This leading textbook for world religions is now available in a more concise version.This edition includes several updates made to the new third edition, including a new design, a new section on women and religion, and a newly revised section on religions in today's world.

Humans have always been fascinated by drugs and altered states. Despite the risk of addiction, many have used drugs as technologies to induce moments of meaning-making transcendence. Beginning at the close of the eighteenth century, this book traces the quest for transcendence and meaning through drugs in the West through the modern period.