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.

Worshippers of the Gods tells how the Latin writers who witnessed the political and social rise of Christianity rethought the role of traditional religion in the empire and city of Rome. In parallel with the empire's legal Christianisation, it traces changing attitudes toward paganism from the last empire-wide persecution of Christians under the Tetrarchy to the removal of state funds from the Roman cults in the early 380s. Influential recent scholarship has seen Christian polemical literature-a crucial body of evidence for late antique polytheism-as an exercise in Christian identity-making. In response, Worshippers of the Gods argues that Lactantius, Firmicus Maternus, Ambrosiaster, and Ambrose offered substantive critiques of traditional religion shaped to their political circumstances and to the preoccupations of contemporary polytheists. By bringing together this polemical literature with imperial laws, pagan inscriptions, and the letters and papers of the senator Symmachus, Worshippers of the Gods reveals the changing horizons of Roman thought on traditional religion in the fourth century. Through its five interlocking case studies, it shows how key episodes in the Empire's religious history-the Tetrarchic persecution, Constantine's adoption of Christianity, the altar of Victory affair, and the 'disestablishment' of the Roman cults-shaped contemporary conceptions of polytheism. It also argues that the idea of a unified 'paganism', often seen as a capricious invention, actually arose as a Christian response to the eclectic, philosophical polytheism in vogue at Rome.

Known by many names and with a wide array of characteristics Odin is a God who many people believe is just as active in the world today as he was a thousand years ago and more. A god of poetry he inspires us to create. A god of magic he teaches us to find our own power. A god of wisdom he challenges us to learn all we can. In this book you will find some of Odin's stories and history as well as anecdotes of what it can be like to honor him in the modern world.

For thousands of years the element of water has captured the hearts and imaginations of those who have come before us. From tales of benevolent spirits that dwell in lakes and ponds to the ferocious sea monsters that lurk in the depths, history and local folklore is full of tales of the mysterious and otherworldly nature of this element. But what is water witchcraft, and how can you practice it? This book offers a complete introduction to the way of the water witch, including information on deities, tools, using water in magic, animal guides, working with water spirits, water divination, and plenty of rituals, spells, and practical exercises for you to use. Whether you are interested in the water witch path or just want to learn how to work more closely with the element of water, this book contains everything you need to get started.

Ancient Wisdom explores the rise, development and current resurgence of ancient spiritual belief systems.

Yoga, karma, meditation, guru--these terms, once obscure, are now a part of the American lexicon. Combining Hinduism with Western concepts and values, a new hybrid form of religion has developed in the United States over the past century. In Transcendent in America, Lola Williamson traces the history of various Hindu-inspired movements in America, and argues that together they constitute a discrete category of religious practice, a distinct and identifiable form of new religion.

Williamson provides an overview of the emergence of these movements through examining exchanges between Indian Hindus and American intellectuals such as Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and illuminates how Protestant traditions of inner experience paved the way for Hindu-style movements' acceptance in the West.

Williamson focuses on three movements--Self-Realization Fellowship, Transcendental Meditation, and Siddha Yoga--as representative of the larger of phenomenon of Hindu-inspired meditation movements. She provides a window into the beliefs and practices of followers of these movements by offering concrete examples from their words and experiences that shed light on their world view, lifestyle, and relationship with their gurus. Drawing on scholarly research, numerous interviews, and decades of personal experience with Hindu-style practices, Williamson makes a convincing case that Hindu-inspired meditation movements are distinct from both immigrant Hinduism and other forms of Asian-influenced or "New Age" groups.

Southern Cunning is a journey through the folklore of the American South and a look at the power these stories hold for modern witches. Through the lens of folklore, animism, and bioregionalism the book shows how to bring rituals in folklore into the modern day and presents a uniquely American approach to witchcraft born out of the land and practical application.

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.

Starting a church from scratch? Start here! Launch offers specific strategies for beginning a church with no members, no money, and no staff. Readers get clear, practical how-to strategies for quickly raising funds, creating a team, planning services, effective evangelism, and rapidly developing a growing membership. Specific advice is included for reaching that often difficult-to-target demographic, the 20- to 40-year-old. Now thoroughly revised and expanded to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of church planting.

The human world and the Otherworld have always been intrinsically connected just as the beings within them are, but these connections have been strained in the Western world over the last millenia. Cultural and religious shifts have pushed the Other to the fringes and centred humanity in the world and in many spiritual frameworks. As we move into the 21st century the Othercrowd is pushing back, seeking a return to their place in things. Many witches are feeling this shift. Living Fairy is a look at ways to deepen your practice of fairy witchcraft by actively calling the Good Neighbours back, and connecting to them more experientially. It emphasizes older ways of relating to them within a modern framework, while acknowledging the good and the bad that comes with this work. There is also an emphasis on moving away from solar and lunar holy days into a system focused on the stars, which may perhaps be an older way to relate to both the fairies and our spirituality.

Each volume in the series Witchcraft and Magic in Europe combines the traditional approaches of political, legal, and social historians with a critical synthesis of cultural anthropology, historical psychology, and gender studies. The series, complete in six volumes, provides a modern, scholarly survey of the supernatural beliefs of Europeans from ancient times to the present day.Most European prosecutions for the crime of witchcraft occurred between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the peak coming in the hundred years after 1560. This volume brings together the large amount of recent scholarship on witchcraft of this period and provides a novel analysis of the trials by considering the legal systems involved. Witch hunts, methods of torture, and the scientific interest in magic spells and demonology as an intellectual pursuit are also covered in detail.

A unique perspective on working with Baba Yaga, Slavic Earth Goddess of mystery, intrigue and ambiguity, through apprenticing into her magic. In this introductory work Baba Yaga is re-defined outside of the dogmatic portrayals and becomes one of the most powerful and influential figures in an individual spiritual practice. An accessible guide to building a devotional practice, Pagan Portals - Baba Yaga is a journey of discovery and collaboration with deity, written to aid your own psycho-spiritual progression and offer a unique presentation of how we might work with the Goddess, psychologically and spiritually.

With contributions from best-selling authors such as Morgan Daimler, Elen Sentier and Jhenah Telyndru, as well as a new generation of up-coming writers, Seven Ages of the Goddess uncovers the history of the Goddess, from prehistoric origins through to the present day and beyond. Edited by Trevor Greenfield, publisher of Moon Books and editor of Naming the Goddess and Goddess in America.

The most popular of the Norse goddesses is the Vanic deity Freya, found across the Norse myths and into modern mass media, yet often obscured by contradictory tales and external moral coding. Freya is an alluring deity of magic and fertility, a being so important in the mythology that gods and giants fought over her, yet she is never shown as a passive prize to be won only as a forceful being with agency and will of her own. Who is this powerful goddess who has left such a profound mark across not only Norse culture but also wider Western culture? Pagan Portals-Freya is a basic introduction to the Norse Goddess Freya that covers her history, mythology, associations, and modern appearances, and offers readers suggestions for how to begin connecting to Freya in their own lives.

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.

Traditions surrounding fairies are, essentially, a cross-generational compass that helps young and old to orient themselves into the ever-changing cultural landscape. As such, fairy traditions allow people to position themselves on the time-space continuum, not only through perpetuation of values but also through connecting deeper with the subtler realms that surround and interpenetrate consensus reality. Connecting to subtler realms gives access to a body of knowledge built upon the record of interaction between our world and the Other.  In Ireland and Romania, fairy traditions are alive and evolving. The study of the parallelism that exists between bodies of lore, past and present, from areas diametrically opposed on the map of Europe, gives scholars, lay people, and spiritual seekers access to an everlasting repository of wisdom. 

From the time of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, people of British origin have shared the area of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, traditionally called Acadia, with Eastern Canada's Algonkian-speaking peoples, the Mi'kmaq. This historical analysis of colonial Acadia from the perspective of symbolic and mythic existence will be useful to those interested in Canadian history, native Canadian history, religion in Canada, and history of religion.

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.

Mircea Eliade, influential writer and scholar of religion, envisioned a spiritually destitute modern culture coming into renewed meaning through the recovery of archetypal myths and symbols. Eliade foresaw this restoration of meaning bringing about a "new humanism" of existential meaning and cultural-religious unity - but left it ambiguously defined. Cave sets forward a structural description of what this "new humanism" might have meant for Eliade, and what it signifies for modern culture, through a biographical exegesis of Eliade's life and writings from his early years in Romania to his last years as professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago. Addressing Eliade's political associations and espousals on Romanian politics and culture, theories on myth and symbols, existential and comparative hermeneutics, literature of the fantastic, interpretation of homo religiosus, views on the loss of meaning in modern consciousness and on the cosmic spirituality of archaic humans, as well as other subjects, Cave sets these topics within the totality of Eliade's oeuvre and evaluates them through the lens of the "new humanism". Cave's book is the first to organize and evaluate the whole of Eliade's work around a guiding principle, and on Eliade's own terms. To augment the "new humanism", Cave uses data and themes from the history of religions and draws on philosophy, anthropology, psychology, modern science, and literary studies. The result is a broad and probing overview of this most influential, enigmatic, and frequently controversial man. Cave concludes by endorsing Eliade's radically pluralistic vision which, he argues, offers a key to the revitalization of ourdemythologized and material culture. Cave also repositions previous Eliadean studies, and places the "new humanism" as the paradigm in relation to which future readings of Eliade should be evaluated.

Embark upon a powerful journey with Persephone, Queen of the Underworld and Goddess of Spring, as she helps you to discover your personal power and take control of your life. 'There is something for everyone in this book, which will be of interest to long-standing devotees of Persephone as well as those feeling newly-called to work with this powerful Goddess who helps us to walk a path of empowerment.' Jhenah Telyndru, founder of the Sisterhood of Avalon and author of Rhiannon: Great Queen of the Celtic Britons

Get Inspired to Transform Your Life By Top European Transformational Leaders. 38 transformational leaders share stories of their own personal transformational experiences with the reader. They offer these stories, lessons, insights, tools, and techniques to the reader to support the reader in their own life, and maybe even in their own personal transformation too.

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!

Among the Anglo-Canadian fur traders of the early 19th century, George Nelson stands out for his interest in the lives and ways of the native peoples he encountered. This letter-journal provides a detailed portrayal of the Algonquian religion.

In the Upper Amazon, mestizos are the Spanish-speaking descendants of Hispanic colonizers and the indigenous peoples of the jungle. Some mestizos have migrated to Amazon towns and cities, such as Iquitos and Pucallpa; most remain in small villages. They have retained features of a folk Catholicism and traditional Hispanic medicine, and have incorporated much of the religious tradition of the Amazon, especially its healing, sorcery, shamanism, and the use of potent plant hallucinogens, including ayahuasca. The result is a uniquely eclectic shamanist culture that continues to fascinate outsiders with its brilliant visionary art. Ayahuasca shamanism is now part of global culture. Once the terrain of anthropologists, it is now the subject of novels and spiritual memoirs, while ayahuasca shamans perform their healing rituals in Ontario and Wisconsin. Singing to the Plants sets forth just what this shamanism is about--what happens at an ayahuasca healing ceremony, how the apprentice shaman forms a spiritual relationship with the healing plant spirits, how sorcerers inflict the harm that the shaman heals, and the ways that plants are used in healing, love magic, and sorcery.

In a new and engaging study, Halemba explores the religion and world outlook of the Telengits of Altai. The book provides an account of the Altai, its peoples, clans and political structures, focusing particularly on on the Telengits, whilst also considering the different elements of religious belief exhibited among these native peoples. Paradoxically, as the demand for national recognition grows among such people, and with it the need for more formal state structures, built around the nation, religion too begins to become formalized, and loses its natural, all-pervasive character. With the Telengits, whose natural religion includes elements of Buddhism, this takes the form of a debate as to whether the state religion of their polity is to be Buddhism or, contrary to the character of shamanism, a formal, structured, fixed shamanism. This is a comprehensive anthropological account of the contemporary religious life of the Telengits, holding important implications for wider debates in sociology and politics.