I am not a healer. I have seen three healers work: as they began, the engine in each of them went into high rpm, their energies whirring with activation; they used spiritual power, and the changes produced were immediate and palpable. Although I believe that we each have some degree of capacity for healing and … Read more
Christianity uses the word “incarnation” mainly to refer to Jesus of Nazareth understood as the Word of God, come down from heaven and made flesh, a person in whom divine and human natures were mysteriously and gloriously united. Hinduism and Buddhism regard us all as having had previous incarnations. And Hinduism speaks of “avatars,” deities … Read more
A tangent is something that touches. Stephen’s comment on the previous blogpost touched the theme integrating body, mind, and soul with spirit. Stephen referred to shamanism, a topic worth pursuing. For all its errors, shamanism sometimes has intuitions that are worth re-theorizing, in other words, worth transplanting into a more philosophically and religiously satisfying garden. … Read more
The conclusion of Descartes’ Error by Antonio Damascio reveals the mind of a humanist neuroscientist who nobly struggles to affirm soul and spirit while holding to the view that these higher realities are products of the mind, which is a product of the brain. “Mind comes from the brain.” (251) “The mind as a function … Read more
A leader in liberal theology, Marcus Borg died last Wednesday, January 21. I remember using his 1993 book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith. In that best-seller he told of his traditional Christian upbringing, his questioning, the collapse of his childhood faith, the beginning of … Read more
When I think of the hard problems we are dealing with on this planet, I ask how the divine light that shines through the clouds is going to work its way into the eventual triumph of the way of truth and love. I am convinced that we have a historic opportunity to learn to … Read more
Dr. Perry On December 22 when I posted the moving story of Taitetsu Unno’s ministry to the woman in the hospital, I did not know that he had died a few days earlier. Mark Unno, his equally brilliant and accomplished son, also a philosopher and Shin Buddhist priest, told me that during his last … Read more
Dr. Perry On December 22 when I posted the moving story of Taitetsu Unno’s ministry to the woman in the hospital, I did not know that he had died a few days earlier. Mark Unno, his equally brilliant and accomplished son, also a philosopher and Shin Buddhist priest, told me that during his last … Read more
Rafael, The School of Athens Here are a few highlights from the history of philosophy showing an interesting variety of views regarding spiritual experience. Heraclitus around 500 BCE wrote that the god [daimon, indwelling divine spirit] is home [ethos] for a human being. Then Parmenides around 475 BCE, wrote a poem narrating a mystical experience … Read more