In this innovative and deeply felt work, Bron Taylor examines the evolution of "green religions" in North America and beyond: spiritual practices that hold nature as sacred and have in many cases replaced traditional religions. Tracing a wide range of groups--radical environmental activists, lifestyle-focused bioregionalists, surfers, new-agers involved in "ecopsychology," and groups that hold scientific narratives as sacred--Taylor addresses a central theoretical question: How can environmentally oriented, spiritually motivated individuals and movements be understood as religious when many of them reject religious and supernatural worldviews? The "dark" of the title further expands this idea by emphasizing the depth of believers' passion and also suggesting a potential shadow side: besides uplifting and inspiring, such religion might mislead, deceive, or in some cases precipitate violence. This book provides a fascinating global tour of the green religious phenomenon, enabling readers to evaluate its worldwide emergence and to assess its role in a critically important religious revolution.

This first volume comprehensively charts Western astrology from 30,000 BCE up to the 17th century, with particular focus on its magical, political and apocalyptic movements and use in everyday life throughout history. This is the first comprehensive examination of astrology's origins and examines the foundations of a major feature of popular culture in the contemporary west, one which has its origins in the ancient world. Campion explores the relationship between astrology and religion, magic and science, and explores its use in politics and the arts in a fascinating and readable fashion. The book's scope and depth is greater than any other comparable text. Beginning with theories of the origins of religion in sun-worship, it spans the period between the first Paleolithic lunar counters around 30,000BC and the end of the classical world and rise of Christianity. Campion challenges the idea that astrology was invented by the Greeks, and asks whether its origins lie in Near-Eastern religion, or whether it can be considered a decadent Eastern import to the west. He considers the evidence for reverence for the stars in Neolithic culture, Mesopotamian astral divination, Egyptian stellar religion, and examines attitudes to astrology and celestial prophecy in the Bible. He considers such artifacts as the mysterious, fifteen-thousand year-old "Venus of Lauselle", the reasons for the orientation of the pyramids, the latest theories on Stonehenge as a sacred observatory, Greek theories of the ascent of the soul to the stars and the Roman emperor Nero's use of astrology to persecute his rivals.

Pantheism is the idea that God and the world are identical—that the creator, sustainer, destroyer, and transformer of all things is the universe itself. From a monotheistic perspective, this notion is irremediably heretical since it suggests divinity might be material, mutable, and multiple. Since the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza, Western thought has therefore demonized what it calls pantheism, accusing it of incoherence, absurdity, and—with striking regularity—monstrosity. In this book, Mary-Jane Rubenstein investigates this perennial repugnance through a conceptual genealogy of pantheisms. What makes pantheism “monstrous”—at once repellent and seductive—is that it scrambles the raced and gendered distinctions that Western philosophy and theology insist on drawing between activity and passivity, spirit and matter, animacy and inanimacy, and creator and created. By rejecting the fundamental difference between God and world, pantheism threatens all the other oppositions that stem from it: light versus darkness, male versus female, and humans versus every other organism. If the panic over pantheism has to do with a fear of crossed boundaries and demolished hierarchies, then the question becomes what a present-day pantheism might disrupt and what it might reconfigure. Cobbling together heterogeneous sources—medieval heresies, their pre- and anti-Socratic forebears, general relativity, quantum mechanics, nonlinear biologies, multiverse and indigenous cosmologies, ecofeminism, animal and vegetal studies, and new and old materialisms—Rubenstein assembles possible pluralist pantheisms. By mobilizing this monstrous mixture of unintentional God-worlds, Pantheologies gives an old heresy the chance to renew our thinking.

HISTORY / OCCULT Otto Rahn's lifelong search for the Grail brought him to the attention of the SS leader Himmler, who shared his esoteric interests. Induced by Himmler to become the chief investigator of the occult for the Nazis, Rahn traveled throughout Europe--from Spain to Iceland--in the mid-1930s pursuing leads to the Grail and other mysteries. Lucifer's Court is the travel diary he kept while searching for "the ghosts of the pagans and heretics who were [his] ancestors." It was during this time that Rahn grasped the positive role Lucifer plays in these forbidden religions as the bearer of true illumination, similar to Apollo and the other sun gods in pagan worship.This journey was also one of self-discovery for Rahn. He found such a faithful echo of his own innermost beliefs in the lives of the heretics of the past that he eventually called himself a Cathar and nurtured ambitions of restoring that faith, which had been cruelly destroyed in the fires of the Inquisition. His journeys on assignment for the Reich--including researching an alleged entrance to Hollow Earth in Iceland and searching for the true mission of Lucifer in the caves of southern France that served as refuge for the Cathars during the Inquisition--also led to his disenchantment with his employers and his mysterious death in the mountains after his break with the Nazis.OTTO RAHN was born in Michelstadt, Germany, in 1904. After earning his degree in philology in 1924, he traveled extensively to the caves and castles of southern France, researching his belief that the Cathars were the last custodians of the Grail. Recruited by Himmler into the SS as a civilian archaeologist and historian, Rahn quickly grewdisillusioned with the direction his country was taking and resigned in 1939. He died, an alleged suicide, on March 13, 1939, in the snows of the Tyrolean Mountains. Lucifer's Court was translated into English by Christopher Jones, who also translated Otto Rahn's Crusade Against the Grail, published in 2006.

It has been observed that the traditions, philosophies and beliefs that enjoy historical longevity are not those that remain static and unchanging, but rather those that evolve and adapt to meet the needs of different or changing societies. And that truth, of course, can be extended to religions and spiritualities that by necessity must remain relevant to peoples' lives or become intellectual museum pieces. With topics ranging from CyberWitches to Activism, from Web Weaving to Urban Witchcraft, from the Arts to Kitchen and Solitary Witchcraft and more, What is Modern Witchcraft? considers contemporary developments in the ancient craft and discusses a number of questions and issues that are frequently raised today. What is Modern Witchcraft? is edited by Trevor Greenfield and features essays from Morgan Daimler, Annette George, Irisanya Moon, Rebecca Beattie, Philipp J. Kessler, Amie Ravenson, Rachel Patterson, Melusine Draco, Dorothy Abrams, Arietta Bryant and Mabh Savage.

It is said that Pagan traditions are the fastest-growing religious group in America. Numbers are tricky to come by, but we know that contemporary Pagans report themselves as living in every American state, and in countries around the world. This volume reviews the shifting landscape of current Pagan spirituality, the unique culture and needs which must be understood in order to engage with contemporary Pagans, and the implications for future leadership, including organizational models, training and educational needs. The author has interviewed Pagan leaders about their own experiences and looks at data from the Pagan Engagement and Spiritual Support survey of 2016 to answer questions such as What does "ministry" mean for Pagans? Who do Pagans turn to for spiritual support? Who ought to be providing that support? Do Pagans want leaders who are trained for ministry? What kind of training do they need, and how do they get it? If you are a Pagan who wishes to support others in these ways, you will find here a framework for your own work, including stories and examples. If you are an interfaith minister, a chaplain, or a spiritual leader who finds that Pagans are intersecting with your work, you will become acquainted with the culture of this old-but-new spirituality. If you are an educator, may you find Constellated Ministry useful in teaching seminarians and students of religious studies.

Vestiges of a Philosophy: Matter, the Meta-Spiritual, and the Forgotten Bergson covers a fascinating yet little known moment in history. At the turn of the twentieth century, Henri Bergson and his sister, Mina Bergson (also known as Moina Mathers), were both living in Paris and working on seemingly very different but nonetheless complementary and even correlated approaches to questions about the nature of matter, spirit, and their interaction. He was a leading professor within the French academy, soon to become the most renowned philosopher in Europe. She was his estranged sister, already celebrated in her own right as a feminist and occultist performing on theatre stages around Paris while also leading one of the most important occult societies of that era, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. One was a respectable if controversial intellectual, the other was a notorious mystic-artist who, together with her husband and fellow-occultist Samuel MacGregor Mathers, have been described as the "neo-pagan power couple" of the Belle Epoque. Neither Henri nor Mina left any record of their feelings and attitudes towards the work of the other, but their views on time, mysticism, spirit, and art converge on many fronts, even as they emerged from very different forms of cultural practice. In Vestiges of a Philosophy, John O Maoilearca examines this convergence of ideas and uses the Bergsons' strange correlation to tackle contemporary themes in new materialist philosophy, as well as the relationship between mysticism and philosophy.

It is said that Pagan traditions are the fastest-growing religious group in America. Numbers are tricky to come by, but we know that contemporary Pagans report themselves as living in every American state, and in countries around the world. This volume reviews the shifting landscape of current Pagan spirituality, the unique culture and needs which must be understood in order to engage with contemporary Pagans, and the implications for future leadership, including organizational models, training and educational needs. The author has interviewed Pagan leaders about their own experiences and looks at data from the Pagan Engagement and Spiritual Support survey of 2016 to answer questions such as What does "ministry" mean for Pagans? Who do Pagans turn to for spiritual support? Who ought to be providing that support? Do Pagans want leaders who are trained for ministry? What kind of training do they need, and how do they get it? If you are a Pagan who wishes to support others in these ways, you will find here a framework for your own work, including stories and examples. If you are an interfaith minister, a chaplain, or a spiritual leader who finds that Pagans are intersecting with your work, you will become acquainted with the culture of this old-but-new spirituality. If you are an educator, may you find Constellated Ministry useful in teaching seminarians and students of religious studies.

Vous avez decouvert le chef d'/uvre litteraire repondant aux questions concernant Dieu, la vie dans l'univers habite, l'histoire, le futur de ce monde et la vie de Jesus. Le Livre d'Urantia harmonise histoire, science et religion en une philosophie de vie pleine d'esperance et de sens nouveau. Vous cherchez des reponses, lisez le Livre d'Urantia ! Le monde a besoin de nouvelles verites spirituelles, amenant l'homme et la femme modernes a une relation personnelle avec Dieu. Batissant sur l'heritage des religions, le livre devoile une destinee eternelle pour l'humanite, la foi vivante etant la cle du progres spirituel personnel et de la survie eternelle. Ces enseignements offrent de nouvelles verites pouvant elever et faire avancer la pensee et la croyance humaines pendant les prochains 1000 ans. Un tiers du Livre d'Urantia est l'histoire stimulante de la vie de Jesus et une revelation de ses enseignements originaux. Ce recit panoramique decrit la naissance, l'enfance, l'adolescence, les voyages et aventures de sa vie d'adulte, le ministere public, la crucifixion et ses19 apparitions de resurrection. Jesus n'est plus le personnage principal du Christianisme mais un guide pour les chercheurs, de toutes religions et de tous milieux.