MetaFilter posts tagged with Spirituality

For those who believe, no proof is necessary.

pick_the_flowers — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:05:51 -0800

Does John of God really heal the sick? Or is it just carnival tricks? John of God aka João Teixeira de Faria is a farmer who has been healing people close to his ranch in Brazil for close to 50 years by chanelling the energy of medical spirits. Sometimes he uses visible surgery and sometimes he uses invisible surgery.

Harvey Cox Says Atheism Won't Last. Here's Why You Should Care What Harvey Cox Thinks...

jefficator — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:21:40 -0800

Harvey Cox, one of the foremost American theologians of the twentieth century, recently retired from Harvard, where he held the oldest tenured professorship in the nation. You've seen him discussed here before for more bovine pursuits. But more importantly, he has argued that atheism is a passing fad; his new book contends it emerges in response to factors that will change the face of faith in the coming generation. Why should you care about an old theologian's last hurrah? His prior predictions have been right.

Premanand will not recant

vanar sena — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:25:41 -0800

Basava Premanand, rationalist and founder of The Indian Skeptic, is dying. Premanand has been dispelling miracles and exposing charlatans for over fifty years, often facing persecution from the entrenched political and popular power of godmen in India. Now, his 79 year old body is shutting down. To counter already spreading rumours that he has recanted and accepted spirituality, he has issued a statement that despite being on his deathbed, he has no intention of finding God.

Boy meets guru, boy loses guru

Kickstart70 — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:58:38 -0800

An American Sadhu - A seeking of holiness, resulting in disillusionment and abandonment. A very good read about one man's experience meeting a guru and his disciple, and ultimately coming full circle to "you get the guru you deserve".

What Would It Look Like?

netbros — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:13:44 -0800

The Global Oneness Project is exploring how the radically simple notion of interconnectedness can be lived in our increasingly complex world. They travel the globe gathering stories from creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the understanding that we bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world. They hope that by showing the diverse ways oneness is expressed—in the fields of sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture, and social justice—others will be inspired to create solutions to personal and community challenges from their own lived understanding of oneness.

Soul Pancake

Roach — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:31:24 -0800

Actor Rainn Wilson has launched a community-driven discussion blog focused on life's big questions, such as do we get what we pray for?, why do we spend so much time talking about other people?, and do the imaginations of adults need a serious kick in the balls?

Guruphiliac

Roach — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:44:44 -0800

Revealing Self-Aggrandizement and Superstition in Self-Realization since 2005

The Ayahuasca Monologues

homunculus — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:24:14 -0800

Surrendering to the Spirit Vine. Artist Alex Grey (previously) describes his experience with "the champagne of ayahuascas."

Dear God. Prayers for the modern world.

ColdChef — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:25:59 -0800

Dear God is a global project for people around the world to share their innermost hopes - and fears - through prayer. Some photos NSFW.

Papa Palmérino Sorgente, the Pope of Montréal

XMLicious — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:05:27 -0800

Papa Palmérino Sorgente, the Pope of Montréal Here's more photos of him and his art and here he is on YouTube in action and also on Google Video. More photos embedded in Flash in the Made in Montréal page for him. He's a bit dour in those but here he is smiling, straight out of Pixar's Geri's Game. I met this guy in the fall of Y2K while visiting “La Ville Aux Cent Clochers” / “The City of a Hundred Belltowers”. Flatluigi's recent post reminded me of him. He's a cool, talkative, and cheerful, if not entirely there, artiste of the grassroots genre. As you can tell by the frame of that first photo the Bedazzler was made for this man. It was quite confusing to try to carry on a conversation with him in my limited French until I realized that he didn't speak that language. (Or maybe his accent was so heavy I couldn't understand him.) According to the amusing anecdote on this page (in French) Papa Palmérino is a Kosovar. Though elsewhere it shows he emigrated to Canada from Italy. The YT video doesn't really do justice to what it's like being in his little shop, Le Musée de Papa Palmérino, but the Montréal Mirror says it best:

If religious collectibles are your thing, this place may be your little slice of heaven. The place is chock-full of Jesuses--statues big and small, crucifixes, key chains, mugs. Seems Papa is quite the Jesus fan, which makes sense, considering he believes himself to be his brother. Ask him to show you framed photos of himself mounted on a cross (I didn't ask if these were for sale). Papa Palmerino sells a wide variety of other religious doo-dads including rosary beads, candles and rings he claims cure arthritis. Even if the ‘Second Coming’ isn't quite the motif you're going for in decorating your house, this place is worth visiting for the browsing and... uh... conversation.

(Not sure if that's clear, but he actually has photos of himself mock-crucified, loincloth and crown of thorns and everything.) I don't know if he's still truckin' because he was 85 years old in 2003➚. I guess his shop burned down a couple of months after I met him! This person, Jona Pelovska, seems to have made a documentary about him. Her MySpace page says “in post-production.”

Esalen, where "California" bubbled up

jason's_planet — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:48:23 -0800

Esalen: Where "California" Bubbled Up (one photo mildly NSFW) For many others in America and around the world, Esalen stands more vaguely for that metaphorical point where “East meets West” and is transformed into something uniquely and mystically American or New Agey. And for a great many others yet, Esalen is simply that notorious bagno-bordello where people had sex and got high throughout the 1960s and 1970s before coming home talking psychobabble and dangling crystals. In short, Esalen is in every way, even geologically, California at its most extreme. It is its caricature, as well as its noblest expression.

Damanhur

homunculus — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:20:58 -0800

The Temples of Damanhur. Behold the Eighth Wonder of the World (according to the Italian government). [Via Boing Boing.] Here's more information on the Federation of Damanhur.

Supreme Master TV

parmanparman — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 09:38:30 -0800

Supreme Master TV. As advertised on the very back page of this week's Economist Newspaper. It's great when spiritual leaders just come right out and say it. Check out the awesome paintings.

Neuroscience and Mysticism

homunculus — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:14:43 -0800

Searching for God in the Brain. "Researchers are unearthing the roots of religious feeling in the neural commotion that accompanies the spiritual epiphanies of nuns, Buddhists and other people of faith." [Via MindHacks, which points out a few niggling omissions in the article.]

Peter Stafford, RIP

homunculus — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 22:15:11 -0800

Peter Stafford, psychedelics investigator and author of the Psychedelics Encyclopedia (PDF preview), has died. [Via BB.]

Love on Campus: Why We Should Encourage an Eroticism (of the Mind) Between Professor and Student

shivohum — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:20:45 -0800

Love on Campus: Why We Should Encourage an Eroticism (of the Mind) Between Professor and Student. Yale English professor William Deresiewicz argues that the newly-emerged stereotype of professors as "pompous, lecherous, alcoholic failures" is in the main due to our culture's fear of and inability to understand the true intimacy between professor and student: that of the mind. Cf. controversial Hindu teacher-student relationships, the same in Christianity, or merely observe Oscar Wilde: "I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself."

Turn on, tune in, get out

homunculus — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:42:40 -0800

Entheogens and Psychotherapy. A 2001 paper by Canadian psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar on the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics and his own experience with LSD. Now, because of this paper, he is no longer allowed to enter the U.S. [Via Mind Hacks.]

The Spy of the Heart

Burhanistan — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 08:50:35 -0800

The Spy of the Heart - The story of an American's exploration of Islamic spirituality within the turmoil of Afghanistan. Full book (PDF) available free onsite.

Shuntee.

Firas — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 23:11:37 -0800

The Hostile New Age Takeover of Yoga [print version]. Standard "omg commoditization" rant, but has a delectable anecdote wherein someone mistakes clingy navel-gazing for reflection. ("What part of no don't you understand?" his note said. "I never want to hear from you again.")

Namaste, bitches!

homunculus — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:58:34 -0800

Yoga Action Squad! Episode 1: Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Vibrations --- The Yoga Action Squad, an elite team of yogis and yoginis from Santa Monica, spring into action to stop the very negative Dr. Bad Vibes and his overpaid bitchy assistant, Lethargo.

"SeaWorld bespeaks the essence of Orlando, a place whose specialty is detaching experience from context, extracting form from substance, and then selling tickets to it."

wander — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:10:53 -0800

"All over Orlando you see forces at work that are changing America from Fairbanks to Little Rock. This, truly, is a 21st-century paradigm: It is growth built on consumption, not production; a society founded not on natural resources, but upon the dissipation of capital accumulated elsewhere; a place of infinite possibilities, somehow held together, to the extent it is held together at all, by a shared recognition of highway signs, brand names, TV shows, and personalities, rather than any shared history. Nowhere else is the juxtaposition of what America actually is and the conventional idea of what America should be more vivid and revealing."

"Welcome to the theme-park nation." [more inside]

I Love You Kenisha

jonson — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:35:41 -0800

I Love You Kenisha. My dear sweet Kenisha, If you find this page, please forgive me for my failure to be a the kind of leader in our marriage and our home that God has called me to be. When ever you decide to come home, I'll be here waiting for you. If I'm 100 years old, and on my death bed, and you haven't come back yet, I'll still be waiting for you!!! I love you with all my heart!!!

Prophets and Profits on the Burning Shore

digaman — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 14:14:46 -0800

From organically-farming Zen centers to celebrity-cultivating Scientology centres^TM, California is a seedbed of the most earnest (and most frivolous or worse) branches of spiritual inquiry. What's in the water in the Golden State that has made it The Visionary State? In an interview with editor Geoff Manaugh of the excellent BLDGBLOG, author Erik Davis -- whose published passions have ranged from an analysis of Philip K. Dick's "divine invasions" to erudite musings on Led Zeppelin's fourth album to an ode to the joys of being a teenage bongeur -- talks about the formerly chic devil-worshipper Anton LaVey, Beat Zen, Aldous Huxley, the Watts Towers, and beyond, with great photos by Michael Rauner, who collaborated with Davis on the new book.

The Angel of Hour

hortense — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:36:08 -0800

The Angels of the Hours offer us the opportunity to direct our lives from within,not being swept along by the demands of the clock.By living in the real rhythms of the day we become more real...(real audio) .

50 million alleged cultural creatives may or may not be right...

es_de_bah — Sun, 15 May 2005 14:58:10 -0800

There is nothing flaky about this. There is nothing New Age about this. These people are practical. They love the Earth, and they want to live their values

What the hell is a Cultural Creative? According to this book, there are already 50 million Cultural Creativists in the US, many of whom may not know it yet. Are you one?
But is this really a social movement, or just another manufactured demographic marketing term, like "metrosexual"?
Could CC give the left a language with which to discuss spirituality? or is this all just hype?