Mysticism: Holiness East and West - Softcover

Carmody, Denise Lardner; Carmody, The Late John Tully

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195088190 ISBN 13: 9780195088199

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1996

Synopsis

Mysticism is pervasive throughout the religions of the world, yet varies widely in its particulars. This comprehensive work surveys the mystical dimension of the world's major religions, beginning with a working description of mysticism as "direct experience of ultimate reality," and examining how this understanding of mysticism holds up when set in interaction with Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions. The authors also examine the religious practices of North American, Latin American, African, and Australian native peoples, illuminating the history, principal beliefs, and teachings of each religion, and examining the lives and works of each tradition's outstanding mystics. The result is a dialogue between the particulars of mystical experience, which vary from tradition to tradition, and the generalities they share which make it possible to discuss mysticism across these traditions. This accessibly written introduction will appeal to students of mysticism, readers seeking mystical experience, and all those interested in religion as practiced throughout the world.

About this title

About the Author:

Denise Lardner Carmody and John Tully Carmody are both at Santa Clara University.

From Publishers Weekly:

Admittedly, the scholarly Carmodys (In the Path of the Masters, etc.) have primarily an academic audience in mind for their masterly introduction to mysticism in Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Chinese and Japanese religious traditions, and cultures (including Native American) in which spiritual legacies are conveyed orally. Nevertheless, general readers drawn to such classics of comparative religion as Armstrong's A History of God or titles by Huston Smith will find this a complementary, analogous and accessible guide to understanding the diverse paths mystics have timelessly trod. The authors begin with a sympathetic exploration of the mystical impulse and its divisions into "essential" (individually derived) and "empiricist" (culturally derived) strands before tracing the ways in which mystics have influenced their various religions or folk-belief systems. And it is in these riveting components of their synthesis of cultural history and faith experience that the Carmodys achieve brilliance. Generously excerpting texts from the Hindu Vedas to Martin Buber's Judaic Tales From the Hasidim and Ibn al-Arabi's Islamic Bezels of Wisdom, they place mysticism on the cutting edge of religions worldwide. (John Carmody lost his long battle with cancer on September 23.)
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0195088190
• ISBN 13: 9780195088199
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336