Utilizing spiritual-scientific research methods, Jesaiah Ben-Aharon gives an astonishing first-hand testimony of Rudolf Steiner’s declarations regarding the new Christ Revelation, and offers his own findings on the Spiritual Event of the Twentieth Century. Based on occult Imaginative consciousness, he gives a unique account of events which took place in the spiritual world during the war and turmoil on earth in the period 1933-45. His words have a particular significance for an understanding of the work of the grouping of souls which the seer and spiritual teacher Rudolf Steiner called the ‘Michael School’. Through coming to a fully conscious comprehension of the Spiritual Event of the Twentieth Century, the author asserts, we may gain the courage needed to renew and enliven the spiritual science of Anthroposophy as ‘the universal human language of our age’. This second edition features an extensive introductory essay.

This volume introduces a side of Margaret Mead that few people know. Coffman provides a fascinating account of Mead's life and reinterprets her work, highlighting religious concerns.

From the book: " What is a conversion? The question is like asking, 'What is falling in love?' There is no standard procedure, no fixed time. No Damascus Road experience has been vouchsafed me; I have just stumbled on, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, falling into the Slough of Despond, locked up in Doubting Castle, terrified at passing through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; from time to time, by God's mercy, relieved of my burden of sin, but only, alas, soon to acquire it again." "From my earliest years, there was something going on inside me other than vague aspirations to make a name for myself and a stir in the world: something that led me to feel myself a stranger among strangers in a strange land, whose true habitat was elsewhere, another destiny whose realization would swallow up time into Eternity, transform flesh into spirit, knowledge into faith, and reveal in transcendental terms what our earthly life truly signifies." In November 1982, Malcolm Muggeridge was received into the Roman Catholic Church, an event which attracted much attention and curiosity. To Malcolm Muggeridge, it signified "a sense of homecoming, of picking up the threads of a lost life." Malcolm Muggeridge, well known around the world in the latter part of the twentieth century as a journalist, writer, and media figure, is still remembered as a vociferous unbeliever for a great part of his career. But always he had had an awareness that another dimension existed, that there was a destiny beyond the devices and desires of the ego, and that earthly life could not be the end. This book, first published in 1988 and the last of his writing to be published in his lifetime, is a personal statement of the history and development of his religious beliefs. An important section relates to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, latterly beatified, and with expectations to becoming a Saint. Her influence was perhaps the most powerful force leading this deeply thinking man to God and to the Roman Catholic Church. He describes also the effect upon him of meetings with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a man whom he considers to be one of the greatest prophets of our time, with a profound spiritual message for our turbulent world. This moving testimony is not about the mechanics of becoming a Roman Catholic. Rather, it is about a series of happenings, occasions of enlightenment, that led one spiritually troubled man to find God. It is a statement of belief which will fascinate all who are interested in the workings of the human mind, and will inspire all who seek the Truth.

"Quite ambitious, tracing religion in the United States from European colonization up to the 21st century.... The writing is strong throughout."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "One can hardly do better than Religion in American Life.... A good read, especially for the uninitiated. The initiated might also read it for its felicity of narrative and the moments of illumination that fine scholars can inject even into stories we have all heard before. Read it."--Church History This new edition of Religion in American Life, written by three of the country's most eminent historians of religion, offers a superb overview that spans four centuries, illuminating the rich spiritual heritage central to nearly every event in our nation's history. Beginning with the state of religious affairs in both the Old and New Worlds on the eve of colonization and continuing through to the present, the book covers all the major American religious groups, from Protestants, Jews, and Catholics to Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, Buddhists, and New Age believers. Revised and updated, the book includes expanded treatment of religion during the Great Depression, of the religious influences on the civil rights movement, and of utopian groups in the 19th century, and it now covers the role of religion during the 2008 presidential election, observing how completely religion has entered American politics.

According to Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science, the greatest spiritual event of our time is the renewal and reawakening of our human suprasensory relationship to the higher spiritual worlds. The force that leads to this development--called by various names in different cultural and religious traditions--is called the "Christ impulse" by Anthroposophy, in accordance with Christian terminology. Because of new, naturally endowed suprasensory faculties, human beings are increasingly able to experience and perceive, through an act of grace, the great spiritual force of the Christ impulse. This experience is said to be a naturally given initiation, and today we increasingly hear of such suprasensory experiences. Today, however, a healthy approach to these "natural" phenomena requires us to comprehend suprasensory experiences with full awareness and clear thinking. This book builds an all-important bridge between the naturally given suprasensory experience and its conscious cognition. As a result, empirical suprasensory research "can investigate the different aspects of Christ's etheric becoming and appearance in a way that, both methodically and experientially, fulfils the justified cognitive and scientific requirements of our age." This new paperback edition adds a new introductory chapter.

A leading scholar sheds critical light on the seemingly revelatory events behind new religions and spiritual movements Unseen presences. Apparitions. Hearing voices. Although some people would find such experiences to be distressing and seek clinical help, others perceive them as transformative. Occasionally, these unusual phenomena give rise to new spiritual paths or religious movements. Revelatory Events provides fresh insights into what is perhaps the bedrock of all religious belief—the claim that otherworldly powers are active in human affairs. Ann Taves looks at Mormonism, Alcoholics Anonymous, and A Course in Miracles—three cases in which insiders claimed that a spiritual presence guided the emergence of a new spiritual path. In the 1820s, Joseph Smith, Jr., reportedly translated the Book of Mormon from ancient gold plates unearthed with the help of an angel. Bill Wilson cofounded AA after having an ecstatic experience while hospitalized for alcoholism in 1934. Helen Schucman scribed the words of an inner voice that she attributed to Jesus, which formed the basis of her 1976 best-selling self-study course. In each case, Taves argues, the sense of a guiding presence emerged through a complex, creative interaction between a founding figure with unusual mental abilities and an initial set of collaborators who were drawn into the process by diverse motives of their own. A major work of scholarship, this compelling and accessible book traces the very human processes behind such events.

The twentieth century has witnessed periodic revivals comparable to the awakenings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And yet, many of the places and players of these reawakenings have been overlooked or neglected by the chroniclers of North American church history. A Survey of 20th-Century Revival Movements in North America attempts to set the record straight. It offers a concise and useful survey of the major currents of revival that have swept over this continent since the turn of the century. As the final decade of this century approaches it is appropriate that historian Richard Riss chart the course of twentieth-century revival on this continent and record the people, places, and events that have shaped the modern American church. Names like William J. Seymour or Maria B. Woodworth-Etter; places like Azusa Street or North Battleford, Saskatchewan; and events like the forest Home Briefing Conference or the Latter Rain Revival might not be as familiar as Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, or the Jesus movement, but each has played a significant role in keeping the streams of revival flowing. The impact of these often lesser-known figures and events is tremendous. For example, William J. Seymour was a key figure in early Pentecostalism, which has become one of the most rapidly growing segments of modern Christianity. Also, college awakenings at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, North Park College, and Wheaton College in late 1949 and early 1950 received nationwide press coverage and sparked college revivals throughout the country. A decade later, in 1960, Dennis Bennett's experience of the Holy Spirit in Van Nuys, California, would mark the beginning of a tremendous outpouring of the Spirit, and for many, came to represent the start of the charismatic renewal movement.