Mystical Death Research Articles

Художественные интерпретации образа Чингисхана в англоязычной литературе XX и XXI веков

The study aims to identify the most common artistic models of Genghis Khan’s representation in the English-language literature of various genres of the XX and XXI centuries using the example of works by major English-speaking authors. The researchers analysed the following works: ‘Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World’ by Jack Weatherford, ‘Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy’ by Paul Ratchnevsky, ‘Genghis Khan: The Man Who Conquered the World’ by Frank McLynn, ‘Chinggis Khan (Makers of the Muslim World)’ by Michal Biran, ‘The Earth Is the Lord’s: A Tale of the Rise of Genghis Khan’ by Taylor Caldwell, ‘On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads’ by Tim Cope, the ‘Conqueror’ series by Conn Iggulden, ‘Genghis Khan: Emperor of All Men’ by Harold Lamb, ‘Genghis Khan’ by James Chambers, ‘Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection’ by John Man. The scientific novelty lies in the emphasis on the specifics of the image of the famous conqueror in English-language literatures, which discovered Genghis Khan as a character much later than Soviet literature in Russian. The results showed that the English-speaking authors are interested in the life path of Genghis Khan starting from his early years and ending with a mystical death. At every stage of his life, the authors set their sights on unraveling a certain mystery: the mystery of his elevation, the mystery of many victories, the mystery of authority, the mystery of death, etc. Unlike Soviet authors, who, for obvious reasons, were interested in Genghis Khan more as a ferocious conqueror, the English-speaking authors want to understand him as a person and trace his success story.

Mystical Death in the Spirituality of Saint Teresa of \xc1vila

In this article, the authors study the phenomenon of mystical death in the spirituality of Saint Teresa of Ávila. They first explain the phenomenon of mystical death in the history of Christian spirituality. The authors note that the history of this phenomenon goes as far back as the New Testament, where it can be found in the texts by St. Paul and St. John, but it was first formulated explicitly by an unknown author much later—in the seventeenth century. Mystical death is a concept used to explain mystics’ experience of transformation from self-centeredness to other-centeredness. The authors want to use this concept to open up a further interpretation of Teresa of Ávila’s work, it provides a key for unlocking a major theme of her work. In the mysticism of Saint Teresa of Ávila, the authors investigate this phenomenon in two of her books: The Interior Castle or The Mansions and The Life of Teresa of Jesus. Firstly, this phenomenon is in her description of the fifth mansion of The Interior Castle or The Mansions in the symbolism of the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, conditioned by ascending of internal energies. Secondly, they can trace the phenomenon of mystical death in her work The Life of Teresa of Jesus, especially in her explanation of her near-death experience. According to the authors, the phenomenon of mystical death in the mysticism of Teresa of Ávila constitutes a condition for higher spiritual states, especially the state of mystical unity (lat. unio). Finally, the authors outline that the phenomenon of mystical death in the spirituality of Teresa of Ávila is similar to mysticism in Eastern spiritual traditions. They discuss the importance of revealing these similarities for a better understanding of the human being and hir further spiritual development.

St. Ambrose, Euthanasia, and Antisenescence Arguments: Death as a Good?

I. Introduction ANTISENESCENCE TECHNOLOGIES AIM to extend human life, some say by hundreds of years, others indefinitely. Theoretically, indefinite extension is a possibility through, for example, cell replacement therapy. Even now, research suggests that severe caloric restriction can exert significant effects on life extension. (1) Whereas human enhancement in terms of extending healthy life sounds attractive, there are notable ethical concerns that cannot be ignored. The more sophisticated arguments, ones that do not rest on a utilitarian calculation of good versus bad effects, are certainly noteworthy. For purposes of this article, I will not defend such arguments, but will rest content to canvas basic lines of thought they embrace. Representative of this small community of detractors who question antisenescence technologies is President's Council on Bioethics under chairmanship of Leon Kass. (2) That council offers following reflections on antisenescence research: the boundaries and shape of life cycle give form and possible meaning to a mortal life. Its virtue consists not so much in that it leads us to death, but in that it reminds us, by its very nature, that we will someday die, and that we must live in a way that takes heed of that reality. (3) Throughout this section of discourse, council focuses reader's attention on value of finitude. Absent a sense of finitude, council argues, one loses a sense of commitment and engagement in life-long projects. Aspiration to accomplish something and to be creative is lost as is a desire for renewal, latter of which amounts to a lost desire for children. They note, an era of age retardation we might in practice therefore live under an even more powerful preoccupation with death, but one that leads us not to commitment, engagement, urgency, and renewal, but rather to anxiety, self-absorption, and preoccupation with any bodily mishap or every new antisenescence measure. (4) The basic point council is making is that life cycle, and what that cycle entails in regard to finitude and death, is something of value. That our lives will come to an end is a value; it forces us, however unwillingly, to focus our attention and activities on this finite length of time. In this sense, where death is understood to entail finitude and a sense of finitude is a good thing, death is seen as a good. Viewing death as a good thing is neither a novel nor even a radical idea in Christian intellectual tradition. St. Ambrose's understanding of death outlined in his aptly titled De Bono Mortis (On Good of Death) considers three different senses of death, and at least one is a good, another neutral but possibly good. To quote at length, There are three kinds of death. The first is death of sin, of which it is written: soul which sins shall die. The second is mystical death, when one dies to sin and lives to God.... The third is death by which we complete course and duty of this life, which is to say, separation of soul and body. We note, therefore, that first death ... is evil; second death ... is good; and third has a middle position, for it seems good to righteous men but it is feared by most, and although it frees all, it delights few. But this is not fault of death, but of our own weakness. (5) Note that on traditional understanding of death as separation of soul from body, death is not itself understood as a bad thing; rather, it is condition of our soul that makes it either good or bad. On this point, St. Ambrose expands, saying, Now consider this point: if life is a burden, then death is freedom from it; if life is a punishment, then death is a deliverance; or if there is a judgment after death, there is also a life after death. Is this life, then, not good, or if our life here below is [morally] good, how is death there not good, when no fear of terrible judgment exists there? …

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Crucified with Christ: Meditation on the Passion, Mystical Death, and the Medieval Invention of Psychotherapy

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Crucified with Christ: Meditation on the Passion, Mystical Death, and the Medieval Invention of Psychotherapy

Crucified with Christ: Meditations on the Passion, Mystical Death, and the Medieval Invention of Psychotherapy – By Dan Merkur

Crucified with Christ: Meditations on the Passion, Mystical Death, and the Medieval Invention of Psychotherapy – By Dan Merkur

The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism. Michael Fishbane

<i>The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism</i>. Michael Fishbane

The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism. Michael Fishbane

<i>The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism</i>. Michael Fishbane

Michael Fishbane. The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism. The Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994. xii, 156 pp.

Michael Fishbane. The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism. The Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994. xii, 156 pp. - Volume 21 Issue 2

The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism (review)

164 SHOFAR Summer 1996 Vol. 14, No.4 added; "abbunat" (p. 72), read "abunnat"; "(19:X):mt rpi" (p. 84), read "(19x): mt rpi," i.e., 19 times, but Talmon's source gives 18 occurrences ofmt rpi, disregarding two that are reconstructed in lacunae; "s. v. rpi" (p. 84, n. 24), read "s.v. rpa"; "the Tetrateuch. JEP" (p. 92 n. 5), read "the Tetrateuch,JEP"; "first millennium B.C.E.57 " (p. 106), read "first millennium B.C.E. Thus the wane of the epic by the sixth century B.C.E.57 ,,; "Schneidan's" (p. 108), read "Schneidau's"; "forward men" (p. 250), read "froward men"; "O"~!) O"~!) "~,, (p. 214), read "O"~!)J O"~!)"; Un. 96" (p. 250, n. 107), read Un. 97." For reasons of space, and perhaps somewhat unfairly to the author, we have concentrated on only one of the essays in this volume. Those not mentioned above are "Biblical O"~~' and Ugaritic RPU/I(M)," "Did There Exist a Biblical National Epic?," "The Presentation of Synchroneity and Simultaneity in Biblical Narrative," "Polemics and Apology in Biblical Historiography: 2 Kings 17:24-41," "Eschatology and History in Biblical Thought," "The Concept of Revelation in Biblical Times" (appearing for the first time in English), "The Desert Motif in the Bible and in Qumran literature," and "'Wisdom' in the Book of Esther." The reader may wish that this volume were more carefully edited in places, but will undoubtedly find these studies to be informative and provocative. Indices to authors and ancient sources are a welcome addition to the original publications. Frederick W. Knobloch MeyerhoffCenterforJewish Studies University of Maryland The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism, by Michael Fishbane. Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1994. 156 pp. $25.00. The Kiss of God is a wonderful addition to the distinguished Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies as well as a distinct contribution to the study of Jewish spirituality. Fishbane discusses spiritual and mysti~al death under three rubrics: the first is entitled, "'If you wish to live then die': Aspects of Death and Desire in Jewish Spirituality"; the second is "'For Your sake we are killed all day long': The Sanctification of God in Love"; and the third is entitled "'As if he sacrificed a soul': Forms of Ritual Simulation and Substitution." They are followed by an Epilogue, Notes, and Index. The work as a whole serves as a conspectus on striving towards the love of God in Judaism. It makes it dear that from the consciousness of Book Reviews 165 the religious mind, the love of God is the central aspiration ofJewish piety even up to and including the moment of death. It is thus all the more surprising how rarely the subject is discussed in books on Judaism. The closest discussion I could find in modern treatments ofJudaism is in Man Is Not Alone, where Heschel concludes his phenomenology of piety by arguing for the meaning of death as "the ultimate self-dedication to the divine ... for this act ofgiving away is reCiprocity on man's part for God's gift of life" (p. 296). The strength of this book lies, however, not only in its subject but in its sophistication of presentation. One can count on one's hand the number of books on Jewish spirituality that are as informed historically and as theologically sensitive. Too often works onJewish spirituality reflect the configuration of the spirit as it comes into formation in the mind of the author. Although the book focuses upon the mystical tradition, the coverage of the Bible, Talmud, and Maimonides as well as examples from modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature justify its claim to be representative. Insights exquisitely formulated into the nature oflife of the spirit lived in extremis stud the whole book. Commenting on the way The Song of Songs displaced the physical energy of love, he notes how these images which "conjugate the rhythms of eros with the arousals of nature" show how Solomon "transfigured earthly eros into tropes of tradition and memory" (pp. 14-15). Explaining the spiritual kiss ofdeath, he notes, "the very moment of death is itself infused with an erotic dimension. . . . The kiss is thus the...

The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism. Michael Fishbane

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism. Michael Fishbane Ithamar GruenwaldIthamar Gruenwald Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 75, Number 4Oct., 1995 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/489720 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1995 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The kiss of God: spiritual and mystical death in Judaism

Fishbane (Jewish studies, U. of Chicago) explores early rabbinic sources and Jewish philosophy and mysticism to trace the quest for personal salvation through purification of desire and the perfection of the soul. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Caligula: Camus's Anti-Shaman

Caligula: Camus's Anti-Shaman Patricia Hopkins Texas Tech University Caligula's revolt has been interpreted by various Camus scholars as historical, philosophical, or aesthetic in nature, and a convincing case can be made for each of these approaches.1 A careful study of the text, however, suggests another possibility that I would like to explore, that is, the notion of Caligula as an ironic shaman who, having experienced a ritual initiation through a mythic descent into hell, seeks to re-create the primordial chaos of pre-history and a lost paradise through a systematic destruction of the foundations of Western rationality and morality. Let us recall the principal stages ofCaligula's evolution. The most significant event takes place before the play begins: following the death of his sister Drusilla, Caligula disappears for three days and returns disturbingly transformed. Camus's source, Suetonius, does not elaborate upon the length of this disappearance, stating only that: following her death, he proclaimed a general cessation of law in all courts. During which time, a capital crime it was for any man to have laughed, bathed, or supped together with his parents, wife or children. And being impatient of this sorrow, when he was fled suddenly and by night out of the city, and had passed all over Campania, to Syracuse he went; and so from thence returned speedily again with his beard and hair overgrown. (231-32) Camus, however, in specifying an absence of three days (the length of Christ's sojourn in hell), opens the door to the possibility of a descent followed by a profound transformation. The death of his mistress -sister is a pretext for Caligula's realization that "Ce monde, tel qu'il est fait, n'est pas supportable" (TRN 15). The spectator can only surmise the depth of this transformation, but there are several allusions in the first scenes to the fact that Caligula up to this point in no way resembled the monster who will henceforth embark upon an exuberant reign of terror. The young poet Scipio declares: "Il était bon pour moi. Il m'encourageait et je sais par coeur certaines de ses paroles. Il me disait que la vie n'est pas facile, mais qu'il y avait la religion, l'art, l'amour qu'on nous porte. Il répétait souvent 33 34Rocky Mountain Review que faire souffrir était la seule façon de se tromper. Il voulait être un homme juste" (TRN 19). It will become apparent that Caligula has become the exact antithesis of the role model described by Scipio. His fanatical mission will now be to illustrate in all its horror the simple realization that "les hommes meurent et ils ne sont pas heureux" (TRN 16). He thus sets out to subvert and undermine the essential values that the Western world holds most dear: the family, work, patriotism, religion , literature, and art. And he does this through theatre, staging a series of spectacles to enlighten and mystify his unfortunate audience . When confronted with rational and conventionally moral resistance , he explains that he is merely imitating and intensifying the incomprehensible capriciousness of the gods. In short, he is the most pedagogical of tyrants, constantly reinforcing the lesson that men are mortal and that any notion of transcendence is rendered absurd by the inevitability of death. The dynamics of Caligula's transformation bear a certain resemblance to the initiatic rites of shamanism elaborated by Mircea Eliade. What characterizes the shaman, Eliade believes, is not so much the possession by "spirits," but the ecstasy produced by his ascent to heaven or descent to hell. Every initiation includes a period of isolation and a certain number of trials and ordeals forcing the novice to undergo an "initiatory illness," an illness revolving about an experience of mystical death or resurrection (Myths 79-80). The initiation itself often follows a profound crisis bordering on madness . Madness, in fact, may appear as a form of initiation, le mal sacré being a means of attaining revelation. Although this is essentially a religious phenomenon, it enters into literature under a symbolic configuration and can be traced, as Léon Cellier has done in Parcours initiatiques, from the romantic...

Merrill and Others: Studies in American Poetry

James E.B. Breslin. From Modern to Contemporary: American Poetry, 1945-1965. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. 272 + xvi pp. David Lehman and Charles Berger, eds. James Merrill: Essays in Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.329 pp. Anthony Libby. Mythologies of Nothing: Mystical Death in American Poetry 1940-70. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984. 225 + x pp. Judith Moffett. James Merrill: An Introduction to the Poetry. Columbia Introductions to Twentieth- Century American Poetry. John Unterecker, Gen. ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. 247 + xxiv pp. Ronald Wallace. God Be with the Clown: Humor in American Poetry. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1984. 235 + x pp. In an earlier book, James E.B. Breslin traced the history of what he calls "the Modern Revolt" and of the role that William Carlos Williams played in it.1 In From Modern to Contemporary: American Poetry, 1945-1965, he begins by tracing the decline of that revolt and its replacement in the late 1940s by a new, double orthodoxy: the New Criticism and what he calls the New Rear Guard of poets (his chief examples are Richard Wilbur and Adrienne Rich) who adhered to traditional metrics and symbolist esthetics. Breslin has chosen five poets to discuss as representatives of significant movements of renewed revolt: Allen Ginsberg, of the Beats; Robert Lowell, of the confessional poets; Denise Levertov, of the Black Mountain group; James A. Wright, of the Deep Image group that also included Louis Simpson and Robert Bly; and Frank O'Hara, of the New York group that also included John Ashbery.

Mythologies of Nothing: Mystical Death in American Poetry, 1940-1970.

Mythologies of Nothing: Mystical Death in American Poetry, 1940-1970.

Mythologies of Nothing: Mystical Death in American Poetry, 1940-70

Mythologies of Nothing: Mystical Death in American Poetry, 1940-70

Reply to Buss's Comment on "An Analysis of Some Factors Associated with Religion and Political Affiliation"

This produces dissociation between the conscious and unconscious mind engendering an unrecognized longing to discover the self, to become what he already is, to actualize his potentialities, to live in harmony with the cosmic order. If it was the latter, the apparently neurotic search for spiritual glory that was unrealizable is not an uncommon reaction. After all, psychic or mystical death and rebirth constitute the most intoxicating inner drama known to man. So it might have been a temporary hubris. This often changes to humility when higher levels of consciousness are sustained.