Reli - Glossary Ch.8-10

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binary

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any set of “two” within a particular cultural or cognitive system, such as self/other, subject/object, mental/material, inside/outside; these are usually foundational to the ordering and understanding of any worldview or religion

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bardo

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in Tibetan Buddhism, that hallucinatory realm that one is said to enter at the time of death, there to be haunted and terrified by demonic forms that are, if one could only see properly, simply manifestations of the Light of pure Mind or Consciousness

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Dream Time

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in the indigenous cultures of Australia, that mythical space-time or “everywhen” that individuals enter to renew culture and direct the community

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occultism

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the philosophical view that we are surrounded and interpenetrated at all times by a hidden world of subtle beings and mysterious powers that can be accessed and, with the proper training and techniques, negotiated and even mastered

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theurgy

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literally “the work of god,” any set of ritual or contemplative practices that are believed to influence the divine realm itself, including God or the gods

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angel

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an intermediate being in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim worldviews, often imagined as a military leader, violent warrior, or messenger that can also take on human form; from the Greek angelos for “messenger”

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daimon

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the ancient Greek and Roman notion of a personal guiding spirit that dwells somewhere between the human world and the world of the gods and acts to guide, or prevent, human actions

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genius

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the ancient Greek and Roman notion of a personal guiding spirit that dwells somewhere between the human world and the world of the gods and acts to guide, or prevent, human actions

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jinn

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an intermediary being in Islam that is at once visible and invisible, mundane and supra-mundane, like and unlike human

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incubus

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a male demon from whose sexual contact (literally “lying on”) female witches were thought to have derived their magical powers in medieval Christianity

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succubus

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a female demon from whose sexual contact (literally “lying under”) male witches were thought to have derived their magical powers

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magic

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any activity that seeks to influence or control events through the positing of “correspondences” or “connections” between internal states of mind and external occurrences or physical objects

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empowered religious imagination

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moments in which the human imagination ceases to be simply a spinner of fantasies but becomes instead a mediator or translator of sacred realities, often after being “zapped,” “magnetized,” or “electrified” by some nonordinary energies or presence

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telepathy

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literally, “pathos at a distance,” a word coined in 1882 by the British classicist Frederic Myers to refer to the phenomenon of apparent psychical communications between loved ones within extreme emotional states, often in traumatic, dangerous, or deadly contexts

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imaginal

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an adjective for the veridical content of the human imagination empowered or energized by an “influx” of spiritual energy; not to be confused with “imaginary,” that is, the content of the human imagination in its ordinary state of functioning

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imaginal

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an adjective for the veridical content of the human imagination empowered or energized by an “influx” of spiritual energy; not to be confused with “imaginary,” that is, the content of the human imagination in its ordinary state of functioning

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monster

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a figure of the religious imagination that can function as a “sign,” omen, or revelation of the sacred in its “left” or “negative” mode

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demonology

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the study and classification of demons

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angelology

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the study and classification of angels

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Fortean

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an adjective used to describe any author inspired by the original archival research and irreverent books of the American humorist turned collector of anomalies Charles Fort (1874-1932); today mostly associated with the subjects of UFOs, apparitional monsters, and other unexplained phenomena

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Fortean

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an adjective used to describe any author inspired by the original archival research and irreverent books of the American humorist turned collector of anomalies Charles Fort (1874-1932); today mostly associated with the subjects of UFOs, apparitional monsters, and other unexplained phenomena

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psychical

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literally, a force “pertaining to the psyche,” a word that came into use in the early 1870s through the writings of the British chemist William Crookes, who was studying the American super-medium Daniel Dunglas Home.

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paranormal

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literally, “beyond the normal,” an adjective referring to the human organism’s apparent ability to “exteriorize” emotional energies, usually of an extreme sort, into the external environment, as with Pöltergeist phenomena

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Pöltergeist

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a German word that means “angry ghost,” commonly considered by psychical researchers not to be a ghost but the exteriorized energies of an emotionally conflicted human being

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supernormal

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literally, “above the normal,” a word developed by Frederic Myers that offered an alternative to “supernatural” explanations (Myers did not think psychical phenomena were generally supernatural, that is, he thought they were part of the natural world), and that carried distinct evolutionary connotations, that is, some “supernormal” function (say, telepathy) is what presently normal human nature is evolving toward

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placebo effect

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literally, “I please,” the phenomenon in which a fake substance has more or less the same effect as a real drug in a particular trial

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nocebo effect

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literally, “I do not please,” the negative version of the placebo effect, that is, the phenomenon of a fake act or substance harming an individual when he or she believes, falsely, that it is real

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mantra

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a single-syllable sound that is meant to be repeated over and over again in order to concentrate one’s meditation; common in Hindu and Buddhist meditative practice

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promissory materialism

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the philosophical position that, although we do not yet know how to explain some phenomenon, like awareness, through material processes or mechanisms, we eventually will be able to do so

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theology

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literally, the “study” (logos) of “God” (theos), the attempt to relate human reason to some revelation, usually for the believing community in a particular place and time

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comparative theology

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any theology or model of God that seeks to take into account the historical fact that there have been not one, but many human experiences of revelation

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exclusivism

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the rejection of other religious worldviews based on the categories of one's own religious worldview.

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inclusivism

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the acceptance of other religious worldviews based on the categories of one's own religious worldview

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pluralism

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the potential acceptance of all religious worldviews as cultural approximations or partial actualizations of the sacred, which is understood to overflow or transcend them all

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pluralism

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the potential acceptance of all religious worldviews as cultural approximations or partial actualizations of the sacred, which is understood to overflow or transcend them all

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in-group

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the group or community to which a particular believer belongs and in which he or she feels at home.

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out-group

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the group or community against which the believer identifies himself or herself and his or her community; usually framed as other, as foreign, as dangerous, as impure, and so on

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bridge-bonding dilemma

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the basic conflict that arises when a particular social strategy poses real benefits on a personal or individual community level but compromises the community’s ability to form links or connections to the broader society in which it is embedded, or vice versa; in short, the dilemma that arises when one attempts to balance the needs of the in-group and the out-group

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reductionism

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the explanation of religious phenomena as the product of some deeper, more basic non-religious processes or mechanisms

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philosophy of religion

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a branch of the study of religion that seeks to rationally analyze and assess the truth claims of revelation, usually across a broad spectrum of religions

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psychology of religion

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a branch of the study of religion that focuses on the internal or experiential dimensions of religions

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sociology of religion

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a branch of the study of religion that focuses on the external or institutional dimensions of religions

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functionalism

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the study of religion that approaches religious behaviors and institutions by examining their practical psychological and social functions, not whether their truth claims are objectively true or false

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defense mechanism

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the psyche’s attempt to protect itself from difficult material that would expose its own illusions and false assumptions

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unconscious

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the realm of the human mind that is not accessible to the ego, that is, the realm of the psyche of which the conscious individual is unaware but which nevertheless influences, if not determines, much of the individual’s thinking, emotional life, and social behavior

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ego

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Latin for “I,” a Freudian term that refers to one’s conscious sense of self, one’s named personality

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id

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Latin for “it,” a Freudian term to describe the sea of submerged, largely unconscious, instinctual drives, primarily of a sexual and aggressive nature, within an individual

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superego

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(“Over-I”), a Freudian term that refers to the psychological realm of moral judgments, which are understood to be derived from social interactions with the parents and, later, with other social actors and institutions; basically, the conscience, but here understood to be socially constructed from the outside in

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reality principle

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the fundamental value and goal of Freud’s psychoanalysis whereby one bases one’s worldview on human reason, the inevitability of death as extinction, and a subsequent renunciation of all illusions, including and especially those of religion and its false promises of immortality, etc.

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Oedipus complex

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a psychological pattern identified and developed by Freud through which the son’s sense of self emerges gradually from its infantile love of the mother and its aggressive, but hopeless, stance toward its father; a successful resolution of the Oedipus stage requires that the young boy accept defeat, surrender the mother, and identify with the victor, that is, with his father

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lidido

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the life-energy of the body within psychoanalytic thought that is closely aligned with sexuality but can be employed for all sorts of nonsexual ends

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sublimation

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a Freudian term that describes how libidinal energies are diverted from their original sexual aims and converted into cultural accomplishments, such as art, literature, or religious experience

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repression

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the psychological process through which sexual or aggressive instincts are denied and “pushed down” into the unconscious, from where they will likely emerge in different forms

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reflexive re-reading

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a way of analyzing or “re-reading” religions that embrace the basic methods of the rational re-readings but reject the idea that these methods are completely adequate to the human experience of revelation and transcendence; the “reduction” of religious phenomenon to human nature only to find that this human nature is itself “divine”

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second naivete

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a phrase drawn from the French philosopher Paul Riceour for a renewed appreciation of mythical and symbolic language as especially appropriate means of understanding human nature, but only after the interpreter has passed through the “desert” of rational criticism and robust forms of reductionism, like Freud’s psychoanalysis

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sublimal self

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according to Frederic Myers, the vast region of the human personality that exists and works “below” (sub-) the “threshold” (limen) of normal consciousness and that may be responsible, at least in its most extreme capacities, for extraordinary capacities like telepathy and clairvoyance

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filter thesis

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a theory which suggests that consciousness is filtered, translated, reduced, or transmitted through the brain and its various physiological, neurological, linguistic, egoic, and cognitive processes, but not produced in toto by it

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synchronicities

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a term which the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung used to refer to physical events in the environment that are formed around meaning and strings of symbolic references rather than linear, strictly materialist causes, that is, external events that correspond to internal psychological states; basically, modern experiences of magic