The One A Tale Of An Amazing Spiritual Quest

Amazing things are happening on earth! In just 150 years science has reached a breathtaking level, making discoveries and inventions that had eluded the human mind for centuries. And now man seems to be on the verge of unveiling the mystery of God.

Robert Torrance's wide-ranging, innovative study argues that the spiritual quest is rooted in our biological, psychological, linguistic, and social nature. The quest is not, as most have believed, a rare mystical experience, but a frequent expression of our most basic human impulses. Shaman and scientist, medium and poet, prophet and philosopher, all venture forth in quest of visionary truths to transform and renew the world. Yet Torrance is not trying to reduce the quest to an "archetype" or "monomyth." Instead, he presents the full diversity of the quest in the myths and religious practices of tribal peoples throughout the world, from Oceania to India, Africa, Siberia, and especially the Americas. In theorizing about the quest, Torrance draws on thinkers as diverse as Bergson and Piaget, van Gennep and Turner, Pierce and Popper, Freud, Darwin, and Chomsky. This is a book that will expand our knowledge—and awareness—of a fundamental human activity in all its fascinating complexity.

America has always been committed to the idea that citizens can work together to build a common world. Today, three afflictions keep us from pursuing that noble ideal. The first and most obvious affliction is identity politics, which seeks to transform America by turning politics into a religious venue of sacrificial offering. For now, the sacrificial scapegoat is the white, heterosexual, man. After he is humiliated and purged, who will be the object of cathartic rage? White women? Black men? Identity politics is the anti-egalitarian spiritual eugenics of our age. It demands that pure and innocent groups ascend, and the stained transgressor groups be purged. The second affliction is that citizens oscillate back and forth, in bipolar fashion, at one moment feeling invincible on their social media platforms and, the next, feeling impotent to face the everyday problems of life without the guidance of experts and global managers. Third, Americans are afflicted by a disease that cannot quite be named, characterized by an addictive hope that they can find cheap shortcuts that bypass the difficult labors of everyday life. Instead of real friendship, we seek social media “friends.” Instead of meals at home, we order “fast food.” Instead of real shopping, we “shop” online. Instead of counting on our families and neighbors to address our problems, we look to the state to take care of us. In its many forms, this disease promises release from our labors, yet impoverishes us all. American Awakening chronicles all of these problems, yet gives us hope for the future.

Have you ever wondered if God has a destiny for you? He does. For the longest time, Elizabeth Bristol ran from God--until, out of desperation, she caved. She found out she not only needed God but wanted Him. In what came as a total shock, she found peace, purpose, and incredible healing. She can't not share because in this crazy world, who couldn't use a little more of all that? There are stories in this book she wasn't going to tell. Why did she? She had to share her indiscretions in order for people to see the power of redemption. But the coolest thing about this book isn't the miraculous story God made out of Elizabeth's life; it's that He wants to do the same for everyone else. When you walk in your destiny, nothing can stop you from influencing your world. How do you do that? Let this book show you. "Elizabeth Bristol uses candor, humor, and a conversational-style to tell her unconventional story: she was a young party girl addicted to travel, always seeking something bigger than herself until she realized the hole inside of her was God-sized. That's when the self-proclaimed agnostic's real struggles began." -- Holly Lorincz, bestselling author of Crown Heights "This entertaining pilgrimage is full of quirky stories. It's deeply personal, but resonates with familiar spiritual wonderings we can all identify with. The 'aha' moments are simple yet profound, dished out appropriately in a way that makes me shake my head and smile." -- Chip MacGregor, MacGregor Literary, Inc. ELIZABETH B. BRISTOL received a counseling degree from Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, then studied at Jerusalem University College. As a missionary, she served with Living Bread International Church in Jericho and with Iris Ministries in Mozambique. She's driven across the United States forty-eight times to work as a camp counselor, a keynote speaker, and to throw on a hoop skirt and dance the Virginia Reel at a Civil War reenactment. Today she lives on the Oregon Coast with her dog, Malachi. You can connect with her at www.elizabethbbristol.com.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest, and the Salon Book Award, Anne Fadiman's compassionate account of this cultural impasse is literary journalism at its finest. ______ Lia Lee 1982-2012 Lia Lee died on August 31, 2012. She was thirty years old and had been in a vegetative state since the age of four. Until the day of her death, her family cared for her lovingly at home.

In the tradition of The Swerve comes this thrilling, detective-like work of literary history that reveals how a poem created the world we live in today. It was, improbably, the forerunner of our digital age: a French poem about a shipwreck published in 1897 that, with its mind-bending possibilities of being read up and down, backward and forward, even sideways, launched modernism. Stéphane Mallarmé’s "One Toss of the Dice," a daring, twenty-page epic of ruin and recovery, provided an epochal “tipping point,” defining the spirit of the age and anticipating radical thinkers of the twentieth century, from Albert Einstein to T. S. Eliot. Celebrating its intrinsic influence on our culture, renowned scholar R. Howard Bloch masterfully decodes the poem still considered among the most enigmatic ever written. In Bloch’s shimmering portrait of Belle Époque Paris, Mallarmé stands as the spiritual giant of the era, gathering around him every Tuesday a luminous cast of characters including Émile Zola, Victor Hugo, Claude Monet, André Gide, Claude Debussy, Oscar Wilde, and even the future French prime minister Georges Clemenceau. A simple schoolteacher whose salons and prodigious literary talent won him the adoration of Paris’s elite, Mallarmé achieved the reputation of France’s greatest living poet. He was so beloved that mourners crowded along the Seine for his funeral in 1898, many refusing to depart until late into the night, leaving Auguste Renoir to ponder, “How long will it take for nature to make another such a mind?” Over a century later, the allure of Mallarmé’s linguistic feat continues to ignite the imaginations of the world’s greatest thinkers. Featuring a new, authoritative translation of the French poem by J. D. McClatchy, One Toss of the Dice reveals how a literary masterpiece launched the modernist movement, contributed to the rise of pop art, influenced modern Web design, and shaped the perceptual world we now inhabit. And as Alex Ross remarks in The New Yorker, "If you can crack [Mallarmé’s] poems, it seems, you can crack the riddles of existence." In One Toss of the Dice, Bloch finally, and brilliantly, dissects one of literary history’s greatest mysteries to reveal how a poem made us modern.

A crosscultural exploration of the meanings, definitions, practices, and common themes of mysticism via a study of original texts (in translation) from different parts of the world. It brings together the writings of the mystics from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism in one volume.