This title explores the causes of evil in myth, encompassing themes such as defilement, the figure of the trickster, evil people both within and outside the society, and traumatic initiations. Evil, an undeniable yet inexplicable force in human existence, is often defined as that which ought not to be, yet is - so it must be destroyed, or contained, or lived with. Myths of evil function to universalize the human condition, to show the tension between the ideal and the real, to reveal but not allegorize that condition, and to go some way to assist humanity in understanding, combating and coping with evil within its societies. "Tales of Darkness" explores the causes of evil in myth, encompassing themes such as defilement, the figure of the trickster, evil people both within and outside the society, and traumatic initiations. Robert Ellwood then looks at 'cures' for evil: laughter, sacrifice, the flood, the hero's quest, initiation, the saviour, divine wisdom and the end of days. This is a fascinating examination of how people have dealt with evil, not philosophically but in terms of the myths, ancient and modern, which present stories convergent with our own, from creation myths to Star Wars.

This textbook is endorsed by OCR and supports the specification for A-Level Classical Civilisation (first teaching September 2017). It covers Components 31 and 34 from the 'Beliefs and Ideas' Component Group: Greek Religion by Athina Mitropoulos and Julietta Steinhauer Democracy and the Athenians by Tim Morrison and James Renshaw Why was worshipping the gods so important to ancient Greek life? To what extent did Greeks question religious belief? How and why did the Athenians invent democracy? How does Athenian democracy compare with democracy today? Drawing on modern scholarship and using a wide variety of illustrations, this book guides A-Level students to a greater understanding of these issues. It explores the fundamental features of Greek religion, as well as its major centres such as Delphi and Olympia. It then moves on to analyse the development and workings of Athenian democracy, as well as reflecting on ancient critiques of it, both celebratory and critical. The ideal preparation for the final examinations, all content is presented by experts and experienced teachers in a clear and accessible narrative. Ancient literary and visual sources are described and analysed, with supporting images. Helpful student features include study questions, quotations from contemporary scholars, further reading, and boxes focusing in on key people, events and terms. Practice questions and exam guidance prepare students for assessment. A Companion Website is available at www.bloomsbury.com/class-civ-as-a-level.

As a literary civilization that has been studied intensively, ancient Egypt has yielded the outlines of its religious, political, economic and social institutions. Yet despite the fact that much is known about Egyptian culture, especially Egyptian religion, until now little has been known of the actual process through which an object of daily life, such as wine, was integrated into the religious system. This innovative study shows how the religious significance of wine was actually woven into rituals and how expressions were coined, stereotyped and transmitted over a long span of time. The study begins by examining the development of viticulture in Egypt, the location of the vineyards, the religious and medical use of wine and the attitude of the Egyptians towards wine drinking. It then moves on to study representations of wine offering from the earliest times to the Graeco-Roman period, and to examine liturgies of wine offering both in funerary and in divine cults. The historical and textual documentation of wine and wine offering is then used to explore the significance of wine and wine offering in Egyptian religion.

Revised and expanded, this volume deals with the religious traditions of ancient Egypt. New material allows a much more precise allocation of religious texts and ideas in terms of time, place and social context.

Bardskull is the record of three journeys made by Martin Shaw, the celebrated storyteller and interpreter of myth, in the year before he turned fifty. It is unlike anything he has written before. This is not a book about myth or narrative: rather, it is a sequence of incantations, a series of battles. Each of the three journeys sees Shaw walk alone into a Dartmoor forest and wait. What arrive are stories - fragments of myth that he has carried within him for decades: the deep history of Dartmoor itself; the lives of distant family members; Arthurian legend; and tales from India, Persia, Lapland, the Caucasus and Siberia. But these stories and their tellers don't arrive as the bearers of solace or easy wisdom. As with all quests, Shaw is entering a domain of traps and tests. Bardskull can be read as a fable, as memoir, as auto-fiction or as an attempt to undomesticate myth. It is a magnificent, unclassifiable work of the imagination.

How have the goddesses of ancient myth survived, prevalent even now as literary and cultural icons? How do allegory, symbolic interpretation, and political context transform the goddess from her regional and individual identity into a goddess of philosophy and literature? Emilie Kutash explores these questions, beginning from the premise that cultural memory, a collective cultural and social phenomenon, can last thousands of years. Kutash demonstrates a continuing practice of interpreting and allegorizing ancient myths, tracing these goddesses of archaic origin through history. Chapters follow the goddesses from their ancient near eastern prototypes, to their place in the epic poetry, drama and hymns of classical Greece, to their appearance in Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy, Medieval allegory, and their association with Christendom. Finally, Kutash considers how goddesses were made into Jungian archetypes, and how some contemporary feminists made them a counterfoil to male divinity, thereby addressing the continued role of goddesses in perpetuating gender binaries.

Joseph Campbell (1904-1988) was one of the most well-known and popular scholars of myth and comparative religion of the twentieth century. His work, however, has never fully received the same amount of scholarly interest and critical reflection that some of his contemporaries have received.
In this book, based on extensive research in the Joseph Campbell Archive in Santa Barbara, Ritske Rensma shows that reflecting on C.G. Jung's influence on Campbell greatly furthers our understanding of these ideas, and that once this goal is achieved it becomes obvious that Campbell was a scholar whose ideas are still of significance today. Following Jung's lead, Campbell put great emphasis on the innate structures of the mind, an approach which pre-echoes the current 'evolutionary turn' in fields such as cognitive theory, psychology, psychiatry and neurobiology.
This study will therefore not just be of interest to students and scholars interested in psychological approaches to the study of religion as well as Jung and Campbell, but also to those with an interest in recent developments in the above-mentioned fields