Undocumented Saints follows the migration of popular saints from Mexico into the US and the evolution of their meaning. The book explores how Latinx battles for survival are performed in the worlds of faith, religiosity, and the imaginary, and how the socio-political realities of exploitation and racial segregation frame their popular religious expressions. It also tracks the emergence of inter-religious states, transnational ethnic and cultural enclaves unified by faith. The book looks at five vernacular saints that have emerged in Mexico and whose devotions have migrated into the US in the last one hundred years: Jesus Malverde, a popular bandido turned saint caudillo; Santa Olguita, an emerging feminist saint linked to border women's experiences of sexual violence; Juan Soldado, a murder-rapist soldier who is now a patron for undocumented immigrants and the main suspect in the death of an eight-year-old victim known now as Santa Olguita; Toribio Romo, a Catholic priest whose ghost/spirit has been helping people cross the border into the US since the 1990s; and La Santa Muerte, a controversial personification of death who is particularly popular among LGBTQ migrants. Each chapter contextualizes a particular popular saint within broader discourses about the construction of masculinity and the state, the long history of violence against Latina and migrant women, female erasure from history, discrimination against non-normative sexualities, and as US and Mexican investment in the control of religiosity within the discourses of immigration.

A recreation of the spiritual life of ancient Mesopotamia demonstrating that the roots of Western civilization lie in the ancient Near East "A brilliant presentation of Mesopotamian religion from the inside, backed at every point by meticulous scholarship and persistent adherence to original texts. . . . A classic in its field."-Religious Studies Review "The Treasures of Darkness is the culmination of a lifetime's work, an attempt to summarize and recreate the spiritual life of Ancient Mesopotamia. Jacobsen has succeeded brilliantly. . . . His vast experience shows through every page of this unique book, through the vivid, new translations resulting from years of careful research. Everyone interested in early Mesopotamia, whether specialist, student, or complete layman, should read this book. . . . It is, quite simply, authoritative, based on a vast experience of the ancient Mesopotamian mind, and very well written in the bargain."-Brian M. Fagan, History "Professor Jacobsen is an authority on Sumerian life and society, but he is above all a philologist of rare sensibility. The Treasures of Darkness is almost entirely devoted to textual evidence, the more gritty sources of archaeological knowledge being seldom mentioned. He introduces many new translations which are much finer than previous versions. . . . Simply to read this poetry and the author's sympathetic commentary is a pleasure and a revelation. Professor Jacobsen accepts the premise that all religion springs from man's experience of a power not of this world, a mysterious 'Wholly Other.' This numinous power cannot be described in terms of worldly experience but only in allusive 'metaphors' that serve as a means of communication in religious teaching and thought. . . . As a literary work combining sensibility, imagination and scholarship, this book is near perfection."-Jacquetta Hawkes, The London Sunday Times "A fascinating book. The general reader cannot fail to admire the translated passages of Sumerian poetry with which it abounds, especially those illustrating the Dumuzi-Inanna cycle of courtship, wedding and lament for the god's untimely death. Many of these (though not all) are new even to the specialist and will repay close study."-B.O.R. Gurney, Times Literary Supplement

Sage, scientist, and sorcerer, Hermes Trismegistus was the culture-hero of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. A human (according to some) who had lived about the time of Moses, but now indisputably a god, he was credited with the authorship of numerous books on magic and the supernatural, alchemy, astrology, theology, and philosophy. Until the early seventeenth century, few doubted the attribution. Even when unmasked, Hermes remained a byword for the arcane. Historians of ancient philosophy have puzzled much over the origins of his mystical teachings; but this is the first investigation of the Hermetic milieu by a social historian.

Starting from the complex fusions and tensions that molded Graeco-Egyptian culture, and in particular Hermetism, during the centuries after Alexander, Garth Fowden goes on to argue that the technical and philosophical Hermetica, apparently so different, might be seen as aspects of a single "way of Hermes." This assumption that philosophy and religion, even cult, bring one eventually to the same goal was typically late antique, and guaranteed the Hermetica a far-flung readership, even among Christians. The focus and conclusion of this study is an assault on the problem of the social milieu of Hermetism.

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.

How to find deeper meaning in magical workings with Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit and connect with the Old Ways. Many contemporary pagan books rarely go further than describing the use of the elemental energies as markers in casting the Circle. In The Power of the Elements we consider drawing on the energy from the deepest levels of the ocean, the highest peaks of the mountains, the limits of outer space and the path of the hurricane. And why it is so important to return to the Classic Elements of the Greeks if we really want our magic to work.

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 was said in the beginning, in a garden called Eden, that woman was created at the same time as man, and not from his rib. Lilith, the first female, created equal to stand as a partner. But she proved to be a person so troublesome that she vanishes from her rightful place in civilization's mythological legends in place of Eve, the first wife. With her younger sister Eve's story heralding the future of all womankind, Lilith and her story stands alone as a testament to the Sacred Feminine and man's fear of the mysteries that lie within her. The First Sisters: Lilith and Eve is a gateway to a provocative awakening.

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.