Editorial Reviews
Book Description
A Saint Bernard, despite its name, is unwelcome in church. Any dog, cat, sheep, bovine, terrapin, or bird clearly faces this same prohibition. Modern religion seems to be for humans only, and the absence of animals in our places of worship is taken for granted. It is as if we have built glorious temples to zoophobia, showing that we prefer to worship not in the richness of creation, but rather in what Yeats called the "artifice of eternity," the purely human spaces of our own making.
Or do we? What would human spirituality be without animals? The Bible portrays Satan as a snake, Jesus as the lamb of God, the Holy Spirit as a dove. Cathedrals team with stone birds, stags, and other animal images. We express our moral ideas through animal stories, whether the Buddhist Jataka, Aesop's fables, or Orwell's Animal Farm. At the prehistoric heart of humanity's attempts to articulate spiritual sentiments, we find the caves of Lascaux and images not of white-robed deities, but of the giant beasts of the Ice Age.
Other Creations details the pervasive effect of animal life on the human psyche, and ties it all together from past to present in a fascinating study which is unlike any yet published. What is most impressive is that as beautiful and evocative as animals are, they do not simply decorate our spiritual lives but form the very texture of human spirituality. Indeed far from being dead in ancient religion they are very much alive today as immensely significant icons of popular culture, as seen in phenomena such as stuffed animals, Disney movies, and sports team mascots.
From the Publisher
A Saint Bernard, despite its name, is unwelcome in church. Any dog, cat, sheep, bovine, terrapin, or bird clearly faces this same prohibition. Modern religion seems to be for humans only, and the absence of animals in our places of worship is taken for granted. It is as if we have built glorious temples to zoophobia, showing that we prefer to worship not in the richness of creation, but rather in what Yeats called the "artifice of eternity," the purely human spaces of our own making.
Or do we? What would human spirituality be without animals? The Bible portrays Satan as a snake, Jesus as the lamb of God, the Holy Spirit as a dove. Cathedrals team with stone birds, stags, and other animal images. We express our moral ideas through animal stories, whether the Buddhist Jataka, Aesop's fables, or Orwell's Animal Farm. At the prehistoric heart of humanity's attempts to articulate spiritual sentiments, we find the caves of Lascaux and images not of white-robed deities, but of the giant beasts of the Ice Age.
Other Creations details the pervasive effect of animal life on the human psyche, and ties it all together from past to present in a fascinating study which is unlike any yet published. What is most impressive is that as beautiful and evocative as animals are, they do not simply decorate our spiritual lives but form the very texture of human spirituality. Indeed far from being dead in ancient religion they are very much alive today as immensely significant icons of popular culture, as seen in phenomena such as stuffed animals, Disney movies, and sports team mascots.
Other Creations
Other Creations,Christopher Manes,Doubleday,0385483651,Animals,Animals / Pets,Comparative Religion,Comparative studies,General,Moral and religious aspects,Nature/Ecology,Religion,Religion (Specific Aspects),Religious aspects,Spiritual life,Body, Mind & Spirit / New Age
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