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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.
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.
Price: $33.95
Pages: 330
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
01 October 1997
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780520211599
Format: Paperback
Robert M. Torrance is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Davis.
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART ONE· ANIMAL QUAERENS: THE QUEST AS A DIMENSION OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE
1. Religion and the Spiritual Quest: From Closure to Openness
2. Biological and Psychological Foundations of the Quest
3. Linguistic Foundations of the Quest
4. The Questing Animal
PART TWO · THE SPIRITUAL QUEST IN RITUAL AND MYTH
5. Ritual as Affirmation and Transformation
6. Myth and the Journey beyond the Self
7. Mobility and Its Limits in Communal Ritual and Myth
PART THREE· SPIRIT POSSESSION AS A FORM OF THE SPIRITUAL QUEST
8. The Varieties of Spirit Possession
9. Possession and Transformation
PART FOUR· FORMS OF THE SHAMANIC QUEST
10. Shamanism, Possession, and Ecstasy: Australia and the Tropics
11. Shamanic Heartland: Central and Northern Eurasia
PART FIVE · FORMS OF THE QUEST IN NATIVE AMERICA
12. The Arctic and Western North America
13. Mesoamerica and South America
14. Eastern North America and the Great Plains
PART SIX · THE THEORY OF THE QUEST:SOME CLOSING CONSIDERATIONS
15. A Ternary Process
16. The Reality of Transcendence
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART ONE· ANIMAL QUAERENS: THE QUEST AS A DIMENSION OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE
1. Religion and the Spiritual Quest: From Closure to Openness
2. Biological and Psychological Foundations of the Quest
3. Linguistic Foundations of the Quest
4. The Questing Animal
PART TWO · THE SPIRITUAL QUEST IN RITUAL AND MYTH
5. Ritual as Affirmation and Transformation
6. Myth and the Journey beyond the Self
7. Mobility and Its Limits in Communal Ritual and Myth
PART THREE· SPIRIT POSSESSION AS A FORM OF THE SPIRITUAL QUEST
8. The Varieties of Spirit Possession
9. Possession and Transformation
PART FOUR· FORMS OF THE SHAMANIC QUEST
10. Shamanism, Possession, and Ecstasy: Australia and the Tropics
11. Shamanic Heartland: Central and Northern Eurasia
PART FIVE · FORMS OF THE QUEST IN NATIVE AMERICA
12. The Arctic and Western North America
13. Mesoamerica and South America
14. Eastern North America and the Great Plains
PART SIX · THE THEORY OF THE QUEST:SOME CLOSING CONSIDERATIONS
15. A Ternary Process
16. The Reality of Transcendence
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX