Eclectic and esoteric religions and belief systems

This concise and accessible textbook introduces students to the anthropological study of religion.

Originally published in 1992, The Esoteric Scene, Cultic Milieu, and Occult Tarot examines beliefs, practices, and activities described as mystical, psychical, magical, spiritual, metaphysical, theophysical, esoteric, occult, and/or pagan, among other possible labels, by their American disciplines.

First published in 1938, this title presents the greater part of the 1933 Gifford Lectures in natural theology, given by Edwyn Bevan.

This book, first published in 1984, examines the whole range of new religious movements which appeared in the 1960s and 1970s in the West.

This book emphasizes the integral connections between imagination, creativity, and spirituality and their role in healing.

Connect to the magic of the world around you for healing, empowerment and self-careNature is filled with hidden, elusive energies: the growth spirals of sunflowers, the electromagnetic spectrum of rainbows, the bio-energy of trees and the sound waves of thunder.

Examines how the ancient customs of constructing and keeping a house formed a sacred bond between homes and their inhabitants *; Shares many tales of house spirits, from cajoling the local land spirit into becoming one's house spirit to the good and bad luck bestowed by mischievous house elves *; Explains the meaning behind door and window placement, house orientation, horsehead gables, the fireplace or hearth, and the threshold *; Reveals the charms, chants, prayers, and building practices used by our ancestors to bestow happiness and prosperity upon their homes and their occupants Why do we hang horseshoes for good luck or place wreaths on our doors?

Peter B.

This book calls for a reformation of the image of monotheism in studies of Japanese religions and in the study of religions in general.

A fifteen-year-old girl who claimed regular communications with the spirits of her dead friends and relatives was the subject of the very first published work by the now legendary psychoanalyst C.

Arguably no modern ideology has diffused as fast as Socialism.

Through an examination of caste in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Mexico, Hall of Mirrors explores the construction of hierarchy and difference in a Spanish colonial setting.

In 1966, Anton LaVey introduced to the world the Church of Satan, an atheistic religion devoted to the philosophy of individualism and pitilessness often associated with Satan.

Who is God?

This accessible introduction by the world's leading expert explains why the study of esotericism is not a marginal pursuit but belongs at the center of modern research in the humanities.

Do you want to cast a spell on a suitor, banish a ghost, cure a toothache, or harvest protective herbs?

This book explores the struggling genesis of a women's movement in the Orthodox Church through the ecumenical movement of the twentieth century at a time when militant conservatism is emerging in Orthodox countries and fundamentalism in the diaspora.

*; Details hands-on techniques, spells, and rituals paired with personal stories from the author's decades of magical practice *; Presents teachings on working with each element in different ways--such as divination, communication, healing, protection, manifestation, and enchantment *; Explores elemental altars, scrying and reading the bones, undines and fairies, working with runes and crystals, ancestral healing, weather sensing, fire gazing, candle magic, sex magic, and communicating with the Otherworld A Book of Shadows is a witch's sacred journal, filled with personal experiences and the intimate working of spells.

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive drink used for healing and divination among religious groups in the Brazilian Amazon.

Of interest to interdisciplinary historians as well as those in various other fields, this book presents the first publication of 14 poems ranging from 12 to 3,000 lines.

As religion and politics become ever more intertwined, relationships between religion and political parties are of increasing global political significance.

Examining the recent radical re-invention of monastic tradition in the everyday life of New Monastic Communities, Exploring New Monastic Communities considers how, growing up in the wake of Vatican II, new Catholic communities are renewing monastic life by emphasizing the most innovative and disruptive theological aspects which they identify in the Council.

This book introduces students to Christian mysticism and modern critical responses to it.

Neither power nor morality but both.

Rapley analyses witch hunts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and finds many of the same elements repeated in more recent miscarriages of justice - from the Dreyfus case for treason in late nineteenth-century France, to the persecution of the Scottsboro Boys in Alabama for the gang rape of two white girls in the 1930s, to the Guildford and Maguire terrorist prosecutions in Britain in the 1970s.

This is the first major study of the most famous Reclaiming Witch community, founded in 1979 in San Francisco, written by an author who herself participated in a coven for ten years.

In the febrile religious and political climate of late sixteenth-century England, when the grip of the Reformation was as yet fragile and insecure, and underground papism still perceived to be rife, Lancashire was felt by the Protestant authorities to be a sinister corner of superstition, lawlessness and popery.

Despite the forces of secularization in Europe, old pilgrimage routes are attracting huge numbers of people and given new meanings in the process.

The Nuwaubian Nation takes the reader on a journey into an African-American spiritual movement.

Utilizing contemporary scholarship on secularization, individualism, and consumer capitalism, this book explores religious movements founded in the West which are intentionally fictional: Discordianism, the Church of All Worlds, the Church of the SubGenius, and Jediism.

This book shows that widespread resacralisation has been taking place, which is producing new ways of perceiving God and the divine.

In Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice several leading scholars explore key themes within the Christian mystical tradition, contemporary and historical.

The emergence of spirituality in contemporary culture in holistic forms suggests that organised religions have failed.

First published in 1969, this title explores the origins of Spiritualism as a religious movement.

How is symbolic violence related to the real acts of religious violence around the modern world?

The essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars working in the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries.

New Age culture is generally regarded as a modern manifestation of Western millenarianism - a concept built around the expectation of an imminent historical crisis followed by the inauguration of a golden age which occupies a key place in the history of Western ideas.

This book unpacks the history of British-Israelism in the UK.

Providing an accessible and comprehensive overview, The Story of the Salem Witch Trials explores the events between June 10 and September 22, 1692, when nineteen people were hanged, one was pressed to death and over 150 were jailed for practicing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.

This book is the first major study of England's biggest and best-known witch trial which took place in 1612, when ten witches were arraigned and hung in the village of Pendle in Lancashire.

Winner of the 2021 American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis Annual Book Prize for Best Theoretical Book in Psychoanalysis!

This book explores the complexity of Iberian identity and multicultural/multi-religious interactions in the Peninsula through the lens of spells, talismans, and imaginative fiction in medieval and early modern Iberia.

New Religious Movements: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to the field of New Religious Movements (NRMs).

Welcome to the 'more is more' world of decorating, or as it's more commonly know in the business, Maximalism.

The result of a perfect storm of factors that culminated in a great moral catastrophe, the Salem witch trials of 1692 took a breathtaking toll on the young English colony of Massachusetts.

Many Peoples, Many Faiths places the world's religions in historical context, illustrating the complex dynamic of each religion over time, while also presenting current beliefs, practices, and group formations.

The Theosophical Society (est.

This book, first published in 1956, is the first authoritative, comprehensive account of the worldwide activities of Jehovah's Witnesses.

'Religion as Magical Ideology' examines the relationship between rationality and supernatural beliefs arguing that such beliefs are products of evolution, cognition and culture.