Synopses & Reviews
Yoga. Humanistic Psychology. Meditation. Holistic Healing. These practices are commonplace today. Yet before the early 1960s they were atypical options for most people outside of the upper class or small groups of educated spiritual seekers.
Esalen Institute, a retreat for spiritual and personal growth in Big Sur, California, played a pioneering role in popularizing quests for self-transformation and personalized spirituality. This “soul rush” spread quickly throughout the United States as the Institute made ordinary people aware of hundreds of ways to select, combine, and revise their beliefs about the sacred and to explore diverse mystical experiences. Millions of Americans now identify themselves as spiritual, not religious, because Esalen paved the way for them to explore spirituality without affiliating with established denominations
The American Soul Rush explores the concept of spiritual privilege and Esalens foundational influence on the growth and spread of diverse spiritual practices that affirm individuals self-worth and possibilities for positive personal change. The book also describes the people, narratives, and relationships at the Institute that produced persistent, almost accidental inequalities in order to illuminate the ways that gender is central to religion and spirituality in most contexts.
Review
“Finally, a reliable, insightful, and very entertaining revelation of goings on at the font of California spirituality."-Rodney Stark,
Review
“Sure to become a standard work on the evolution of Esalen and the spiritual counterculture of North America in the decades following World War II. Goldman demonstrates clearly the influence of Esalen and its participants far beyond Big Sur.”-Douglas Cowan,
Synopsis
What does it mean to be black in a nation increasingly infatuated with colorblindness? In
The Tie That Binds, Andrea Y. Simpson seeks to answer this crucial question through the prism of ethnic and political identification.
Historically, African Americans have voted overwhelmingly Democratic in governmental elections. In recent years, however, politically conservative blacks--from Clarence Thomas to Louis Farrakhan to Ward Connerly-have attracted much of the media's gaze. What is the nature of black conservatives' constituency, and is it as strong and numerous as conservatives would have us believe? To what extent, if at all, does black conservatism stem from a weakened sense of collective racial identity?
Simpson tackles the peculiar institution of black conservatism by interviewing college students to determine their political attitudes and the ways in which these are shaped. The result is a penetrating interrogation of the relations between political affiliation, racial identity, and class situation.
About the Author
Marion Goldman is Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at the University of Oregon. Her many books include Passionate Journeys: Why Successful Women Joined a Cult.
Table of Contents
Introduction -- The conservatives, part 1 : the republican race men -- The conservatives, part 2 : the traditional conservatism of the South and the struggle against Black stereotypes -- Issues of empowerment and liability : the moderates -- Identity and integration : the liberals -- The tie that binds and redeems : negotiating race in the post civil rights era.