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 is an exploration of the ideals and values of the ascetic and monastic life, as expressed through clothes. Clothes are often seen as an extension of us as humans, a determinant of who we are and how we experience and interact with the world. In this way, they can play a significant role in the embodied and material aspects of religious practice. The focus of this book is on clothing and garments among ancient monastics and ascetics in Egypt, but with a broader outlook to the general meaning and function of clothes in religion. The garments of the Egyptian ascetics and monastics are important because they belong to a period of transition in the history of Christianity and very much represent this way of living. This study combines a cognitive perspective on clothes with an attempt to grasp the embodied experiences of being clothed, as well as viewing clothes as potential actors. Using sources such as travelogues, biographies, letters, contracts, images, and garments from monastic burials, the role of clothes is brought into conversation with material religion more generally. This unique study builds links between ancient and contemporary uses of religious clothing. It will, therefore, be of interest to any scholar of religious studies, religious history, religion in antiquity, and material religion.

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.

This book is an exploration of the ideals and values of the ascetic and monastic life, as expressed through clothes. Clothes are often seen as an extension of us as humans, a determinant of who we are and how we experience and interact with the world. In this way, they can play a significant role in the embodied and material aspects of religious practice. The focus of this book is on clothing and garments among ancient monastics and ascetics in Egypt, but with a broader outlook to the general meaning and function of clothes in religion. The garments of the Egyptian ascetics and monastics are important because they belong to a period of transition in the history of Christianity and very much represent this way of living. This study combines a cognitive perspective on clothes with an attempt to grasp the embodied experiences of being clothed, as well as viewing clothes as potential actors. Using sources such as travelogues, biographies, letters, contracts, images, and garments from monastic burials, the role of clothes is brought into conversation with material religion more generally. This unique study builds links between ancient and contemporary uses of religious clothing. It will, therefore, be of interest to any scholar of religious studies, religious history, religion in antiquity, and material religion.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Ingvild Saelid Gilhus explores the transition from traditional Greek and Roman religion to Christianity in the Roman Empire and the effect of this change on the concept of animals, illustrating the main factors in the creation of a Christian conception of animals. One of the underlying assumptions of the book is that changes in the way animal motifs are used and the way human-animal relations are conceptualized serve as indicators of more general cultural shifts. Gilhus attests that in late antiquity, animals were used as symbols in a general redefinition of cultural values and assumptions.
A wide range of key texts are consulted and range from philosophical treaties to novels and poems on metamorphoses; from biographies of holy persons such as Apollonius of Tyana and Antony, the Christian desert ascetic, to natural history; from the New Testament via Gnostic texts to the church fathers; from pagan and Christian criticism of animal sacrifice to the acts of the martyrs. Both the pagan and the Christian conception of animals remained rich and multilayered through the centuries and this book presents the dominant themes and developments in the conception of animals without losing that complexity.

Ingvild Saelid Gilhus explores the transition from traditional Greek and Roman religion to Christianity in the Roman Empire and the effect of this change on the concept of animals, illustrating the main factors in the creation of a Christian conception of animals. One of the underlying assumptions of the book is that changes in the way animal motifs are used and the way human-animal relations are conceptualized serve as indicators of more general cultural shifts. Gilhus attests that in late antiquity, animals were used as symbols in a general redefinition of cultural values and assumptions.
A wide range of key texts are consulted and range from philosophical treaties to novels and poems on metamorphoses; from biographies of holy persons such as Apollonius of Tyana and Antony, the Christian desert ascetic, to natural history; from the New Testament via Gnostic texts to the church fathers; from pagan and Christian criticism of animal sacrifice to the acts of the martyrs. Both the pagan and the Christian conception of animals remained rich and multilayered through the centuries and this book presents the dominant themes and developments in the conception of animals without losing that complexity.

This work analyses how laughter has been used as a symbol in myths, rituals and festivals of Western religions, and has thus been inscribed in religious discourse. The author argues that laughter is a central human phenomenon. Humans use laughter as a means to experience the world, categorize its forms and judge its values. But, laughter also transcends language, and is frequently used as a characteristic of the divine. The Mesopotamian Anu, the Israelite Jahweh, the Greek Dionysos, the Gnostic Christ and the late modern Jesus were all laughing gods. Through their laughter, gods prove both their superiority and their proximity to humans. In this study, Professor Gilhus examines the relationship between corporeal human laughter and spiritual divine laughter from Classical antiquity, to the Christian West and the modern era. The book combines the study of the history of religion with social-scientific approaches, to provide an exploration of a universal human phenomenon, and its significance for the development of religions.

This book takes an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand angels, focusing on Africa and the cult and persona of the Archangel Michael. Traditional methods in the study of religion including philology, papyrology, art and iconography, anthropology, history, and psychology are combined with methodologies deriving from memory studies, graphic design, art education, and semiotics. Chapters explore both historical and contemporary case studies from Coptic Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and South Africa, providing a comparative perspective on the Archangel Michael, alongside 25 images. Innovative in both its methodologies and geographical focus, this book is an important contribution to the study of religion and art, Christianity in Africa, and Coptic studies.

"Enjoying religion" seems to be a contradiction because religion is generally perceived as a serious or even suppressive phenomenon. This volume is the first to study the increase of enjoying religion systematically by presenting eleven new case studies, occurring on four continents. The volume concludes that in our late modern secular societies the enjoyment of religion or of its loose elements is growing. In particular when scholars concentrate on "lived religion" of ordinary people, the cheerful experiences appear to prevail. Many people use pleasant (elements of) religion to add meaning to their lives, to find spiritual fulfillment or a way to salvation, and to experience belonging to a larger unity. At the same time, diverse cultural dynamics of late modern society such as popular culture, commercialization, re-enchantment, and feminization influence this trend of enjoying religion. In spite of secularization, playing with religion appears to be attractive.

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.

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 takes an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand angels, focusing on Africa and the cult and persona of the Archangel Michael. Traditional methods in the study of religion including philology, papyrology, art and iconography, anthropology, history, and psychology are combined with methodologies deriving from memory studies, graphic design, art education, and semiotics. Chapters explore both historical and contemporary case studies from Coptic Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and South Africa, providing a comparative perspective on the Archangel Michael, alongside 25 images. Innovative in both its methodologies and geographical focus, this book is an important contribution to the study of religion and art, Christianity in Africa, and Coptic studies.