The Awakened Ones: Phenomenology of Visionary Experience
The Awakened Onesis the most sustained and powerful treatment since William James of the forms of knowledge and life that visionary experience makes possible. It is a remarkable combination of panoramic reference, detached analysis, and the most personal intensity of feeling and style.(Akeel Bilgrami, Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University)In his impeccable style, with an unmatched eloquence, a series of sparking, sparkling insights, and an expansive comparative vision, Gananath Obeyesekere gives us what can only be called a spiritual-intellectual testament. In the process, he calls on us to unite the rational and the nonrational at the highest levels of scholarship and cultural work and to envision a cross-cultural enlightenment that is as indebted to the visionary teachings of a Buddha or a William Blake as to the humanities and social sciences. A stunning and edifying achievement from a major intellectual.(Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice University, author ofThe Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion)In a world subjugated by the reification, if not deification, of rationality and science, this is a sorely needed antidote.... Highly recommended.(Choice)A stunning scholarly achievement.(The Ecclesial University)