The second of two volumes on the relationship between popular religion and the self-help tradition in American culture, this book continues chronologically where the first left off. As with the first volume, this work focuses on the intersection of American history and popular religion and is intended as an introductory interpretive guide to major self-help figures and movements with origins in popular religious movements. This volume spans from Romanticism, the Gilded Age, and the history of Christian Science, with discussions of Mary Baker Patterson, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and Mary Baker Eddy, through Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller. Peale and Schuller, with the exception of Evangelist Billy Graham, constitute the public face of mainstream American Protestantism and bring this two-volume study to its conclusion in the second half of the 20th century.

This reference will serve as a valuable research tool for American religion and popular culture scholars. Together with the first volume, "Self-Help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture," these two meticulously researched volumes clearly define and present the broad scope of the self-help tradition as it pervades American culture and as it developed and was influenced by popular religion. An extensive bibliography is included.

The popular Wiccapedia gets the ultimate companion journal!   A Book of Shadows is a journal that witches keep close at hand for jotting down their spells—and this beautiful keepsake edition, by the authors of Wiccapedia, is the perfect accompaniment to that popular guide for modern witches. A concise first section features basic information on essential tools for spells, key herbs and crystals, moon phases and magick, and a wheel of yearly Wiccan holidays. Over 225 pages of journal pages follow, where you can record all the details of your spellcraft such as the date, the phase of the moon, the ingredients . . . and the results.  

This is the first investigation of the history of Russian Freemasonry, based on the premise that the facts of the Russian Enlightenment preclude application of the interpretative framework commonly used for the history of western thought. Coverage includes the development of early Russian masonry, the formation of the Novikov circle in Moscow, the programme of Rosicrucianism and its Russian variant and, finally, the clash between the Rosicrucians and the State.

The volumes in this set, originally published between 1978 and 1992, draw together research by leading academics in the area of the occult and provide a rigorous examination of related key issues. The collection examines occultism from a broad range of disciplines, from shamanism and the occult tarot, to the esoteric and spiritualism. It includes volumes across the disciplines of religion, covering new religious movements, spiritualism, ritual and magic practices. The three books that comprise this set include investigations into the evolution of occultism, as well as the history and practices of the occult as a religious movement. This collection brings back into print insightful and detailed books and will be a must-have resource for academics and students, not only of religion and anthropology, but also of history and psychology.

This introduction to Gnosis by Christoph Markschies combines great clarity with immense learning.In his Introduction Markschies defines the term Gnosis and its relationship to 'Gnosticism', indicating why Gnosis is preferable and sketches out the main problems. He then treats the sources, both those in the church fathers and heresiologists, and the more recent Nag Hammadi finds. He goes on to discuss early forms of 'Gnosis' in antiquity, Jewish and Christian (New Testament) and the early Gnostics; the main representatives of Gnosis, especially Valentinus and Marcion; Manichaeism as the culmination and end-point of Gnosis; ancient communities of 'Gnostics'; and finally 'Gnosis' in antiquity and the present.There is a useful chronological table and an excellent select bibliography.

The Rhetoric of Religious Cults takes as its departure point the notion that 'cults' have a distinctive language and way of recruiting members. First outlining a rhetorical framework, which encompasses contemporary discourse analysis, the persuasive texts of three movements - Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses and Children of God - are analysed in detail and their discourse compared with other kinds of recruitment literature. Cults' distinctive negative profile in society is not matched by a linguistic typology. Indeed, this negative profile seems to rest on the semantics and application of the term 'cult' itself.

The New Atheists' claim that religion always leads to fanaticism is baseless. State-backed religion results in tyranny. Sacred humanists work to implement their highest values that will improve this world; separation of church and state, eliminating denigration of nonbelievers, assuring just governance, and preventing human trafficking.

Investigating the impact of Arabic medieval astrological and magical theories on early modern occult philosophy, this book argues that they provided a naturalistic explanation of astral influences and magical efficacy based on Aristotelian notions of causality.

This volume is the first English-language anthology to engage with the fascinating phenomena of recent surges in New Age and alternative spiritualties in Israel. Contributors investigate how these New Age religions and other spiritualties-produced in Western countries within predominantly Protestant or secular cultures-transform and adapt themselves in Israel. The volume focuses on a variety of groups and movements, such as Theosophy and Anthroposophy, Neopaganism, Channeling, Women's Yoga, the New Age festival scene, and even Pentecostal churches among African labor migrants living in Tel Aviv. Chapters also explore more Jewish-oriented practices such as Neo-Kabballah, Neo-Hassidism, and alternative marriage ceremonies, as well as the use of spiritual care providers in Israeli hospitals. In addition, contributors take a close look at the state's reaction to the recent activities and growth of new religious movements.

Pagan and Native Faith movements have sprung up across Europe in recent decades, yet little has been published about them compared with their British and American counterparts. Though all such movements valorize human relationships with nature and embrace polytheistic cosmologies, practitioners' beliefs, practices, goals, and agendas are diverse. Often side by side are groups trying to reconstruct ancient religions motivated by ethnonationalism-especially in post-Soviet societies-and others attracted by imported traditions, such as Wicca, Druidry, Goddess Spirituality, and Core Shamanism. Drawing on ethnographic cases, contributors explore the interplay of neo-nationalistic and neo-colonialist impulses in contemporary Paganism, showing how these impulses play out, intersect, collide, and transform.

The author explores the dangers of ultrafundamentalist cults by presenting selected case histories, by explaining the significance of the central tendencies of ultrafundamentalism, and by suggesting why such groups are flourishing at this particular time in this particular society.

Wangerin examines one small symbolic revolution against American capitalist culture. It was carried out by youth who were painfully and personally aware of the problems of what they called the System, though they did not necessarily understand the underlying causes of their problems. They called themselves the Children of God. Wangerin studied the Children of God from 1973-1978 in the United States, Mexico, and Italy and has kept in touch with some of them ever since. This is one of the most thorough studies of the controversial cult founded in 1968 by David Berg, and the only ethnography that treats it as a mystical utopian socialist movement.

From early sorcery trials of the 14th century--associated primarily with French and Papal courts--to the witch executions of the late 18th century, this book's entries cover witch-hunting in individual countries, major witch trials from Chelmsford, England, to Salem, Massachusetts, and significant individuals from famous witches to the devout persecutors. Entries such as the evil eye, familiars, and witch-finders cover specific aspects of the witch-hunting process, while entries on writers and modern interpretations provide insight into the current thinking on early modern witch hunts. From the wicked witch of children's stories to Halloween and present-day Wiccan groups, witches and witchcraft still fascinate observers of Western culture. Witches were believed to affect climatological catastrophes, put spells on their neighbors, and cavort with the devil. In early modern Europe and the Americas, witches and witch-hunting were an integral part of everyday life, touching major events such as the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution, as well as politics, law, medicine, and culture.