Freemasonry is generally regarded a male phenomenon. Yet, both before 1723 and since 1744, women were initiated as well. This book is about the rituals, used for the initiation of women in the Adoption Lodges, since the middle of the 18th century. It describes their contents, roots and creation before reviewing and conceptualising their development in the past three centuries. It analyses the different families of rituals within the Adoption Rite, and gives an overview of specific developments, showing how the rituals were adapted to their changing contexts. Apart from its relevance for the history of Freemasonry in general and the Adoption Rite in particular, the book also writes a hitherto unknown chapter of women s history. Of particular interest for the history of feminism is the chapter about the 20th century, which could only be written now that the documents concerning it, which had been moved to Moscow in 1945, had been returned in 2000.

Unfortunate Destiny focuses on the roles played by nonhuman animals within the imaginative thought-world of Indian Buddhism, as reflected in pre-modern South Asian Buddhist literature. These roles are multifaceted, diverse, and often contradictory: In Buddhist doctrine and cosmology, the animal rebirth is a most "unfortunate destiny" (durgati), won through negative karma and characterized by a lack of intelligence, moral agency, and spiritual potential. In stories about the Buddha's previous lives, on the other hand, we find highly anthropomorphized animals who are wise, virtuous, endowed with human speech, and often critical of the moral shortcomings of humankind. In the life-story of the Buddha, certain animal characters serve as "doubles" of the Buddha, illuminating his nature through identification, contrast or parallelism with an animal "other." Relations between human beings and animals likewise range all the way from support, friendship, and near-equality to rampant exploitation, cruelty, and abuse. Perhaps the only commonality among these various strands of thought is a persistent impulse to use animals to clarify the nature of humanity itself-whether through similarity, contrast, or counterpoint. Buddhism is a profoundly human-centered religious tradition, yet it relies upon a dexterous use of the animal other to help clarify the human self. This book seeks to make sense of this process through a wide-ranging-exploration of animal imagery, animal discourse, and specific animal characters in South Asian Buddhist texts.

In the past two decades, scholarship in the Humanities and in the Social Sciences has witnessed the synchronic and often tangled rise of Ritual and Performance Studies. This interdisciplinary collection of essays in disciplines ranging from Theology to Antropology to Business Administration offers an insightful guide to assumptions, approaches and methods that underpin much of cutting-edge research in the field, with the help of case-studies spanning four continents and covering a long-haul period from the High Middle Ages to the Present.

We Sing We Stay Together: Shabbat Morning Service Prayers is a super user-friendly Sing-Along prayer book for the Shabbat (Saturday) Morning Synagogue Service with TRANSLITERATED ENGLISH TEXT, translation and explanation of the service. Its primary purpose is to make it beyond easy to learn the prayers when listening and singing along to the 64 track music CD album set of the same name; but it also stands, in its own right, as a learning tool explaining the meaning of the words and the service. Our Jewish prayers are beautiful love songs; full of goodness, affection, adoration, hope, kindness and generosity. They are our DNA, even if we do not know them, because these prayers, our religion, have moulded the Jewish people; our way of thinking, education, who we are, and what we represent. Judaism is all about being good and positive for oneself, family, community, the wider world - all out of respect and love for Hashem. It fills me with gratitude, humility, and pride. Our heritage is an intellectual, cultural, spiritual and religious blessing - but we need easy access. I was never able to participate in, let alone enjoy, the Shabbat Morning Service, but I loved those moments when the whole community comes together and sings a few short prayers with moving melodies. There just was not enough of it, we needed more singing, much more! Community is all about family and friends, and we are all friends, it is actually written in one of our prayers. Our prayers are crying out to be sung with great happiness, clearly and harmoniously. Communal prayers are all about belonging, sharing, and that is only possible if we can all join in as equals; and for that we need clearly articulated words that are easy to learn and enjoyable to sing. I dedicate this project of melodizing the Shabbat Morning Service prayers and writing a Sing-Along prayer book to all who love and care for Jewish Continuity, Judaism, Torah, and the Nation-State of the Jewish People, Israel; and so also to all our wonderful friends, the righteous among the nations. Remember to remember that when we sing together, we stay together. AM ISRAEL CHAI - the people of Israel live. With love, and hope for our children, Richard Collis

Hair, Headwear, and Orthodox Jewish Women comments on hair covering based on an ethnographic study of the lives of Orthodox Jewish women in a small non-metropolitan synagogue. It brings the often overlooked stories of these women to the forefront and probes questions as to how their location in a small community affects their behavioral choices, particularly regarding the folk practice of hair covering. A kallah, or bride, makes the decision as to whether or not she will cover her hair after marriage. In doing so, she externally announces her religious affiliation, in particular her commitment to maintaining an Orthodox Jewish home. Hair covering practices are also unique to women's traditions and point out the importance of examining the women, especially because their cultural roles may be marginalized in studies as a result of their lack of a central role in worship. This study questions their contribution to Orthodoxy as well as their concept of Jewish identity and the ways in which they negotiate this identity with ritualized and traditional behavior, ultimately bringing into question the meaning of tradition in a modern world.

Dear friend - If you do not yet read Hebrew, and need an alternative resource for your daily davvenen (prayer), or if you are not used to reading the Hebrew with comprehension and the ability to dilate it from its literal meaning, I offer you this concise translation of the Jewish siddur or prayer-book, which I frequently use for my own davvenen. I have translated the liturgy of the siddur here according to the way in which I experience it in my own feeling-consciousness. Thus, my translations do not so much offer the p'shat or the literal meaning of the words as they do a devotional interpretation that can make them into prayers of the heart. . . . This siddur is meant to help you stay in touch with God on a daily basis, to gain divine assistance, to lighten your burdens, not to add to them. May you come to experience your own prayer as a blessed meeting with your own God. - Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

As the cradle-religion I belong to has been, at every age, probing into her managing and conserving of the Mmysterious Ttreasures entrusted to her, with the enlightenment, offered by Vatican Council II, I too longed to scrutinize my own handling of Catholic Christian Ffaith. I wanted to examine whether the religion I practice personally was real or reel? tTrue or false? gGenuine or false? aAuthentic or artificial? hHeartfelt or routine? fFruitful or poisonous? oOriginal or counterfeit? sSingle-hearted or double-hearted?' Certainly, as a priest I had lot of occasions like recollections and retreats regularly to regularly assess the genuineness of my religious holdings and practices. Though I began 10ten years back, gathering all my scribbles and journals of evaluation about my personal religion, I started putting them seriously into a book form only after Pope Benedict XVI announced year 2012 as the Year of Faith. I considered it a call from God who wanted to befriend me more intensely and to promote to my friends this habit of assessing one's own faith. This is how this book was conceived and shaped. This book can be considered as a self-imposed act of examining my conscience about the identity, nature, and application, and practice of religion in my life. I hope and pray this effort of mine will surely assist my readers do the same, not only during this Year of Faith as it would be ended 24 November 24, 2013;, but also later on in life when tumult of waves and trials is daunting against our faith and religion.

In Personal Religion and Magic in Mamasa, West Sulawesi, Kees Buijs describes the traditional culture of the Toraja's, which is rapidly vanishing. The focus is on personal religion as it has its centre in the kitchen of each house. In the kitchen and also by the use of magical words and stones the gods are sought for their powers of blessing. This book adds important information to Buijs' earlier Powers of Blessing from the Wilderness and from Heaven (Brill, 2006).