Spiritualities of Life [antikvár]

PrefaceI was extremely fortunate to have been born in 1946. This has meant that I have witnessed, and in measure experienced, the unfolding of spiritualities of life from the time I came of age during that great 'inner era' known as the sixties. My awareness of what has come to be called the 'New Age' dawned whilst I was studying at Oxford. I was more a participant than an observer. Since moving to the Yorkshire Dales, I have also been fortunate to live so close to the homeland of the English Romantics, the Lake District. Students who I taught at Lancaster University during the later 1970s and the 1980s helped keep me abreast of developments: the way in which Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's movement sustained the 'sixties' after the decline of the counter-culture in the West (Thompson and Heelas, 1986), and the seminar spirituality which flourished at this time, thereby contributing to my research on 'alternative spiritualities' during the period. From 1997, I have been much preoccupied with what has come to be called the 'Kendal Project' - a project which has helped take me into the realm of wellbeing spirituality. During the last decade or so, I have also been studying spiritualities of life overseas - first Dacca, then Kampala, currently Islamabad and environs. All settings where 'wellbeing' is frequently a much more fundamental issue than in most western settings.During this long period of looking at the New Age, I have had three experiences which will be with me until the day I die. In the spirit of Aldous Huxley, a trip to remoter realms whilst listening to the Pink Floyd during an open air festival; 'participant' observation of a 100 or so hour long Exegesis seminar; and a sudden realization concerning the significance of the term 'life' whilst waiting at Schiphol airport. Academically useful experiences - but not as useful as having had the fortune to live through the 'working out' of what Charles Taylor (1991) calls the 'massive subjective turn of modern culture' (p. 26): a turn which is very much bound up with the growth of subjective wellbeing culture, including wellbeing spirituality.This book completes a trilogy with Blackwell Publishing on the topic of alternative spiritualities. The first volume, The New Age Movement, was