Bronson, AA, and Peggy Gale, eds. Performance by Artists. Toronto: Art Metropole, 1979. [Containing information on and by numerous artists, several critical essays, and an extensive bibliography, this work is a wonderful resource on performance art. Illustrated.]

If performance redirects our habits of perception, if it offers us no climax, that structure to which we have been accustomed, even conditioned by a certain traditional thought, puts us face to face with new realities: a way of understanding, apprehending the space and time in which we live. Performance plunges us in space and pushes us to live in a succession of intensities in time which form the frame of a new and necessary experience (24).
 
 

Campbell, Bruce F. Ancient Wisdom Revived. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980. [This book is an examination of the history and precepts of Theosophy, a spiritual movement founded in 1875, opposing organized religion and exploring Eastern and ancient traditions. The author describes, in some detail, the social environment out of which Theosophy developed.]

Established Christianity felt challenged in the second half of the nineteenth century. With the end of the Civil War, America had begun in earnest the shift from an agricultural to an urban, industrial society. At the same time immigration to this country increased massively. Between the close of the war and the turn of the century, almost ten million came to this country. Not only did the church have difficulties adapting to an urban-industrial environment but science seemed to undermine Christianity...Partly in response there were developments outside mainstream Christianity (8).
 
 

Clarke, J. J. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought. London: Routledge, 1997. [This insightful and scholarly text provides, as is pointed out on the back cover, an "introduction to the fascination Eastern thought has exerted on Western minds since the Renaissance." It attempts to determine "the place of Eastern thought--Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Confucianism--in the Western intellectual tradition."]

With its rooted essentialism, Western thought has traditionally tended to postulate human nature as a fixed essence that renders humans distinct from nature and from all other living beings, and to subscribe to a model of the self as a fundamentally permanent and stable seat of power and cognition...An alternative model [is] offered by Taoism and Buddhism which insists that nothing is fixed and permanent, that all is in flux, most especially human beings themselves (214).
 
 

Eck, Diana L. Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. Chambersburg, PA: Anima Books, 1985. [Eck explains the Indian concept of darsan, or "seeing." She illustrates the overwhelming importance of eyes and of visual perception in India: Seeing and being seen by a deity is the central act of worship. The eyes are strongly associated with power and vitality. Seeing is a way of touching, of knowing, of understanding, and of communicating.]

...[Seeing] is a form of knowing. According to the Brahmanas, "The eye is truth" (9).
 
 

Ekvall, Robert B. Religious Observances in Tibet: Patterns and Function. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1964. [Accessible and informative, this book is a valuable overview of Tibetan Buddhism and its practice.]

The highest form of burial is disposal of the body in accordance with the precept of compassion toward all sentient beings, that is, the flesh is fed to the vultures and even the bones are broken up so that this manifestation of charity may be complete (85).
 
 

Eysteinsson, Astradur. The Concept of Modernism. Ithaca: Cornell U, 1992. [This critical theory text is a study of the idea of "modernism." Though focusing primarily on modernism in literature, the book arrives at a general definition of modernity by exploring the cultural conditions from which it arose.]

..."Modernism" is a...concept broadly signifying a paradigmatic shift, a major revolt, beginning in the mid- and late nineteenth century, against the prevalent literary and aesthetic traditions of the Western world (2).
 
 

Jung, Carl Gustav. Psychology and Religion, 4th Ed. New Haven: Yale U P, 1944. [Here Jung presents an argument involving the autonomy of the unconscious mind and the dogma, history, and psychology of natural symbols. He discusses the nature of religious experience and its psychological relevance.]

Religion...is a careful and scrupulous observation of what Rudolf Otto aptly termed the "numinosum," that is, a dynamic existence or effect, not caused by an arbitrary act of will. On the contrary, it seizes and controls the human subject, which is always rather its victim than its creator (4).
 
 

Rosten, Leo. "Ferment in the Churches." Religions in America. Ed. Herbert L. Marx, Jr. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1977. 16-19. [This short article primarily consists of miscellaneous facts and statistics which serve to illustrate the changes afoot in the American churches today. The author demonstrates that Church teachings are becoming increasingly relaxed, challenged, and/or ignored.]

However I interpret this mass of hard data, I cannot help concluding that the fortresses of faith are experiencing the most profound alterations in centuries. Church authority is being challenged on a dozen fronts. Traditional creeds are being drastically revised. Hallowed canons are being shelved. Religious practices are changing daily...It is not hyperbole to say that we are witnessing a remarkable erosion of consensus within the citadel of belief (18).
 
 

Trueblood, David Elton. Philosophy of Religion. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957. [A survey of philosophical arguments concerning religion, this work addresses a wide variety of subjects, including topics ranging from "The Possibility of Truth" to "The Challenge of Freud" to "The Problem of Evil."]

Fundamental to all religion is the experience of commitment...Though it may be buttressed by intellectual considerations, it is more than intellectual consent. Purely religious insight, as distinguished from philosophical insight, comes from a full and complete self-giving to an object which appears to justify that self-giving. It is intrinsically unconditional (11).