The resurrection of the dead was, as Tertullian says, 'the chief article of the whole Christian faith' (De resurrectione 39.3) and one of those beliefs which most distinguished Christian thought from much other contemporary thinking. This book looks at the way in which post-death existence is represented in the work of the early Church Fathers - notably Athenagoras, Tertullian, and Origen - and the Letter to Rheginos, and how these representations compare with its treatment both in Scripture and in contemporary, modern theological reflection. Examining these attitudes to life after death, and putting them into conversation with more modern interpretations, the book asks four main questions. Firstly, whether resurrection happens immediately after death. Secondly, if there is continuity or discontinuity of space and time between death and a resurrection life. Thirdly, it explores whether post-death existence was thought to be embodied or not, and if so how might it be embodied. Finally, it addresses the issue of continuity, or discontinuity, of personal identity after death. This book sheds light on the formation of a key doctrine of Christian faith. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars and academics working in the History of Religion, Theology and Patristics.

Feeling Exclusion: Religious Conflict, Exile and Emotions in Early Modern Europe investigates the emotional experience of exclusion at the heart of the religious life of persecuted and exiled individuals and communities in early modern Europe. Between the late fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries an unprecedented number of people in Europe were forced to flee their native lands and live in a state of physical or internal exile as a result of religious conflict and upheaval. Drawing on new insights from history of emotions methodologies, Feeling Exclusion explores the complex relationships between communities in exile, the homelands from which they fled or were exiled, and those from whom they sought physical or psychological assistance. It examines the various coping strategies religious refugees developed to deal with their marginalization and exclusion, and investigates the strategies deployed in various media to generate feelings of exclusion through models of social difference, that questioned the loyalty, values, and trust of "others". Accessibly written, divided into three thematic parts, and enhanced by a variety of illustrations, Feeling Exclusion is perfect for students and researchers of early modern emotions and religion.

Offering a new template for future exploration, Susan Greenwood examines and develops the notion that the experience of magic is a panhuman orientation of consciousness, a form of knowledge largely marginalized in Western societies. In this volume she aims to form a "bridge of communication" between indigenous magical or shamanic worldviews and rationalized Western cultures. She outlines an alternative mythological framework for the latter to help develop a magical perception, as well as giving practical case studies derived from her own research. The form of magic discussed here is not fantastic or virtual, but ecological and sensory. Magical knowledge infiltrates the body in its deepest levels of the subconscious, and unconscious, as well as conscious awareness; it is felt and understood through the connection with an inspirited world that includes the consciousness of other beings, including those of plant, animal and the physical environment. This is anthropology from the heart rather than the head, and it engages with the messy area of emotions, an embodiment of the senses, and struggles to find a common language of listening to one another across a void of differences. The aim is to provide a non-reductive structure for the creative interplay of both magical and analytical modes of thought. Passion is a motivator for change, and a change in attitude to magic as an integrative force of human understanding is the main thread of this work.

Originally published in 1974 Intimacy and Ritual is a sympathetic study of spiritualist activities and their relation to the practitioners' secular lives. The book, in particular, looks at the therapeutic function of spiritualism. Based on the author's fieldwork as a 'participant observer' among spiritualists in a South Wales town, the research covers spiritualists services and meetings as well as interviews with spiritualists in their own homes. The book gives an accurate account of spiritualist doctrines and beliefs about the spirit world. The book postulates that spirit possession always relates to illness and shows how this is often the physical counterpart of social malaise. Throughout the study, spiritualism is seen in terms of the coping techniques and the rewards which it offers its members. The book shows that spiritualism is more highly regarded as a problem-solving source than the formal care-giving organizations, such as psychiatrist hospitals and the social work agencies. Healing activities are interpreted as a symbolic enactment of male and female roles ideally conceived, and spiritualist messages offer symbols and explanations of illness and misfortune.

Originally published in 1992, Channeling is a comprehensive bibliography on the subject of channeling. The book defines channeling as any message received or conveyed from transcendent entities and covers material on the history of channeling, those that have claimed to transcend death, contact with UFOs and contemporary channeling groups. The book acts as a research guide and seeks to outline the historical roots of channeling, explaining its major teachings and considers its significance as a spiritual movement. It provides sources from books, booklets, articles, and ephemeral material and offers a comprehensive list of both primary and secondary materials related to channeling, the bibliography takes the most diverse and useful sources of the time. This volume although published almost 30 years ago, still provides a unique and insightful collection for academics of religion, in particular those researching spiritualism and the occult.

Cutting across three areas of interest within New Religious Movements - insider perspectives, sociology of religion and the helping professions - this book explores insiders' experience of the Indian Guru-disciple Yogic tradition and is authored by a former member of that tradition. Highlighting the rich spiritual experience of devotees of Guru-disciple Yoga, and broadening the understanding of Guru-disciple Yoga Practice, this book also adds considerably to knowledge of conversion to New Religious Movements and to issues of affiliation and disengagement. Exploring participants' experience of attraction, affiliation and disengagement, these themes highlight individuals' personal experience of Guru-disciple Yoga Practice.

This book explores the inter-relationship between religious groups and wider society and examines the way religious groups change in relation to societal norms, potentially to the point of undergoing processes of 'internal secularisation' within secular and secularist cultures. Received sociological wisdom suggests that over time religious groups moderate their claims. This comes with the potential loss of new adherents, for theorists of secularisation suggest unique or universal, rather than moderate, truth claims appear attractive to would-be recruits. At the same time, religious groups need to appear equivalent, in terms of harmlessness, to state-sanctioned religious expression in order to secure rights. Thus, religious organisations face a perpetual conundrum. Using British Quakers as a case study as they moved from a counter-cultural group to an accepted and accepting part of twentieth- and twenty-first-century society, the author builds on models of religion and non-religion in terms of flows and explores the consequences of religious assimilation when the process of constructing both distinctive appeal and 'harmlessness' in pursuit of rights is played out in a secular culture. A major contribution to the sociology of religion, The Cultivation of Conformity presents a new theory of internal secularisation as the ultimate stage of the cultivation of conformity, and a model of the way sects and society inter-relate.

Do you seek the truth? Do you value reason, science, and independent thinking? Are you skeptical of beliefs that people maintain merely "on faith," yet you remain interested in the big questions of life? Do you hope there could be a greater purpose to the universe, if only that were realistic? If so, then philosopher Joshua Rasmussen can encourage you in your journey. Beginning with his own story of losing faith and the belief in any ultimate purpose in life, he then builds a bridge to a series of universal truths about ultimate reality. Using only the instruments of reason and common experience, Rasmussen constructs a pathway-step by step, brick by brick-that he argues can lead to meaning and, ultimately, a vision of God.

This book, first published in 1984, examines the whole range of new religious movements which appeared in the 1960s and 1970s in the West. It develops a wide-ranging theory of these new religions which explains many of their major characteristics. Some of the movements are well-known, such as Scientology, Krishna Consciousness, and the Unification Church. Others such as the Process, Meher Baba, and 3-HO are much less known. While some became international, others remained local; in other ways, too, such as style, belief, organisation, they exhibit enormous diversity. The movements studied here are classified under three ideal types, world-rejecting, world-affirming and world-accommodating, and from here the author develops a theory of the origins, recruitment base, characteristics, and development patterns which they display. The book offers a critical exploration of the theories of the new religions and analyses the highly contentious issue of whether they reflect the process of secularisation, or whether they are a countervailing trend marking the resurgence of religion in the West.

This book, first published in 1974, argues that the counter culture is not the outcome of alienation, but of opportunity, being the result of a new generational consciousness, an openness which has characterised industrial societies of the West since the 1950s. Its roots lie in economic expansion and population movement and growth, the same factors that are cited in the decline of religiousness.

In this book, first published in 1990, the significance of televangelism in America is examined in detail. This well-informed, measured analysis includes discussion of the place of televangelism in the history of American Protestantism; the styles of leading TV preachers and the televangelical star system; the relation of televangelism to conservatism and politics. It also answers the questions of televangelism's organisation and audience, as well as providing an analysis over the wave of scandals which swept over Pray TV in the 1980s.

How is symbolic violence related to the real acts of religious violence around the modern world? The authors of this book, first published in 1992, explore this question with reference to some of the most volatile religious and political conflicts of the day: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Sikhs in India, militant Jewish groups in Israel, and Muslim movements from the Middle East to Indonesia. In addition to providing valuable insights into these important incidents, the authors - social scientists and historians of comparative religion - are responding to the theoretical issues articulated by Rene Girard in Violence and the Sacred (1977). The present volume is the first book of essays to test Girard's theories about the social significance of religious symbols of violence against real, rather than symbolic, acts. In some cases his theories are found to be applicable; in other cases, the authors provide alternative theories of their own. In a concluding essay, co-authored by Mark Anspach, Girard provides a response.

This book, first published in 1956, is the first authoritative, comprehensive account of the worldwide activities of Jehovah's Witnesses. It traces their origins and development, and a special section covers the founding, organization and development of the movement in Great Britain.

This book, first published in 1974, shows how social class and origins in mid-nineteenth century Aberdeen were reflected in religious belief and observance, and how in turn this acted as a catalyst for change in society. Through a detailed analysis of this topic, particularly in relation to the Presbyterian denominations, the author directs fresh light on the emergence and development of the Free Church. The Disruption in the Church of Scotland is examined within the context of changes which had taken place in the form of industrial production, whereby the city as a centre of manufacturing had replaced the domestic production of the countryside. The concomitant changes in the social structure, and the divisions which resulted within the old ruling families, are probed. The social patterns of adherence to the Established and Free Churches are analysed in detail, and the subsequent development of the Free Church is examined in terms of the social support it enjoyed in 1843.

This book, first published in 1991, examines the unreligious of America. Most sociologists of religion viewed religious belief and behaviour as having strong positive function for individual well-being - with the implicit assumption that unreligious individuals would lack meaning in life. This book applies statistical approaches to modelling causality as it analyses a controversial topic in American sociology.

Are Christian families more - or less - strong than other families? How important is sexual satisfaction to marital happiness? What impact does the arrival of children have on a marriage? How does income affect marital satisfaction? What pressures confront employed wives and their families and how content are these women with their marriages? To accurately assess the influence of religion on the marriages of churchgoers, this book, first published in 1990, considers the significance of other important forces as well - level of education, job satisfaction, income, sex life, patterns of decision making, coping strategies, and the demands of parenting. While most studies have been content to assess religion's impact by looking at church membership or church attendance, this book looks at several facets of religiosity in an effort to understand more clearly just how and when religion affects marriage quality and whether its impact is positive or negative. A final concern of the book is to assess how the current generation of couples is adapting to intergenerational changes such as increased occupational status, more egalitarian patterns of decision-making, and smaller families. It examines the role modifications and coping strategies that couples are employing to deal with these changes and with the demands that accompany them.

The main concern of this study, first published in 1990, is the part played by Protestantism in the complex of social processes of 'secularization'. The book deals with the way in which Protestant schism and dissent paved the way for the rise of religious pluralism and toleration; and it also looks at the fragility of the two major responses to religious pluralism - the accommodation of liberal Protestantism and the sectarian rejection of the conservative alternative. It examines the part played by social, economic and political changes in undermining the plausibility of religion in western Europe, and puts forward the argument that core Reformation ideas must not be overlooked, particularly the repercussions of different beliefs about authority in competing Christian traditions.

The purpose of this book, first published in 1945, is to consider the problem of religion in its relation to the family. Even in 1945 there had been much talk regarding the break-up of family life and the weakening of parental control, and this book examines the role of religion in the social changes within the family unit.

Exploring what does and what does not constitute pilgrimage, Redefining Pilgrimage draws together a wide variety of disciplines including politics, anthropology, history, religion and sociology. Leading contributors offer a broad range of case studies from a wide geographical area, exploring new ways of approaching pilgrimage beyond the classical religious model. Re-thinking the global phenomenon of pilgrimages in the 21st century, this book offers new perspectives to redefine pilgrimage.

This book examines a number of landmark shifts in our account of the relationship between human and divine existence, as reflected through the perception of time and corporeal experience. Drawing together some of the best scholars in the field, this book provides a representative cross-section of influential trends in the philosophy of religion (e.g. phenomenology, existential thought, Biblical hermeneutics, deconstruction) that have shaped our understanding of the body in its profane and sacred dimensions as site of conflicting discourses on presence and absence, subjectivity and the death of the subject, mortality, resurrection and eternal life.

This book is a study of contemporary spirituality as it is practiced in the world today, characterized by its secular and inclusive nature, and applied to art and art education. It identifies the issues facing a formal introduction of contemporary spiritual concepts into a secular and multicultural arts educational environment. Lander begins by separating the notion of "the spiritual" from the study of organized religions. She uses examples of art from different cultures in contemporary spiritual systems, making the study a reference book for contemporary spirituality and spirituality in art education, with usable definitions and practical examples suitable for scholars in art and visual studies, art education, and contemporary spirituality.

First published in 1978, Don Juan, Mescalito and Modern Magic begins with an analysis of the Castaneda material from the viewpoint of its inherently magical content. The author examines the symbiotic gestures, the magical actions and the mind-altering techniques employed by the brujo Don Juan, and then goes on to draw comparisons with two other schools of thought: the psychedelic development of the 1960s and the Western Magical Tradition. The essential aim throughout is to show that there is a basically Western shamanism which uses Western symbols and is easily accessible. The shamanistic practices of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn are examined in this context. Considerable emphasis is also placed on mythological aspects associated with out-of-the-body experiences and their relevance to both the Don Juan Mescalito imagery and the Qabalistic and Tarot symbols found in Western Magic. This book will be of interest to students of religion, history and literature.

This title was first published in 2001. This work presents a sociological theory of religion. Richard K. Fenn demonstrates that the shape of the sacred depends on what aspects of the psyche and of the environment seem to be beyond the pale of the human and the social, that is, the primitive. Whatever is anti-social or subhuman, and whatever subverts the reign of convention, or whatever defies notions of reason, represents the primitive. Indeed, the primitive represents the range of possibilities that excluded us from any society or social system. That is why hell is so often populated by those who are partly bestial, or crooked and corrupting. If there is to be a renewal of Christian thinking and aspiration in our time, it has to come from a rediscovery of the dream: not only in the metaphorical sense of a vision, perhaps of racial equality, but in the quite literal sense of the individual's own reservoir of suppressed and unconscious memories and yearnings, magical thinking and wounded or grandiose self-imagery.

Invented religions have been described as modern religions which advertise their invented status and reject traditional strategies of authorisation. But what does it mean for a religious formation to be 'made up', and how might this status affect perceptions of its legitimacy or authenticity in wider society? Based in original fieldwork and archival sources, and in the secondary literature on invented and constructed formations, this volume explores the allure of, as well as the limits of, the invention of religion. Through a series of case studies, the contributors discuss strategies of mobilization and legitimation for new traditions at their point of emergence, as well as taking issue with simplistic interpretations of the phenomenon which neglect wider cultural and political dimensions. This book was originally published as a special issue of Culture and Religion.

Exploring the religious category of dying to self, this book aims to resolve contemporary issues that relate to detachment. Beginning with an examination of humility in its general notion and as a religious virtue that detachment presupposes, Kellenberger draws on a range of ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary sources that address the main characteristics of detachment, including the work of Meister Eckhart, St. Teresa, and Simone Weil, as well as writers as varied as Gregory of Nyssa, Rabi'a al-Adawiyya, SAren Kierkegaard, Andrew Newberg, John Hick and Keiji Nishitani. Kellenberger explores the key issues that arise for detachment, including the place of the individual's will in detachment, the relationship of detachment to desire, to attachment to persons, and to self-love and self-respect, and issues of contemporary secular detachment such as inducement via chemicals. This book heeds the relevance of the religious virtue of detachment for those living in the twenty-first century.