The study of ethnology or 'Volkskunde' in Austria has had a troubled past. Through most of the 20th century it was under the influence of the so-called Viennese 'Mythological School' and the controversy between the two opposing branches, the 'Ritualist' and the 'Mythologists', set much of the agenda from the 1920s until long after the World War ended in 1945. The volume examines two Austrian characters, Richard Wolfram and Karl Haiding, and the impact of their research and sets them in the context of Austrian ethnology before, during and after the war years. The book concludes by examining the present day ethnological outlook in the country.

Rudolf Steiner's inspiring words provide rich and nourishing thoughts and ideas for self-development and spiritual enlightenment. Daily Contemplations offers a separate passage from Steiner's lectures - a special gift upon which to reflect - to accompany each day of the year. Carefully selected by Jean-Claude Lin, the quotations are sourced from lectures and addresses that Steiner gave on the specific day in question. Thus, the ordering is not arbitrary but arises from the historical fact of the lectures themselves. This unique volume gives us a new way of working with Steiner's research on a daily basis. The short passages encourage us to ponder and delve further in order to make our own creative discoveries. 'Wisdom is the premise, the foundation of love; love is the fruit of wisdom reborn in the I.' These words from Rudolf Steiner are the founding motifs of his immense lecturing activity - to which this book gives manifold entry points. As Lin notes in his introduction, 'wisdom and love are the alpha and omega of the human being who strives for truth and freedom'.

The Tokyo subway attack in March 1995 was just one of a series of criminal activities including murder, kidnapping, extortion, and the illegal manufacture of arms and drugs carried out by the Japanese new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo, under the guidance of its leader Asahara Shoko. Reader looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks, why did a religious movement ostensibly focussed on yoga, meditation, asceticism and the pursuit of enlightenment become involved in violent activities?

Reader discusses Aum's spiritual roots, placing it in the context of contemporary Japanese religious patterns. Asahara's teaching are examined from his earliest public pronouncements through to his sermons at the time of the attack, and statements he has made in court. In analysing how Aum not only manufactured nerve gases but constructed its own internal doctrinal justifications for using them Reader focuses on the formation of what made all this possible: Aum's internal thought-world, and on how this was developed.

Reader argues that despite the horrors of this particular case, Aum should not be seen as unique, nor as solely a political or criminal terror group. Rather it can best be analysed within the context of religious violence, as an extreme example of a religious movement that has created friction with the wider world that escalated into violence.

This title was first published in 2002: Religion and Social Transformations examines the reciprocal relationship between religion, modernity and social change. The book focuses on the world's three major missionary religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. It explores how these three traditions are responding to some of the most challenging issues associated with globalization, including the role of religion in the fall of Communism; the tension between religion and feminism; the compatibility of religion and human rights; and whether ancient religions can accommodate new challenges such as environmentalism. The five textbooks and Reader that make up the Religion Today Open University/Ashgate series are: From Sacred Text to Internet; Religion and Social Transformations; Perspectives on Civil Religion; Global Religious Movements in Regional Context; Belief Beyond Boundaries; Religion Today: A Reader

Apocalypse Observed is about religious violence. By analysing five of the most notorious cults of recent years, the authors present a fascinating and revealing account of religious sects and conflict.
Cults covered include:
* the apocalypse at Jonestown
* the Branch Davidians at Waco
* the violent path of Aum Shinrikyo
* the mystical apocalypse of the Solar Temple
* the mass suicide of Heaven's Gate.
Through comparative case studies and in-depth analysis, the authors show how religious violence can erupt not simply from the beliefs of the cult followers or the personalities of their leaders, but also from the way in which society responds to the cults in its midst.

Rudolf Steiner's core mission, repeatedly delayed due to the incapacity of colleagues, was to pursue contemporary spiritual-scientific research into the phenomena of reincarnation and karma. This stimulating book describes the winding biographical path this mission took, and in particular focuses on the mystery of Rudolf Steiner's connection with the influential medieval philosopher and theologian, Thomas Aquinas. Utilizing numerous archival sources and publications, Thomas Meyer reveals many facts relating to Steiner's core mission, and shows the critical roles played by Wilhelm Anton Neumann and Karl Julius Schroer in its genesis and development. Meyer examines how Steiner's pupils responded to his insights into karma, and places this 'most intrinsic mission' into the context of current divisions within the anthroposophic movement. In particular, he highlights the place of spiritual science within culture and history, showing how Steiner developed the great scientific ideas of evolution propounded by Darwin by raising them to the plane of each individual's soul and spiritual development. As Steiner stated in 1903: 'Scientific researchers explain the skull forms of higher animals as a transformation of a lower type of skull. In the same way one should explain a soul's biography through the soul biography which the former evolved from.'

Apocalypse Observed is a book about religious violence. By analysing five of the most notorious cults of recent years, the authors present a fascinating and revealing account of religious sects and conflict.
*the apocalypse at Jonestown
*the Branch Davidians at Waco
*the violent path of Aum Shinrikyo
*the mystical apocalypse of the Solar Temple
*the mass suicide of Heaven's Gate
Through comparative case studies and in-depth analysis, the authors show how religious violence can erupt not simply from the beliefs of the cult followers or the personalities of their leaders, but also from the way in which society responds to the cults in its midst.

An intimate exploration of the life, philosophy, and lasting occult influence of Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan With his creation of the infamous Church of Satan in 1966 and his bestselling book The Satanic Bible in 1969, Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-1997) became a controversial celebrity who basked in the attention and even made a successful career out of it. But who was Anton LaVey behind the public persona that so easily provoked Christians and others intolerant of his views? One of privileged few who spent time with the "Black Pope" in the last decade of his life, Carl Abrahamsson met Anton LaVey in 1989, sparking an "infernally" empowering friendship. In this book Abrahamsson explores what LaVey was really about, where he came from, and how he shaped the esoteric landscape of the 1960s. The author shares in-depth interviews with the notorious Satanist's intimate friends and collaborators, including LaVey's partner Blanche Barton, his son Xerxes LaVey, current heads of the Church of Satan Peter Gilmore and Peggy Nadramia, occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger, LaVey's personal secretary Margie Bauer, film collector Jack Stevenson, and film historian Jim Morton. Abrahamsson also shares never-before-published material from LaVey himself, including discussions between LaVey and Genesis P-Orridge and transcripts from LaVey's never-released "Hail Satan!" video. Providing inside accounts of the Church of Satan and activities at the Black House, this intimate exploration of Anton LaVey reveals his ongoing role in the history of culture and magic.

Exploring the inner motivations of one of America's greatest religious thinkers, this book analyses the ways in which Jonathan Edwards' intense personal piety and deep experience of divine sovereignty drove an introverted intellectual along a course that would eventually develop into a mature and respected public intellectual. Throughout his life, the tension between his innately contemplative nature and the active demands of public office was a constant source of internal and public strife for Edwards. Approaching Jonathan Edwards offers a new theoretical approach to the study of Edwards, with an emphasis on his writing activity as the key strategy in shaping his legacy. Tracing Edwards' strategic self-fashioning of his persona through the many conflicts in which he was engaged, the critical turning points in his life, and his strategies for managing conflicts and crises, Carol Ball concludes that Edwards found his place as a superlative contemplative apologist and theorist of experiential spirituality.

In this original study of witchcraft, Gibson explores the stories told by and about witches and their 'victims' through trial records, early news books, pamphlets and fascinating personal accounts. The author discusses the issues surrounding the interpretation of original historical sources and demonstrates that their representations of witchcraft are far from straight forward or reliable. Innovative and thought-provoking, this book sheds new light on early modern people's responses to witches and on the sometimes bizarre flexibility of the human imagination.

Reading Witchcraft explores the stories told by and about `witches' and their `victims', and questions what can be recovered from their trial records, early news books, pamphlets and personal accounts. In her wide-ranging selection of original sources, Marion Gibson seeks to discover the truthfulness of stories of witchcraft. Who told them and why? How were they recorded? And how they might have been distorted or stereotyped?
Reading Witchcraft looks closely at these legal documents and printed pamphlets and shows that their representations of witchcraft are far from straightforward. Even the simplest story can mask a complex creative process which sometimes led to the deaths of innocent people. We are left with a challenging record of the power of the human imagination.
Reading Witchcraft is an exciting and invaluable study of witchcraft stories. It offers innovative, nuanced discussion of original historical sources and the issues which surround their interpretation.

How does a mind think magically? The research documented in this book is one answer that allows the disciplines of anthropology and neurobiology to come together to reveal a largely hidden dynamic of magic. Magic gets to the very heart of some theoretical and methodological difficulties encountered in the social and natural sciences, especially to do with issues of rationality. This book examines magic head-on, not through its instrumental aspects but as an orientation of consciousness. Magical consciousness is affective, associative and synchronistic, shaped through individual experience within a particular environment. This work focuses on an in-depth case study using the anthropologist's own experience gained through years of anthropological fieldwork with British practitioners of magic. As an ethnographic view, it is an intimate study of the way in which the cognitive architecture of a mind engages the emotions and imagination in a pattern of meanings related to childhood experiences, spiritual communications and the environment. Although the detail of the involvement in magical consciousness presented here is necessarily specific, the central tenets of modus operandi is common to magical thought in general, and can be applied to cross-cultural analyses to increase understanding of this ubiquitous human phenomenon.

Containing some 1500 entries, this new bibliography will be widely welcomed for its comprehensive brief, and for the sub-section profiling principal NRMs convering history, beliefs and practices, main publications, braches worldwide and membership.

This is a regional and comparative study of early modern witchcraft. The history of witchcraft continues to attract attention with its emotive and contentious debates. The methodology and conclusions of this book have impacted not only on witchcraft studies but on the approach to social and cultural history with its quantitative and anthropological approach. The book provides a case study on Essex as well as drawing comparisons with other regions of early modern England. The second edition adds a historiographical introduction, placing the book in context in the late 1990s.

Between 1875 and 1947, a period bookended, respectively, by the founding of the Theosophical Society and the death of notorious occultist celebrity Aleister Crowley, Britain experienced an unparalleled efflorescence of engagement with unusual occult schema and supernatural phenomena such as astral travel, ritual magic, and reincarnationism. Reflecting the signal array of responses by authors, artists, actors, impresarios and popular entertainers to questions of esoteric spirituality and belief, this interdisciplinary collection demonstrates the enormous interest in the occult during a time typically associated with the rise of secularization and scientific innovation. The contributors describe how the occult realm functions as a turbulent conceptual and affective space, shifting between poles of faith and doubt, the sacrosanct and the profane, the endemic and the exotic, the forensic and the fetishistic. Here, occultism emerges as a practice and epistemology that decisively shapes the literary enterprises of writers such as Dion Fortune and Arthur Machen, artists such as Pamela Colman Smith, and revivalists such as Rolf Gardiner

How awake are we to our inner being, our true nature? How much self-knowledge do we really have? In relation to our intrinsic self, we can easily feel like a novice. In truth, we face a long journey before we can fully understand ourselves - and we are equally unpractised in relating to our 'shadow' and inner wounds. The path described in this book is an inward one, concerned with strengthening our individuality. Based on life-long research, Karsten Massei has created a valuable workbook for knowing and healing ourselves. In a series of short chapters, he explains the interplay and tensions between the human individual and the nature of our 'inner and cosmic child'. Both are complex entities but are directly related; both are deeply connected with our destiny. Our experiences with our inner child are often still in the earliest stages - but cultivating a relationship with her, noticing her, holding conversations with her, is vital, and offers us ever deepening experiences. As our insights expand, our frailties, deficiencies and inner wounds become apparent. The being of the inner child wants to educate us to become inwardly truthful and authentic. Only honest engagement with the traumas and vulnerabilities of our soul will enable a true picture of ourselves to arise. Child of the Cosmos contains surprising perspectives arising from the author's personal experiences, opening up a clear path of personal development. The text is complemented with seven special meditations to assist us in engaging with the challenges ahead.

At the core of African American religion's response to social inequalities has been a symbiotic relationship between socio-political activism and spiritual restoration. Drawing on archival material and ethnographic fieldwork with African American Spiritual Churches in the USA, this book examines how their spiritual and social work can shed light on the interplay between corporate activism and individual spirituality. This book traces the development of this "politico-spiritual" approach to injustice from the beginning of the twentieth century through the opening decade of the twenty-first century, using the work of African American Spiritual Churches as a lens through which to observe its progression. Addressing subjects such as spiritual healing, support of the homeless, gender equality and the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, it demonstrates that these communities are clearly motivated by the dual concerns of the soul and the community. This study diversifies our understanding of the African American religious landscape, highlighting an approach to social injustice that conjoins both political and spiritual transformations. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, African American studies and politics.

A revealing window into the secret and seductive world of Santeria.

- A Santeria priest discloses information never before revealed to outsiders.

- Removes the veil of occultism from Santeria to show it as a highly spiritual, thriving religion.

Initiated into the Santeria priesthood at the age of seven, Raul Canizares unveils in "Cuban Santeria" the secret and seductive world of this rapidly growing, yet largely misunderstood, Afro-Cuban religion. With the knowledge of an insider and the insight of a scholar, Canizares astutely examines the practice of Santeria, revealing many of its hidden dimensions while simultaneously providing a fascinating account of its unique textured mix of African, Cuban, and Catholic traditions.

The Cuban-born author describes the practices and rituals of the followers of Santeria--from magical herbal prescription and healing to spiritism and animal sacrifice--and explains how for many years the religion has been maintained under the guise of Catholicism to avoid religious persecution. Most initiates are sworn to a code of silence, but Canizares believes that the time has come to move Santeria, a religion of beauty and resilience, out of the darkness and into the light so that a more accurate picture of this rich tradition can emerge.

The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and certain other works of fantasy and science fiction have inspired some of their readers and viewers to believe that the superhuman powers of the story-worlds, such as Gandalf and the Force, exist also in the real world. We can say that such fictional narratives possess 'religious affordance', for they contain certain textual features that afford or make possible a religious, rather than just a fictional, use of the text. This book aims to identify those features of the text that make it possible for a fictional narrative to inspire belief in the supernatural beings of the story, or even to facilitate ritual interaction with these beings. The contributions analyse the religious affordance and actual use of a wide range of texts, spanning from Harry Potter and Star Wars, over The Lord of the Rings and late 19th-century Scandinavian fantasy, to the Christian Gospels. Although we focus on the religious affordance of fictional texts, we also spell out implications for the study of religious narratives in general, and for the narrativist study of religion. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Religion.

It is increasingly clear that histories of secularization are not simply dispassionate descriptions of the decline of religious belief and practice in the West. Rather, such narratives often seek to celebrate secularization, promote some version of it, lament it, or otherwise oppose it in favour of a programme of desecularization or resacralization. The aim of this book is to identify some of the major genres of the history of secularization and to explore their historical contexts, normative commitments, and tendential purposes. The contributors to the volume offer different perspectives on these questions, not least because a number of them are themselves participants in the cultural-political programs described above. The primary purpose of this book, however, is the identification of such programs rather than their promotion. Overall, the collection seeks to bring analytical clarity to ongoing debates about secularization and help explain the co-existence of apparently conflicting stories about the origins of Western modernity. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Intellectual History Review journal.

The Hay archive of Coptic manuscripts consists of seven fragmentary sheets of leather bearing spells for divination, protection, healing, personal advancement, cursing and the satisfaction of sexual desire. Purchased from the heir of the Scottish Egyptologist and draughtsman, Robert Hay (1799–1863), the manuscripts arrived at the British Museum in 1868. Since they were first published in the 1930s, they were understood to be the work of a single copyist writing around AD 600 in the Theban region of Upper Egypt. The present volume has confirmed, nuanced or challenged these assessments on the basis of scientific analysis and close study of the manuscripts. Prompted by the urgent conservation needs of the corpus, this study seeks to provide a model, integrated approach to the publication of ancient texts as archaeological objects by providing a full record of provenance and collection history; scientific analysis; conservation approach and treatment; a new complete edition and translation of the Coptic texts; and an extended discussion of the cultural context of production. Written on poorly processed calf, sheep and goat skin, the manuscripts were copied by multiple non-professional writers in the 8th–9th centuries. Employing a striking combination of ancient Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, biblical and extra-biblical motifs, their contents represent a Christian milieu making use of the mechanics of earlier ‘magical’ practice in a period well after the arrival of Islam.

In the Western world, magic has often functioned as an umbrella term for various religious beliefs and ritual practices that seek to influence events by harnessing supernatural power. The definition of these myriad occult and esoteric traditions have, however, usually come from those that are opposed to its practice; notably authorities in religious, legal and intellectual spheres. This book seeks to provide a new perspective, directly from the practitioners of modern Western magic, by exploring how a distinctive mode of embodiment and consciousness can produce a transition from an 'ordinary' to a 'magical' worldview. Starting with an introduction to the study of magic in the Western academy, the book then presents the author's own participant observation of five ethnographic case studies of modern Western magic. The focus of these ethnographic case studies is directed towards ideas and methods the informants employ to self-legitimise and self-represent as 'magicians'. It concludes by discussing the phenomenological implications and issues around embodiment that are inherent to the contemporary practice of magic. This is a unique insight into the lived experience of practitioners of modern magic. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars of the Occult and New Religious Movements, as well as Religious Studies academics examining issues around the embodiment and the anthropology of religion.

Jeffrey Kaplan has been one of the most influential scholars of new religious movements, extremism and terrorism. His pioneering use of interpretive fieldwork among radical and violent subcultures opened up new fields of scholarship and vastly increased our understanding of the beliefs and activities of extremists. This collection features many of his seminal contributions to the field alongside several new pieces which place his work within the context of the latest research developments. Combining discussion of the methodological issues alongside a broad array of case studies, this will be essential reading for all students and scholars of extremism, religion and politics and terrorism.

In the face of the increasingly variegated ideological landscape of contemporary America, cults have become the focus of public controversy. The growth of new religions has been matched by the development of an organized and vocal opposition, the anti-cult movement. This in turn has prompted an extensive investigation of new religious movements (NRMs) by sociologists and psychologists of religion, as well as historians and religious studies scholars. The readings collected here contribute to the debate about cults by sampling some of the best and most accessible publications from the academic study of NRMs. The contributors address the questions most commonly asked about cults, such as: What brought about the emergence of new religious movements? What is a cult or new religious movement? Who joins new religious movements and why? Are converts to new religious movements brainwashed? Why did the Jonestown and Waco tragedies happen? Are cults inclined to be violent? What does the emergence of so many new religious movements say about our society? What does it say about the future of religion? "Cults in Context" surveys the descriptive typologies, theories, and data accumulated by sociologists and psychologists studying new religious movements over the last twenty years. It serves to defuse many popular fears and misconceptions about cults, allowing the reader to develop a more reasonable and tolerant understanding of the people who join new religious movements and the functions of these movements in contemporary society.

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE* *A TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND BBC HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR* 'A bona fide historical classic' Sunday Times 'Simply one of the best history books I have ever read' BBC History In the frontier town of Springfield in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails and property vanishes. People suffer fits and are plagued by strange visions and dreams. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation. The finger of suspicion falls on a young couple struggling to make a home and feed their children: Hugh Parsons the irascible brickmaker and his troubled wife, Mary. It will be their downfall. The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in a remote Massachusetts plantation. These were the turbulent beginnings of colonial America, when English settlers' dreams of love and liberty, of founding a 'city on a hill', gave way to paranoia and terror, enmity and rage. Drawing on uniquely rich, previously neglected source material, Malcolm Gaskill brings to life a New World existence steeped in the divine and the diabolic, in curses and enchantments, and precariously balanced between life and death. Through the gripping micro-history of a family tragedy, we glimpse an entire society caught in agonized transition between supernatural obsessions and the age of enlightenment. We see, in short, the birth of the modern world. 'Gaskill tells this deeply tragic story with immense empathy and compassion, as well as historical depth' The Guardian 'As compelling as a campfire story ... Gaskill brings this sinister past vividly to life' Erica Wagner, Financial Times