This article develops vampirology as an analytic paradigm for understanding Serbian history and mythology, proposing that the concept of vampirism surmises the logic of parasitism endemic to globalism, neoliberal ideology and ethnonationalist imaginaries. By investigating how the ¡®Balkan Deathworld¡¯ has been manufactured by external Gothic-Orientalist imaginaries and produced by internal ¡®dracular¡¯ dynamics, Serbia¡¯s position in a broader system of vampirism influenced by Capital and Western hegemony is evaluated. Ultimately, the suggestion that Serbia is solely responsible for its aggressions in the 1990s is critiqued; instead, Serbia is considered as a focused subject of vampiric powers which define the logic of late capitalist statehood and personhood.

This article examines modest fashion as a dynamic cultural phenomenon spanning diverse religious traditions, including Islam, Judaism (with a specific focus on Hasidic women¡¯s dress), Christianity, Mormonism, New Buddhist dress practices, New Religious Movements (NRMs), and Rastafari culture. The study explores how these varied religious communities negotiate clothing as a form of spiritual identity, cultural resistance, and personal expression. By analysing the intersections of fashion, religious belief, and global market trends, the research demonstrates how modest dress transcends simple religious prescription, instead of functioning as a complex mode of self-representation and cultural dialogue. The analysis reveals how contemporary fashion industries adapt to these diverse modest fashion traditions, challenging previous Western-centric narratives of clothing and religious expression.

The descent into Hades or katabasis motif is prevalent in many cultures, generally involving a hero reaching the lowest point of their journey. This can be either figurative¡ªas in, an existential, psychological, or emotional nadir¡ªor literal, as in a topographical descent into subterranean regions of the earth often described interchangeably as the netherworld, the underworld, Tartarus, Hades, hell, etc. This article will use these terms both in context (where relevant) and interchangeably in its application of this motif to David Lynch and Mark Frost¡¯s Twin Peaks universe, comprising the original first two seasons (1990¨C1991), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), as well as supplementary novels written by Frost. It will argue that one of the show¡¯s main characters, Dale Cooper, is depicted in critical scenes as undertaking an equivalent descent into Hades. Lynch was notoriously cryptic in relation to disclosing the true meaning of the themes represented in his surrealist oeuvre. In a similar manner, Mark Frost has made only passing allusions to Cooper as a new Orpheus, who in Greek mythology also famously descended into the underworld. In the light of these few explicit references, this article must begin with a contextualisation of Twin Peaks and its protagonist within the broader gamut of religious and literary depictions of katabasis motifs. It will do this to demonstrate that this important nuance, when applied to Cooper¡ªas well as to others like Laura Palmer and Annie Blackburn¡ªis a hermeneutical key that can be used to interpret the series¡¯ many time and space altering scenes, which is something that has been altogether missed by recent Twin Peaks scholarship.

It is the dream of every intentional and dedicated Catholic faithful to become a saint. Ugandan saint Charles Lwanga and his companions were canonized by Pope Paul VI. This article uses deconstruction method of secondary data and the concept of institutional betrayal to analyse narratives available in the archives of church history. The deconstruction, as proposed by Jacques Derrida, is used as a critical theory and philosophical approach to empirically establish whether Charles Lwanga and companions are traitors or saints according to the Baganda tribe. The article argues that missionaries used a reward tactic to facilitate a betrayal that is in favour of Christianity to be perceived as a good deed worthy of an immortal reward, by canonizing traitors of Baganda for dying for the Christian faith, which was a foreign culture to the Baganda tribal culture at the time of Charles Lwanga and his companions¡¯ death. This article finds that canonization is a complementary strategy of colonization.

The Arizona town of Sedona is an active center of spiritual tourism and New Age spirituality. Many visitors expect to have some kind of spiritual experience in Sedona. New Age practices available range from vortex tours to crystal healing, meditation, yoga, and shamanic rituals. This paper discusses many of these facets of New Age spirituality, including vortexes and bioresonance therapy. Most of these practices share a common belief in energies working at multiple levels in the world. Therapies at all levels involve unblocking the flow of energy. Like most of the world, businesses in Sedona came to a sudden stop during the COVID pandemic. But the pandemic¡¯s effects were fleeting. Sedona¡¯s spiritual tourism industry continues to grow and unite most of its residents.

The author analyzes the relationship between the American and European anti-cult movements and the burgeoning Japanese anti-cult movement in the late twentieth century. The author relies on pre-existing material on the Japanese anti-cult movement and archival material available in the Cult Awareness Network Collection in University of California, Santa Barbara Special Research Collections. The author argues that it was the American anti-cult movement that particularly influenced the growing Japanese anti-cult movement, especially before the Aum Affair of 1995. However, the Japanese anti-cult movement is distinct from the American one, in that there is a separate yet important historical-religious context.

Death is a sensitive open wound in modern society¡¯s delusion that we have progressed beyond the limits of nature. Death repels us even as it enthralls us. It is hidden from view yet promoted as entertainment. This article examines the way traditional discourse around death is challenged and reshaped through the HBO series Six Feet Under. It examines the conflicting manner in which death and violence is addressed, beginning with, on the one hand, the desensitization to prolific and explicit representations of death and violence in film and television¡ªdeaths that occur ¡®out there¡¯¡ªand on the other, the private, painful and taboo discussion of death, where emotions and existential fears are suppressed (or at least heavily regulated)¡ªdeaths that occur ¡®in here¡¯. This article uses close analysis of the deaths that occur in the opening scenes of each episode of Six Feet Under to argue that there is a Six Feet Under kind of death, where the contradictory elements of death discourse are brought together, not for any kind of resolution, but rather to emphasize the confusion and ambiguity that is the human experience of death and grieving.

This article offers a meticulous reconstruction and analysis of the books by Brinsley Le Poer Trench (1911¨C1995), an important representative of ancient aliens literature. It is demonstrated that his version of the ancient aliens narrative, as well as his worldview, bear substantial similarities to the narratives of other authors in the field, but also that he has a distinctive interpretation of specific topics. It is also shown that Brinsley Le Poer Trench¡¯s books display a synthesis of ancient aliens motifs (including the explicit acknowledgement and appreciation of Theosophical influence) with UFOlogy.

This article aims to understand the significance of traditional ornaments in folktales as everyday objects and how they intersect with the hierarchical status in the community within the Naga tribes of Northeast India. Selecting five folktales, such as Dancing with Feathers and Teeth, Kurupe Hair, Echuli Vantamu, The Horned King, and The Carnelian Necklace, provides a helpful way of conceptualising the integral role of traditional ornaments in their daily lives. This paper undertakes a textual analysis of the folktales and applies Judy Attfield¡¯s concept of ¡°material culture of everyday life¡± to foreground the intertwining of traditional ornaments with the social hierarchy, which is integral to the daily lives of the community. Examining traditional ornaments¡¯ crafting, meaning and roles as portrayed in folktales contributes to their relationship with the material culture, embodying a dynamic balance between tradition and modernity.

James Webb stated that the source of Gurdjieff¡¯s ideas could be discerned, and that the enquiry helped interpret his method. He purported to identify Blavatsky¡¯s Theosophy as an important source. I contend that the features Webb appeals to for this identification are better understood as hailing from nineteenth century chemistry and science more generally, both ante- and postdating Blavatsky¡¯s work. I suggest that Gurdjieff¡¯s system owed much to his wide reading in contemporary science, including Prout¡¯s theory of hydrogen as the fundamental element, and the discovery of the electron. The essence of Gurdjieff¡¯s system starts to appear more European than usually thought.

This article assesses the explanatory utility of Girardian theory against that of sacred-secular factor analysis in accounting for the causes of the Satanic Panic of 1970s¨C1980s America. After establishing the parameters of discussion, the article argues that the efficacy of Ren¨¦ Girard¡¯s ¡°crisis theory¡± is limited as an explanatory mechanism for such social cascades. Instead, a range of psychological, sacred-secular, and cultural factors are discussed, and it is argued that these factors, and the interplay between them, are necessary for the explanation of the Satanic Panic phenomenon.

This article argues that, in meshing past and present and local and global contexts, Amadou Koufa¡¯s Fulani-targeting Salafi jihadist ideology is unique. It cannot be reduced to a return to the nineteenth century jihads of Usman Dan Fodio and Seku Amadu, nor to the assertion of a Salafist program imposed on the contemporary Fulani community. Koufa attempts to blend the two, in what might be called ¡®glocal¡¯ or ¡®hybrid¡¯ ideology. He has been termed a ¡®jihadist-entrepreneur¡¯, negotiating between Fulani concerns and Ansar Dine, the al-Qaeda branch active in Mali. Terming Koufa¡¯s ideology ¡®glocal¡¯ (global and local) is useful as the global ideological discourse of Salafism and the local political and social dynamics interact in a dialectical process of mutual influence. Scholars have pointed to material and economic circumstances as drivers of violence, yet Koufa relies on religion to justify violence. By drawing economic and social realities into larger paradigms (the historical and the religious) Koufa justifies and sanctifies violence in two ways: a) by invoking the Masina Empire and Seku Amadu, he construes violent reaction with historical emancipation; b) by invoking the Qur¡¯an and jihad, violence becomes a religious duty, a cleansing of the ummah from external and internal pollutants.

The modern world has become overwhelmed by numerous divisions, categories, and labels that cause conflict among various communities. These divisions and categories then result in prejudiced and biased perspectives about various aspects of a community, a culture, or even a whole nation. One of the most pervasive divisions is between ¡®religion¡¯ and ¡®secular.¡¯ It is a very common stance in the West to believe that religion and politics (which is secular) should be separate. This stance results in the West judging how non-Western countries separate their ¡®religious¡¯ and ¡®secular¡¯ aspects of their societies. This prejudiced perspective can readily be found in journalism reporting on conflicts that involve religion, violence, and politics. As a result, journalism becomes a new tool for the West to further undermine and destabilise the countries that it had previously colonised. This renders journalism an apparatus for implementing neo-colonialism. This article is an investigation into the violence occurring in Burma and the resulting journalism that explains it for Western audiences. Using the ideas of William Cavanaugh, Timothy Fitzgerald, and Jason ?nanda Josephson, I conclude that the very concept of ¡®religion¡¯ is a Western construct put in place to facilitate colonisation of non-Western countries. Hence, the discussions surrounding religion in the West follows this construct and associated ideas, and thus further colonises the non-West.

This review article argues that Kenneth G. C. Newport¡¯s book on the Branch Davidans of Waco, the most comprehensive research to have been published to date on this subject, is deeply flawed and biased. It is argued that Newport often downplays, misrepresents, or outright withholds evidence that would not fit with the suicidal picture he wishes to draw for the Branch Davidians in general and for David Koresh in particular, and that he leaves the most important questions not only unanswered, but even unasked. The bias that hampers this book from being a truly critical academic scholarship is clarified, and the interrelated and dangerous politics it substantiates is criticized.

This article examines the sociocultural circumstances which have made the United States of America a global focal point for widespread fear of Satanism, and the ensuring consequences in regards to vernacular religious belief, political rhetoric, and violence. This analysis combines an ethnography of American Christian presence online, with journalistic primary secondary sources and academic theory, taken from a range of disciplines including historical, historiographic and literary analysis and psychological research. It compares the efficacy of the methodologies of Ren¨¦ Girard and Mark Juergensmeyer for the analysis of these phenomena, and proposes a framework of dual reality for understanding the apparent paradoxes of identity, perception of the world and personal and group behaviour found within American Charismatic Christianity. The article critiques Girard¡¯s approach to Scapegoat Theory, proposing a minor adjustment of perspective to expand its applicability and efficacy.

Katsuhiro Otomo¡¯s film Akira is well-known for its excessive imagery and themes of violence. This article attempts to extrapolate a general ontology of violence by bringing the film in dialogue with contemporary theorists of violence such as Garry W. Trompf, Slavoj ?i?ek, Bernard Stiegler, and Peter Sloterdijk. It will be argued that violence and creativity may be ontologically two sides of the same coin. Akira illustrates this dialectical tension from all levels. Firstly, from the historical level, the dialectic of violence and creativity can be discerned in Otomo¡¯s double-sided critique of Imperial Japan and Japan¡¯s post-war economic construction into a capitalist nation. Secondly, the ontology of creation-destruc?tion is embodied within the antagonist Tetsuo and the metaphysical energy called ¡°Akira.¡± Here, the author will draw a clear parallel between Tetsuo¡¯s perverse caricature of Superman with the Nietzschean ?bermensch. Finally from the meta-level, it is expressed in the conflicting usage of the film¡¯s score and the very success of the anime despite being one of the most violent animated film of all times. In many ways, the creation-destruction ontology developed here from Akira will cast a different light on other problems pertaining to violence and creativity: the inherent confusion of modern subjectivity, our ambivalent relation to technology, systemic violence and terrorism.

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (c. 1866¨C1949) was an esotericist and spiritual teacher whose charisma and authority were recognised and celebrated by his pupils. He attained a measure of fame during his life, and after his death in 1949 several pupils published memoirs that contained literary portraits of their teacher, making it possible for seekers who had never met Gurdjieff to experience his charisma. Over time, fictional portraits of Gurdjieff were created by novelists, playwrights, and authors of short stories, ranging from deferential and ennobling (Peter Neagoe¡¯s The Saint of Montparnasse), to humorous and mocking (Leonora Carrington¡¯s The Hearing Trumpet). The majority of novels featuring Gurdjieff were written during or close to his lifetime, by people who had first-hand knowledge of his teachings, or of his direct pupils. Few of these fictions garnered large readerships, yet they are interesting as they reflect the cultural context in which Gurdjieff lived and taught, and are attempts to transmit, however faultily, those qualities that made him a ¡®remarkable man¡¯ in textual form. This article examines several fictional portraits of Gurdjieff, focusing on his image as a ¡®remarkable man,¡¯ and his impact on the characters and plots, which authors crafted as evidence of his transformative power.

Building on previous work from Joseph A. P. Wilson, who discusses the trend of ¡°outsider archaeology¡± developing in popular spheres, and the need for criticism, this article discusses a similar trend of ¡°outsider biblical studies.¡± These are studies conducted by non-professionals (or scholars-in-exile) who develop their own theories and methods for doing historical research on the bible. These are hinged on both disavowing mainstream scholarship, but also consistently seeking the approval of mainstream scholars. As a result, they exist in a paradoxical state, which is only further dampened and entrenched by their poor methods. Since these works are almost never challenged, the following article not only exposes some of the more nonsensical theories being propounded, but also the need for academics to address these theories, as they become very easily widespread and popularized.

Festivals dedicated to ancient heroes and heroines and modern saints, and private burials mirror each other, and after being lamented and buried, memorial rituals must be performed at the tomb, combined with the offering of material gifts, in order to obtain reciprocal benefits. After a certain period, the bones are exhumed. Depending on the colour of the bones¡ªtheir unusual size and sweet smell also being important evidence of sanctity¡ªas well as on the dead person¡¯s status or power while alive, the deceased person may be a mediator in the literal sense of the word, through this second burial in the ossuary (where the bones are placed after the exhumation), or in a mausoleum or church. Both in earlier times and now, the living are dependent on the mediator¡¯s successful communication with even stronger powers in the subterranean world, to assure the continuity of their own lives through the fruits of the earth. Based on the results of first-hand fieldwork carried out by the author since the 1980s to the present in conjunction with ancient Greek sources, the article will examine rituals dedicated to deceased persons in which pilgrimages and offerings of food and other gifts¡ªsuch as ex-voto offerings¡ªat tombs are central for the preservation of the community, including peoples¡¯ health.

This study examines the role of internet trolls in contemporary culture. It argues that an digital culture primarily based in anonymity and defined by sadistic humor took two ideological turns. As many others have noted, troll culture has become associated with violent right-wing extremism. However, much less attention was given to Gnostic religious language and behaviors amongst internet trolls. To illustrate this change, we examine Andrew ¡°weev¡± Auernheimer¡¯s political and religious history to show that he was influenced by the Christian Identity movement, Miguel Serrano¡¯s ¡°Esoteric Hitlerism,¡± and other extremists. We then analyze the sense in which trolls have formed a community, believe the religious ideas they circulate, and how conversion occurs¡ªhow people are drawn from spaces primarily dedicated to humor into a violent esoteric ideology which I call Gnostic Neo-Nazism.

Among horror films and books, The Exorcist has attracted a disproportionate amount of commentary from a variety of perspectives, ranging from gender studies and psychoanalysis, through to the histories of medicine and science. This article delves into two aspects of the book and film phenomenon to highlight its cultural significance, especially in the United States, and particularly among Roman Catholics. First, it investigates the background of the book and film and positions it within the type of ethnic melting pot Catholicism from which its author, William Peter Blatty, emerged and its vernacular beliefs about the devil and exorcism, focusing on the type of ¡°Catholic supernaturalism¡± which Blatty drew on in writing The Exorcist and his own ambivalent relationship with this type of devotional Catholicism. Second, it examines the reaction to the book and the film amongst Catholic audiences, focusing on the extensive commentary provided on the film by several Catholic priests, all of whom found themselves pastorally and professionally challenged by the film¡¯s impact in various contexts. It concludes by discussing how The Exorcist has become an iconic example of the dark side of the American Catholic imagination.

The most notable religious figures in leadership positions are overwhelmingly men. Women have often held supporting roles in religious institutions, which lack the prestige and privilege of their male counterparts. The structure, culture, and systems of religions have been accused of sex bias regarding positions and equity among members. This trend is no less true for the African American religious community. Although Black women represent a majority of Black church congregations, their membership and service have not resulted in restructuring reflective of their contributions. This invites questions concerning participation, recognition, and satisfaction. This commentary examines the role Black women have within the Black Church in the United States. It briefly explores the history, perceptions, various roles, and adaptations of Black women as religious figures within the church. Despite historical subordination and reduced visibility, Black women continue to be the foundation on which the Black church is built. They simultaneously nurture and challenge the networks and traditions that comprise the Black church, and as such, their power is more real than apparent.

This essay is part of an ongoing study of the notion of the uncreated soul as presented in G. I. Gurdjieff¡¯s magnum opus, Beelzebub¡¯s Tales to His Grandson. Keeping in view the overarching themes of the conscious labor and intentional suffering (being-Partkdolg-duty) and the development of higher-being bodies, the article will examine and discuss some of the references to the soul found in the last third of Gurdjieff¡¯s work. In this last part of the book, after thoroughgoing attempt to destroy, and then revise and reinvigorate the notion of the soul in prior sections of the book, Gurdjieff, returns to an arguably ordinary way of referring to humans as souls, with a now-established notion that the soul must be developed. Some of the themes introduced in this last third of the book include America, War, and the issue of justice. Driven by the earnest and sincere questioning of his grandson Hassein, Beelzebub attempts to explain and frame the challenges facing human beings of Earth. Following the conclusion of the Tales proper, this article presents and analyzes some key elements of Gurdjieff¡¯s concluding chapter, written in his own voice, addressing the psychological and spiritual structure of the human being, and a restatement of his aim for Beelzebub¡¯s Tales as a whole.

G. I. Gurdjieff, a mystic of Greek descent, said that, in ancient religion, ritual and sacred dance were guidebooks containing vital truth, which could not be understood without a key. They were ¡°guidebooks¡± in that they aimed to bring one to a state where one can experience one¡¯s individual reality, and even a relationship to God. For Gurdjieff, prayer, including ritual prayer, meant connection, and so he attributed to rituals an objective value, and did not reduce them to an instrument of communication. His own ¡°sacred gymnastics¡± or ¡°Movements¡± comprised three categories: ¡°exoteric,¡± ¡°mesoteric,¡± and ¡°esoteric.¡± While all three levels are linked, the esoteric and mesoteric levels approximate to ritual prayers and to contemplative exercises. Exoteric Movements chiefly serve to prepare one¡¯s body and attention for the higher. We note how Gurdjieff exhibited these ideas in his ¡°ballet scenario,¡± The Struggle of the Magicians, and how they are consistent with what was understood of ancient Greek dance in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The key to understanding the unity of his aims and methods is his concept of ¡°self-remembering.¡±

This article discusses two complementary approaches to wholeness at least partly indebted to the system of self-transformation developed by spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff: first, British philosopher of science Henri Bortoft¡¯s discussion of authentic wholeness; and second, British philosopher J. G. Bennett¡¯s systematics, a method for describing phenomena via the qualitative significance of numbers. The article begins with a review of the significance of wholeness in recent Western thinking, including Western esotericism. The article then highlights Bortoft and Bennett¡¯s approaches to wholeness and considers how their efforts relate to a Gurdjieffian point of view. The argument is made that Bortoft¡¯s discussion of understanding sets the stage for the manner of encountering and knowing presupposed by Bennett¡¯s systematics. The author then draws on Bennett¡¯s systematics interpretation of two-ness (the dyad) and four-ness (the tetrad) to illustrate how a systematics perspective clarifies the wholeness of the Gurdjieff Work as it is a comprehensive system of psychological and spiritual transformation.

Concepts from memory studies and place/ space studies are here used to explore how narratives and history are interpreted, particularly locations with mythic dimensions. These locations are of importance to distinct communities, from treasure seekers to those who claim Indigenous belonging to the land. Sites have memories and stories attached to them, but in some cases recent interpretations have superseded older meanings. New narratives and stories have overlaid traditional understandings. From sites of ancient importance and Indigenous ownership, through veneration of the dead, to locations of conspiracy ideology, multiple narratives are created and adopted by differing groups. Where one person might only see the historical, another with a different view will see other aspects of the same site. I situate these locations and narratives within a dual framework of memory studies and place/ space studies to analyse how narratives are created and developed to facilitate new identity formation. New narratives are adopted or made prominent, and in some cases are claimed to be the only acceptable history of a location, even sites with multiple contested histories. Such claims are crucial for those whose identity is entangled with the new story, and whose goals may be communal, individual, political, or religious.

This article serves to expand several points in the recently published ¡°The Many Gods of Deuteronomy,¡± including noting a number of potential readings of Deuteronomy 32:1¨C43 which overtly indicate a polytheistic origin for the hymn. This includes several references to both named and unnamed deities, which have gone neglected in the discussions on whether or not the passage indicates Israel¡¯s earlier phases of polytheism. Further, the works attempting to reread Deuteronomy 32 as non-polytheistic are critiqued for a number of other failings in their methods and specific data points.

This article explores aspects of visualisation and healing practices found within Tibetan Tantric traditions of deity yoga, with particular focus on the deities Avalokite?vara, Par?a?avar¨© and T¨¡r¨¡. The article looks at some innovations and continuities between contemporary developments of these practices and their more ancient counterparts, through the lens of their use for healing. It explores the relationship of Tantric visualisation practices to waking life, dreamtime, and death processes, identifying some ways in which they were employed in response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

This article discusses Orara, a religious festival in Oye-Ekiti which is lacking in scholarly attention. Orara was conceived to appease the spirits and pray to Olodumare through rituals and public performances. The study used sociology, ethnography, anthropology, and historical research methodologies to elicit data. These include primary and secondary sources. The primary data included oral tradition, participant observation, in-situ field notes (i.e., record?ing immediately after observations of events), conversations and interviews, and photographs of the embodied experience of the festival and survey. Secondary sources comprised journal articles, textbooks, and other relevant documents. Using qualitatively analysis, the study engaged Victor Turner¡¯s theory of per?formance in explaining the functionality of Orara in enabling social order in Oye-Ekiti society.

This article explores the role of evolved pattern recognition in the development and divergence of mental frameworks underlying creative and metaphysical thought in Hominid species. It examines the emergence of figurative artistic expression through the lenses of Darwinian evolutionary theory and Gaboran honing theory, testing the limits and overlap of these methodologies when applied to humanity¡¯s archaic relatives. This is contrasted with complex philosophical and artistic traditions of a relatively recent human society, Early Modern Persia. There is something of a taboo around the application of evolutionary psychology in some sociological circles due to its frequent misuse in pop science to dismiss societal change: an appeal to antiquity rebranded as biological determinism. This article will expand the use of evolutionary psychological methodologies in moderation as an additional tool in the study of archaic humanity and its relatives. It finds there is an evolutionary substratum to the development of creative thought, but that its recognisable features for a modern human were unlikely to have initially been selected traits themselves: this evolutionary substratum is a basis of sensory and conceptual pattern recognition traits, generating a mental atmosphere conducive to the development of collective strata of conceptual association, and is traceable to prehistory.

When P. D. Ouspensky (1878¨C1947) is noted today, it is generally as a quondam pupil of G. I. Gurdjieff (c.1866¨C1949), and the author of In Search of the Miraculous, an account of his time with Gurdjieff. Ouspensky had a considerable reputation in Russian esoteric circles before he had met Gurdjieff, and it is sometimes asserted that Ouspensky¡¯s standing as an independent thinker has been underestimated. The English translation of his book Tertium Organum has been cited as evidence that Ouspensky had already anticipated some of Gurdjieff¡¯s leading ideas. However, a comparison of the 1911 Russian-language edition with the 1920 English translation of the 1916 Russian revision of Tertium Organum establishes that the 1911 original lacked key ideas found in later editions, most of which are distinctively Gurdjieff¡¯s. This shows the extent of Ouspensky¡¯s debt to Gurdjieff, and casts a different light on the relationship between Gurdjieff and Ouspensky; namely, that there was more collaboration than previously known, and that Ouspensky¡¯s account of his agreement with Gurdjieff about committing Gurdjieff¡¯s ideas to writing, was tendentious, if not misleading.

This study explores the new strands of an emerging theodicy among Uyghurs living in diaspora. This study is based on material collected from recorded discussions generated during online introductory classes on the Qur¡¯an, and from interviews with Uyghur Imams residing in Canada and Turkey. The ongoing persecution of Muslims in the Uyghur Homeland by the Chinese government (recently recognized as a ¡°genocide¡± by the governments of eight countries) has led many Uyghurs to attempt to explain these atrocities through an Islamic religious lens. Similar strategies have been noted in the Jewish theodicy that emerged in the wake of the Holocaust¡ªwhere the suffering of victims of genocide were interpreted as either a divine test or punishment. Using to these new examples of theodical thinking found among Uyghurs living in the diaspora, we have crafted a typology of four different approaches to the problem of evil and suffering. These include the gnostic argument, the mythic argument, the apocalyptic argument, and the mystery argument. Special attention will be given to the mystery argument because it appears to be an incipient pastoral theodicy that poses a challenge to the test-or-punishment paradigm by valorizing political activism and emphasizes the intergenerational transmission of Uyghur identity. Affinities between Uyghur theodicy and certain Jewish Holocaust theodicies are explored, with a focus on covenantal paradigmatic thinking, the political quietism of Hasidic Hungarian borderland Grand Rabbis in the early 1940s, and the dynamic ¡°broken theodicy¡± of Rabbi Kalonimus Kalman Shapiro.

This article is a personal reflection on Swami Shankarananda¡¯s se?cretive sexual behaviour with female devotees within his Mount Eliza Ashram, and the Guru-disciple relationship. Shankarananda developed his own Shiva Yoga in Melbourne after being a senior disciple in Muktananda¡¯s Siddha Yoga. As his Ashram grew, so did his notoriety, and eventually he was accused by some of the female devotees of sexual abuse; a situation reminiscent of his own guru. Shankarananda admitted the harm he had caused; however, he rationalised it with his notion of secret Tantra initiation within Kashmir Shaivism. At the time, in 2015, Mount Eliza was a successful meditation centre and residential retreat. When the news broke, the Ashram was reported to have lost two thirds of its followers and was described in the media as a ¡®Guru sex scandal.¡¯ Today the Ashram is flourishing as Shankarananda seems to have moved on, continually attracting new followers; however, allegations persist.

Historically women¡¯s achievements have been obscured, sexually, socially, culturally, and spiritually. However, with the rise of global and social media, women have been empowered, having a greater impact on society; women are more receptive to discussions related to ethical and social issues - such as racial, national, and sexual discrimination, elimination of violence, religious control, free movement, modern slavery, psychological submission, and poverty/ economic marginalization ¨C and are at the forefront of international movements, such as #MeToo and #SheDecides, which promote freedom of speech, thought and belief, and how to speak out publicly. Issues related to ethnic, religious, and sexual persecution and violence are part of women¡¯s history. A critical thinking approach to the struggle of women in modern society is essential; it is important to understand female leaders as part of a multi-ethnic, multi-faith, and multi-gendered society. Women in postcolonial movements construct their self-identity in real, concrete, and existential sociocultural contexts. This article discusses violence against women, women contributing to a diverse global society, and women¡¯s ideas of beauty and sexuality. I employ the lens of autocoscienza (self-awareness) with a view to embracing diversity and vindicating contribution of women in religious and secular contexts, and its value for the future.

This article surveys intersections between art, religion, and society in three periods of the history of Aotearoa New Zealand: 1) Polynesian settlement, 2) British colonization and 3) a contemporary multicultural society built on a bicultural base. Using a material culture framework which traces changes in the uses and significance of artistic objects as they pass through the hands of members of various religious and secular communities, it illustrates, through a variety of examples from the fields of popular art, fine arts and architecture, that art has, and can, play a large part in negotiations between religious traditions, particularly when they encounter one another in conflict, reconciliation and hybridization.

Contemporary new religious movements¡ªoriginating from early in the 1960s¡ªgained substantial following in the past half century. Rooted in an era characterised by accelerated social and technological advancements, as well as major historical events, these movements incorporated meanings and qualities anchored in Cold War internal and external tensions. Effects of globalization and rapid urbanization, alongside novel¡ªand in large part still unsolved¡ªchallenges posed by individual and collective alienation and the decline of conventional micro, meso, and macrosocial structures affirmed a gradual depletion of inherited collective identity, which was even more apparent in highly urbanized settings. Early societal reactions towards these new constellations¡ªemerging from said turbulent and transitory times¡ªvaried greatly by regional and cultural contexts. While in the United States, an initial, generally inclusive, and pluralistic attitude was detectable¡ªovershadowed by a short lived, yet intense cult and moral panics period¡ªin the ¡®future post-Soviet¡¯ countries of Central and Eastern Europe the opportunities to deal with the challenges and congested social arrears by history were not available until the early 1990s. After the demise of the Soviet Union, simultaneously with the immediate and pressing challenges of regaining¡ªand retaining¡ªnational identity, the opening towards an often-idealized Western world and the appearance of new religious movements brought about even more complex issues. This article provides a brief interpretation of the contexts of new religious emergence, and their receptions in United States around from 1960s. Through outlining region-specific traits of Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, the authors contribute to a parallel understanding of new religious attitudes and of the inherent differences between the two regions.

This article explores the historical and contemporary entanglements of race, religion and media as it plays out through a four-part documentary series about deviant, dangerous and criminal Christian group Electus Per Deus, who were responsible for a spate of murders known collectively as the Krugersdorp Killings. Headed by a self-proclaimed powerful ex-Satanist witch, who was actively involved in on-going spiritual warfare, the group¡¯s primary religious activity was to help educate about and assist with escape from the ¡®Occult¡¯ in general and Satanism in particular. A curious element of Electus Per Deus¡¯ modus operandi was that the group¡¯s members often masqueraded as Satanists, in order to advance their cause and secure the legitimacy of their claims. The community in which they were positioned vehemently rejected the Christian status of the group despite members claims to the contrary. This article argues that within the historical and contemporary political economies of race, religion and media, White Afrikaans Christian communities, such as those featured in Devilsdorp were inordinately favoured through the policies and practices of the apartheid regime and more recently the Afrikaner capture of commercial media. This re?ligious and racial privilege is reproduced by the series and serves as a reminder of the importance of intersectional, contextually informed approaches to the study of religious diversity, deviance, and danger.

Due to the inauguration of the Next Quest of the Historical Jesus and renewed interest in historical materialist approaches to early Christianity (such as the forthcoming volume from Myles and Crossley), the present paper seeks to elucidate the history of one of the most contentious debates in early Christian studies among Marxists: that of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. The article goes through the early debates and discussions on the subject and seeks to correct a number of misunderstandings about the history of this debate and also evaluate some of the present contributions on the matter, to see where Marxist historians generally stand. It starts with the earliest discussions of Jesus¡¯ historicity among figures such as Albert Kalthoff and Karl Kautsky, then discuss?ing where Marxist mythicists gained majority positions in the Soviet Union and People¡¯s Republic of China, until reaching the present day and briefly discussing the contemporary interlocutors in this debate.

Appearing on the food landscape in the 2010s, ¡°Buddha bowls¡± are a meal consisting of healthy food elements artfully arranged. This name carries with it a notable spiritual significance, allowing buyers to feel as though they are consuming something more elevated than an average meal. The kind of Buddhism that is consumed here is related to exotic choices and health secrets from the Orient. Discourse around Buddha bowls shows a limited grasp of the religion¡¯s actual history or practices, including frequent confusion between Gautama Buddha and the Chan figure Budai. What is more important in the spiritual dimension of this meal is the sense of elevation and the power of the ascetic choice in an obesogenic consumer environment. Buddha bowls also feed into a ¡°healthist¡± society where neoliberal self-governance places responsibility for health on the individual and their own choices. By making a healthy choice, a person can feel safe and protect against harm and pollution to the body. In this way, Buddha bowls also perform a common religious role by warding off danger like a talisman. While they offer little towards an exploration of Buddhist history and global praxis, the Buddha bowl has much to reveal about neoliberal spiritual landscapes.

In the study of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel, a consistent area of debate between mainstream and conservative scholars is whether or not the ancient Israelites were monotheists who worshiped El Elyon as their highest god, and whether or not the Hebrew Bible retains any of this. One particular passage of interest has been Deuteronomy 32: 8¨C9, which most academics interpret as El Elyon distributing the nation to his children, one of whom is Yahweh. This essay seeks to address the rebuttals of conservative scholars who have sought to deny this, by arguing that ancient Israel¡¯s conception of Yahweh was and that he was not a son of El in Deut. 32. This essay rejects these conclusions, principally arguing against the work of Michael S. Heiser, bringing attention to some neglected data which conservative academics (and mainstream ones) have often overlooked in trying to elucidate this passage and demonstrating that the consensus reading of the passage makes the most sense of the text.

The French author Robert Charroux (1909¨C1978) contributed to the popular discourse about alien visits to earth in the remote past, that he advanced in voluminous books replete with narratives of anomalous ¡°facts.¡± According to Charroux, humanity is divided in ¡°races¡± whose existence is explained in reference to greater or lesser ¡°genetic¡± similarity to the ¡°ancient aliens,¡± as well as to radiation that genetically modified humans on the occasions of major catastrophes (natural as well as human-induced). Additionally, he was convinced that a factor in humanity¡¯s decadence was its attachment to technology, that he regarded as detrimental in various ways; science, in his opinion, was overrated, a case in point being the theory of evolution. Extending the analysis of Charroux¡¯s work offered by scholars like Wiktor Stoczkowski and Damien Karbovnik, I scrutinize Charroux¡¯s books, reconstructing his ambiguous attitude towards science, his criticism of evolution, his racist theories, and his xenophobic worldview.

Authenticity has become one of the key ethics in contemporary society and culture. This research analyses the present ideals of authenticity in work-life, building on theories on post-secularization and new spiritualities, neoliberalism, and the concept of ideal worker deriving from organizational studies. Corporate mindfulness is looked at as a topical example of authenticity practices in current work-life. The research utilizes interview data was produced in a knowledge work organization that had launched its own mindfulness program and become part of the wider workplace spirituality movement. The research question focused on what kind of discourses on authenticity are born when the organization simultaneously discourages full expressions of one¡¯s personality as not being professional or adequate in work-life context, and roots for mindfulness, which hails for recognizing reality as it is, accepting oneself and finding authentic self. Using discourse analysis, four themes were found in data, each revealing a different discourse on authenticity.

The article presents new research about spiritual experiences during COVID-19. It starts with a wider discussion about the relationship between spirituality and wellbeing, based on research carried out in Brazil and the United Kingdom before the pandemic. The research showed a strict division between personal faith and medical treatment, reflecting a professional distance when treating patients that results in patients¡¯ unwillingness to speak about their experience to anyone in the medical profession, even when these experiences impact their mental health. The article then explores findings of a new research project about spiritual experience during COVID-19 and reflects on three themes that emerged from the data: 1) changes in patients¡¯ relationships with their religious communities, 2) seeing spiritual figures and near death experiences, and 3) interpretations of COVID-19 as a spiritual contagion. These themes contribute to a nuanced understanding of how spiritual experiences that arise in moments of crisis are interpreted by the people who have them, potentially contributing to resiliance and coping. The last section discusses the reluctance to speak about non-ordinary experiences and reflects on the importance of integrating non-ordinary experiences for mental health.

The global consumption of yoga appears to have reached the saturation point in many market segments. In Japan, it is possible that with the seemingly endless array of X+Yoga hybrids that the consumption of Yoga is waning. While it is difficult to assess this with accuracy, it is increasingly difficult to delineate what yoga is. Therefore, how might one attend to answering a question related to yoga and sacred space in Japan? This paper explores the promotion of some relatively local hybrids such as temple yoga, face yoga, ninja yoga, nature yoga, and serotonin yoga.

Discourse emphasizing ¡°natural childbirth,¡± emerging at first in the 1980s in Britain, was welcomed to Japan, too, attracting high attention. The discourse in Japan has changed with the times and has gradually lost momentum, but is recently paid attention to again, which is shown by the fact that childbirth assisted by midwife has become more preferable than before. This kind of discussion tends to keep a distance from feminism although it gives holiness to childbirth, differently from trends overseas in which the discourse has a high affinity to feminism as well as spirituality.

The traditional Japanese shaman called itako is a kind of kuchiyose-mikos performing kuchiyose ritual to summon a spirit of the deceased and communicate with them. As a result of the decline in the number of once the common kuchiyose-mikos, the itako, who remains in Aomori, north Iwate and north Akita prefectures, happened to attract the attention of mass media. Itako began to appear in Japanese mass media in the 1950s, and by the 1960s they were already well known throughout Japan. This article will examine how mass media has changed the local folk culture, focusing on the kuchiyose practice on the sacred place Osorezan. Osorezan, located in Shimokita Peninsula, Aomori, is not only the sacred place for Buddhism but also for the folk beliefs that the spirits of the dead are gathered; therefore, various kinds of religious activities, including the kuchiyose, have taken place here. With the movement of rediscovering Japan and the boom of interesting in unexplored places in the 1950s, the mass media repeatedly picked up kuchiyose on Osorezan, and created a strong image of itako that has an inextricable connection with Osorezan. Although their relationship was actually transient, many people sharing the fictional image created by mass media visited here from around the country to observe or experience kuchiyose since the 1950s. The increase in the number of visitors from outside the region due to the new image altered the religious environment on the sacred place, and caused three changes in the kuchiyose practice, at the same time. Those three changes seem to function to avert a risk of miscommunication between itako and new clients under the phenomenon of delocalization. They can be evaluated as efforts to maintain the religious function to communicate with the dead even under new circumstances.

This study illustrates how local shamans in the Tsugaru area in Japan adapt to contemporary society by focusing on their practices and self-identity formation process. There are two types of shamans in this area: itako and kamisama. The number of itako is decreasing drastically and kamisama are taking over the role. In this context, it is important to examine how and to what extent local contexts affect kamisama¡¯s practices and their identity. Conversely, it is also important to understand the extent to which they are affected by phenomena outside of the local community, such as mass media and tourism. By examining two kamisama¡¯s lives as cases, this study reveals that a shaman¡¯s self-identity is neither just a result of a divine calling, nor a reflection of local shamanic traditions, but a dynamic, ever-changing reaction to the social surroundings.

The study aims to explore the relationship between Rastafari and the anti-nuclear movement in Japan, following the accident at Tokyo Electrical Power Company¡¯s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, an incident, which was a result of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. This event revitalised the anti-nuclear movement in Japan, which included Japanese Rastas among its participants. This study focuses specifically on the case of reggae singer Sing J Roy, who participated in the anti-nuclear movement and produced a song on the theme of community development in the Wakasa region of Fukui Prefecture in 2013. In this case, it becomes clear that the intentions of the anti-nuclear movement backed by Rastafarai¡¯s ideology are mixed with attempts to revitalise the region led by the local government and local residents in an inconspicuous way.

This article examines the importation of Paganism, mainly Witchcraft, from the West in Japan. Japanese witches do not resist the traditional religion; combined with their lack of Christian influence on their context, there is no image of evil connotation with witches in Japan. However, people who practice witchcraft are facing depictions of the ¡°witch¡± in anime and children¡¯s literature. If we regard Japan as a contact zone where Western witchcraft and Japanese tradition meet, various images of witches are produced there without the Christian context, and a localised witchcraft faith has been produced.

The article investigates the relationship between religion and technology, referring to relevant topics in the concept of ¡°human beings,¡± such as body and spirit. It particularly taking into consideration the transhumanist and posthumanist tenets, which are often regarded as conflicting with a spiritual/religious thought. The Dragon Ball franchise as a case of study provides insight into how elements of spirituality and technology can be well structured in a very popular medial product with a unique reference universe of significances using an history of ideas and historical-religious framework.

The Order of Saint Charbel, and its founding prophet William Kamm (b. 1950), also known as ¡°The Little Pebble,¡± has been a marginal presence on the fringes of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia since the 1980s. While a series of bishops from the Diocese of Wollongong (and other dioceses) have issued official statements taking issue with the beliefs and practices of the group and publicly distancing the group from normative Catholicism, little systematic analysis of its beliefs has been undertaken which situate these within a wider historical Roman Catholic context. This article offers a preliminary analysis of some key themes occurring in the ¡°private revelations¡± which form a key aspect of the Order of Saint Charbel¡¯s religious repertoire and their relationship with the broader theological positions of Catholic traditionalists. This article suggests that the Order of Saint Charbel, while sharing some concerns with traditionalist and other groups across the spectrum of conservative reactions to Vatican II, is best classified as a ¡°devotionally traditionalist¡± lay movement exhibiting a kind of popular theology that can only be properly understood when viewed against the wider backdrop of traditional vernacular Catholic devotional practices, many of which have either declined or become marginalized since Vatican II.

The experience of colonialization and Christianization among the Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand), the Polynesians¡¯ furthest settlement in the Southern Hemisphere, resulted in significant population decline of the Maori, land alienation, the rise of nativist revitalization movements, and British laws regarding land tenure that conformed to a Domesday Book tradition of conquest and social stratification. Nativist religious movements attempted to regain the land, reverse Maori population decline, and avoid the pathological consequences of aporia, a Greek word that signifies ¡°without a bridge.¡± Three successive ¡°Holy Spirit¡± movements arose to heal the breach between the old world of the Polynesians and the new world of British colonization and Christianization. Adherents assumed an identity as Israelites¡ªthe children of Shem¡ªand challenged the Christian dominance of the Pakeha (European New Zealanders). From this culture clash came the Land Wars of the nineteenth century and the emergence of a new, biracial nation.

Christianity and circus entered the Australian landscape within a few decades of each other. Christianity arrived with the First Fleet in 1788. Five years later, Australia¡¯s first church was opened. In 1832, the first display of the circus arts was given by a ropewalker on the stage of Sydney¡¯s Theatre Royal. Fifteen years later, Australia¡¯s first circus was opened in Launceston. Nevertheless, Australia¡¯s historians have tended to overlook both the nation¡¯s religious history and its annals of popular entertainment. In their new antipodean setting, what did Christianity and circus offer each other? To what extent did each accommodate the other in terms of thought and behaviour? In raising these questions, this article suggests the need to remove the margins between the mainstreams of Australian religious and social histories. For the argument of this article: 1) the term ¡°religion¡± will refer to Christianity, specifically its Roman Catholic and principal Protestant manifestations introduced in Australia, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist; and 2) the term ¡°circus¡± will refer to the form of popular entertainment, a major branch of the performing arts and a sub-branch of theatre, as devised by Astley in London from 1768, and first displayed in the Australia in 1847.

One of the most iconic television series of the 1990s, The X-Files drew on religious and folkloric traditions regarding supernatural phenomena for many of its plotlines. Among the themes that the show¡¯s writers turned to repeatedly was witchcraft, using it as a major plot device in six episodes over the course of the series¡¯ eleven season run. While drawing on longstanding ideas about witchcraft arising from European and European-American culture(s), these writers also had to contend with a social environment in which fears of witchcraft had resurfaced in the form of the Satanic ritual abuse hysteria and where various forms of modern religious witchcraft had arisen, often claiming proprietorship of the concept of the witch itself. How the show¡¯s writers chose to portray this topic and navigate around the social issues it posed offers insight into the nature of beliefs about witchcraft present in American culture, especially at the close of the twentieth century.

Nestorius and his relationship with his eponymous heresy, Nestorianism, has been a controversial topic in religious studies and in Christian theology. Largely thought to have been condemned for professing Nestorianism, the discovery of the Bazaar of Heracleides of Damascus (written by him in exile) led to a wide-reaching reassessment of this very relationship. Despite Nestorius¡¯ protestations in defence of his own perceived orthodoxy, his rejection of the stronger term henosis for the weaker synapheia to describe the union of the natures of Christ and criticism of the use of the term ¡°hypostatic union¡± both demonstrate that, implicitly, he did profess a two-person Christology. The authenticity of the Bazaar¡¯s authorship and other historiographical issues came to the fore soon after its discovery. The dating of certain key events and the silence of Nestorius in other parts have led to a consensus of sorts amongst scholars in accepting the Bazaar, in large part, as being the work of Nestorius whilst still admitting of later additions and emendations. This article examines the relationship between Nestorius and Nestorianism, explains key theological terminology used in the Christological debates of the First Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, situates Ephesus I and Chalcedon in their proper context and their relationship to Nestorius, provides an overview of the key arguments for and against the acceptance of the authorship of the Bazaar, and includes a concise summary of the most compelling arguments in favour of the acceptance of the Bazaar¡¯s authorship.

In 1964, the United States Supreme Court affirmed by its decision in Jacobellis vs. Ohio that the French art film, Les Amants, was not, as the State of Ohio had previously defined it, ¡°hardcore pornography.¡± In his concurrent opinion, Justice Potter Stewart wrote that, though he couldn¡¯t properly define what might constitute ¡°hardcore pornography,¡± it was something that would be obvious to most of us, especially when compared to a bawdy, yet otherwise harmless, foreign film. His exact words were: ¡°but I know it when I see it.¡± And while Justice Stewart¡¯s simple acknowledgment that we might ¡°know¡± what something means merely based on our personal perceptions helped justify the Court¡¯s stance on how it approached similar obscenity laws (as well as made him famous) from that point on, it also serves us well in our own search for definitions of words like ¡°religion¡± or ¡°Atheism.¡± This article will use Justice Stewart¡¯s argument as a base of discussion for the latter, providing in the process examples of Atheists across three historical periods, that will in turn support a practical description of the term itself, while simultaneously challenging the need for a ¡°definition of Atheism¡± in the first place.

Studies of western esotericism in the twentieth century proposed a certain number of characteristics as fundamental and universal to esotericism. This article first reviews Antoine Faivre¡¯s intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics and Wouter J. Hanegraaff¡¯s typology of esotericism, constituting the so-called empirical historical method. Next, it considers the case of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (c. 1866¨C1949), a prominent Russian-speaking spiritual teacher who developed his own method of personal perfection and whose place in the history of western esoteric thought is not indisputable. Through a discussion of some main points of Gurdjieff¡¯s teachings and the ways he dealt with esoteric subjects, it is suggested that Faivre¡¯s and Hanegraaff¡¯s material can partly be applicable to his system. It finally argues that this uncertainty can be explained by specifics of Gurdjieff¡¯s teachings, which should be considered as crucial in formulating his esotericism, as well as by limitations of the above-mentioned approach.

Media technologies are being utilised as an effective medium to distribute diverse messages including religious messages. Numerous Muslim preachers have taken advantage of the advance of information technology in order to reach vast audiences and establish their religious authority. However, recipients do not accept the messages blindly. Recipients critically filter and examine all information available online, including religious messages. Making use of Hall¡¯s encoding-decoding theory, despite Sven Ross¡¯s and David Morley¡¯s criticism, this article analyses how encoding and decoding processes work for both messenger (preacher) and recipient respectively. This may ensure the presence of hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional positions when audiences make sense of messages. Basalamah is arguably one of Indonesia¡¯s most favoured preachers who utilises YouTube as a medium to proselytise. This article studies how Basalamah¡¯s online audiences, both in Indonesia and overseas, examine and make sense of the religious messages he communicates through the internet.

From about 1939 to 1947, G.?I. Gurdjieff (1866¨C1949) taught some of his pupils exercises to send help to deceased persons and at the same time develop themselves. So far as the author is aware, the exercise is entirely unique in the annals of contemplation and mysticism. More even than Gurdjieff¡¯s other exercises, this one seems to partake of the nature of ¡°ritual.¡± The evidence is found in newly available material from his American pupil Donald Whitcomb, the recently published transcripts of his 1943 and 1944 group meetings, and from the memoirs of J.?G. Bennett and Kathryn Hulme. It is contended that, unusual as they may be, these ideas and practices are related to and entirely consistent with Gurdjieff¡¯s basic system. It appears that scholars may have underestimated the extent to which Gurdjieff developed his methods, and perhaps also his ideas, over the years.

This article presents a new approach to Japanese Zen Buddhism, alternative to its traditional views, which lack exact definitions of the relation between the meditator and the Buddha¡¯s ultimate cause, dharma. To this end, I offer a comparative analysis between Zen Buddhist and Christian views of causality from the medieval to early modern periods. Through this, human causation with dharma in the Zen Buddhist meditations can be better defined and understood. Despite differences between religious traditions in deliberating human causal accounts, there are parallel ways of thinking and practicing between Christian and Buddhist meditators. Firstly, I reconstruct three sorts of Christian scholastic theories of creaturely causality: conservationism (realist or active view of our volitional action), occasionalism (passive view), and concurrentism (interactive view). Secondly, Zen Buddhist doctrines are introduced by placing particular emphasis on dharma as causal agency. Focusing on the Japanese Zen practice of meditation (zazen), finally I expound two theories of human causality: S¨­t¨­ Zen quasi-occasionalism following Master D¨­gen¡¯s teaching of enlightenment (satori), and Rinzai Zen quasi-concurrentism given the meditator¡¯s interactive k¨­an practice. Hence, my comparative analysis explains why religious beings are causally active, passive, or interactive in relation to the first agency, God or dharma, whereby systematically establishing alternative definitions of human causality in Zen Buddhism.

Discussion around religion is abundant. Talking directly to it as a phenomenon is unusual. Yet, this brief essay aims to speak directly to the question of our positionality to religion by way of drawing lessons from the Harry Potter story. It does this by thinking about the takeaway message on religion from this literary epic with the aid of Martin Heidegger, but also in conversation with John Carroll¡¯s piece on the same. There is something to be said for the practicality of religion as reflecting the practicality of being. Being as we are in the sense of becoming, religion might be argued to denote the act, rather than the ideal, of being human.

Falun Gong was originally a qigong group that entered into conflict with the Chinese state around the turn of the century. It gradually transformed into both a religious group and a political movement. Exiled to the United States, the founder-leader, Li Hongzhi, acquired property near Cuddebackville, New York, which he subsequently designated Dragon Springs. Dragon Springs, in turn, became the headquarters of Shen Yun Performing Arts, an ambitious touring dance and music company that claims to embody the traditional culture of China prior to its subversion by the Chinese Communist Party. Though Li¡¯s earlier eschatology emphasized that individuals needed to become Falun Gong practitioners in order to survive the imminent apocalypse, the significant success of Shen Yun seems to have prompted Li Hongzhi to rewrite his eschatology, which now emphasizes that all one need do in order to be ¡°saved¡± is to view live Shen Yun performances.

This article focuses on how NRMs are depicted in the mass media in the province of Quebec, and examines some of the ethical, deontological and legal issues reflected in journalistic coverage of controversial groups known as ¡°sectes¡± or ¡°cults¡± in the francophone and anglophone medias. These groups include: Les Ap?tres de l¡¯Amour Infini, Le Mouvement Ra?lien, L¡¯?glise ess¨¦nienne chr¨¦tienne, L¡¯Ordre du Temple solaire, La Cit¨¦ ?cologique de Ham-Nord, la Mission de l¡¯Esprit-Saint, and Lev Tahor. News reports on these groups, collected over a period of fifteen years, will be analyzed within the framework of James A. Beckford¡¯s 1994 study, ¡°The Mass Media and New Religious Movements.¡± Relying on Beckford and models supplied by other sociologists, this chapter will identify various types of biased approaches used by journalists and analyzes the external pressures that shape their stories. Finally, it will attempt to explain why Quebec¡¯s new religions are consistently portrayed by journalists as controversial and threatening, in a manner that tends to generate and perpetuate conflict.

This is the Plenary speech presented by Murphy Pizza, Ph.D, the current president of the Upper Midwest American Academy of Religion, to an audience at the April 2019 Meeting for both the UM AAR and the UM Society for Biblical Literature at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, MN. The speech is an overview of the diversity of Paganisms in the movement, in practice and theological approaches, and it also references the community building efforts of the Pagan Community in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, the research area of the speaker.

This article examines religion¡¯s public role in Central Europe by investigating people¡¯s expectations and perceptions regarding distinct facets of religion. The paper analyses factors related to the first wave and the second wave of religiosity along different lines such as church and government policies, the roles of churches in strengthening democracy, etc. According to the Aufbruch data research project and partially from the ISSP (International Social Survey Project), religious depiction of some post-communist countries are brought to the table. A deeper analysis is undertaken for 6 countries (Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland), considering that in the countries previously listed, the distinction in the general level of religiosity differ remarkably, in order of the extremely religious country (Croatia) to the extremely non-religious country (Czech Republic). The discoveries from the various indicators shows that there is a good reason to believe in a possible second wave or different form and kind of religiosity compared to the times of the transition or the mid-1990s in contemporary times.

This article explores the relationship of two ¡°metaphysical¡± religious traditions, Christian Science and New Thought. The argument developed here is that the two traditions are closely related, using the category of Religious Idealism to identify similarities. The article offers a departure from traditional, long-standing assessments of the relationship between the movements, which focus on their differences. Specific problems considered are initially posed by questions related to the origins of the movements, and the study of origins is the focus of this paper. Three other categories of relevance will also be noted: (1) theology and cosmology, (2) the centrality of mental healing, and (3) biblical exegesis.

Following the ideas of a Cognitive Optimum Position, this paper aims to illustrate how cognitive science of religion can be fruitfully applied to understand the appeal of certain metaphysical beliefs within modern New Age religiosity. By diving into the popular DVD version of Rhonda Byrne¡¯s The Secret, this paper seeks is to uncover the cognitive mechanism and systematic biases involved when New Age sympathizers engage in ritual practices and beliefs related to positive thinking and the Law of Attraction. We propose to view the visualization rituals highlighted in The Secret as ¡°internalized¡± similarity magic, possibly triggering the adaptive principle appearance equals reality. We further argue that the mind-over-matter belief promoted throughout The Secret¡ªthat thoughts affect or interact with physical reality¡ªin certain cases are strengthened by a human bias to see a mental-physical causal relationship, a causation heuristic. The cognitive processes behind the general metaphysical belief that thoughts can affect reality are elaborated further by the concept core knowledge confusion. Finally we suggest that together with an illusion of control over uncertain future events, an optimism bias may incite people to engage in continual ritual practice.

Through decades of anti-bigamy legislation, the practice of plural marriage was officially outlawed. In the first half of the twentieth century, contemporary polygamists faced raids in the 1930s, 1940s, and the largest of the time, in 1953. The 1953 raid in Short Creek, Arizona, executed by Arizona Governor Howard Pyle, was meant to put down the ¡°insurrection¡± of ¡°white slavery¡± in the border town now known as Colorado City. Though there was significant media coverage of the raid and subsequent trials, and there have been academic works on the subject, the experiences of the women while in state custody require further conversation. In this article, transcriptions of those recollections are examined in order to continue the discussion started in Martha Bradley¡¯s seminal work, Kidnapped from that Land, with a focus on the female experience in their own words.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the recent ¡°I¡¯m a Mormon¡± publicity campaign put forward by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church, or the LDS Church) and its significance in the larger scheme of Latter-day Saints¡¯ public relations history. Since the nineteenth century, Mormons have had to negotiate with mainstream society in order to obtain a comfortable position while maintaining their identity as ¡°peculiar people.¡± Through a detailed analysis of selected ¡°I¡¯m a Mormon¡± capsules, broadcasted on the Mormon.org website, this paper presents the recent normalization and differentiation strategies put forward by the Church of Jesus Christ, and exposes the relationship between these tactics and the strategies used by the Church throughout history. We note that while members of the Church of Jesus Christ aim to be accepted by mainstream Americans and viewed as somewhat ¡°normal,¡± they also seek to maintain an aura of uniqueness associated with their specific religious beliefs and values. This falls under what we refer to as differentiation.

During September 22¨C24, 2017, Zhejiang University hosted an International Symposium on the Theoretical and Practical Issues of Faiths in the Construction of the Community of Common Destiny for All Mankind in Hangzhou, China. In the course of this conference, six scholars from Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and China participated in an interdisciplinary panel discussion about ¡°Spiritual Movements, Secret Societies, and Destructive Cults.¡± Covering such topics as the general spiritual situation of the contemporary world, the religious marketplace, the dangerous tendencies within some religious movements, and the role of the state in relation to religious communities, the discussion concludes with an examination of the conflict of Falun Gong with the Chinese government and the faults of the group¡¯s leadership that brought the conflict to a head. The discussion offers a fruitful combination of theoretical insights and concrete case studies that provides a wide and deep purview of our present spiritual situation, setting forth both its dangers and its positive potential. This paper is a transcript of the panel discussion, with a brief introduction identifying its highlights.

This study makes a bold statement on the problematic nature of historic academic research, and its implications on our understanding of religion and culture. The case study is New Age religion¡¯s scholarly historiography. It appears that New Age religion plays a part within narrative imagination, which often contains moral allusions as to the heroes or antiheroes, as well as literary allusions to the causal sources of events or to expected developments. We review the conflicts that arise between utterly differing opinions in some of the field¡¯s fundamental issues, and thus evoke several of the challenges historical research on NA faces: when did it debut on the historical stage? Which ideological movements did it draw upon? Who are its unmistakable heralds? Did it already reach the height of its strength, and if so, when? The survey of scholarly studies indicates that the history of New Age is ever-changing. Thus, we argue that though historic discussion may deepen the analysis of a religious phenomenon and its understanding and give it context and meaning¡ªit cannot decipher it. We cannot rely on history in defining a phenomenon, in attempting to comprehend its essence, its power, its importance, and most certainly not its future.