One of the most significant social changes in the 20th-century was the wedge driven between the males and females of Craft as a result of social media and political feminism. From a purely magical point of view the battle of the sexes has been one of the most negative crusades in the history of mankind since everything in the entire Universe is made up from a balance or harmony of opposite energies. Men and women are different as night and day but still part of the same homo sapiens coin, regardless of their individual sexuality.

The Circle of Life is more than the food web. It's a self-organizing system of global life-cooperation and energy dissipation. Its balance and stability have been taken for granted for millennia. But in the age of the climate crisis, the Circle is breaking down. From the 1960s onward, philosophers, artists and spiritual teachers promoted the idea of the 'Green Self' to help us understand how the Circle works, and how we harm ourselves when we damage it. But in all that time, the climate crisis only got worse. The Greening of the Self didn't happen. Using the science of ecology and a deep dive into human nature, this book explores what the Circle of Life really is, and what becomes of us when we face it in different ways. The exploration reveals a deeper eco-spiritual perspective, in which the Immensity of the Earth, and the breakdown of the Circle, are calls to action: to heal the Circle, and to create a better world.

Working with the Greek goddess, Demeter, can help us to better understand what it means to reconnect with our own divinity, birth the potential that exists within us, and nurture ourselves and others. Pagan Portals - Demeter begins with a foundational look at the ancient Greek myths and many aspects of the Goddess. This is followed by an exploration of the rites sacred to Demeter and the impact that these rites had on women in ancient Greek society. Building on these foundational elements, the book explores the various themes and lessons inherent in Demeter's myth. These include accessing the divine within, healing the mother wound, manifestation/fertility magic, the mother archetype as a powerful advocate for justice, and conducting shadow work to release that which no longer serves us so that we can experience the rebirth of our own divine sovereignty.

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.

Bridges between Worlds explores Icelandic spirit work, known as andleg mal, which features trance and healing practices that span earth and spirit realms, historical eras, scientific and supernatural worldviews, and cross-Atlantic cultures. Based on years of fieldwork conducted in the northern Icelandic town of Akureyri, Corinne G. Dempsey excavates andleg mal's roots within Icelandic history, and examines how this practice steeped in ancient folklore functions in the modern world. Weaving personal stories and anecdotes with engaging accounts of Icelandic religious and cultural traditions, Dempsey humanizes spirit practices that are so often demonized or romanticized. While recent years have seen an unprecedented boom in tourist travel to Iceland, Dempsey sheds light on a profoundly important, but thus far poorly understood element of the country's culture. Her aim is not to explain away andleg mal but to build bridges of comprehensibility through empathy for the participants who are, after all, not so different from the reader.

As religion has retreated from its position and role of being the glue that holds society together, something must take its place. Utilising a focused and detailed study of Straight Edge punk (a subset of punk in which adherents abstain from drugs, alcohol and casual sex) Punk Rock is My Religion argues that traditional modes of religious behaviours and affiliations are being rejected in favour of key ideals located within a variety of spaces and experiences, including popular culture. Engaging with questions of identity construction through concepts such as authenticity, community, symbolism and music, this book furthers the debate on what we mean by the concepts of 'religion' and 'secular'. Provocatively exploring the notion of salvation, redemption, forgiveness and faith through a Straight Edge lens, it suggests that while the study of religion as an abstraction is doomed to a simplistic repetition of dominant paradigms, being willing to examine religion as a lived experience reveals the utility of a broader and more nuanced approach.

This is the first survey of religious beliefs in the British Isles from the Old Stone Age to the coming of Christianity, one of the least familiar periods in Britaina s history. Ronald Hutton draws upon a wealth of new data, much of it archaeological, that has transformed interpretation over the past decade. Giving more or less equal weight to all periods, from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages, he examines a fascinating range of evidence for Celtic and Romano--British paganism, from burial sites, cairns, megaliths and causeways, to carvings, figurines, jewellery, weapons, votive objects, literary texts and folklore.

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.

In 2011, Trinidad declared a state of emergency. This massive state intervention lasted for 108 days and led to the rounding up of over 7,000 people in areas the state deemed "crime hot spots." The government justified this action and subsequent police violence on the grounds that these measures were restoring "the rule of law." In this milieu of expanded policing powers, protests occasioned by police violence against lower-class black people have often garnered little sympathy. But in an improbable turn of events, six officers involved in the shooting of three young people were charged with murder at the height of the state of emergency. To explain this, the host of Crime Watch, the nation's most popular television show, alleged that there must be a special power at work: obeah. From eighteenth-century slave rebellions to contemporary responses to police brutality, Caribbean methods of problem-solving "spiritual work" have been criminalized under the label of "obeah." Connected to a justice-making force, obeah remains a crime in many parts of the anglophone Caribbean. In Experiments with Power, J. Brent Crosson addresses the complex question of what obeah is. Redescribing obeah as "science" and "experiments," Caribbean spiritual workers unsettle the moral and racial foundations of Western categories of religion. Based on more than a decade of conversations with spiritual workers during and after the state of emergency, this book shows how the reframing of religious practice as an experiment with power transforms conceptions of religion and law in modern nation-states.

Before invasion, Turtle Island-or North America-was home to vibrant cultures that shared long-standing philosophical precepts. The most important and wide-spread of these was the view of reality as a collaborative binary known as the Twinned Cosmos of Blood and Breath. This binary system was built on the belief that neither half of the cosmos can exist without its twin; both halves are, therefore, necessary and good. Western anthropologists typically shorthand the Twinned Cosmos as "Sky and Earth," but this erroneously saddles it with Christian baggage and, worse, imposes a hierarchy that puts sky quite literally above earth. None of this Western ideology legitimately applies to traditional Indigenous American thought, which is about equal cooperation and the continual recreation of reality. Spirits of Blood, Spirits of Breath examines traditional historical concepts of spirituality among North American Indians both at and, to the extent it can be determined, before contact. In doing so, Barbara Mann rescues the authentically indigenous ideas from Western, and especially missionary, interpretations. In addition to early European source material, she uses Indian oral traditions, traced as much as possible to early sources, and Indian records, including pictographs, petroglyphs, bark books, and wampum. Moreover, Mann respects each Native culture as a discrete unit, rather than generalizing them as is often done in Western anthropology. To this end, she collates material in accordance with actual historical, linguistic, and traditional linkages among the groups at hand, with traditions clearly identified by group and, where recorded, by speaker. In this way she provides specialists and non-specialists alike a window into the seemingly lost, and often caricatured world of Indigenous American thought.

Otherworld: Ecstatic Witchcraft for the Spirits of the Land is about establishing relationships with the spirits of the land. Many books talk about Faeries, but this book not only teaches about the Elves and Faery folk, but also how to have a working relationship with the spirits of plants, animals, and the land itself. Otherworld also teaches how to perform animal magick including shapeshifting for magick, healing, and establishing a deeper connection with animal spirits and discusses ecstatic trance techniques that will help practitioners work with the land spirits in a deep and profound way.

Teaching Spirits offers a thematic approach to Native American religious traditions. Within the great multiplicity of Native American cultures, Joseph Epes Brown has perceived certain common themes that resonate within many Native traditions. He demonstrates how these themes connect with each other, whilst at the same time upholding the integrity of individual traditions. Brown illustrates each of these themes with in-depth explorations of specific native cultures including Lakota, Navajo, Apache, Koyukon, and Ojibwe. Brown demonstrates how Native American values provide an alternative metaphysics that stand opposed to modern materialism. He shows how these spiritual values provide material for a serious rethinking of modern attitudes, as well as how they may help non-native peoples develop a more sensitive response to native concerns. Throughout, he draws on his extensive personal experience with Black Elk, who came to symbolize for many the greatness of the imperiled native cultures.

Poppets are dolls used for sympathetic magic, and are designed in the likeness of individuals in order to represent them in spells to help, heal or harm. The word poppet comes from the Middle Ages in England, originally meaning a small doll or child, and it is still in use today as a name of endearment. The term is older than the phrase `Voodoo doll'. Pagan Portals - Poppets and Magical Dolls explores the history of poppets and offers a practical guide to making and using them in modern witchcraft. It also covers seasonal dolls, from Brigid dolls, used in celebrations for the first stirrings of spring, to fairy dolls enjoyed in tree-dressing at Yuletide. Other topics covered include spirit dolls, ancestor dolls and dolls as representations of mythological beings and creatures from folklore. The newest book from Lucya Starza, author of Every Day Magic: A Pagan Book of Days.

Drawing on medieval Chinese poetry, fiction, and religious scriptures, this book illuminates the greatest goddess of Taoism and her place in Chinese society.

The Training and Work of an Initiate shows how, from ancient Qabalistic, Greek, and Egyptian roots, the Western Esoteric Systems have an unbroken initiation tradition that has been handed down from adept to neophyte. In this book, Dion Fortune indicates the broad outlines and underlying principles of these systems, illuminating an obscure and greatly misunderstood aspect of the path. Thanks to her teaching, even if you cannot give your entire life over to the pursuit of esoteric science, you can still develop a philosophy of life and learn your individual relationship to the cosmic whole. You will discover how initiates prepare body, mind, and spirit for the challenging journey that is the esoteric path, what the path of initiation looks like, and what it is to be called to this work. The book is filled with accessible information, presented in a way so that "even that which the smallest cup can carry away is the true water of life". This revised edition contains a new foreword by Gareth Knight, and an index.

This edited volume examines the realizations between theological considerations and natural law theorizing, from Plato to Spinoza.
Theological considerations have long had a pronounced role in Catholic natural law theories, but have not been as thoroughly examined from a wider perspective. The contributors to this volume take a more inclusive view of the relation between conceptions of natural law and theistic claims and principles. They do not jointly defend one particular thematic claim, but articulate diverse ways in which natural law has both been understood and related to theistic claims.
In addition to exploring Plato and the Stoics, the volume also looks at medieval Jewish thought, the thought of Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham, and the ways in which Spinoza's thought includes resonances of earlier views and intimations of later developments. Taken as a whole, these essays enlarge the scope of the discussion of natural law through study of how the naturalness of natural law has often been related to theses about the divine. The latter are often crucial elements of natural law theorizing, having an integral role in accounting for the metaethical status and ethical bindingness of natural law. At the same time, the question of the relation between natural law and God-and the relation between natural law and divine command-has been addressed in a multiplicity of ways by key figures throughout the history of natural law theorizing, and these essays accord them the explanatory significance they deserve.

The cognitive science of religion has made a persuasive case for the view that a number of different psychological systems are involved in the construction and transmission of notions of extranatural agency such as deities and spirits. Until now this work has been based largely on findings in experimental psychology, illustrated mainly with hypothetical or anecdotal examples. In The Mind Possessed, Emma Cohen considers how the psychological systems undergirding spirit concepts are activated in real-world settings.
Spirit possession practices have long had a magnetizing effect on academic researchers but there have been few, if any, satisfactory theoretical treatments of spirit possession that attempt to account for its emergence and spread globally. Drawing on ethnographic data collected during eighteen months of fieldwork in Belem, northern Brazil, Cohen combines fine-grained descriptions and analyses of mediumistic activities in an Afro-Brazilian cult house with a scientifically-grounded explanation for the emergence and spread of ideas about spirits, possession and healing.
Cohen shows why spirit possession and its associated activities are inherently attention-grabbing. Making a radical departure from traditional anthropological, medicalist, and sociological analyses, she argues that a cognitive approach offers more precise and testable hypotheses concerning the spread and appeal of spirit concepts and possession activities.
This timely book presents new lines of enquiry for the cognitive science of religion (a rapidly growing field of interdisciplinary scholarship) and challenges the theoretical frameworks within which spirit possession practices have traditionally been understood.

Hellenic Paganism has been growing in interest for a number of years and steadily becoming a strong presence in neo-Paganism. As with most paths there are many differing practices in the Hellenic world, all underpinned by the values and ethics of what is understood to be the Hellenic way of life. This includes practitioners who simply believe and work with the Theoi and those that attempt the daunting task of reconstructing this beautifully rich and consuming religion. Hellenic Paganism explores the revitalisation and modernisation of ancient Greek life.

The Armenian-born mystic, philosopher, and spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff (c.1866-1949) is an enigmatic figure, the subject of a great deal of interest and speculation, but not easily fitting into any of the common categories of "esoteric," "occult," or "New Age." Scholars have for the most part passed over in silence the contemplative exercises presented in Gurdjieff's writings. Although Gurdjieff had intended them to be confidential, some of the most important exercises were published posthumously in 1950 and in 1975. Arguing that an understanding of these exercises is necessary to fully appreciate Gurdjieff's contribution to modern esotericism, Joseph Azize offers the first complete study of the exercises and their theoretical foundation. It shows the continuity in Gurdjieff's teaching, but also the development and change. His original contribution to Western Esotericism lay in his use of tasks, disciplines, and contemplation-like exercises to bring his pupils to a sense of their own presence which could to some extent be maintained in daily life in the social domain, and not only in the secluded conditions typical of meditation. Azize contends that Gurdjieff had initially intended not to use contemplation-like exercises, as he perceived dangers to be associated with these monastic methods, and the religious tradition to be in tension with the secular and supra-denominational guise in which he first couched his teaching. As Gurdjieff adapted the teaching he had found in Eastern monasteries to Western urban and post-religious culture, however, he found it necessary to introduce contemplation.