Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves : 86-90).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / The life and writings of the Blessed John of Ruysbroeck lie at the heart of the Golden Age of Mysticism. The purpose of this study has been to present his life and an interpretation of his writings in the form of a narrative poem, thouroughly documented according to accepted dissertation practice, and to show that his life and writings exerted influence upon Gerhardt Groote and John Tauler. The result of the study indicates that Ruysbroeck had a clear conception and structure for his mystical thought presenting a doctrine of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a doctrine of man, and a conception of the Church, which, while illuminated in many instances with mystic insight, are still conformale to the spirit and intellect of the fourteenth century. [TRUNCATED]

Submitted by Luanna Matias (lua_matias@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-05-19T15:19:21Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Antonio de Jesus Pereira - 2014.pdf: 1861267 bytes, checksum: b40326535ece6d6b44d538b43f1c8e76 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luanna Matias (lua_matias@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-05-19T15:29:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Antonio de Jesus Pereira - 2014.pdf: 1861267 bytes, checksum: b40326535ece6d6b44d538b43f1c8e76 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-19T15:29:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Antonio de Jesus Pereira - 2014.pdf: 1861267 bytes, checksum: b40326535ece6d6b44d538b43f1c8e76 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-11-24 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás - FAPEG / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / An analysis of the mystics of the MST (movement of the landless workers) has been conducted in this dissertation. An attempt has been made to identify the enunciations that circulate around the mystics of the movement in order to find out to what extent they can enhance the potential of the formative process of its organic militancy. The elements which contribute to the manifestations of the mystics and which allow for them to be analyzed, in the perspective of the cultural performances, have been identified. For that means we have conducted a dense description ethnography of the mystics of the landless workers, supported by the idea of Clifford Geertz. The research that resulted in this dissertation was done in the state of Pará, and the purpose was to accomplish a work with the militancy of the movement of the rural landless workers (MST). Pará was chosen because it is a place of serious conflicts between landless workers and farmers. The following methodological procedures were adopted: record on field notebooks, observations, interviews and sound recordings. The research was conducted in the main formation spaces of the militants of the MST, such as: meetings, associations, assemblies and schools. Nine interviews with the militants have been conducted. From this trajectory we come to the conclusion that the landless workers constitute themselves by means of rituals and of the social activities of the MST, as social actors that incorporate experiences of struggle. In face of that they have constituted a capacity of systematizing their experience through poetic, body, imagistic and symbolic language that permeate the mystics of the movement. / Nesta dissertação realizou-se uma análise das místicas do MST. Buscou-se identificar os enunciados que circulam nas místicas do movimento para saber até que ponto podem potencializar o processo formativo da militância orgânica. Identificou-se elementos que contribuem para as manifestações das místicas, os quais permitiram que as mesmas fossem analisadas na perspectiva teórica das performances culturais. Para tanto, realizou-se uma etnografia da mística dos sem-terra a partir de uma descrição densa, apoiada na ideia de Clifford Geertz. A pesquisa que resultou nesta dissertação foi realizada no Estado do Pará e a proposta foi realizar um trabalho com a militância do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra (MST). A escolha do Pará se justifica no fato de que este é um lugar de grandes conflitos entre trabalhadores sem-terra e fazendeiros. Foram adotados os seguintes procedimentos metodológicos: registro através do caderno de campo, observações, entrevistas e gravações. Efetivou-se a pesquisa nos principais espaços de formação dos militantes do MST, tais como: reuniões, associações, assembleias e escolas. Ao longo deste trabalho foram realizadas nove entrevistas com os militantes do movimento. A partir deste percurso, conclui-se que os sujeitos sem-terra se constituem, por meio dos rituais e das atividades sociais do MST, como atores sociais que incorporam experiências de luta. Neste processo constituem, ainda, a capacidade de sistematizar suas vivências através da linguagem poética, corporal, imagética e simbólica que permeia as místicas do movimento.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-06-03T13:31:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 humbertoschubertcoelho.pdf: 1109404 bytes, checksum: 8712d826015579e88927420bf8489478 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-07-02T13:21:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 humbertoschubertcoelho.pdf: 1109404 bytes, checksum: 8712d826015579e88927420bf8489478 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-02T13:21:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 humbertoschubertcoelho.pdf: 1109404 bytes, checksum: 8712d826015579e88927420bf8489478 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-02-29 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Há um conflito natural e universalmente reconhecido entre a instância incondicionada da liberdade, que toma as decisões das quais dependem nossas ideais e convicções, e a necessidade puramente lógica de encaixar estes mesmos ideais e convicções em um sistema. Esta tensão configura duas posturas típicas que se dividem ao longo da tradição intelectual do Ocidente, sem deixar de ter suas expressões em outros ambientes culturais, e somente os séculos XIX e XX conseguiram oferecer soluções qualificadas para este drama. Regressamos ao momento histórico em que Jakob Böhme e Johann W. Goethe ensaiavam sínteses originalíssimas e ainda muito ignoradas entre a esfera da vontade e a da razão, imergindo nas profundezas da psicologia e da mística, ao mesmo tempo em que arrastavam desta região grandes porções da nebulosa matéria mental que só simbolicamente pode ser posta às claras. Veremos como seu método e índole, além de extremamente similares, parecem ser ainda hoje capazes de abastecer a ciência e a metafísica com as concepções de que são carentes, e em que sentido este tipo de abordagem altera a própria definição do termo religião; termo que, ao final, começa a absorver todos os demais saberes e atividades. / There is a natural and universally known conflict between the unconditioned state of freedom, which originates our decisions both about ideas and beliefs, and the purely logical necessity of holding that same ideas and beliefs in a system. From this deep philosophical tension two typical positions may be derived, constituting significant patterns of Western Thought, not to mention strong similarities in other cultural environments. Only the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, though, offered exhaustive and qualified answers to this drama. Our purpose is to turn our sight back to the historical scene when Jakob Böhme and Johann W. Goethe tried to build their visionary and still much ignored synthesis between the spheres of will and reason. This endeavor required psychological and mystic incursions, while dragging from this liminal conscious region massive portions of the shadowy mental matter that could be enlightened only symbolically. We shall observe how their very similar method and mood seem to be, to this day, able to feed science and metaphysics with concepts that they frequently lack; and in which sense such approach alters the very definition of religion, a term that eventually starts to swallow any and every other knowledge or activity.

The focus of this study is to discover the identity of the emphatic “I” of Rom 7 with the added purpose of attempting to “draw” a spiritual portrait of a mature Christian believer. To accomplish this purpose, the process is as follows: An examination of Rom 7, within its context, is conducted. This examination is followed by an attempt at determining the experience of the emphatic “I” found within Rom 7. The next step in the process is to compare the experience of the emphatic “I” of Rom 7, as found within its context of Rom 1-8 with what Paul wrote elsewhere on the experience of new life in Christ for Christian believers. The purpose of this comparison is to discover if Paul had a “consistent” portrait of spirituality and Christian maturity. The final step is to compare the experience described by Paul, both in Rom 7 and in the wider Pauline Corpus, with the experience which John Wesley called “perfection”, and with the Mystical experience called the “spiritual marriage”. The study of Romans, Wesley, and the Mystics, coupled with the wider study of the secondary literature showed that there is a remarkable consistency in the teaching and understanding that the closer a Christian believer gets to God, the more this Christian believer is aware of his or her own sinfulness. Paul, in describing the experience of the emphatic “I”, is describing a person who is becoming more and more aware of his or her own sinfulness. The conclusion to be drawn from this study is that the identity of the empathic “I” is of a regenerate Christian believer, one who is growing ever closer and closer to God and at the same time is in “pain” over the remaining effects of sin. / Thesis (PhD (New Testament Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / New Testament Studies / PhD / unrestricted

This thesis is concerned broadly with purported mystics and how the Roman Catholic Church conceives of them theologically, and treats them in practicality. In exploring the dynamics of power at work when an individual claims to have dialogue with God, I identify a very particular process that occurs, namely active abjection, and illustrate this using examples taken from the writings of various purported mystics. I argue that there is a collection of people - the actively abjected - who occupy a very specific role within the Roman Catholic Church, and that this role has not been recognized. I go on to suggest a way in which they can be understood and respected for the role they play. To do this, I draw upon particular philosophical models of understanding from Hannah Arendt and Julia Kristeva. I aspire to encourage a deeper and more complicated understanding of the nature of institutionalized oppression, and to offer a reconstructive model for how those who encounter potentially problematic individuals within communities might work and interact with them in a non-oppressive manner. This thesis is a work of Catholic theology in that it offers a theological and philosophical argument for the recognition of a particular role certain individuals play in maintaining the structure and definition of the Catholic Church. But it is also intended as a work of political philosophy. Both Arendt and Kristeva, whose writing I use as a lens to examine a particular phenomenon found in religious communities are theorists in the tradition of political philosophy and my intention is to expand the application of their models.

abstract: This dissertation focuses on the connections between childbirth and spirituality in fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century England. It argues that scholastic interest in conception and procreation led to a proliferation of texts mentioning obstetrics and gynecology, and that this attention to women's medicine and birth spread from the universities to the laity. This dissertation contends that there is interdependence between spiritual and physical health in late medieval English religious culture, correlated with and perhaps caused by an increasing fascination with materialism and women's bodies in religious practices and rhetoric. The first chapter provides an analysis of birth in medical and pastoral texts. Pastoral works were heavily influenced by the ecclesiastical emphasis on baptism, as well as by scholastic medicine's simultaneous disdain for and reluctant integration of folk medicine. The second chapter examines birth descriptions in narratives of saints' miracles and collections of exempla; these representations of childbirth were used in religious rhetoric to teach, motivate, and dissuade audiences. The third chapter turns to the cycle play representations of the nativity as depicting the mysteries of human generation and divine incarnation for public consumption. The fourth chapter analyzes the abstract uses of childbirth in visionary and other religious texts, especially in descriptions of spiritual rebirth and the development of vice and virtue in individuals or institutions. By identifying their roles as analogous with the roles of midwives, visionaries authorized themselves as spiritual caretakers, vital for communal health and necessary for collective spiritual growth. These chapters outline a trajectory of increasing male access to the birthing chamber through textual descriptions and prescriptions about birth and midwifery. At the same time, religious texts acknowledged, sought to regulate, and sometimes even utilized the potential authority of mothers and midwives as physical and spiritual caretakers. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2014

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-06-24T13:56:05Z No. of bitstreams: 1 adrianaandradedesouza.pdf: 786976 bytes, checksum: 1786e04c5379bbcb5d4ffe6872499136 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-07-13T15:45:25Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 adrianaandradedesouza.pdf: 786976 bytes, checksum: 1786e04c5379bbcb5d4ffe6872499136 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-13T15:45:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 adrianaandradedesouza.pdf: 786976 bytes, checksum: 1786e04c5379bbcb5d4ffe6872499136 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-19 / O tema central deste trabalho, “Entre o um e o dois: Mestre Eckhart e o aberto da Abgeschiedenheit” baseia-se na compreensão de que o pensamento eckhartiano acerca do desprendimento (Abgeschiedenheit) oscila entre três dimensões. Uma destas dimensões se refere ao que se poderia chamar uma “pedagogia” da conversão, na qual está em jogo a necessidade do esforço do homem em desapropriar-se de si mesmo. Outra dimensão do desprendimento seria a compreensão da busca da identidade com Deus como um “em si”, ou seja, como dádiva previamente dada, assim expressa nas palavras de Eckhart: “o fundo da alma e o fundo de Deus são um fundo.” A partir desse permanecer em si, o desprendimento ainda se descobre em uma dimensão vivida, ou seja, trata-se de um permanecer “em si”, no próprio da ação sem porquê, tal como é expresso na célebre frase eckhartiana: “frutificar a dádiva é a única gratidão para com a dádiva.” Assim compreendido, o desprendimento revelase como uma negação da negação, que é pura afirmação sem porquê, a que neste trabalho chamamos o aberto da Abgeschiedenheit. O “sem-porquê” é a dinâmica de retração na qual a Deidade se mantém ao criar o mundo. O próprio do pensamento de Eckhart é que essa dinâmica se estende imediatamente à existência humana, pelo ser uno de homem e Deus no fundo. Tornar-se interior no fundo da alma significa, para o homem, desprender-se da perspectiva de dualidade própria do seu ser criado, para tornar própria a pureza que não é, nas palavras de Eckhart, “nem no mundo, nem fora do mundo.” Ou seja, aquela pureza do fundo da Deidade da qual é próprio um brotar-se em si mesmo – sem nenhum porquê. O “semporquê”, em Eckhart, é essa idéia que diz não ser o desprendimento somente uma interiorização extática, mas plenitude efetiva, bem exercitada – muito mais do que só de dentro. Para nós, este é o modo como Eckhart une um dos grandes temas dos místicos renanos, a saber, o fundo sem fundo da Deidade e a abertura sem porquê, ao tema maior do nascimento de Deus na alma – nascimento que implica uma reciprocidade, porque a alma só é verdadeiramente bem-aventurada quando em retorno ela “gera Deus”. Esse “gerar” é o cumprimento da perspectiva da Deidade na existência humana, é o “sem-porquê” vivido. É o caminho do distinto à pura indistinção de Deus (da Abgeschiedenheit) em seu brotar-se em si mesmo – o caminho de volta para dentro da vida vivida. / The central theme of this work, "Between the one and the two: Meister Eckhart and the open of the Abgeschiedenheit", is based on the understanding that Eckhart’s thought about the detachment (Abgeschiedenheit) ranges in three dimensions. One of these dimensions refers to what one might call a "pedagogy" of conversion, in which the need of human effort to evict itself is at stake. Another dimension of the detachment would be the understanding of the search for identity with God as a "per se", ie, as a previously given gift, which is expressed in Eckhart’s words as "the depth of the soul and the depth of God are one depth". From this remaining in oneself, the detachment still finds itself in a live dimension, ie, it refers to remaining "in itself" in the very action without reason, as it is expressed in the famous words of Eckhart: "to make the donation fruitful is the only gratitude for the gift." Understood in this way, the detachment is revealed as a negation of the negation, which is pure assertion without reason, and in this work is named the open of the Abgeschiedenheit. The "no why" is the dynamics of contraction in which the deity remains as it creates the world. The thought of Eckhart is properly that this dynamics is immediately extended to human existence, by the being one as man and God in the depth. To become interior in the depth of the soul means to man, to loosen up from the prospect of a created being’s own duality, in order to make proper the purity that, in the words of Eckhart, is "neither in the world nor out of the world ". That is, the purity of the depth of the Deity to whom is proper to spring in itself - without any reason. The "no why" in Eckhart, is this idea that says the detachment is not only an ecstatic internalization, but effective plenitude, well-exercised - much more than just the inside. For us, this is how Eckhart takes one of the major themes of the Rhineland mystics, namely the depth with no depth of the Deity, and without reason, and links it to the major theme of the birth of God in the soul - a birth that involves reciprocity, because the soul is only truly blessed when in return it "creates God." This "generating" is the fulfillment of view of the Deity in human existence, it is the lived "why not". Is the path from the separate to the pure indistinctness of God (the Abgeschiedenheit) in its spring in itself - the way back into the lived life.

This study investigates and discusses how two spiritual teachers from different parts of the world interact with their devotees, what the probable impacts of their interaction are, and whether they speak similarly or differently based on the use of modal auxiliary verbs and pronouns. Linguistically speaking, the mystics mostly have to address their audience/readers in a particular manner with expressions which represent certainty, possibility, obligation and so on; thus, a study of such is necessary and modal auxiliary verbs represent such expressions. The two primary texts were chosen based on contemporary work and popularity. One of the texts was authored by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a spiritual teacher, an international spokesperson and a popular author. The other text was by Eckhart Tolle, a spiritual teacher and best-selling author. A corpus-assisted discourse approach was taken while looking into modal auxiliary verbs and their pronoun bigrams using Ant-Conc and Log-likelihood Calculator. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were taken for the analysis.  Findings suggest three things. First, both authors use similar types of modal verbs (epistemic) in most cases. Second, after comparing the type of modal verbs (epistemic/deontic) significant differences are observed. When the authors use epistemic modals, the choice of bigrams addresses different audience types and the way they approach a concept is different. Sadhguru (2020) addresses the general audience/readers whereas Tolle (2004) addresses the readers who need spiritual guidance. Finally, the choice of modal verbs represents mostly certainty that keeps the mood of the book calm and content for the readers. To sum up, spiritual teachers mostly speak from their experience and represent the expression of certainty and possibility though they address their readers differently.

The limit between the proper and the foreign – how this limit is established, but also crossed and dissolved – has remained a crucial issue in phenomenology. Setting these questions in the context of the phenomenology of religion, this thesis develops an analysis of the relation between transcendence and body understood in terms of a certain limit. The introductory part is rooted in Edmund Husserl’s discussions of the concept of transcendence, which is shown to have an essential connection to the analysis of inner time-consciousness. Here we encounter a decisive limit to objectifying knowledge, which also comes across in his investigations of the body and its spatiality. The second part discusses Max Scheler’s critique of Husserl’s excessively objectifying view of knowledge, with a particular focus on Scheler’s understanding of love as a condition of possibility for any knowledge. Scheler is shown to have developed a new concept of transcendence that avoids the pitfalls of objectivism, although in his philosophy of religion he tends to downplay the importance of the body. The third part undertakes a reading of Edith Stein, who develops ideas similar to Scheler’s, though in a phenomenologically more nuanced fashion. Although her philosophy of religion also bypasses the body, Stein provides a more genuine access to the writings of the mystics, the analysis of which forms the core of the fourth and concluding part. Drawing on the work of the 13th century Beguine Mechthild of Magdeburg, this concluding chapter develops a phenomenological understanding of religion with an emphasis on transcendence and limit, while also retaining the centrality of our experience of the body. This means: a phenomenology of the limit is investigated, rather than a limit of phenomenology. / Hur gränsen mellan det egna och det främmande ska dras är en central fråga inom den fenomenologiska traditionen, en fråga som här undersöks i ett religionsfilosofiskt sammanhang. På vilket sätt kan vi överskrida oss själva mot det främmande och ogripbara, och på vilket sätt är denna möjlighet förbunden med vår egen kroppslighet? Dessa teman utvecklas i en serie diskussioner av filosofer som Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler och Edith Stein. Redan i Husserls analyser av transcendensen, tidsmedvetandet och kroppsligheten framträder en bestämd gräns för den objektiverande kunskapen, även om han i sista hand alltid uppfattade den som ett ideal. I Schelers och Steins religionsfilosofier utvecklas därefter en kritik av denna kunskapssyn, bland annat i form av en analys av kärleken (Scheler) och mystiken (Stein), men hos ingen av dem får kroppsligheten en central ställning. I den avslutande delen, som analyserar den mystika erfarenhetens uttryck hos den medetida beginen Mechthild von Magdeburg, utvecklas en fenomenologi som förbinder transcendens med kroppslighet och sinnlighet. Därmed undersöks en gränsens fenomenologi snarare än fenomenologins gräns. Jonna Bornemark är forskare och lärare på Södertörns högskola. Boken är hennes doktorsavhandling.