A01=Robert M. Torrance
affirmation
animal quaerens
Author_Robert M. Torrance
Category=JBSL11
Category=JHM
Category=QRAB
Category=QRVG
communal ritual
communication with the beyond
comparative religion
ecstasy
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnic religious practices
faust
folklore
human being
human experience
human impulses
humanity
individual transformation
interdisciplinary
major world religions
mobility
mythology
questing animal
ritual and myth
shaman
shamanism
social transformation
spirit possession
spiritual quest
spirituality
transcendence
transformation
tribal peoples
tribal religious practices
visionary truth
Product details
- ISBN 9780520211599
- Weight: 590g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Oct 1997
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
Robert M. Torrance is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Davis.
