A remnant from the age of the dinosaur, the serpent was originally a symbol of arcane knowledge from the old gods. Transformed into the devil for tempting Eve to eat from the forbidden tree, the serpent has remained the villain ever since. Scott Irvines’s The Magic of Serpents is a profound search for the symbolism and worldwide mythology - at the religious, philosophical and spiritual levels - for which the serpent stands.

The relationship between early Mormons and the United States was marked by anxiety and hostility, heightened over the course of the nineteenth century by the assassination of Mormon leaders, the Saints' exile from Missouri and Illinois, the military occupation of the Utah territory, and the national crusade against those who practiced plural marriage. Nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints looked forward to apocalyptic events that would unseat corrupt governments across the globe, particularly the tyrannical government of the United States. The infamous "White Horse Prophecy" referred to this coming American apocalypse as "a terrible revolution... in the land of America, such as has never been seen before; for the land will be literally left without a supreme government." Mormons envisioned divine deliverance by way of plagues, natural disasters, foreign invasions, American Indian raids, slave uprisings, or civil war unleashed on American cities and American people. For the Saints, these violent images promised a national rebirth that would vouchsafe the protections of the United States Constitution and end their oppression. In Terrible Revolution, Christopher James Blythe examines apocalypticism across the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly as it took shape in the writings and visions of the laity. The responses of the church hierarchy to apocalyptic lay prophecies promoted their own form of separatist nationalism during the nineteenth century. Yet, after Utah obtained statehood, as the church sought to assimilate to national religious norms, these same leaders sought to lessen the tensions between themselves and American political and cultural powers. As a result, visions of a violent end to the nation became a liability to disavow and regulate. Ultimately, Blythe argues that the visionary world of early Mormonism, with its apocalyptic emphases, continued in the church's mainstream culture in modified forms but continued to maintain separatist radical forms at the level of folk-belief.

In his sixth satire, Juvenal deplores the pastimes of Roman women, foremost of which is superstition. Speculating about how wives busy themselves while their husbands are away, the poet introduces a revolving door of visitors who include a eunuch of the eastern goddess Bellona, an impersonator of Egyptian Anubis, a Judean priestess, and Chaldean astrologers. From these religious experts women solicit services ranging from dream interpretation and purification to the coercion of lovers or wealthy acquaintances. Juvenal's catalogue captures not only the popularity of these "freelance" experts at the turn of the second century, but also their familiarity among his Roman audiences, whom he could expect to get the joke. Heidi Wendt investigates the backdrop of this enthusiasm for exotic wisdom and practices by examining the rise of self-authorized experts in religion during the first century of the Roman Empire. Unlike members of civic priesthoods and temples, freelance experts had to generate their own legitimacy, often through demonstrations of skill and learning out on the streets, in marketplaces, and at the temple gates. While historically these professionals have been studied separately from the development of modern conceptions of religion, Wendt argues that they, too, participated in a highly competitive form of religious activity from which emerged the modern-day characters not just of religious experts but specialists of philosophy, medicine, and education as well. Wendt notes affinities across this wider class of activity, but focuses on those experts who directly enlisted gods and similar beings. Over the course of the first century freelance experts grew increasingly influential, more diverse with respect to the skills or methods in which they claimed expertise, and more assorted in the ethnic coding of their wisdom and practices. Wendt argues that this class of religious activity engendered many of the innovative forms of religion that flourished in the second century, including but not limited to phenomena linked with Persian Mithras, the Egyptian gods, and the Judean Christ. The evidence for self-authorized experts in religion is abundant, but scholars of ancient Mediterranean religion have only recently begun to appreciate their impact on the Empire's changing religious landscape. At the Temple Gates integrates studies of Judaism, Christianity, mystery cults, astrology, magic, and philosophy to paint a colorful portrait of religious expertise in early Rome.

Jamie Sams, a member of the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge, brings us a powerful new method for honoring and incorporating native feminine wisdom into our daily lives.

Combining a rich oral tradition—passed on to her by two Kiowa Grandmothers, Cisi Laughing Crow and Berta Broken Bow—with the personal healing and guidance she has experienced through her female Elders, Sams created The 13 Original Clan Mothers.

Each of the Clan Mothers reflects a particular teaching, relates to a cycle of the moon, and possesses special totems, talents, and gifts that can help each of us cultivate our own personal gifts and talents.

Over the last 25 years there has been an explosion of interest in the Aboriginal religions of Australia and this anthology provides a variety of recent writings, by a wide range of scholars. Australian Aboriginal Religions are probably the oldest extant religious systems. Over some 50,000 years they have coped with change and re-invented themselves in an astonishingly creative way. The Dreaming, the mythical time when the Ancestor Spirits shaped the territories of the Aborigines and laid down a moral and ritual law for their occupants, is the fundamental religious reality. It is the basis of the Aborigines's view of their land or country, kinship relationships, ritual and art. However, the Dreaming is not a static principle since it is interpreted in different ways, as in the extraordinary movement in contemporary indigenous painting, and in attempts at an accommodation with Christianity. The contributions of anthropologists, cultural historians, philosophers of religion and others are included in this anthology which not only guides readers through the literature but also ensures this still largely inaccessible material is available to a wider range of readers and non-specialist students and academics.

Roger Beck, a world authority on Mithraism, brings together his major writings on the Mysteries of Mithras in the context of the culture and religions of imperial Rome. In these studies he opens new vistas on myth making, ritual, symbolism, the role of astrology in the cult, recently discovered Mithraic monuments and artefacts, and the emergence of Mithraism and Christianity concurrently in the first century. Beck offers new introductions to his thematically framed groups of writings and adds six entirely new essays published here for the first time. These essays link his research to contemporary studies in cognitive science of religion and anthropology of religion. This collection will appeal particularly to scholars exploring contemporary aspects in anthropology of religion, astronomy and astrology, cults and myths, images and symbols, as well as traditional scholars of Greco-Roman antiquity and Christian origins.

In the conventional dichotomy of chaste, pure Madonna and libidinous whore, the former has usually been viewed as the ideal form of femininity. However, there is a modern religious movement in which the negative stereotype of the harlot is inverted and exalted. The Eloquent Blood focuses on the changing construction of femininity and feminine sexuality in interpretations of the goddess Babalon. A central deity in Thelema, the religion founded by the notorious British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), Babalon is based on Crowley's favorable reinterpretation of the biblical Whore of Babylon, and is associated with liberated female sexuality and the spiritual ideal of passionate union with existence. Analyzing historical and contemporary written sources, qualitative interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork in the Anglo-American esoteric milieu, the study traces interpretations of Babalon from the works of Crowley and some of his key disciples-including the rocket scientist John "Jack" Whiteside Parsons, and the enigmatic British occultist Kenneth Grant-until the present. From the 1990s onwards, this study shows, female and LGBTQ esotericists have challenged historical interpretations of Babalon, drawing on feminist and queer thought and conceptualizing femininity in new ways. Tracing the trajectory of a particular gendered symbol from the fin-de-siecle until today, Manon Hedenborg White explores the changing role of women in Western esotericism, and shows how evolving constructions of gender have shaped the development of esotericism. Combining research on historical and contemporary Western esotericism with feminist and queer theory, the book sheds new light on the ways in which esoteric movements and systems of thought have developed over time in relation to political movements.

You are precious. Your body is precious. Your mind is precious. Your heart is precious. With your actions, with your connection to yourself, you create a foundation that can weather all that comes before you. Perhaps you have been told otherwise. Perhaps you have believed otherwise, that somehow, some way, you are less than worthy of love and care. Perhaps you know you are worthy of love and care and beauty, but need to be reminded or given permission. I want to tell you that your health, your well-being is valuable. And the actions you take to care for your beautiful self are a gift and a sacred prayer of intention. Welcome to Practically Pagan - An Alternative Guide to Health & Well-being in which we will encounter ways to care for our health and explore strategies to support ourselves as magical and powerful beings. An Alternative Guide to Health and Well-being is the second volume in an exciting new lifestyle series from Moon Books, which offers body, mind and planet-friendly alternatives for everyday tasks.

The Temple of the Bones is a gathering of witches, priest/ess/xes, and pagans under the dark of the moon to honor Hekate through public ritual. This book contains information on witching herbs, daily practices, moon magic and how the Temple seeks to strengthen community through the honoring of the dead. As they are, soon we shall be and their message often is to not waste your precious time on the things that do not serve your highest purpose. The Temple of the Bones encourages you to look into your own power. What wants to be brought to the surface? Are you using your strengths, or are you feeding your weakness? How are you creating magic in your own life with the wisdom of your bones?

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.

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.

Spirituality is in the spotlight. While levels of religious belief and observance are declining in much of the Western world, the number of people who identify as "spiritual but not religious" is on the rise. Practices such as yoga, meditation, and pilgrimage are surging in popularity. "Wellness" regimes offer practitioners a lexicon of spirituality and an array of spiritual experiences. Commentators talk of a new spiritual awakening "after religion." And global mobility is generating hybrid practices that blur the lines between religion and spirituality. The essays collected in Situating Spirituality: Context, Practice, and Power examine not only individual engagements with spirituality, but they show how seemingly personal facets of spirituality, as well as definitions of spirituality itself, are deeply shaped by religious, cultural, and political contexts. The volume is explicitly cross-national and comparative. The contributors are leading scholars of major global regions: North America, Central America, East Asia, South Asia, Africa and the African Diaspora, Western Europe, and the Middle East. They study not only Christian, Jewish, and Islamic societies, but also non-Abrahamic societies with native as well as transnational sacred traditions.

She is the gateway to inspiration, the eternal sparkling flame. A Brigit of Ireland Devotional - Sun Among Stars evokes this much-loved Goddess and Saint, drawing on her history, mythology, and traditions, and on the author's intimate bond with her. Thoughtful essays, a daily devotional practice, and extensive resources make it a useful reference as well as an inspiring text.

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.

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.

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.

Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices From Pagan Cloisters is an anthology of writings from the forefront of the first wave of experimental monastic spirituality in the modern polytheist-animist revival. In this groundbreaking anthology, contemplative practitioners tell their stories of exploring classic monastic disciplines such as eremitic life, asceticism, retreat, service, and simplicity.

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.

In this book you can discover the hidden and mystical secrets in Christianity. Few people realise that great mystical secrets lie hidden within the teachings of Christianity, secrets to the laws of the universe and their application to our lives. The Occult Christ reveals Christianity's origin in the tradition of the Ancient Mystery Schools from around the world. The true Christ Mysteries were a cosmic effort to restore the power and mysticism of the Divine on a personal level. One of its goals was to acknowledge and reaffirm the role of the Divine Feminine within the world and within us. They reveal how to access great power through the sacred festivals of the seasons - times in which the veils between the physical and the spiritual are thinnest. They show a way for greater self-realisation that will enhance all spiritual faiths and endeavours. The Occult Christ will breathe new life into your spiritual foundations and help you to walk the road of shadows where secret knowledge of the soul dwells. prosperity; discover the occult meaning of the cross and star; discover the 7 masculine and 7 feminine mysteries of spiritual initiation; discover the hidden significance of people and events in the life of the historical Jesus; work and commune with angelic hierarchies; and, gain insight into the psychic phenomena of scriptures, along with the Qabalistic teachings.