Anthropology of Religion

Religious belief is an extremely powerful motivator of human behaviour. Religious considerations permeate and influence all parts of a culture. Religious systems are universal in human cultures, around the world and through all stages of human history and prehistory. Of all academic approaches to religion, the anthropological approach is the most comprehensive and the most useful to students of human belief and behaviour, because it examines religion as a cultural system that cannot fully be understood separated from the other systems with which it interacts.

This new four-volume collection from Routledge assembles exemplary scholarship in the field from its Victorian beginnings to the present, and represents all generally accepted categories of religious belief and ritual, plus some new ones. Topics covered include: ‘Early Explorations’; ‘Symbols’; ‘Supernatural Beings’; ‘Magical Power and Forces’; ‘Human Agents of Supernatural Danger’; ‘Myth’; ‘Ritual’; ‘Religious Practitioners’; ‘Women and Gender’; ‘Belief’; ‘Ecology’; ‘Mind and Body - Neurobiological Bases’; and ‘Religion in Socio-Cultural Change’.

The first volume is prefaced with a general introduction newly written by the editor which outlines the history and salient aspects of the anthropological concern for religion, and introduces the specific sections of the work. Each thematic part also includes a short introduction to set the gathered materials in context. Anthropology of Religion is destined to be valued by scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners as an essential one-stop reference.

Part 1 : Early Explorations
Chapter 1 : Sacrifice : A Portion of Lecture VIII from Lectures on The Religion of The Semites
Chapter 2 : Animism : Primitive Culture
Chapter 3 : SympaThetic Magic : The Golden Bough
Chapter 4 : The Rise of Religions : The Sociology of Religion
Chapter 5 : Totem and Taboo
Chapter 6 : Primitive Mentality : How Natives Think
Chapter 7 : Religion and Society
Chapter 8 : The Classification of Rites : The Rites of Passage [1908]
Chapter 9 : Shamanism : Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
Chapter 10 : Religion as a Cultural System, Anthropological Approaches to The Study of Religion

Part 2 : Symbols
Chapter 11 : Symbols in Ndembu Ritual, Closed Systems and Open Minds
Chapter 12 : The Virgin of Guadalupe : A Mexican National Symbol : Journal of American Folklore
Chapter 13 : On Key Symbols : American Anthropologist
Chapter 14 : Medusa’s Hair

Part 3 : Supernatural Beings
Chapter 15 : God in African Mythology, Myths & Symbols : Studies in Honor of Mircea Eliade
Chapter 16 : The Semai Thunder God : Overwhelming Terror : Love, Fear, Peace, and Violence Among Semai of Malaysia
Chapter 17 : Making The King Divine : A Case Study in Ritual Regicide from Timor : Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute
Chapter 18 : The Winnebago Trickster Figure : The Trickster : A Study in American Indian Mythology
Chapter 19 : The Universality of Ancestor Worship : Ethnology
Chapter 20 : Sorcerers, Ghosts, and Polluting Women : An Analysis of Religious Belief and Population Control

Part 4 : Magical Power and Forces
Chapter 21 : Religious Perspectives in Anthropology, Readings in General Anthropology
Chapter 22 : Magic, Science and Religion’ [1925], Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays
Chapter 23 : Ritual Uncleanness : Purity and Danger
Chapter 24 : Taboo, Man, Myth, and Magic
Chapter 25 : Divination : Witchcraft
Chapter 26 : Divination : A New Perspective : American Anthropologist
Chapter 27 : Baseball Magic
Chapter 28 : Women’s Aggressive Use of Genital Power in Africa : Transcultural Psychiatry

Part 5 : Human Agents of Supernatural Danger
Chapter 29 : Witchcraft and Sorcery : Sorcerers of Dobu
Chapter 30 : Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events : Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among The Azande
Chapter 31 : SynThetic Images : Primordial Characters
Chapter 32 : Witchcraft and Social Identity : Salem Possessed
Chapter 33 : An Anthropological Perspective on The Witchcraze, The Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe
Chapter 34 : They Cut Segametsi into Parts : Ritual Murder, Youth, and The Politics of Knowledge in Botswana : Anthropological Quarterly

Part 6 : Myth
Chapter 35 : Myth in Primitive Psychology
Chapter 36 : Myths and Rituals : A General Theory : Harvard Theological Review
Chapter 37 : The Hero of Tradition : Folklore
Chapter 38 : The Structural Study of Myth
Chapter 39 : The Dreaming, Australian Signpost
Chapter 40 : Genesis as Myth : Discovery

Part 7 : Ritual
Chapter 41 : Ritual Man in Africa
Chapter 42 : The Vision Quest … : Indians of The Plains
Chapter 43 : Play and Liminality in Rites of Passage … : Play & Culture
Chapter 44 : Revisiting Magical Fright : American Ethnologist

Part 8 : Religious Practitioners
Chapter 45 : Religious Specialists, International Encyclopedia of The Social Sciences
Chapter 46 : The Shaman : A Siberian Spiritualist : The HeaThens : Primitive Man and His Religions
Chapter 47 : The Dark Side of The Shaman : Natural History

Part 9 : Women and Gender
Chapter 48 : "The Night I Got The Holy Ghost …" : Holy Ghost Narratives and The Pentecostal Conversion Process
Chapter 49 : Spirits and Selves in NorThern Sudan : The Cultural Therapeutics of Possession and Trance : American Ethnologist
Chapter 50 : The Hijras of India : Cultural and Individual Dimensions of an Institutionalized Third Gender Role : Journal of Homosexuality

Part 10 : Belief
Chapter 51 : Christians as Believers, Religious Organization and Religious Experience
Chapter 52 : Demanding Spirits and Reluctant Devotees : Belief and Unbelief in The Trinidadian Orisa Movement : Social Analysis

Part 11 : Ecology
Chapter 53 : Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations Among a New Guinea People : Ethnology
Chapter 54 : The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle
Chapter 55 : Cosmology as Ecological Analysis : A View from The Rain Forest

Part 12 : Mind and Body - Neurobiological Bases
Chapter 56 : Voodoo Death and The Mechanism for The Dispatch of The Dying in East Arnhem, Australia : American Anthropologist
Chapter 57 : Psychosocial Interpretations of Exorcism : Journal of Operational Psychiatry
Chapter 58 : The Sound of Rushing Water : Natural History
Chapter 59 : Psychedelic Drugs, Encyclopedia of Religion
Chapter 60 : The Ritual Trance : Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality
Chapter 61 : The Cultural Biology of Brazilian Spiritist Surgery and Other Alternatives to Biomedical Healing : International Journal of Parapsychology
Chapter 62 : Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion : Annual Review of Anthropology

Part 13 : Religion in Socio-cultural Change
Chapter 63 : African Gods and Catholic Saints in New World Religious Belief : American Anthropologist
Chapter 64 : Steel Axes for Stone-Age Australians : Human Organization
Chapter 65 : The Peyote Way : Tomorrow
Chapter 66 : Apocalypse at Jonestown : Society
Chapter 67 : Marian Apparitions in Medjugorge : Rivalling Religious Regimes and State-Formation in Yugoslavia, Religious Regimes and State-Formation : Perspectives from European Ethnology
Chapter 68 : Cargo Cults : Scientific American
Chapter 69 : Revitalization Movements : Culture and Personality
Chapter 70 : Vodou, Encyclopedia of Religion
Chapter 71 : Serpent Handling as Sacrament : Theology Today
Chapter 72 : Reflections After Waco : Millennialists and The State : Christian Century
Chapter 73 : Alien Nation : Zombies, Immigrants, and Millennial Capitalism : South Atlantic Quarterly
Chapter 74 : Good Muslim, Bad Muslim : A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism : American Anthropologist
Chapter 75 : The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity : Annual Review of Anthropology
Chapter 76 : Anthropology and The Study of Conversion, The Anthropology of Religious Conversion
Chapter 77 : The Goat and The Gazelle : Witchcraft : Persuasions of The Witch’s Craft : Ritual Magic in Contemporary England