Mysticism

So, there was added an episode with the cow in the forest, with the spoons in Van Tassel’s home, or Katrina’s story on the porch before Ichabod left. In return, it wasn’t shown how Ichabod Crane helped inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow: “He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire” (Baym 968). In the story Irving doesn’t tell us what was the…

In the play “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe, the protagonist Faustus becomes infatuated with the idea of selling his soul to Lucifer in order to become very wise and magician like. Through this ordeal, he is accompanied by Mephastophilis who grants his desire of becoming a great individual. It could be assumed that Faustus had an experience that possibly occurred prior to the commencement of the play, given that he is incognizant but much full of himself. It is…

The hippie movement was the common title Americans used to define the out casted individuals and their actions that began to take place in the early 1960s and continued on through the 1970s. The movement started as vocal opposition to the United States taking part in the Vietnam War. Soon after, this generation ultimately transformed into a liberal counterculture. A counterculture is a subculture that has values and behavioral norms that are substantially different from those of the mainstream…

In humanity’s endless search for truth, we often turn to religion in order to answer the questions we cannot answer ourselves. Every religion across the world has a stance on a vast range of ultimate questions, including “What happens after we die?” The Jewish view of death and belief in the afterlife has been significantly influenced by Israelite history as it clarifies the value of life ingrained in the covenantal relationship with G_d. Despite this shared history, a diverse range of…

One RIKER OXFORD RAY felt the water rush in. Clear blue broke onto the beach, collecting sand over miles down the peninsula. He laughed. There was nothing to do in the night but watch the stars and ocean and laugh. So he stood on the edge of the pier, feeling the break of the water. His hair was dark, and it glistened in the lights. He was of average height, and gauntly featured. Another explosion of water spread before him, like a plain of crystal. He watched the violent swirls of the ocean…

Friedrich Nietzsche strongly opposes the Socratic way of thinking. Socrates wanted to eliminate all remnants of myth and tragedy in modern culture and replace it with an age of reason where the theoretical man has the most power. The theoretical man wishes to reveal all of the world’s secrets before him because he is following Socrates’ belief that “knowledge is virtue”. Nietzsche opposes this idea for two reasons: the elimination of myth and tragedy from the world will make us unfulfilled as a…

The Latin-derived term horror vacui translates to “fear of emptiness.” Within literature, the utilization of horror vacui elucidates the human desire to maintain a grasp on the material world in times of adversity or turbulence. In Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Sarah Waters’s The Night Watch, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, this fear of existential emptiness is manifested into the characters’ own materialist strategies to cope with it. Whether it be through the accumulation of…

28 October 2015 In modern society, science is placed on a pedestal of ultimate truth. It is highly respected and almost worshipped by many. Yet, it was not always held in such high regards. Science was originally tied to the studies of mysticism, astrology, and philosophy. Modern science originated out of a sect of ancient philosophy known as natural philosophy. This transition from natural philosophy to modern science can be attributed to the “major prophet of the Scientific…

Nat’s Religion and Celia’s Gender Nat Turner was religious, very religious. It was the center of his identity and his family inculcated religion’s importance in him. Believing to himself being a prophet of God, “my father and mother strengthened me in this my first impression, saying in my presence, I was intended for some great purpose...” He briefly mentions his grandmother, “My grandmother who was very religious, and to whom I was much attached...” He was divinely inspired and saw his…

Christianity slowly penetrated the lives of slaves. Protestantism was regarded as a private matter and masters did little to Christianize their bondsman. Anglican Protestantism did not resonate with most of the slave population, as it heavily rejected mysticism, something which many African slaves still culturally practiced. Although, during the Great Awakening (1700-1790) blacks and whites in the South were swept up in the religious revival which taught all souls are equal. Methodist and…