{"product_id":"invisible-companions-encounters-with-imaginary-friends-gods-ancestors-and-angels-9781503609112","title":"Invisible Companions: Encounters with Imaginary Friends, Gods, Ancestors, and Angels","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom 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 shape-shifting 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 quality to the imaginative mind that is central to learning, 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. Alongside 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 colorful 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, \u003ci\u003eInvisible Companions\u003c\/i\u003e will appeal to anyone interested in our mind's creative and spiritual possibilities.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJ. Bradley Wigger\u003c\/b\u003e teaches religious education and childhood studies at Louisville Seminary. An ordained Presbyterian minister and a recent Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology, Dr. Wigger has served churches in Colorado, Wisconsin, and Mexico. His most recent publications are the picture book for children, \u003ci\u003eThank You, God\u003c\/i\u003e (2014), and \u003ci\u003eOriginal Knowing: How Religion, Science, and the Human Mind Point to the Irreducible Depth of Life\u003c\/i\u003e (2012).\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Stanford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50339507962130,"sku":"9781503609112","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_585020c6-8393-44a5-82c4-ce7e441ffd87.jpg?v=1728006137","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/invisible-companions-encounters-with-imaginary-friends-gods-ancestors-and-angels-9781503609112","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}