Shaman and Sage: The Roots of “Spiritual but Not Religious” in Antiquity (The Divine Self, vol. 1)
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Overview
The first volume of Michael Horton’s magisterial intellectual history of “spiritual but not religious” as a phenomenon in Western culture.
Conversations around secularization and the rapid rise in “nones” identifying as “spiritual but not religious” tend to focus on the past century. But this phenomenon and the values that underlie it may be older than Christianity itself.
Michael Horton reveals that the hallmarks of modern spirituality—autonomy, individualism, utopianism, and more—have their foundations in Greek philosophical religion. Horton makes the case that the development of the shaman figure in the Axial Age—particularly its iteration among Orphists—represented a “divine self.” One must realize the divinity within the self to break free from physicality and become one with a panentheistic unity. Time and time again, this tradition of divinity hiding in nature has arisen as an alternative to monotheistic submission to a god who intervenes in creation.
This first volume explores the roots of the divine self in antiquity, while volumes two and three chart the concept through the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment. The Divine Self will be the authoritative work students and scholars consult to understand the “spiritual but not religious” tendency as a recurring theme in Western culture from antiquity to the present.
- Reveals that the hallmarks of modern spirituality have their foundations in Greek philosophical religion
- The first volume of a three volume series
- Explores the roots of the divine self in antiquity
- Introduction
- 1. Survivor to Shaman: Discovering the Divine Self
- 2. Dancing for Dionysus: New Myths for the Utopian Stage
- 3. Shaman to Sage: Religion of the One
- 4. “The True Mystics”: Orpheus as Plato’s Muse
- 5. “The Foes!, The Foes!”: Soul-Saving in Alexandria
- 6. Hermes Trismegistus and the Cult without Temples
- 7. Savior of or from the World? Christianity and Gnosis
- 8. Orphic Exegesis and the Eternal Gospel
- 9. Transcending Religions: The Triumph of the Shaman in Philosophical Religion
- 10. Beyond the Gates: Plethon and the Birth of the Florentine Renaissance
- Postscript
- Title: Shaman and Sage: The Roots of “Spiritual but Not Religious” in Antiquity
- Author: Michael Horton
- Series: The Divine Self
- Volume: 1
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 501
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Philosophy, Ancient; Religion › Christian theology--History
- ISBNs: 9780802877116, 0802877117
- Resource ID: LLS:SHMNSGRDVNSLF01
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-06-26T16:46:51Z
Michael Horton has taught apologetics and theology at Westminster Seminary California since 1998. In addition to his work at the Seminary, he is the president of White Horse Media, for which he co-hosts the White Horse Inn, a nationally syndicated, weekly radio talk-show exploring issues of Reformation theology in American Christianity. He is also the editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation magazine. Before coming to WSC, Dr. Horton completed a Research Fellowship at Yale University Divinity School.
A member of various societies, including the American Academy of Religion and the Evangelical Theological Society, Dr. Horton is the author/editor of 20 books, including a series of studies in Reformed dogmatics, whose final volume (People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology) was published in 2008. In addition to the popular Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, Dr. Horton’s latest books are Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ, Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology, and A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship. He has written articles for Modern Reformation, Pro Ecclesia, Christianity Today, The International Journal of Systematic Theology, Touchstone, and Books and Culture. Dr. Horton is a minister in the United Reformed Churches in North America. He has served two churches in Southern California. He resides in Escondido, California, with his wife, Lisa, and their four children.
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