Planetary Consciousness, Witnessing the Inhuman, and Transformative Learning: Insights from Peace Pilgrimage Oral Histories and Autoethnographies
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2018, Vol 9, Issue 5
Abstract
This article describes insights and consciousness transformations reported in several contemporary peace pilgrimage oral histories and autoethnographies, including my own. Autoethnography is a form of autobiographical writing that stresses the interpretation of experiences in their psychosocial, cultural, and historical contexts. Peace pilgrimages are typically self-defined journeys and projects which may be inward and metaphorical, or which may involve actual travel to destinations that memorialize historical events of mass killing and profound suffering, and places that envision, cultivate and educate for global or inner peace. The insights and learnings include (a) the call to journey and other out-of-the-ordinary communications; (b) understanding the transformative learning process; (c) glimpsing the meaning of planetary consciousness; and (d) bearing witness to the inhuman. These paradigmatic themes may be applicable to one’s personal search for meaning, and as signposts for collective, societal healing from psychic and social wounding and traumas. The themes may be useful for educators and researchers in peace studies, religious studies, history, biography, philosophy, psychology and consciousness studies.
Authors and Affiliations
Roy Tamashiro
Towards a Rational Kingdom in Africa: Knowledge, Critical Rationality and Development in a Twenty-First Century African Cultural Context
This paper seeks to locate the kind of knowledge that is relevant for African development in the twenty-first century African cultural context and to propose the paradigm for achieving such knowledge. To do this, it ad...
Rethinking Material Religion in the East: Orientalism and Religious Material Culture in Contemporary Western Academia
This paper reviews the historical development of the modern discourse of “Orientalism” and the emergence of material culture as a self-reflexive theoretical transition in the West. Further, it investigates new types of...
Tradition with a New Identity: Thomist Engagement with Non-Christian Thought as a Model for the New Comparative Theology in Europe
British theologians have criticised contemporary comparative theology for privileging learning from other religions to the exclusion of challenge and transformation in the Christian encounter with the thought of other...
Secularization: The Decline of the Supernatural Realm
How to define and measure secularization is among the most fervent discussions in the literature on the sociology of religion. The perception of secularization only in terms of change in the social prestige and influen...
Charisma, Diversity, and Religion in the American City— A Reflection
The faith leaders of North American cities actively engage in the civic affairs of their urban communities. Religious leadership, charismatic preaching, and, possibly, reputation of prophetic powers, continue to play i...