False Mystics provides a history of popular religion, race, and gender in colonial Mexico focusing on questions of spiritual and social rebellion and conformity. Nora E. Jaffary examines more than one hundred trials of ?false mystics? whom the Mexican Inquisition prosecuted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While the accused experienced many of the same phenomena as bona fide mystics?visions, sacred illness, and bouts of demonic possession?the Mexican tribunal condemned them nevertheless. False Mystics examines why the Catholic church viewed the accused as deviants and argues that this categorization was due in part to unconventional aspects of their spirituality and in part to contemporary social anxieties over class and race mixing, transgressions of appropriate gendered behavior, and fears of Indian and African influences on orthodox Catholicism. Jaffary examines the transformations this category of heresy underwent between Spain and the New World and explores the relationship between accusations of "false" mysticism and contemporary notions of demonic possession, sickness, and mental illness. Jaffary adopts the perspectives of visionaries to examine the influence of colonial artwork on their spiritual imaginations and to trace the reasons that their spirituality diverged from conventional expressions of piety. False Mystics illuminates the challenges that popular religion and individual spirituality posed to both the institutional church and the colonial social order.

False Mystics provides a history of popular religion, race, and gender in colonial Mexico focusing on questions of spiritual and social rebellion and conformity. Nora E. Jaffary examines more than one hundred trials of “false mystics” whom the Mexican Inquisition prosecuted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While the accused experienced many of the same phenomena as bona fide mystics—visions, sacred illness, and bouts of demonic possession—the Mexican tribunal condemned them nevertheless. False Mystics examines why the Catholic church viewed the accused as deviants and argues that this categorization was due in part to unconventional aspects of their spirituality and in part to contemporary social anxieties over class and race mixing, transgressions of appropriate gendered behavior, and fears of Indian and African influences on orthodox Catholicism. Jaffary examines the transformations this category of heresy underwent between Spain and the New World and explores the relationship between accusations of "false" mysticism and contemporary notions of demonic possession, sickness, and mental illness. Jaffary adopts the perspectives of visionaries to examine the influence of colonial artwork on their spiritual imaginations and to trace the reasons that their spirituality diverged from conventional expressions of piety. False Mystics illuminates the challenges that popular religion and individual spirituality posed to both the institutional church and the colonial social order.

Profiles peculiar characters from biblical times to the present that have shaped the character of the Jewish people.

Understand the life and teachings of Osho, one of the twentieth century’s most unusual gurus and philosophers, in Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic. In 1990, Osho prepared for his departure from the body that had served him for fifty-nine years—in the words of his attending physician—“as calmly as though he were packing for a weekend in the country.” Who was this man, known as the Sex Guru, the “self-appointed bhagwan” (Rajneesh), the Rolls-Royce Guru, the Rich Man’s Guru, and simply the Master? Drawn from nearly five thousand hours of Osho’s recorded talks, this is the story of his youth and education, his life as a professor of philosophy and years of travel teaching the importance of meditation, and the true legacy he sought to leave behind: a religion-less religion centered on individual awareness and responsibility and the teaching of “Zorba the Buddha,” a celebration of the whole human being. Osho challenges readers to examine and break free of the conditioned belief systems and prejudices that limit their capacity to enjoy life in all its richness. He has been described by the Sunday Times of London as one of the “1000 Makers of the 20th Century” and by Sunday Mid-Day (India) as one of the ten people—along with Gandhi, Nehru, and Buddha—who have changed the destiny of India. Since his death in 1990, the influence of his teachings continues to expand, reaching seekers of all ages in virtually every country of the world.