Empfehlungen basierend auf "Zizek A Reader's Guide"

A captivating study of the ancient Indian movement that has influenced and intrigued the world for more than a millennium.The Tantras, a set of sacred manuscripts that emerged in India from around the sixth century CE, detail rituals for attracting spiritual, worldly, and supernatural power. These rituals, which focus on the power of fierce gods and goddesses and center around yoga, self-deification, sexual rites, and the consumption of intoxicants, became an integral part of the meditations and philosophical practices of Tantric Hinduism and Buddhism.This book examines the philosophies, core beliefs, and artistic expressions of Tantra, and its impact on religious, cultural, and political landscapes across the globe. In tracing the history of the movement, author Imma Ramos reveals Tantra’s origins and continued relevance in India, as well as its redefinition as it was adopted by Western popular culture during the 1960s.Tantra: enlightenment to revolution accompanies a major exhibition at the British Museum, and is illustrated extensively with masterpieces of sculpture, painting, print, and ritual objects from India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, dating as far back as the eighth century CE. 200 color illustrations

Philosophers and theologians have long engaged in intense debate and introspection over the representation of the deity, its possibilities and its proscriptions. The Forbidden Image traces the dual strains of “iconophilia” and iconoclasm, the privileging and prohibition of religious images, over a span of two and a half millennia in the West.Alain Besançon’s work begins with a comprehensive examination of the status of the image in Greek, Judaic, Islamic, and Christian thought. The author then addresses arguments regarding the moral authority of the image in European Christianity from the medieval through the early modern periods. Besançon completes The Forbidden Image with an examination of how iconophilia and iconoclasm have been debated in the modern period.“Even the reader who has heard something of the Byzantine quarrels about images and their theological background will be surprised by a learned and convincing interpretation of the works of Mondrian, Kandinsky, and Malevich in terms of religiously inspired iconoclasm. . . . This is an immensely rich and powerful masterpiece.”—Leszek Kolakowski, Times Literary Supplement

An inspired gathering of religious writings that reveals the "divine reality" common to all faiths, collected by Aldous Huxley"The Perennial Philosophy, " Aldous Huxley writes, "may be found among the traditional lore of peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions."With great wit and stunning intellect—drawing on a diverse array of faiths, including Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Christian mysticism, and Islam—Huxley examines the spiritual beliefs of various religious traditions and explains how they are united by a common human yearning to experience the divine. The Perennial Philosophy includes selections from Meister Eckhart, Rumi, and Lao Tzu, as well as the Bhagavad Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Diamond Sutra, and Upanishads, among many others.

This groundbreaking classic explores the necessity of connections between our life and soul and developing the main lines of the soul-making process.

A provocative and enlightening look at spiritual unease and its contribution to the void of modern civilization—one of the most influential books in the field of psychology.Modern Man in Search of a Soul is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of Carl Gustav Jung. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology, including dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion. Additionally, Jung looks at the differences between his theories and those of Sigmund Freud, providing a valuable basis for anyone interested in the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. This book is widely considered one of the most important books in the field of psychology.

In this sequel to The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, the brilliantly original French thinker who died in 1984 gives an analysis of how the ancient Greeks perceived sexuality.Throughout The Use of Pleasure Foucault analyzes an irresistible array of ancient Greek texts on eroticism as he tries to answer basic questions: How in the West did sexual experience become a moral issue? And why were other appetites of the body, such as hunger, and collective concerns, such as civic duty, not subjected to the numberless rules and regulations and judgments that have defined, if not confined, sexual behavior?

The most famous compendium of information on the occult and the first comprehensive work of its kind, this volume originally appeared in 1920. Subtitled "A Compendium of Information on the Occult Sciences, Occult Personalities, Psychic Science, Magic, Demonology, Spiritism, Mysticism and Metaphysics," it was compiled by Lewis Spence, the author of numerous books on folklore, mythology and occult-related subjects. Its 2,500 dictionary-style entries (many of which run to several pages) range from well-known terms ("abracadabra," "poltergeist," "spells," "vampire") to more arcane topics, and include listings for historical figures with ties to the occult such as Nostradamus, John Dee, Mary Baker Eddy, and Catherine de Medici. An oft-cited resource and a classic of its genre, this edition promises to enjoy an instant and lasting popularity.

An archaeological exploration of the mysterious world of cave art through the agesDeep underground, some of humanity’s earliest artistic endeavors have lain untouched for millennia. The dark interiors of caves, wherever they may be found, seem to have had a powerful draw for ancient peoples, who littered the cave floors with objects they had made. Later, they adorned cave walls with sacred symbols and secret knowledge, from the very first abstract symbols and handprints to complex and vivid arrangements of animals and people. Often undisturbed for many tens of thousands of years, these were among the first visual symbols that humans shared with each other, though they were made so long ago that we have entirely forgotten their meaning. However, as archaeologist Bruno David reveals, caves decorated more recently may help us to unlock their secrets. David tells the story of this mysterious world of decorated caves, from the oldest known painting tools to the magnificent murals of the European Ice Age. Showcasing the most astounding discoveries made in more than 150 years of archaeological exploration, Cave Art explores the creative achievements of our remotest ancestors and what they tell us about the human past.

Sound coming from outside the field of vision, from somewhere beyond, holds a privileged place in the Western imagination. When separated from their source, sounds seem to manifest transcendent realms, divine powers, or supernatural forces. According to legend, the philosopher Pythagoras lectured to his disciples from behind a veil, and two thousand years later, in the age of absolute music, listeners were similarly fascinated with disembodied sounds, employing various techniques to isolate sounds from their sources. With recording and radio came spatial and temporal separation of sounds from sources, and new ways of composing music. Sound Unseen: Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice explores the phenomenon of acousmatic sound. An unusual and neglected word, "acousmatic" was first introduced into modern parlance in the mid-1960s by avant garde composer of musique concrète Pierre Schaeffer to describe the experience of hearing a sound without seeing its cause. Working through, and often against, Schaeffer's ideas, Brian Kane presents a powerful argument for the central yet overlooked role of acousmatic sound in music aesthetics, sound studies, literature, philosophy and the history of the senses. Kane investigates acousmatic sound from a number of methodological perspectives -- historical, cultural, philosophical and musical -- and provides a framework that makes sense of the many surprising and paradoxical ways that unseen sound has been understood. Finely detailed and thoroughly researched, Sound Unseen pursues unseen sounds through a stunning array of cases -- from Bayreuth to Kafka's "Burrow," Apollinaire to %Zi%zek, music and metaphysics to architecture and automata, and from Pythagoras to the present-to offer the definitive account of acousmatic sound in theory and practice. The first major study in English of Pierre Schaeffer's theory of "acousmatics," Sound Unseen is an essential text for scholars of philosophy of music, electronic music, sound studies, and the history of the senses.

Hard to Imagine is the first work to chronicle in detail the evolution of gay male erotic image culture, from the canonical works of "art" cinema and photography to the private and often highly explicit productions of amateurs. In this visual history of homoerotic image-making in its first century, Thomas Waugh brings together nearly four hundred photographs and film stills, from archives and personal collections in Europe and North America. Waugh identifies four primary aspects of homoerotic photography and film - the artistic, the commercial, the illicit, and the politico-scientific - tracing their development against a background of advances in visual technology. This comprehensive work explores a vast, eclectic tradition in its totality, analyzing the visual imagery in addition to its production, circulation, and consumption. A pathbreaking examination of the interplay between gay film and photography, gay life, and the larger social and political world, Hard to Imagine is a model for social and cultural historians. Interweaving an analysis of these images in their gay cultural context with the broader social and legal implications, Thomas Waugh offers a pioneering chapter in both gay and visual history.