Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves

Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves
Author: Sarah M. Pike
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2001-01-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520220862

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This book incorporates the author's personal experience and scholarly work concerning ritual, sacred space, self-identity, and narrative.

Introduction to Pagan Studies

Introduction to Pagan Studies
Author: Barbara Jane Davy
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2007
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9780759108196

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A text on the academic study of contemporary wicca and paganism throughout the world.

The New Religious Movements Experience in America

The New Religious Movements Experience in America
Author: Eugene V. Gallagher
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2004-10-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0313062919

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Wherever and whenever they appear, new religious movements always produce conflict. Even as they attract members who enthusiastically embrace their innovative teachings, new religions often provoke strongly negative reactions—often because they challenge established notions of proper religious action, belief, and morality. Opponents of new religious movements often brand them as cults and urge their fellow citizens, their own religions, and even the government to take action against what they see as suspicious and potentially dangerous movements; the members often complain that their motives have been misconstrued and argue that their groups are unfairly persecuted. The New Religious Movements Experience in America outlines the conflict between representatives of the status quo and new religions and examines how these groups appear both to their members and to their cultural opponents. This work is ideal for anyone—students, parents, and teachers—who wish to gain a deeper understanding of new religious movements in America. New religions have always been part of the American religious landscape, and this book moves beyond the contemporary period to discuss examples of new religions that have originated, survived or died, and sometimes prospered throughout U. S. history. Among the groups discussed are the Mormons, the Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians, Spiritualism, Theosophy, the Church Universal and Triumphant, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Soka Gakkai, the Nation of Islam, Wiccans and neo-Pagans, the Church of Satan, the Church of Scientology, Heaven's Gate, and the Raelians. The New Religious Movements Experience in America includes a glossary and a list of resources for those interested in doing further research on the experience of the followers of new religions.

New Age and Neopagan Religions in America

New Age and Neopagan Religions in America
Author: Sarah M. Pike
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2004
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0231124031

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Sarah Pike traces the history of New Age and Neopagan religions in the United States from their origins in the nineteenth century to their reemergence in the 1960s counterculture. She also considers the differences and similarities between the New Age and Neopagan movements as well as the antagonistic relationship between these two practices and other religions in America, particularly Christianity. Covering such topics as healing, gender and sexuality, millennialism, and ritual experience, she offers a sympathetic yet critical treatment of religious practices often marginalized yet soaring in popularity. Her book is a rich analysis of these spiritual worlds and social networks and questions why these faiths are flourishing at this point in American history.

New Age and Neopagan Religions in America

New Age and Neopagan Religions in America
Author: Sarah M. Pike
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2004-07-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231508387

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From Shirley MacLaine's spiritual biography Out on a Limb to the teenage witches in the film The Craft, New Age and Neopagan beliefs have made sensationalistic headlines. In the mid- to late 1990s, several important scholarly studies of the New Age and Neopagan movements were published, attesting to academic as well as popular recognition that these religions are a significant presence on the contemporary North American religious landscape. Self-help books by New Age channelers and psychics are a large and growing market; annual spending on channeling, self-help businesses, and alternative health care is at $10 to $14 billion; an estimated 12 million Americans are involved with New Age activities; and American Neopagans are estimated at around 200,000. New Age and Neopagan Religions in America introduces the beliefs and practices behind the public faces of these controversial movements, which have been growing steadily in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century America. What is the New Age movement, and how is it different from and similar to Neopaganism in its underlying beliefs and still-evolving practices? Where did these decentralized and eclectic movements come from, and why have they grown and flourished at this point in American religious history? What is the relationship between the New Age and Neopaganism and other religions in America, particularly Christianity, which is often construed as antagonistic to them? Drawing on historical and ethnographic accounts, Sarah Pike explores these questions and offers a sympathetic yet critical treatment of religious practices often marginalized yet soaring in popularity. The book provides a general introduction to the varieties of New Age and Neopagan religions in the United States today as well as an account of their nineteenth-century roots and emergence from the 1960s counterculture. Covering such topics as healing, gender and sexuality, millennialism, and ritual experience, it also furnishes a rich description and analysis of the spiritual worlds and social networks created by participants.

Garden of Earthly Bodies

Garden of Earthly Bodies
Author: Sally Oliver
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2022-06-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 164700568X

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An exquisitely eerie and unsettling speculative novel that grapples with questions of trauma, identity, and the workings of memory Months after her sister’s death, Marianne wakes up to find a growth of thick black hairs along her spine. They defy her attempts to remove them, instead proliferating, growing longer. The hairs, Marianne’s doctor tells her, are a reaction to trauma, developed in the wake of the loss of her sister, Marie. Her doctor recommends that Marianne visits Nede, a modern, New Age rehabilitation center in a remote forest in Wales where the patients attend unorthodox therapy sessions and commune with nature. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As the hairs on her back continue to grow, the past starts to entangle itself with the present and the borders of her consciousness threaten to disintegrate. She finds herself drawn back compulsively to the memory of Marie, obsessing over the impulse that drew her sister toward death and splintered her family apart. As Marianne’s memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself. Haunting, lyrical, and introspective, Garden of Earthly Bodies is a startlingly accomplished and original debut about the bond between two sisters, love and its limits, and our inability to ever truly to know the minds of others. With an intense and precise attention to the internal workings of minds and bodies and a disturbing speculative plot, the novel welcomes an assured new voice to the genre.

Pagan Family Values

Pagan Family Values
Author: S. Zohreh Kermani
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2013-07-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0814769748

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"An intriguing, important, and often entertaining look at an under-studied aspect of new religions. Highly recommended." —Douglas E. Cowan, author of Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet For most of its history, contemporary Paganism has been a religion of converts. Yet as it enters its fifth decade, it is incorporating growing numbers of second‑generation Pagans for whom Paganism is a family tradition, not a religious worldview arrived at via a spiritual quest. In Pagan Family Values, S. Zohreh Kermaniexplores the ways in which North American Pagan families pass on their beliefs to their children, and how the effort to socialize children influences this new religious movement. The first ethnographic study of the everyday lives of contemporary Pagan families, this volume brings their experiences into conversation with contemporary issues in American religion. Through formal interviews with Pagan families, participant observation at various pagan events, and data collected via online surveys, Kermani traces the ways in which Pagan parents transmit their religious values to their children. Rather than seeking to pass along specific religious beliefs, Pagan parents tend to seek to instill values, such as religious tolerance and spiritual independence, which will remain with their children throughout their lives, regardless of these children's ultimate religious identifications. S. Zohreh Kermani teaches Religious Studies part time at Youngstown State University. In the New and Alternative Religions series

Gender and Power in Contemporary Spirituality

Gender and Power in Contemporary Spirituality
Author: Anna Fedele
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2013
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0415659477

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Contemporary distinctions between religion and spirituality can often be traced to rebellion against hierarchical institutions with biases towards women and minorities that constrain individual freedom. This opposition is carefully addressed in this volume, with greater attention paid to gender and power in the context of contemporary spirituality and how these relate to the distinction between religion and spirituality.

American Theological Inquiry, Volume Four, Issue Two

American Theological Inquiry, Volume Four, Issue Two
Author: Gannon Murphy
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2011-11-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1610978854

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American Theological Inquiry (ATI) reaches thousands of Christian scholars, clergy, and other interested parties, primarily in the U.S. and U.K. The journal was formed in 2007 by Gannon Murphy (PhD Theology, Univ. Wales, Lampeter; Presbyterian/Reformed) and Stephen Patrick (PhD Philosophy, Univ. Illinois; Eastern Orthodox) to open up space for Christian scholars who affirm the Ecumenical Creeds to contribute research throughout the broader Christian scholarly community in America and the West. The purpose of ATI is to provide an inter-tradition forum for scholars who affirm the historic Ecumenical Creeds of Christendom to constructively communicate contemporary theologies, developments, ideas, commentaries, and insights pertaining to theology, culture, and history toward reforming and elevating Western Christianity. ATI seeks a critical function as much or more so as a quasi-ecumenical one. The purpose is not to erase or weaken the distinctives of the various ecclesial traditions, but to widen the dialogue and increase inter-tradition understanding while mutually affirming Christ's power to transform culture and the importance of strengthening Western Christianity with special reference to Her historic, creedal roots. Theologians, would-be theologians, and the theologically attentive will want to check out American Theological Inquiry. ~ Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009), First Things