*Work in Progress* The problem of religious language, that is whether or not we can we talk meaningfully about religious concepts and experiences (specifically, for example, the nature of God or mystical experience), dates back at least as far as the 5th-6h Century Neoplatonic mystic Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Pseudo-Dionysius argued in favour of what has come to be […]
An interesting looking new publication: About the Book: Exploring the pedagogical power of the monstrous, this collection of new essays describes innovative teaching strategies that use our cultural fascination with monsters to enhance learning in high school and college courses. The contributors discuss the implications of inviting fearsome creatures into the classroom, showing how they […]
I remembered this and thought it belongs here: http://necromanteum.weebly.com/index.htmlZ
Can we be certain that mind/consciousness is just an epiphenomenon of neurophysiological activity, that it is little more than a byproduct of brain function? How do we know that our current models are accurate explanations, even accurate descriptions, of what consciousness is? The computer model of the mind and brain, with consciousness as software, is […]
Just for a moment, have a think to yourselves about your own definition of ‘myth’ – how would you define the term? What does it mean to you? Once you’ve had a moment to think about it I’ll ask for a couple of quick examples. Ok, so from the very beginning we can see that […]
A few weeks ago I posted an article about Slenderman and the Ontological Argument exploring the possibility of defining entities into existence. I have recently been made aware of a new documentary from HBO that examines the origins and implications of the Slenderman meme, and it looks great. See below:
Rudolf Otto The German theologian Rudolf Otto was born in 1869 in a town called Peine, near Hannover in Prussia. Unfortunately, very little is known about his early life until he began his formal education, so this brief biographical sketch is little more than an overview of his academic CV. It is known that he […]
In recent years, scholarly attention in academic religious studies has shifted towards a focus on paranormal topics as an avenue for deepening our understanding of religion more generally. Jeffrey J. Kripal, for instance, has argued in his books Authors of the Impossible (2010) and Mutants and Mystics (2011), that the paranormal is ‘our secret in […]
The following essay is a modified version of the introductory chapter to the book Damned Facts: Fortean Essays on Religion, Folklore and the Paranormal (available now from Amazon US and Amazon UK). *** Over the course of four groundbreaking books published between 1919-1932,1 Charles Hoy Fort (1874-1932) meticulously presented thousands of accounts of anomalous events […]
X-Files of the Humanities 