On Prophecy Dreams And Human Imagination

Synesius' essay De insomniis ('On Dreams') inquires into the meaning and importance of dreams for human beings and treats themes - most of all the relationship of humans to higher spheres -, which for religiously- and philosophically-minded people are still important today.

This collection of studies on Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium reveals the distinctive and important roles of memory, imagination and dreams in the Byzantine court, the proto-Orthodox church and broader society from Constantinople to Syria and beyond

The notions of other peoples, cultures, and natural conditions have always been determined by the epistemology of imagination and fantasy, providing much freedom and creativity, and yet have also created much fear, anxiety, and horror. In this regard, the pre-modern world demonstrates striking parallels with our own insofar as the projections of alterity might be different by degrees, but they are fundamentally the same by content. Dreams, illusions, projections, concepts, hopes, utopias/dystopias, desires, and emotional attachments are as specific and impactful as the physical environment. This volume thus sheds important light on the various lenses used by people in the Middle Ages and the early modern age as to how they came to terms with their perceptions, images, and notions. Previous scholarship focused heavily on the history of mentality and history of emotions, whereas here the history of pre-modern imagination, and fantasy assumes center position. Imaginary things are taken seriously because medieval and early modern writers and artists clearly reveal their great significance in their works and their daily lives. This approach facilitates a new deep-structure analysis of pre-modern culture.

This book provides a comprehensive literary and theological analysis of Gregory of Nyssa's theology of union with God, culminating in a fresh reading of his final written work, In Canticum Canticorum (c.391), a collection of fifteen allegorical homilies on the Song of Songs. Part I gives the essential background for the study of In Canticum Canticorum by analysing several of Gregory's earlier works (c.370--385), tracing the main contours of his account of the human transformation and union with God. Author Alexander Abecina explores topics such as Gregory's theology of virginity and spiritual marriage, his theology of baptism, his trinitarian theology, and his Spirit-based Christology. In Part II Abecina builds on his key findings in Part I to structure a detailed analysis of In Canticum Canticorum. Engaging with the latest contemporary scholarship on Gregory of Nyssa, the author shows how Gregory's allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs represents a corresponding account of human transformation and union with God from the perspective of subjective experience of this reality. Rather than marking a new development in Gregory's mature thought, Abecina demonstrates that the subjective experience gained from Gregory's reading of the Song of Songs recapitulates the key elements of his objective account and therefore renders coherent his earlier soteriological doctrine.

Secrecy is a central and integral component of all religious traditions. Not limited simply to religious groups that engage in clandestine activities such as hidden rites of initiation or terrorism, secrecy is inherent in the very fabric of religion itself. Its importance has perhaps never been more acutely relevant than in our own historical moment. In the wake of 9/11 and other acts of religious violence, we see the rise of invasive national security states that target religious minorities and pose profound challenges to the ideals of privacy and religious freedom, accompanied by the resistance by many communities to such efforts. As such, questions of secrecy, privacy, surveillance, and security are among the most central and contested issues of twenty-first century religious life. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is the definitive reference source for the key topics, problems, and debates in this crucial field and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising twenty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into five parts: Configurations of Religious Secrecy: Conceptual and Comparative Frameworks Secrecy as Religious Practice Secrecy and the Politics of the Present Secrecy and Social Resistance Secrecy, Terrorism, and Surveillance. This cutting-edge volume discusses secrecy in relation to major categories of religious experience and individual religious practices while also examining the transformations of secrecy in the modern period, including the rise of fraternal orders, the ongoing wars on terror, the rise of far-right white supremacist groups, increasing concerns over religious freedom and privacy, the role of the internet in the spread and surveillance of such groups, and the resistance to surveillance by many indigenous and diasporic communities. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, comparative religion, new religious movements, and religion and politics. It will be equally central to debates in the related disciplines of sociology, anthropology, political science, security studies and cultural studies.

Studies the interrelation of sight, touch, and the imagination in ancient and medieval Greek theories of perception and cognition.

Where is the space for dreaming in the twenty-first century? Lofty thoughts, like dreams, are born and live overhead, just as they have been represented in Renaissance paintings and modern cartoons. Ceilings are often repositories of stories, events and otherwise invisible oneiric narratives. Yet environments that inspire innovative thinking are dwindling as our world confronts enormous challenges, and almost all of our thinking, debating and decision-making takes place under endless ceiling grids. Quantitative research establishes that spaces with taller ceilings elicit broader, more creative thoughts. Today, ceilings are usually squat conduits of technology: they have become the blind spot of modern architecture. The twenty essays in this book look across cultures, places and ceilings over time to discover their potential to uplift the human spirit. Not just one building element among many, the ceiling is a key to unlock the architectural imagination. Ceilings and Dreams aims to correct this blind spot and encourages architects and designers, researchers and students, to look up through writings organized into three expansive categories: reveries, suspensions and inversions. The contributors contemplate the architecture of levity and the potential of the ceiling, once again, as a place for dreaming.

Through extensive textual analysis, this book concludes that the prevailing opinion about the nature of modern and contemporary philosophy is wrong. It maintains that almost all modern and contemporary philosophy is deconstructed, secularized, Augustinian theology, not philosophy. The work is divided into eight chapters, a guest Foreword by Herbert I. London (President of the Hudson Institute and Olin Professor of Humanities at New York University) notes, bibliography, and an index. Chapter 1 (Protagoras Sees the Ghost of Hippo) considers Cartesian thought, Hobbes, and Newton. Chapter 2 (I Feel the Spirit Move Me) examines Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Chapter 3 (The Urge to Emerge) investigates Lessing and Rousseau. Chapters 4 (To Dream the Impossible Dream) and 5 (Wake Up, Wake Up, You Sleepyhead) treat Kant. Chapters 6 (I Am Music) and 7 (Looking for God in All The Wrong Places) deal with Hegel. Chapter 8 (Dirty Dancing: Higher Education as Enlightened Swindling) concludes that a lack of philosophical and historical experience coupled with a widespread inability to read philosophical texts according to the intention of the author (1) causes us to mistake secularized theology for philosophy and (2) is a main cause for the decline of contemporary universities.