The Ascension of Annie Rix Militz : Perfection Meets Paradise in Early 20th Century Los Angeles

ISBN-13: 9783330068681 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 188 str.

John Simmons

Opis

This book presents interrelated themes of ascension as they are reflected in the life, times, and work of Annie Rix Militz: a) the ascension of New Thought, the Home of Truth being a unique manifestation of this increasingly popular religious worldview, b) the ascension of women as legitimate religious leaders spawned by the Feminist Movement and capable of identifying and succoring true existential and theological distress across gender in an otherwise male-dominated society, and c) the ascension of Los Angeles, California as a fertile breeding ground for the institutional expressions of popular spiritual sentiments as well as a major, inventor, distiller, and exporter of the "American Dream" to the rest of the United States. Militz' worldview, institutionalized in her Homes of Truth and articulated in the periodical Master Mind which she published in Los Angeles from 1911 until her death in 1924, reflected the ascension of new modes of perceiving the world which were becoming strong, permanent elements of the American character in the early twentieth century.

O autorze

John K. Simmons is professor emeritus of religious studies at Western Illinois University. Trained as a historian of American religion and as a sociologist of religion at University of California, Santa Barbara, he publishes regularly in the area of women-led, emergent spiritual movements in late 19th and early 20th century American history.