The Antipodes Of The Mind

This is a study of the phenomenology of the special state of mind induced by Ayahuasca, a plant-based Amazonian psychotropic brew. The author's research is based both on extensive firsthand experiences with Ayahuasca, and on interviews conducted with a large number of informants.

This is a pioneering cognitive psychological study of Ayahuasca, a plant-based Amazonian psychotropic brew. Benny Shanon presents a comprehensive charting of the various facets of the special state of mind induced by Ayahuasca, and analyzes them from a cognitive psychological perspective. He also presents some philosophical reflections. Empirically, the research presented in this book is based on the systematic recording of the author's extensive experiences with the brew and on the interviewing of a large number of informants: indigenous people, shamans, members of different religious sects using Ayahuasca, and travellers. In addition to its being the most thorough study of the Ayahuasca experience to date, the book lays the theoretical foundations for the psychological study of non-ordinary states of consciousness in general.

In this wide-ranging book the author presents his critique of the contemporary portrayal of cognition, an analysis of the conceptual foundations of cognitive science and a proposal for a new concept of the mind. Shanon argues that the representational account is seriously lacking and that far from serving as a basis of cognitive activity, representations are the products of such activity. He proposes an alternative view of the mind in which the basic capability of the cognitive system is not the manipulation of symbols but rather action in the world. His book offers a different outlook on the phenomenon of consciousness and presents a new conception of psychological theory and explanation. This revised second edition includes a new Postscript.

A group of people sit around a table theorising, categorising and telling stories. Their real purpose is never quite clear, but they continue on, searching for the monstrous. Part satire, part sacred rite, Annie Baker's play The Antipodes asks what value stories have for a world in crisis. First seen at Signature Theatre, New York, in 2017, the play had its UK premiere at the National Theatre, London, in 2019. 'The most original and significant American dramatist since August Wilson' Mark Lawson, The Guardian

Winner of the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award (1995) “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism’s most respected historians. Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship. While nourishing believers in the simple truths of the gospel, why have so many evangelicals failed to sustain a serious intellectual life and abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of “high” culture? Over twenty-five years since its original publication, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind has turned out to be prescient and perennially relevant. In a new preface, Noll lays out his ongoing personal frustrations with this situation, and in a new afterword he assesses the state of the scandal—showing how white evangelicals’ embrace of Trumpism, their deepening distrust of science, and their frequent forays into conspiratorial thinking have coexisted with surprisingly robust scholarship from many with strong evangelical connections.

This compilation of communications from Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of Bahá'u'lláh's Faith, provides deep insight to the manner in which, over a period of some four and a half decades, he single-handedly raised vibrant Bahá'í communities in Australia and New Zealand. Boundless love, patience and encouragement perfume the communications of Shoghi Effendi with the three protagonists of the Divine Plan-individuals, institutions and the community-whether written by him or on his behalf, the latter invariably accompanied by a personal note of endearment in his own hand. The Guardian's humility, his spirit of servitude, the openness of his heart and mind, and the power of his voice, permeate his correspondence, constantly urging the friends to arise and, in so doing, to turn to 'Abdu'l-Bahá as their guide and refuge while perceiving himself as but their "devoted brother and co-worker". The magnetism of his self-sacrificing love inspired and empowered the handful of early believers in Australia and New Zealand, and later in the Pacific Islands, to arise to fulfil ambitious goals in spreading the healing message of Bahá'u'lláh and establishing the Administrative Order of the Faith.

New Zealanders know Samuel Marsden as the founder of the CMS missions that brought Christianity (and perhaps sheep) to New Zealand. Australians know him as &‘the flogging parson' who established large landholdings and was dismissed from his position as magistrate for exceeding his jurisdiction. English readers know of Marsden for his key role in the history of missions and empire. In this major biography spanning research, and the subject's life, across England, New South Wales and New Zealand, Andrew Sharp tells the story of Marsden's life from the inside. Sharp focuses on revealing to modern readers the powerful evangelical lens through which Marsden understood the world. By diving deeply into key moments &– the voyage out, the disputes with Macquarie, the founding of missions &– Sharp gets us to reimagine the world as Marsden saw it: always under threat from the Prince of Darkness, in need of &‘a bold reprover of vice', a world written in the words of the King James Bible. Andrew Sharp takes us back into the nineteenth-century world, and an evangelical mind, to reveal the past as truly a foreign country.