Shaman and Sage (The Divine Self, vol. 1): The Roots of "Spiritual but Not Religious" in Antiquity
The first volume of Michael Horton’s magisterial intellectual history of “spiritual but not religious” as a phenomenon in Western culture 
 
Discussions of the rapidly increasing number of people identifying as “spiritual but not religious” tend to focus on the past century. But the SBNR phenomenon and the values that underlie it may be older than Christianity itself. 
 
Michael Horton reveals that the hallmarks of modern spirituality—autonomy, individualism, utopianism, and more—have their foundations in Greek philosophical religion. Horton makes the case that the development of the shaman figure in the Axial Age—particularly its iteration among Orphists—represented a “divine self.” One must realize the divinity within the self to break free from physicality and become one with a panentheistic unity. Time and time again, this tradition of divinity hiding in nature has arisen as an alternative to monotheistic submission to a god who intervenes in creation. 
 
This first volume traces the development of a utopian view of the human individual: a divine soul longing to break free from all limits of body, history, and the social and natural world. When the second and third volumes are complete, students and scholars will consult The Divine Self as the authoritative guide to the “spiritual but not religious” tendency as a recurring theme in Western culture from antiquity to the present.

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Shaman and Sage (The Divine Self, vol. 1): The Roots of "Spiritual but Not Religious" in Antiquity
The first volume of Michael Horton’s magisterial intellectual history of “spiritual but not religious” as a phenomenon in Western culture 
 
Discussions of the rapidly increasing number of people identifying as “spiritual but not religious” tend to focus on the past century. But the SBNR phenomenon and the values that underlie it may be older than Christianity itself. 
 
Michael Horton reveals that the hallmarks of modern spirituality—autonomy, individualism, utopianism, and more—have their foundations in Greek philosophical religion. Horton makes the case that the development of the shaman figure in the Axial Age—particularly its iteration among Orphists—represented a “divine self.” One must realize the divinity within the self to break free from physicality and become one with a panentheistic unity. Time and time again, this tradition of divinity hiding in nature has arisen as an alternative to monotheistic submission to a god who intervenes in creation. 
 
This first volume traces the development of a utopian view of the human individual: a divine soul longing to break free from all limits of body, history, and the social and natural world. When the second and third volumes are complete, students and scholars will consult The Divine Self as the authoritative guide to the “spiritual but not religious” tendency as a recurring theme in Western culture from antiquity to the present.

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Shaman and Sage (The Divine Self, vol. 1): The Roots of Spiritual but Not Religious in Antiquity

Shaman and Sage (The Divine Self, vol. 1): The Roots of "Spiritual but Not Religious" in Antiquity

by Michael Horton
Shaman and Sage (The Divine Self, vol. 1): The Roots of Spiritual but Not Religious in Antiquity

Shaman and Sage (The Divine Self, vol. 1): The Roots of "Spiritual but Not Religious" in Antiquity

by Michael Horton

Hardcover

$64.99 
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Overview

The first volume of Michael Horton’s magisterial intellectual history of “spiritual but not religious” as a phenomenon in Western culture 
 
Discussions of the rapidly increasing number of people identifying as “spiritual but not religious” tend to focus on the past century. But the SBNR phenomenon and the values that underlie it may be older than Christianity itself. 
 
Michael Horton reveals that the hallmarks of modern spirituality—autonomy, individualism, utopianism, and more—have their foundations in Greek philosophical religion. Horton makes the case that the development of the shaman figure in the Axial Age—particularly its iteration among Orphists—represented a “divine self.” One must realize the divinity within the self to break free from physicality and become one with a panentheistic unity. Time and time again, this tradition of divinity hiding in nature has arisen as an alternative to monotheistic submission to a god who intervenes in creation. 
 
This first volume traces the development of a utopian view of the human individual: a divine soul longing to break free from all limits of body, history, and the social and natural world. When the second and third volumes are complete, students and scholars will consult The Divine Self as the authoritative guide to the “spiritual but not religious” tendency as a recurring theme in Western culture from antiquity to the present.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780802877116
Publisher: Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date: 05/28/2024
Pages: 528
Product dimensions: 9.00(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Michael Horton is J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California, and founder and editor in chief of Sola Media. He is the author of Shaman and Sage: The Roots of “Spiritual but Not Religious” in Antiquity and Magician and Mechanic: The Roots of “Spiritual but Not Religious” from the Renaissance to the Scientific Revolution.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Inventing the Divine Self 
1.     Survivor to Shaman: Discovering the Divine Self 
2.     Dancing for Dionysus: New Myths for the Utopian Stage 
3.     Shaman to Sage: Religion of the One 
4.     “The True Mystics”: Orpheus as Plato’s Muse 
5.     “The Foes! The Foes!”: Soul Saving in Alexandria 
6.     Hermes Trismegistus: The Cult without Temples 
7.     Savior of or from the World? Christianity and Gnosis 
8.     Orphic Exegesis: The Eternal Gospel 
9.     A Christian Reconstruction of Late Neoplatonism: St. Paul’s Philosopher-Convert
10.  Cosmotheism as Philosophical Religion: Eriugena’s Dionysius
11.  Prophetic Gnosis: Dreaming of Utopia
Works Cited
Index of Authors
Index of Subject

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