Spirit possession is a phenomenon that often elicits a response of fear, particular in those who are ignorant of its meaning and role within its particular religious and cultural traditions. Possession by divine beings (such as spirits or gods) is, however, a key practice in religions worldwide. It is therefore important to gain an understanding of this practice in its cultural context before trying to develop a wider theory about it.
This fascinating book contains several case studies that present new interpretations of spirit possession worldwide. The authors show the diversity of...
Spirit possession is a phenomenon that often elicits a response of fear, particular in those who are ignorant of its meaning and role within its pa...
Exploring whether the widespread activity of sitting next to a grave and talking to a deceased person is a religious act forms the basis of this book, and the author argues that it is probably much more typical of a fundamental religious act than much of what happens in churches, synagogues or mosques. Beginning with the definitions of religion provided by a number of anthropologists and sociologists this book claims that the large majority of these definitions have been influenced by Christian thinking, so leading to definitions that stress the systematic nature of religion, the importance...
Exploring whether the widespread activity of sitting next to a grave and talking to a deceased person is a religious act forms the basis of this book,...
This book investigates spiritual tourism - tourism characterised by an intentional search for spiritual benefit - from a contemporary religious studies perspective. Using field research gathered from spiritual tourism locations in Asia and Europe, and utilizing contemporary scholarship on practices concerned with meaning and identity, it explores the phenomena of journeys that are taken for self transformation, tracing the history of transformative ideas in Western cultures of travel, and including the modes in which the travel experience has been communicated. Spiritual Tourism provides an...
This book investigates spiritual tourism - tourism characterised by an intentional search for spiritual benefit - from a contemporary religious studie...
Spirit possession is a phenomenon that often elicits a response of fear, particular in those who are ignorant of its meaning and role within its particular religious and cultural traditions. Possession by divine beings (such as spirits or gods) is, however, a key practice in religions worldwide. It is therefore important to gain an understanding of this practice in its cultural context before trying to develop a wider theory about it.
This fascinating book contains several case studies that present new interpretations of spirit possession worldwide. The authors show the diversity of...
Spirit possession is a phenomenon that often elicits a response of fear, particular in those who are ignorant of its meaning and role within its pa...
Cultural Blending in Korean Death Rites examines the cultural encounter of Confucianism and Christianity with particular reference to death rites in Korea. As its overarching interpretive framework, this book employs the idea of the 'total social phenomenon', a concept first introduced by the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1872-1950).
From the perspective of the total social phenomenon, this book utilizes a combination of theological, historical, sociological and anthropological approaches, and explores Korean death rites by classifying them into three categories: ritual...
Cultural Blending in Korean Death Rites examines the cultural encounter of Confucianism and Christianity with particular reference to death ...
The point of departure for this book is the debate about whether religious studies should privilege explanation or understanding.
Engaging with contemporary scholarship in the field, Tremlett argues that the study of religions has always involved the conflation of facts and values and indeed has been structured in advance by the value-saturated discourse on disenchanted modernity. He argues that phenomenological and post-modern approaches to religions lack both theoretical and methodological coherence, and in their stead proposes a Marxist approach to religions that is at once...
The point of departure for this book is the debate about whether religious studies should privilege explanation or understanding.
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...
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...
Native Americans and Canadians are largely romanticised or sidelined figures in modern society. Their spirituality has been appropriated on a relatively large scale by Europeans and non-Native Americans, with little concern for the diversity of Native American opinions. Suzanne Owen offers an insight into appropriation that will bring a new understanding and perspective to these debates.
This important volume collects together these key debates from the last 25 years and sets them in context, analyses Native American objections to appropriations of their spirituality and examines...
Native Americans and Canadians are largely romanticised or sidelined figures in modern society. Their spirituality has been appropriated on a relat...
Religion as a Conversation Starter is the first comprehensive analysis of the present state of interreligious dialogue for peacebuilding in Southeast Europe.
Religion as a Conversation Starter is the first comprehensive analysis of the present state of interreligious dialogue for peacebuilding in Southeast ...
Reform, Identity and Narratives of Belonging focuses on the Heraka, a religious reform movement, and its impact on the Zeme, a Naga tribe, in the North Cachar Hills of Assam, India. Drawing upon critical studies of religion, cultural/ethnic identity, and nationalism, archival research in both India and Britain, and fieldwork in Assam, the book initiates new grounds for understanding the evolving notions of reform and identity in the emergence of a Heraka religion . Arkotong Longkumer argues that reform and identity are dynamically inter-related and linked to the revitalisation and negotiation...
Reform, Identity and Narratives of Belonging focuses on the Heraka, a religious reform movement, and its impact on the Zeme, a Naga tribe, in the Nort...
