RELIGIOUS OSMOSIS is information for people that are religious, spiritual and non-religious. This book shows how human unconscious behavioral patterns combine with different doctrines to affect our relationships with friends, family, partners and people of different faiths-and how to improve those ties. Learn how the human mind constructs different dreaming processes, including non-emotional and emotional visions, and how these processes intertwine with historical doctrines. See the psychological effects of the misunderstood human processes that arise when dreaming and falling asleep (called hypnagogic experiences) and as you are waking (hypnopompic experiences).

Religious Osmosis details how humans form certain truths to construct a personal reality, and how these inner truths can link together and strengthen other beliefs. Learn how to look for these inner truths inside yourself and others, and notice how you can alter these inner truths and their self defence mechanisms.

In Religious Osmosis, you will learn how emotion affects REM processes as much as our thoughts do, how we have unknowingly preprogram our dreams, and how to intentionally preprogram your dreaming processes. You'll be able to gain more control in the hypnagogic dream states and remove any fear of sleep paralysis, seeing faces or hearing noises as you fall asleep. The book also provides an advanced fatigue management system to assist in keeping motorists on the road and pilots in the skies.

Understand yourself and others by strengthening your inner and outer connections through religious osmosis.

Religion is often cast in opposition to science. Yet both are deeply rooted in the inner workings of the human brain. With the advent of the modern cognitive neurosciences, the scientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena has become far more sophisticated and wide-ranging. What might brain scans of people in prayer, in meditation, or under the influence of psychoactive substances teach us about religious and spiritual beliefs? Are religion and spirituality reducible to neurological processes, or might there be aspects that, at least for now, transcend scientific claims?

In this book, Andrew Newberg explores the latest findings of neurotheology, the multidisciplinary field linking neuroscience with religious and spiritual phenomena. He investigates some of the most controversial--and potentially transformative--implications of a neurotheological approach for the truth claims of religion and our understanding of minds and brains. Newberg leads readers on a tour through key intersections of neuroscience and theology, including the potential evolutionary basis of religion; the psychology of religion, including mental health and brain pathology; the neuroscience of myths, rituals, and mystical experiences; how studies of altered states of consciousness shed new light on the mind-brain relationship; and what neurotheology can tell us about free will. When brain science and religious experience are considered together in an integrated approach, Newberg shows, we might come closer to a fuller understanding of the deepest questions.

To understand the nature of religious belief, we must look at how our minds process the world of imagination and make-believe.

We often assume that religious beliefs are no different in kind from ordinary factual beliefs--that believing in the existence of God or of supernatural entities that hear our prayers is akin to believing that May comes before June. Neil Van Leeuwen shows that, in fact, these two forms of belief are strikingly different. Our brains do not process religious beliefs like they do beliefs concerning mundane reality; instead, empirical findings show that religious beliefs function like the imaginings that guide make-believe play.

Van Leeuwen argues that religious belief--which he terms religious credence--is best understood as a form of imagination that people use to define the identity of their group and express the values they hold sacred. When a person pretends, they navigate the world by consulting two maps: the first represents mundane reality, and the second superimposes the features of the imagined world atop the first. Drawing on psychological, linguistic, and anthropological evidence, Van Leeuwen posits that religious communities operate in much the same way, consulting a factual-belief map that represents ordinary objects and events and a religious-credence map that accords these objects and events imagined sacred and supernatural significance.

It is hardly controversial to suggest that religion has a social function, but Religion as Make-Believe breaks new ground by theorizing the underlying cognitive mechanisms. Once we recognize that our minds process factual and religious beliefs in fundamentally different ways, we can gain deeper understanding of the complex individual and group psychology of religious faith.

Since the first African American denomination was established in Philadelphia in 1818, churches have gone beyond their role as spiritual guides in African American communities and have served as civic institutions, spaces for education, and sites for the cultivation of individuality and identities in the face of limited or non-existent freedom.

In this Very Short Introduction, Eddie S. Glaude Jr. explores the history and circumstances of African American religion through three examples: conjure, African American Christianity, and African American Islam. He argues that the phrase African American religion is meaningful only insofar as it describes how through religion, African Americans have responded to oppressive conditions including slavery, Jim Crow apartheid, and the pervasive and institutionalized discrimination that exists today. This bold claim frames his interpretation of the historical record of the wide diversity of religious experiences in the African American community. He rejects the common tendency to racialize African American religious experiences as an inherent proclivity towards religiousness and instead focuses on how religious communities and experiences have developed in the African American community and the context in which these developments took place.

About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

Religion is often cast in opposition to science. Yet both are deeply rooted in the inner workings of the human brain. With the advent of the modern cognitive neurosciences, the scientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena has become far more sophisticated and wide-ranging. What might brain scans of people in prayer, in meditation, or under the influence of psychoactive substances teach us about religious and spiritual beliefs? Are religion and spirituality reducible to neurological processes, or might there be aspects that, at least for now, transcend scientific claims?

In this book, Andrew Newberg explores the latest findings of neurotheology, the multidisciplinary field linking neuroscience with religious and spiritual phenomena. He investigates some of the most controversial--and potentially transformative--implications of a neurotheological approach for the truth claims of religion and our understanding of minds and brains. Newberg leads readers on a tour through key intersections of neuroscience and theology, including the potential evolutionary basis of religion; the psychology of religion, including mental health and brain pathology; the neuroscience of myths, rituals, and mystical experiences; how studies of altered states of consciousness shed new light on the mind-brain relationship; and what neurotheology can tell us about free will. When brain science and religious experience are considered together in an integrated approach, Newberg shows, we might come closer to a fuller understanding of the deepest questions.

Recognized as a winner in the Applied Category of the American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis' 2019 Book Awards. In The Bible as Dream, Murray Stein shares important themes and images in the biblical narrative that from a psychological perspective, stand out as essential features of the meaning of the Bible for the modern reader.

The Bible presents a world elaborated with reference to a specific God image. As the mythographer Karl Kerenyi puts it in writing about the Greek gods and goddesses, every god and every goddess constitutes a world. So it is too with the biblical God, whose name Stein exceptionally capitalizes throughout out of cultural respect. The biblical world is the visionary product of a particular people, the ancient Hebrews and the early Christians, who delved deeply into their God image and pulled from it the multitude of perspectives, rules for life, spiritual practices, and practical implications that all together created the tapestry that we find depicted in the canonical Bible. Yahweh is the heart and soul of this world, its creator, sustainer, and destroyer. The Bible is a dream that tells the story of how this world was brought into being in space and time and what it means.

Don't miss these timeless lectures--a work of respectful and loving interpretation.

Table of Contents:

Part I. A Psychological Reading of the Bible

Lecture One - On Reading the Bible Psychologically
Lecture Two - In the Beginning - Creation
Lecture Three - The Shadow
Lecture Four - Faith and Individuation
Lecture Five - Anima Images
Lecture Six - Animus Images
Lecture Seven - Election and Adoption - Envy and the Self
Lecture Eight - From King to Servant - Ego Relativization

Part II. The Gospel According to John

Lecture One - Word
Lecture Two - Light
Lecture Three - Way

Murray Stein, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the International School of Analytical Psychology Zurich (ISAP-ZURICH). He is a founding member of The Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts (1977) and of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts (1980). He was president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) from 2001 to 2004 and President of ISAP-ZURICH from 2008 to 2012. He has lectured internationally and is the author of Jung's Treatment of Christianity, In MidLife, Jung's Map of the Soul, Minding the Self, and most recently Outside Inside and All Around and Jung's Red Book for Our Time Volume 1 and 2 (co-edited with Thomas Arzt. He lives in Switzerland and has a private practice in Zurich.

Assassinate the Devil is a book God spoke to her before Covid 19. Assassinate the Devil means we pray until something happens and as believers we do not stop praying. Matthew 11:12 states the kingdom of God suffered violence but the violent take it by force. We are take the kingdom by force and this means we must be bold in our prayer life daily. Dr. Shonda Kirk believes this book will change lives in the body of Christ. She has a special section in this masterpiece of who when Covid 19 came to her home to attack her family and she took her God given authority and assassinated the Devil.

We are all aging. We are each a spoke on the great wheel of life, part of the ongoing cycle of growth. In Aging, Henri J.M. Nouwen and Walter J. Gaffney share some moving and inspirational thoughts on what aging means (and can mean) to all of us, whether we're in our youth, middle age, or later years.

Enhanced by some eighty-five photographs depicting various scenes from life and nature, this book shows how to make the later years a source of hope rather than a time of loneliness -- a way out of darkness into the light. Aging, the authors write, is not a reason for despair, but a basis of hope, not a slow decaying, but a gradual maturing, not a fate to be undergone but a chance to be embraced. And they remind us of our responsibility to incorporate the aged into the fabric of our own lives -- helping them become teachers again so they may help us repair the fragmented connections between generations.

Aging shows us all how to start fulfilling our lives by giving to others, so that when we leave this world, we can be what we have given. It is a warm, beautiful, and caring book: a simple reaffirmation of the promise of Him, who by His aging and death brought new life to this world.

Karl Ker nyi presents here a beautiful, authoritative study of the great god Hermes whom the Greeks revered as Guides of Souls. Chapters on Hermes and Night, Hermes and Eros, and Hermes and the goddesses illuminate the complex role of Hermes in classical mythology, while also providing an archetypal background for the guiding of souls in psychotherapy. A vital contribution both to the study of the classics and the therapy of the soul.

Born to Believe was previously published in hardcover as Why We Believe What We Believe.

Prayer...meditation...speaking in tongues. What do these spiritual activities share and how do they differ? Why do some people believe in God, while others embrace atheism? From the ordinary to the extraordinary, beliefs give meaning to the mysteries of life. They motivate us, provide us with our individual uniqueness, and ultimately change the structure and function of our brains.

In Born to Believe, Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Waldman reveal -- for the very first time -- how our complex views, memories, superstitions, morals, and beliefs are created by the neural activities of the brain. Supported by groundbreaking original research, they explain how our brains construct our deepest convictions and fondest assumptions about reality and the world around us. Using science, psychology, and religion, the authors offer recommendations for exercising your brain in order to develop a more life-affirming, flexible range of attitudes. Knowing how the brain builds meaning, value, spirituality, and truth into your life will change forever the way you look at yourself and the world.

In this groundbreaking volume, J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., MD, with Clare Aukofer, offers a succinct yet comprehensive study of how and why the human mind generates religious belief. Dr. Thomson, a highly respected practicing psychiatrist with credentials in forensic psychiatry and evolutionary psychology, methodically investigates the components and causes of religious belief in the same way any scientist would investigate the movement of astronomical bodies or the evolution of life over time--that is, as a purely natural phenomenon. Providing compelling evidence from psychology, the cognitive neurosciences, and related fields, he, with Ms. Aukofer, presents an easily accessible and exceptionally convincing case that god(s) were created by man--not vice versa. With this slim volume, Dr. Thomson establishes himself as a must-read thinker and leading voice on the primacy of reason and science over superstition and religion.

Weaving together insights from social psychology, theology, and experiences of interfaith religious leaders, Dagmar Grefe develops practical strategies that support interreligious contact at a grassroots level. She shows that by working together, religious communities can more effectively address global and local problems that all people face: poverty, environmental destruction, and armed conflict. Grefe describes interreligious cooperation at work in local communities. She develops tools that equip religious leaders with the interreligious competence needed for spiritual care and counseling with individual persons in crisis. Cooperation is not only effective in the care for communities and persons in crisis, it also heals distant and strained interreligious relationships. In the process of working together, perceptions of each other can transform.

2010 Reprint of 1939 Edition. In Moses and Monotheism, Freud speculates that Moses was not Jewish, but actually born into Ancient Egyptian nobility and was perhaps a follower of Akhenaten, an ancient Egyptian monotheist. Freud further suggests that Moses led only his close followers into freedom during an unstable period in Egyptian history and that his followers subsequently killed Moses in rebellion afterward. Freud speculates that the guilt from the murder of Moses is inherited through the generations; this guilt then drives the Jews to religion to make them feel better.

In the fractious debate on the existence of God and the nature of religion, two distinguished authors radically alter the discussion. Taking a perspective rooted in evolutionary biology with a focus on brain science, the authors elucidate the perennial questions about religion: What is its purpose? How did it arise? What is its source? Why does every known culture have some form of it? Their answer is deceptively simple, yet at the same time highly complex: The brain creates religion and its varied concepts of God, and then in turn feeds on its creation to satisfy innate neurological and associated social needs. Brain science reveals that humans and other primates alike are afflicted by unavoidable sources of stress that the authors describe as brainpain. To cope with this affliction people seek to brainsoothe. We humans use religion and its social structures to induce brainsoothing as a relief for innate anxiety. How we do this is the subject of this groundbreaking book. In a concise, lively, accessible, and witty style, the authors combine zoom-lens vignettes of religious practices with discussions of the latest research on religion's neurological effects on the brain. Among other topics, they consider religion's role in providing positive socialization, its seeming obsession with regulating sex, creating an afterlife, how religion's rules of behavior influence the law, the common biological scaffolding between nonhuman primates and humans and how this affects religion, a detailed look at brain chemistry and how it changes as a result of stress, and evidence that the palliative effects of religion on brain chemistry is not matched by nonreligious remedies. Concluding with a checklist offering readers a means to compute their own brainsoothe score, this fascinating book provides key insights into the complexities of our brain and the role of religion, perhaps its most remarkable creation.

Religion Evolving argues that religions need to be understood as adaptive systems. Drawing from a wealth of ethnographic and experimental evidence, the authors situate religious traditions within their local socioecological contexts, showing how these systems adaptively respond to economic, environmental, and health challenges. Based in the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, Religion Evolving offers a holistic approach that attends to the complex, interacting features of religious systems.

It's time to rethink the Christian life in light of current research on the human mind, particularly with a deeper understanding of extended cognition. Using insights from neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, Brad Strawn and Warren Brown argue for a vision of the Christian life as extended into interactions with a local network of believers.

This hands-on workbook companion to Changes That Heal will help you apply Dr. Henry Cloud's revolutionary four steps of healing to your everyday decisions and relationships.

Though we cannot change the past or control people in our lives today, we can change who we are and how we relate to others. What changes do you need to make to discover more joy, richer relationships, and freedom from old wounds?

In this workbook companion to the groundbreaking bestseller Changes That Heal, Dr. Henry Cloud guides us through the four crucial tasks we need to complete on our way to lasting healing and growth:

• Connect deeply with others
• Set healthy boundaries at work, home, and church
• Distinguish between good and bad in ourselves and others
• Become mature emotionally, spiritually, and relationally

Dr. Cloud helps you move forward with each task, overcome hurdles along the way, and draw closer to God. With chapter-by-chapter reflection questions, application ideas, prayers, and Bible study prompts, Changes That Heal Workbook is a great companion for both groups and individuals. Take your spiritual growth another step in this practical, life-changing guide to your personal healing.

As noted psychiatrists, authors, and lecturers, Baars and Terruwe excitingly blend medieval and classical notions of the human psyche together with modern clinical discoveries as they probe the topic of psychic wholeness and healing. The authors explore the entire human psyche, including man's spiritual dimension, which is an area totally ignored by most modern psychiatrists--creating in modern man an ever-deepening sense of frustration in searching for effective psychiatric treatment for his emotional turmoil. The books' numerous detailed clinical case histories clarify the authors' therapeutic principles. The following questions, among many others, are considered in this work: How best to help a person who lives in constant fear that he has committed a serious sin even though he knows he has not? Does a person who wants to live a moral life, yet cannot refrain from doing things that he knows are immoral, suffer from weakness of willpower or from a neurosis that would lend itself to therapy?

The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. A coalition of moral entrepreneurs that included representatives from the Christian Right, the field of psychology, and law enforcement claimed that these games were not only psychologically dangerous but an occult religion masquerading as a game. Dangerous Games explores both the history and the sociological significance of this panic.

Fantasy role-playing games do share several functions in common with religion. However, religion-as a socially constructed world of shared meaning-can also be compared to a fantasy role-playing game. In fact, the claims of the moral entrepreneurs, in which they presented themselves as heroes battling a dark conspiracy, often resembled the very games of imagination they condemned as evil. By attacking the imagination, they preserved the taken-for-granted status of their own socially constructed reality. Interpreted in this way, the panic over fantasy-role playing games yields new insights about how humans play and together construct and maintain meaningful worlds.

Laycock's clear and accessible writing ensures that Dangerous Games will be required reading for those with an interest in religion, popular culture, and social behavior, both in the classroom and beyond.

In this updated, expanded edition, starting with Freud's projection theory of religion - that belief in God is merely a product of man's desire for security - Professor Vitz argues that psychoanalysis actually provides a more satisfying explanation for atheism. Disappointment in one's earthly father, whether through death, absence, or mistreatment, frequently leads to a rejection of God.

A biographical survey of influential atheists of the past four centuries shows that this defective father hypothesis provides a consistent explanation of the intense atheism of these thinkers. A survey of the leading defenders of Christianity over the same period confirms the hypothesis, finding few defective fathers. Vitz concludes with an intriguing comparison of male and female atheists and a consideration of other psychological factors that can contribute to atheism.

Professor Vitz does not argue that atheism is psychologically determined. Each man, whatever his experiences, ultimately chooses to accept God or reject him. Yet the cavalier attribution of religious faith to irrational, psychological needs is so prevalent that an exposition of the psychological factors predisposing one to atheism is necessary.