Miraculous Response

This book-length ethnography of the revival of a popular religious temple in contemporary rural China examines the organizational and cultural logics that inform the staging of popular religious activities. It also explores the politics of the religious revival, detailing the relationships of village-level local activists and local state agents wtih temple associations and temple bosses. Shedding light on shifting state-society relationships in the reform era, this book is of interest to scholars and students in Asian Studies, the social sciences, and religious and ritual studies.

As Christian believers, we have been given the powerful weapon of the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. With the vast amount of resources available today, including ChatGPT, we have no excuse for neglecting to sharpen our swords and deepen our understanding of God’s Word. With ChatGPT at our fingertips, we have an amazing opportunity to learn more about the Bible, deepen our faith, and grow in our spiritual walk. So, let’s take advantage of this wonderful resource and allow it to help us sharpen our swords and become more effective in our Christian walk. There is a warning in their program which states: ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts. If there is an error cited in their response, we post the above warning: ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.

Talk is essential to human social life. Through conversation we form friendships, share dreams and hopes, and develop a common outlook on the world around us. Talk with God can achieve the same thing. This book examines the conversational prayers in the Hebrew Bible, their structure and content, to understand how talk with God forms friendship, shares dreams and hopes, and develops a Divine-human outlook on the world. Conversation forces the petitioner to surrender control of the encounter and become susceptible to unscripted give and take with the Divine. Conversation with God is always a risk, but the rewards can be great. Through conversation Abraham and Moses became friends with God. The same can be true for us.

A remarkable collaboration between psychologist Rossi and gynecologist-obstetrician Cheek, this book guides and empowers therapists and patients to find the keys to their own health and well-being through therapeutic hypnosis. Hundreds of engaging case reports from Cheek's forty years of clinical work bring the theory of mind-body therapy to life, while Rossi's chapters link Cheek's often intuitive work to the latest research in psychobiology.

By far one of the most important objects of worship in the Buddhist traditions, the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara is regarded as the embodiment of compassion. He has been widely revered throughout the Buddhist countries of Asia since the early centuries of the Common Era. While he was closely identified with the royalty in South and Southeast Asia, and the Tibetans continue to this day to view the Dalai Lamas as his incarnations, in China he became a she—Kuan-yin, the "Goddess of Mercy"—and has a very different history. The causes and processes of this metamorphosis have perplexed Buddhist scholars for centuries. In this groundbreaking, comprehensive study, Chün-fang Yü discusses this dramatic transformation of the (male) Indian bodhisattva Avalokitesvara into the (female) Chinese Kuan-yin—from a relatively minor figure in the Buddha's retinue to a universal savior and one of the most popular deities in Chinese religion. Focusing on the various media through which the feminine Kuan-yin became constructed and domesticated in China, Yü thoroughly examines Buddhist scriptures, miracle stories, pilgrimages, popular literature, and monastic and local gazetteers—as well as the changing iconography reflected in Kuan-yin's images and artistic representations—to determine the role this material played in this amazing transformation. The book eloquently depicts the domestication of Kuan-yin as a case study of the indigenization of Buddhism in China and illuminates the ways this beloved deity has affected the lives of all Chinese people down the ages.

Goat Island are one of the world’s leading contemporary performance ensembles. Their intimate, low-tech, intensely physical performances represent a unique hybrid of strategies and techniques drawn from live art, experimental theatre and postmodern dance. Small Acts of Repair: Performance, Ecology and Goat Island, is the first book to document and critique the company’s performances, processes, politics, aesthetics, and philosophies. It reflects on the company’s work through the critical lens of ecology – an emerging and urgent concern in performance studies and elsewhere. This collage text combines and juxtaposes writing by company members and arts commentators, to look in detail at Goat Island’s distinctive collaborative processes and the reception of their work in performance. The book includes a section of practical workshop exercises and thoughts on teaching drawn from the company’s extensive experience, providing an invaluable classroom resource. By documenting the creative processes of this extraordinary company, this book will make an important contribution to the critical debates surrounding contemporary performance practices. In so doing, it pays compelling tribute to committed art-making, creativity, collaboration, and the nature of the possible.

The lives of early Japanese and Chinese settlers in British Columbia have come to define the Asian experience in Canada. Yet many men travelled beyond British Columbia to settle in small Prairie towns and cities. Chinese bachelors opened the region's first laundries and Chinese cafes. They maintained ties to the Old World and negotiated a place in the new by fostering a vibrant homosocial culture based on friendship, everyday religious practices, the example of Sun Yat-sen, and the sharing of food. This exploration of the intersection of gender and migration in rural Canada, in particular, offers new takes on the Chinese quest for identity in North America in general. With a preface by the Honourable Inky Mark, former Member of Parliament for Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette.