Word: mysticism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...alternating voices of a Korean comfort woman named Akiko and her Korean-American daughter Beccah, delivers a wrenching view of war and its lasting intergenerational impact. Akiko, driven half-mad by the war, is haunted by the ghost of a woman from the camp and becomes a sought-after mystic after moving to America. But to call this a ghost story is to miss the point: Comfort Woman is really about pain, the kind that haunts and is handed down, like old, sad clothes. Writes Akiko: "I knew what it felt like to stretch open for many men ... about pain...
...20th century, and out on the margins of spiritual life there's a strange phosphorescence. As predicted, the approach of the year 2000 is coaxing all the crazies out of the woodwork. They bring with them a twitchy hybrid of spirituality and pop obsession. Part Christian, part Asian mystic, part Gnostic, part X-Files, it mixes immemorial longings with the latest in trivial sentiments. When it all dissolves in overheated computer chat and harmless New Age vaporings, who cares? But sometimes it matters, for both the faithful and the people who care about them. Sometimes it makes death a consummation...
Though he continued to wield an almost mystic influence from his private Beijing compound, Deng's gradual withdrawal from overt power allowed his successors to prepare for an orderly transition. He was, like the ghosts Chinese revere, a force the current leaders dared not speak of disrespectfully. The steady rise in personal prosperity has persuaded China's citizens that their new leaders will continue to follow in Deng's footsteps without a major change of direction...
Burlinson and Roberts then teamed up to read a dialogue from one of Roberts' earliest movies, "Mystic Pizza." The Pudding crowd roared in response to Roberts' line, "I'm not going to Yale, thank...
...moment, Suma Ching Hai is more than divine: she is controversial. Late last year, officials of Bill Clinton's legal-defense fund rather shamefacedly disclosed that they had returned a donation of more than $600,000 from the followers of the Taiwan-based mystic, adding to the President's "Asian money" scandal. Nevertheless, the Supreme Master remains a fervent Clintonite. "The poor man," she says, erupting in his defense. "You must respect his office. How can he solve America's problems if he is distracted? He's in debt. He's a suspect. This is terrible." She knows what...