A step-by-step guide to the Tree of Life and the Four Worlds of the Qabalists. Gray is the foremost authority on magic and the Qabalah.

The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya is the first-ever English-language dictionary of Mesoamerican mythology and religion. Nearly 300 entries, from accession to yoke, describe the main gods and symbols of the Olmecs, Zapotecs, Maya, Teotihuacanos, Mixtecs, Toltecs, and Aztecs. Topics range from jaguar and jester gods to reptile eye and rubber, from creation accounts and sacred places to ritual practices such as bloodletting, confession, dance, and pilgrimage. In addition, two introductory essays provide succinct accounts of Mesoamerican history and religion, while a substantial bibliographical survey directs the reader to original sources and recent discussions. Dictionary entries are illustrated with photographs and specially commissioned line drawings. Mary Miller and Karl Taube draw on their research in the fast-changing field of Maya studies, and on the latest Mexican discoveries, to produce an authoritative work that will serve as a standard reference for students, scholars, and travelers.

Are mysticism and morality compatible or at odds with one another? If mystical experience embraces a form of non-dual consciousness, then in such a state of mind, the regulative dichotomy so basic to ethical discretion would seemingly be transcended and the very foundation for ethical decisions undermined. Venturing Beyond - Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism is an investigation of the relationship of the mystical and moral as it is expressed in the particular tradition of Jewish mysticism known as the Kabbalah. The particular themes discussed include the denigration of the non-Jew as the ontic other in kabbalistic anthropology and the eschatological crossing of that boundary anticipated in the instituition of religious conversion; the overcoming of the distinction between good and evil in the mystical experience of the underlying unity of all things; divine suffering and the ideal of spiritual poverty as the foundation for transmoral ethics and hypernomian lawfulness.

New Age and holistic beliefs and practices - sometimes called the "new spirituality" - are widely distributed across modern global society. The fluid and popular nature of new age makes these movements a very challenging field to understand using traditional models of religious analysis. Rather than treating new age as an exotic specimen on the margins of 'proper' religion, "New Age Spirituality" examines these movements as a form of everyday or lived religion. The book brings together an international range of scholars to explore the key issues: insight, healing, divination, meditation, gnosis, extraordinary experiences, and interactions with gods, spirits and superhuman powers. Combining discussion of contemporary beliefs and practices with cutting-edge theoretical analysis, the book repositions new age spirituality at the forefront of the contemporary study of religion.

This book explores Icelandic spirit work, known as andleg mal, which features trance and healing practices that span earth and spirit realms, historical eras, and scientific and supernatural worldviews. Based on years of fieldwork conducted in the northern Icelandic town of Akureyri, this book excavates andleg mal's roots in layers of Icelandic history, and examines how the practice mixes modern science with the supernatural and even occasionally crosses the Atlantic Ocean. Weaving personal stories and anecdotes with accessibly written accounts of Icelandic religious and cultural traditions, Corinne Dempsey humanizes spirit practices that are usually demonized or romanticized. While andleg mal may appear remote and exotic, those who practice it are not. Having endured extremely harsh conditions until recent decades, Icelanders today are among the most highly educated people on the planet, well-connected to global technologies and economies. Andleg mal practitioners are no exception, as many of them are members of mainstream society who work day jobs and keep their spirit involvement under wraps. For those who claim the "gift" of openness to the spirit world, andleg mal even offers a means of daily spiritual support, helping to diminish fear and self-doubt and providing benefits to those on both sides of the divide.

This book provides a dispassionate analysis of new religious movements, charting their growth and examining them from a variety of perspectives - sociological, psychological, legal and theological. Saliba then questions whether or not membership harms those who join these new movements and assesses the charge that they 'brainwash' their adherents.

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.

This volume investigates "alternative" spiritualities that increasingly cater for the mainstream within the secularized society of Norway, making Norwegian-based research available to international scholarship. It looks at New Age both in a restricted (sensu stricto) and a wide sense (sensu lato), focusing mainly on the period from the mid-1990s and onwards, with a particular emphasis on developments after the turn of the century. Few, if any, of the ideas and practices discussed in this book are homegrown or uniquely Norwegian, but local soil and climate still matters, as habitats for particular growths and developments. Globalizing currents are here shaped and molded by local religious history and contemporary religio-political systems, along with random incidences, such as the setting up of an angel-business by the princess Martha Louise. The position of Lutheran Protestantism as "national religion" particularly impacts on the development and perception of religious competitors.

Pagan Portals - Raven Goddess follows on from the author's earlier book, The Morrigan, to help the reader continue to get to know the Irish Goddess of war, battle, and prophecy with a particular focus on disentangling truth from common misconceptions. As the Morrigan has grown in popularity, understandings of who she was and is have shifted and become even more nebulous. Raven Goddess is intended to clarify some common points of confusion and help people go deeper in their study of the Morrigan and assist in nurturing a devotional relationship to her.

This book shows that widespread resacralisation has been taking place, which is producing new ways of perceiving God and the divine. The last century has seen unmistakable changes in religious practices and the concept of spirituality right across the world. There was a broad expectation for much of the twentieth century that religious worldviews would eventually succumb to the challenge of secularist materialism, but this process of secularisation has yet to occur as predicted. The book begins by contrasting theories of secularisation and resacralisation. Throughout the book, conceptual threads, or 'new religious themes', related to this resacralisation are discussed in terms of three main categories: reimagining God's nature, substance and location; reimagining human value and purpose; and reimagining modes of redemption. Finally, the book considers how these threads are moving in various different directions, and what the religious future might hold. This is a bold examination of contemporary spirituality that will appeal to academics and scholars of religious studies, new religious movements and the sociology of religion.

Evidence for the survival of paganism in the medieval world. Many aspects of the pagan past continued to survive into the middle ages despite the introduction of Christianity, influencing forms of behaviour and the whole mentalitéof the period. The essays collected in this stimulating volume seek to explore aspects of the way paganism mingled with Christian teaching to affect many different aspects of medieval society, through a focus on such topics as archaeology, the afterlife and sexuality, scientific knowledge, and visionary activity. Tr. TANIS GUEST.Professor LUDO J.R. MILIS teaches at the University of Ghent.Contributors: LUDO J.R. MILIS, MARTINE DE REU, ALAIN DIERKENS, CHRISTOPHE LEBBE, ANNICK WAEGEMAN, VÉRONIQUE CHARON

This volume is the first English-language anthology to engage with the fascinating phenomena of recent surges in New Age and alternative spiritualties in Israel. Contributors investigate how these New Age religions and other spiritualties-produced in Western countries within predominantly Protestant or secular cultures-transform and adapt themselves in Israel. The volume focuses on a variety of groups and movements, such as Theosophy and Anthroposophy, Neopaganism, Channeling, Women's Yoga, the New Age festival scene, and even Pentecostal churches among African labor migrants living in Tel Aviv. Chapters also explore more Jewish-oriented practices such as Neo-Kabballah, Neo-Hassidism, and alternative marriage ceremonies, as well as the use of spiritual care providers in Israeli hospitals. In addition, contributors take a close look at the state's reaction to the recent activities and growth of new religious movements.

In its most general sense, the term "Spiritual but Not Religious" denotes those who, on the one hand, are disillusioned with traditional institutional religion and, on the other hand, feel that those same traditions contain deep wisdom about the human condition. This edited collection speaks to what national surveys agree is a growing social phenomenon referred to as the "Spiritual but Not Religious Movement" (SBNRM). Each essay of the volume engages the past, present and future(s) of the SBNRM. Their collective contribution is analytic, descriptive, and prescriptive, taking stock of not only the various analyses of the SBNRM to date but also the establishment of a new ground upon which the continued academic discussion can take place. This volume is a watershed in the growing academic and public interest in the SBNRM. As such, it will vital reading for any academic involved in Religious Studies, Spirituality and Sociology.

This Element provides a comprehensive overview of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) Movement and its offshoots. Several early assessments of the as a cult and/or new religious movement are helpful, but are brief and somewhat dated. This Element examines the TM movement's history, beginning in India in 1955, and ends with an analysis of the splinter groups that have come along in the past twenty-five years. Close consideration is given to the movement's appeal for the youth culture of the 1960s, which accounted for its initial success. The Element also looks at the marketing of the meditation technique as a scientifically endorsed practice in the 1970s, and the movement's dramatic turn inward during the 1980s. It concludes by discussing the waning of its popular appeal in the new millennium. This Element describes the social and cultural forces that helped shape the TM movement's trajectory over the decades leading to the present and shows how the most popular meditation movement in America distilled into an obscure form of Neo-Hinduism.

This book shows that widespread resacralisation has been taking place, which is producing new ways of perceiving God and the divine. The last century has seen unmistakable changes in religious practices and the concept of spirituality right across the world. There was a broad expectation for much of the twentieth century that religious worldviews would eventually succumb to the challenge of secularist materialism, but this process of secularisation has yet to occur as predicted. The book begins by contrasting theories of secularisation and resacralisation. Throughout the book, conceptual threads, or 'new religious themes', related to this resacralisation are discussed in terms of three main categories: reimagining God's nature, substance and location; reimagining human value and purpose; and reimagining modes of redemption. Finally, the book considers how these threads are moving in various different directions, and what the religious future might hold. This is a bold examination of contemporary spirituality that will appeal to academics and scholars of religious studies, new religious movements and the sociology of religion.

From being characterized as 'primitive tribe' in the colonial imagination to become predominantly practitioners of the American Baptist faith, the Sumi Naga - formerly known as the Sema Naga - in the North-East Indian state of Nagaland have come a long way ever since this Naga tribe encountered the white man toward the latter half of the nineteenth century. This book in a way chronicles the transition of Sumi society from the period of colonial contact up to the present-day context. A critical understanding of Sumi society and culture is at the heart of the narrative, and the analysis of Sumi religion and world view remains the main thrust of this book. It is argued that the Sumi, who are overwhelmingly Baptists, are faced with new religious issues which has brought about not only schismatic divisions but also rendering ebullience to religious life, and that a new discourse has emerged in Sumi religion. The author positions himself as an 'insider', and in doing so has given a reflexive account of Sumi religious life, meanwhile substantiating the arguments and findings in the light of contemporary theoretical developments. The volume brings out compelling evidence that religion significantly shapes the daily life of the Sumi. It offers a detailed ethnographic study of Sumi religion and world view, as the Sumi Naga was seldom studied in-depth in the post-Independence period. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

The Church of World Messianity, a religion founded by Okada Mokichi (1882-1955), was introduced to Brazil in 1955. Messianity is best known for the religious activity Jhorei; transmission of the light of God by holding one's hand over a recipient. Messianity's doctrine and practice is strongly influenced by that of Shinto, a Japanese traditional religion. For this reason, it might be considered that Messianity would appear to be rather out of place in the Brazilian cultural milieu and different from Brazilian religious orientations. However in terms of doctrine and practice, there are some aspects that indicate continuity such as the belief in the existence of the world of spirits. During fieldwork of a pilgrimage bus tour with Messianity followers, the author encounters a busjacking where highway robbers take over the bus at late night. Through this incident Matsuoka develops his analysis of the acceptance of the religion by collecting interpretations of the busjacking from the pilgrims. Based on extensive fieldwork, this book studies several significant topics in anthropological study of religion such as sacred place, magic/religion argument, theodicy, conversion in Messianity. By doing so, Matsuoka not only elucidates the reasons why Messianity has been accepted by some non-ethnic Japanese Brazilians, but also analyzes the meaning and significance of fundamental features of the religion, which are common to Japanese new religions in general.

This volume deals with temple ritual texts from ancient Mesopotamia, in particularfrom the cities Uruk and Babylon. Key question is whether they are a reliable source of information on the cult practices in Uruk and Babylon during the Hellenistic period.
In the book an extensive description is presented of the festivals, rituals, ceremonies and offerings in Hellenistic Mesopotamia. The appendix consists of a selection of the most important temple ritual texts, which are presented in transliteration, translation and with philological comments. Four plates with so far unpublished text fragments are also included.
The evidence clearly shows how important the public cults were in Hellenistic times, at least until the first century B.C., and how active the Mesopotamians were in matters of religion and cult during this period.