Traveling Spirits

Traveling Spirits
Author: Gertrud Hüwelmeier
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2009-12-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1135224153

Maintaining and forging religious networks across borders have long been part of migrants' activities. However, due to the wide availability of communication technologies and the reduced costs of transportation, transnational social practices, including religious activities, have witnessed an enormous intensification in the last few decades around the world. Traveling Spirits seeks to understand these processes by investigating how religion goes global. How do religious agents create and maintain transborder connections? In what way are religious practices being transformed, reinforced or newly invented when transported to different places around the world? How are power relations negotiated within transnational religious networks? How are processes of coming and going linked to religious practices and discourses? The book’s contributors provide rich ethnographic case studies on mobile evangelists, moving spirit mediums, and traveling believers. They analyze the relationship between global, regional, national, local and individual religious processes by centering on economic activities, media representations, or politics of emplacement. Grounded firmly in cross-cultural comparison, this book contributes significantly to the literature on globalization, migration and transnational religion.

Engaging the Spirit World

Engaging the Spirit World
Author: Kirsten W. Endres
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0857453599

In many parts of the contemporary world, spirit beliefs and practices have taken on a pivotal role in addressing the discontinuities and uncertainties of modern life. The myriad ways in which devotees engage the spirit world show the tremendous creative potential of these practices and their innate adaptability to changing times and circumstances. Through in-depth anthropological case studies from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, the contributors to this book investigate the role and impact of different social, political, and economic dynamics in the reconfiguration of local spirit worlds in modern Southeast Asia. Their findings contribute to the re-enchantment debate by revealing that the “spirited modernities” that have emerged in the process not only embody a distinct feature of the contemporary moment, but also invite a critical rethinking of the concept of modernity itself.

Mattering the Invisible

Mattering the Invisible
Author: Diana Espírito Santo
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2021-05-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1800730675

Exploring how technological apparatuses “capture” invisible worlds, this book looks at how spirits, UFOs, discarnate entities, spectral energies, atmospheric forces and particles are mattered into existence by human minds. Technological and scientific discourse has always been central to the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century spiritualist quest for legitimacy, but as this book shows, machines, people, and invisible beings are much more ontologically entangled in their definitions and constitution than we would expect. The book shows this entanglement through a series of contemporary case studies where the realm of the invisible arises through technological engagement, and where the paranormal intertwines with modern technology.

Alive with Spirits

Alive with Spirits
Author: Althaea Sebastiani
Publisher: Weiser Books
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2024-05-06
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1633413241

“A wonderful and moving introduction to animism, as well as a fantastic introduction to witchcraft; even the seasoned practitioner will gain so much from reading Sebastiani’s offering.” —Mhara Starling, author of Welsh Witchcraft: A Guide to the Spirits, Lore, and Magic of Wales At the root of most spiritual traditions is the aspiration to realize one’s birthright: an intimate connection with the Land and the spiritual energies that inhabit it. This connection with the Land and its spirits is perhaps nowhere more powerfully felt than in the various traditions of Paganism and witchcraft. But the conditions of modern society strain that relationship, leaving us feeling separated from our craft and unable to feel that deep and vital connection. Discover a path to fully embrace a world filled with spirits, communion with the Land, and a greater sense of belonging in the world—a worldview known as animism. Explore animism in a hands-on way that teaches through firsthand direct experiences. Through embodied exercises based in wholeness, you’ll learn to see the world more fully for what it is and to better understand your place in it. ​Learn the three general types of local spirits Explore the importance of relationships and what it means to be in community Uncover the way that the wholeness of the world is reflected in the wholeness of the self Begin to nurture right relationships with your local spirits Alive with Spirits provides you with a firm foundation from which to transform your witchcraft practice, rooting it into the Land and in strong, respectful relationships with the spirits around you.

Spirits without Borders

Spirits without Borders
Author: K. Fjelstad
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2011-07-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0230119700

Spirits without Borders is an ethnographic study of the transnational and multicultural expansion of Vietnam's Mother Goddess Religion and its spirit possession ritual. The work explores how and why the ritual spread from Vietnam to the US and back again and the impact of ritual transnationalism in both countries.

Having the Spirit of Christ

Having the Spirit of Christ
Author: Giovanni B. Bazzana
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2020-01-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0300249519

A provocative reinterpretation of accounts of spirit possession and exorcism in early Christianity The earliest Christian writings are filled with stories of possession and exorcism, which were crucial for the activity of the historical Jesus and for the practice of the earliest groups of his followers. Most critical scholarship, however, regularly marginalizes these topics or discards them altogether in reconstructing early Christian history. This innovative book approaches the study of possession from a different methodological angle by using a comparative lens that includes contemporary ethnographies of possession cross-culturally. Possession, besides being a harmful event that should be exorcized, can also have a positive role in many cultures. Often it helps individuals and groups to reflect on and reshape their identity, to plan their moral actions, and to remember in a most vivid way their past. When read in light of these materials, these ancient documents reveal the religious, cultural, and social meaning that the experience of possession had for the early Christ groups.

Traveling Spirits

Traveling Spirits
Author: Noah F. Cross
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-04-21
Genre: Poetry
ISBN:

In Traveling Spirits, Noah F. Cross Jr. takes readers on a captivating journey through time and space, where the veil between the living and the departed is mysteriously thin. Set against the backdrop of a quaint seaside village with a haunting history, the novel follows protagonist Claire, a young artist with a unique gift for connecting with spirits from the past. Claire's artistic endeavors lead her to uncover hidden truths and untold stories buried within the town's ancient landmarks and forgotten graves. As she delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding these restless spirits, Claire navigates a world where the past and present intertwine in unexpected ways. With evocative prose and a keen sense of atmosphere, Traveling Spirits explores themes of memory, loss, and the enduring power of human connection across generations. It is a tale that blends historical intrigue with supernatural elements, offering readers a hauntingly beautiful exploration of life, death, and the unbreakable bonds that transcend both.

Cosmopolitan Sociability

Cosmopolitan Sociability
Author: Tsypylma Darieva
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 127
Release: 2014-06-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317979311

This book approaches the concept of cosmopolitan sociability as a cultural or territorial rootedness that facilitates a simultaneous openness to shared human emotions, experiences, and aspirations. Cosmopolitan Sociability critiques definitions of cosmopolitanism as a tolerance for cultural difference or a universalist morality that arise from contemporary experiences of mobility and globalization. Challenging these assumptions, the book explores the degree to which a 'cosmopolitan dimension' can be practised within particular religious communities, diasporic ties, or gendered migrant identities in different parts of the world. A wide variety of expert contributors offer rich ethnographic insights into the interplay of social interactions and cosmopolitan sociability. In this way the book contributes significantly to ethnic and migration studies, global anthropology, social theory, and religious and cultural studies. Cosmopolitan Sociability was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia

Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia
Author: Bryan S. Turner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 614
Release: 2014-09-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317636457

The Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia provides a contemporary and comprehensive overview of religion in contemporary Asia. Compiled and introduced by Bryan S. Turner and Oscar Salemink, the Handbook contains specially written chapters by experts in their respective fields. The wide-ranging introduction discusses issues surrounding Orientalism and the historical development of the discipline of Religious Studies. It conveys how there have been many centuries of interaction between different religious traditions in Asia and discusses the problem of world religions and the range of concepts, such as high and low traditions, folk and formal religions, popular and orthodox developments. Individual chapters are presented in the following five sections: Asian Origins: religious formations Missions, States and Religious Competition Reform Movements and Modernity Popular Religions Religion and Globalization: social dimensions Striking a balance between offering basic information about religious cultures in Asia and addressing the complexity of employing a western terminology in societies with radically different traditions, this advanced level reference work will be essential reading for students, researchers and scholars of Asian Religions, Sociology, Anthropology, Asian Studies and Religious Studies.

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Religions

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Religions
Author: Michelle A. Gonzalez
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 569
Release: 2024
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0190916966

"The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Religions offers a comprehensive overview of Caribbean religions. The Caribbean is a microcosm of the world's religions, but the small geographic space resulted in the encounter of global religions and indigenous religious practices. The racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of this region makes brief introductions to Caribbean religions incapable of truly addressing its complex and diverse religious landscape. The Handbook also elaborates on the diversity of the religious traditions and the national particularity of the region while also considering multiple geographic settings. It mentions how often Caribbean religion is studied through the perspective of a discrete religious tradition or geographic setting"--