What are we to make of direct spiritual experience? Of accounts of going to heaven or meeting angels? Traditional science would call these hallucinations or delusions. Clinical psychologist Dr. Mark Yama argues the opposite. Through interviews with his patients, he shows that underneath the visions and experiences there is a unifying spiritual reality apart from the material world. One of the stories recounted in this book is the experience of a woman who could see the future. In a spiritual transport, she was taken to heaven where truths were revealed to her that she later discovered were already written in Gnostic scripture. Another woman lived a life marked by a spiritual sensitivity that defied materialist explanation. After she passed away of cancer, she came to inhabit the consciousness of another of Dr. Yama's patients in the form of a benign possession. These stories, and many others, argue for a deeper reality that places spirituality on an equal footing with the material world.

Spirit Matters is a ground-breaking work, the first to explore a broad range of writings on spirituality in contemporary Japanese literature. It draws on a variety of literary works, from enormously popular fiction (Miura Ayako’s Hyôten and Shirokari Pass and the novels of Murakami Haruki) to more problematic "serious" fiction (Ôe Kenzaburô’s Somersault) to nonfiction meditations on martyrdom and miracles (Sono Ayako’s Kiseki) and the dynamics of religious cults (Murakami’s interviews with members of Aum Shinrikyô in Underground). The first half of the volume focuses on the work of two women Christian writers, Miura Ayako and Sono Ayako. Combining a decidedly evangelistic bent with the formulas of the popular novel, Miura’s 1964 novel Hyôten (Freezing Point) and its sequel are entertaining perennial bestsellers but also treat spiritual issues—like original sin—that are largely unexplored in modern Japanese literature. Sono’s Kiseki (Miracles) and Miura’s Shiokari Pass focus on the meaning of self-sacrifice and the miraculous and survey both the paths by which people come to faith and the spiritual doubts that assail them. Perhaps most striking for Western readers, Gabriel reveals how Miura’s novel shows the lingering resistance to Christianity and its oppositional nature in Japan, and how in Kiseki Sono considers the kind of spiritual struggles many Japanese Christians experience as they try to reconcile their belief in a minority faith.

What are we to make of direct spiritual experience? Of accounts of going to heaven or meeting angels? Traditional science would call these hallucinations or delusions. Clinical psychologist Dr. Mark Yama argues the opposite. Through interviews with his patients, he shows that underneath the visions and experiences there is a unifying spiritual reality apart from the material world. One of the stories recounted in this book is the experience of a woman who could see the future. In a spiritual transport, she was taken to heaven where truths were revealed to her that she later discovered were already written in Gnostic scripture. Another woman lived a life marked by a spiritual sensitivity that defied materialist explanation. After she passed away of cancer, she came to inhabit the consciousness of another of Dr. Yama's patients in the form of a benign possession. These stories, and many others, argue for a deeper reality that places spirituality on an equal footing with the material world.

The question of the transcendence of God has traditionally been thought in terms of the difference between pantheism, which affirms that God is wholly "within" the world, and theism, which affirms that God is both "within" and "outside" the world, both immanent and transcendent. Against Heidegger's critique of onto-theology and the general postmodern concern for respecting and preserving the difference of the other, Merold Westphal seeks to rethink divine transcendence in relation to modes of human self-transcendence. Touching upon Spinoza, Hegel, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Aquinas, Barth, Kierkegaard, Levinas, Derrida, and Marion, Westphal's work centers around a critique of onto-theology, the importance of alterity, the decentered self, and the autonomous transcendental ego. Westphal's phenomenology of faith sets this book into the main currents of Continental philosophy of religion today.

Many people believe in angels and evil spirits, and popular culture abounds in talk about encounters with such entities. Yet the question of the existence of such spirits is ignored in the academy. Even the Christian Church, which one might expect to show keen interest in transcendent realities, does not appear to be paying much attention. In this book Phillip Wiebe defends the plausibility of the traditional Christian claim that spirits are real. Wiebe examines descriptions of encounters with both good and evil transcendent beings in biblical times and in later Christian history, along with recent accounts of similar experiences. He argues that invisible beings can be postulated to explain events just as unobservable objects are postulated in many scientific theories. Beyond supporting claims for the existence of lesser spirits such as demons and angels, this empirical approach yields important results for assessing common arguments surrounding the existence of God - a question that has become artificially separated from the question of spirits as such. Grounding his argument in a wide range of phenomena - from near death experiences to demonic possession - Wiebe offers a sophisticated case for belief in God on philosophical and epistemological grounds.

Seventeen-year-old Lessie Morrison has endured her fair share of car accidents, falls, and house fires, but not in the ways one would think. She is gifted with the unique-and unwanted-ability to leave her body behind as her spirit assists a departing soul to The Other Side if they're dying alone. As if high school isn't hard enough for an unpopular teen. The passing of her only mentor, her grandmother, who happened to share her ability, leaves Lessie with nobody to answer her endless questions as she navigates life with her strange ability. Especially the questions that arise when she's faced with a rather serious situation of being called to a reluctant soul: can she bring someone back to their body, and defy death? As it would turn out, she can. But coming back from the dead comes with a cost-not only a broken body, but broken dreams. Lessie is faced with the question: was bringing someone back to life their second chance, or did she meddle in cosmic forces she should have known better than to touch?

“Breathtaking . . . brilliantly conducted . . . Far-future philosophic space opera and near-future eco-thriller combine effectively.”—Locus It is the year 2047, and nuclear engineer Michael Poole is mourning the death of his beloved wife and doubting his own sanity. But he must stave off a looming catastrophe: vast reservoirs of toxic gases lie beneath the melting poles, threatening to contaminate the atmosphere and destroy all life on Earth. Though born five hundred thousand years after the death of Michael Poole, Alia knows him intimately. Every person in Alia’s world is entrusted with Witnessing one life from the past by means of a technology able to traverse time. Alia’s subject is Michael Poole. Chosen to become a Transcendent, a member of the group mind that is shepherding humanity toward an evolutionary apotheosis, Alia discovers a dark side to the Transcendent’s plans. Somehow, Michael holds the fate of the future in his hands, and to save that future, Alia must undertake a desperate journey into the past. “Stunning . . . engaging . . . a contrasting mix of Baxter’s customary skill at presenting a very realnear future, and his talent for high-level hardscience fiction.”—Starburst

The SPIRITUAL TRANSCENDENCE SCALE TEST is an instrument which designed to help scientists explore the complex relationship between spirituality and health. While more than thirty-five (35) such instruments have been used in various scientific studies in the past, there has yet to be a version able to be used in cross cultural concept analysis. By taking into account multiple sociocultural factors, we seek to identify areas of spirituality which are common to all human societies around the globe; which can lead to suitable means of spiritual intervention, of the type that can only come from an elevation of our global quality of life. Spiritual transcendence is the ability to view life from a larger more transcendent perspective to understand the fundamental connectedness of things beyond their own time and place in the world. (Piedmont, 1999) Transcendent persons focus less on self, and believe there is a greater purpose and interconnectedness of all things in the Universe.

A theme throughout My Universe is that our consciousness exists simultaneously in transcendent and material domains. The gift and power of transcendent consciousness is that we apparently share it with extraterrestrial beings everywhere in the cosmos. Author Vary describes sub-quantum hyperspace phenomena that enable and mediate our communion with extraterrestrials. These reflections prompted Vary to muse that in this sense we are all extraterrestrials Our consciousness transcends the material and elevates and entwines our spirits. My Universe - A Transcendent Reality is a literary work with profound technological and teleological overtones. Vary’s prophetical prose-poesy essays combine physics, metaphysics, cosmology, theology, and philosophy. He offers extraordinary radical ideas that can expand our dominion over nature and promote self-realization. Vary's book differs from others of its genera because it presents a rational basis for understanding the transcendent reality that influences our lives and by which we can enhance our interpersonal relations and infinite potentials. My Universe describes the foundation for perceiving a transcendent reality with quantum phenomena which we may experimentally observe as evidence of the intertwining of the transcendent and material. From this foundation we may realize transcendent communications with extraterrestrial beings. This is because there is a bond between transcendent reality and material reality, between transcendent human consciousness and extraterrestrial reality; which are seemingly separated only by a tenuous hyperspace interface that may be traversed by advanced human techniques. Describes paradigms that enable and implement our transcendent consciousness and our relation to and contact with extraterrestrial worlds and beings. Gives entertaining, provocative clarification of great ideas in cosmology, philosophy, theology, sociology, evolution, metaphysics, and sub-quantum physics. Speaks to all cultures: innovators, writers, poets, artists, scientists: explains the nature of our world, so that we may better apply our infinite potentials. Promotes broadening of one’s spiritual self-realization: challenging, revolutionary, transformational, and inspiring - needed in this crucial juncture of time. Suggest transcendent control of nature through sub-quantum phenomena and harnessing cold fusion power and changing lead to gold, actually, metaphorically. Proclaims people may aspire to a personal paradise: because no matter how bad life on Earth becomes, everyone may prepare for access to a transcendent paradise.

Once upon a Transcendent Realm is a spiritually insightful book written from scientific, spiritual, and theological perspectives. Encompassing over 80,000 hours of research into the behind-the-scenes look at absolutes of the spirit. Once upon a Transcendent Realm reveals insight into our bodys energy and how our spiritual energy allows for interactions between one another and with other spiritual and supernatural realms of existence. This supernatural and divine story opens the door to the endless possibilities that are within all of our lives. This book also reveals insights into the spiritual unions we form with those of the world that is to come. This story is divine in nature and has only been revealed and accomplished by God. There are a great many insightful questions which are answered within this book and I hope you will obtain a better understanding of just how amazing a world God has created for us all to live in by bearing witness to one of his great works.