Where do Mysticism and and political action meet? How does faith empower its adherents to resist oppression? What are the origins of authentic contemporary mysticism? From the thirteenth-century Franciscan movement to African American mystics, this wide-ranging volume of essays considers exemplars of Christian mysticism (including Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, the Quakers, and the Society of Friends) whose practices and influence brought about social change. Linking major conceptual issues and social theory, the essays examine the historical impact of mysticism in contemporary life and argue for a hermeneutical approach to mysticism in its historical context. The contributors look at how mystical empowerment can serve as a catalyst for expressing compassion in acts of justice and long-term social change. We learn how Sojourner Truth and Rebecca Cox Jackson, driven by mystical experiences to take up lives of preaching, faced the same misogynistic religious environments as did women mystics throughout history, which has submerged this key area of women’s experience. The final two essays describe the development of socially engaged Buddhism in Asia and America and the mystical roots of deep ecology.

Academics and activists alike have long dismissed mysticism as an «otherworldly» and escapist form of religion. Alton B. Pollard III, in a ground breaking study of the noted African-American mystic, Howard Thurman, presents an analysis of religious experience that challenges prevailing interpretations of mysticism and social change. Drawing on perspectives from sociology, phenomenology, and history, the author examines the meaning of mystical religion for the «underside» of contemporary American society. What he uncovers is significant: an activist form of mysticism, compelled by the dictates of spiritual experience, that defies social conventions and engenders social change.

Where do Mysticism and and political action meet? How does faith empower its adherents to resist oppression? What are the origins of authentic contemporary mysticism? From the thirteenth-century Franciscan movement to African American mystics, this wide-ranging volume of essays considers exemplars of Christian mysticism (including Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, the Quakers, and the Society of Friends) whose practices and influence brought about social change. Linking major conceptual issues and social theory, the essays examine the historical impact of mysticism in contemporary life and argue for a hermeneutical approach to mysticism in its historical context. The contributors look at how mystical empowerment can serve as a catalyst for expressing compassion in acts of justice and long-term social change. We learn how Sojourner Truth and Rebecca Cox Jackson, driven by mystical experiences to take up lives of preaching, faced the same misogynistic religious environments as did women mystics throughout history, which has submerged this key area of women’s experience. The final two essays describe the development of socially engaged Buddhism in Asia and America and the mystical roots of deep ecology.

This analytical, polemical, and personal book creates a lively interaction between mysticism and activism. Looking beyond superficial links between spirituality and justice, it creates an in-depth engagement of mysticism as an inner revolution and activism as a mirroring socioeconomic transfiguration. Based on the twin premises of the mystical tradition and Social Gospel-liberation theology that those who experience God in prayer or engage in social action ought to be our primary theologians, it examines what these two traditions say about theology, to each other, and to us. The broad synthesis that results from this fascinating dialogue brings new insights into mysticism, activism, theology, and ethics, and casts a unique light on how we pray and live. If Only We Could See brings together a wealth of spiritual material from the early Desert, medieval mystics, and modern spiritual writers alongside an equally rich resource of abolitionists, anti-apartheid activists, civil rights leaders, nonviolent change agents, and peacemakers. The results yield valuable insights for a theology that challenges every personal and political status quo.

In Mystical Activism, we each hold the power to change the world right where we are. To call these "end times" is not hyperbole. We are in trouble and the signs are everywhere: extreme political divisions; xenophobic violence; enormous wealth inequity; poverty and homelessness; racism, sexism, and ageism; arms buildups and unending wars; and, most critical of all, terrifying climate disruption associated with man-made global warming. We are the cause of these dark times. Driven by left-brain beliefs, illusions and obsessions, humanity races headlong toward the collapse of civilization. Fortunately, the solution to these mounting crises also lies in the human psyche, arising from a most surprising source: the right-brain’s natural mystical consciousness. Our survival depends on whether we grasp and resolve this paradox in time.

With a foreword by Dr Howard Thurman's biographer Dr Luther E. Smith Jr this book contains the only surviving text of the Lawrence Lectures given by Dr Thurman at California's Berkeley Unitarian Church in 1978. As such, it is a unique record of the thinking of one of America's most celebrated African-American churchmen on the potential of religious experience and god-conscious living to transform society. Howard Thurman, as Dean of the Chapels at Howard University, and later at Boston University, was acclaimed by LIFE magasine as one of the 20th century's "e;Great Preachers"e; of America. His insights and teaching in a time of immense social upheaval influenced the lives of millions, including Martin Luther King, Jr. In the Lawrence Lecture reproduced in this book he insists that the most intense religious experience (the 'mysticism' of the title) can and should be the basis for involvement in social transformation.Also within the book is a biographical essay entitled 'The Temple above the Clouds' by the Rev Richard F Boeke, Minister of the First Unitarian Church at Berkeley 1968-1995. It was he who was instrumental in inviting Dr Thurman to deliver the Lawrence Lectures and who preserved the content of those lectures for eventual publication. His reminiscence of his ministry during those years of rapid change in social attitudes provides both a fascinating and highly personal account in itself and also an informative background to the issues addressed by Dr Thurman.

An in-depth look into the foundations of mysticism and alchemy, this book describes both physical and spiritual aspects of the various theories and practices of transformation, with attention to the beliefs of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sufism, Tantrism, Taoism and Yoga. The connection between early mystical pursuits and the development of alchemy from ancient China, India, and Egypt through Moorish Spain and into Latin Europe are illuminated, along with the activities of early alchemists. The book, which is heavily illustrated, describes the beliefs, experiments, and secret messages that drew the believers and dreamers of the world together in search of wealth and immortality.