Cutting across three areas of interest within New Religious Movements - insider perspectives, sociology of religion and the helping professions - this book explores insiders' experience of the Indian Guru-disciple Yogic tradition and is authored by a former member of that tradition. Highlighting the rich spiritual experience of devotees of Guru-disciple Yoga, and broadening the understanding of Guru-disciple Yoga Practice, this book also adds considerably to knowledge of conversion to New Religious Movements and to issues of affiliation and disengagement. Exploring participants' experience of attraction, affiliation and disengagement, these themes highlight individuals' personal experience of Guru-disciple Yoga Practice.

This Element provides a comprehensive overview of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) Movement and its offshoots. Several early assessments of the as a cult and/or new religious movement are helpful, but are brief and somewhat dated. This Element examines the TM movement's history, beginning in India in 1955, and ends with an analysis of the splinter groups that have come along in the past twenty-five years. Close consideration is given to the movement's appeal for the youth culture of the 1960s, which accounted for its initial success. The Element also looks at the marketing of the meditation technique as a scientifically endorsed practice in the 1970s, and the movement's dramatic turn inward during the 1980s. It concludes by discussing the waning of its popular appeal in the new millennium. This Element describes the social and cultural forces that helped shape the TM movement's trajectory over the decades leading to the present and shows how the most popular meditation movement in America distilled into an obscure form of Neo-Hinduism.

People have been interested in secret traditions since the beginning of time. Fraternal brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and secret orders of varying degrees exist in every country, race, and religion. Dion Fortune, in Esoteric Orders and Their Work, gets to the root of exactly what esoteric orders are, leaving no stone unturned. "Esotericism, Occultism, and Mysticism" defines what esotericism is in relation to exoteriscism; in layman's terms, the inner life versus the outer one. In "The Origin of the Mysteries", she looks at how esotericism grew hand-in-hand with the evolution of humankind, discussing how humans evolved from a group soul (still present in animals today, i.e.: packs of wolves) into a singular soul. "The Paths of the Western Tradition" is a discussion on the different schools that have developed (known as Rays) and how students, after having formed a solid base of knowledge, work through each ray on their way to becoming closer to an esoteric ideal. She expounds upon Masters in "The Evolution and Functions of the Masters". We discover that they are not so much superhuman entities as beings who have learned all they need to know on the physical plane and now teach from the ethereal. Chapters such as "The Right and Left-Hand Paths" and "The Use and Power of Ritual" explain the differences between Black and White Occultism, and how long-kept-secret rituals taught only to initiates are used to further the order's members along their paths.

Today, in the centers of the civilized world, there is renewed interest in esoteric schools, and although they may be misunderstood by the mainstream, some of the noblest people have been among their advocates. This book removes the shroudof mystery and fear from esotericism, and makes the Western Mystery Tradition accessible to anyone who has ever been curious about this fascinating spiritual path! Revised edition contains a new foreword by Gareth Knight, and an index.

This book seeks to explore historical changes in the lifeworld of the Mi'kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada. The Mi'kmaq culture hero Kluskap serves as a key persona in discussing issues such as traditions, changing conceptions of land, and human-environmental relations. In order not to depict Mi'kmaq culture as timeless, two important periods in its history are examined. Within the first period, between 1850 and 1930, Hornborg explores historical evidence of the ontology, epistemology, and ethics - jointly labelled animism - that stem from a premodern Mi'kmaq hunting subsistence. New ways of discussing animism and shamanism are here richly exemplified. The second study situates the culture hero in the modern world of the 1990s, when allusions to Mi'kmaq tradition and to Kluskap played an important role in the struggle against a planned superquarry on Cape Breton. This study discusses the eco-cosmology that has been formulated by modern reserve inhabitants which could be labelled a 'sacred ecology'. Focusing on how the Mi'kmaq are rebuilding their traditions and environmental relations in interaction with modern society, Hornborg illustrates how environmental groups, pan-Indianism, and education play an important role, but so does reserve life. By anchoring their engagement in reserve life the Mi'kmaq traditionalists have, to a large extent, been able to confront both external and internal doubts about their authenticity.

New Era - New Religions examines new forms of religion in Brazil. The largest and most vibrant country in Latin America, Brazil is home to some of the world's fastest growing religious movements and has enthusiastically greeted home-grown new religions and imported spiritual movements and new age organizations. In Brazil and beyond, these novel religious phenomena are reshaping contemporary understandings of religion and what it means to be religious. To better understand the changing face of twenty-first-century religion, New Era - New Religions situates the rise of new era religiosity within the broader context of late-modern society and its ongoing transformation.

Isis has a history spanning millennia and an influence stretching across land and sea. She is a Goddess who transcends time and geography, remaining one of the most popular Goddesses from the ancient world to this day. The book explores Isis' mythic journey and how she became the Goddess we recognise today. Striking a balance between the old and the new, Pagan Portals - Isis provides an historical account of her mythology and worship alongside modern Pagan perspectives and offers the reader tools for Isis' contemporary veneration.

The religion of the many native peoples in Siberia and the Russian Arctic is often a sort of natural religion, or shamanism, which involves a natural, harmonious and evolving approach to the natural world and to social relations, and, as such, is akin to the sort of religion and approach to life sought after by many adherents of new religions, and of new movements within established religions, in the west. However, as the demand for national recognition grows among such peoples, and with it the need for more formal state structures, built around the nation, religion too begins to become formalized, and to lose its natural, all-pervasive character.
This book explores the religion and world outlook of the Telengits of the Republic of Altai in Southern Siberia. It provides an account of the Altai, its peoples, clans and political structures, focusing particularly on the Telengits; and considers the different elements of religious belief exhibited among these native peoples. It goes on to investigate the sacred places of the Telengits, their religious customs, beliefs and rituals. It addresses important theoretical questions raised by the interaction of different kinds of knowledge, especially in the context of state intervention in the area of religion, and with a particular focus on the interaction between non-institutionalized and institutionalized religious practices and knowledge. It demonstrates how the idea of national unity as expressed in state ideology influences processes of reshaping spiritual knowledge among the Telengits. Overall, this book is a comprehensive anthropological account of the contemporary religious life of the Telengits, and has important implications forwider debates in sociology and politics.

This volume brings together all the evidence bearing upon the procreative beliefs of the Australian Aborigines and subjects it to a scientific examination in the light of biological, social and psychological research. First published in 1937. This edition reprints the revised edition of 1974.

Contents:
Preface and acknowledgements Introduction: Religion in an age of environmental crisis Introduction to the second edition: Good news/bad news Part I: The moment of seeing: Selections from nature writers linking nature and spirit Part II: How have traditional religions viewed nature? Part III: Ecotheology in an age of environmental crisis: Transforming tradition Part IV: Ecotheology in an age of environmental crisis: Ecofeminist spirituality Part V: Ecotheology in an age of environmental crisis: Spiritual deep ecology Part VI: Religious practice for a sacred earth Part VII: Ecology, religion and society Suggestions for further reading Websites on religion and the environment Environmental organisations About the contributors

The thoughts and actions of people past and present have determined the current state of our planet. If we change our thinking, we can change the health of our own lives and also the future state of our world. 7 Ways to Think Differently explores ways to address personal, social, and environmental concerns in simple practical steps in our daily lives, helping us to make incremental, achievable changes.

As well as addressing our internal landscapes, Looby explains how individuals and communities can work together to achieve positive change. She also explores the current political and mainstream paradigms and where they are leading us.

Learn about: Abundance thinking Solutions thinking Systems thinking Thinking like nature Cooperative thinking Thinking for the future From thought to action

These ways to think differently are influential alternatives to the current mindset and can shift us to a better present, as well as set us on a trajectory toward a better future. This is for anyone who wants to make a difference in the world. Looby offers potent medicine for a world full of challenges."

The first true social history of the phenomenon known as New Age culture, Children of the New Age presents an overview of the diverse varieties of New Age belief and practice from the 1930s to the present day. Drawing on original ethnographic research and rarely seen archival material, it calls into question the assumption that the New Age is a discrete and unified 'movement', and reveals the unities and fractures evident in contemporary New Age practice.

The first true social history of the phenomenon known as New Age culture, Children of the New Age presents an overview of the diverse varieties of New Age belief and practice from the 1930s to the present day. Drawing on original ethnographic research and rarely seen archival material, it calls into question the assumption that the New Age is a discrete and unified 'movement', and reveals the unities and fractures evident in contemporary New Age practice.

With over one thousand entries covering a diverse range of sources including books, articles, unpublished dissertations, taped lectures, devices and software, this is the most comprehensive annotated bibliography of English works on the I Ching. It will be indispensable for all scholars of the I Ching and an invaluable resource for those interested in this classic Chinese book.

Pagan Portals - The Inner-City Path: A Simple Pagan Guide to Well-Being and Awareness was inspired by Chet Raymo's book of similar title that chronicled his own daily urban walk to work and his observing the seasonal changes with a scientist's curiosity. The Inner-City Path is written from a pagan perspective, for those times when we take to our local urban paths as part of our daily fitness regime or dog walk. It is based on several urban walks that have merged together over the years to make up a book of the seasons and offers a glimpse into the pagan mind-set that can find mystery under every leaf and rock along the way. A simple guide to achieving a sense of well-being and awareness.

Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esoteric Traditions is a concise overview, from antiquity to the present, of all the major Western religious esoteric movements. Topics covered include alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy and many more. Magic and Mysticism is ideal for students of Mysticism and New Religious Movements, as well as for general readers of Metaphysics and Esoterica.

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

Since the 1960s anthropologists have studied initiation rites. These rites can last for as long as a year and involve circumcision, subincision, tooth-avulsion, blood-letting and cicatrization; on the other hand, they may be short and painless. The contributors to this volume draw together ethnographies of female initiation rites in eight communities in Melanesia. The contributors argue that female initiation rites express more than cultural notions of femininity, narrow definitions of reproduction, or coming of age rituals - instead they play an important role in other life cycle rituals and in the political and economic organization of society.

This is intended as an introductory guide, with source materials, to the religious traditions as found in Japan today together with their historical background. Each chapter deals with a specific topic such as Shinto, Buddhism, Christianity and the new religions. There is an introduction to the subject to be considered, followed by a series of readings. The introductions contextualize the readings and explain the themes they contain. In the chapter on new religions - the most actively growing phenomenon over the past century involving many hundreds of new religions which have been established - the authors provide insight into their teachings and activities, aspecially Soka Gakkai, Itto-en, Tenrikyo, Rissho Koseikai and Seicho no le.

Japanese new religions in the West are extremely active and growing. The best known include Soka Gakkai, Seichino-Ie, Mahikari, MOA Foundation and IRH. Japanese religions have distinctive characteristics: most are syncretic, all claim to heal, all believe that followers will receive benefits in this life, all claim miracles, and most claim that Japan is the promised land.

Since the spectacular discovery of Nineveh 150 years ago, countless excavators have been searching for the lost civilizations of the ancient Near East. We now know the names of thousands of gods and goddesses, the words of hymns and litanies, the daily procedures of the Babylonian cult, as well as a growing number of mythological tales. A substantial number of the texts discussed in this volume originate from the archives of such ancient cities as Ninevah, Ur, Babylon and Hattusa. Through a collection of accessible entries, which provide sufficient detail and cross-referencing to be beneficial to the specialist reader, Gwendolyn Leick has produced a guide to the complex and little-known world of ancient mythology.

Popular Hopi kachina dolls and awesome totem poles are but two of the aspects of the sophisticated, seldom-examined network of mythologies explored in this fascinating volume. To some in the Lakota tribe, the 1994 birth of a rare white buffalo calf in Wisconsin was more than a biological anomaly-it was the long-prophesied return of their most revered deity, White Buffalo Woman, a harbinger of peace and good times. To others it was powerful proof of the hold myths can have on the people whose lives are molded around them. from the United States to the Arctic Circle-a rich, complex, and diverse body of lore, which remains less widely known than mythologies of other peoples and places. In thematic chapters and encyclopedia-style entries, Handbook of Native American Mythology examines the characters and deities, rituals, sacred locations and objects, concepts, and stories that define and distinguish mythological cultures of various indigenous peoples. By tracing the traditions as far back as possible and following their evolution from generation to generation, Handbook of Native American Mythology offers a unique perspective on Native American history, culture, and values. It also shows how central these traditions are to contemporary Native American life, including the continuing struggle for land rights, economic parity, and repatriation of cultural property.

His legend and his power have grown throughout two generations, in five astonishing volumes. In this landmark work, the legendary don Juan concludes the instruction of Castaneda with his most powerful and mysterious lessons in the sorcerer's art. It is a dazzling series of visions that are at once an initiation and a deeply moving farewell.

Rodnoverie was one of the first new religious movements to emerge following the collapse of the Soviet Union, its development providing an important lens through which to view changes in post-Soviet religious and political life. Rodnovers view social and political issues as inseparably linked to their religiosity but do not reflect the liberal values dominant among Western Pagans. Indeed, among the conservative and nationalist movements often associated with Rodnoverie in Russia, traditional anti-Western and anti-Semitic rhetoric has recently been overshadowed by anti-Islam and anti-migrant tendencies. Providing a fascinating overview of the history, organisations, adherents, beliefs and practices of Rodnoverie this book presents several different narratives; as a revival of the native Russian or Slavic religion, as a nature religion and as an alternative to modern values and lifestyles. Drawing upon primary sources, documents and books this analysis is supplemented with extensive fieldwork carried out among Rodnoverie communities in Russia and will be of interest to scholars of post-Soviet society, new religious movements and contemporary Paganism in general.

Popol Vuh, the Quiché Mayan book of creation, is not only the most important text in the native languages of the Americas, it is also an extraordinary document of the human imagination. It begins with the deeds of Mayan gods in the darkness of a primeval sea and ends with the radiant splendor of the Mayan lords who founded the Quiché kingdom in the Guatemalan highlands. Originally written in Mayan hieroglyphs, it was transcribed into the Roman alphabet in the sixteenth century.

This new edition of Dennis Tedlock's unabridged, widely praised translation includes new notes and commentary, newly translated passages, newly deciphered hieroglyphs, and over forty new illustrations.