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Endorsements FOUR SPIRITUALITIES: by Peter Richardson Peter Richardson brings his deep expertise on two subjects to this book: psychological type and the great religions of the world. The information on type provides readers with powerful insights into past religious experiences, both positive and negative. This is invaluable for those who are trying to come to terms with the faith of their childhood. But Four Spiritualities goes beyond the personal journey. To most lay people, understanding the diverse religions of the world seems almost impossible. Richardson places the leading figures, the practices, and the beliefs within the context of type, helping the rest of us understand the different paradigms in new ways. One finishes its pages with a sense of connectedness, not separation, with people of different faiths, through fresh understanding of the needs each faith journey meets. —Jane Kise In 2001, I developed an elective course for senior students entitled "Medicine and Spirituality" in which the intent was for students to discover something about their own spirituality before exploring the fundamental role of Spirituality in Medicine. Once again, Four Spiritualities proved to be most helpful and excerpts of your book were required reading. Four Spiritualities provides an essential resource for exploring one's own spirituality (with or without the MBTI) as well as understanding the spirituality of others. Moreover, Four Spiritualities opens the door to understanding spirituality as something that's embedded in the human genome and not the unique property of any one religious group. Four Spiritualities is essential reading for anyone who is serious about growing in spiritual depth. It has transformed my life as a pastor and I have seen it transform the lives of individuals and congregations. Within these pages people gain awareness about the journeys of unity, devotion, works and harmony; discern their own preferences and tendencies, and see within their faith community others on the same or complementary journeys. with this awareness, they realize that they can accomplish anything they desire--individually and collectively. Four Spiritualities offers everyone access to their place in the "temple." Within the mandalas that Peter Tufts Richardson offers, newly-aware professors, proprietors, prophets, and priests can begin to design, run, inspire, and celebrate their faith and spirituality. The Mandala, finally. I think your design is brilliant. I have been playing with it and I like the positioning better than the box format. It’s wonderful that you have the cross, square, diamond, triangle and circle. . . I respect your work enormously. You have really come up with something original, yet truly archetypically mindful Peter Richardson has written a challenging text; he brings together contemporary personality theory as it plays out in Myers Briggs and applies it to the world history of human spirituality and religious experience. He pursues examples from Muhammad to Buckminster Fuller, from Rabindranath Tagore to St Francis to make his case. This book will serve the general reader, the college student, and the scholar all well even if some do not agree with Richardson’s analysis. His work is provocative and will find a broad market for discussion in churches and educational settings. This book begins with a fascinating and frustrating paradox: Religion strives for universality, but cannot be experienced in a universally satisfying way. Because human beings differ in how we perceive and experience reality, we need a variety of spiritual paths. Four Spiritualities is a brilliant, mind-opening guide to this largely uncharted terrain. |
Buddist Nun
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