Totality Beliefs and the Religious Imagination (Paperback)

There seems to be a widespread notion that belief is, in itself, a good thing, but in this book Anthony Campbell argues that, for at least some people, freeing oneself from all belief systems brings a huge sense of relief. He illustrates this by describing his own experience of Roman Catholicism and Transcendental Meditation. He also looks at the evidence for miraculous cures for cancer and at ideas about the soul, with particular reference to survival. And he has a discussion of how religions are transmitted, which he thinks depends on story-telling and language as much as on formal belief. This is a wide-ranging book with a lot of ideas.