This book is Wiebe's defense of the claim that a significant form of spiritual experience is found in 'knowing something we have no right to know'. He selects forty-five first-hand accounts from a data-base at the University of Wales to make his case, and, in solidarity with those people, recounts something of his own experience.
Ernie Hollands, a career criminal, said Christ appeared to him in his cell in Millhaven Penitentiary. Maria Martinez saw Jesus at a busy intersection in Miami, Florida. Rose Fairs was lying in bed one morning when the Venetian blinds opened and the head of Jesus materialized before her. Were these people only imagining a figure that seemed life-like, or is there a chance that what they saw was, in some way, real? This first critical study of contemporary visions of Jesus offers the intriguing accounts of thirty people, most of them ordinary men and women without prior or subsequent experiences of this kind, who remain mystified about their encounters. Wiebe recounts each vision in vivid detail, exploring why these individuals believe their visions were of Jesus, and why they typically believe them to be objective happenings, rather than hallucinations or dreams. He regards the occurrences from perspectives as diverse as biblical scholarship and parapsychology, concluding that they may well represent genuine religious experiences of a mystical character. The fascinating nature of these visions and Wiebe's thoughtful, evenhanded approach to each report add up to a book that will be provocative reading for skeptics and the faithful alike.
No serious doubt seems to exist that visions of Jesus have occurred and might continue today. Even those who are skeptical about the reality of religious experiences seem to agree that such visions have occurred, although they tend to dismiss them as hallucinations. However, enough reports have occurred in the history of the church to make such reports believable. "Visions and Appearances of Jesus" examines the remarkable fact that Jesus has seemingly appeared to people in every century. Phillip Wiebe examines this claim, highlighting details of the "encounter experiences" of 28 living people, whom he personally interviewed. He presents ongoing experiences as supporting evidence for the biblical claims that Jesus was seen alive after his death, and defends the resurrection as understood by Christian tradition.
Based on accounts by 30 people, this study of visions of Jesus discusses each vision in detail and asks why the people believe the visions were of Jesus, the impact the experience has had on their lives, and how the visions differ from dreams.
Wiebe advocates the "naturalizing" of supernaturalism, so that preoccupation with "proofs" is at least supplemented, if not replaced, by investigation of how belief in God and other spirits arises out of experience."--BOOK JACKET.
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.
Ernie Hollands, a career criminal, said Christ appeared to him in his cell in Millhaven Penitentiary. Maria Martinez saw Jesus at a busy intersection in Miami, Florida. Rose Fairs was lying in bed one morning when the Venetian blinds opened and the head of Jesus materialized before her. Were these people only imagining a figure that seemed life-like, or is there a chance that what they saw was, in some way, real? This first critical study of contemporary visions of Jesus offers the intriguing accounts of thirty people, most of them ordinary men and women without prior or subsequent experiences of this kind, who remain mystified about their encounters. Wiebe recounts each vision in vivid detail, exploring why these individuals believe their visions were of Jesus, and why they typically believe them to be objective happenings, rather than hallucinations or dreams. He regards the occurrences from perspectives as diverse as biblical scholarship and parapsychology, concluding that they may well represent genuine religious experiences of a mystical character. The fascinating nature of these visions and Wiebe's thoughtful, evenhanded approach to each report add up to a book that will be provocative reading for skeptics and the faithful alike.
This book is Wiebe's defense of the claim that a significant form of spiritual experience is found in 'knowing something we have no right to know'. He selects forty-five first-hand accounts from a data-base at the University of Wales to make his case, and, in solidarity with those people, recounts something of his own experience.
The emergence of genetic science has profoundly shaped how we think about biology. Indeed, it is difficult now to consider nearly any facet of human experience without first considering the gene. But this mode of understanding life is not, of course, transhistorical. Phillip Thurtle takes us back to the moment just before the emergence of genetic rationality at the turn of the twentieth century to explicate the technological, economic, cultural, and even narrative transformations necessary to make genetic thinking possible. The rise of managerial capitalism brought with it an array of homologous practices, all of which transformed the social fabric. With transformations in political economy and new technologies came new conceptions of biology, and it is in the relationships of social class to breeding practices, of middle managers to biological information processing, and of transportation to experiences of space and time, that we can begin to locate the conditions that made genetic thinking possible, desirable, and seemingly natural. In describing this historical moment, The Emergence of Genetic Rationality is panoramic in scope, addressing primary texts that range from horse breeding manuals to eugenics treatises, natural history tables to railway surveys, and novels to personal diaries. It draws on the work of figures as diverse as Thorstein Veblen, Jack London, Edith Wharton, William James, and Luther Burbank. The central figure, David Starr Jordan - naturalist, poet, eugenicist, educator - provides the book with a touchstone for deciphering the mode of rationality that genetics superseded. Building on continental philosophy, media studies, systems theory, and theories of narrative, The Emergence of Genetic Rationality provides an inter-disciplinary contribution to intellectual and scientific history, science studies, and cultural studies. It offers a truly encyclopedic cultural history that challenges our own ways of organizing knowledge even as it explicates those of an earlier era. In a time in which genetic rationality has become our own common sense, this discussion of its emergence reminds us of the interdependence of the tools we use to process information and the conceptions of life they animate.
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