Fasting An Exceptional Human Experience Since prehistory, fasting has been used in various ways as a means of transformation. As a spiritual practice, it is the oldest and most common form of asceticism and is found in virtually every religion and spiritual tradition. In psychology, studies have suggested that fasting can alleviate the symptoms of some psychiatric conditions, including depression and schizophrenia. In medicine, fasting is one of the most promising therapies, with research suggesting that fasting can cause certain drugs, such as chemotherapy, to work better while reducing drug side-effects. Hunger striking, sometimes called political fasting, may be the most powerful application of fasting. Proof of this occurred in 1948 when Gandhis hunger strike caused millions of Hindus and Muslims in India to cease their fighting. As a practical guide, Randi Fredricks, Ph.D. provides detailed information on the different types of fasting, where people fast, the physiological process of fasting, and the contraindications and criticisms of fasting. Using existing literature and original research, Dr. Fredricks focuses on the transformative characteristics of fasting in the contexts of psychology, medicine, and spirituality. The relationship between fasting and transpersonal psychology is examined, with a focus on peak experiences, self-realization, and other exceptional human experiences. Dr. Fredricks demonstrates how fasting can be profoundly therapeutic, create global paradigm shifts, and provide personal mystical phenomena.

Every year during Holy Week in the Philippine province of Pampanga, hundreds of men and women undergo acts of excruciating, self-inflicted pain in ways that evoke the Way of the Cross: the torment and crucifixion that Christ endured in the last days of his earthly existence. Because these Passion rituals are officially disavowed by the Filipino Roman Catholic Church, most observers view them as irrational and extremist mimicry of Christ’s painful ordeal. Even scholars conventionally depict them as theatrical “spectacle” or macabre examples of Filipino “folk religion.” But what conditions enable ritual actors to submit to such extreme pain? What justifications do they give for going against official prohibitions? What outcomes do they seek in channeling Christian piety in this way? This book addresses these questions through its in-depth analyses of three interconnected ritual acts: the pabasa, a days-long communal chanting of Christ’s Passion story; the pagdarame, the public self-flagellation of hundreds of devotees; and the pamamaku king krus, in which steel nails are driven through the palms and feet of ritual practitioners as part of a street play performed in front of tens of thousands of spectators. Author Julius Bautista suggests that such ritual acts manifest the embodied physicality of a suffering selfhood that facilitates the expression of heartfelt sentiments of pity, empathy, trust, and bereavement. By emphasizing these outwardly focused human sensibilities as the wellsprings of ritual agency, he demonstrates that Passion rituals are reinterpretations of the very idea and experience of pain, hardship, and suffering and premised on an appeal for a certain kind of divine intimacy. The author draws on a decade of in-depth and often exclusive interviews with a host of local stakeholders—including ritual practitioners, clerics, scholars, and government officials—and his own participation in a Passion play. Ethnographic insight is considered alongside primary and secondary archival sources, including unpublished, locally produced oral historical accounts and a survey of relevant media coverage. The Way of the Cross makes a welcome contribution to the anthropology of religion by examining the unique ontological contexts in which ritual agents experience God’s involvement in their lives.

The story of the six wives of Henry VIII from the viewpoint of the women themselves

Over recent decades, depression rates have skyrocketed. While for Depression some depression sufferers find relief with traditional approaches, they don’t work for everyone and can cause unwanted side effects. Fortunately, there are eff ective complementary and alternative methods, some of which can help even the most treatment-resistant depression. In Complementary and Alternative Treatments for Depression, Dr. Fredricks provides a guide with information from the latest research and medical findings on complementary and alternative therapies for depression. Studies have demonstrated that these therapies can have a natural depression reducing effect. From mind-body interventions to psychedelic substances, many of these therapies have been used for thousands of years in the fight against depression. With the guidance of this book, you can begin to win the battle against depression once and for all.

From Dr. Joseph Mercola, one of the world's foremost authorities on alternative health: a guide to using the principles of ketogenic eating, meal planning, and timing to treat disease, promote weight loss, and optimize health. We all know that food is medicine--yet going without food is one of the single best things you can do for your health. Short, doable fasts, when strategically timed, are an incredibly powerful metabolic intervention, dovetailing perfectly with a ketogenic diet to activate your body's fat-burning mode. This in turn can ward off insulin resistance, reduce oxidative stress and inflammation, optimize brain function, prevent neurological problems, support weight loss, and more. In this in-depth yet accessible guide, Dr. Joseph Mercola explores the profound health benefits that result when ketogenic living and well-planned fasting are combined. Topics include: * How our food is making us sick and what we can do about it * The physiology and mechanisms of fasting, including stem cell activation * How the cyclical ketogenic diet--with fasting included--differs from the conventional keto diet * How fasting works and how safe it is for you * How regular one-day fasts support fat burning and detoxification while minimizing hunger and side effects * How to monitor your progress with lab tests * And much more "This will be an exciting journey for you," Dr. Mercola writes. "I am beyond excited for you to implement what I consider to be one of the most powerful physical strategies to help you not only recover your health, but also improve it to levels you likely never believed were possible."

Discover the customized nutrition plan that will help you be lean, fit, more youthful, sexier, and full of energy—at every stage of life. Designed specifically for women, this individualized six-week intermittent fasting program is the sustainable solution to help you feel and look your absolute best. Based on the scientifically proven 16:8 fasting model, what makes this program unique is that it is geared toward your hormonal needs at every stage in life–whether you are cycling or in perimenopause, menopause, or beyond. Intermittent Fasting Transformation will help you: • lose weight steadily and burn fat without hunger, cravings, or plateaus–and keep it off • balance your hormones for better metabolic health and wellness, while easing symptoms associated with perimenopause and menopause • experience a huge boost in physical and mental energy all day long • learn what foods best support weight loss, detoxification, and overall health • lift brain fog and help you sleep better • put aging in reverse . . . and so much more. Cynthia Thurlow, a nurse practitioner and an internationally known women’s health expert whose viral TEDx Talk has received more than 10 million views, developed this breakthrough plan after entering perimenopause in her forties. Intermittent fasting didn’t just help her lose weight; she had more energy, fewer cravings, and lower blood glucose levels. Thurlow has now worked with thousands of women in her private practice to make her unique program of intermittent fasting work for them, too. With meal plans and 50 recipes, along with advice for supercharging your fast, this plan will transform your life, slow down the aging process, and help you reclaim your health and well-being.

Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature explores the nature of religion and, in James' observation, its divorce from science when studied academically. After publication in 1902 it quickly became a canonical text of philosophy and psychology, remaining in print through the entire century. "Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver' determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the Methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind."