Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion » (8th Edition)

This comparative reader takes an anthropological approach to the study of religious beliefs and practices, both strange and familiar. The engaging articles on all key issues related to the anthropology of religion grab the attention of students, while giving them an excellent foundation in contemporary ideas and approaches in the field. The multiple authors included in each chapter represent a range of interests, geographic foci, and ways of looking at each subject. Divided into 10 chapters, this book begins with a broad view of anthropological ways of looking at religion and moves on to some of the core topics within the subject, such as myth, ritual, and the various types of religious specialties.

Chapter 1: The Anthropological Study of Religion

1. Clifford Geertz, Religion

2. Marvin Harris, Why We Became Religious and The Evolution of the Spirit World

3. Dorothy Lee, Religious Perspectives in Anthropology

4. Claude E. Stipe, Anthropologists Versus Missionaries: The Influence of Presuppositions

*5. Pamela Moro, Thai Buddhism and the Popularity of Amulets in Anthropological Perspective

Chapter 2: Myth, Symbolism, and Taboo

6. Scott Leonard and Michael McClure, The Study of Mythology

7. John Beattie, Nyoro Myth

8. Claude Levi-Strauss, Harelips and Twins: The Splitting of a Myth

*9. Eric R. Wolf, The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol

10. Mary Douglas, Taboo

11. Mary Lee Daugherty, Serpent-Handling as Sacrament

Chapter 3: Ritual

12. Victor W. Turner, Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage

*13. Michael Atwood Mason, "I Bow My Head to the Ground": Creating Bodily Experience Through Initiation

14. Barbara G. Myerhoff, Return to Wirikuta: Ritual Reversal and Symbolic Continuity on the Peyote Hunt of the Huichol Indians

15. Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations Among a New Guinea People

*16. Thomas J. Csordas, A Handmaid's Tale

17. Horace Miner, Body Ritual Among the Nacirema

Chapter 4: Shamans, Priests, and Prophets

18. Victor Turner, Religious Specialists

*19. Piers Vitebsky, Shamanism

20. Michael Fobes Brown, Dark Side of the Shaman

21. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Training for the Priesthood Among the Kogi of Colombia

22. Michael Barkun, Reflections After Waco: Millennialists and the State

Chapter 5: Altered States of Consciousness and the Religious Use of Drugs

*23. I. M. Lewis, Trance, Possession, Shamanism, and Sex

*24. Sydney M. Greenfield, Hypnosis and Trance Induction in the Spirit Surgeries of Brazilian Spiritist Healer-Mediums

25. Mike Kiyaani and Thomas J. Csordas, On the Peyote Road

26. Peter T. Furst and Michael D. Coe, Ritual Enemas

27. Michael Harner, The Sound of Rushing Water

*28. Scott Hutson, The Rave: Spiritual Healing in Modern Western Subcultures

Chapter 6: Ethnomedicine: Religion and Healing

29. Arthur C. Lehmann, Eyes of the Ngangas: Ethnomedicine and Power in Central African Republic

30. L. A. Rebhun, Swallowing Frogs: Anger and Illness in Northeast Brazil 249

31. William Wedenoja, Mothering and the Practice of "Balm" in Jamaica

*32. Anne F. Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Chapter 7: Witchcraft, Sorcery, Divination, and Magic

33. James L. Brain, An Anthropological Perspective on the Witchcraze

34. Naomi M. McPherson, Sorcery and Concepts of Deviance Among the Kabana, West New Britain

35. T. M. Luhrmann, The Goat and the Gazelle: Witchcraft

36. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Consulting the Poison Oracle Among the Azande

37. Bronislaw Malinowski, Rational Mastery by Man of His Surroundings

38. George Gmelch, Baseball Magic

Chapter 8: Ghosts, Souls, and Ancestors: Power of the Dead

39. Paul Barber, The Real Vampire

40. Karen McCarthy Brown, Vodou

41. Peter A. Metcalf, Death Be Not Strange

42. Stanley Brandes, The Cremated Catholic: The Ends of a Deceased Guatemalan

Chapter 9: Old and New Religions: The Changing Spiritual Landscape

43. Anthony F. C. Wallace, Revitalization Movements

44. Alice Beck Kehoe, The Ghost Dance Religion

45. Peter M. Worsley, Cargo Cults

46. William F. Lewis, Urban Rastas in Kingston, Jamaica

*47. Susan Friend Harding, Speaking Is Believing

*48. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Islamic Law: The Foundation of Muslim Practice and a Measure of Social and Political Change

Chapter 10: Religion as Global Culture: Migration, Media, and Other Transnational Forces

49. Homa Hoodfar, The Veil in Their Minds and on Our Heads: Veiling Practices and Muslim Women

*50. Penny Van Esterik, Ritual and the Performance of Buddhist Identity Among Lao Buddhists in North America

51. Mark Juergensmeyer, Religious Terror and Global War

52. Lisle Dalton, Eric Michael Mazur, and Monica Siems, Homer the Heretic and Charlie Church: Parody, Piety, and Pluralism in The Simpsons

Glossary

Bibliography

Index