You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This accessible study of Northern European shamanistic practice, or seidr, explores the way in which the ancient Norse belief systems evoked in the Icelandic Sagas and Eddas have been rediscovered and reinvented by groups in Europe and North America. The book examines the phenomenon of altered consciousness and the interactions of seid-workers or shamanic practitioners with their spirit worlds. Written by a follower of seidr, it investigates new communities involved in a postmodern quest for spiritual meaning.
Researchers of Paganism from a variety of disciplines examine how they have been affected by their contact with this nontraditional religion, how this religion has been affected by academic researchers and what this reveals about participative research methods.
None
Pagan Studies is maturing and moving beyond the context of new religious movements to situate itself in within of the study of world religions. Introduction to Pagan Studies is the first and only text designed to introduce the study of contemporary Paganism as a world religion. It examines the intellectual, religious, and social spheres of Paganism through common categories in the study of religion, which includes beliefs, practices, theology, ritual, history, and role of texts and scriptures. The text is accessible to readers of all backgrounds and religions and assumes no prior knowledge of Paganism. This text will also serve as a general introduction to Pagan Studies for non-specialist scholars of religion, as well as be of interest to scholars in the related disciplines of Anthropology, Sociology and Cultural Studies, and to students taking courses in Religious Studies, Pagan Studies, Nature Religion, New Religious Movements, and Religion in America. The book will also be useful to non-academic practitioners of Paganism interested in current scholarship.
Paganism is held to be the fastest growing 'religion' in Britain today. Pagan identities and constructions of sacredness contest assumptions of a 'closed' past and untouchable heritage, within a socio-politics in which prehistoric archaeology - the stone circles, burial cairns, and rock art of the British Isles - is itself subject to political and economic threats. Pagans see prehistoric monuments in a living, enchanted landscape of deities, ancestors, spirits, 'wights, ' and other non-human agencies to be engaged with for personal and community empowerment. From all areas of Britain and indeed worldwide, people come to sacred sites of prehistory to make pilgrimages, befriend places, give of...
This volume investigates the trend toward pre-monotheistic worship and focuses on neo-paganism practitioners' desire to find the female in the divine. It includes the work of Starhawk, Ronald Hutton, Michael York, Graham Harvey, Jenny Blain, Helen A. Berger, Wendy Griffith, and more.
An experiential guide to the wisdom preserved in Europe’s far north • Includes shamanic journeys to connect with deities and your ancestral shamans • Provides step-by-step instructions to prepare for and conduct a seiðr ceremony • Draws on archaeological evidence and surviving written records from Iceland • Reveals the long tradition of female shamans in northern European shamanism Shamanism is humanity’s oldest spiritual tradition. In much of the Western world, the indigenous pre-Christian spiritual practices have been lost. Yet at the northern fringes of Europe, Christianity did not displace the original shamanic practices until the end of the Viking age. Remnants of Norse sha...
Contemporary Paganism is a movement that is still young and establishing its identity and place on the global religious landscape. The members of the movement are simultaneously growing, unifying, and maintaining its characteristic diversity of traditions, identities, and rituals. The modern Pagan movement has had a restless formation period but has also been the catalyst for some of the most innovative religious expressions, praxis, theologies, and communities. As Contemporary Paganism continues to grow and mature, new angles of inquiry about it have emerged and are explored in this collection. This examination and study of contemporary Paganism contributes new ways to observe and examine other religions, where innovations, paradoxes, and inconsistencies can be more accurately documented and explained.
A study of Neopagan religious movements in North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe where people increasingly turn to ancestral religions, not as amusement or matters of passing interest, but in an effort to practice those religions as they were before the advent of Christianity.
'Muriel Spark's most celebrated novel . . . This ruthlessly and destructively romantic school ma'am is one of the giants of post-war fiction' Independent 'A brilliantly psychological fugue' Observer The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is Muriel Spark's most significant and celebrated novel, and remains as dazzling as when it was first published in 1961. Miss Jean Brodie is a teacher unlike any other, proud and cultured, enigmatic and freethinking; a romantic, with progressive, sometimes shocking ideas and aspirations for the girls in her charge. At the Marcia Blaine Academy she takes a select group of girls under her wing. Spellbound by Miss Brodie's unconventional teaching, these devoted pupils form the Brodie set. But as the girls enter their teenage years and they become increasingly drawn in by Miss Brodie's personal life, her ambitions for them take a startling and dark turn with devastating consequences.