Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions

Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions
Author: Nicholas Campion
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2012-06-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0814708420

When you think of astrology, you may think of the horoscope section in your local paper, or of Nancy Reagan's consultations with an astrologer in the White House in the 1980s. Yet almost every religion uses some form of astrology: some way of thinking about the sun, moon, stars, and planets and how they hold significance for human lives on earth. Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions offers an accessible overview of the astrologies of the world's religions, placing them into context within theories of how the wider universe came into being and operates. Campion traces beliefs about the heavens among peoples ranging from ancient Egypt and China, to Australia and Polynesia, and India and the Islamic world. Addressing each religion in a separate chapter, Campion outlines how, by observing the celestial bodies, people have engaged with the divine, managed the future, and attempted to understand events here on earth. This fascinating text offers a unique way to delve into comparative religions and will also appeal to those intrigued by New Age topics.

The Principles of Social Evolution

The Principles of Social Evolution
Author: Christopher Robert Hallpike
Publisher: Oxford [England] : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 412
Release: 1988
Genre: Social evolution.
ISBN: 9780198275961

How do societies evolve? This is one of the central problems of social anthropology, and in this book C.R. Hallpike proposes an entirely novel solution which no anthropologist can afford to ignore. Current theories all assume that institutions survive and spread because of their adaptive advantages. A wide variety of forms may survive, however, because of a lack of effective competition in an undemanding social environment. Their real evolutionary significance lies in developmental potential.This is particularly true of religious and military institutions and kinship structures; when these are combined in the right way significant new forms, such as the state, may emerge. In his study Professor Hallpike compares in detail the core principles of Chinese and Indo-European society, arguing that a limited number of social and cosmological principles guide the evolution of each society. The traditional concepts of adaptive advantage, random variation, and environmentaldeterminism are effectively challenged.Hardback still available, published December 1986.