Mystical Movement Research Articles

Messianism, Mysticism, and Magic: A Sociological Analysis of Jewish Religious Movements.

In this first sociological analysis of millenarian and mystical movements from the Middle Ages to the present, Sharot deals primarily with the Jewish masses. He describes religious currents in which hope focused on either a messiah who would bring redemption or on the means by which the individual could achieve mystical cleaving to God. Also discussed are Sabbatianism, Hasidism, Reform Judiasm, revolutionary socialism, Zionism, and the relationship between religion and magic.Originally published in 1982.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

John Pory, 1572-1636: The Life and Letters of a Man of Many Parts

Mystical Dimensions of Islam presents, for the first time, a balanced historical treatment of the transnational phenomenon of Sufism -- Islamic mysticism -- from its beginnings through the nineteenth century. Through her sensitivity and deep understanding of the subject, Annemarie Schimmel, an eminent scholar of Eastern religions, draws the reader into the mood, the vision, the way of the Sufi in a manner that adds an essential ingredient to her analysis of the history of Sufism.After exploring the origins of the mystical movement in the meditations of orthodox Muslims on the Koran and the prophetic tradition, the author then discusses the development of its different stages, including classical voluntarism and postclassical theosophical mystical trends. Particular emphasis is placed on spiritual education, the different ways of leading the mystic toward the existential realization of the profound mystery of the profession of faith that there is no deity but God. Sufi psychology and Sufi orders and fraternities are comprehensively explored.Through an examination of mystical anthropology, which culminates in the veneration of the prophet and the saints, the questions of free will and predestination, of good and evil, are implied. The main burden of the text, however, is Sufism as reflected in Islamic poetry, and Professor Schimmel examines the various aspects of mystical poetry in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Sindhi, Panjabi, and Pashto. The author skillfully demonstrates how Sufi ideals permeated the whole fabric of Muslim life, providing the average Muslim -- villager or intellectual -- with the virtues of perfect trust in God and the loving surrender to God's will.Professor Schimmel's long acquaintance with Turkey, Iran, and the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent provides a unique emphasis to the study, and the author's personal knowledge of Sufi practice in these regions lends a contemporary relevance to her work.

Mysticism, Poverty and Reason in the Thought of Meister Eckhart

This paper interprets Meister Eckhart's mysticism as an integral part of a carefully worked out metaphysical scheme and as a theological response to the popular religious piety and the socio-economic expansion that transformed European society in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Both lines of interpretation bring Eckhart's concept of poverty into focus as they key to his thought. After tracing the transformation of the older monastic ideals of the visio dei and cenobite poverty into popular mysticism and evangelical poverty in the new urban setting, the paper argues that Eckhart was the first major Christian thinker upon whom these ideals had a central and decisive impact. Thus Eckhart's concept of poverty must be understood on one level as a dissenting religious response to the effects of material prosperity on medieval society. On a deeper, but closely related level, Eckhart's concept of poverty must be seen in its theological significance as providing the mystical movements of the Rhineland with a reflective foundation. The paper argues that Eckhart developed a metaphysics of intellection that breaks with both Augustinian and Thomistic traditions in theology, and that correspondingly his mystical teaching breaks sharply with the love- or will-centered mystical tradition represented by Augustine, Bernard and the Franciscans. In his theology Eckhart affirms God to be the One, beyond being, and therefore to be unknowable through any kind of mediation. His mystical teaching posits a direct awareness of God when ordinary, mediated awareness of the world is stilled. Poverty is his term for this direct awareness of God. The paper suggests that this mystical experience of God is also an experience of the world and thus a self-identity in in the world. In concluding, the relevance of Eckhart's notion of poverty to contemporary theology is briefly suggested.

Mystical Dimensions of Islam

Mystical Dimensions of Islam presents, for the first time, a balanced historical treatment of the transnational phenomenon of Sufism -- Islamic mysticism -- from its beginnings through the nineteenth century. Through her sensitivity and deep understanding of the subject, Annemarie Schimmel, an eminent scholar of Eastern religions, draws the reader into the mood, the vision, the way of the Sufi in a manner that adds an essential ingredient to her analysis of the history of Sufism.After exploring the origins of the mystical movement in the meditations of orthodox Muslims on the Koran and the prophetic tradition, the author then discusses the development of its different stages, including classical voluntarism and postclassical theosophical mystical trends. Particular emphasis is placed on spiritual education, the different ways of leading the mystic toward the existential realization of the profound mystery of the profession of faith that there is no deity but God. Sufi psychology and Sufi orders and fraternities are comprehensively explored.Through an examination of mystical anthropology, which culminates in the veneration of the prophet and the saints, the questions of free will and predestination, of good and evil, are implied. The main burden of the text, however, is Sufism as reflected in Islamic poetry, and Professor Schimmel examines the various aspects of mystical poetry in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Sindhi, Panjabi, and Pashto. The author skillfully demonstrates how Sufi ideals permeated the whole fabric of Muslim life, providing the average Muslim -- villager or intellectual -- with the virtues of perfect trust in God and the loving surrender to God's will.Professor Schimmel's long acquaintance with Turkey, Iran, and the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent provides a unique emphasis to the study, and the author's personal knowledge of Sufi practice in these regions lends a contemporary relevance to her work.

Pirandello and Theosophy

AS A "WISDOM-RELIGION" with marked mystical concerns, theosophy has been rooted from time immemorial in the history of mankind, and its original religious beliefs and practices. As a speculative system with both religious and philosophical implications, however, theosophy can be traced back to Plato, and to such early mystical movements and esoteric doctrines as Orphism and pre-Christian gnosticism.

Baptists and Quakers—Left Wing Puritans?

With quiet British understatement, sentence in foreword of revised edition of Braithwaite's standard history of Quakerism underscored major shift in historical interpretation. announced dropping of introductory chapter by Ruf us M. Jones linking Quakerism to mystical movements of Continent and England and 'interpreting religious experience of Friends. The reason? This interpretive chapter has regretfully been omitted on ground that recent studies have, in minds of number of scholars, put Quakerism in rather light. Evidently Ruf us Jones, hailed by his biographer as was no longer considered master historian as well.1 The editor of revised edition was biblical scholar and Quaker historian Henry J. Cadbury. In one of his notes incorporating recent research which was added to Braithwaite book he described different light now shining on Quaker origins. Rather than inheritors and fulfillers of long line of Spiritual Reformers, as Jones saw them, Friends are to be considered a natural extreme to whole spectrum of English Puritan thought - in short, as left-wing Puritans.2 Cadbury's colleague Frederick B. Tolles took same line in introduction he contributed to second volume of revised edition by noting that the attention of scholars in seventeenth-century intellectual and religious history has turned away from remote, somewhat problematic, continental and mystical roots of Quakerism and has

The Enduring Effect of the Jewish Tradition Upon Freud

Freud's background included many significant sources of contact with traditional Jewish scholarship. From this background, in part, his intense rational and analytical approach to psychology undoubtedly originated. The author notes remarkable similarities to Jewish scholarship in Freud's determinism, his utilization of metaphorical communication, and his study and interpretation of associations and dreams. Freud proudly acknowledged this influence and inspiration. On the other hand, there is little to indicate that Freud was seriously affected by Jewish cabbalistic and mystical movements, as has been proposed by others.

The Hasidic Nigun—Ethos and Melos of a Folk Liturgy

Hasidism, the last of the Jewish mystical movements, created a characteristic wordless vocal melody which is called in Hebrew nigun. These nigunim are often used as an extension of the existing liturgy, and serve as a prelude or postlude to the traditional prayers; there may even be devotional gatherings during which only these nigunim are heard.Hasidism originated in Eastern Europe about 1750. It spread quickly over the Jewish diaspora in the Slavic countries, and is still alive in many communities such as Jerusalem, Safad, London, New York and elsewhere. It is the latest, but not the sole mystical movement that attracted masses of the people. Disastrous persecutions were often followed by a withdrawal of the Jews into an inner life beyond grim reality.

Dualism in Somali Notions of Power

EXCEPT IN ITS POETRY, Islam in Somaliland is not rich in esoteric symbolism. Thus almost inevitably one is driven directly to examine the relationship between religious beliefs and cults, and between these and social structure. The purpose of this paper is to consider one wide issue here, that of the distinction which Somali draw between secular and non-secular power, and to examine how this is related to ecological and social factors and to the local interpretation of Islam. The first point to emphasize is that the Somali have been Muslims for many centuries, Islam having been introduced on the coast at least as early as the tenth century. Indeed they are orthodox Sunnis and follow the Shafi'i code of Muslim law. Not surprisingly, however, the segmentary lineage structure of their society strongly colours the content and character of the local practice of Islam. Thus it seems perfectly logical that Sufism and saint veneration-the mystical movement in Islam-should be highly developed amongst the Somali. For Sufism which lays such stress on the powers of intercession of saints seems peculiarly well-adapted to local Somali lineage ancestor cults. Indeed, a large proportion of those saints who now occupy a prominent place in Somali Islam are in fact the ancestors of lineages. Not all the saints venerated by Somali, however, fall into this category. A second and smaller group of locally venerated saints are those Muslims from other lands who founded the Dervish Orders or 'brotherhoods' which the Somali follow and to one of which every Somali is at least nominally attached.' Finally, there is a third category of locally venerated saints consisting of Somali and immigrant Arabs who are venerated, neither as lineage ancestors nor as the founders of Muslim brotherhoods, but for their personal blessing and miraculous works alone. Saints in all these three categories are regarded similarly by Somali, although as individuals they are not all equally powerful. To-day, whatever may have been the case in the past, Somali venerate these saints but do not worship them. There is no 'ancestor worship' in Somaliland, nor are the saints 'refractions' of God; rather they are intermediaries through whose piety and blessing (baraka), as in Catholicism, men seek to bridge the gulf which separates them from God. Above all the saints are not ends in themselves, but only a means by which man's appeal to the mercy and blessing of God through the Prophet is strengthened. Their general religious status is clearly indicated in the dogma held by the Ahmadiya brotherhood that their founder Sayyid Ahmad ibn Idriis al-Faasi2 'is in the door of the Prophet, and the Prophet is in the door of God'. These saints then, of whatever category, are venerated, not worshipped, and the respect shown to them which is explicitly based upon their intercessory role in no way eclipses or abrogates the power of God and His Prophet. God, 'The Creator', 'The Bestower', 'The Everlasting', etc.,3 is 'without need, or want', is all-powerful, and his unique character and position is in a sense enhanced rather than detracted from by the