American Spiritualities: A Reader

American Spiritualities
A Reader

Edited by Catherine L. Albanese

Readings that explore approaches to American spirituality, past and present.

This reader explores current interest in spirituality in the United States. It traces the concept and presence of spirituality in the nation's past and explains the strong attraction to spiritual themes in the present, with attention to questions of definition, historical usage, and connection to religion. Twenty-seven selections pursue the difference and diversity among Americans in terms of their spiritual styles, here understood as modes of experiential knowledge. Catherine L. Albanese has organized these selections to reflect four approaches to spirituality: knowing through the body, or ritual-based spiritualities; knowing through the heart, or evangelical and emotionally toned spiritualities; knowing through the will, or prophetic and social-action spiritualities; and knowing through the mind, or metaphysically oriented spiritualities. Taken together, these essays make the argument that the spiritual is human-made, essentially religious, and surely not the same at all American times and places.

The anthology includes selections by Catherine L. Albanese, Janet and Robert Aldridge, Daniel Berrigan, Joseph Epes Brown, Charles W. Colson, Annie Dillard, Virgilio Elizondo, Tamar Frankiel, Emma Goldman, Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, B. K. S. Iyengar, Curtis D. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Chen Kung, Jerena Lee, Shirley MacLaine, Aimee Semple McPherson, Thomas Merton, Carry A. Nation, E. Burke Rochford, Jr., Jerry Rubin, Molly Rush, Starhawk, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Trine, Joachim Wach, B. Alan Wallace, Steven Wilhelm, and Dhyani Ywahoo.

Catherine L. Albanese is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of the widely used textbook America: Religions and Religion, now in its third edition, and of numerous other articles and books, including Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age. Albanese is a former president of the American Academy of Religion.

April 2001
552 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, bibl., index
cloth 0-253-33839-5 $65.00 L / £50.00
paper 0-253-21432-7 $27.50 s / £21.00

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: Knowing through the Body: The Path of Ritual
1. "Ritual Sites in the Narrative of American Religion"/Tamar Frankiel
2. "The Ordinances of Public Worship"/Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe
3. "Popular Religion as the Core of Cultural Identity Based on the Mexican American Experience
in the United States"/Virgilio Elizondo
4. "Thought, Speech, Action: Rhythms of Jewish Life"/Tamar Frankiel
5. "Wiwanyag Wachipi: The Sun Dance"/Joseph Epes Brown, ed.
6. "The Coven"/Starhawk
Part Two: Knowing through the Heart: The Path of Feeling and Emotion
7. "The Second Birth"/Curtis D. Johnson
8. "The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee"/Jarena Lee
9. "Girlhood and Salvation and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit"/Aimee Semple McPherson,
10. "An Unforgettable Night"/Charles W. Colson
11. "est"/Jerry Rubin,
12. "Surrendering to Krishna: Devi's Story"/E. Burke Rochford, Jr.
Part Three: Knowing through the Will: The Path of Prophecy and Social Action
13. "The Reformer" and "The Prophet"/Joachim Wach
14. "Resistance to Civil Government"/Henry David Thoreau
15. "The Divine Call"/Carry A. Nation
16. Living My Life (excerpt)/Emma Goldman
17. "Letter from Birmingham Jail"/Martin Luther King, Jr.
18. Testimonies/Janet and Robert Aldridge, Molly Rush, and Daniel Berrigan
Part Four: Knowing through the Mind: The Path of Metaphysics
19. "The Subtle Energies of Spirit: Explorations in Metaphysical and New Age
Spirituality"/Catherine L. Albanese
20. "Fullness of Life Bodily Health and Vigor"/Ralph Waldo Trine
21. "The Gift of Understanding" a