Over the past five years I’ve spent far too much time watching an endless series of television programs about ghost hunting and spirit hauntings. They all promise the same thing: actual evidence that ghosts or spirits exist. I’ve yet to see a single show which has produced the goods.
One of the most recent and seemingly [...]
Tags:Adam Curtis·ghosts·hauntings·mediums·poltergeists·spirits·television shows
Some weeks ago Farhad Manjoo penned a techno-robotic piece arguing that independent bookstores are superfluous and should just die. It was one of the coldest things I’ve read in years but it wasn’t surprising. Manjoo’s pleasures in life seem to be efficiency, pricing, and technology. His idea of literary fun is to preview books on [...]
Tags:Amazon·Error and Eccentricity·Farhad Manjoo·independent bookstores·Jerry Coyne·Joseph Jastrow·Ludwig Wittgenstein·William James·Wish and Wisdom
In today’s news we learn that Saudi Arabia is on the one hand buying Western academic prestige and on the other beheading a woman accused of practicing “sorcery and witchcraft.”
The state-run Saudi news agency announced that a woman named Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar was publicly beheaded because she claimed to be a healer who could [...]
Tags:Allah·Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar·beheading·faith healing·Islam·King Saud University·Muslim·Neil Robertson·Saudi Arabia·sorcery·Wahhabi·witchcraft
In religious studies and popular usage, the term “universal” is used to describe religions which are open to all and transcend ethnic, geographic, political, and cultural boundaries. Three religions are usually cited as universal: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Some newer religions, such as Mormonism and Bahá’í, would also qualify. But if we take a longer [...]
Tags:Bahai·Buddhism·Carmen Blacker·Christianity·Islam·Japan·Jason Josephson·Jomon·kami·Lori Meeks·Meiji period·miko·Mormon·neo-shamanism·premodern Japan·Robert Bellah·shamanic·shamanism·superstitition·The Catalpa Bow·Tokugawa·universal religion
Americans are notoriously religious, which means that most believe in supernatural agents and forces. While most of these supernaturals are of the Christian variety, there seems to be a spillover effect. Belief in Christian supernaturals apparently doesn’t preclude belief in less orthodox kinds of supernaturals:
Source:LiveScience
This isn’t surprising. Socially constructed and doctrinal lines separate “religion” [...]
Tags:deities·demons·ghosts·gods·magic·paranormal·spirits·supernatural
A person of many astute observations, one of Robert Bellah’s most astute is his refrain (when talking about the history of religions) that “nothing is ever lost.” By this I take Bellah to mean that at any given point in time, an existing religion will contain elements from earlier religions. There is continuity in religious [...]
Tags:aleatory·augurs·auspices·axial·bone dice·chance·control·divination·El Juyo·explanation·fortune·Gonzalez Echegaray·Magdalenian·magic·neolithic·omens·oracles·Paleolithic·prediction·prophecy·prophets·randomness·Robert Bellah·scapulimancy·superstition
Last night the Discovery Channel premiered “The Exorcist Files.” When initially announced, the show was touted as a partnership between Discovery and the Vatican:
“The Vatican is an extraordinarily hard place to get access to, but we explained we’re not going to try to tell people what to think,” says Discovery president and GM [...]
Tags:anti-Semite·Catholic·Christopher Hitchens·Clark Bunting·conspiracy theorists·creationists·demonology·demons·Discovery Channel·exorcism·exorcist·Jeffrey Goldberg·Jeremy Stahl·Judah Maccabee·Judaism·Lawrence Wright·Maccabees·magic·Mel Gibson·Mesopotamian religions·nationalism·shaman·The Exorcist Files·Vatican·Yahweh
Few books in the history of anthropology are better known (but never read) than James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. First published in 1890 (2 volumes), Frazer published a second edition in 1900 (3 volumes), and a rolling third edition between 1911 and 1915 which ballooned to 12 volumes.
Though [...]
Tags:Cambridge Ritualists·comparative mythology·Diana·folklore·James George Frazer·JG Frazer·Kant·magic·myth·Nemi·primitive religion·resurrection·ritual·ritual murder·Robert Ackerman·sacred grove·The Golden Bough·Ur-religion
There are many ways to think and write about heavy metal music, but few have tapped its dark heart better than James Parker. Over at The Atlantic, Parker makes the beautifully haunting (or floridly disturbing) case that metal keeps its listeners sane. And he does so in terms that clearly connect it to something deep, [...]
Tags:Black Sabbath·cosmology·demons·depression·Drang·Geezer Butler·heavy metal·James Frazer·James Parker·Ozzy Osbourne·saints·Somerset Maugham·Sturm·subterranean·The Golden Bough·The Razor's Edge·Tommi Iommi
Before there were materialist explanations of nature’s unpredictable fury, there were stories. These stories were not mere entertainment, but were attempts to make sense of that which was inexplicable. The world is of course an unpredictable place. We were powerfully reminded of this but one month ago, as an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan.
Modern Japanese [...]
Tags:Alan McMillan·Cascadia·causation·dwarfs·earthquake·Ian Hutchinson·Japan·Julie Cruikshank·Kwakiutl·materialist explanations·mountain dwarfs·Northwest Coast·Nuu-chah-nulth·Nuxalk·oral traditions·Salish·sea spirits·seismic events·stories·storytelling·subduction·supernatural explanations·tsunami
