Reli 101 Kripal Final Exam

substantive comparative practices

practices illustrating an approach to religions that is concerned with these religions' truth claims about ultimate matters

orientalism

a model of human civilizations that posits, often for political purposes, an inferior "East" - spiritual, feminine, or passive - set against a superior "West" - rational, masculine, or active

reflexive re-reading

comparison and analysis of religions that rationally reduces religious phenomena to human nature, only to discover that this nature overflows the reach of the original rationalist models

paranormal

a term referring to mind-over-matter events that are thought to be natural but still beyond the modeling of contemporary science

psychical

a term referring to the alleged powers of the human mind to know things outside the normal sense channels and beyond the ordinary patterns of space-time

materialization

a position according to which matter is the primordial factor or "existent" in the universe

comparative practices of popular culture

the often implicit comparative methods at work in genres like film, television, literature, and the Internet

demonology

the study, interpretation, and classification of demons

Fortean

"in the spirit of Charles Fort," an epithet usually applied to bizarre, weird, or humorous occurrences that cannot be explained scientifically or religiously

placebo effect

means "I will please," and the whole phrase captures the phenomenon of a fake substance helping individuals when they are convinced it is real

animism

the belief that all things possess soul (anima) or spiritual intelligence

transhuman

"beyond what is human," an attribute based on the idea that the human being or the soul can take on forms that are beyond human nature in its present condition

contemplative prayer

communing or becoming one with a deity or ultimate state, often through some advanced spiritual technique and a breakdown of the subject/object split

auditions

"hearing" a spirit or deity speak

medium

a person who acts as a mediator between the living and the dead

spirit possession

state of being taken over by the spirit of a god, demon, or deceased person

channeling

the modern phenomenon of an individual acting as a "channel" for some textual revelation or for contact with a living soul or a deceased spirit

eschatology

a religion's "teachings about the end," that is, its understanding of the ultimate goal or final state of the individual and/or the world

apocalypse

term of Greek origin designating the "uncovering" or "revelation" of a secret such as the end of the world

reason

human faculty guided and limited by information derived from the senses, which it processes according to standardized forms of logic and the structures of human cognition

belief

implicit or explicit intellectual assent to the truth of a given proposition or claim

religious tolerance

the civic virtue or public policy of not attempting to eliminate, suppress, or otherwise discriminate against religious beliefs and practices outside the society's dominant worldview

religious freedom

citizens' rights to choose and practice their own religions, as long as these do not negatively and unduly impact the freedoms and well-being of others

particularity

manner in which a tradition emphasizes the specific cultural and historic expressions of its revelation or sacred truths

universality

all-inclusive manner in which a revelation makes claims on human beings, irrespective of their historical or cultural context

ingroup

the community to which one belongs to and identifies with

canon formation

the process whereby a tradition defines the scope and content of its scriptures by choosing certain texts as authoritative or revealed and rejecting others

preferential option for the poor

the principle that the Bible should be read, and Christian life should be lived, in ways that express God's primary indentification with the poor

social gospel movement

a faithful re-reading of the "kingdom of God" as a call for social justice and as a subsequent program working for broad based structural changes in society

suffrage

the right to vote

feminist theology

a way of thinking and speaking of God from the perspective of women, toward a more just inclusion of female identities, values, and forms of knowledge

queer theology

thinking and speaking of God from the perspective of queer individuals, who understand sexual identities as socially invented, and often in unjust ways

theodicy

word that means "god's justice" and names various theological-philosophical attempts to reconcile the problem of suffering and evil with God's goodness and omnipotence

moderate forms of reductive inquiry

methods that employ reductive models but either leave the door open to transcendent influences or avoid addressing the question

fitness

the individual organism's ability to reproduce

defense mechanism

an attempt on the part of the psyche to protect itself from difficult material that would expose its own illusions or false assumptions

unconscious

mental realm inaccessible to the conscious self, which nevertheless influences (if not determines) much of one's thinking, feeling, and behavior

Oedipus complex

a universal pattern postulated by Freud, whereby a young son's sense of self emerges gradually from his infantile love of the mother and his aggressive competitive stance toward the father

sublimation

process whereby libidinal energies are diverted from their original sexual aims and converted into cultural accomplishments such as those of art, literature, and religion

totem

an animal or object that serves to represent or symbolize a particular group of people

collective unconscious

a posited level of the psyche that is shared by all human beings and results in striking similarities across world mythologies and religious experiences

a priori categories

structures of thought like space, time, and causality, which are regarded as innate (hence a priori or "from before") and shape the way we think and perceive, usually without us realizing it.

synchronicity

in Jung's usage, co-occurence or simultaneous occurrence of a mental and a material event that have no (discernible) causal connection yet are experienced as being meaningfully (and sometimes uncannily) related

promissory materialism

position claiming that, although we do not yet know how to explain some phenomena through materialist models, we eventually will

anomaly

any figure, event, or thing that does not fit into an explanatory system

psi

technical term in parapsychology that refers to postulated but unknown mechanisms of physical phenomena

parapsychology

branch of modern psychology that studies mind-matter interactions that are beyond our present scientific models

poltergeist

in parapsychology, the "angry ghost" generally believed to materialize from the extreme emotional states of a focal agent, often in adolescence

empowered religious imagination

the temporary "supercharging" of the imagination toward the mediation of empirical or transcendent truths via image, symbol, and myth

symbol

an image, often spontaneous and enigmatic in nature, that shares in the essence of that which it signifies

hermeneutics

the art, practice, and method of interpretation

angelology

the study, interpretation, and classification of angels

cases of the reincarnation type (CORT)

cases involving individuals, often very young, who remember the details of their previous lives

exclusivism

the rejection of other religious worldviews on the basis of one's own religious categories and worldview

civil rights movement

a widespread social movement in the USA that sought to overturn an array of discriminatory and violent racist laws and attitudes.

reductionism

the explanation of religious and other phenomena as effects of some deeper, underlying, and hence more basic causes, processes, or mechanisms of a different, non-religious nature.

ego

one's conscious sense of self or personality coded in one's given name

phenomenon

in Kant's philosophy, that which appears, that is, how a thing is perceived by a subject or its subjective appearance/representation

noumenon

in Kant's philosophy, that which exists independently of one's perception of it - the thing-in-itself

metaphor

classical figure of speech essential to poetry, which links two things for the sake of describing one through the other but, unlike comparison and analogy, leaves the correspondence between them unstated or implicit

imaginal

the content of the empowered religious imagination and its mediation of empirical events (as in telepathy) or transcendent realities (as in revelation)

supernormal

the immediate predecessor of the paranormal; it has the connotation that psychical capacities are linked to evolutionary processes and signal future powers of the species

monster

figure of the religious imagination that can function as a sign or omen in the revelation of the "left side" or negative mode of the sacred

nocebo effect

means "I will harm," and the whole phrase applies to the phenomenon of a fake substance harming individuals when they believe that it is real

separable soul

widespread belief that the essence of the human being is not in the body and in consequence can be separated from it - in dreams, trance, ecstasy, and death

panpsychism

like animism, the belief that "everything" or "the whole" (to pan) possesses soul or spiritual intelligence (psuche)

meditation

general description of a kind of mental discipline that often involves extreme forms of concentration pursued for religious ends

petitionary prayer

prayer in which one asks for something from a god

liturgical prayer

communal praise of a deity, often of a highly ritualized and formal nature

ancestor worship or veneration

praying to, piously remembering, or religiously honoring one's deceased family members

trance

capacity of human beings to enter altered states of consciousness, often in order to facilitate contact with deities and the dead

clairvoyance

"clear seeing," French word used to refer to the ability to see things at a distance (in space and/or time)

clairaudience

the ability to hear a voice or voices speaking, usually on an issue at hand

martyr

someone who becomes - usually through death and dramatic suffering - a "witness" to a particular truth, especially that of a religious creed

functionalism

a method that examines the psychological and social uses of the religions and generally avoids any normative discussion of their truth claims

revelation

set of claims about ultimate matters that do not derive from anything available to the senses or to human reason but are given to a community, often through a single individual, within an extreme religious event or experience

commentarial tradition

a body of readings and interpretive techniques that relate a revelation to the questions, needs, and forms of knowledge of succeeding generations

comparative theology

a practice that draws on tradition, reason, and intuition, to address the challenge of religious pluralism for a particular faith community

pluralism

openness to or potential acceptance of all religious worldviews, regarded as cultural approximations or partial actualizations of an underlying reality or truth, which is understood to transcend them all

religious primacy

the belief or assumption, usually displayed by the dominant religious group, that "religious freedom" means that one's own beliefs and rituals should control civic spaces

faithful re-reading

the comparison and analysis of religions from a perspective informed by and committed to particular faith tradition

inclusivism

the acceptance of other religious worldviews on the basis of one's own religious worldview and its categories

outgroup

a community, often framed as other, foreign, dangerous, or impure, to which one does not belong and against which members of the ingroup identify themselves

bridge-bonding dilemma

the tension that arises between a community's need to form stable social bonds among its own members and to secure workable connections to outgroups within the broader society

social justice

the moral insistence on being treated the same

liberation theology

a way of thinking and speaking of God that understands God as identifying with the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed

black theology

a way of thinking and speaking of God from the perspective of the historical experience of African-Americans

abolition movement

the movement to abolish the practice of slavery in the USA

LGBT theology

a way of thinking and speaking of God from the perspective of those with marginalized sexualities - lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered

rational re-readings

the comparison and analysis of religions within the parameters of human reason, human cognition, and sensory data

psychology of religion

branch of the study of religion that focuses on the internal, subjective, or experiential dimensions of religions

sociology of religion

branch of the study of religion that focuses on the external, objective, or institutional dimensions of religions

strong forms of reductive inquiry

methods that reduce religious events and experiences, entirely and without remainder, to natural or materialist mechanisms and explanations

id

the largely unconscious mental realm of instinctual drives, primarily of a sexual and aggressive nature

superego

the psychological realm of the conscience, which derives from social interactions with the parents and later on with other social actors and institutions

primal scene

the infant's or the child's witnessing of parental sex

libido

the life energy of the body that is closely aligned with the biology of sexuality but can be redeployed for all kinds of nonsexual, creative, and cultural ends

sociology of knowledge

discipline that explores the theory that truth and knowledge are not simply "out there" and discovered, but are largely constructed through historical processes and social institutions

postcolonial theory

a means of interpreting modern historical phenomena as deeply intertwined with the previous colonial era and it's political , economic, and imperial injustices

conversion

the realignment of an individual's life and worldview around a new religious narrative and set of beliefs