The number of non-religious men and women has increased dramatically over the past several decades. Yet scholarship on the non-religious is severely lacking. In response to this critical gap in knowledge, The Nonreligious provides a comprehensive summation and analytical discussion of existing social scientific research on the non-religious. The authors present a thorough overview of existing research, while also drawing on ongoing research and positing ways to improve upon our current understanding of this growing population. The findings in this book stand out against the corpus of secular writing, which is comprised primarily of polemical rants critiquing religion, personal life-stories/memoirs of former believers, or abstract philosophical explorations of theology and anti-theology. By offering the first research- and data-based conclusions about the non-religious, this book will be an invaluable source of information and a foundation for further scholarship. Written in clear, jargon-free language that will appeal to the increasingly interested general readers, this book provides an unbiased, thorough account of all relevant existing scholarship within the social sciences that bears on the lived experience of the non-religious.

Children born and raised on the religious fringe are a distinctive yet largely unstudied social phenomenon -they are irreversibly shaped by the experience having been thrust into a radical religious culture by birth. The religious group is all encompassing. It accounts for their family, their school, social networks, and everything that prepares them for their adult life. The inclusion of a second generation of participants raises new concerns and legal issues. Perfect Children examines the ways new religious movements adapt to a second generation, how children are socialized, what happens to these children as they mature, and how their childhoods have affected them. Amanda van Twist conducted over 50 in-depth interviews with individuals born into new religious groups, some of whom have stayed in the group, some of whom have left. She also visited the groups, their schools and homes, and analyzed support websites maintained by those who left the religious groups that raised them. She also attended conferences held by NGOs concerned with the welfare of children in "cults." The main groups she studies include the Bruderhof, Scientology, the Family International, the Unification Church, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Children born into new religions often start life as "special children" believed to be endowed with heightened spiritual capabilities. But as they mature into society at large they acquire other labels. Those who stay in the group are usually labeled as "goodies" and "innovators". Those who leave tend to be labeled as "baddies" or seen as "troubled." Whether they stay or leave, children raised on the religious fringe experience a unique form of segregation in adulthood. Van Twist analyzes group behavior on an organizational/institutional level as well as individual behavior within groups, and how these affect one another. Her study also raises larger questions about religious freedom in the light of the State's responsibility towards children, and children's rights against the rights of parents to raise their children within their religion.

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, and the combination of shamanism with a network of health and spiritually related services. Finally, Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond addresses the topic of 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.

In a time unremembered, this author was found washed up on the shores of Lake Titicaca. In his possession was this book. This book is a map, it tells you where you've come from, it tells you where you're going, it tells you where you are. It tells you what is hidden and what will be revealed, and it tells you how to get out alive if only youa d remember

Restoring Africa’s Spiritual Identity, authored by African Hidden Voices and inspired by the revelations of Inkosi Yomoya Imboni Dr. Uzwi-Lezwe Radebe, delivers a powerful critique of the spiritual displacement caused by colonialism and religious imposition. The book reveals how the forced introduction of foreign religions severed Africa’s access to the masculine energy—the upward spiritual dimensions—disconnecting the continent from its highest spiritual authority and divine guidance.

African Hidden Voices argues that African Indigenous Spirituality (AIS), once centered on direct knowledge through revelations, was systematically replaced by belief-based systems that undermined Africa’s spiritual sovereignty. This disconnection resulted in the erosion of indigenous institutions that once guided African societies. The book also seeks to illuminate the role played by African Initiated Churches (AICs) in asserting their attempts to merge Christianity with African practices. They failed to restore the continent’s true spiritual identity, as they remained bound by the very religious frameworks that displaced them. Politics through the rise of Pan Africanism also failed to restore Africa to its authentic spirituality as it was fused with religious dogmas.

Restoring Africa’s Spiritual Identity calls for a return to authentic spiritual institutions, guided by the revelations of genuine spiritual guiders, to reclaim Africa's spiritual sovereignty. It presents a scholarly and visionary blueprint for restoring the continent’s cosmic balance and reconnecting with its original spiritual essence.

This book examines Sami shamanism in Norway as a uniquely distinctive local manifestation of a global new religious phenomenon. It takes the diversity and hybridity within shamanic practices seriously through case studies from a Norwegian setting and highlights the ethnic dimension of these currents, through a particular focus on Sami versions of shamanism. The book's thesis is that the construction of a Sami shamanistic movement makes sense from the perspective of the broader ethno-political search for a Sami identity, with respect to connections to indigenous peoples worldwide and trans-historically. It also makes sense in economic and marketing terms. Based on more than ten years of ethnographic research, the book paints a picture of contemporary shamanism in Norway in its cultural context, relating it both to the local mainstream cultures in which it is situated and to global networks. By this, the book provides the basis for a study revealing the development of inventiveness, nuances and polyphony that occur when a global religion of shamanism is merged in a Norwegian setting, colored by its own political and cultural circumstances.