News

419 results

419 results

Nietzsche’s Dreams

Since his death in 1900, Friedrich Nietzsche has become one of the most influential, most cited, and most mythologized figures in the Western philosophical tradition. Nietzsche was born in Röcken, in modern-day Saxon-Anhalt, in 1844. His father and...

Nicholas Low

Mystical autumn red forest with road

Dreams

The dream is visible to the man who is worth five hundred medimni , and equally to the possessor of three hundred, to the teamster no less than to the peasant who tills the boundary land for a livelihood, to the galley slave and the common laborer alike...
Fog on hillside, moon in the background, pines in the foreground

Apotheosis in Japan

There are countless myths of divine transcendence and apotheosis in the history of religions: heroes set ablaze as constellations, gods born from the bones of giants, martyrs elevated through suffering and deed. However, accounts of divine descent—the...
Shinto Shrine in the morning mist

Magic

Few core concepts in the study of religion are as contested as “magic.” The term has served a variety of purposes and functions throughout history, often polemical ones, and is defined in diverging ways by scholars and religious actors. Magic has been...
Geometric images intertwining and writing on them and throughout

Jesus of Nazareth

Christians regard Jesus of Nazareth as the founder of their religion. He was born and raised in first-century Galilee but was executed in Jerusalem. He played various roles, among them prophet, charismatic healer, and Messiah. The earliest sources...
Jesus Christ's sermon on the Mount, Bible, Vintage religious illustration art stock illustration

Africana Religions

Despite the great internal diversity of Africana religions, sometimes even within the traditions of the same society or ethnic group, Africana religions, those religions embedded in or with significant roots in the continent of Africa, share cosmological...
African ritual, people celebrating, fire pots

Artificial Somnambulism and Hypnotism

From ancient times, people were recognized to sometimes fall into a boundary state between waking and sleeping. In this state, individuals seem asleep but exhibit behaviour that looks like wakefulness: speaking, moving, even carrying out everyday tasks...
Clouds and stars in a purple hue

Annie Dillard and “The Tree with the Lights in It”

Annie Dillard (b. 1945) is an influential American writer, best known for her Pulitzer Prize–winning book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), a genre-defying blend of memoir, natural history, and theology. While often called a “nature writer,” Dillard herself...
stream running through a forest, gentle sunlight

Psilocybe Mushroom Rituals
Sacred mushrooms containing psilocybin and psilocin have been used for sacramental, therapeutic, divinatory, and artistic purposes by Indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica for centuries. Psilocybe is the genus name for those mushrooms containing psilocin and...
María Sabina and her daughter during a mushroom ritual

The Mithras Liturgy

The “Mithras Liturgy,” as it is commonly called, is a ritual instruction from the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri. Despite its name, it is usually considered neither Mithraic nor a liturgy.[ 1 ] According to the text, it is an immortalization ritual (Greek...
Sunlight streaming through the clouds

Eighth Book of Moses / PGM XIII

The “Eighth Book of Moses” is a ritual instruction and cosmogonic narrative that is grouped among the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri.[ 1 ] The codex was produced in the 4 th century CE, and copied from material written potentially as early as the first...
Ancient codex laying open on wooden table