Download or read book Cult in Context written by Caroline Malone and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 1043 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gods, deities, symbolism, deposition, cosmology and intentionality are all features of the study of early ritual and cult. Archaeology has great difficulties in providing satisfactory interpretation or recognition of these elusive but important parts of ancient society, and methodologies are often poorly equipped to explore the evidence. This collection of papers explores a wide range of prehistoric and early historic archaeological contexts from Britain, Europe and beyond, where monuments, architectural structures, megaliths, art, caves, ritual activity and symbolic remains offer exciting glimpses into ancient belief systems and cult behaviour. Different theoretical and practical approaches are demonstrated, offering both new directions and considered conclusions to the many problems of studying the archaeology of cult and ritual. Central to the volume is an exploration of early Malta and its intriguing Temple Culture, set in a broad perspective by the discussion and theoretical approaches presented in different geographical and chronological contexts.
Download or read book Cults in Context written by Lorne Dawson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the face of the increasingly variegated ideological landscape of contemporary America, cults have become the focus of public controversy. The growth of new religions has been matched by the development of an organized and vocal opposition, the anti-cult movement. This in turn has prompted an extensive investigation of new religious movements (NRMs) by sociologists and psychologists of religion, as well as historians and religious studies scholars. The readings collected here contribute to the debate about cults by sampling some of the best and most accessible publications from the academic study of NRMs.The contributors address the questions most commonly asked about cults, such as: What brought about the emergence of new religious movements? What is a cult or new religious movement? Who joins new religious movements and why? Are converts to new religious movements brainwashed? Why did the Jonestown and Waco tragedies happen? Are cults inclined to be violent? What does the emergence of so many new religious movements say about our society? What does it say about the future of religion?Cults in Context surveys the descriptive typologies, theories, and data accumulated by sociologists and psychologists studying new religious movements over the last twenty years. It serves to defuse many popular fears and misconceptions about cults, allowing the reader to develop a more reasonable and tolerant understanding of the people who join new religious movements and the functions of these movements in contemporary society.
Download or read book Religion in Context written by I. M. Lewis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-04-18 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious power assumes many strikingly different forms, which are often regarded as unique, unrelated, and even mutually exclusive. Religion in Context, however, adopts a holistic approach and argues that these apparently contradictory mystical experiences are in fact part of a web of mutually defining and sustaining elements. Stressing the importance of rigorous social contextualisation, I. M. Lewis analyses phenomena such as spirit-possession, witchcraft, cannibalism, and shamanism, revealing connections between them and with the world religions. This expanded and updated edition illuminates critical aspects of religious power, and demonstrates the value of a comparative approach to formulating anthropological theory. It will be of value to students of anthropology, religion, and to anyone concerned with the nature of religion in the modern world.
Download or read book Cult Places and Cultural Change in Republican Italy written by Tesse Dieder Stek and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Summary: This study throws new light on the Roman impact on Italic religious structures in the last four centuries BC and, more generally, on the complex processes of change and accommodation set in motion by the Roman expansion in Italy. Cult places had a pivotal function among the various 'Italic' tribes known to us from the ancient sources, which had been gradually conquered and subsequently controlled by Rome. Through an analysis of archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence from rural cult places in Central and Southern Italy including a case study on the Samnite temple of San Giovanni in Galdo, the authors investigate the fluctuating function of cult places in among the non-Roman Italic communities, before and after the establishment of Roman rule.
Download or read book Cult Culture and Authority written by Olga Dror and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Princess Lieu Hanh, often called the Mother of the Vietnamese people by her followers, is one of the most prominent goddesses in Vietnamese popular religion. First emerging some four centuries ago as a local sect appealing to women, the princess' cult has since transcended its geographical and gender boundaries and remains vibrant today. Who was this revered deity? Was she a virtuous woman or a prostitute? Why did people begin worshiping her and why have they continued? Cult, Culture, and Authority traces Lieu Hanh's cult from its ostensible appearance in the sixteenth century to its present-day prominence in North Vietnam and considers it from a broad range of perspectives, as religion and literature and in the context of politics and society. Over time, Lieu Hanh's personality and cult became the subject of numerous literary accounts, and these historical texts are a major source for this book. Author Olga Dror explores the authorship and historical context of each text considered, treating her subject in an interdisciplinary way. Her interest lies in how these accounts reflect the various political agendas of successive generations of intellectuals and officials. The same cult was called into service for a variety of ideological ends: feminism, nationalism, Buddhism, or Daoism.
Download or read book Cults in Context written by Lorne L. Dawson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1998 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the face of the increasingly variegated ideological landscape of contemporary America, cults have become the focus of public controversy. The growth of new religions has been matched by the development of an organized and vocal opposition, the anti-cult movement. This in turn has prompted an extensive investigation of new religious movements (NRMs) by sociologists and psychologists of religion, as well as historians and religious studies scholars. The readings collected here contribute to the debate about cults by sampling some of the best and most accessible publications from the academic study of NRMs.The contributors address the questions most commonly asked about cults, such as: What brought about the emergence of new religious movements? What is a cult or new religious movement? Who joins new religious movements and why? Are converts to new religious movements brainwashed? Why did the Jonestown and Waco tragedies happen? Are cults inclined to be violent? What does the emergence of so many new religious movements say about our society? What does it say about the future of religion?Cults in Context surveys the descriptive typologies, theories, and data accumulated by sociologists and psychologists studying new religious movements over the last twenty years. It serves to defuse many popular fears and misconceptions about cults, allowing the reader to develop a more reasonable and tolerant understanding of the people who join new religious movements and the functions of these movements in contemporary society.
Download or read book Religion and Cult in the Dodecanese during the First Millennium BC written by Manolis I. Stefanakis and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-07-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume publishes the proceedings of the conference of the same name, held in Rhodes in October 2018. Contributions draw on archaeological and literary sources to explore both the development and continuity of cults in the Dodecanese, from the Early Iron Age through to the 1st century BC.
Download or read book River of Blood written by J. M. Schoffeleers and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The culmination of years of fieldwork in southern Malawi, River of Blood reconstructs the beginnings of the Mbona martyr cult, follows its history to the present day, and reveals the fascinating intersections of an indigenous belief system with European Christianity. In the cult of Mbona, the central African mythology of the snake that is beheaded to make the rains come has been combined with a more spiritual interpretation: the snake has been transformed into a human martyr and redeemer. According to the cult, the rainmaker Mbona was tracked down by his enemies; they cut off his head, and his blood formed the River of Blood. Mbona returned as a storm wind and asked that a shrine be dedicated in his name. J. Matthew Schoffeleers recounts how the Portuguese presence in Zambezia in the period 1590-1622 led to more than three decades of internecine warfare and caused the people of southern Malawi tremendous suffering. In response to this political oppression and social upheaval, Schoffeleers shows, the people looked to Mbona, their "black Jesus," for redemption. Beyond reconstructing the cult's genesis, Schoffeleers traces its recent history, particularly in political context. He provides texts of seven cult myths from different historical periods in both Chimang'anja and English. His analysis presents the Mbona myth as a continuous social construction and deconstruction. Emphasizing the impact of political and spiritual oppression on the cult, he distinguishes between the differing versions of the myth preserved by the aristocracy and by the commonalty and demonstrates how these disparate views unite to preserve historical information. In so doing, he shows that cults serve as valuable repositories for historical information.
Download or read book The Cult of the Constitution written by Mary Anne Franks and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A powerful challenge to the prevailing constitutional orthodoxy of the right and the left . . . A deeply troubling and absolutely vital book” (Mark Joseph Stern, Slate). In this provocative book, Mary Anne Franks examines the thin line between constitutional fidelity and constitutional fundamentalism. The Cult of the Constitution reveals how deep fundamentalist strains in both conservative and liberal American thought keep the Constitution in the service of white male supremacy. Franks demonstrates how constitutional fundamentalists read the Constitution selectively and self-servingly, thus undermining the integrity of the document as a whole. She goes on to argue that economic and civil libertarianism have merged to produce a deregulatory, “free-market” approach to constitutional rights that achieves fullest expression in the idealization of the Internet. The fetishization of the first and second amendments has blurred the boundaries between conduct and speech and between veneration and violence. But the Constitution itself contains the antidote to fundamentalism. The Cult of the Constitution lays bare the dark, antidemocratic consequences of constitutional fundamentalism and urges readers to take the Constitution seriously, not selectively.
Download or read book St Magn s of Orkney written by Haki Antonsson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-04-30 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The focus of this book is on the cult of St Magnús, Earl of Orkney, who was killed in 1116/1117 in an inter-dynastic dispute. More specifically, it looks at the emergence of the Magnús’ cult in the twelfth century and the hagiographical corpus that was composed in his honour by Icelandic and English men of letters. These aspects of the Orcadian cult are not, however, examined in isolation but are rather placed within broader Scandinavian and European contexts. Moreover, they provide points of departure for the examination of important topics relating to religious life and literature in early Christian Scandinavia, such as the earliest cults of native saints and the perception of martyrdom.
Download or read book Rituals and Power written by S. R. F. Price and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Price attempts to discover why the Roman Emperor was treated like a god.
Download or read book Iconotropy and Cult Images from the Ancient to Modern World written by Jorge Tomás García and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04-06 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book examines the process of symbolic and material alteration of religious images in antiquity, the middle ages and the modern period. The process by which the form and meaning of images are modified and adapted for a new context is defined by a large number of spiritual, religious, artistic, geographical or historical circumstances. This book provides a defined theoretical framework for these symbolic and material alterations based on the concept of iconotropy; that is, the way in which images change and/or alter their meaning. Iconotropy is a key concept in religious history, particularly for periods in which religious changes, often turbulent, took place. In addition, the iconotropic process of appropriating cult images brought with it changes in the materiality of those images. Numerous accounts from antiquity, the middle ages and the modern period detail how cult images were involved in such processes of misinterpretation, both symbolically and materially. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture and religious history.
Download or read book Corinth in Context written by Steve Friesen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, archaeologists, classicists, and specialists in Christian origins examine the social and religious life of ancient Corinth. The interdisciplinary contributions present new materials and findings on the themes of Greek and Roman identities, social stratification, and local religion.
Download or read book Sacred Darkness written by Holley Moyes and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caves have been used in various ways across human society but despite the persistence within popular culture of the iconic caveman, deep caves were never used primarily as habitation sites for early humans. Rather, in both ancient and contemporary contexts, caves have served primarily as ritual spaces. In Sacred Darkness, contributors use archaeological evidence as well as ethnographic studies of modern ritual practices to envision the cave as place of spiritual and ideological power and a potent venue for ritual practice. Covering the ritual use of caves in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, Mesoamerica, and the US Southwest and Eastern woodlands, this book brings together case studies by prominent scholars whose research spans from the Paleolithic period to the present day. These contributions demonstrate that cave sites are as fruitful as surface contexts in promoting the understanding of both ancient and modern religious beliefs and practices. This state-of-the-art survey of ritual cave use will be one of the most valuable resources for understanding the role of caves in studies of religion, sacred landscape, or cosmology and a must-read for any archaeologist interested in caves.
Download or read book Bounded Choice written by Janja A. Lalich and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2020-11-30 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heaven's Gate, a secretive group of celibate "monks" awaiting pickup by a UFO, captured intense public attention in 1997 when its members committed collective suicide. As a way of understanding such perplexing events, many have seen those who join cults as needy, lost souls, unable to think for themselves. This book, a compelling look at the cult phenomenon written for a wide audience, dispels such simple formulations by explaining how normal, intelligent people can give up years of their lives—and sometimes their very lives—to groups and beliefs that appear bizarre and irrational. Looking closely at Heaven's Gate and at the Democratic Workers Party, a radical political group of the 1970s and 1980s, Janja Lalich gives us a rare insider's look at these two cults and advances a new theoretical framework that will reshape our understanding of those who join such groups. Lalich's fascinating discussion includes her in-depth interviews with cult devotees as well as reflections gained from her own experience as a high-ranking member of the Democratic Workers Party. Incorporating classical sociological concepts such as "charisma" and "commitment" with more recent work on the social psychology of influence and control, she develops a new approach for understanding how charismatic cult leaders are able to dominate their devotees. She shows how members are led into a state of "bounded choice," in which they make seemingly irrational decisions within a context that makes perfect sense to them and is, in fact, consistent with their highest aspirations. In addition to illuminating the cult phenomenon in the United States and around the world, this important book also addresses our pressing need to know more about the mentality of those true believers who take extreme or violent measures in the name of a cause.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Lucanian Cult Places written by Ilaria Battiloro and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-10 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the emergence and structuring of the Lucanian ethnos during the fourth century BC, a network of cult places, set apart from habitation spaces, was created at the crossroads of the most important communication routes of ancient Lucania. These sanctuaries became centers of social and political aggregation of the local communities: a space in which the community united for all the social manifestations that, in urban societies, were usually performed within the city space. With a detailed analysis of the archaeological record, this study traces the historical and archaeological narrative of Lucanian cult places from their creation to the Late Republican Age, which saw the incorporation of southern Italy into the Roman state. By placing the sanctuaries within their territorial, political, social, and cultural context, Battiloro offers insight into the diachronic development of sacred architecture and ritual customs in ancient Lucania. The author highlights the role of material evidence in constructing the significance of sanctuaries in the historical context in which they were used, and crucial new evidence from the most recent archaeological investigations is explored in order to define dynamics of contact and interaction between Lucanians and Romans on the eve of the Roman conquest.
Download or read book Images of Cult and Devotion written by Søren Kaspersen and published by Museum Tusculanum Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval pilgrims not only worshipped relics, they also venerated statues and paintings. These images or idols' were of particular importance in the day-to-day religion of ordinary people judged superstitious by the Church.
