Research Catalog

Invisible companions : encounters with imaginary friends, gods, ancestors, and angels

Title
Invisible companions : encounters with imaginary friends, gods, ancestors, and angels / J. Bradley Wigger.
Author
Wigger, J. Bradley
Publication
  • Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2019]
  • ©2019

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library JFE 19-11078Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
239 pages : illustrations (some color); 24 cm
Summary
From the US to Nepal, author J. Bradley Wigger travels five countries on three continents to hear children describe their invisible friends--one-hundred-year-old robins and blue dogs, dinosaurs and teapots, pretend families and shapeshifting aliens--companions springing from the deep well of childhood imagination. Drawing on these interviews, as well as a new wave of developmental research, he finds a fluid and flexible qualiy to the imaginative mind that is central to learning, to co-operation, and paradoxically, to real-world rationality. Yet Wigger steps beyond psychological territory to explore the religious significance of the kind of mind that develops relationships with invisible beings. Alongisde Cinderella the blue dog, Quack-Quack the duck, and Dino the dinosaur are angels, ancestors, spirits, and gods. What he uncovers is a profound capacity in the religious imagination to see through the surface of reality to more than meets the eye. Punctuated throughout by children's colourful drawings of their see-through interlocutors, the book is highly engaging and alternately endearing, moving, and humorous. Not just for parents or for those who work with children, Invisible Companions will appeal to anyone interested in our mind's creative and spiritual possibilities.
Subject
  • Imaginary companions > Religious aspects > Cross-cultural studies
  • Imagination > Religious aspects > Cross-cultural studies
  • Imagination in children > Cross-cultural studies
  • PSYCHOLOGY > Creative Ability
  • Imaginary companions > Religious aspects
  • Imagination in children
  • Imagination > Religious aspects
Genre/Form
Cross-cultural studies.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-234) and index.
Contents
Introduction : See-through knowing -- Life-givers -- Flexible -- Logic and imagination -- Sharing -- Wild mind -- Who knows what? -- Ancestors and angels -- Gods and godsibbs -- Original knowing -- Friends of God.
Call Number
JFE 19-11078
ISBN
  • 9781503609112
  • 1503609111
  • 9781503609181 (canceled/invalid)
LCCN
2018045204
OCLC
1048934813
Author
Wigger, J. Bradley, author.
Title
Invisible companions : encounters with imaginary friends, gods, ancestors, and angels / J. Bradley Wigger.
Publisher
Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2019]
Copyright Date
©2019
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-234) and index.
Research Call Number
JFE 19-11078
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