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Author: Loring M. Danforth
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400884365
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 351
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Book Description
"If the Saint calls you, if you have an open road, then you don't feel the fire as if it were your enemy," says one of the participants in the Anastenaria. This compelling work evokes and contrasts two forms of firewalking and religious healing: first, the Anastenaria, a northern Greek ritual in which people who are possessed by Saint Constantine dance dramatically over red-hot coals, and, second, American firewalking, one of the more spectacular activities of New Age psychology. Loring Danforth not only analyzes these rituals in light of the most recent work in medical and symbolic anthropology but also describes in detail the lives of individual firewalkers, involving the reader personally in their experiences: he views ritual therapy as a process of transformation and empowerment through which people are metaphorically moved from a state of illness to a state of health. Danforth shows that the Anastenaria and the songs accompanying it allow people to express and resolve conflict-laden family relationships that may lead to certain kinds of illnesses. He also demonstrates how women use the ritual to gain a sense of power and control over their lives without actually challenging the ideology of male dominance that pervades Greek culture. Comparing the Anastenaria with American firewalking, Danforth includes a gripping account of his own participation in a firewalk in rural Maine. Finally he examines the place of anthropology in a postmodern world in which the boundaries between cultures are becoming increasingly blurred.
Author: Loring M. Danforth
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400884365
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Get Book Here
Book Description
"If the Saint calls you, if you have an open road, then you don't feel the fire as if it were your enemy," says one of the participants in the Anastenaria. This compelling work evokes and contrasts two forms of firewalking and religious healing: first, the Anastenaria, a northern Greek ritual in which people who are possessed by Saint Constantine dance dramatically over red-hot coals, and, second, American firewalking, one of the more spectacular activities of New Age psychology. Loring Danforth not only analyzes these rituals in light of the most recent work in medical and symbolic anthropology but also describes in detail the lives of individual firewalkers, involving the reader personally in their experiences: he views ritual therapy as a process of transformation and empowerment through which people are metaphorically moved from a state of illness to a state of health. Danforth shows that the Anastenaria and the songs accompanying it allow people to express and resolve conflict-laden family relationships that may lead to certain kinds of illnesses. He also demonstrates how women use the ritual to gain a sense of power and control over their lives without actually challenging the ideology of male dominance that pervades Greek culture. Comparing the Anastenaria with American firewalking, Danforth includes a gripping account of his own participation in a firewalk in rural Maine. Finally he examines the place of anthropology in a postmodern world in which the boundaries between cultures are becoming increasingly blurred.
Author: Loring M. Danforth
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
ISBN: 9780691094540
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333
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Book Description
Contrasts two forms of firewalking and religious healing, and discusses the social role of both rituals
Author: James McClenon
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812230744
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
James McClenon examines the relationship between wondrous events—extrasensory perception, apparitions, out-of-body and near-death experiences, sleep paralysis, psychokinesis, firewalking, psychic surgery, and spiritual healing—and the foundations of religious belief.
Author: Catherine Bell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195176456
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
Many teachers share an interest in bringing a better appreciation of ritual into their religious studies classes, but are uncertain how to do it. Religious studies faculty know how to teach texts, but they often have difficulty teaching something for which the meaning lies in the doing. How do you teach such "doing"? How much need be done? How does the teacher talk about the religiosity that exists in personalized relationships, not textual descriptions or prescriptions?These practical issues also give rise to theoretical questions. Giving more attention to ritual effectively suggests a reinterpretation of religion itself-an understanding less focused on what people have thought and written, and more focused on how they engage their universe. Many useful analyses of ritual derive from anthropological and sociological premises, which may be foreign to religious studies faculty and even seen by some as theologically problematic. This is the first resource to address the issues specific to teaching this subject. A stellar cast of contributors, all scholars of ritual and teachers experienced in using ritual in a wide variety of courses and settings, explain what has worked for them in the classroom, what has not, and what they have learned from the experience of being more real about religion. Their voices range from personal to formal, their topics from ways to use field trips to the role of architecture. The result is a rich guide for teachers who are new to the subject as well as the experienced willing to think about new angles and fresh approaches.
Author: Anna Fedele
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857452088
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Social scientists and philosophers confronted with religious phenomena have always been challenged to find a proper way to describe the spiritual experiences of the social group they were studying. The influence of the Cartesian dualism of body and mind (or soul) led to a distinction between non-material, spiritual experiences (i.e., related to the soul) and physical, mechanical experiences (i.e., related to the body). However, recent developments in medical science on the one hand and challenges to universalist conceptions of belief and spirituality on the other have resulted in “body” and “soul” losing the reassuring solid contours they had in the past. Yet, in “Western culture,” the body–soul duality is alive, not least in academic and media discourses. This volume pursues the ongoing debates and discusses the importance of the body and how it is perceived in contemporary religious faith: what happens when “body” and “soul” are un-separated entities? Is it possible, even for anthropologists and ethnographers, to escape from “natural dualism”? The contributors here present research in novel empirical contexts, the benefits and limits of the old dichotomy are discussed, and new theoretical strategies proposed.
Author: James R Lewis
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195369645
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 561
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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements both covers the current state of the field and breaks new ground. Its contributors, drawn form both sociology and religious studies, are leading figures in the study of NRMs.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004549315
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 431
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Book Description
This book includes a collection of articles by leading researchers on the topic of religious contact in the study of religion. Resulting from the final conference of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg "Dynamics in the History of Religions"–one of the largest research initiatives in the interdisciplinary study of religion worldwide in recent years (2008-2020)—this book encapsulates the twofold aim of this conference: first, to "step back" and reflect upon the merits and challenges of studying religious dynamics as a result of intra-, inter-, and extra-religious contact, and second "to look beyond" and pave ways for future approaches to study religion as a social phenomenon.
Author: Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393089215
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 590
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Book Description
A fascinating exploration of an ancient system of beliefs and its links to the evolution of dance. From Southern Greece to northern Russia, people living in agrarian communities have long believed in “dancing goddesses,” mystical female spirits who spend their nights and days dancing in the fields and forests. In The Dancing Goddesses, archaeologist, linguist, and lifelong folkdancer Elizabeth Wayland Barber follows the trail of these spirit maidens—long associated with fertility, marriage customs, and domestic pursuits—from their early appearance in traditional folktales and harvest rituals to their more recent incarnations in fairytales and present-day dance. Illustrated with photographs, maps, and line drawings, the result is a brilliantly original work that stands at the intersection of archaeology and folk traditions—at once a rich portrait of our rich agrarian ancestry and an enchanting reminder of the human need to dance.
Author: Anne Koch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350066737
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 414
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Book Description
Bridging the gap between cognition and culture, this handbook explores both social scientific and humanities approaches to understanding the physical processes of religious life, tradition, practice, and belief. It reflects the cultural turn within the study of religion and puts theory to the fore, moving beyond traditional theological, philosophical, and ethnographic understandings of the aesthetics of religion. Editors Anne Koch and Katharina Wilkens bring together research in cultural studies, cognitive studies, material religion, religion and the arts, and epistemology. Questions of identity, gender, ethnicity, and postcolonialism are discussed throughout. Key topics include materiality, embodiment, performance, popular/vernacular art and space to move beyond a sensory understanding of aesthetics. Emerging areas of research are covered, including secular aesthetics and the aesthetic of spirits. This is an important contribution to theory and method in the study of religion, and is grounded in research that has been taking place in Europe over the past 20 years. Case studies are drawn from around the world with contributions from scholars based in Europe, the USA, and Australia. The book is illustrated with over 40 color images and features a foreword from Birgit Meyer.
Author: J Gordon Melton
Publisher: Visible Ink Press
ISBN: 1578592593
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 395
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Book Description
An inspiring and fascinating look at people’s religious experiences and beliefs. Visions of Mary and glimpses of God. Miraculous apparitions witnessed by hundreds in parking lots, along freeways, and at the world’s holiest sites. Weeping statues, exorcisms, near-death experiences, mystical labyrinths, and more than 250 other unusual and unexplained phenomena, apparitions, and extraordinary experiences rooted in religious beliefs are explored in The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena. J. Gordon Melton, the Distinguished Professor of American Religious History at the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, takes readers on a tour among angels, Marian apparitions, and religious figures such as Jesus, the Buddha, Muhammad, and Tao Tzu. Melton reports on dreams, feng shui, statues that bleed, snake handling, speaking in tongues, stigmata, relics—including the Spear of Longinus and the Shroud of Turin—and sacred locales such as Easter Island, the Glastonbury Tor, the Great Pyramids, Mecca, Sedona, and much more. Each entry includes a description of a particular phenomenon and the religious claims being made about it as well as a discussion of what scientists say about it. Transcending the mundane, the entries take no sides on who is right or wrong: the journey is the experience and the experience is the journey. This fascinating encyclopedia is illustrated with 100 pictures and includes a detailed index and additional reading recommendations. It lets you experience the marvels of weeping statues and icons; exorcisms and ecstasy; the grilled cheese sandwich kit for making your own Virgin Mary image; and so much more.
