglo-American religion across three centuries. The pursuit of happiness weaves disparate strands of Anglo-American religious history together. In The Delight Makers, Catherine L. Albanese unravels a theology of desire tying Jonathan Edwards to Ralph Waldo Emerson to the religiously unaffiliated today. As others emphasize redemptive suffering, this tradition stresses the "metaphysical" connection between natural beauty and spiritual fulfillment. In the earth's abundance, these thinkers see an expansive God intent on fulfilling human desire through prosperity, health, and sexual freedom. Through careful readings of Cotton Mather, Andrew Jackson Davis, William James, Esther Hicks, and more, Albanese reveals how a theology of delight evolved alongside political overtures to natural law and individual liberty in the United States.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction: Lights and Shadows

Part I God Shed His Grace

Section 1 Divine and Devilish Things

One. The Metaphysical Cotton Mather

Two. Jonathan Edwards: Latter-Day Puritan and Metaphysician

Section 2 Supernatural and Natural

Three. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Supernatural Naturalist

Four. Horace Bushnell: Natural Supernaturalist

Part II The Fruited Plain

Section 3 Commercial and Un-Unitarian Times

Five. Albert Brisbane and the Metempsychosis of Sex

Six. Andrew Jackson Davis and the Matter of Sex and Spirit

Section 4 Physic and Metaphysic

Seven. Warren Felt Evans: From Methodism to Mind Cure

Eight. William James: From Anatomy to the Science of Spirit

Section 5 Purses, Profits, and Futures Perfect

Nine. Minding Money and Market: Emma Curtis Hopkins and Elizabeth Towne

Ten. Arcanes of Prosperity: The Multiverses of William Walker Atkinson

Eleven. Channeling Delight and Destiny: The Coming of Seth and Abraham

Afterword: And Crowned Thy Good?

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-226-82334-2

OCLC:

1354206021