Muslims and Christians celebrate common ground

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Shared in common: peace, forgiveness, and love When Muslim Sufi minister Jamal Rahman and Franciscan nun Gabriele Uhlein come together with Jean Feraca of Wisconsin Public Radio's "Here on Earth" on August 12-14 at the Christine Center, the Center anticipates a lively, inquisitive conversation. This coming together of diverse spiritual teachers, facilitated by Feraca, will be both a celebration and a time to discover a common ground for everyone who participates in the weekend … [Read more...]

The Dice Game of Shiva: An Interview with author Richard Smoley

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Richard Smoley is the author of The Dice Game of Shiva (New World Library) and five other books. He's a former editor of Gnosis, editor of the Theosophical Society's Quest Books, and the executive editor of Quest magazine. The following is an interview with Smoley about his latest book. The Dice Game of Shiva -- that's an intriguing title for a book. What does it mean? Richard Smoley: It refers to a Hindu myth in which the god Shiva plays a game of dice -- essentially a kind of strip … [Read more...]

The Jig is Up!

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Religion and culture as art are beautiful. Religion and culture as truth are dangerous. Both religion and culture rely heavily on our shared mythology, dramatic tales of heroic accomplishments, ancient teachers and powerful gods. These stories are an answer to a subconscious stirring within all humankind. They are a poetic representation of the dream and the hero's journey within each one of us. The archetypes that we have created throughout history are representations of our internal … [Read more...]

The Loyalty of the New Age Movement to Religious Doctrine and Dogma

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At the age of six, I looked up at the altar in St. John's the Evangelist Catholic Church wondering why there were only males leading the congregation. Being that I was female, I realized that I would never have a vital leadership role in the Catholic Church if I chose to. I became disinterested in Catholicism in kindergarten, even though I was required by my teachers and parents to continue attending mass two to three times each week. Five years later, my parents allowed me to attend public … [Read more...]

Everyday Spirituality: Life as Prayer

We are participating in an explosion of new age teaching, interest in Eastern religion, and a general curiosity about the usefulness of everyday spiritual practice. When you turn on the television, it seems just about every talk show host is discussing how to maximize human potential and help viewers become a more advanced version of self. In our effort to reach higher, spirituality is a major interest in the books we read, the classes we take and the inner peace we want to find. … [Read more...]

Excerpts from “Healing the Rift”

Many non-spiritual people subscribe to the belief that our world is the result of matter - composed of tiny billiard ball-like entities. Do they really believe that life is merely a succession of vignettes of memories, feelings, and experiences that vanish when we die? Is that it - nothing survives death? "I learned that she'd died a month earlier. The details of her death did not register - just the fact that she had died...I decided that I wanted to understand the definition of life … [Read more...]