Religion

On the contrary, a certain variety of approach may serve as a means of convincing the student of the manifold and ever varying character of the conglomerate of religious traditions which we are wont to subsume under the term Tantrism.

In this book the emphasis is on the Hindu side of Hindu-Muslim relations, and more particularly on the role of the Arya Samaj movement. The movement was founded near Bombay at Rajkot in 1875, and it achieved a wide influence in northern India.

The only exhaustive account of this major shrine, this study includes unique 19th century and contemporary photographs, the latter revealing features in its ongoing restoration.

This is an invaluable sourcebook that should serve scholars quite well

"This volume, focusing on discourses of crisis during a time that is constantly mediated as "in crisis," shows us ways of doing religious studies that are up to the challenge of reflecting on the problems, strategies, and political structures through which we construct our social worlds"--

Other examples of the effectivity of the "hermeneutics of surprise" are seen when applied to the role of dakinis, Sakti worship, the Marathi Sant tradition, and to Sankara's commentaries.

Unfortu­nate incidents, such as Vachati, Muthanga, Silent Valley, Polavaram, and many more have been dealt with as special case studies to showcase the virulent tribal uprisings going on in the southern parts of our country that are in no way less significant than the eastern or central Indian tribal movements.

Situating religion and medicine in Asia illuminates how Asian practices for health, healing and spiritual cultivation were mobilised in their originary times and places. Although many such practices have survived today, they circulate in new forms - within a burgeoning global marketplace, in the imaginaries of national health bureaus, as the focus of major scholarly grant initiatives and as subjects of neurological study. Labels such as 'alternative', 'complementary' and 'wellness'- privilege medical authority and a detachment from religion writ large, implying a distance between 'medicine' and 'religion' that is not reflective of the originary contexts of these practices. This volume makes a critical intervention in the scholarship on medical and religious practices in East, South and Southeast Asia and the Himalayas, inviting a new comparative frame outside the history of science and religion in Europe. It illustrates how practices from divination and demonography to anatomy, massage, plant medicine and homeopathy were situated within the contours of the medicine and religion of their time, in contrast to modern formations of 'medicine' and 'religion'. The book assembles empirical data about the construction of medicine and religion as social categories of practice, and enables comparison across the geographic, temporal and conceptual range, providing readers with a set of methodological approaches for future study.

Matters of ancestry, race and racism endure within Heathenry, a diversly constituted new religious movement drawing inspiration from the pre-Christian religions of northern Europe. Most Heathens, termed 'inclusivist' or 'universalist', welcome all with a spiritual interest in the ancient heathen past, regardless of ethnicity, sexuality or gender. But a 'folkish' Heathen minority, often identifying as Odinist, centre their thinking around ethnocentricity and heterosexist values. Racist Heathenry requires scrutiny as it has been influential in recent terrorist incidents in the UK, Norway, USA and New Zealand. Faith, folk and the far right offers the first detailed examination of extremist Heathenry and occultism in the UK and how anti-racist Heathens act to counter this discourse.Part I explores the spectrum of Heathen practice today and the historical origins of racist Heathenry in nineteenth century Germanic romanticism and twentieth century folkish nationalism. The three main extremist Heathen organisations in the UK, the Odinic Rite, the Odinist Fellowship and Woden's Folk, and their claims to the 'authentic' 'folk-religion' of the 'ancestral' English, are examined. The book extends its discussion to the neo-Nazi occult organization the Order of the Nine Angles (O9A), and the wider racist Heathen cultural scene in Black Metal and Dark Folk music. Part II analyses how anti-racist Heathens are countering racist discourse, including 'Declaration 127' which opposes Heathen hate groups, protests by inclusivist Heathens at far-right rallies, inter-faith forums and an active presence on social media platforms.Faith, folk and the far right makes an important contribution to understanding the intersecting fields of new religious movements, nationalist history and racist politics.

In May 2019, Narendra Modi won the world's largest election. Defying expectations, he led his Bharatiya Janata Party to a resounding victory, with the highest vote share for any party in thirty years, and was re-elected as India's Prime Minister. What accounts for the scale of Modi's win? Why, despite economic hardship and social strife, did Indians vote so overwhelmingly for him and the BJP? This book explains the economic, social and cultural processes that shaped political passions in India during the spring and summer of 2019. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together a stellar team of economists, political scientists, sociologists, historians and geographers to explain Modi's win. Together, the contributors compel us to take seriously the 'structures of feeling' in politics. Love him or hate him, Modi secured for himself a decisive re-election as India's Prime Minister. Passionate politics is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how that happened.

The reception of the Gospel of Matthew over two millennia: commentary and interpretation Matthew Through the Centuries offers an overview of the reception history of one of the most prominent gospels in Christian worship. Examining the reception of Matthew from the perspectives of a wide range of interpreters-from Origen and Hilary of Poitiers to Mary Cornwallis and Bob Marley-this insightful commentary explains the major trends in the reception of Matthew in various ecclesial, historical, and cultural contexts. Focusing on characteristically Matthean features, detailed chapter-by-chapter commentary highlights diverse receptions and interpretations of the gospel. Broad exploration of areas such as liturgy, literature, drama, film, hymnody, political discourse, and visual art illustrates the enormous impact Matthew continues to have on Judeo-Christian civilization. Known as 'the Church's Gospel,' Matthew's text has been the subject of apologetic and theological controversy for hundreds of years. It has been seen as justification for political and ecclesial status quo and as a path to radical discipleship. Matthew has influenced divergent political, spiritual, and cultural figures such as Francis of Assisi, John Ruskin, Leo Tolstoy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Mahatma Gandhi. Matthew's interest in ecclesiology provides early structures of ecclesial life, such as resolution of community disputes, communal prayer, and liturgical prescriptions for the Eucharist and baptism. A significant addition to the acclaimed Blackwell Bible Commentaries series, Matthew Through the Centuries is an indispensable resource for both students and experts in areas including religious and biblical studies, literature, history, politics, and those interested in the influence of the Bible on Western culture.

This innovative exploration of various Jewish experiences in France and the Francophone world through nuanced questions and representations offers an intertwining of perspectives that challenge geographical, chronological, and theoretical boundaries.

This book examines Candomblé's material culture and its relationship with the evolving cultural politics of Brazil. It employs artefacts as analytical tools to trace the emergence of a diasporic consciousness.

Each issue of New Daylight provides four months of daily Bible readings and comment, with a regular team of contributors drawn from a range of church backgrounds. New Daylight covers a varied selection of Old and New Testament passages, biblical themes, characters and seasonal readings.

The Phenomenology of Revelation in Heidegger, Marion, and Ricoeur provides a critical framework for understanding the phenomenology of revelation through a series of close readings that serve as the basis for an imagined dialogue between Martin Heidegger, Jean-Luc Marion, and Paul Ricoeur. Adam J. Graves distinguishes between two dominant approaches to revelation: a "radical" approach that seeks to disclose a pre-linguistic experience of revelation through a radicalization of the phenomenological reduction, and a "hermeneutical" one that characterizes revelation as an eruption of meaning arising from our encounter with concrete symbols, narratives, and texts. According to Graves, the radical approach is often driven by a misplaced concern for maintaining philosophical rigor and for avoiding theological biases, or "contaminations." This preoccupation leads to a process of "counter-contamination" in which the concept of revelation is ultimately estranged from the phenomenon's rich historical and linguistic content. While Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology may do a better job of accommodating the concrete content of revelation, it does so at the price of having to renouncing the kind of "presuppositionlessness" generally associated with phenomenological method. Ultimately, Graves argues that a more nuanced appreciation of the complex nature of our linguistic inheritance enables us to reconceive the relationship between revelation and philosophical thought.

For an individual to get a feeling of the field of spiritualism it is important that the practitioner should have at least the bare facts for working towards the goals of reaching the ultimate energy.