LS 640 - Contemporary Mysticism and Spirituality

(3.00 cr.)

A mystical world-view attentive to the unity of all things, the possibility of release from suffering, an awakening to a "higher" plane of reality or to the richness of the natural world, has long been a theme of ancient philosophies, both Eastern and Western. Such spiritual themes are also central to contemporary authors writing in both popular and explicitly philosophical ways. Students explore a series of such twentieth- and twenty-first-century (American) texts, as well as their own beliefs and experiences.