Anthropology's long and complex relationship to magic has been strongly influenced by western science and notions of rationality. This book takes a refreshing new look at modern magic as practised by contemporary Pagans in Britain. It focuses on what Pagans see as the essence of magic - a communication with an otherworldly reality. Examining issues of identity, gender and morality, the author argues that the otherworld forms a central defining characteristic of magical practice.
Integrating an experiential ethnographic approach with an analysis of magic, this book asks penetrating questions about the nature of otherworldly knowledge and argues that our scientific frameworks need re-envisioning. It is unique in providing an insider's view of how magic is practised in contemporary western culture.

Anthropology's long and complex relationship to magic has been strongly influenced by western science and notions of rationality. This book takes a refreshing new look at modern magic as practised by contemporary Pagans in Britain. It focuses on what Pagans see as the essence of magic - a communication with an otherworldly reality. Examining issues of identity, gender and morality, the author argues that the otherworld forms a central defining characteristic of magical practice.
Integrating an experiential ethnographic approach with an analysis of magic, this book asks penetrating questions about the nature of otherworldly knowledge and argues that our scientific frameworks need re-envisioning. It is unique in providing an insider's view of how magic is practised in contemporary western culture.

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.

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.

Interreligious Philosophical Dialogues, volume 3, provides a unique approach to the philosophy of religion, embracing a range of religious faiths and spiritualities. This volume brings together four leading scholars and philosophers of religion, who engage in friendly but rigorous cross-cultural philosophical dialogue. Each participant in the dialogue, as a member of a particular faith tradition, is invited to explore and explain their core religious commitments, and how these commitments figure in their lived experience and in their relations to other religions and communities. The religious traditions represented in this volume are: Confucianism Theravada Buddhism Native American spirituality Radical-secular Christianity. This set of volumes uncovers the rich and diverse cognitive and experiential dimensions of religious belief and practice, pushing the field of philosophy of religion in bold new directions.

Discover A Life-Changing Detoxification and Rejuvenation TherapyThis book has all the science and all the soul you'll need to restore a sustainable sense of self-care in your life." -Joan Borysenko, PhD, NY Times bestselling author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind Psychiatrist Judith E. Pentz, MD, travels to Nagpur, India, to study 5000-year-old Ayurvedic Panchakarma detoxification and rejuvenation therapy in a quest to provide enhanced holistic wellness treatment for her patients. A change at the cellular level. Part travel memoir and part spiritual guide, Cleanse Your Body and Reveal Your Soul is one woman's transformative quest with Ayurvedic Panchakarma (a fivefold detoxification treatment involving massage, herbal therapy, and other procedures) and the profound shifts that led to some sustainable, substantial life changes. Dissatisfied with a mainstream psychiatric practice, Dr. Pentz heads to India, where she undergoes an ancient, rejuvenating cleanse. The tools and practices of Panchakarma. Dr. Pentz's narrative offers a compassionate and compelling path for Western audiences and the Ayurveda-curious. Complete with healing oils, Ayurvedic daily rituals, and yoga poses, she supplements her journey with tips about preventive lifestyle changes that promote sustainable well-being. Inside, find definitions, quizzes and wisdom, as well as chapters like: Cellular Shift: the science behind Panchakarma and cellular change Food As Medicine: tips about one of the central tenets of Ayurveda, food is healing, and maintaining an Ayurvedic diet The Dish on Doshas: facts that illuminate concepts around the three doshas-vata, pitta, kapha-your constitutional and functional intelligence If you have benefited from books like Ayurveda Beginner's Guide, The Ayurvedic Self-Care Handbook, Body Thrive, or Ayurveda and Panchakarma, then Cleanse Your Body and Reveal Your Soul should be your next read.

In this important new book, Paul T. Phillips argues that most professional historians - aside from a relatively small number devoted to theory and methodology - have concerned themselves with particular, specialized areas of research, thereby ignoring the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning. This is less so in the thriving general community of history enthusiasts beyond academia, and may explain, in part at least, history's sharp decline as a subject of choice by students in recent years. Phillips sees great dangers resulting from the thinking of extreme relativists and postmodernists on the futility of attaining historical truth, especially in the age of "post-truth." He also believes that moral judgment and the search for meaning in history should be considered part of the discipline's mandate. In each section of this study, Phillips outlines the nature of individual issues and past efforts to address them, including approaches derived from other disciplines. This book is a call to action for all those engaged in the study of history to direct more attention to the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning.

This is a facsimile of the 1817 fourth edition of Hannah Adams's pioneering harbinger of the scholarly study of religion. The book surveys the diversity of religion, mostly of historical and contemporary Christian sects and movements but with significant inclusions of Jewish, Muslim, and "heathen" religious groups. Adams's particular contribution was the self-conscious effort to treat all religious groups on the same level and to avoid explicit or implicit judgments. She preferred to use self-descriptions where she had them. It is this non-normative approach that gives the book its historical value. Thomas Tweed's introduction discusses Adams's life and sets her and her book usefully in their context. He includes a helpful guide to the key entries.

Now available in paperback, the Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia provides a contemporary and comprehensive overview of religion in contemporary Asia. Compiled and introduced by Bryan S. Turner and Oscar Salemink, the Handbook contains specially written chapters by experts in their respective fields. The wide-ranging introduction discusses issues surrounding Orientalism and the historical development of the discipline of Religious Studies. It conveys how there have been many centuries of interaction between different religious traditions in Asia and discusses the problem of world religions and the range of concepts, such as high and low traditions, folk and formal religions, popular and orthodox developments. Individual chapters are presented in the following five sections: Asian origins: religious formations; Missions, states and religious competition; Reform movements and modernity; Popular religions; Religion and globalization: social dimensions. Striking a balance between offering basic information about religious cultures in Asia and addressing the complexity of employing a Western terminology in societies with radically different traditions, this advanced- level reference work will be essential reading for students, researchers and scholars of Asian Religions, Sociology, Anthropology, Asian Studies and Religious Studies.

Ezra Taft Benson is perhaps the most controversial apostle-president in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For nearly fifty years he delivered impassioned sermons in Utah and elsewhere, mixing religion with ultraconservative right-wing political views and conspiracy theories. His teachings inspired Mormon extremists to stockpile weapons, predict the end of the world, and commit acts of violence against their government. The First Presidency rebuked him, his fellow apostles wanted him disciplined, and grassroots Mormons called for his removal from the Quorum of the Twelve. Yet Benson was beloved by millions of Latter-day Saints, who praised him for his stances against communism, socialism, and the welfare state, and admired his service as secretary of agriculture under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Using previously restricted documents from archives across the United States, Matthew L. Harris breaks new ground as the first to evaluate why Benson embraced a radical form of conservatism, and how under his leadership Mormons became the most reliable supporters of the Republican Party of any religious group in America.

The Pentecostal World provides a comprehensive and critical introduction to one of the most vibrant and diverse expressions of contemporary Christianity. Unlike many books on Pentecostalism, this collection of essays from all continents does not attempt to synthesize and simplify the movement's inherent diversity and fragmented dispersion. Instead, the global flows of Pentecostalism are firmly grounded in local histories and expressions as well as the various modes of their worldwide reproduction. The book thus argues for a new understanding of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements that accounts for the simultaneous processes of pluralization and homogenization in contemporary World Christianity. Written by a distinguished team of international contributors across various disciplines, the volume is comprised of six sections, with each offering a critical perspective on classical themes in the study of Pentecostalism. Led by a programmatic introduction, the thirty-six chapters within these sections explore a variety of themes: history and historiography, conversion, spirit beliefs and exorcism, prosperity, politics, gender relations, sexual identities, racism, development, migration, pilgrimage, inter-religious relations, media, ecumenism, and academic research. The Pentecostal World is essential reading for students and researchers in anthropology, history, political science, religious studies, sociology, and theology. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as culture studies, Black studies, ethnic studies, and gender studies.

Each year, thousands of pilgrims visit the celebrated New Orleans tomb where Marie Laveau is said to lie. They seek her favors or fear her lingering influence. "Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau" is the first study of the Laveaus, mother and daughter of the same name. Both were legendary leaders of religious and spiritual traditions many still label as evil.

The Laveaus were free women of color and prominent French-speaking Catholic Creoles. From the 1820s until the 1880s when one died and the other disappeared, gossip, fear, and fierce affection swirled about them. From the heart of the French Quarter, in dance, drumming, song, and spirit possession, they ruled the imagination of New Orleans.

How did the two Maries apply their "magical" powers and uncommon business sense to shift the course of love, luck, and the law? The women understood the real crime--they had pitted their spiritual forces against the slave system of the United States. Moses-like, they led their people out of bondage and offered protection and freedom to the community of color, rich white women, enslaved families, and men condemned to hang.

The curse of the Laveau family, however, followed them. Both loved men they could never marry. Both faced down the press and police who stalked them. Both countered the relentless gossip of curses, evil spirits, murders, and infant sacrifice with acts of benevolence.

The book is also a detective story--who is really buried in the famous tomb in the oldest "city of the dead" in New Orleans? What scandals did the Laveau family intend to keep buried there forever? By what sleight of hand did free people of color lose their cultural identity when Americans purchased Louisiana and imposed racial apartheid upon Creole creativity? "Voodoo Queen" brings the improbable testimonies of saints, spirits, and never-before printed eyewitness accounts of ceremonies and magical crafts together to illuminate the lives of the two Marie Laveaus, leaders of a major, indigenous American religion.

Religion and Culture in Native America will provide a comprehensive introduction to the variety of Native cultures and religious practices in North America, while concentrating on those issues in which tribal communities themselves are currently invested. The book will emphasize current research in the area of Native American studies and Native American religious studies. This textbook locates contemporary challenges facing Native communities within their historical, religious, and cultural contexts. As such, it reflects current methods of scholarship and the kinds of questions, concerns, and issues that dominate conversations within scholarly and tribal circles today. Written in an engaging, conversational and narrative style, the intended audience would be upper level high school students, undergraduate university students, and the interested general reader.

From the shelves of mainstream bookstores and the pages of teen magazines, to popular films and television series, contemporary culture at the turn of the twenty-first century has been fascinated with teenage identity and the presence of magic and the occult. Alongside this profusion of products and representations, a global network of teenage Witches has emerged on the margins of adult neopagan Witchcraft communities, identifying themselves through various spiritual practices, consumption patterns and lifestyle choices. The New Generation Witches is the first published anthology to investigate the recent rise of the teenage Witchcraft phenomenon in both Britain and North America. Scholars from Theology, Cultural Studies, Sociology, History and Media Studies, along with neopagan commentators outside of the academy, come together to investigate the experiences of thousands of adolescents constructing an enabling, magical identity through a distinctive practice of Witchcraft. The contributors discuss key areas of interest, inspiration and development within the teen Witch communities from the mid 1990s onward, including teenage Witches' magical practices and beliefs, gender politics, the formation and identification of communities, forums and modes of expression, media representation and new media outlets. Demonstrating the diversification and expansion of neopaganism in the twenty-first century, this anthology makes an exciting contribution to the field of Neopagan Studies and contemporary youth cultures.

A History of the World's Religions bridges the interval between the founding of religions and their present state, and gives students an accurate look at the religions of the world by including descriptive and interpretive details from original source materials. Refined by over forty years of dialogue and correspondence with religious experts and practitioners around the world, A History of the World's Religions is widely regarded as the hallmark of scholarship, fairness, and accuracy in its field. It is also the most thorough yet manageable history of world religion available in a single volume. A History of the World's Religions examines the following topics: Some Primal and Bygone Religions The Religions of South Asia The Religions of East Asia The Religions of the Middle East This fourteenth edition is fully updated throughout with new images and inset text boxes to help guide students and instructors. Complete with figures, timelines and maps, this is an ideal resource for anyone wanting an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the world's religions.

A best-selling history of the Third Crusade, when the Catholic Church waged war against heretics in its own ranks In 1208 Pope Innocent III called for a Crusade against a country of fellow-Christians. The new enemy was Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, one of the greatest princes in Western Christendom, premier baron of all the territories in southern France where the langue d'oc was spoken. So began the Albigensian Crusade (named after the French town of Albi), which was to culminate in 1244 with the massacre of Cathars at the mountain fortress of Montsegur. This Crusade was the Catholic Church's response to the rapid growth of a rival Christian religion in the very heart of Christendom - the religion of the Cathars (or 'pure ones'). These heretics drew their strength from the consciousness of belonging to a faith that had never seen eye to eye with Catholicism and was more ancient than the Church itself. From the beginning this religious war was to show all the characteristics of a national resistance movement, so that in the end it was not just the survival of the Cathar faith that was at stake but also that of the Languedoc itself as an autonomous and independent region of France.

There are many different ways in which minority religions and counselling may interact. In some cases there can be antagonism between counselling services and minority religions, with each suspecting they are ideologically threatened by the other, but it can be argued that the most common relationship is one of ignorance - mental health professionals do not pay much attention to religion and often do not ask or consider their client's religious affiliation. To date, the understanding of this relationship has focused on the 'anti-cult movement' and the perceived need for members of minority religions to undergo some form of 'exit counselling'. In line with the series, this volume takes a non-judgemental approach and instead highlights the variety of issues, religious groups and counselling approaches that are relevant at the interface between minority religion and counselling. The volume is divided into four parts: Part I offers perspectives on counselling from different professions; Part II offers chapters from the field leaders directly involved in counselling former members of minority religions; Part III offers unique personal accounts by members and former members of a number of different new religions; while Part IV offers chapters on some of the most pertinent current issues in the counselling/minority religions fields, written by new and established academics. In every section, the volume seeks to explore different permutations of the counsellor-client relationship when religious identities are taken into account. This includes not only 'secular' therapists counselling former members of religion, but the complexities of the former member turned counsellor, as well as counselling practised both within religious movements and by religious movements that offer counselling services to the 'outside' world.

Animism refers to ontologies or worldviews which assign agency and personhood to human and non-human beings alike. Recent years have seen a revival of this concept in anthropology, where it is now discussed as an alternative to modern-Western naturalistic notions of human-environment relations. Based on original fieldwork, this book presents a number of case studies of animism from insular and peninsular Southeast Asia and offers a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon - its diversity and underlying commonalities and its resilience in the face of powerful forces of change. Critically engaging with the current standard notion of animism, based on hunter-gatherer and horticulturalist societies in other regions, it examines the roles of life forces, souls and spirits in local cosmologies and indigenous religion. It proposes an expansion of the concept to societies featuring mixed farming, sacrifice and hierarchy and explores the question of how non-human agents are created through acts of attention and communication, touching upon the relationship between animist ontologies, world religion, and the state. Shedding new light on Southeast Asian religious ethnographic research, the book is a significant contribution to anthropological theory and the revitalization of the concept of animism in the humanities and social sciences.

Die Arbeit verfolgt den Gnostizismus in der Philosophie und Asthetik der Moderne. Im Mittelpunkt stehen Ludwig Klages, der junge Bloch, Heidegger und Adorno, deren Werke strukturelle Verwandschaften mit gnostischem Denken erkennen lassen.

First published in 1989, this book considers Bertrand Russell's philosophy through his correspondence with others. Indeed, his exchanges with his elders in philosophy, with his contemporaries, and with one of his most outstanding pupils are brought to life in this judicious exposition: meticulously documented before being judged with insight and sympathy, as well as impartiality. Elizabeth Ramsden Eames here explores the issues that emerged from Russell's exchanges with certain other philosophers, and interprets the resulting reciprocal influences and reactions. The conversations presented cover subjects such as: the nature of relations; pluralism versus monism; the relation of the subject and object in knowledge; the analysis of experience; the definition of truth; the analysis of belief; and the theory of meaning. These have been in the forefront of philosophical discussion in our time, and Russell's dialogue with his contemporaries promises to illumine them.

Dialogue between characters is an important feature of South Asian religious literature: entire narratives are often presented as a dialogue between two or more individuals, or the narrative or discourse is presented as a series of embedded conversations from different times and places. Including some of the most established scholars of South Asian religious texts, this book examines the use of dialogue in early South Asian texts with an interdisciplinary approach that crosses traditional boundaries between religious traditions. The contributors shed new light on the cultural ideas and practices within religious traditions, as well as presenting an understanding of a range of dynamics - from hostile and competitive to engaged and collaborative. This book is the first to explore the literary dimensions of dialogue in South Asian religious sources, helping to reframe the study of other literary traditions around the world.

Asian and Pacific Islander Americans constitute the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are also one of the most religiously diverse. Through them Asian traditions such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Confucianism, and Buddhism have been introduced into every major American city and across a wide swath of Middle America. The contributors to this volume provide an essential inter-disciplinary resource for the study of Asian and Pacific Islander American religion.

This is the first monograph on the subject to be published in English. It comprises 130 full-colour plates of shaman gods. Supported by two introductory chapters 'Reflections on Shaman God Paintings and Shamanism' by Kim Tae-gon, and 'The Shaman God Paintings as an Icon and Its Artistic Qualities' by Bak Yong-suk, both distinguished authorities in the study of Korean Shamanism, The Paintings of Korean Shaman Gods offers a very accessible introduction to understanding Korean shamanism and its art. The Paintings of Korean Shaman Gods broad appeal will be welcomed by both specialists and generalists in the fields of Asian Studies, Art History and Cultural and Religious Studies.