This reader explores current interest in spirituality in the United States. It traces the concept and presence of spirituality in the nation's past and explains the strong attraction to spiritual themes in the present, with attention to questions of definition, historical usage, and connection to religion. Twenty-seven selections pursue the difference and diversity among Americans in terms of their spiritual styles, here understood as modes of experiential knowledge. Catherine L. Albanese has organized these selections to reflect four approaches to spirituality: knowing through the body, or ritual-based spiritualities; knowing through the heart, or evangelical and emotionally toned spiritualities; knowing through the will, or prophetic and social-action spiritualities; and knowing through the mind, or metaphysically oriented spiritualities. Taken together, these essays make the argument that the spiritual is human-made, essentially religious, and surely not the same at all American times and places. The anthology includes selections by Catherine L. Albanese, Janet and Robert Aldridge, Daniel Berrigan, Joseph Epes Brown, Charles W. Colson, Annie Dillard, Virgilio Elizondo, Tamar Frankiel, Emma Goldman, Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, B. K. S. Iyengar, Curtis D. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Chen Kung, Jerena Lee, Shirley MacLaine, Aimee Semple McPherson, Thomas Merton, Carry A. Nation, E. Burke Rochford, Jr., Jerry Rubin, Molly Rush, Starhawk, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Trine, Joachim Wach, B. Alan Wallace, Steven Wilhelm, and Dhyani Ywahoo. Catherine L. Albanese is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of the widely used textbook America: Religions and Religion, now in its third edition, and of numerous other articles and books, including Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age. Albanese is a former president of the American Academy of Religion. 552 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, bibl., index cloth 0-253-33839-5 $65.00 L / £50.00 paper 0-253-21432-7 $27.50 s / £21.00

Native American spirituality teaches us the value of living in harmony with the earth, of honoring each other and respecting the interdependence of all life. This introductory guide explains a vision quest, the sweat lodge, medicine tools, how to reconnect with nature, how to purify with herbs, and other elements of Native American traditions.

• A celebration of the journey of African-American women toward a new spirituality grounded in social awareness, black American tradition, metaphysics, and heightened creativity. • Features illuminating insights from Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Lucille Clifton, Dolores Kendrick, Sonia Sanchez, Michele Gibbs, Geraldine McIntosh, Masani Alexis DeVeaux and Namonyah Soipan. • By a widely published scholar, poet, and activist who has been interviewed by the press, television, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered From the last part of the twentieth century through today, African-American women have experienced a revival of spirituality and creative force, fashioning a uniquely African-American way to connect with the divine. In Soul Talk, Akasha Gloria Hull examines this multifaceted spirituality that has both fostered personal healing and functioned as a formidable weapon against racism and social injustice. Through fascinating and heartfelt conversations with some of today's most creative and powerful women--women whose spirituality encompasses, among others, traditional Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism, Native American teachings, meditation, the I Ching, and African-derived ancestral reverence--the author explores how this new spiritual consciousness is manifested, how it affects the women who practice it, and how its effects can be carried to others. Using a unique and readable blend of interviews, storytelling, literary critique, and practical suggestions of ways readers can incorporate similar renewal into their daily lives, Soul Talk shows how personal and social change are possible through reconnection with the spirit.

Yoga classes and Zen meditation, New-Age retreats and nature mysticism—all are part of an ongoing religious experimentation that has surprisingly deep roots in American history. Tracing out the country’s Transcendentalist and cosmopolitan religious impulses over the last two centuries, Restless Souls explores America’s abiding romance with spirituality as religion’s better half. Now in its second edition, including a new preface, Leigh Eric Schmidt's fascinating book provides a rich account of how this open-road spirituality developed in American culture in the first place as well as a sweeping survey of the liberal religious movements that touted it and ensured its continued vitality.

Nearly 40% of all Americans have no connection with organized religion. Yet many of these people, even though they might never step inside a house of worship, live profoundly spiritual lives. But what is the nature and value of unchurched spirituality in America? Is it a recent phenomenon, a New Age fad that will soon fade, or a long-standing and essential aspect of the American experience? In Spiritual But Not Religious, Robert Fuller offers fascinating answers to these questions. He shows that alternative spiritual practices have a long and rich history in America, dating back to the colonial period, when church membership rarely exceeded 17% and interest in astrology, numerology, magic, and witchcraft ran high. Fuller traces such unchurched traditions into the mid-nineteenth century, when Americans responded enthusiastically to new philosophies such as Swedenborgianism, Transcendentalism, and mesmerism, right up to the current interest in meditation, channeling, divination, and a host of other unconventional spiritual practices. Throughout, Fuller argues that far from the flighty and narcissistic dilettantes they are often made out to be, unchurched spiritual seekers embrace a mature and dynamic set of basic beliefs. They focus on inner sources of spirituality and on this world rather than the afterlife; they believe in the accessibility of God and in the mind's untapped powers; they see a fundamental unity between science and religion and an equality between genders and races; and they are more willing to test their beliefs and change them when they prove untenable. Timely, sweeping in its scope, and informed by a clear historical understanding, Spiritual But Not Religious offers fresh perspective on the growing numbers of Americans who find their spirituality outside the church.

A guide to integrating indigenous thinking into modern life for a more interconnected and spiritual relationship with our fellow beings, Mother Earth, and the natural ways of the universe. There is a natural law—a spiritual intelligence that we are all born with that lies within our hearts. Lakota spiritual leader Doug Good Feather shares the authentic knowledge that has been handed down through the Lakota generations to help you make and recognize this divine connection, centered around the Seven Sacred Directions in the Hoop of Life: Wiyóhinyanpata—East: New Beginnings Itókagata—South: The Breath of Life Wiyóhpeyata—West: The Healing Powers Wazíyata—North: Earth Medicine Wankátakáb—Above: The Great Mystery Khúta—Below: The Source of Life Hóchoka—Center: The Center of Life Once you begin to understand and recognize these strands, you can integrate them into modern life through the Threefold Path: The Way of the Seven Generations—Conscious living The Way of the Buffalo—Mindful consumption The Way of the Community—Collective impact

In innumerable discussions and activities dedicated to better understanding and helping teenagers, one aspect of teenage life is curiously overlooked. Very few such efforts pay serious attention to the role of religion and spirituality in the lives of American adolescents. But many teenagers are very involved in religion. Surveys reveal that 35% attend religious services weekly and another 15% attend at least monthly. 60% say that religious faith is important in their lives. 40% report that they pray daily. 25% say that they have been "born again." Teenagers feel good about the congregations they belong to. Some say that faith provides them with guidance and resources for knowing how to live well. What is going on in the religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers? What do they actually believe? What religious practices do they engage in? Do they expect to remain loyal to the faith of their parents? Or are they abandoning traditional religious institutions in search of a new, more authentic "spirituality"? This book attempts to answer these and related questions as definitively as possible. It reports the findings of The National Study of Youth and Religion, the largest and most detailed such study ever undertaken. The NYSR conducted a nationwide telephone survey of teens and significant caregivers, as well as nearly 300 in-depth face-to-face interviews with a sample of the population that was surveyed. The results show that religion and spirituality are indeed very significant in the lives of many American teenagers. Among many other discoveries, they find that teenagers are far more influenced by the religious beliefs and practices of their parents and caregivers than commonly thought. They refute the conventional wisdom that teens are "spiritual but not religious." And they confirm that greater religiosity is significantly associated with more positive adolescent life outcomes. This eagerly-awaited volume not only provides an unprecedented understanding of adolescent religion and spirituality but, because teenagers serve as bellwethers for possible future trends, it affords an important and distinctive window through which to observe and assess the current state and future direction of American religion as a whole.