Representative Native American religions and rituals are introduced to readers in a way that respects the individual traditions as more than local curiosities or exotic rituals, capturing the flavor of the living, modern traditions, even as commonalities between and among traditions are explored and explained. This general introduction offers wide-ranging coverage of the major factors―geography, history, religious behavior, and religious ideology (theology)―analyzing select traditions that can be dealt with, to varying degrees, on a contemporary basis.
As current interest surrounding Native American studies continues to grow, attention has often been given to the various religious beliefs, rituals, and customs of the diverse traditions across the country. But most treatments of the subject are cursory and encyclopedic and do not provide readers with the flavor of the living, modern traditions. Here, representative Native American religions and rituals are introduced to readers in a way that respects the individual traditions as more than local curiosities or exotic rituals, even as commonalities between and among traditions are explored and explained. This general introduction offers wide-ranging coverage of the major factors―geography, history, religious behavior, and religious ideology (theology)―analyzing select traditions that can be dealt with, to varying degrees, on a contemporary basis.
Covering such diverse ceremonies as the Muskogee (Creek) Busk, the Northwest Coast Potlatch, the Navajo and Apache menarche rituals, and the Anishnabe (Great Lakes area) Midewiwin seasonal gatherings, Paper takes a comparative approach, based on the study of human religion in general, and the special place of Native American religions within it. His book is informed by perspective gained through nearly fifty years of formal study and several decades of personal involvement, treating readers to a glimpse of the living religious traditions of Native American communities across the country.

Native North American Religious Traditions: Dancing for Life

Politics & Social Sciences

Paper, Jordan

Social Sciences

Praeger

The Mystic Experience: A Descriptive and Comparative Analysis (Suny Series in Religious Studies)

Explores the human experience of mysticism and looks at it within the spiritual traditions around the world. The mystic, zero, or void experience―the ecstatic disappearance of self along with everything else―is considered by those who have had it to be the most beautiful, blissful, positive, profound, and significant experience of their lives. Offering both a descriptive and a comparative perspective, this book explores the mystic experience across cultures as both a human and cultural event. The book begins and ends with descriptions of the author’s own mystical experiences, and looks at self-reported experiences by individuals who do not link their experiences to a religious tradition, to determine characteristics of this universal human experience. These characteristics are compared to statements of acknowledged mystics in diverse religious traditions. The mystic experience is also situated within other ecstatic religious experiences to distinguish it from similar, but distinct, experiences such as lucid dreams, shamanism, and mediumism. Jordan Paper goes on to look at how the mystic experience has been considered in various fields, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, biology, and comparative religious studies.

The Mystic Experience: A Descriptive and Comparative Analysis (SUNY Series in Religious Studies)

Religion & Spirituality

Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts

State University of New York Press

Book by Paper, Jordan, Aijin-Tettey, Elizabeth, Backman, Louise, Lavalley, Jacqui, Nefsky, Marilyn, Paper, Li Chuang, Stuckey, Johanna

Through the Earth Darkly: Female Spirituality in Comparative Perspective

Aijin-Tettey, Elizabeth

Backman, Louise

Lavalley, Jacqui

Nefsky, Marilyn

Paper, Li Chuang

Stuckey, Johanna

Worship & Devotion

Continuum Intl Pub Group

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for the University of Idaho Press In this brilliant exploration of the history, mythology, ritual and symbolism of the sacred pipe, author Jordan Paper breaks new ground in assessing the importance of the pipe in Native American religion. Offering Smoke provides a dazzling introduction to an aspect of Native American culture heretofore never explored in such depth or with such careful regard for the religious and cultural sensitivities so vital for genuine understanding.

Offering Smoke: The Sacred Pipe and Native American Religion

History

Americas

Univ of Idaho Pr

Chinese Religion and Familism: The Basis of Chinese Culture, Society, and Government

Reflecting on over half a century of study on Chinese culture, Jordan Paper explores new ways of approaching religion in China. Moving away from using Christianity as a model for examination, which has led to considerable misunderstandings between China and the West, Paper instead applies the paradigm of Familism to Chinese religion. By looking through the lens of Familism, which emphasises the importance of the family unit, Paper argues that we can understand the basis of Chinese culture, society, government, and religion. In the book, Paper explains how, when and why Familism appears in the development of human culture in the Neolithic period, as well as its ramifications in more complex societies, using the imperial Chinese state as an example. The discussion in the book includes how the Chinese state can be understood as a religious institution; the role of spirit possession; the relationship of other religions in China to Chinese Religion, including Buddhism, Daoism and Judaism; and the issue of freedom of religion in contemporary China. Chinese Religion and Familism not only challenges the discipline's perception of Chinese religion, but all of the religions of East Asia, indigenous sub-Saharan African religions, Polynesian Religion, and elsewhere.

Asia

Bloomsbury Academic

This book makes a compelling case for male-female religious complementarity in many of the world's religions. It offers an extensive survey of female spiritual roles in a variety of cultures and provides evidence that women have exercised authority and sacred power in a variety of traditional religions.

Through the Earth Darkly: Female Spirituality in Comparative Perspective (Religious Studies: Bloomsbury Academic Collections)

Sociology

A thousand years ago, the Chinese government invited merchants from one of the Chinese port synagogue communities to the capital, Kaifeng. The merchants settled there and the community prospered. Over centuries, with government support, the Kaifeng Jews built and rebuilt their synagogue, which became perhaps the world’s largest. Some studied for the rabbinate; others prepared for civil service examinations, leading to a disproportionate number of Jewish government officials. While continuing orthodox Jewish practices they added rituals honouring their parents and the patriarchs, in keeping with Chinese custom. However, by the mid-eighteenth century―cut off from Judaism elsewhere for two centuries, their synagogue destroyed by a flood, their community impoverished and dispersed by a civil war that devastated Kaifeng―their Judaism became defunct. The Theology of the Chinese Jews traces the history of Jews in China and explores how their theology’s focus on love, rather than on the fear of a non-anthropomorphic God, may speak to contemporary liberal Jews. Equally relevant to contemporary Jews is that the Chinese Jews remained fully Jewish while harmonizing with the family-centred religion of China. In an illuminating postscript, Rabbi Anson Laytner underscores the point that Jewish culture can thrive in an open society, “without hostility, by absorbing the best of the dominant culture and making it one’s own.”

The Theology of the Chinese Jews, 1000–1850

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

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Books by Paper, Jordan