Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths

Description

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

Ann Taves is professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her books include Religious Experience Reconsidered and Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (both Princeton).

"[A] fascinating and masterfully interdisciplinary study. . . . With the nuance and erudition made possible by Taves's keen historical eye, firm grasp of the cognitive social sciences, and all of the primary resources now available to scholars of religion, Revelatory Events represents the best of the comparative method in twenty-first century scholarship. . . . This book is highly recommended!"---Adam Powell, Journal of Mormon History "Revelatory Events is a book that anyone studying new religious movements is going to have to deal with for the foreseeable future. . . . [Taves'] comparative work and sophisticated analysis gives us a model for how good scholarship should be done."---David Feltmate, Nova Religio "Bringing insights from psychologi cal research on creativity, Taves proposes understanding the set of "guiding procedures" as the outcome of a creative process, whereby the emerging groups creatively accept the supra-human presence responsible for providing the initial message and shape their own social identity according to it."---Eduard Iricinschi, Journal of Religion in Europe