A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion - Hardcover

Albanese, Catherine L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300110898 ISBN 13: 9780300110890

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2007

Synopsis

Rare book

About this title

About the Author:

Catherine L. Albanese is professor and chair, Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, and former president of the American Academy of Religion. She lives in the Santa Barbara area.

From Publishers Weekly:

American religious history has tended to emphasize either evangelical or revivalist movements (William McLoughlin's Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform) or mainstream denominations (Sydney Ahlstrom's A Religious History of the American People). In this groundbreaking book, Albanese, the religion department chair at UC–Santa Barbara, focuses instead on metaphysical religions, from Transcendentalism and New Thought to Theosophy, Christian Science and the New Age movement. She traces the advent of these religions from their European heritage (the Rosicrucian Enlightenment, Pietism and mysticism) and Native American legacies (shamanism, dream interpretation) to 19th-century forms such as Universalism, Mormonism and Freemasonry. In later chapters, she demonstrates that American metaphysical religions often incorporated Asian traditions, such as various forms of Buddhism, into their own practices. Albanese contends that the ability to combine the traits of several religions into a new tradition—what she calls a "combinative nature"—is the singular feature of American metaphysical religions, which share four themes: they are preoccupied with mind and powers; reflect a propensity for ancient cosmology; think in terms of movement and energy; and emerge amid a yearning for salvation understood as solace, comfort, therapy and healing. Although Albanese's tone can sometimes turn dry and pedantic, she delivers a first-rate and much-needed religious history of American metaphysical tradition. (Jan.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0300110898
• ISBN 13: 9780300110890
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640