Mind over Matter is an interdisciplinary collection of essays exploring how spirituality changes lives in a variety of ways. Unlike much philosophically rooted literature on spirituality, it encourages an understanding of what can be achieved through faith, belief, and self-confidence, without reliance on specific (or, necessarily, any) religious doctrines or views. From theistic, non-theistic, or atheistic perspectives each chapter addresses a distinctive phenomenon, for example, spirituality and healing, spirituality and art, spirituality and running, and spirituality as a response to disaster. (...) Not only do they integrate the results of scientific research and other intellectual investigations to illuminate accomplishments, and sometimes possible sources of failure, but they are also written by academics with practical experience in relevant areas, or at least informed by ideas of practitioners. (shrink)

The essays in _The Philosophy of Spirituality_ address spirituality as a subject of philosophical interest independent of religion and respecting diverse spiritual traditions: African, atheist, Indigenous, Indian, Stoic, and Sufic perspectives, as well as Western analytic and continental views.

Debate concerning virtual reality is often drawn in terms of sharply defined dichotomies--for example, between "real" (or "actual") and "virtual," "authentic" and "inauthentic," and "natural" and "artificial." In this paper we offer an alternative approach by suggesting a conception of a virtual world that highlights a continuity and commonality with our sense of everyday reality. We accomplish this in part by an examination of the English picturesque garden as if it were a virtual world partially constructed out of ideas and (...) objects collected during travels to foreign lands on the Grand Tour. Such foreign travel transformed not only the English person's sense of self, but also altered the English landscape. We conclude that in one sense the "real" England is also a "virtual" reality. (shrink)