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The Curve of the Sacred
An Exploration of Human Spirituality
Series: - Value Inquiry Book Series, Volume: 178
- Philosophy and Religion, Volume: 178
This interdisciplinary book examines the nature of spirituality and the role it plays in the search for meaning. Spirituality is a loving tendency towards the sacred. In a secular environment, the sacred is taken to be a power greater than self. In a religious environment, the Sacred refers to God, or Higher Power. The book examines the developments of the s/Sacred in great works of art and literature, as well as in medicine, theology, psychology, philosophy, and religion. Spirituality also functions as an unloving tendency towards disunity, or a force for evil.
The first part of the book examines the ways of the spiritual as a force for good and evil. We have just witnessed one of the bloodiest centuries in human history. The experience of two World Wars leaves a legacy of brokenness: âWhere Nossackâs reminiscences bore poetic, compassionate, and personal witness to the disaster, Eliotâs poetry reads more like a sacred and religious poem taking contemporary Western European civilization to taskâmuch like the biblical prophets of oldâfor its spiritual bankruptcy.â Albert Einstein, Edvard Munchâs Madonna, and Carl Jungâs âunconsciousâ touch the curve of the Sacred in more promising places.
The second part examines how the search for meaning works. The distinction between being human and being a person plays a central role in the life of the spiritual; ââ¦the spiritual is manifest in the activities taking place in the central self. The central self is the locus of all thoughts, feelings, acts of reason and judgment, conscious and unconscious processes alike. The central self is the place where social relationships and environmental relationships are processed. The essential feature of the central self is that it does not exist outside these processes.â The same spiritual energies that light up great works of art also light up our destructive side, only the associationsâ change.
The first part of the book examines the ways of the spiritual as a force for good and evil. We have just witnessed one of the bloodiest centuries in human history. The experience of two World Wars leaves a legacy of brokenness: âWhere Nossackâs reminiscences bore poetic, compassionate, and personal witness to the disaster, Eliotâs poetry reads more like a sacred and religious poem taking contemporary Western European civilization to taskâmuch like the biblical prophets of oldâfor its spiritual bankruptcy.â Albert Einstein, Edvard Munchâs Madonna, and Carl Jungâs âunconsciousâ touch the curve of the Sacred in more promising places.
The second part examines how the search for meaning works. The distinction between being human and being a person plays a central role in the life of the spiritual; ââ¦the spiritual is manifest in the activities taking place in the central self. The central self is the locus of all thoughts, feelings, acts of reason and judgment, conscious and unconscious processes alike. The central self is the place where social relationships and environmental relationships are processed. The essential feature of the central self is that it does not exist outside these processes.â The same spiritual energies that light up great works of art also light up our destructive side, only the associationsâ change.
âOne can point with admiration not only to a well researched and well argued presentation of some of the most important dimensions of the sacred, but also to how these two authors have conveyed their own personal commitments to spiritual healing. ⦠an authentic encounter, in which readers may profitably share.â in: Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 37/1, 2008
Editorial Foreword by Kenneth A. BRYSON
Foreword by Rose Tekel
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Kenneth A. BRYSON
Part One
Constantin V. PONOMAREFF: Spirituality from the Perspective of the Humanities Tradition
One: The Sacred and Evil
Two: Healers and Would-Be Healers
Three: The Koranâs Compassionate Spirit
Four: Transformations of the Sacred in Russian Society
Five: Mussorgskyâs Night on Bald Mountain
Six: T.S. Eliotâs âThe Wastelandâ
Seven: Günter Grassâs The Tin Drum: The Sacred in Destructive Guise
Eight: A Meditation on Albert Camus
Nine: The Sacred as Subatomic Particle, Image, Subliminal Intelligence or Metaphor
Ten: Albert Einstein
Eleven: Edvard Munchâs Madonna
Twelve: Jungâs Unconscious
Thirteen: The Sacred and Time
Part Two
Kenneth A. BRYSON: Becoming Personal from the Spiritual
Fourteen: The Nature of Spirituality
Fifteen: Acting towards the Divine Image
Sixteen: The Spiritual Nature of Dependency
Seventeen: Recovery as Process
Eighteen: Spirituality and Human Death
Nineteen: Spirituality and Religion
Notes
Bibliography
About the Authors
Index
Foreword by Rose Tekel
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Kenneth A. BRYSON
Part One
Constantin V. PONOMAREFF: Spirituality from the Perspective of the Humanities Tradition
One: The Sacred and Evil
Two: Healers and Would-Be Healers
Three: The Koranâs Compassionate Spirit
Four: Transformations of the Sacred in Russian Society
Five: Mussorgskyâs Night on Bald Mountain
Six: T.S. Eliotâs âThe Wastelandâ
Seven: Günter Grassâs The Tin Drum: The Sacred in Destructive Guise
Eight: A Meditation on Albert Camus
Nine: The Sacred as Subatomic Particle, Image, Subliminal Intelligence or Metaphor
Ten: Albert Einstein
Eleven: Edvard Munchâs Madonna
Twelve: Jungâs Unconscious
Thirteen: The Sacred and Time
Part Two
Kenneth A. BRYSON: Becoming Personal from the Spiritual
Fourteen: The Nature of Spirituality
Fifteen: Acting towards the Divine Image
Sixteen: The Spiritual Nature of Dependency
Seventeen: Recovery as Process
Eighteen: Spirituality and Human Death
Nineteen: Spirituality and Religion
Notes
Bibliography
About the Authors
Index