Beyond the Threshold is the first book to seriously consider the interplay between traditional world religions and metaphysical experiences in exploring the timeless question of what happens when we die. Christopher M. Moreman examines and compares the beliefs and practices of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, as well as psychic phenomena such as mediums and near-death experiences. While ultimately the afterlife remains unknowable, Moreman's unique, in-depth exploration of both beliefs and experiences can help readers reach their own understanding of the afterlife and how to live.
"This is the story of a religiously motivated young woman who was manipulated, turned into a fanatic, and only gradually came to her senses - all because of a religious organization working in the highest echelons of the Roman Catholic Church: Opus Dei, "God's Work." Much has been written about Opus Dei, which during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II has become the most powerful organization in the Roman Catholic Church. Described as a "Holy Mafia" by its critics, "The Work," as it is known, has been charged with secrecy, elitism, reactionary politics, and questionable financial practices. But no one until now has described the inner workings of Opus Dei, from its goals and methods to the actual day-to-day activities of it members, with as much thoroughness and detail as Maria del Carmen Tapia." "The author describes what she calls the making and unmaking of a fanatic. There is the devious recruitment, the forced estrangement from her family, the indoctrination, life in the "Golden Cage" of Opus Dei's governing center in Rome, her years as head of the women's section in Venezuela, her sudden recall to Rome, where for seven months she was held virtually prisoner, and finally the reprisals after she left the organization." "In this strongest indictment of Opus Dei to date, Maria del Carmen Tapia reveals the dark side of "The Work": its duplicity, questionable recruitment practices, shocking disregard for human rights, and the unwholesome cult of its founder."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Rue Claridge's cousin Elisabeth had disappeared, and Rue was determined to find her. But she never dreamed that when she followed Elisabeth's footsteps, she would find herself more than one hundred years in the past…and in jail, courtesy of Marshal Farley Haynes. She knew Farley was baffled but intrigued by her modern ways—and Rue was just as fascinated by the rugged marshal. Enough to dream that maybe he could live in her modern world and find a place with her on her Montana ranch. But could she ask him to choose between everything he had ever known…and a future with her?
What happens when we cross a significant boundary? We step into an unsettling in-between zone, where we have to abandon accepted structures and truths. Yet this liminal zone can also open up possibilities for inner transformation, leading to the birth of a new sense of fellowship. Since 1994, South Africans have been experiencing the anxieties of old structures breaking down and of new ones being built - a process that South African authors have been powerfully representing and questioning. Beyond the Threshold analyzes the transformative powers of liminal states and hybridizing processes in literature. Its authors discuss a wide range of intriguing liminal characters, dangerous liminal situations, and unique transformations in recent books mainly from South Africa. These books tell the compelling stories of marginal characters, giving their stories moral authority while exploring their transformative possibilities.
This collection brings together a wide range of views on the conceptualization and measurement of social exclusion and the indicators for monitoring the effectiveness of policies for combating social exclusion.
Agamben’s thought has been viewed as descending primarily from the work of Heidegger, Benjamin, and, more recently, Foucault. This book complicates and expands that constellation by showing how throughout his career Agamben has consistently and closely engaged (critically, sympathetically, polemically, and often implicitly) the work of Derrida as his chief contemporary interlocutor. The book begins by examining the development of Agamben’s key concepts—infancy, Voice, potentiality—from the 1960s to approximately 1990 and shows how these concepts consistently draw on and respond to specific texts and concepts of Derrida. The second part examines the political turn in Agamben’s and Derrida’s thinking from about 1990 onward, beginning with their investigations of sovereignty and violence and moving through their parallel treatments of juridical power, the relation between humans and animals, and finally messianism and the politics to come.
In The Threshold of the Visible World Kaja Silverman advances a revolutionary new political aesthetic, exploring the possibilities for looking beyond the restrictive mandates of the self, and the normative aspects of the cultural image-repertoire. She provides a detailed account of the social and psychic forces which constrain us to look and identify in normative ways, and the violence which that normativity implies.
The capital city of a nation founded on the premise of liberty, nineteenth-century Washington, D.C., was both an entrepot of urban slavery and the target of abolitionist ferment. The growing slave trade and the enactment of Black codes placed the city's Black women within the rigid confines of a social hierarchy ordered by race and gender. At the Threshold of Liberty reveals how these women--enslaved, fugitive, and free--imagined new identities and lives beyond the oppressive restrictions intended to prevent them from ever experiencing liberty, self-respect, and power. Consulting newspapers, government documents, letters, abolitionist records, legislation, and memoirs, Tamika Y. Nunley traces how Black women navigated social and legal proscriptions to develop their own ideas about liberty as they escaped from slavery, initiated freedom suits, created entrepreneurial economies, pursued education, and participated in political work. In telling these stories, Nunley places Black women at the vanguard of the history of Washington, D.C., and the momentous transformations of nineteenth-century America.
Travel. Inspiration. Motherhood... and Depression. 264 million people worldwide suffer from depression. For anyone struggling with depression, anxiety, finding joy in life, living with purpose, or even just bad days, Beauty Beyond the Threshold, How International Volunteering Saved My Life is a story of hitting rock bottom; one woman's journey to recovery and self-discovery. Readers will go on adventures through heartache, loss, and despair as well as find themselves repairing homes in Puerto Rico and North Carolina, building schools in remote villages in Nepal, laughing with generous people, crying tears of joy, and reflecting on their own lives. Beauty Beyond the Threshold brings hope to those who are feeling sad, depressed, and anxious. There is so much beauty beyond the threshold and the path to discover it is by taking that first step outside of your comfort zone.
