Rituals combining healing with spirit possession and court-like proceedings are found around the world and throughout history. A person suffers from an illness that cannot be cured, for example, and in order to be healed performs a ritual involving a prosecution and a defense, a judge and witnesses. Divine beings then speak through oracles, spirits possess the victim and are exorcized, and local gods intervene to provide healing and justice. Such practices seem to be the very antithesis of modernity, and many modern, secular states have systematically attempted to eliminate them. What is the relationship between healing, spirit possession, and the law, and why are they so often combined? Why are such rituals largely absent from modern societies, and what happens to them when the state attempts to expunge them from their health and justice systems, or even to criminalize them? Despite the prevalence of rituals involving some or all of these elements, this volume represents the first attempt to compare and analyze them systematically. The Law of Possession brings together historical and contemporary case studies from East Asia, South Asia, and Africa, and argues that despite consistent attempts by modern, secular states to discourage, eliminate, and criminalize them, these types of rituals persist and even thrive because they meet widespread human needs.

Religious controversies frequently center on origins, and at the origins of the major religious traditions one typically finds a seminal figure. Names such as Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, and Moses are well known, yet their status as "founders" has not gone uncontested. Does Paul deserve the credit for founding Christianity? Is Laozi the father of Daoism, or should that title belong to Zhuangzi? What is at stake, if anything, in debates about "the historical Buddha"? What assumptions are implicit in the claim that Hinduism is a religion without a founder? The essays in Varieties of Religious Invention do not attempt to settle these perennial arguments once and for all. Rather, they aim to consider the subtexts of such debates as an exercise in comparative religion: Who engages in them? To whom do they matter, and when? When is "development" in a religious tradition perceived as "deviation" from its roots? To what extent are origins thought to define the "essence" of a religion? In what ways do arguments about founders serve as a proxy for broader cultural, theological, political, or ideological questions? What do they reveal about the ways in which the past is remembered and authority negotiated? As the contributors survey the landscape shaped by these questions within each tradition, they provide insights and novel perspectives about the religions individually, and about the study of world religions as a whole.

Even in the twenty-first century some two-thirds of the world's peoples-the world's social majority-quietly live in non-modern, non-cosmopolitan places. In such places the multitudinous voices of the spirits, deities, and other denizens of the other-than-human world continue to be heard, continue to be loved or feared or both, continue to accompany the human beings in all their activities. In this book, Frederique Apffel-Marglin draws on a lifetime of work with the indigenous peoples of Peru and India to support her argument that the beliefs, values, and practices of such traditional peoples are ''eco-metaphysically true.'' In other words, they recognize that human beings are in communion with other beings in nature that have agency and are kinds of spiritual intelligences, with whom humans can be in relationship and communion. Ritual is the medium for communicating, reciprocating, creating and working with the other-than-humans, who daily remind the humans that the world is not for humans' exclusive use. Apffel-Marglin argues moreover, that when such relationships are appropriately robust, human lifeways are rich, rewarding, and in the contemporary jargon, environmentally sustainable. Her ultimate objective is to ''re-entangle'' humans in nature-she is, in the final analysis, promoting a spirituality and ecology of belonging and connection to nature, and an appreciation of animistic perception and ecologies. Along the way she offers provocative and poignant critiques of many assumptions, including of the ''development'' paradigm as benign (including feminist forms of development advocacy), of the majority of anthropological and other social scientific understandings of indigenous religions, and of common views about peasant and indigenous agronomy. She concludes with a case study of the fair trade movement, illuminating both its shortcomings (how it echoes some of the assumptions in the development paradigms) and its promise as a way to rekindle community between humans as well as between humans and the other-than-human world.

The Buddhist monk Tanxu surmounted extraordinary obstacles--poverty, wars, famine, and foreign occupation--to become one of the most prominent monks in China, founding numerous temples and schools, and attracting crowds of students and disciples wherever he went. Now, in Heart of Buddha, Heart of China, James Carter draws on untapped archival materials to provide a book that is part travelogue, part history, and part biography of this remarkable man.
This revealing biography shows a Chinese man, neither an intellectual nor a peasant, trying to reconcile his desire for a bold and activist Chinese nationalism with his own belief in China's cultural and social traditions, especially Buddhism. As it follows Tanxu's extraordinary life, the book also illuminates the pivotal events in China's modern history, showing how one individual experienced the fall of China's last empire, its descent into occupation and civil war, and its eventual birth as modern nation. Indeed, Tanxu lived in a time of almost constant warfare--from the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, to the Boxer Uprising, the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese occupation, and World War II. He and his followers were robbed by river pirates, and waylaid by bandits on the road. Caught in the struggle between nationalist and communist forces, Tanxu finally sought refuge in the British colony of Hong Kong. At the time of his death, at the age of 89, he was revered as "Master Tanxu," one of Hong Kong's leading religious figures.
Capturing all this in a magnificent portrait, Carter gives first-person immediacy to one of the most turbulent periods in Chinese history.

Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk (1863-1950) is popularly celebrated for his fascinating spiritual life. How could one man, one deeply spiritual man, serve as both a traditional Oglala Lakota medicine man and a Roman Catholic catechist and mystic? How did these two spiritual and cultural identities enrich his prayer life? How did his commitment to God, understood through his Lakota and Catholic communities, shape his understanding of how to be in the world? To fully understand the depth of Black Elk's life-long spiritual quest requires a deep appreciation of his life story. He witnessed devastation on the battlefields of Little Bighorn and the Massacre at Wounded Knee, but also extravagance while performing for Queen Victoria as a member of "Buffalo Bill" Cody's Wild West Show. Widowed by his first wife, he remarried and raised eight children. Black Elk's spiritual visions granted him wisdom and healing insight beginning in his childhood, but he grew progressively physically blind in his adult years. These stories, and countless more, offer insight into this extraordinary man whose cause for canonization is now underway at the Vatican.

Gurus of Modern Yoga explores the contributions that individual gurus have made to the formation of the practices and discourses of yoga in today's world. The focus is not limited to India, but also extends to the teachings of yoga gurus in the modern, transnational world, and within the Hindu diaspora. Each of the sections deals with a different aspect of the guru within modern yoga. Included are extensive considerations of the transnational tantric guru; the teachings of modern yoga's best-known guru, T. Krishnamacharya, and those of his principal disciples; the place of technology, business and politics in the work of global yoga gurus; and the role of science and medicine. Although the principal emphasis is on the current situation, some of the essays demonstrate the continuing influence of gurus from generations past. As a whole, the book represents an extensive and diverse picture of the place of the guru in contemporary yoga practice.

God of Justice deals with ritual healing in the Central Himalayas of north India. It focuses on the cult of Bhairav, a local deity who is associated with the lowest castes, the so-called Dalits, who are frequently victims of social injustice. When powerless people are exploited or abused and have nowhere else to go, they often turn to Bhairav for justice, and he afflicts their oppressors with disease and misfortune. In order to end their suffering, they must make amends with their former victims and worship Bhairav with bloody sacrifices. Many acts of perceived injustice occur within the family, so that much of the book focuses on the tension between the high moral value placed on family unity on the one hand, and the inevitable conflicts within it on the other. Such conflicts can lead to ghost possession, cursing, and other forms of black magic, all of which are vividly described. This highly readable book includes a personal account of the author's own experiences in the field as well as fascinating descriptions of blood sacrifice, possession, exorcism and cursing. Sax begins with a straightforward description of his fieldwork and goes on to describe the god Bhairav and his relationship to the weak and powerless. Subsequent chapters deal with the lives of local oracles and healers; the main rituals of the cult and the dramatic Himalayan landscape in which they are embedded; the moral, ritual, and therapeutic centrality of the family; the importance of ghosts and exorcism; and practices of cursing and counter-cursing. The final chapter examines the problematic relationship between ritual healing and modernity.

America is quickly eroding as a nation. Our political, economic, and social structures have collapsed, and life as we know it is quickly disappearing. To correct our decline, Republicans argue that we need less government, and Democrats argue that we need more government. Both parties claim understanding, but apparently neither has wisdom. Unfortunately, we have failed to consult God in our attempt to recover.

God's word provides a clear illustration regarding where America is politically, economically, and socially in Genesis and Exodus. The demise of America parallels almost perfectly with the demise of the Israelites in Egypt. The similarities are eerily disturbing.

If God's word is true, that we reap what we sow, then it is equally true that we, like the Israelites, control the harvest. The Israelites' harvest included 430 years of bondage, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that America's harvest will result in nothing less, but remember; we controlled the harvest.

The paradigmatic Buddhist is the monk. It is well known that ideally Buddhist monks are expected to meditate and study-to engage in religious practice. The institutional structure which makes this concentration on spiritual cultivation possible is the monastery. But as a bureaucratic institution, the monastery requires administrators to organize and manage its functions, to prepare quiet spots for meditation, arrange audiences for sermons, or simply to make sure food is available, and rooms and bedding provided. The valuations placed on such organizational roles were, however, a subject of considerable controversy among Indian Buddhist writers, with some considering them significantly less praiseworthy than meditative concentration or teaching and study, while others more highly appreciated their importance. Managing Monks, as the first major study of the administrative offices of Indian Buddhist monasticism and of those who hold them, explores literary sources, inscriptions and other materials in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan and Chinese in order to explore this tension and paint a picture of the internal workings of the Buddhist monastic institution in India, highlighting the ambivalent and sometimes contradictory attitudes toward administrators revealed in various sources.

Buddhism in Mongolia explores the unique historical and cultural elements of Mongolian Buddhism while challenging its stereotyped image as a mere replica of Tibetan Buddhism. Vesna A. Wallace brings together an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars to explore the interaction between the Mongolian indigenous culture and Buddhism, the features that Buddhism acquired through its adaptation to the Mongolian cultural sphere, and the ways Mongols have been constructing their Mongolian Buddhist identity. In a collection of fifteen chapters, the book illuminates the historical, social, and cultural contexts within which Buddhism has operated as a major social and cultural force among various groups Mongolian ethnic groups. The volume covers an array of topics pertaining to the important historical events, social and political conditions, and influential personages in Mongolian Buddhism from the sixteenth century to the present. It shows how Buddhism underwent a series of transformations, adapting itself to the social, political, and nomadic cultures of the Mongols. The contributors demonstrate the ways that Buddhism retained unique Mongolian features through Qing and Mongol support. Most chapters bring to light the ways in which Mongolian Buddhists saw Buddhism as inseparable form "Mongolness". They posit that by being greatly supported by Mongol and Qing empires, suppressed by the communist governments, and experiencing revitalization facilitated by democratization and challenged posed by modernity, Buddhism underwent a series of transformations, while retaining unique Mongolian features. Wallace covers historical events, social and political conditions, and influential personages in Mongolian Buddhism from the sixteenth century to the present. Buddhism in Mongolia also addresses the artistic and literary expressions of Mongolian Buddhism and various Mongolian Buddhist practices and beliefs.

"Sainthood" has been, and remains, a contested category in China, given the commitment of China's modern leadership to secularization, modernization, and revolution, and the discomfort of China's elite with matters concerning religion. However, sainted religious leaders have succeeded in rebuilding old institutions and creating new ones despite the Chinese government's censure. This book offers a new perspective on the history of religion in modern and contemporary China by focusing on the profiles of these religious leaders from the early 20th century through the present. Edited by noted authorities in the field of Chinese religion, Making Saints in Modern China offers biographies of prominent Daoists and Buddhists, as well as of the charismatic leaders of redemptive societies and state managers of religious associations in the People's Republic. The focus of the volume is largely on figures in China proper, although some attention is accorded to those in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other areas of the Chinese diaspora. Each chapter offers a biography of a religious leader and a detailed discussion of the way in which he or she became a "saint." The biographies illustrate how these leaders deployed and sometimes retooled traditional themes in hagiography and charismatic communication to attract followers and compete in the religious marketplace. Negotiation with often hostile authorities was also an important aspect of religious leadership, and many of the saints' stories reveal unexpected reserves of creativity and determination. The volume's contributors, from the United States, Canada, France, Italy, and Taiwan, provide cutting-edge scholarship-some of which is available here in English for the first time. Taken together, these essays make the case that vital religious leadership and practice has existed and continues to exist in China despite the state's commitment to wholesale secularization.

Joseph W. Williams examines the changing healing practices of pentecostals in the United States over the past 100 years, from the early believers, who rejected mainstream medicine and overtly spiritualized disease, to the later generations of pentecostals and their charismatic successors, who dramatically altered the healing paradigms they inherited. Williams shows that over the course of the twentieth century, pentecostal denunciations of the medical profession often gave way to ''natural'' healing methods associated with scientific medicine, natural substances, and even psychology. By 2000, figures such as the pentecostal preacher T. D. Jakes appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, other healers marketed their books at mainstream retailers such as Wal-Mart, and some developed lucrative nutritional products that sold online and in health food stores across the nation. Exploring the interconnections, resonances, and continued points of tension between adherents and some of their fiercest rivals, Spirit Cure chronicling adherents' embrace of competitors' healing practices and illuminates pentecostals' dramatic transition from a despised minority to major players in the world of American evangelicalism and mainstream American culture.

This book is a thoughtful, informative, and practical guide for anyone involved in caring for the seriously and chronically ill or dying. The connection between spirituality and medicine has been receiving a lot of attention in both the scientific and lay presses recently, but research and
anecdotal evidence all indicate that spirituality is central to the care of the chronically ill and dying. It is therefore critical that healthcare providers who interact with seriously ill patients know how to address their spiritual needs.
This book presents current thinking on how spiritual care can be integrated into traditional caregiving. Part one discusses aspects of spirituality, such as presence, ethics, and relationships. Part two delves into a number of specific religious and theological traditions. Part three offers
practical applications and tools, including storytelling, psychotherapy, dance, music, and the arts. Part four focuses on patients' stories and reflections. The book concludes with appendices that have sample advance directives for Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim patients.
Volume editor Christina Puchalski is the director of the George Washington Institute of Spirituality and Health. She is also an associate professor of medicine at the George Washington University Medical Center and an active practicing physician and medical educator. Dr. Puchalski is nationally and
internationally recognized as a pioneer in the integration of spirituality and healthcare. Chapters are authored by an impressive group of medical and religious experts, and patients' stories also appear throughout, offering real-world examples. The book features a foreword by theDalai
Lama.

The Festival of Pirs is an ethnographic study of the religious life of the village of Gugudu in Andhra Pradesh. It focuses on the public event of Muharram, which is practiced by urban Shi'i communities across South Asia, but takes on a strikingly different color in Gugudu because of the central place of a local pir, or saint, called Kullayappa. The story of Kullayappa is pivotal in Gugudu's religious culture, effectively displacing the better-known story of Imam Hussain from Shi'a Islam, and each year 300,000 pilgrims from across South India visit this remote village to express their devotion to Kullayappa. As with many villages in South India, Gugudu is mostly populated by non-Muslims, yet Muslim rituals and practices play a crucial role in its devotion. In the words of one devotee, "There is no Hindu or Muslim. They all have one religion, which is called 'Kullayappa devotion (bhakti).'" Afsar Mohammad explores how the diverse religious life in the village of Gugudu expands our notions of devotion to the martyrs of Karbala, not only in this particular village but also in the wider world.

This exciting collection of papers is an international, ecumenical, and interdisciplinary study of Jesus' resurrection that emerged from the "Resurrection Summit" meeting held in New York at Easter of 1996. The contributions represent mainstream scholarship on biblical studies, fundamental theology, systematic theology, philosophy, moral theology, and homiletics. Contributors represent a wide range of viewpoints and denominations and include Richard Swinburne, Janet Martin Soskice, Peter F. Carnley, Sarah Coakley, Willian Lane Craig, William P. Alston, M. Shawn Copeland, Paul Rhodes Eddy, Francis Schussler Fiorenza, Brian V. Johnstone, Carey C. Newman, Alan G. Padgett, Pheme Perkins, Alan F. Segal, Marguerite Shuster, and John Wilkins. Combined, they offer a timely, wide ranging, and well balanced work on the central truth of Christianity."