Matthew Fox, a 76-year-old elder, activist and spiritual theologian, along with Skylar Wilson, a 33-year-old wilderness guide, leader of inter-cultural ceremonies, and an event producer, and Jennifer Listug, a 28-year-old writer, spiritual leader, and publicist, are presenting a challenge and an opportunity in the vision launched in this modest book. That vision is about creating an Order of the Sacred Earth. Essay contributors to the book and its vision include Mirabai Starr, Brian Thomas Swimme, Adam Bucko, and David Korten.

In Initiating the Millennium, Robert Collis and Natalie Bayer fill a substantial lacuna in the study of an initiatic society-known variously as the Illumines d'Avignon, the Avignon Society, the New Israel Society, and the Union-that flourished across Europe between 1779 and 1807. Based on hitherto neglected archival material, this study provides a wealth of fresh insights into a group that included members of various Christian confessions from countries spanning the length and breadth of the Continent. The founding members of this society forged a unique group that incorporated distinct strands of Western esotericism (particularly alchemy and arithmancy) within an all-pervading millenarian worldview. Collis and Bayer demonstrate that the doctrine of premillennialism-belief in the imminent advent of Christ's reign on Earth-soon came to constitute the raison d'etre of the society. Using a chronological approach, the authors chart the machinations of the leading figures of the society (most notably the Polish gentleman Tadeusz Grabianka). They also examine the way in which the group reacted to and was impacted by the tumultuous events that rocked Europe during its twenty-eight years of existence. The result is a new understanding of the vital role played by the so-called Union within the wider millenarian and illuministic milieu at the close of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century.

North Sea Water in My Veins is a quest for the reconstruction of an indigenous or native spirituality of the Low Countries and covers pre-Christian material from the Netherlands, Belgium and the region just across the German border. Seeking out and documenting ancient gods and goddesses, practices and traditions, this book asks the question: is there enough material for such a reconstruction? The conclusion is a resounding yes!

Fostering mutual understanding by viewing religion from an outsider perspective Depending on how one defines religion, there are at least thousands of religions in the world. Given such religious diversity, how can any one religion claim to know the truth? Nothing proposed so far has helped us settle which of these religions, if any, are true--until now. Author John W. Loftus, a former minister turned atheist, argues we would all be better off if we viewed any religion--including our own--from the informed skepticism of an outsider, a nonbeliever. For this reason he has devised "the outsider test for faith." He describes it as a variation on the Golden Rule: "Do unto your own faith what you do to other faiths." Essentially, this means applying the same skepticism to our own beliefs as we do to the beliefs of other faiths. Loftus notes that research from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and neuroscience goes a long way toward explaining why the human race has produced so many belief systems, why religion is culturally dependent, and how religion evolved in the first place. It's important that people understand these findings to escape the dangerous delusion that any one religion represents the only truth. At a time when the vast diversity of human belief systems is accessible to all, the outsider test for faith offers a rational means for fostering mutual understanding.

Born in 1844 in Persia (Iran), 'Abdu'l-Baha is best known as the eldest son of Mirza Ḥusayn-Ali Nuri, Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha'i Faith. Negar Mottahedeh's edited volume of specially commissioned essays marking the centenary of 'Abdu'l-Baha's journey to the West documents the uniqueness of 'Abdu'l-Baha's vision of human solidarity and peace in the context of twentieth century modernity and shows the moral impact of his principled positions on the emergent Civil Rights movement in America.

Tibetan Demonology discusses the rich taxonomy of gods and demons encountered in Tibet. These spirits are often the cause of, and exhorted for, diverse violent and wrathful activities. This Element consists of four thematic sections. The first section, 'Spirits and the Body', explores oracular possession and spirit-induced illnesses. The second section, 'Spirits and Time', discusses the role of gods in Tibetan astrology and ritual calendars. The third section, 'Spirits and Space', examines the relationship between divinities and the Tibetan landscape. The final section, 'Spirits and Doctrine', explores how certain deities act as fierce protectors of religious and political institutions.

T.D. Kokoszka grew up in Texas with a Jewish mother and a Polish-American father. While he was aware of roots going back to Eastern Europe from both families, he found it hard to learn very much about them. He knew that Polish people would whack one another with palm leaves around Easter, and he knew that his great-grandmother purportedly believed in forest spirits known as borowy. However, it wasn't until he was in his teens that he became vaguely aware of an ancient people known as the Slavs who gave rise to the Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Slovakian, Slovene, and Czech languages. It quickly became clear to him that this was a family of cultures currently under-represented in popular culture, and even in western scholarship. Not simply a regurgitation of scholarship from the Soviet period - and presenting new analyses by using previously neglected resources - Bogowie: A Study of Eastern Europe's Ancient Gods offers one of the most painstaking scholarly reconstructions of Slavic paganism. These new resources include not only an overview of folklore from many different Slavic countries but also comparisons with Ossetian culture and Mordvin culture, as well as a series of Slavic folktales that Kokoszka analyzes in depth, often making the case that the narratives involved are mythological and shockingly ancient. Readers will recognize many European folktale types and possibly learn to look at these folktales differently after reading this book.

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.

The true spirit of Native American ways of knowing shines through in these heartfelt meditations, poems, and stories. In 364 daily offerings organized according to the cycles of the moon, Jamie Sams offers stirring insights into the spirituality of the earth, connecting with our communities, and our own soul journeys. Based on Native American creeds and legends, these meditations cut to the heart with their honesty, beauty, and authenticity. Sams teaches such grounded lessons on how to face an unknown future with confidence and conviction, how to rediscover the joy of curiosity, and how to develop a true intimacy with nature. All those who have come to cherish the warmth and of Jamie Sams's spirit-filled voice-as well as those meeting her here for the first time-will find in her teachings a generous, challenging, and always consoling source of daily inspiration.

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.

The first volume of the Starseed Trilogy: Intuitive knowledge featuring a startling new view of human evolution.

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.

In Elf Queens and Holy Friars Richard Firth Green investigates an important aspect of medieval culture that has been largely ignored by modern literary scholarship: the omnipresent belief in fairyland. Taking as his starting point the assumption that the major cultural gulf in the Middle Ages was less between the wealthy and the poor than between the learned and the lay, Green explores the church's systematic demonization of fairies and infernalization of fairyland. He argues that when medieval preachers inveighed against the demons that they portrayed as threatening their flocks, they were in reality often waging war against fairy beliefs. The recognition that medieval demonology, and indeed pastoral theology, were packed with coded references to popular lore opens up a whole new avenue for the investigation of medieval vernacular culture. Elf Queens and Holy Friars offers a detailed account of the church's attempts to suppress or redirect belief in such things as fairy lovers, changelings, and alternative versions of the afterlife. That the church took these fairy beliefs so seriously suggests that they were ideologically loaded, and this fact makes a huge difference in the way we read medieval romance, the literary genre that treats them most explicitly. The war on fairy beliefs increased in intensity toward the end of the Middle Ages, becoming finally a significant factor in the witch-hunting of the Renaissance.

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.

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.

For the first time in human history, the Zohar, the sacred 2,000-year old guide to the books of the Bible, appears in English With an unabridged translation and general commentary written for the layperson, this powerful text brings serenity, wisdom and hope, giving order and harmony to the chaos of modern life

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.

Horace Bushnell (1802 1876) was a minister in the Congregational church. A prolific author, his Christian Nurture established his reputation, and some scholars have asserted the work's singular importance to American Protestant Liberalism and Christian education in the nineteenth century. This work, first published in 1858, exemplifies Bushnell's importance and influence in nineteenth-century Protestantism and discusses 'the great question of the age'. Controversially defining the supernatural as extant outside the realm of the divine, Bushnell argues that the human is an example of the supernatural, human freedom which makes this so: man acts both within and without the chain of cause and effect; mankind is part of both nature and supernature. Controversially, then, Bushnell places the supernatural within 'the one system of God'. For theologians and scholars of religious history and the history of ideas, this work will be of great interest.

The philosopher and literary author Isaac Taylor (1787 1865) published this book anonymously in 1836. The work is a development of two earlier works: Saturday Evening (1832) and Natural History of Enthusiasm (1829), all three attempts to provide a philosophy to deal with the major problems and spiritual questions of the day. The popularity of Physical Theory led to Taylor relinquishing his previous anonymity. The work is a religious and philosophically speculative exploration of the possible paths of knowledge to information regarding the future existence of human beings. Taylor believed that knowledge of the human physical constitution could be used to conjecture information about the modes of human eternal life and eternity's scheme of moral duties. The work was very popular among contemporaries and offers today an important insight into Victorian intellectual life. It is a rich source for historians of nineteenth-century religious philosophy.

Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar offer an in-depth exploration of how Amerindian epistemology and ontology concerning indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon have spread to Western societies, and of how indigenous, mestizo, and cosmopolitan cultures have engaged with and transformed these forest traditions. The volume focuses on the use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive drink essential in many indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon. Ayahuasca use has spread far beyond its Amazonian origin, spurring a variety of legal and cultural responses in the countries to which it has spread. The essays in this volume look at how these responses have influenced ritual design and performance in traditional and non-traditional contexts, how displaced indigenous people and rubber tappers are engaged in the creative reinvention of rituals, and how these rituals help build ethnic alliances and cultural and political strategies for their marginalized position. Some essays explore important classic and contemporary issues in anthropology, including the relationship between the expansion of ecotourism and ethnic tourism and recent indigenous cultural revival and the emergence of new ethnic identities. The volume also examines trends in the commodification of indigenous cultures in post-colonial contexts, the combination of shamanism with a network of health and spiritually related services, and identity hybridization in global societies. The rich ethnographies and extensive analysis of these essays will allow deeper understanding of the role of ritual in mediating the encounter between indigenous traditions and modern societies.