Springer A Shamanic Pneumatology in a Mystical Age of Sacred Sustainability: The Spirit of the Sacred Earth

This book represents a germinal effort that urges all religious and world leaders to savor the mystical spirituality, especially the cosmology and spirituality of sacred sustainability of the indigenous peoples. The power of indigenous spirit world is harnessed for the common good of the indigenous communities and the regenerative power of mother earth. This everyday mysticism of the world as spirited and sacred serves to re-enchant a world disillusioned by the unsustainability of destructive economic systems that have spawned the current ecological crises. Author Jojo Fung offers insight from his lived-experience and this book represents his effort to correlate the indigenous spirit world with Catholic Pneumatology and articulate the activity of God’s Spirit as the Spirit of Sacred Sustainability. Review “Jojo Fung’s book is a classic in multidisciplinary research. Rooted in field work carried out among the Karen people of Northern Thailand, Fung goes on to provide a comprehensive and inspiring synthesis incorporating diverse fields such as cosmology, pneumatology, and mysticism. Integrating shamanic wisdom, ecological sustainability and faith in the Great Spirit, the reader encounters afresh the immediacy of holy mystery, not in some distant heaven, but in our very endeavour to engage with the Earth itself as our enduring sacred home. A challenging and inspiring read!” (Diarmuid O’Murchu author of In the Beginning was the Spirit (2012), London, UK) “Jojo Fung plumbs the depths of mystical cosmology and anthropology, particularly as articulated and lived by the Karen community of Dokdaeng. Jojo makes a vigorous and eloquent case for sacred sustainability as a framework for a shamanic pneumatology of Asia. It is an important contribution to theology, in general, and indigenous theology, in particular.  I recommend it enthusiastically.” (Gemma Tulud Cruz, Australian Catholic University, Australia) “A sincere outcry from a Catholic priest for a serious and radical reconsideration of development strategies with an underlying new direction of theology. The combination of anthropology, inter-faith dialogue and deep ecology is utilized to criticize mainstream neo-liberal development, its underlying philosophical premise as well as the existing Catholic administrative culture.  Contemplation on fieldwork result through meditative retreat offered the author a rare spiritual experience which united him with the spirits, nature and the universe. The book is a heartfelt urge not only to respect indigenous peoples and cultures, but to use it as a mirror for self criticism and for reinterpreting the relationship between human beings, nature and God.” (Apinya Fuengfusakul, Chiang Mai University, Thailand) “What makes this book so special is the kind of shamanic dialogue that offers a way of partnering for a better future that holds nature and all life forms as sacred, and seeks to create a qualitatively better way of life, not just for a few rich people, but all people and mother earth.” (Kathleen Nadeau, California State University, San Bernardino, USA) “Chung Hyun Kyung’s invocation of shamanic spirits at the World Council of Churches 1991 meeting in Canberra dropped like a bombshell on the playground of ecumenical theologians. Jojo Fung’s Shamanic Pneumatology reconstructs the playground especially with resources from Vatican II in order to show how the Greek categories of the classical theological tradition forged with and against the pneumatomachians and other groups in the fourth century are of important even if limited value in the contemporary Asian and Southeast Asian ecological milieu inhabited by indigenous peoples struggling against the currents of urbanization and globalization. Those who were worried about ‘syncretism’ in Chung’s efforts but nevertheless prompted to critical reflection in the wake of that event will be thankful for the careful contextualization evident in Fung’s work, one that char