Our Immoral Soul

Our Immoral Soul
Author: Rabbi Nilton Bonder
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2014-02-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 083482972X

Rabbi Bonder turns a few conventional ideas on their heads as he identifies the forces at play in individual, social, and spiritual transformation. Many people believe that obedience to the established moral order leads to the well-being of society as well as the salvation of their souls. On the contrary, says Bonder, the human spirit is nourished by the impulse to betray and transgress the ways of the past. Even the Bible legitimizes our God-given urge to disobey in order to evolve, grow, and transcend. It is this "immoral" soul of ours that impels us to do battle with God—and out of this clash, Bonder predicts, a new humanity will emerge. In the course of discussion, he examines a variety of intriguing issues touching on religion, science, and culture, including the findings of evolutionary psychology; the relation of body and soul; infidelity in marriage; the stereotype of Jew as traitor; sacrifice and redemption in Judaism and Christianity; and the Messiah as archetypal transgressor.

Heaven's Criminal Code

Heaven's Criminal Code
Author: Nilton Bonder
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2010-11-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1426941307

One of the most disturbing ideas known to our human imaginations is that of the Final Judgment, the accounting we are called to give at the end of our lives. Born in the depths of our consciousness, this notion of a final judgment is a consequence of our perception that we have priorities and goals in our lives. It is a measurement of just how successful or unsuccessful we have been in the venture of life. This book suggests a possible set of ethics for the individual vis--vis his or her own selfethics that reflect the obligations life imposes on the living. Written in the form of a Criminal Code, this book both in structure and terminology mimic legal documents. The prime goal is to call attention to the deep psychic fusion between what we believe to be divine expectationsthat is, those of the Creatorand the expectations of our consciousness. The key postulate of the Biblical text is really this: that Creator and creature communicate with each other through consciousness. More than that perhaps: that Creator and creature blend and merge within consciousness. This Constitution and Criminal Code will thus have to account for projections of both God's desires and the desires of our consciousness. They are structured in the principles laid out in the Ten Commandments and in the punishments of the Ten Plagues, both found in the book of Exodus. The Creator's expectations and punishments correspond to similar expectations and punishments within our consciousness. Employing collective and personal symbolism and the reading of Carl Jung of the Commandments, the book steer away from the morality usually applied when judging, instead allowing the souls yearnings and aspirations to guide this evaluation of the quality and propriety of life.

Taking Off Your Shoes

Taking Off Your Shoes
Author: Bonder Nilton Bonder
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2010-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 142692898X

The Abraham Path is the route of cultural and spiritual tourism that retraces the journey made by Abraham (Ibrahim) through the heart of the Middle East some four thousand years ago. This book recounts the inner and spiritual foortprints of the first study tour along the entire Abraham Path conducted in November 2006 by a group of pacifists and theologians under the guidance of the Program on Conflict Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

Popularizing Dementia

Popularizing Dementia
Author: Aagje Swinnen
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2015-11-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 383942710X

How are individual and social ideas of late-onset dementia shaped and negotiated in film, literature, the arts, and the media? And how can the symbolic forms provided by popular culture be adopted and transformed by those affected in order to express their own perspectives? This international and interdisciplinary volume summarizes central current research trends and opens new theoretical and empirical perspectives on dementia in popular culture. It includes contributions by internationally renowned scholars from the humanities, social and cultural gerontology, age(ing) studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and bioethics. Contributions by Lucy Burke, Marlene Goldman, Annette Leibing and others.

Thinking about Dementia

Thinking about Dementia
Author: Annette Leibing
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2006
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0813538033

Cultural responses to most illnesses differ; dementia is no exception. These responses, together with a society's attitudes toward its elderly population, affect the frequency of dementia-related diagnoses and the nature of treatment. Bringing together essays by nineteen respected scholars, this unique volume approaches the subject from a variety of angles, exploring the historical, psychological, and philosophical implications of dementia. Based on solid ethnographic fieldwork, the essays employ a cross-cultural perspective and focus on questions of age, mind, voice, self, loss, temporality, memory, and affect. Taken together, the essays make four important and interrelated contributions to our understanding of the mental status of the elderly. First, cross-cultural data show the extent to which the aging process, while biologically influenced, is also very much culturally constructed. Second, detailed ethnographic reports raise questions about the behavioral criteria used by health care professionals and laymen for defining the elderly as demented. Third, case studies show how a diagnosis affects a patient's treatment in both clinical and familial settings.; Finally, the collection highlights the gap that separates current biological understandings of aging from its cultural meanings. As Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia continue to command an ever-increasing amount of attention in medicine and psychology, this book will be essential reading for anthropologists, social scientists, and health care professionals.

Sociology of Diagnosis

Sociology of Diagnosis
Author: PJ McGann
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2011-08-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0857245767

Offers an introduction to the sociology of diagnosis. This title presents articles that explore diagnosis as a process of definition that includes: labeling dynamics between diagnoser and diagnosed; boundary struggles between diverse constituents - both among medical practitioners and between medical authorities and others; and, more.

My Mysterious Son

My Mysterious Son
Author: Dick Russell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 515
Release: 2014-11-18
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1629149578

What does a father do when hope is gone that his only son can ever lead anything close to a “normal” life? That’s the question that haunted Dick Russell in the fall of 2011, when his son, Franklin, was thirty-two. At the age of seventeen, Franklin had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. For years he spent time in and out of various hospitals, and even went through periods of adamantly denying that Dick was actually his father. A mixed-race child, Franklin was handsome, intelligent, and sensitive until his mental illness suddenly took control. After spending the ensuing years trying to build some semblance of a normal father-son relationship, Dick was invited with his son, out of the blue, to witness the annual wildlife migration on Africa’s Serengeti Plain. Seizing this potential opportunity to repair the damage that both had struggled with, after going through two perilous nights together in Tanzania, ultimately the two-week trip changed both of their lives. Desperately seeking an alternative to the medical model’s medication regimen, the author introduces Franklin to a West African shaman in Jamaica. Dick discovers Franklin’s psychic capabilities behind the seemingly delusional thought patterns, as well as his artistic talents. Theirs becomes an ancestral quest, the journey finally taking them to the sacred lands of New Mexico and an indigenous healer. For those who understand the pain of mental illness as well the bond between a parent and a child, My Mysterious Son shares the intimate and beautiful story of a father who will do everything in his power to repair his relationship with a young man damaged by mental illness.

Neuro

Neuro
Author: Nikolas Rose
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2013-02-24
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0691149615

"The brain sciences are influencing our understanding of human behavior as never before, from neuropsychiatry and neuroeconomics to neurotheology and neuroaesthetics. Many now believe that the brain is what makes us human, and it seems that neuroscientists are poised to become the new experts in the management of human conduct. Neuro describes the key developments--theoretical, technological, economic, and biopolitical--that have enabled the neurosciences to gain such traction outside the laboratory. It explores the ways neurobiological conceptions of personhood are influencing everything from child rearing to criminal justice, and are transforming the ways we "know ourselves" as human beings. In this emerging neuro-ontology, we are not "determined" by our neurobiology: on the contrary, it appears that we can and should seek to improve ourselves by understanding and acting on our brains. Neuro examines the implications of this emerging trend, weighing the promises against the perils, and evaluating some widely held concerns about a neurobiological "colonization" of the social and human sciences. Despite identifying many exaggerated claims and premature promises, Neuro argues that the openness provided by the new styles of thought taking shape in neuroscience, with its contemporary conceptions of the neuromolecular, plastic, and social brain, could make possible a new and productive engagement between the social and brain sciences."--Publisher's description.

Tuhami

Tuhami
Author: Vincent Crapanzano
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2013-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 022619146X

Tuhami is an illiterate Moroccan tilemaker who believes himself married to a camel-footed she-demon. A master of magic and a superb story-teller, Tuhami lives in a dank, windowless hovel near the kiln where he works. Nightly he suffers visitations from the demons and saints who haunt his life, and he seeks, with crippling ambivalence, liberation from 'A'isha Qandisha, the she-demon. In a sensitive and bold experiment in interpretive ethnography, Crapanzano presents Tuhami's bizarre account of himself and his world. In so doing, Crapanzano draws on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and symbolism to reflect upon the nature of reality and truth and to probe the limits of anthropology itself. Tuhami has become one of the most important and widely cited representatives of a new understanding of the whole discipline of anthropology.

Aliceheimer's

Aliceheimer's
Author: Dana Walrath
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2016
Genre: Alzheimer's disease
ISBN:

"A graphic memoir of the author's experiences of her mother's battle with dementia. Illustrates the two-way nature of storytelling as a process that heals both the giver and the receiver of story"--Provided by publisher.