The Spiritual Quest: Transcendence in Myth, Religion, and Science

by Robert M. Torrance

Overview

Robert Torrance's wide-ranging, innovative study argues that the spiritual quest is rooted in our biological, psychological, linguistic, and social nature. The quest is not, as most have believed, a rare mystical experience, but a frequent expression of our most basic human impulses. Shaman and scientist, medium and poet, prophet and philosopher, all venture forth in quest of visionary truths to transform and renew the world.

Yet Torrance is not trying to reduce the quest to an "archetype" or "monomyth." Instead, he presents the full diversity of the quest in the myths and religious practices of tribal peoples throughout the world, from Oceania to India, Africa, Siberia, and especially the Americas. In theorizing about the quest, Torrance draws on thinkers as diverse as Bergson and Piaget, van Gennep and Turner, Pierce and Popper, Freud, Darwin, and Chomsky. This is a book that will expand our knowledge—and awareness—of a fundamental human activity in all its fascinating complexity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520920163
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	09/01/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	330
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Robert M. Torrance is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Davis.

Table of Contents

PREFACE 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
PART ONE· ANIMAL QUAERENS: THE QUEST AS A DIMENSION OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE 
1. Religion and the Spiritual Quest: From Closure to Openness 
2. Biological and Psychological Foundations of the Quest 
3. Linguistic Foundations of the Quest 
4. The Questing Animal 
PART TWO · THE SPIRITUAL QUEST IN RITUAL AND MYTH 
5. Ritual as Affirmation and Transformation 
6. Myth and the Journey beyond the Self 
7. Mobility and Its Limits in Communal Ritual and Myth 
PART THREE· SPIRIT POSSESSION AS A FORM OF THE SPIRITUAL QUEST 
8. The Varieties of Spirit Possession 
9. Possession and Transformation 
PART FOUR· FORMS OF THE SHAMANIC QUEST 
10. Shamanism, Possession, and Ecstasy: Australia and the Tropics
11. Shamanic Heartland: Central and Northern Eurasia 
PART FIVE · FORMS OF THE QUEST IN NATIVE AMERICA 
12. The Arctic and Western North America 
13. Mesoamerica and South America 
14. Eastern North America and the Great Plains 
PART SIX · THE THEORY OF THE QUEST:SOME CLOSING CONSIDERATIONS 
15. A Ternary Process 
16. The Reality of Transcendence 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
INDEX 

Editorial Reviews

Torrance (comparative literature, Univ. of California, Davis) argues that the spiritual quest is innate, grounded in biological, linguistic, and psychological processes. Ritual, myth, and spirit possession are all manifestations of this quest. After careful discussion of what it means to be human, Torrance focuses on forms of shamanic quest in Australia, Eurasia, and Native American cultures. He finds that religious practices have a ``dialectic [that] presupposes disruption of a prior equilibrium'' and are shaped by time. Recommended for large public, as well as seminary and academic, libraries.

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