Exploring the intricate nature of Chinese religion, this work highlights its foundational role in shaping Chinese culture and civilization throughout history. It delves into the complexities of spiritual beliefs and practices, illustrating how they have influenced societal norms and values from ancient times to modernity.
Exploring the richness of polytheism, the author draws on his scholarly insights and personal experiences, particularly his connection to nature as a divine source. The book delves into various traditions, including Chinese, Native American, West African, and Hindu beliefs, presenting a detailed taxonomy of deities, such as cosmic couples and ancestral spirits. It also addresses common misconceptions held by monotheists, offering a unique perspective on humanity within a polytheistic framework. This work serves as an enlightening resource for those from monotheistic backgrounds.
The book provides an insightful exploration of Native American religions and rituals, emphasizing their significance as living traditions rather than mere curiosities. It delves into the commonalities among various traditions while respecting their individuality. By examining key factors such as geography, history, religious practices, and ideologies, it offers a comprehensive introduction to select traditions, highlighting their relevance in contemporary society.
This book explores the mystic experience, described as the ecstatic disappearance of self, across cultures. It combines personal accounts with comparative analysis, examining characteristics of this universal experience alongside insights from various religious traditions and related ecstatic phenomena. The author also discusses its significance in multiple academic fields.
Exploring the mystic experience, the book delves into the profound sense of self-disappearance that many describe as life-changing and blissful. It presents a comparative analysis of these experiences across cultures, incorporating personal accounts from individuals outside religious contexts and aligning them with insights from recognized mystics. By distinguishing the mystic experience from similar phenomena like lucid dreaming and shamanism, the author examines its implications across various disciplines, including sociology and psychology, enriching the understanding of this universal human phenomenon.
Reflecting on over half a century of study on Chinese culture, Jordan Paper explores new ways of approaching religion in China. Moving away from using Christianity as a model for examination, which has led to considerable misunderstandings between China and the West, Paper instead applies the paradigm of familism to Chinese religion. By looking through the lens of familism, which emphasises the importance of the family unit, Paper argues that we can understand the basis of Chinese culture, society, government and religion. In the book Paper explains how, when and why familism appears in the development of human culture in the Neolithic period, as well as its ramifications in more complex societies, using the imperial Chinese state as an example. The discussion in the book includes how the Chinese state can be understood as a religious institution; the role of spirit possession; the relationship of other religions in China to Chinese Religion, including Buddhism, Daoism and Judaism; and the issue of freedom of religion in contemporary China. This book not only challenges the discipline's perception of Chinese religion, but all of the religions of East Asia, indigenous sub-Saharan African religions, Polynesian Religion, and elsewhere.