This title was first published in 2002. This book builds on contemporary discussion of 'mysticism' and religious experience by examining the process and content of 'religious knowing' in classical and modern Advaita. Drawing from the work of William Alston and Alvin Plantinga, Thomas Forsthoefel examines key streams of Advaita with special reference to the conditions, contexts, and scope of epistemic merit in religious experience. Forsthoefel uniquely employs specific analytical categories of contemporary Western epistemologies as heuristics to examine the cognitive dimension of religious experience in Indian Vedanta. Showing the developing nuances in the analysis of religious experience in the thought of Shankara and his immediate disciples (Suresvara and Padmapada) as well as in the teaching of Ramana Maharshi, an understudied but important South Indian saint of the 20th century, this book offers a substantial contribution to studies of Indian philosophy as well as to contemporary philosophy of religion. Using the tools of exegesis and comparative philosophy, Forsthoefel argues for a careful justification of claims following religious experience, even if such claims involve, as they do in the Advaita, a paradoxical 'knowing beyond knowledge'.

Witchcraft: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introduction to the scholarly study of witchcraft, exploring the phenomenon of witchcraft from its earliest definitions in the Middle Ages through to its resonances in the modern world. Through the use of two case studies, this book delves into the emergence of the witch as a harmful figure within western thought and traces the representation of witchcraft throughout history, analysing the roles of culture, religion, politics, gender and more in the evolution and enduring role of witchcraft. Key topics discussed within the book include: The role of language in creating and shaping the concept of witchcraft The laws and treatises written against witchcraft The representation of witchcraft in early modern literature The representation of witchcraft in recent literature, TV and film Scholarly approaches to witchcraft through time The relationship between witchcraft and paganism With an extensive further reading list, summaries and questions to consider at the end of each chapter, Witchcraft: The Basics is an ideal introduction for anyone wishing to learn more about this controversial issue in human culture, which is still very much alive today.

The existence of Madame Blavatsky's occult 'Masters' has been fiercely debated for more than a century. Although scores of books have been written about her, none has focused on the historical identities of these elusive teachers. This book profiles 32 of Blavatsky's hidden sponsors, including leaders of secret societies in Europe and America, religio-political reformers in Egypt and India, and even British government agents. The milieu in which she carried out her spiritual quest is vividly revealed as a hotbed of revolutionary plots and secret coalitions. But beyond all the politics was a genuine spiritual awakening of global significance.

This title was first published in 2002: Religion and Social Transformations examines the reciprocal relationship between religion, modernity and social change. The book focuses on the world's three major missionary religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. It explores how these three traditions are responding to some of the most challenging issues associated with globalization, including the role of religion in the fall of Communism; the tension between religion and feminism; the compatibility of religion and human rights; and whether ancient religions can accommodate new challenges such as environmentalism. The five textbooks and Reader that make up the Religion Today Open University/Ashgate series are: From Sacred Text to Internet; Religion and Social Transformations; Perspectives on Civil Religion; Global Religious Movements in Regional Context; Belief Beyond Boundaries; Religion Today: A Reader

A collection of extra-biblical scriptures written by the gnostics, updated with three ancient texts including the recently discovered Gospel of Judas "The one indispensable book for the understanding of Gnosis and Gnosticism."-Harold Bloom This definitive introduction to the gnostic scriptures provides a crucial look at the theology, religious atmosphere, and literary traditions of ancient Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism. It provides authoritative translations of ancient texts from Greek, Latin, and Coptic, with introductions, bibliographies, and annotations. The texts are organized to reflect the history of gnosticism in the second through fourth century CE. This second edition provides updates throughout and adds three new ancient texts, including the recently discovered Gospel of Judas.

Jung became interested in gnosticism - and also alchemy - in an attempt to understand what had happened to him during his confrontation with the unconscious. "I had to find evidence for the historical prefiguration of my inner experiences...If I had not succeeded in finding any evidence, I would never have been able to substantiate my ideas." He saw gnosticism and alchemy as historical counterparts to depth psychology and as early confrontations with the primordial world of the unconscious. This selection brings together Jung's main writings on gnosticism and includes a special introduction that attempts to explain the importance of gnostic writings to Jung's work.

At the core of African American religion's response to social inequalities has been a symbiotic relationship between socio-political activism and spiritual restoration. Drawing on archival material and ethnographic fieldwork with African American Spiritual Churches in the USA, this book examines how their spiritual and social work can shed light on the interplay between corporate activism and individual spirituality. This book traces the development of this "politico-spiritual" approach to injustice from the beginning of the twentieth century through the opening decade of the twenty-first century, using the work of African American Spiritual Churches as a lens through which to observe its progression. Addressing subjects such as spiritual healing, support of the homeless, gender equality and the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, it demonstrates that these communities are clearly motivated by the dual concerns of the soul and the community. This study diversifies our understanding of the African American religious landscape, highlighting an approach to social injustice that conjoins both political and spiritual transformations. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, African American studies and politics.

Jeffrey Kaplan has been one of the most influential scholars of new religious movements, extremism and terrorism. His pioneering use of interpretive fieldwork among radical and violent subcultures opened up new fields of scholarship and vastly increased our understanding of the beliefs and activities of extremists. This collection features many of his seminal contributions to the field alongside several new pieces which place his work within the context of the latest research developments. Combining discussion of the methodological issues alongside a broad array of case studies, this will be essential reading for all students and scholars of extremism, religion and politics and terrorism.

The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and certain other works of fantasy and science fiction have inspired some of their readers and viewers to believe that the superhuman powers of the story-worlds, such as Gandalf and the Force, exist also in the real world. We can say that such fictional narratives possess 'religious affordance', for they contain certain textual features that afford or make possible a religious, rather than just a fictional, use of the text. This book aims to identify those features of the text that make it possible for a fictional narrative to inspire belief in the supernatural beings of the story, or even to facilitate ritual interaction with these beings. The contributions analyse the religious affordance and actual use of a wide range of texts, spanning from Harry Potter and Star Wars, over The Lord of the Rings and late 19th-century Scandinavian fantasy, to the Christian Gospels. Although we focus on the religious affordance of fictional texts, we also spell out implications for the study of religious narratives in general, and for the narrativist study of religion. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Religion.

Thought-provoking and inspiriting, "The Gods Await" applies theosophic principles to human life and thought, emphasising remedies for man's inhumanity to man. It discusses freedom of ideas, world peace, and reformation of the criminal justice system setting forth the problems with their root-causes and possible solutions. Speaking to the intuition as well as the intellect, the author encourages us to recognise our duality and look to the spiritual centre within, then act fearlessly for there is always another chance, no matter what our apparent failures. Here is a plea for social action and individual renewal based on self-knowledge, compassion, and the innate divinity of mankind.

In the Western world, magic has often functioned as an umbrella term for various religious beliefs and ritual practices that seek to influence events by harnessing supernatural power. The definition of these myriad occult and esoteric traditions have, however, usually come from those that are opposed to its practice; notably authorities in religious, legal and intellectual spheres. This book seeks to provide a new perspective, directly from the practitioners of modern Western magic, by exploring how a distinctive mode of embodiment and consciousness can produce a transition from an 'ordinary' to a 'magical' worldview. Starting with an introduction to the study of magic in the Western academy, the book then presents the author's own participant observation of five ethnographic case studies of modern Western magic. The focus of these ethnographic case studies is directed towards ideas and methods the informants employ to self-legitimise and self-represent as 'magicians'. It concludes by discussing the phenomenological implications and issues around embodiment that are inherent to the contemporary practice of magic. This is a unique insight into the lived experience of practitioners of modern magic. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars of the Occult and New Religious Movements, as well as Religious Studies academics examining issues around the embodiment and the anthropology of religion.

This title was first published in 2001: Engaging contemporary discussion concerning the validity of mystical experiences of God, Jerome Gellman presents the best evidential case in favor of validity and its implications for belief in God. Gellman vigorously defends the coherence of the concept of a mystical experience of God against philosophical objections, and evaluates attempts to provide alternative explanations from sociology and neuropsychology. He then carefully examines feminist objections to male philosophers' treatments of mystical experience of God and to the traditional hierarchal concept of God. Gellman finds none of the objections decisive, and concludes that while the initial evidential case is not rationally compelling for some, it can be rationally compelling for others. Offering important new perspectives on the evidential value of experiences of God, and the concept of God more broadly, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers including those with an interest in philosophy of religion, religious studies, mysticism and epistemology.

Following the journey of Andre Breton, the leader of the Surrealist movement, into exile during the Second World War, the author of this book traces the trajectory of his thought and poetic output from 1941-1948. Through a close examination of the major - and as yet little studied - works written during these years, she demonstrates how Breton's quest for "a new myth" for the postwar world led him to widen his enquiry into hermeticism, myth, and the occult. This ground-breaking study establishes Breton's profound intellectual debt to 19th-century Romanticism, its literature and thought, revealing how it defined his understanding of hermeticism and the occult, and examining the differences between the two. It shows how, having abandoned political action on leaving the Communist Party in 1935, Breton nonetheless held firmly to political thought, moving in his quest for a better world via Hermes Trismegistus across the utopian ideas of Charles Fourier and the "magical" practices of the Hopi Indians. The author finally reveals Breton's misreading of the situation in postwar Paris on his return in 1946, and his failure to communicate the span of his ideas for creating a better society while at the same time maintaining a close connection between art and life.

Arguably no modern ideology has diffused as fast as Socialism. From the mid-nineteenth century to the last quarter of the twentieth socialist ideals played a crucial part not only in the political sphere, but also influenced the way people worked and played, thought and felt, designed and decorated, hoped and yearned. By proposing general observations on the relationship between socialism, imagination, myth and utopia, as well as bringing the late nineteenth century socialist culture - a culture imbued with Biblical narratives, Christian symbols, classic mythology, rituals from freemasonry, Viking romanticism, and utopian speculations - together under the novel term 'socialist idealism', The Style and Mythology of Socialism: Socialist Idealism, 1871-1914 draws attention to the symbolic, artistic and rhetorical ways that socialism originally set the hearts of people on fire.

This title was first published in 2001: From Sacred Text to Internet addresses two key issues affecting the global spread of religion: first, the impact of new media on the ways in which religious traditions present their messages, and second, the global relocation of religions in novel geographical and social settings. The book offers extended studies of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and a wide-ranging survey chapter that refers to the presence on the Internet of many of the world's most influential religions. The chapters explore the relationship between scholarly reconstructions of the life of Jesus and representations of Jesus in contemporary popular cultures; the production and use of sacred images for the Hindu mass market; how Buddhism is represented and spread in the West; the Islamization of Egypt, its causes and influences; and the uses to which the Internet is put by religions as well as how information technology has influenced the future shape of religion. The five textbooks and Reader that make up the Religion Today Open University/Ashgate series are: o From Sacred Text to Internet o Religion and Social Transformations o Perspectives on Civil Religion o Global Religious Movements in Regional Context o Belief Beyond Boundaries o Religion Today: A Reader

An award-winning author reveals the real-life Da Vinci Code fraud that rocked the establishment. An ancient manuscript is discovered claiming that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. The religious world is thrown into turmoil. It sounds like the plot of a conspiracy thriller, and is one of the biggest scandals of modern scholarship. In 2012, Dr Karen King, a star professor at Harvard Divinity School, announced a blockbuster discovery at a scholarly conference just steps from the Vatican: she had found an ancient fragment of papyrus in which Jesus called Mary Magdalene 'my wife'. The tattered manuscript made international headlines. Biblical scholars were in an uproar, but King had impeccable credentials as a world-renowned authority on female figures in the lost Christian texts from Egypt known as the Gnostic gospels. As Ariel Sabar began to investigate the mysteries surrounding the papyrus, he embarked on an indefatigable globe-spanning hunt that ultimately uncovered the forgery and the identity of the forger, reckoning with fundamental questions about the nature of truth and the line between faith and reason.

Magic: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to magic in world history and contemporary societies. Presenting magic as a global phenomenon which has manifested in all human cultures, this book takes a thematic approach which explores the historical, social, and cultural aspects of magic. Key features include: attempts to define magic either in universal or more particular terms, and to contrast it with other broad and potentially fluid categories such as religion and science; an examination of different forms of magical practice and the purposes for which magic has been used; debates about magic's effectiveness, its reality, and its morality; an exploration of magic's association with certain social factors, such as gender, ethnicity and education, among others. Offering a global perspective of magic from antiquity through to the modern era and including a glossary of key terms, suggestions for further reading and case studies throughout, Magic: The Basics is essential reading for anyone seeking to learn more about the academic study of magic.

The study of ethnology or 'Volkskunde' in Austria has had a troubled past. Through most of the 20th century it was under the influence of the so-called Viennese 'Mythological School' and the controversy between the two opposing branches, the 'Ritualist' and the 'Mythologists', set much of the agenda from the 1920s until long after the World War ended in 1945. The volume examines two Austrian characters, Richard Wolfram and Karl Haiding, and the impact of their research and sets them in the context of Austrian ethnology before, during and after the war years. The book concludes by examining the present day ethnological outlook in the country.

The Kabbalah is an esoteric Jewish doctrine adapted by author S.L. MacGregor Mathers to form the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, an occult organisation. This volume includes three of the critical books from the Zohar, the fundamental work in Kabbalah, as well as Mathers' introduction explaining the key elements of Jewish mysticism. Mathers' translation from Hebrew originally appeared in 1926, and it continues to be a valuable resource for students interested in Religious Studies, particularly Mysticism and the Occult.

It is a curious fact that many of the sources for the Presocratic and Stoic philosophers are early Christian authors; similarly, one can even find an echo of Parmenides in a Gnostic treatise from Nag Hammadi. Such writers were often dependent for their knowledge on a whole chain of previous interpretations and traditions, and it is these with which Professor Mansfeld is here largely concerned. He has tried to discover what in an earlier writer - Plato, and Aristotle, of course, as well as the Early Greeks - was of interest to a later one, notably the Middle Platonists. These articles demonstrate the value of such an approach, showing how a familiarity with the later history of an idea, say in a Gnostic text, can contribute to the understanding of the idea itself; or how the study of the selection of ideas used by Philo, for instance, not only sheds light on his own projects, but also helps explain why some motifs survived and not others, and why philosophical thought took the directions it did.

Critical attention to the Victorian supernatural has flourished over the last twenty-five years. Whether it is spiritualism or Theosophy, mesmerism or the occult, the dozens of book-length studies and hundreds of articles that have appeared recently reflect the avid scholarly discussion of Victorian mystical practices. Designed both for those new to the field and for experts, this volume is organized into sections covering the relationship between Victorian spiritualism and science, the occult and politics, and the culture of mystical practices. The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and the Occult brings together some of the most prominent scholars working in the field to introduce current approaches to the study of nineteenth-century mysticism and to define new areas for research.

Gnosticism, Christianity and late antique philosophy are often studied separately; when studied together they are too often conflated. These articles set out to show that we misunderstand all three phenomena if we take either approach. We cannot interpret, or even identify, Christian Gnosticism without Platonic evidence; we may even discover that Gnosticism throws unexpected light on the Platonic imagination. At the same time, if we read writers like Origen simply as Christian Platonists, or bring Christians and philosophers together under the porous umbrella of "monotheism", we ignore fundamental features of both traditions. To grasp what made Christianity distinctive, we must look at the questions asked in the studies here, not merely what Christians appropriated but how it was appropriated. What did the pagan gods mean to a Christian poet of the fifth century? What did Paul quote when he thought he was quoting Greek poetry? What did Socrates mean to the Christians, and can we trust their memories when they appeal to lost fragments of the Presocratics? When pagans accuse the Christians of moral turpitude, do they know more or less about them than we do? What divides Augustine, the disenchanted Platonist, from his Neoplatonic contemporaries? And what God or gods await the Neoplatonist when he dies?

Food, Festival and Religion explores how communities in northern Italy find a restorative sense of place through foodways, costuming and other forms of materiality. Festivals examined by the author vary geographically from the northern rural corners of Italy to the fashionable heart of urban Milan. The origins of these lived religious events range from Christian to vernacular Italian witchcraft and contemporary Paganism, which is rapidly growing in Italy. Francesca Ciancimino Howell demonstrates that during ritualized occasions the sacred is located within the mundane. She argues that communal feasting, pilgrimage, rituals and costumed events can represent forms of lived religious materiality. Building on the work of scholars including Foucault, Grimes and Ingold, Howell offers a theoretical "Scale of Engagement" which further tests the interfaces between and among the materialities of place, food, ritual and festivals and provides a widely-applicable model for analyzing grassroots events and community initiatives. Through extensive ethnographic research and fieldwork data, this book demonstrates that popular Italian festivals can be ritualized, liminal spaces, contributing greatly to the fields of religious, performance and ritual studies.