RELS 161 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Participant Observation, National Post, Episteme
22 Feb 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Content - what will we study: practices. Intersections between pop culture and religion: cults and new religious movements. Resources - where will we get our information: books / articles/ films. Insider written accounts: observing insiders, reading / watching non-academic sources. Approach - how will we go about studying it: read texts, watch videos, write quizzes and essays, fieldwork (self-directed project) Mysticos = secret, hidden ; mystes =someone who has been initiated. William james the varieties of religious experience (1958) Ineffable: something difficult to express in words. Idea of something just coming to you (unexplained insight) Transient: brief/fleeting, for james mysticism is not something that can be experienced all the time. Passive: not something that you can seek or create - it is something that comes to you. Focus on direct, unmediated experiences of the divine: directly in opposition to fundamentalism (which focuses on mediating faith) View that humanity is asleep or unaware of reality.
