This title was first published in 2003:If God has departed, as Baudrillard claims, is religion still relevant? A new religious landscape is appearing in the new millennium. The middle classes with their electronic technologies are producing a culture of commodified images and signs that is radically transforming the religious landscape and re-enchanting the world. Ecstatic experiences pervade the reenchanted world. Both fundamentalism and the New Age movement promote the free flow of charisma, reshaping religion in unforeseen directions. Analysing the crisis of modernity, this book delves into the intricacies of these movements to examine the implications of religious change in the new millennium. The authors provide an incisive assessment of religious change in the West and Asia to suggest an eclecticism in re-enchantment that will usher in new ideas about charisma, consciousness and spirituality. These ideas focus on new forms of shamanism that point the way to experiences of empowerment beyond the structures of disenchantment.

This title was first published in 2003. Can a text be used either to validate or to invalidate contemporary understandings? Texts may be deemed 'sacred', but sacred to whom? Do conflicting understandings matter? Is it appropriate to try to offer a resolution? For Hindus and non-Hindus, in India and beyond, Valmiki is the poet-saint who composed the epic RA mA yaAa. Yet for a vocal community of dalits (once called 'untouchables'), within and outside India, Valmiki is God. How then does one explain the popular story that he started out as an ignorant and violent bandit, attacking and killing travellers for material gain? And what happens when these two accounts, Valmiki as God and Valmiki as villain, are held simultaneously by two different religious groups, both contemporary, and both vocal? This situation came to a head with controversial demonstrations by the Valmiki community in Britain in 2000, giving rise to some searching questions which Julia Leslie now seeks to address. Exploring the relationship between sacred text and religious meaning, Leslie presents a critical, text-historical study of the figure of Valmiki drawing on the sacred texts traditionally attributed to him: the VA lmAGBPki RA mA yaAa and the YogavA siA(1)A+/-ha RA mA yaAa, both in Sanskrit. While identifying and examining the various strands of popular stories concerning Valmiki, Leslie disentangles the earliest evidence for him from the narrative threads of passing centuries, and considers the implications of that process. This ground-breaking analysis, illustrated with paintings of Valmiki, makes a unique contribution both to our understanding of the interlocking beliefs of many religious communities and to a greater awareness of the problematic relationship between sacred text and contemporary religious meaning. Invaluable to students of both the study of religions and South Asian studies, this book will also be of interest to Indian communities in the diaspora seeking to understand their roots, including (but not exclusively) the Valmikis.

This title was first published in 2001. Exploring issues of diversity and cross-cultural interaction and understanding, Maya Identities and the Violence of Place offers new perspectives on borderlands and identities, providing an important case study of people from Latin America on the move. Examining issues of indigeneity, diaspora, flights from physical violence and economic repression, and efforts to remain indigenous among a proud but beleaguered people, this book is replete with stories of movement and change that operate as means to maintain identity. Thompson examines how the Jacalteco Maya of Latin America form their identities as indigenous people, despite a long tradition of movement across the rigid constraints of borders of geography, history, race and ethnicity. Religion, language, fiestas, and stories of leaving and return, all serve to bond people to their particularity. Examining the indigenous identity formations and religious convictions among the Maya in places where brutality has dominated the landscape and where violence is commonplace, this book avoids dwelling on centers of culture and explains instead how Maya concepts of identity arise from travel, contact with others, and change. Thompson reveals the ironies of classifying as natives', aboriginal or indigenous the many individuals and families who have become refugees, and explores how Maya have transcended the erroneous image of Guatemalan Indians ensconced within borders of particular land, and how they have overstepped popular portrayals of native peoples clinging tenaciously to their sacred soil as their sole means of surviving culturally and spiritually. Showing bleeding borders to be more than a recent occurrence, Thompson argues that there has never been a time when Maya did not have to travel in order to remain who they are. Exploring ideas of human to land connections and how religion among the indigenous makes change and movement possible, this book offers invaluable insight

'This is a deep and intense book, written with empathy for everything involved, and is of vital global, social significance.' - Revd Mary Seller, Church Times, June 2001

'(This) book is to be welcomed...It is a sustained and interesting account of religion and environment in South and Southeast Asia...' - Gavin Flood, Bulletin of the BASR, June 2001

This title was first published in 2002. Drawing on primary research on the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, a millenarian New Religious Movement of Indian origin, this book examines the status of tradition in the contemporary world through a critical engagement with the recent social theory of Anthony Giddens on the emergence of a post-traditional society. Wallis examines both the ways in which forms of tradition not only persist but also flourish in the contemporary world and also the manner in which such traditions are drawn on and (re)created by individuals in their ongoing construction of self-identity. Illuminating some of the difficulties encountered when social theory is applied to 'the real world', this book also offers a way of theorising about the status of contemporary religiosity that does not refer directly to the notion of secularisation.

This critique of western systematic theology borrows insights from India and other traditions; it is not a synthesis of religious traditions. The book examines the traditional topics of systematic theology - such as the existence and nature of God, revelation and reason, religious ethics and human practice, the relation of God to the world - and allows these topics to grow in conversation with India and to change according to dialogical insights.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Should psychology try to explain religion or try to understand it? Pioneers in psychology like Sigmund Freud and William James took opposing views on the matter and it has been hotly debated ever since. Interestingly though in the past psychology was used to attack religion recent findings in the area have been more sympathetic to religion. How should we understand their relationship today?
Michael Argyle's new book is an introduction to the psychology of religion from one of the world's most famous experimental psychologists. He ranges over the whole of psychology to look at the results of psychology's study of religion including those of his own important experiments. Full of fascinating and surprising insights into people and their religious worlds, his belief in both the empirical value of psychology and the spiritual value of religion are evident in this comprehensive and accessible survey of what psychologists know about religion - and what they don't.

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 book provides a translation, with introduction, commentary, and annotation, of the medieval Hindu Sanskrit text the Devi Gita (Song of the Goddess). It is an important but not well-known text from the rich Sakta (Goddess) tradition of India. The Devi Gita was composed about the fifteenth century C.E., in partial imitation of the famous Bhagavad Gita (Song of the Lord), composed some fifteen centuries earlier.

Around the sixth century C.E., following the rise of several male deities to prominence, a new theistic movement began in which the supreme being was envisioned as female, known as the Great Goddess (Maha-Devi). Appearing first as a violent and blood-loving deity, this Goddess gradually evolved into a more benign figure, a compassionate World-Mother and bestower of salvific wisdom. It is in this beneficent mode that the Goddess appears in the Devi Gita.

This work makes available an up-to-date translation of the Devi Gita, along with a historical and theological analysis of the text. The book is divided into sections of verses, and each section is followed by a comment explaining key terms, concepts, ritual procedures, and mythic themes. The comments also offer comparisons with related schools of thought, indicate parallel texts and textual sources of verses in the Devi Gita, and briefly elucidate the historical and religious background, supplementing the remarks of the introduction.

The passionate response of the British public to the Newbury Bypass is a revealing measure of how strongly people feel about trees and the environment. Similarly, in the United States, the giant sequoia of California is an enduring national symbol that inspires intense feelings. As rainforests are sacrificed to the interests of multi-national corporations and traditional ways of life disappear, the status of forests, the cultural significance of trees, and the impact of conservation policies are subjects that have inspired intense engagement. Why do people feel so strongly about trees? With this explosion of interest in environmental issues, a serious study of what trees mean to people has long been overdue. This interdisciplinary book responds to this need by providing the first cross-cultural analysis of tree symbolism. Drawing on rich case studies, contributors explore the processes through which trees are used as metaphors of identity and continuity. Political struggles over forest resources feature prominently, and the perceptions of trees in various cultures provide telling insights into the ways in which human societies conceptualize nature.As well as being a major contribution to the field of symbolic anthropology, this comprehensive study will be essential reading for students in a wide range of courses and for anyone with a keen interest in the politics of ecology, the occult and neo-paganism, and the history and sociology of environmentalism in its widest sense.

This title was first published in 2002: Perspectives on Civil Religion introduces the concept of civil religion, examines the use of the concept in recent scholarship and investigates examples of civil religion in the contemporary world. The book sets out to explore tensions and complexities in the relationship between the 'sacred' and the 'secular', and draws on two major case studies for in-depth illustration of key issues. It looks first at the development of rituals of remembrance from the American civil war, British and American responses to the two world wars and the controversial Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. It then considers civil religion in the Italian city of Siena, especially in relation to the Palio of Siena and Sienese devotion to the Virgin. 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

The starting point for this work is that myths are made and remade - on a variety of topics and in widely differing contexts - in a vast continuum stretching from the earliest periods of historical time to the present day. Each study in the collection focuses on one particular point in this continuum: "a stretch of narrative" in the Odyssey and the Mahabharata that suggests a common Proto-Indo-European origin (Allen); the tellings and re-tellings of the seduction of Ahalya by the god Indra in early Sanskrit texts (Soehnen-Thieme); the development of the Parasurama figure and his increasingly strange relationship to mythical time (Thomas). Other topics covered include: some of the mythologies surrounding menstruation and the way each fits the discourse that frames it (Leslie); Jiva Gosvamin's controversial rewriting of the myth of the Krsna and the gopis (Brzezinski); the evolving hagiographies of the untouchable saint Raidas (Friedlander); the ideal of the sannyasi in the progressive construction of an "alternative masculinity" in the nationalist discourse of 19th-century Bengal (Chowdhury-Sengupta). Finally the deliberate merging of the image of the European orientalist with the w

Investigating the hitherto unexplored topic of how young people understand and relate to religious diversity in the social context in which they are growing up, this book makes a significant contribution to the existing body of literature on religious diversity and multiculturalism. It closes a gap in knowledge about young people's attitudes to religious diversity, and reports data gathered across the whole of the UK as well as comparative chapters on Canada, USA and continental Europe. Reporting findings from both qualitative and quantitative research which reveal, for example, the importance of the particular social and geographical context within which young people are embedded, the volume addresses young people's attitudes towards the range of 'world religions' as well as non-religious stances and offers an interdisciplinary approach through the different analytical perspectives of the contributors.

Ganapati is the Hindu Lord of Beginnings, the Keeper of the Threshold, the Remover of Obstacles, Master of the Mind, Son of Siva, Elephant-headed, plump, and lovable. This book offers a wide range of information about Ganapati gathered from such diverse sources as hymns, poems, myths, shrines, practices, and theologies.

Bringing together articles and chapters from his considerable work in theological ethics, India, and the social order, Duncan Forrester incorporates new writing and introductions to each thematic section to guide readers through this invaluable resource. This book offers stimulating studies in three related areas - Indian Christianity with particular attention to the caste system, contemporary Christian theological ethics, and the distinctive and challenging theological approach that Duncan Forrester has developed in relation to public issues such as prisons and punishment, welfare provision, social justice, and poverty.

'Passing' is a common euphemism for the death of a person, as he or she is said to 'pass away' or 'pass on'. This open-ended saying has at its heart a notion of transformation from one state to another, which in turn grants the possibility of grasping or approximating the passage of time and the materiality of death and decay. This book begins with the idea that since all material things - whether animals, human beings, objects or buildings - undergo some form of passing, then the specific transformation in these passages and the materiality actively given to it can offer us a grasp of otherwise precarious temporalities. It examines how human beings strive to relate to the temporal dimension of death and decay, by giving new shape and direction to being and by examining its natural transformations. Focusing on the materiality of passing, and thereby the relationship between embodiment, temporality and death, Materialities of Passing offers rich case studies from Europe, Papua New Guinea, South Africa and the Russian Far East for exploring the material, spatial and directional aspects of the very interface between life and death. As such, it will appeal to scholars of anthropology, death studies, archaeology, philosophy and cultural studies.

Jung's interest in the East was deep-rooted and life-long, and the traditional teachings of China and India played an important role in his personal and intellectual development, as well as in the formations of the ideas and practices that are central to Jungian psychology.
Jung on the East brings together key selections from his work on Buddhism, yoga and Taoism, and on such classic texts as the I Ching and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It also includes accounts on his own journey to India.
The clear and perceptive introduction sets the context for Jung's encounter with the East, and provides an excellent framework that will enable the reader to get the most out of Jung's writings in this area. The book will be of interest to everyone seeking to further their understanding both of Jung, and of Eastern thought and spirituality.

The issue of divinizing in South Asian traditions has not been examined before as a process involving various methods to affect the socio-cultural cognition of the community. It is therefore essential to consider the context of "divinizing" and to analyse what groups, institutions or individuals define the discourse, what are the ideological positions that they represent, and who or what is being divinized. This book deals with the issue of divinizing in South Asian traditions. It aims at studying cultural questions related to the representations and the mythologizing of the divine. It also explores the human relations to the "divine other." It studies the interpretations of the divine in religious texts and the embodiment of the "divine other" in ritual practices. The focus is on studying the phenomenon of divinizing in its religious, cultural, and ideological implications. The book comprises eight chapters that explore the question of divinizing from the 2nd century CE up to present-day in North and South India. The chapters discuss the issue both from insider and outsider perspectives, within the framework of textual study as well as ideological and anthropological analysis. All articles explore various aspects of the cultural phenomenon of being in relation to the divine other, of the process of interpreting and embodying the divine, and of the representation of the divinizing process, as revealed in the literatures and cultures of South Asia. Applying theoretical models of religious and cultural studies to discuss texts written in South Asian languages and engage in critical dialogue with current scholarship, this book is an indispensable study of literary, religious and cultural production in South Asia. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of South Asian studies, Asian Studies, religious and cultural studies as well as comparative religion.

This title was first published in 2002. This book builds on contemporary discussion of 'mysticism' and religious experience by examining the process and content of 'religious knowing' in classical and modern Advaita. Drawing from the work of William Alston and Alvin Plantinga, Thomas Forsthoefel examines key streams of Advaita with special reference to the conditions, contexts, and scope of epistemic merit in religious experience. Forsthoefel uniquely employs specific analytical categories of contemporary Western epistemologies as heuristics to examine the cognitive dimension of religious experience in Indian Vedanta. Showing the developing nuances in the analysis of religious experience in the thought of Shankara and his immediate disciples (Suresvara and Padmapada) as well as in the teaching of Ramana Maharshi, an understudied but important South Indian saint of the 20th century, this book offers a substantial contribution to studies of Indian philosophy as well as to contemporary philosophy of religion. Using the tools of exegesis and comparative philosophy, Forsthoefel argues for a careful justification of claims following religious experience, even if such claims involve, as they do in the Advaita, a paradoxical 'knowing beyond knowledge'.

Many people who do not believe in God believe that 'everything is God' - that everything is part of an all-inclusive divine unity. In Pantheism, this concept is presented as a legitimate position and its philosophical basis is examined. Michael Levine compares it to theism, and discusses the scope for resolving the problems inherent in theism through pantheism. He also considers the implications of pantheism in terms of practice. This book will appeal to those who study philosophy or theology. It will also be of interest to anyone who does not believe in a personal God, but does have faith in a higher unifying force, and is interested in the justification of this as a legitimate system of thought.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203014774

Holy men, both pagan and Christian are persistent and puzzling figures in the religious life of the Roman Empire. In this first historical study of Holy Men for more than half a century, Dr Anderson applies techniques of literary analysis to throw light on the lifestyles and behaviour of these figures, from Jesus Christ to Peregrinus Proteus to dio Chrysostom, stressing their individuality as much as their common features.
Sage, Saint and Sophist examines the variety of services, real or imaginary, that these colouful figures had to offer and how they maintained their credibility to become the objects of successful religious cults.

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

New religious movements (NRMs) and other minority faiths have regularly been the focus of legal cases around the world in recent decades. This is the first book to focus on important aspects of the relationship of smaller faiths to the societies in which they function by using specific legal cases to examine social control efforts. The legal cases involve group leaders, a groups' practices or alleged abuses against members and children in the group, legal actions brought by former members or third parties, attacks against such groups by outsiders including even governments, and libel and slander actions brought by religious groups as they seek to defend themselves. These cases are sometimes milestones in the relation between state authorities and religious groups. Exploring cases in different parts of the world, and assessing the events causing such cases and their consequences, this book offers a practical insight for understanding the relations of NRMs and other minority religions and the law from the perspective of legal cases. Chapters focus on legal, political, and social implications. Including contributions from scholars, legal practitioners, actual or former members, and authorities involved in such cases from various jurisdictions, this book presents an objective approach to understanding why so many legal actions have involved NRMs and other minority faiths in recent years in western societies, and the consequences of those actions for the society and the religious group as well.

Draws on psychoanalytic criteria to demonstrate that the traditional shamans among the Inuit of North America are expert in the religious uses of alternative psychic states, and that the sleight-of-hand, ventriloquism, and other tricks that have led other researchers to label them pathological perso