Living Without The Dead

Download or read book Living without the Dead written by Piers Vitebsky and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just one generation ago, the Sora tribe in India lived in a world populated by the spirits of their dead, who spoke to them through shamans in trance. Every day, they negotiated their wellbeing in heated arguments or in quiet reflections on their feelings of love, anger, and guilt. Today, young Sora are rejecting the worldview of their ancestors and switching their allegiance to warring sects of fundamentalist Christianity or Hinduism. Communion with ancestors is banned as sacred sites are demolished, female shamans are replaced by male priests, and debate with the dead gives way to prayer to gods. For some, this shift means liberation from jungle spirits through literacy, employment, and democratic politics; others despair for fear of being forgotten after death. How can a society abandon one understanding of reality so suddenly and see the world in a totally different way? Over forty years, anthropologist Piers Vitebsky has shared the lives of shamans, pastors, ancestors, gods, policemen, missionaries, and alphabet worshippers, seeking explanations from social theory, psychoanalysis, and theology. Living without the Dead lays bare today’s crisis of indigenous religions and shows how historical reform can bring new fulfillments—but also new torments and uncertainties. Vitebsky explores the loss of the Sora tradition as one for greater humanity: just as we have been losing our wildernesses, so we have been losing a diverse range of cultural and spiritual possibilities, tribe by tribe. From the award-winning author of The Reindeer People, this is a heartbreaking story of cultural change and the extinction of an irreplaceable world, even while new religious forms come into being to take its place.

Download or read book Living Without the Dead written by Piers Vitebsky and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To the underworld with Ononti the shamaness -- Leopard power and police power, the jungle and the state -- What the living and the dead have to say to each other -- Memories without rememberers -- Young Monosi changes his world forever -- Doloso complicates the future of his mountaintop village -- Shocked by Baptists -- Christians die mute -- Redeemers human and divine -- Youth economics: life after sonums -- Dancing with alphabet worshippers: once and future hindus? -- Interlude: government kitsch and the old prophet's new message -- Six remarkable women and their destinies -- Epilogue: spiritual ecosystems and loss of theo-diversity

Download or read book How the Dead Live written by Will Self and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 1988 and Lily Bloom, a 65-year-old American lies dying of cancer in a London hospital. As her two daughters buzz around her and the nurses pump her full of morphine, she slides in and out of consciousness, outraged that there is so little time left and so many people still to disparage.

Download or read book American Book of the Dead written by and published by Gateways Books & Tapes. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over 120,000 copies sold, this unique contemporary work brings the timeless Tibetan Bardo teaching into current American culture and language, with 49 days of readings for someone who has died or who is preparing for the dying experience. This book has been and still remains an important tool for providing a spiritual service to a dying person as opposed to grieving, processing loss, or mourning for that person's passage. Front matter includes "Notes on the Labyrinth" (or the Bardo...) and other commentary by the author that provides insights for an American reader who wishes to provide this guiding service to a family member, spouse, friend, or anyone who is terminal. The reading instructions very clearly outline when and what to read, without any limitation of belief system--the practice is presented as non-denominational, not requiring Buddhist or Christian or Jewish prayers, but also not in conflict with any of these. A schedule of readings shows graphically how to carry out the full series of 49 days of readings, at approximately 10 to 20 minutes per reading. The book has been in use since 1974 in various editions, taught in university courses on Death & Dying and related subjects (it is referenced in a recent handbook of acting exercises, for example...), and used by hospice workers and nurses internationally. The American Book of the Dead is often referenced in discussions of the 1970's West Coast spiritual renaissance, and many of the baby boomer generation will recall it in circulation when they were in college or beginning their careers. Translated editions have appeared in Spanish and Greek languages, with editions in preparation in German, French, Italian, and Polish. There is a course available by correspondence and on the internet that gives additional training for readers who wish to pursue the practice of performing "Labyrinth Readings" or "Bardo guiding" as a service to others--beyond one's own family and personal network.

Download or read book If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?! written by Cynthia Heimel and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2002-10-09 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heimel has been described by the "Chicago Tribune" as "perhaps our funniest war correspondent on the war between the sexes." Her new book shows Heimel at her wicked best. Like a hip Erma Bombeck or a Dorothy Parker for today, she is an antidote to an absurd world for smart, sane women.

Download or read book The Modern Book of the Dead written by Ptolemy Tompkins and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern, all-encompassing exploration of what happens after death combines spirituality with philosophy, history, and science, all of which guide readers toward the timeless truth that human consciousness lives on after death.

Download or read book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying written by Sogyal Rinpoche and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A magnificent achievement. In its power to touch the heart, to awaken consciousness, [The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying] is an inestimable gift.” —San Francisco Chronicle A newly revised and updated edition of the internationally bestselling spiritual classic, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the ultimate introduction to Tibetan Buddhist wisdom. An enlightening, inspiring, and comforting manual for life and death that the New York Times calls, “The Tibetan equivalent of [Dante’s] The Divine Comedy,” this is the essential work that moved Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions, to proclaim, “I have encountered no book on the interplay of life and death that is more comprehensive, practical, and wise.”