Gods in the World

Gods in the World PDF Author: Aftab S. Jassal
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231560559
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
In the north Indian state of Uttarakhand, in the Central Himalayas, Hindu deities are ever present in the lives of devotees. Through ritual practices of placemaking, spirit mediums, oracles, priests, and other specialists bring these beings into embodied form, calling on them for healing and counsel. In exchange for alleviating human suffering, deities ask that a place be made for them—in homes, villages, and temples, and in bodies, lives, and communities. Gods in the World is a richly descriptive and evocative ethnography of Hindu ritual practices that shows how deities and other supernatural agents come to matter to ordinary people. Aftab S. Jassal traces how acts of placemaking, including healing practices that repair and restore relations between people and deities, allow deities to participate and intervene in human affairs. Many of the professional healers, storytellers, musicians, spirit mediums, and lay devotees who are chronicled belong to marginalized Dalit communities. These communities are at the forefront of combined pressures of tourism, neoliberal development, and Hindutva nationalist politics and often find creative ways of responding to their changing worlds. Bringing together fresh insights on the dynamics of caste and gender with enduring questions about ritual, healing, and the nature of human-divine relations, Gods in the World offers a striking account of everyday Hinduism in a contested and rapidly changing region.

Gods in the World

Gods in the World PDF Author: Aftab S. Jassal
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231560559
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the north Indian state of Uttarakhand, in the Central Himalayas, Hindu deities are ever present in the lives of devotees. Through ritual practices of placemaking, spirit mediums, oracles, priests, and other specialists bring these beings into embodied form, calling on them for healing and counsel. In exchange for alleviating human suffering, deities ask that a place be made for them—in homes, villages, and temples, and in bodies, lives, and communities. Gods in the World is a richly descriptive and evocative ethnography of Hindu ritual practices that shows how deities and other supernatural agents come to matter to ordinary people. Aftab S. Jassal traces how acts of placemaking, including healing practices that repair and restore relations between people and deities, allow deities to participate and intervene in human affairs. Many of the professional healers, storytellers, musicians, spirit mediums, and lay devotees who are chronicled belong to marginalized Dalit communities. These communities are at the forefront of combined pressures of tourism, neoliberal development, and Hindutva nationalist politics and often find creative ways of responding to their changing worlds. Bringing together fresh insights on the dynamics of caste and gender with enduring questions about ritual, healing, and the nature of human-divine relations, Gods in the World offers a striking account of everyday Hinduism in a contested and rapidly changing region.

Animals, Gods and Humans

Animals, Gods and Humans PDF Author: Ingvild Saelid Gilhus
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134169167
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Consulting a wide range of key texts and source material, Animals, Gods and Humans covers 800 years and provides a detailed analysis of early Christian attitudes to, and the position of, animals in Greek and Roman life and thought. Both the pagan and Christian conceptions of animals are rich and multilayered, and Ingvild Sælid Gilhus expertly examines the dominant themes and developments in the conception of animals. Including study of: biographies of figures such as Apollonus of Tyana; natural history; the New Testament via Gnostic texts; the church fathers; and from pagan and Christian criticism of animal sacrifice, to the acts of martyrs, the source material and detailed analysis included in this volume make it a veritable feast of information for all classicists.

Like Sex with Gods

Like Sex with Gods PDF Author: Bayla Singer
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781585442560
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
"Human flight is not a simple matter of science and technology. It is a continuing epic of dreams and obsession, of yearning and striving to harness the intellect in the service of the emotions." In Like Sex with Gods: An Unorthodox History of Flight, Bayla Singer offers a unique approach to humanity's fascination with flying. Rather than merely tracing the factual prehistory of flight up to the success of the Wright Brothers, Bayla Singer considers the interaction and influence of our dreams, fantasies, culture, and technology on the age-old quest to fly. This enlightening study begins with the deities and other denizens of the heavens that humanity has created in its religion, literature, and art. At first a monopoly of the gods, flight came to interest humanity as a way to free itself from the physical and intellectual bonds of the earth. The myth of flight eventually gives way to the pursuit of actual flight. Singer shows in compelling detail the many flying machines that have been created, including balloons, gliders, and kites. The accomplishment of the Wright Brothers and our successful trips into space are merely stops on a continuing journey, as our ancient dream of flight continues to push us to new and loftier places. Filled with compelling stories and detailed illustrations, this book provides absorbing reading for aviation experts, those fascinated with the intimate relationship between technology and culture, and all of us who have even a passing interest in flying.

The Secrets of the Gods

The Secrets of the Gods PDF Author: Claudiu Gilian
Publisher: Claudiu-Gilian Chircu
ISBN:
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 806

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Book Description
What would it be like to realize one day that everything you believed to be true was nothing but a lie? That you lived in an illusion constantly fed by those around you? That reality is often diametrically opposed to the chimera that was inoculated to you? That to learn the truth you need to forget everything you know? - What is God? - Are aliens real? - Is the material universe just an illusion? - Why are we here, where do we come from and where do we go after death? - Is Earth a prison? - Are humans the descendants of the gods of the past? - Is the Bible just a collection of plagiarized myths? - Was Christianity invented by Philo of Alexandria? - Was the Garden of Eden located on the territory of today's Romania? - Are Lucifer and Adam the same character? - Is Noah's Ark one of the Giza pyramids? - Is the Great Pyramid an interdimensional travel device? - Was the prophet Abraham a descendant of the Akkadian emperor Sargon the Great? - Was Moses really Pharaoh Akhenaton? - Is there an unseen war between the Aryan and Semitic races? - Did Alexander the Great discover the source of life in Dacia? - Did Pharaoh Tutankhamun's family practice black magic? - Does the Asteroid Belt come from the Mariana Trench? - Are the fallen angels at the top of the Masonic pyramid? - Is time travel possible? - Is the Apocalypse an event of the past? - Was Jesus possessed? All these questions (and many more) can be answered by "The Secrets of the Gods", a secret history of the world, based on the decoding of ancient myths, as well as on the results of modern scientific research. A unique and controversial interpretation of universal history, which brings to the general public the secrets of the gods, until now reserved only for the initiated.

Fury of the Gods

Fury of the Gods PDF Author: L. Christodoulou
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1491883375
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Theo and Leon Smith are flying to Athens with their parents to attend the Olympic Games when, passing Mount Olympus, the aeroplane is intercepted and embroiled in an ancient Greek battle that has raged for thousands of years. Forced to land, the captain is confronted with a conundrum in the clouds that could only have been created by some immortal force. Theo and Leon, fascinated by ancient Greece, are willing participants in the awesome but scary events that follow. Numerous criminals and a net full of birds imprisoned in the clouds by the gods are the source of the terror. Rescued and returned to Athens, the task of helping them to acclimatize to the twenty-first century falls to the Smith family and various academics. While visiting the ruins of Olympia with their ancient friends, the boys find themselves in Ancient Olympia with the race about to start. The all-important victors speech is interrupted by the unceremonious arrival of Theos teacher, instigating a series of perilous recriminations. Their lives are endangered many times as they become involved in the bloody battles and rituals of ancient Greece. Tragedy and redemption do not strike, however, until Theo and Leon return to Athens, AD 2004, in time for the Olympic Games.

Where the Gods Are

Where the Gods Are PDF Author: Mark S. Smith
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300220960
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
The issue of how to represent God is a concern both ancient and contemporary. In this wide-ranging and authoritative study, renowned biblical scholar Mark Smith investigates the symbols, meanings, and narratives in the Hebrew Bible, Ugaritic texts, and ancient iconography, which attempt to describe deities in relation to humans. Smith uses a novel approach to show how the Bible depicts God in human and animal forms—and sometimes both together. Mediating between the ancients’ theories and the work of modern thinkers, Smith’s boldly original work uncovers the foundational understandings of deities and space.

The Dominator of Three Gods

The Dominator of Three Gods PDF Author: Qian Yezhiling
Publisher: Funstory
ISBN: 1647577306
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1006

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Book Description
The soul of the Hierarch had revived the theory of destiny; another battle had created a bloody storm!He had thought that it was only because the heavens had eyes, that he would be able to return to the Sky Realm and take revenge for his death. Who would have thought that it would be the Divine Lord's guidance that had chosen him as the child of the gods, giving humanity hope.He commanded the Sky Profound Realm, dominated the White Spirit Realm, and stepped into the nine heavens of the Gods and Demons.Absolute Monarch Sanctuary, Devil Slayer, Universal Palm!

Swinburne and His Gods

Swinburne and His Gods PDF Author: Margot Kathleen Louis
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773507159
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
In this richly detailed study, Margot Louis combines close readings of Swinburne's poetry with a wide-ranging analysis of the pressures which influenced the poet. Louis not only examines the ways in which Swinburne was affected by English and French Romantics but comments on the powerful impact on his writing of a childhood steeped in high church theology. Swinburne's ideas of alternative concepts of deity are discussed within the context of nineteenth-century radical "free thought." Louis reflects on the depth and diversity of Swinburne's intellectual interests and their effect on the development of his poetic style.

Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods

Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods PDF Author: Dwayne A. Meisner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190663537
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
The hatching of the Cosmic Egg, the swallowing of Phanes by Zeus, and the murder of Dionysus by the Titans were just a few of the many stories that appeared in ancient Greek epic poems that were thought to have been written by the legendary singer Orpheus. Most of this poetry is now lost, surviving only in the form of brief quotations by Greek philosophers. Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods brings together the scattered fragments of four Orphic theogonies: the Derveni, Eudemian, Hieronyman, and Rhapsodic theogonies. Typically, theogonies are thought to be poetic accounts of the creation of the universe and the births of the gods, leading to the creation of humans and the establishment of the present state of the cosmos. The most famous example is Hesiod's Theogony, which unlike the Orphic theogonies has survived. But did Orphic theogonies look anything like Hesiod's Theogony? Meisner applies a new theoretical model for studying Orphic theogonies and suggests certain features that characterize them as different from Hesiod: the blending of Near Eastern narrative elements that are missing in Hesiod; the probability that these were short hymns, more like the Homeric Hymnsr than Hesiod; and the continuous discourse between myth and philosophy that can be seen in Orphic poems and the philosophers who quote them. Most importantly, this book argues that the Orphic myths of Phanes emerging from the Cosmic Egg and Zeus swallowing Phanes are at least as important as the well-known myth of Dionysus being dismembered by the Titans, long thought to have been the central myth of Orphism. As this book amply demonstrates, Orphic literature was a diverse and ever-changing tradition by which authors were able to think about the most current philosophical ideas through the medium of the most traditional poetic forms.

Hawaiian Legends of Ghosts and Ghost-Gods

Hawaiian Legends of Ghosts and Ghost-Gods PDF Author: W. D. Westervelt
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
ISBN: 1513297392
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Hawaiian Legends of Ghosts and Ghost-Gods (1915) is a collection of Hawaiian folktales and myths by W. D. Westervelt. Connecting the origin story of Hawaii to the traditions of other Polynesian cultures, Westervelt provides an invaluable resource for understanding the historical and geographical scope of Hawaiian culture. Drawing on the work of David Malo, Samuel Kamakau, and Abraham Fornander, Westervelt, originally from Ohio, became a leading authority on the Hawaiian Islands, publishing extensively on their legends, religious beliefs, and folk tales. “The legends of the Hawaiian Islands are as diverse as those of any country in the world. They are also entirely distinct in form and thought from the fairy-tales which excite the interest and wonder of the English and German children. The mythology of Hawaii follows the laws upon which all myths are constructed.” Part ethnography, part geological description, Westervelt’s work is a powerful celebration of the cultural traditions of the Hawaiian Islands. In these legends, ghosts and gods interact with the environment and the daily lives of islanders, shaping human society and the land itself. Highlights include the story of the Wauhaula heiau, or temple, the legend of the enraged Hau-pu and the Rock of Kauai, and the tale of Nanaue, the shark-man of Waipio Valley. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of W. D. Westervelt’s Hawaiian Legends of Ghosts and Ghost-Gods is a classic of Hawaiian literature reimagined for modern readers.