{"id":331,"date":"2017-12-06T16:40:34","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T16:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/chapter\/religion\/"},"modified":"2018-01-23T15:52:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T15:52:02","slug":"religion","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/chapter\/religion\/","title":{"raw":"Religion","rendered":"Religion"},"content":{"raw":"<div id=\"_idContainer470\" class=\"Basic-Text-Frame\">\r\n<p class=\"Author\"><strong><em>Sashur Henninger-Rener, University of LaVerne and the Los Angeles Community College District<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"_idContainer471\" class=\"Basic-Text-Frame\">\r\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n<div id=\"_idContainer471\" class=\"Basic-Text-Frame\">\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li class=\"Learning-Objectives\">Define religion and explain its significance in human cultures.<\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"Learning-Objectives\">Summarize theories developed by anthropologists to explain the importance of supernatural beliefs in human communities.<\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"Learning-Objectives\">Identify the four elements of religion (cosmology, belief in the supernatural, rules of behavior, and rituals) and explain how each element contributes to religious practices.<\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"Learning-Objectives\">Define rites of passage, rites of intensification, and rites of revitalization and explain the purpose of each type of ritual.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"_idContainer505\" class=\"_idGenObjectStyleOverride-1\">\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Humans have always wondered about the meaning of the life, the nature of the universe, and the forces that shape our lives. While it is impossible to know for sure how the people who lived thousands of years ago answered these kinds of questions, there are some clues. Fifty thousand years ago, human communities buried the dead with stone tools, shells, animal bones, and other objects, a practice that suggests they were preparing the deceased for an afterlife, or a world beyond this one. Thirty thousand years ago, artists entered the Chauvet cave in France and painted dramatic scenes of animals on the cave walls along with abstract symbols that suggest the images were part of a supernatural belief system, possibly one focused on ensuring safety or success in hunting (Figure 1).[footnote]See Jean Clottes,<em> Cave Art<\/em> (London: Phaidon, 2010)[\/footnote]A few thousand years later, collections of small clay sculptures, known as Venus figurines, began appearing across Eurasia. They seem to express ideas about fertility or motherhood and may have been viewed as magical (Figure 2).[footnote]O. Soffer, J. M. Adovasio, and D. C. Hyland \u201cThe \u2018Venus\u2019 Figurines: Textiles, Basketry, Gender, and Status in the Upper Paleolithic\u201d <em>Current Anthropology<\/em> 41 n. 4 (2000):511-537.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_308\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"399\"]<img class=\"wp-image-308 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164002\/religion_figure_1-e1512756533258.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"399\" height=\"336\" \/> <em><strong>Figure 1:<\/strong><\/em> An image from Chauvet cave painted about 32,000 years ago. The paintings may have been part of religious ceremonies intended to ensure success in hunting.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<div class=\"_idGenObjectLayout-1\"><\/div>\r\n<p class=\"Normal ParaOverride-1\">Because ideas about the supernatural are part of every human culture, understanding these beliefs is important to anthropologists. However, studying supernatural beliefs is challenging for several reasons. The first difficulty arises from the challenge of defining the topic itself. The word \u201creligion,\u201d which is commonly used in the United States to refer to participation in a distinct form of faith such as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, is not a universally recognized idea. Many cultures have no word for \u201creligion\u201d at all and many societies do not make a clear distinction between beliefs or practices that are \u201creligious,\u201d or \u201cspiritual\u201d and other habits that are an ordinary part of daily life. For instance, leaving an incense offering in a household shrine dedicated to the spirits of the ancestors may be viewed as a simple part of the daily routine rather than a \u201creligious\u201d practice. There are societies that believe in supernatural beings, but do not call them \u201cgods.\u201d Some societies do not see a distinction between the natural and the supernatural observing, instead, that the spirits share the same physical world as humans. Concepts like \u201cheaven,\u201d \u201chell,\u201d or even \u201cprayer\u201d do not exist in many societies. The divide between \u201creligion\u201d and related ideas like \u201cspirituality\u201d or even \u201cmagic\u201d is also murky in some cultural contexts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_313\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"148\"]<img class=\"wp-image-313 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164010\/religion_figure_2-e1512756564915-148x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"148\" height=\"300\" \/> <em><strong>Figure 2:<\/strong><\/em> The Venus of Willendorf figurine was made between 28,000\u00a0 and 25,000 BC and may have been associated with spiritual beliefs about motherhood or fertility.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<div class=\"_idGenObjectLayout-1\"><\/div>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">To study supernatural beliefs, anthropologists must cultivate a perspective of cultural relativism and strive to understand beliefs from an emic or insider\u2019s perspective. Imposing the definitions or assumptions from one culture on another is likely to lead to misunderstandings. One example of this problem can be found in the early anthropological research of Sir James Frazer who attempted to compose the first comprehensive study of the world\u2019s major magical and religious belief systems. Frazer was part of early generation of anthropologists whose work was based on reading and questionnaires mailed to missionaries and colonial officials rather than travel and participant-observation. As a result, he had only minimal information about the beliefs he wrote about and he was quick to apply his own opinions. In <em><em>The Golden Bough <\/em><\/em>(1890) he dismissed many of the spiritual beliefs he documented: \u201cI look upon [them] not merely as false but as preposterous and absurd.\u201d[footnote]James Frazer, <em>The Golden Bough<\/em> (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1958[1890]),vii.[\/footnote]\u00a0His contemporary, Sir E.B. Tylor, was less dismissive of unfamiliar belief systems, but he defined religion minimally and, for some, in overly narrow terms as \u201cthe belief in supernatural beings.\u201d This definition excludes much of what people around the world actually believe.[footnote]Edward B. Tylor, <em>Primitive Culture<\/em> (London: John Murray, 1871).[\/footnote]As researchers gained more information about other cultures, their ideas about religion became more complex. The sociologist Emile Durkheim recognized that religion was not simply a belief in \u201csupernatural beings,\u201d but a set of practices and social institutions that brought members of a community together. Religion, he said, was \u201ca unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set aside and forbidden\u2014beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.\u201d[footnote]Emile Durkheim, <em>The Elementary Forms of Religious Life<\/em>, tr. Joseph R. Swain (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1965[1915]), 62.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Durkheim\u2019s analysis of religion emphasized the significance of spiritual beliefs for relationships between people. Subsequent anthropological research in communities around the world has confirmed that rituals associated with beliefs in the supernatural play a significant role in structuring community life, providing rules or guidelines for behavior, and bonding members of a community to one another. Interestingly, religious \u201cbeings,\u201d such as gods or spirits, also demonstrate social qualities. Most of the time, these beings are imagined in familiar terms as entities with personalities, desires, and \u201cagency,\u201d an ability to make decisions and take action. Supernatural beings, in other words, are not so different from people.[footnote] Jack David Eller, Introducing Anthropology of Religion (New York: Rouledge, 2007), 9.[\/footnote]\u00a0In keeping with this idea, <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">religion<\/span><\/strong> can be defined as \u201cthe means by which human society and culture is extended to include the nonhuman.\u201d[footnote]Ibid.[\/footnote]\u00a0This definition is deliberately broad and can be used to encompass many different kinds of belief systems.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Many religions involve ideas or rituals that could be described as \u201cmagical\u201d and the relationship between religion and magic is complex. In his book <em><em>A General Theory of Magic <\/em><\/em>(1902), Marcel Mauss suggested that religion and magic were two opposite poles on a spectrum of spiritual beliefs. Magic was at one end of the spectrum; it was private, secret, and individual. Religion was at the opposite end of the spectrum; it was public and oriented toward bringing the community together.[footnote]Marcel Mauss,<em> A General Theory of Magic<\/em> (London, Routledge, 1972[1902]), 24.[\/footnote]\u00a0Although Mauss\u2019 formulation presented religion and magic as part of the same general way of thinking, many contemporary anthropologists are convinced that making a distinction between religion and magic is artificial and usually not particularly useful. With this caution in mind, <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">magic<\/span><\/strong> can be defined as practices intended to bring supernatural forces under one\u2019s personal control. <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Sorcerers<\/span><\/strong> are individuals who seek to use magic for their own purposes. It is important to remember that both magic and sorcery are labels that have historically been used by outsiders, including anthropologists, to describe spiritual beliefs with which they are unfamiliar. Words from the local language are almost always preferable for representing how people think about themselves.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 class=\"H1\">THEORIES OF RELIGION<\/h2>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Sir James Frazer\u2019s effort to interpret religious mythology was the first of many attempts to understand the reasons why cultures develop various kinds of spiritual beliefs. In the early twentieth century, many anthropologists applied a functional approach to this problem by focusing on the ways religion addressed human needs. Bronislaw Malinowski (1931), who conducted research in the Trobriand Islands located near Papua New Guinea, believed that religious beliefs met psychological needs. He observed that religion \u201cis not born out of speculation or reflection, still less out of illusion or apprehension, but rather, out of the real tragedies of human life, out of the conflict between human plans and realities.\u201d[footnote]Marcel Mauss, <em>A General Theory of Magic<\/em> (London, Routledge, 1972[1902]), 24.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">At the time of Malinowski\u2019s research, the Trobriand Islanders participated in an event called the kula ring, a tradition that required men to build canoes and sail on long and dangerous journeys between neighboring islands to exchange ritual items. Malinowski noticed that before these dangerous trips several complex rituals had to be performed, but ordinary sailing for fishing trips required no special preparations. What was the difference? Malinowski concluded that the longer trips were not only more dangerous, but also provoked more anxiety because the men felt they had less control over what might happen. On long voyages, there were many things that could go wrong, few of which could be planned for or avoided. He argued that religious rituals provided a way to reduce or control anxiety when anticipating these conditions.[footnote]Bronislaw Malinowski, \u201cRational Mastery by Man of his Surroundings,\u201d in <em>Magic, Science, &amp; Religion<\/em> (New York: McGraw Hill, 1955).[\/footnote]\u00a0The use of rituals to reduce anxiety has been documented in many other settings. George Gmelch (1971) documented forms of \u201cbaseball magic\u201d among professional athletes. Baseball players, for instance, have rituals related to how they eat, dress, and even drive to the ballpark, rituals they believe contribute to good luck.[footnote]George Gmelch, \u201cBaseball Magic\u201d <em>Transaction<\/em> 8(1971): 39-41.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">As a functionalist, Malinowski believed that religion provided shared values and behavioral norms that created solidarity between people. The sociologist Emile Durkheim also believed that religion played an important role in building connections between people by creating shared definitions of the sacred and profane. <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Sacred<\/span> <\/strong>objects or ideas are set apart from the ordinary and treated with great respect or care while <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">profane<\/span><\/strong> objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or contempt. Sacred things could include a God or gods, a natural phenomenon, an animal or many other things. Religion, Durkheim concluded, was \u201ca unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden\u2014beliefs and practices that unite, into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.\u201d[footnote] Emile Durkheim, <em>Elementary Forms of Religious Life<\/em> (New York: The Free Press, 1912).[\/footnote]\u00a0Once a person or a thing was designated as sacred, Durkheim believed that celebrating it through ritual was a powerful way to unite communities around shared values.[footnote]Ibid.[\/footnote]\u00a0In addition, celebrating the sacred can create an intense emotional experience Durkheim referred to as <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">collective effervescence<\/span><\/strong>, a passion or energy that arises when groups of people share the same thoughts and emotions. The experience of collective effervescence magnifies the emotional impact of an event and can create a sense of awe or wonder.[footnote]Kenneth D. Allan, <em>Explorations in Classic Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World<\/em>, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2005).[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Following Durkheim, many anthropologists, including Dame Mary Douglas, have found it useful to explore the ways in which definitions of sacred and profane structure religious beliefs. In her book <em><em>Purity and Danger<\/em> <\/em>(1966), Douglas analyzed the way in which cultural ideas about things that were \u201cdirty\u201d or \u201cimpure\u201d influenced religious beliefs. The kosher dietary rules observed by Jews were one prominent example of the application of this kind of thinking.[footnote]Mary Douglas, <em>Purity and Danger<\/em> (London: Routledge, 1966).[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">The philosopher and historian Karl Marx famously called religion \u201cthe opium of the people.\u201d[footnote]Karl Marx, <em>Critique of Hegel\u2019s Philosophy of Right<\/em> (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970[1844]).[\/footnote]\u00a0He viewed religion as an ideology, a way of thinking that attempts to justify inequalities in power and status. In his view, religion created an illusion of happiness that helped people cope with the economic difficulties of life under capitalism. As an institution, Marx believed that the Christian church helped to legitimize and support the political and economic inequality of the working class by encouraging ordinary people to orient themselves toward the afterlife, where they could expect to receive comfort and happiness. He argued that the obedience and conformity advocated by religious leaders as a means of reaching heaven also persuaded people not to fight for better economic or social conditions in their current lives. Numerous examples of the use of religion to legitimize or justify power differences have been documented cross-culturally including the existence of divine rulers, who were believed to be empowered by the Gods themselves, in ancient Egyptian and Incan societies. A glimpse of the legitimizing role of religion is also seen in the U.S. practice of having elected officials take an oath of office using the Bible or another holy book.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">The psychologist Sigmund Freud believed that religion is the institution that prevents us from acting upon our deepest and most awful desires. One of his most famous examples is the Oedipal complex, the story of Oedipus who (unknowingly) had a sexual relationship with his mother and, once he discovered this, ripped out his own eyes in a violent and gory death. One possible interpretation of this story is that there is an unconscious sexual desire among males for their mothers and among females their fathers. These desires can never be acknowledged, let alone acted on, because of the damage they would cause to society.[footnote] Charles Rycroft, <em>A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis<\/em> (London: Puffin Press, 1995).[\/footnote]\u00a0In one of his most well-known works, <em><em>Totem and Taboo<\/em>,<\/em> Freud proposes that religious beliefs provide rules or restrictions that keep the worst anti-social instincts, like the Oedipal complex, suppressed. He developed the idea of \u201ctotemic religions,\u201d belief systems based on the worship of a particular animal or object, and suggested that the purpose of these religions was to regulate interactions with socially significant and potentially disruptive objects and relationships.[footnote]Sigmund Freud, <em>Totem and Taboo<\/em> (New York: W.W. Norton &amp; Company, 1950).[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">One interesting interpretation of religious beliefs that builds on the work of Durkheim, Marx, and Freud is Marvin Harris\u2019 analysis of the Hindu prohibition against killing cows. In Hinduism, the cow is honored and treated with respect because of its fertility, gentle nature, and association with some Hindu deities. In his book <em><em>Cow, Pigs, Wars, and Witches <\/em><\/em>(1974), Harris suggested that these religious ideas about the cow were actually based in an economic reality. In India, cows are more valuable alive as a source of milk or for doing work in the fields than they are dead as meat. For this reason, he argued, cows were defined as sacred and set apart from other kinds of animals that could be killed and eaten. The subsequent development of religious explanations for cows\u2019 specialness reinforced and legitimated the special treatment.[footnote]Marvin Harris, <em>Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture<\/em> (New York: Random House, 1974).[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">A symbolic approach to the study of religion developed in the mid-twentieth century and presented new ways of analyzing supernatural beliefs. Clifford Geertz, one of the anthropologists responsible for creating the symbolic approach, defined religion as \u201ca system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations.... by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.\u201d[footnote]Clifford Geertz, \u201cReligion as a Cultural System,\u201d in <em>The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays<\/em>, ed. Clifford Geertz, 87-125 (London: Fontana Press, 1993), 90-91.[\/footnote]\u00a0Geertz suggested that religious practices were a way to enact or make visible important cultural ideas. The symbols used in any religion, such as a cross or even a cow, can be interpreted or \u201cread\u201d by anthropologists to discern important cultural values. At the same time, religious symbols reinforce values or aspirations in members of the religious community. The Christian cross, which is associated with both death and resurrection, demonstrates ideas about sacrifice and putting the needs of others in the community first. The cross also symbolizes deeper ideas about the nature of life itself: that suffering can have positive outcomes and that there is something beyond the current reality.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">A symbolic approach to religion treats religious beliefs as a kind of \u201ctext\u201d or \u201cperformance\u201d that can be interpreted by outsiders. Like the other theories described in this section, symbolic approaches present some risk of misinterpretation. Religious beliefs involve complex combinations of personal and social values as well as embodied or visceral feelings that cannot always be appreciated or even recognized by outsiders. The persistently large gap between emic (insider) and etic (outsider) explanations for religious beliefs and practices makes the study of religion one of the most challenging topics in cultural anthropology.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 class=\"H1\">ELEMENTS OF RELIGION<\/h2>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Despite the wide variety of supernatural beliefs found in cultures around the world, most belief systems do share some common elements. The first of these characteristic is <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">cosmology<\/span><\/strong>, an explanation for the origin or history of the world. Religious cosmologies provide \u201cbig picture\u201d explanations for how human life was created and provide a perspective on the forces or powers at work in the world. A second characteristic of religion is a belief in the <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">supernatural<\/span><\/strong>, a realm beyond direct human experience. This belief could include a God or gods, but this is not a requirement. Quite a few religious beliefs, as discussed below, involve more abstract ideas about supernatural forces. Most religions also share a third characteristic: <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">rules governing behavior<\/span><\/strong>. These rules define proper conduct for individuals and for society as a whole and are oriented toward bringing individual actions into harmony with spiritual beliefs. A fourth element is <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">ritual<\/span><\/strong>, practices or ceremonies that serve a religious purpose and are usually supervised by religious specialists. Rituals may be oriented toward the supernatural, such as rituals designed to please the gods, but at the same time they address the needs of individuals or the community as a whole. Funeral rituals, for instance, may be designed to ensure the passage of a deceased person to the afterlife, but also simultaneously provide emotional comfort to those who are grieving and provide an outlet for the community to express care and support.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"H2\">Religious Cosmologies<\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Religious cosmologies are ways of explaining the origin of the universe and the principles or \u201corder\u201d that governs reality. In its simplest form, a cosmology can be an origin story, an explanation for the history, present state, and possible futures of the world and the origins of the people, spirits, divinities, and forces that populate it. The ancient Greeks had an origin story that began with an act of creation from Chaos, the first thing to exist. The deities Erebus, representing darkness, and Nyx, representing night, were born from Chaos. Nyx gave birth to Aether (light) and Hemera (day). Hemera and Nyx took turns exiting the underworld, creating the phenomenon of day and night. Aether and Hemera next created Gaia (Earth), the mother of all life, who gave birth to the sky, the mountains, the sea, and eventually to a pantheon of gods. One of these gods, Prometheus, shaped humans out of mud and gave them the gift of fire. This origin story reflects many significant cultural ideas. One of these is the depiction of a world organized into a hierarchy with gods at the top and humans obligated to honor them.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Traditional Navajo origin stories provide a different view of the organization of the universe. These stories suggested that the world is a set of fourteen stacked \u201cplates\u201d or \u201cplatters.\u201d Creation began at the lowest levels and gradually spread to the top. The lower levels contained animals like insects as well as animal-people and bird-people who lived in their own fully-formed worlds with distinct cultures and societies. At the top level, First Man and First Woman eventually emerged and began making preparations for other humans, creating a sweat lodge, hoghan (traditional house), and preparing sacred medicine bundles. During a special ceremony, the first human men and women were formed and they created those who followed.[footnote]Sam D. Gill, <em>Sacred Words: A Study of Navajo Religion and Prayer<\/em> (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 1981), 52.[\/footnote]\u00a0Like the Greek origin story, the Navajo cosmology explains human identity and emphasizes the debt humans owe to their supernatural ancestors.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">The first two chapters of the Biblical Book of Genesis, which is the foundation for both Judaism and Christianity, describe the creation of the world and all living creatures. The exact words vary in different translations, but describe a God responsible for creating the world and everything in it: \u201cIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.\u201d The six-day process began with the division of light from darkness, land from water, and heaven from earth. On the fifth day, \u201cGod created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.\u201d[footnote]Gen. 1:21 NASB[\/footnote]\u00a0On the sixth day, \u201cGod created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.\u201d[footnote]Gen. 1:27 NASB[\/footnote]\u00a0This cosmology differs from the others in describing an act of creation by a single deity, God, but shares with the Greek and Navajo versions a description of creation that emphasizes the relationship between people and their creator.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Reading these cosmologies also raises the question of how they should be interpreted. Are these origin stories regarded as literal truth in the cultures in which they originated? Or, are the stories metaphorical and symbolic? There is no simple answer to this question. Within any culture, individuals may disagree about the nature of their own religious traditions. Christians, for instance, differ in the extent to which they view the contents of the Bible as fact. Cultural relativism requires that anthropologists avoid making judgments about whether any cultural idea, including religious beliefs, is \u201ccorrect\u201d or \u201ctrue.\u201d Instead, a more useful approach is to try to understand the multiple ways people interpret or make sense of their religious beliefs. In addition it is important to consider the function a religious cosmology has in the wider society. As Bronislaw Malinowski observed, a myth or origin story is not an \u201cidle tale, but a hard-worked active force.\u201d[footnote]Bronislaw Malinowski, <em>Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays<\/em> (Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1984[1926]), 199[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"H2\">Belief in the Supernatural<\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Another characteristic shared by most religions is a concept of the supernatural, spirits, divinities, or forces not governed by natural laws. The supernatural can take many forms. Some supernatural entities are <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">anthropomorphic<\/span><\/strong>, having human characteristics. Other supernatural forces are more generalized, seen in phenomena like the power of the wind. The amount of involvement that supernatural forces or entities have in the lives of humans varies cross-culturally.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Abstract Forces<\/h4>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Many cultures are organized around belief in an impersonal supernatural force, a type of religion known as <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">animatism<\/span><\/strong>. The idea of <em><em>mana<\/em> <\/em>is one example. The word itself comes from Oceania and may originally have meant \u201cpowerful wind,\u201d \u201clightning\u201d or \u201cstorm.\u201d Today, it still refers to power, but in a more general sense. Aram Oroi, a pastor from the Solomon Islands, has compared mana to turning on a flashlight: \u201cYou sense something powerful but unseen, and then\u2014<em><em>click<\/em><\/em>\u2014its power is made manifest in the world.\u201d[footnote]The quote comes from Aram Oroi, \u201cPress the button, mama!:\u201dMana and Christianity on Makira in the Solomon Islands\u201d (paper presented at the Australia and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools Conference held in Auckland, June\/July 2013). His work is cited in Alex Golub, \u201cThe History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic\u201d <em>The Appendix 2<\/em> no. 2 (2014) http:\/\/theappendix.net\/issues\/2014\/4\/the-history-of-mana-how-an-austronesian-concept-became-a-video-game-mechanic[\/footnote]\u00a0Traditionally, the ability to accumulate mana in certain locations, or in one\u2019s own body, was to become potent or successful.[footnote]Roger M. Keesing, \u201cRethinking \u2018Mana\u2019\u201d <em>Journal of Anthropological Research<\/em> 40 no. 1 (1984):137-156.[\/footnote]\u00a0Certain locations such as mountains or ancient sites (<em><em>marae<\/em><\/em>) have particularly strong mana. Likewise, individual behaviors, including sexual or violent acts, were traditionally viewed as ways to accumulate mana for oneself.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Interestingly, the idea of <em>mana<\/em> has spread far beyond its original cultural context. In 1993, Richard Garfield incorporated the idea in the card game Magic: The Gathering. Players of the game, which has sold millions of copies since its introduction, use mana as a source of power to battle wizards and magical creatures. Mana is also a source of power in the immensely popular computer game World of Warcraft.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Alex Golub, \u201cThe History of Mana.\u201d[\/footnote]<\/span> These examples do show <strong>cultural appropriation<\/strong>, the act of copying an idea from another culture and in the process distorting its meaning. However, they also demonstrate how compelling animist ideas about abstract supernatural power are across cultures. Another well-known example of animism in popular culture is \u201cthe Force\u201d depicted in the George Lucas <em><em>Star Wars<\/em><\/em> films. The Force is depicted as flowing through everything and is used by Luke Skywalker as a source of potency and insight when he destroys the Death Star.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Spirits<\/h4>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">The line between the natural and the supernatural can be blurry. Many people believe that humans have a supernatural or spiritual element that coexists within their natural bodies. In Christianity, this element is called the soul. In Hinduism, it is the <em>atman<\/em>.[footnote]Jack David Eller, <em>Introducing Anthropology of Religion<\/em>.[\/footnote]\u00a0The Taus\u016bg, a group who live in the Philippines, believe that the soul has four parts: a transcendent soul that stays in the spiritual realm even when a person is alive; a life-soul that is attached to the body, but can move through dreams; the breath, which is always attached to the body, and the spirit-soul, which is like a person\u2019s shadow.[footnote]Thomas M. Kiefer, <em>The Taus\u016bg: Violence and Law in a Philippine Moslem Society<\/em> (New York: Holt Rinehart, 1972).[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Many people believe that the spirit survives after an individual dies, sometimes remaining on Earth and sometimes departing for a supernatural realm. Spirits, or \u201cghosts,\u201d who remain on Earth may continue to play an active role in the lives of their families and communities. Some will be well-intentioned and others will be malevolent. Almost universally, spirits of the deceased are assumed to be needy and to make demands on the living. For this reason, many cultures have traditions for the veneration of the dead, rituals intended to honor the deceased, or to win their favor or cooperation. When treated properly, ancestor spirits can be messengers to gods, and can act on behalf of the living after receiving prayers or requests. If they are displeased, ancestor spirits can become aggravated and wreak havoc on the living through illness and suffering. To avoid these problems, offerings in the form of favorite foods, drinks, and gifts are made to appease the spirits. In China, as well as in many other countries, <strong>filial piety<\/strong> requires that the living continue to care for the ancestors.[footnote]Charles Ikels, <em>Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia<\/em> (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.)[\/footnote]\u00a0In Madagascar, where bad luck and misfortune can be attributed to spirits of the dead who believe they have been neglected, a body may be repeatedly exhumed and shown respect by cleaning the bones.[footnote] \u201cMadagascar\u2019s Dance with the Dead,\u201d BBC, http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/programmes\/from_our_own_correspondent\/7562898.stm.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_321\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"399\"]<img class=\"wp-image-321 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164020\/religion_figure_3-e1512756602834.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"399\" height=\"374\" \/> <em><strong>Figure 3:<\/strong><\/em> A spirit house in Thailand. The houses provide shelter for local spirits that could trouble humans if they become displeased.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div class=\"_idGenObjectLayout-1\"><\/div>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">If humans contain a supernatural spirit, essence, or soul, it is logical to think that non-human entities may have their own sparks of the divine. Religions based on the idea that plants, animals, inanimate objects, and even natural phenomena like weather have a spiritual or supernatural element are called <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">animism<\/span><\/strong>. The first anthropological description of animism came from Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, who believed it was the earliest type of religious practice to develop in human societies.[footnote]Edward B. Tylor, <em>Primitive Culture<\/em>.[\/footnote]Tylor suggested that ordinary parts of the human experience, such as dreaming, formed the basis for spiritual beliefs. When people dream, they may perceive that they have traveled to another place, or may be able to communicate with deceased members of their families. This sense of altered consciousness gives rise to ideas that the world is more than it seems. Tylor suggested that these experiences, combined with a pressing need to answer questions about the meaning of life, were the basis for all religious systems.[footnote]Edward B. Tylor, \u201cThe Limits of Savage Religion\u201d Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21(1892): 283\u2013301.[\/footnote]\u00a0He also assumed that animist religions evolved into what he viewed as more sophisticated religious systems involving a God or gods.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_326\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"425\"]<img class=\"wp-image-326 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164026\/religion_figure_4-e1512756638857.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"352\" \/> <em><strong>Figure 4:<\/strong><\/em>The first Torii at he entrances to njikko Tosho-gu, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<div class=\"_idGenObjectLayout-1\"><\/div>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Today, Tylor\u2019s views about the evolution of religion are considered misguided. No belief system is inherently more sophisticated than another. Several animist religions exist today and have millions of adherents. One of the most well-known is Shintoism, the traditional religion of Japan. Shintoism recognizes spirits known as <em><em>kami<\/em> <\/em>that exist in plants, animals, rocks, places and sometimes people. Certain locations have particularly strong connections to the kami, including mountains, forests, waterfalls, and shrines. Shinto shrines in Japan are marked by <em><em>torii <\/em><\/em>gates that mark the separation between ordinary reality and sacred space (Figure 4).<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Gods<\/h4>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">The most powerful non-human spirits are gods, though in practice there is no universal definition of a \u201cgod\u201d that would be recognized by all people. In general, gods are extremely powerful and not part of nature\u2014not human, or animal. Despite their unnaturalness, many gods have personalities or qualities that are recognizable and relatable to humans. They are often anthropomorphic, imagined in human form, or <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">zoomorphic<\/span><\/strong>, imagined in animal form. In some religions, gods interact directly with humans while in others they are more remote.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Anthropologists categorize belief systems organized around a God or gods using the terms monotheism and polytheism. <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Monotheistic<\/span><\/strong> religions recognize a single supreme God. The largest monotheistic religions in the world today are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Together these religions have more than 3.8 billion adherents worldwide.[footnote]Pew Research Center, \u201cThe Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050,\u201d April 2, 2015 http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2015\/04\/02\/religious-projections-2010-2050\/[\/footnote]<strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Polytheistic<\/span><\/strong> religions include several gods. Hinduism, one of the world\u2019s largest polytheistic religions with more than 1 billion practitioners, has a pantheon of deities each with different capabilities and concerns.[footnote]The characterization of Hinduism as polytheistic is contested. The deities in Hinduism can be viewed as a manifestation of Brahman, the most significant supernatural force.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"H2\">Rules of Behavior<\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Religious beliefs are an important element of social control because these beliefs help to define acceptable behaviors as well as punishments, including supernatural consequences, for misbehavior. One well-known example are the ideas expressed in the Ten Commandments, which are incorporated in the teachings of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and prohibit behaviors such as theft, murder, adultery, dishonesty, and jealousy while also emphasizing the need for honor and respect between people. Behavior that violates the commandments brings both social disapproval from other members of the religious community and potential punishment from God.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Buddhism, the world\u2019s fourth largest religion, demonstrates the strong connection between spiritual beliefs and rules for everyday behavior. Buddhists follow the teachings of Buddha, who was an ordinary human who achieved wisdom through study and discipline. There is no God or gods in Buddhism. Instead, individuals who practice Buddhism use techniques like meditation to achieve the insight necessary to lead a meaningful life and ultimately, after many lifetimes, to achieve the goal of <em><em>nirvana<\/em><\/em>, release from suffering.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Although Buddhism defies easy categorization into any anthropological category, there is an element of animatism represented by <em><em>karma<\/em><\/em>, a moral force in the universe. Individual actions have effects on one\u2019s karma. Kindness toward others, for instance, yields positive karma while acts that are disapproved in Buddhist teachings, such as killing an animal, create negative karma. The amount of positive karma a person builds-up in a lifetime is important because it will determine how the individual will be reborn. <strong>Reincarnation<\/strong><em>,<\/em> the idea that a living being can begin another life in a new body after death, is a feature of several religions. In Buddhism, the form of a human\u2019s reincarnation depends on the quality of the karma developed during life. Rebirth in a human form is considered good fortune because humans have the ability to control their own thoughts and behaviors. They can follow the Noble Eightfold Path, rules based on the teachings of Buddha that emphasize the need for discipline, restraint, humility, and kindness in every aspect of life.[footnote]Andrew Skilton, <em>A Concise History of Buddhism<\/em> (New York: Barnes and Noble Publishing, 2000).[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"H2\">Rituals and Religious Practitioners<\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">The most easily observed elements of any religious belief system are rituals. Victor Turner (1972) defined ritual as \u201ca stereotyped sequence of activities ... performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors\u2019 goals and interests.\u201d[footnote]Victor Turner, \u201cSymbols in African Ritual\u201d <em>Science<\/em> 179 (1972): 1100-05.[\/footnote]\u00a0Rituals have a concrete purpose or goal, such as a wedding ritual that results in a religiously sanctioned union between people, but rituals are also symbolic. The objects and activities involved in rituals \u201cstand in for\u201d or mean more than what they actually are. In a wedding ceremony in the United States, the white color of the wedding dress is a traditional symbol of purity.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">A large amount of anthropological research has focused on identifying and interpreting religious rituals in a wide variety of communities. Although the details of these practices differ in various cultural settings, it is possible to categorize them into types based on their goals. One type of ritual is a <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">rite of passage<\/span><\/strong>, a ceremony designed to transition individuals between life stages.[footnote]Arnold Van Gennep, <em>The Rites of Passage<\/em> (Hove, UK: Psychology Press, 1960).[\/footnote] A second type of ritual is a <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">rite of intensification<\/span><\/strong>, actions designed to bring a community together, often following a period of crisis.[footnote]Eliot Dismore Chapple and Carleton Stevens Coon, <em>Principles of Anthropology<\/em> (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953).[\/footnote]\u00a0<strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Revitalization rituals<\/span><\/strong>, which also often follow periods of crisis in a community, are ambitious attempts to resolve serious problems, such as war, famine, or poverty through a spiritual or supernatural intervention.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Anthony F.C. Wallace, \u201cRevitalization Movements\u201d<em> American Anthropologist<\/em> 58 (1956): 264-281.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Rites of Passage<\/h4>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">In his original description of rites of passage, Arnold Van Gennep (1909) noted that these rituals were carried out in three distinct stages: separation, liminality, and incorporation. During the first stage, individuals are removed from their current social identity and begin preparations to enter the next stage of life. The liminal period that follows is a time in which individuals often undergo tests, trials, or activities designed to prepare them for their new social roles. In the final stage of incorporation, individuals return to the community with a new socially recognized status.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Victor W. Turner, \u201cBetwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage,\u201d <em>The Proceedings of the New American Ethnological Society<\/em>, 1964.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Rites of passage that transition children into a new status as adults are common around the world. In Xhosa communities in South Africa, teenage boys were traditionally transitioned to manhood using a series of acts that moved them through each of the three ritual stages. In the separation stage, the boys leave their homes and are circumcised; they cannot express distress or signs of pain during the procedure. Following the circumcision, they live in isolation while their wounds heal, a liminal phase during which they do not talk to anyone other than boys who are also undergoing the rite of passage. This stressful time helps to build bonds between the boys that will follow them through their lives as adult men. Before their journey home, the isolated living quarters are burned to the ground, symbolizing the loss of childhood. When the participants return to their community, the incorporation phase, they are recognized as men and allowed to learn the secret stories of the community.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Casey Golomski, \u201cRites of Passage: 1900\u2019s to Present: Africa,\u201d in <em>Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, &amp; Africa: An Encyclopedia<\/em> (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2012).[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Rites of Intensification<\/h4>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Rites of intensification are also extremely common in communities worldwide. These rituals are used to bind members of the community together, to create a sense of <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">communitas<\/span> <\/strong>or unity that encourages people to see themselves as members of community. One particularly dramatic example of this ritual is the Nagol <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=l0Mq6rCfYtU\"><span class=\"Hyperlink\">land diving<\/span><\/a> ceremony held each spring on the island of Pentecost in Vanuatu in the South Pacific. Like many rituals, land diving has several goals. One of these is to help ensure a good harvest by impressing the spirits with a dramatic display of bravery. To accomplish this, men from the community construct wooden towers sixty to eighty feet high, tie ropes made from tree vines around their ankles, and jump head-first toward theground (Figure 5). Preparations for the land diving involve almost every member of the community. Men spend a month or more working together to build the tower and collect the vines. The women of the community prepare special costumes and dances for the occasion and everyone takes care of land divers who may be injured during the dive. Both the preparations for the land diving and the festivities that follow are a powerful rite of intensification. Interestingly, the ritual is simultaneously a rite of passage; boys can be recognized as men by jumping from high portions of the tower witnessed by elders of the community.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]For more information see Marc Tabani, \u201cThe Carnival of Custom: Land Dives, Millenarian Parades and Other Spectacular Ritualizations in Vanuatu\u201d <em>Oceania<\/em> 80 no. 3 (2010): 309\u2013329.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_329\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"425\"]<img class=\"wp-image-329 size-full aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164031\/religion_figure_5-e1512756665988.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"268\" \/> <em><strong>Figure 5:<\/strong><\/em> Land diving on Pentecost Island, Vanatu.[\/caption]\r\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Rites of Revitalization<\/h4>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">All rites of revitalization originate in difficult or even catastrophic circumstances. One notable example is a ritual that developed on the island of Tanna in the South Pacific. During World War II, many islands in the South Pacific were used by the U.S. military as temporary bases. Tanna was one of these locations and this formerly isolated community experienced an extremely rapid transformation as the U.S. military introduced modern conveniences such as electricity and automobiles. In an attempt to make sense of these developments, the island\u2019s residents developed a variety of theories about the reason for these changes. One possible explanation was that the foreign materials had been given to the islanders by a powerful deity or ancestral spirit, an entity who eventually acquired the name John Frum. The name may be based on a common name the islanders would have encountered while the military base was in operation: \u201cJohn from America.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">When the war ended and the U.S. military departed, the residents of Tanna experienced a kind of trauma as the material goods they had enjoyed disappeared and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LMO7Yo4PM8U\"><span class=\"Hyperlink\">John Frum ritual began<\/span><\/a>. Each year on February fifteenth, many of the island\u2019s residents construct copies of U.S. airplanes, runways, or towers and march in military formation with replicas of military rifles and American blue jeans. The ritual is intended to attract John Frum, and the material wealth he controls, back to the island. Although the ritual has not yet had its intended transformative effect, the participants continue the ritual. When asked to explain his continued faith, one village elder explained: \u201cYou Christians have been waiting 2,000 years for Jesus to return to Earth, and you haven\u2019t given up hope.\u201d<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Paul Raffaele, \u201cIn John They Trust,\u201d Smithsonian Magazine,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/people-places\/in-john-they-trust-109294882\/\"> http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/people-places\/in-john-they-trust-109294882\/<\/a>.[\/footnote]<\/span> This John Frum custom is sometimes called a <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">cargo cult<\/span><\/strong>, a term used to describe rituals that seek to attract material prosperity. Although the John Frum ritual is focused on commodities, or \u201ccargo,\u201d the term cargo cult is generally not preferred by anthropologists because it oversimplifies the complex motivations involved in the ritual. The word \u201ccult\u201d also has connotations with fringe or dangerous beliefs and this association also distorts understanding of the practice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Religious Practitioners<\/h4>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Since rituals can be extremely complicated and the outcome is of vital importance to the community, specialist practitioners are often charged with responsibility for supervising the details. In many settings, religious specialists have a high social status and are treated with great respect. Some may become relatively wealthy by charging for their services while others may be impoverished, sometimes deliberately as a rejection of the material world. There is no universal terminology for religious practitioners, but there are three important categories: priests, prophets, and shamans.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\"><strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Priests<\/span><\/strong>, who may be of any gender, are full-time religious practitioners. The position of priest emerges only in societies with substantial occupational specialization. Priests are the intermediaries between God (or the gods) and humans. Religious traditions vary in terms of the qualifications required for individuals entering the priesthood. In Christian traditions, it is common for priests to complete a program of formal higher education. Hindu priests, known as <em><em>pujari<\/em><\/em>, must learn the sacred language Sanskrit and spend many years becoming proficient in Hindu ceremonies. They must also follow strict lifestyle restrictions such as a vegetarian diet. Traditionally, only men from the Brahmin caste were eligible to become pujari, but this is changing. Today, people from other castes, as well as women, are joining the priesthood. One notable feature of societies that utilize full-time spiritual practitioners is a separation between ordinary believers and the God or gods. As intermediaries, priests have substantial authority to set the rules associated with worship practice and to control access to religious rites.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Victor W. Turner, \u201cReligious Specialists,\u201d <em>International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences<\/em>, 13(1972): 437-444.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">The term <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">shaman<\/span><\/strong> has been used for hundreds of years to refer to a part time religious practitioner. Shamans carry out religious rituals when needed, but also participate in the normal work of the community. A shaman\u2019s religious practice depends on an ability to engage in direct communication with the spirits, gods, or supernatural realm. An important quality of a shaman is the ability to transcend normal reality in order to communicate with and perhaps even manipulate supernatural forces in an alternate world. This ability can be inherited or learned.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Piers Vitebsky, \u201cShamanism,\u201d<em> Indigenous Religions: A Companion<\/em>, ed. Graham Harvey(New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2000).[\/footnote]<\/span> Transcending from the ordinary to the spiritual realm gives shamans the ability to do many things such as locate lost people or animals or heal the sick by identifying the spiritual cause of illness.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Among the Chukchi, who live in northern Russia, the role of the shaman is thought to be a special calling, one that may be especially appropriate for people whose personality traits seem abnormal in the context of the community. Young people who suffer from nervousness, anxiety, or moodiness, for example may feel a call to take up shamanistic practice.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Waldemar G. Bogoras, The Chukchi of Northeastern Asia American Anthropologist 3 no. 1(1901):80-108.[\/footnote]<\/span> There has been some research suggesting that shamanism may be a culturally accepted way to deal with conditions like schizophrenia.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Rick Strassman, <em>DMT: The Spirit Molecule<\/em> (South Paris, ME: Park Street Press, 2000).[\/footnote]<\/span> If true, this might be because achieving an altered state of consciousness is essential for shamanic work. Entering an altered state, which can be achieved through dreams, hallucinogenic drugs, rhythmic music, exhaustion through dance, or other means, makes it possible for shamans to directly engage with the supernatural realm.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Shamans of the upper Amazon in South America have been using <em><em>ayahuasca<\/em><\/em>, a drink made from plants that have hallucinogenic effects, for centuries. The effects of ayahuasca start with the nervous system:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p class=\"Quotation\">One under the control of the narcotic sees unroll before him quite a spectacle: most lovely landscapes, monstrous animals, vipers which approach and wind down his body or are entwined like rolls of thick cable, at a few centimeters distance; as well, one sees who are true friends and those who betray him or who have done him ill; he observes the cause of the illness which he sustains, at the same time being presented with the most advantageous remedy; he takes part in fantastic hunts; the things which he most dearly loves or abhors acquire in these moments extraordinary vividness and color, and the scenes in which his life normally develop adopt the most beautiful and emotional expression.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Avencio Villarejo, <em>Asi es la selva<\/em> (Lima, Peru: Centro de Estudios Teologicos de la Amazonia, 1988).[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Among the Shipibo people of Peru, ayahuasca is thought to be the substance that allows the soul of a shaman to leave his body in order to retrieve a soul that has been lost or stolen. In many cultures, soul loss is the predominant explanation for illness. The Shipibo believe that the soul is a separate entity from the body, one that is capable of leaving and returning at will. Shamans can also steal souls. The community shaman, under the influence of ayahuasca, is able to find and retrieve a soul, perhaps even killing the enemy as revenge.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Robert L. Carneiro, \u201cThe Amahuaca and the Spirit World\u201d <em>Ethnology<\/em> 3(1964): 6-11.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Anthropologist Scott Hutson (2000) has described similarities between the altered state of consciousness achieved by shamans and the mental states induced during a rave, a large dance party characterized by loud music with repetitive patterns. In a rave, bright lights, exhausting dance, and sometimes the use of hallucinogenic drugs, induce similar psychological effects to shamanic trancing. Hutson argues that through the rave individuals are able to enter altered states of consciousness characterized by a \u201cself-forgetfulness\u201d and an ability to transcend the ordinary self. The DJ at these events is often called a \u201ctechno-shaman,\u201d an interesting allusion to the guiding role traditional shamans play in their cultures.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Scott R. Hutson, \u201cThe Rave: Spiritual Healing in Modern Western Subcultures,\u201d <em>Anthropological Quarterly<\/em> 73(2000): 35-49.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">A <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">prophet <\/span><\/strong>is a person who claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm and who can communicate divine messages to others. Many religious communities originated with prophecies, including Islam which is based on teachings revealed to the prophet Muhammad by God. In Christianity and Judaism, Moses is an example of a prophet who received direct revelations from God. Another example of a historically significant prophet is Joseph Smith who founded the Church of Latter Day Saints, after receiving a prophecy from an angel named Moroni who guided him to the location of a buried set of golden plates. The information from the golden plates became the basis for the Book of Mormon.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">The major distinction between a priest and the prophet is the source of their authority. A priest gets his or her authority from the scripture and occupational position in a formally organized religious institution. A prophet derives authority from his or her direct connection to the divine and ability to convince others of his or her legitimacy through charisma<span class=\"CharOverride-2\">.<\/span> The kind of insight and guidance prophets offer can be extremely compelling, particularly in times of social upheaval or suffering.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">One prophet who had enormous influence was David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, a schism of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The Branch Davidians were <strong>millenarians<\/strong>, people who believe that major transformations of the world are imminent. David Koresh was extremely charismatic; he was handsome and an eloquent speaker. He offered refuge and solace to people in need and in the process he preached about the coming of an apocalypse, which he believed would be caused by the intrusion of the United States government on the Branch Davidian\u2019s lifestyle. Koresh was so influential that when the United States government did eventually try to enter the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993 to search for illegal weapons, members of the group resisted and exchanged gunfire with federal agents. Eventually, under circumstances that are still disputed, a fire erupted in the compound and eighty-six people, including Koresh, were killed.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Kenneth G.C. Newport, <em>The Branch Davidians of Waco: The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Movement<\/em> (London: Oxford University Press, 2006).[\/footnote]<\/span> Ultimately, the U.S. government helped to fulfill the apocalyptic vision of the group and David Koresh became a martyr. The Branch Davidians evolved into a new group, \u201cBranch, Lord our Righteousness,\u201d and today many await Koresh\u2019s return.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]John Burnett, \u201cTwo Decades Later: Some Branch Davidians Still Believe,\u201d National Public Radio<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2013\/04\/20\/178063471\/two-decades-later-some-branch-davidians-still-believe\"> http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2013\/04\/20\/178063471\/two-decades-later-some-branch-davidians-still-believe<\/a>.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 class=\"H1\">CONCLUSION<\/h2>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Religion is of central importance to the lives of people in the majority of the world\u2019s cultures; more than eight-in-ten people worldwide identify with a religious group.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Pew Research Center, \u201cThe Global Religious Landscape,\u201d December 18, 2012. http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2012\/12\/18\/global-religious-landscape-exec\/[\/footnote]<\/span> However, it is also true that the number of people who say that they have no religious affiliation is growing. There are now about as many people in the world who consider themselves religiously \u201cunaffiliated\u201d as there are Roman Catholics.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\">[footnote]Ibid.[\/footnote]<\/span> This is an important reminder that religions, like culture itself, are highly dynamic and subject to constant changes in interpretation and allegiance. Anthropology offers a unique perspective for the study of religious beliefs, the way people think about the supernatural, and how the values and behaviors these beliefs inspire contribute to the lives of individuals and communities. No single set of theories or vocabulary can completely capture the richness of the religious diversity that exists in the world today, but cultural anthropology provides a toolkit for understanding the emotional, social, and spiritual contributions that religion makes to the human experience.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\r\n<h2 class=\"H1\"><strong>DISCUSSION QUESTIONS<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li class=\"Discussion-Questions-numbered\">This chapter describes theories about religion developed by Durkheim, Marx, and Freud. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each theory? Which theory would be the most useful if you were attempting to learn about the religious beliefs of another culture?<\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"Discussion-Questions-numbered\">Rites of passage and rites of intensification are an important part of many religious traditions, but these same rituals also exist in secular (non-religious) contexts. What are some examples of these rituals in your own community? What role do these rituals play in bringing people together?<\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"Discussion-Questions-numbered\">Durkheim argued that a distinction between the sacred and the profane was a key characteristic of religion. Thinking about your own culture, what are some examples of ideas or objects that are considered \u201csacred\u201d? What are the rules concerning how these objects or ideas should be treated? What are the penalties for people who do not follow these rules?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\r\n<h3>GLossary<\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Animatism<\/span>: a religious system organized around a belief in an impersonal supernatural force.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Animism:<\/span> a religious system organized around a belief that plants, animals, inanimate objects, or natural phenomena have a spiritual or supernatural element.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Anthropomorphic:<\/span> an object or being that has human characteristics.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Cargo cult<\/span>: a term sometimes used to describe rituals that seek to attract material prosperity. The term is generally not preferred by anthropologists.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Collective effervescence: <\/span>the passion or energy that arises when groups of people share the same thoughts and emotions.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Cosmology<\/span>: an explanation for the origin or history of the world.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Cultural appropriation<\/span>: the act of copying an idea from another culture and in the process distorting its meaning.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Filial piety<\/span>: a tradition requiring that the young provide care for the elderly and in some cases ancestral spirits.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Magic<\/span>: practices intended to bring supernatural forces under one\u2019s personal control.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Millenarians: <\/span>people who believe that major transformations of the world are imminent.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Monotheistic<\/span>: religious systems that recognize a single supreme God.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Polytheistic<\/span>: religious systems that recognize several gods.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Priests<\/span>: full-time religious practitioners.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Profane<\/span>: objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or contempt.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Prophet: <\/span>a person who claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm and who can communicate divine messages to others.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Reincarnation: <\/span>the idea that a living being can begin another life in a new body after death.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Religion<\/span>: the extension of human society and culture to include the supernatural.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Revitalization rituals<\/span>: attempts to resolve serious problems, such as war, famine or poverty through a spiritual or supernatural intervention.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Rite of intensification<\/span>: actions designed to bring a community together, often following a period of crisis.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Rite of passage<\/span>: a ceremony designed to transition individuals between life stages.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Sacred<\/span>: objects or ideas are set apart from the ordinary and treated with great respect or care.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Shaman<\/span>: a part time religious practitioner who carries out religious rituals when needed, but also participates in the normal work of the community.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Sorcerer<\/span>: an individual who seeks to use magic for his or her own purposes.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Supernatural: <\/span>describes entities or forces not governed by natural laws.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Zoomorphic<\/span>: an object or being that has animal characteristics.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\r\n<h2 class=\"H1\">ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/h2>\r\n<p class=\"Normal\">Sashur Henninger-Rener is an anthropologist with research in the fields of comparative religion and psychological anthropology. She received a Master of Arts from Columbia University in the City of New York in Anthropology and has since been researching and teaching. Currently, Sashur is teaching with The University of LaVerne and the Los Angeles Community College District in the fields of Cultural and Biological Anthropology. In her free time, Sashur enjoys traveling the world, visiting archaeological and cultural sites along the way. She and her husband are actively involved in animal rescuing, hoping to eventually found their own animal rescue for animals that are waiting to find homes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p class=\"Endnote-text\"><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div id=\"_idContainer470\" class=\"Basic-Text-Frame\">\n<p class=\"Author\"><strong><em>Sashur Henninger-Rener, University of LaVerne and the Los Angeles Community College District<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"_idContainer471\" class=\"Basic-Text-Frame\">\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\n<div id=\"_idContainer471\" class=\"Basic-Text-Frame\">\n<ul>\n<li class=\"Learning-Objectives\">Define religion and explain its significance in human cultures.<\/li>\n<li class=\"Learning-Objectives\">Summarize theories developed by anthropologists to explain the importance of supernatural beliefs in human communities.<\/li>\n<li class=\"Learning-Objectives\">Identify the four elements of religion (cosmology, belief in the supernatural, rules of behavior, and rituals) and explain how each element contributes to religious practices.<\/li>\n<li class=\"Learning-Objectives\">Define rites of passage, rites of intensification, and rites of revitalization and explain the purpose of each type of ritual.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"_idContainer505\" class=\"_idGenObjectStyleOverride-1\">\n<p class=\"Normal\">Humans have always wondered about the meaning of the life, the nature of the universe, and the forces that shape our lives. While it is impossible to know for sure how the people who lived thousands of years ago answered these kinds of questions, there are some clues. Fifty thousand years ago, human communities buried the dead with stone tools, shells, animal bones, and other objects, a practice that suggests they were preparing the deceased for an afterlife, or a world beyond this one. Thirty thousand years ago, artists entered the Chauvet cave in France and painted dramatic scenes of animals on the cave walls along with abstract symbols that suggest the images were part of a supernatural belief system, possibly one focused on ensuring safety or success in hunting (Figure 1).<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"See Jean Clottes, Cave Art (London: Phaidon, 2010)\" id=\"return-footnote-331-1\" href=\"#footnote-331-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a>A few thousand years later, collections of small clay sculptures, known as Venus figurines, began appearing across Eurasia. They seem to express ideas about fertility or motherhood and may have been viewed as magical (Figure 2).<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"O. Soffer, J. M. Adovasio, and D. C. Hyland \u201cThe \u2018Venus\u2019 Figurines: Textiles, Basketry, Gender, and Status in the Upper Paleolithic\u201d Current Anthropology 41 n. 4 (2000):511-537.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-2\" href=\"#footnote-331-2\" aria-label=\"Footnote 2\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_308\" style=\"width: 409px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-308\" class=\"wp-image-308 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164002\/religion_figure_1-e1512756533258.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"399\" height=\"336\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-308\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em><strong>Figure 1:<\/strong><\/em> An image from Chauvet cave painted about 32,000 years ago. The paintings may have been part of religious ceremonies intended to ensure success in hunting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"_idGenObjectLayout-1\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"Normal ParaOverride-1\">Because ideas about the supernatural are part of every human culture, understanding these beliefs is important to anthropologists. However, studying supernatural beliefs is challenging for several reasons. The first difficulty arises from the challenge of defining the topic itself. The word \u201creligion,\u201d which is commonly used in the United States to refer to participation in a distinct form of faith such as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, is not a universally recognized idea. Many cultures have no word for \u201creligion\u201d at all and many societies do not make a clear distinction between beliefs or practices that are \u201creligious,\u201d or \u201cspiritual\u201d and other habits that are an ordinary part of daily life. For instance, leaving an incense offering in a household shrine dedicated to the spirits of the ancestors may be viewed as a simple part of the daily routine rather than a \u201creligious\u201d practice. There are societies that believe in supernatural beings, but do not call them \u201cgods.\u201d Some societies do not see a distinction between the natural and the supernatural observing, instead, that the spirits share the same physical world as humans. Concepts like \u201cheaven,\u201d \u201chell,\u201d or even \u201cprayer\u201d do not exist in many societies. The divide between \u201creligion\u201d and related ideas like \u201cspirituality\u201d or even \u201cmagic\u201d is also murky in some cultural contexts.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_313\" style=\"width: 158px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-313\" class=\"wp-image-313 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164010\/religion_figure_2-e1512756564915-148x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"148\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-313\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em><strong>Figure 2:<\/strong><\/em> The Venus of Willendorf figurine was made between 28,000\u00a0 and 25,000 BC and may have been associated with spiritual beliefs about motherhood or fertility.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"_idGenObjectLayout-1\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"Normal\">To study supernatural beliefs, anthropologists must cultivate a perspective of cultural relativism and strive to understand beliefs from an emic or insider\u2019s perspective. Imposing the definitions or assumptions from one culture on another is likely to lead to misunderstandings. One example of this problem can be found in the early anthropological research of Sir James Frazer who attempted to compose the first comprehensive study of the world\u2019s major magical and religious belief systems. Frazer was part of early generation of anthropologists whose work was based on reading and questionnaires mailed to missionaries and colonial officials rather than travel and participant-observation. As a result, he had only minimal information about the beliefs he wrote about and he was quick to apply his own opinions. In <em><em>The Golden Bough <\/em><\/em>(1890) he dismissed many of the spiritual beliefs he documented: \u201cI look upon [them] not merely as false but as preposterous and absurd.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"James Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1958[1890]),vii.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-3\" href=\"#footnote-331-3\" aria-label=\"Footnote 3\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0His contemporary, Sir E.B. Tylor, was less dismissive of unfamiliar belief systems, but he defined religion minimally and, for some, in overly narrow terms as \u201cthe belief in supernatural beings.\u201d This definition excludes much of what people around the world actually believe.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (London: John Murray, 1871).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-4\" href=\"#footnote-331-4\" aria-label=\"Footnote 4\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[4]<\/sup><\/a>As researchers gained more information about other cultures, their ideas about religion became more complex. The sociologist Emile Durkheim recognized that religion was not simply a belief in \u201csupernatural beings,\u201d but a set of practices and social institutions that brought members of a community together. Religion, he said, was \u201ca unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set aside and forbidden\u2014beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, tr. Joseph R. Swain (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1965[1915]), 62.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-5\" href=\"#footnote-331-5\" aria-label=\"Footnote 5\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Durkheim\u2019s analysis of religion emphasized the significance of spiritual beliefs for relationships between people. Subsequent anthropological research in communities around the world has confirmed that rituals associated with beliefs in the supernatural play a significant role in structuring community life, providing rules or guidelines for behavior, and bonding members of a community to one another. Interestingly, religious \u201cbeings,\u201d such as gods or spirits, also demonstrate social qualities. Most of the time, these beings are imagined in familiar terms as entities with personalities, desires, and \u201cagency,\u201d an ability to make decisions and take action. Supernatural beings, in other words, are not so different from people.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Jack David Eller, Introducing Anthropology of Religion (New York: Rouledge, 2007), 9.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-6\" href=\"#footnote-331-6\" aria-label=\"Footnote 6\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[6]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0In keeping with this idea, <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">religion<\/span><\/strong> can be defined as \u201cthe means by which human society and culture is extended to include the nonhuman.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Ibid.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-7\" href=\"#footnote-331-7\" aria-label=\"Footnote 7\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[7]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0This definition is deliberately broad and can be used to encompass many different kinds of belief systems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Many religions involve ideas or rituals that could be described as \u201cmagical\u201d and the relationship between religion and magic is complex. In his book <em><em>A General Theory of Magic <\/em><\/em>(1902), Marcel Mauss suggested that religion and magic were two opposite poles on a spectrum of spiritual beliefs. Magic was at one end of the spectrum; it was private, secret, and individual. Religion was at the opposite end of the spectrum; it was public and oriented toward bringing the community together.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Marcel Mauss, A General Theory of Magic (London, Routledge, 1972[1902]), 24.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-8\" href=\"#footnote-331-8\" aria-label=\"Footnote 8\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[8]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Although Mauss\u2019 formulation presented religion and magic as part of the same general way of thinking, many contemporary anthropologists are convinced that making a distinction between religion and magic is artificial and usually not particularly useful. With this caution in mind, <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">magic<\/span><\/strong> can be defined as practices intended to bring supernatural forces under one\u2019s personal control. <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Sorcerers<\/span><\/strong> are individuals who seek to use magic for their own purposes. It is important to remember that both magic and sorcery are labels that have historically been used by outsiders, including anthropologists, to describe spiritual beliefs with which they are unfamiliar. Words from the local language are almost always preferable for representing how people think about themselves.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"H1\">THEORIES OF RELIGION<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Sir James Frazer\u2019s effort to interpret religious mythology was the first of many attempts to understand the reasons why cultures develop various kinds of spiritual beliefs. In the early twentieth century, many anthropologists applied a functional approach to this problem by focusing on the ways religion addressed human needs. Bronislaw Malinowski (1931), who conducted research in the Trobriand Islands located near Papua New Guinea, believed that religious beliefs met psychological needs. He observed that religion \u201cis not born out of speculation or reflection, still less out of illusion or apprehension, but rather, out of the real tragedies of human life, out of the conflict between human plans and realities.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Marcel Mauss, A General Theory of Magic (London, Routledge, 1972[1902]), 24.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-9\" href=\"#footnote-331-9\" aria-label=\"Footnote 9\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">At the time of Malinowski\u2019s research, the Trobriand Islanders participated in an event called the kula ring, a tradition that required men to build canoes and sail on long and dangerous journeys between neighboring islands to exchange ritual items. Malinowski noticed that before these dangerous trips several complex rituals had to be performed, but ordinary sailing for fishing trips required no special preparations. What was the difference? Malinowski concluded that the longer trips were not only more dangerous, but also provoked more anxiety because the men felt they had less control over what might happen. On long voyages, there were many things that could go wrong, few of which could be planned for or avoided. He argued that religious rituals provided a way to reduce or control anxiety when anticipating these conditions.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Bronislaw Malinowski, \u201cRational Mastery by Man of his Surroundings,\u201d in Magic, Science, &amp; Religion (New York: McGraw Hill, 1955).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-10\" href=\"#footnote-331-10\" aria-label=\"Footnote 10\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[10]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0The use of rituals to reduce anxiety has been documented in many other settings. George Gmelch (1971) documented forms of \u201cbaseball magic\u201d among professional athletes. Baseball players, for instance, have rituals related to how they eat, dress, and even drive to the ballpark, rituals they believe contribute to good luck.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"George Gmelch, \u201cBaseball Magic\u201d Transaction 8(1971): 39-41.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-11\" href=\"#footnote-331-11\" aria-label=\"Footnote 11\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">As a functionalist, Malinowski believed that religion provided shared values and behavioral norms that created solidarity between people. The sociologist Emile Durkheim also believed that religion played an important role in building connections between people by creating shared definitions of the sacred and profane. <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Sacred<\/span> <\/strong>objects or ideas are set apart from the ordinary and treated with great respect or care while <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">profane<\/span><\/strong> objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or contempt. Sacred things could include a God or gods, a natural phenomenon, an animal or many other things. Religion, Durkheim concluded, was \u201ca unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden\u2014beliefs and practices that unite, into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Emile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York: The Free Press, 1912).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-12\" href=\"#footnote-331-12\" aria-label=\"Footnote 12\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[12]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Once a person or a thing was designated as sacred, Durkheim believed that celebrating it through ritual was a powerful way to unite communities around shared values.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Ibid.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-13\" href=\"#footnote-331-13\" aria-label=\"Footnote 13\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[13]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0In addition, celebrating the sacred can create an intense emotional experience Durkheim referred to as <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">collective effervescence<\/span><\/strong>, a passion or energy that arises when groups of people share the same thoughts and emotions. The experience of collective effervescence magnifies the emotional impact of an event and can create a sense of awe or wonder.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Kenneth D. Allan, Explorations in Classic Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2005).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-14\" href=\"#footnote-331-14\" aria-label=\"Footnote 14\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[14]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Following Durkheim, many anthropologists, including Dame Mary Douglas, have found it useful to explore the ways in which definitions of sacred and profane structure religious beliefs. In her book <em><em>Purity and Danger<\/em> <\/em>(1966), Douglas analyzed the way in which cultural ideas about things that were \u201cdirty\u201d or \u201cimpure\u201d influenced religious beliefs. The kosher dietary rules observed by Jews were one prominent example of the application of this kind of thinking.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge, 1966).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-15\" href=\"#footnote-331-15\" aria-label=\"Footnote 15\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[15]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The philosopher and historian Karl Marx famously called religion \u201cthe opium of the people.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel\u2019s Philosophy of Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970[1844]).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-16\" href=\"#footnote-331-16\" aria-label=\"Footnote 16\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[16]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0He viewed religion as an ideology, a way of thinking that attempts to justify inequalities in power and status. In his view, religion created an illusion of happiness that helped people cope with the economic difficulties of life under capitalism. As an institution, Marx believed that the Christian church helped to legitimize and support the political and economic inequality of the working class by encouraging ordinary people to orient themselves toward the afterlife, where they could expect to receive comfort and happiness. He argued that the obedience and conformity advocated by religious leaders as a means of reaching heaven also persuaded people not to fight for better economic or social conditions in their current lives. Numerous examples of the use of religion to legitimize or justify power differences have been documented cross-culturally including the existence of divine rulers, who were believed to be empowered by the Gods themselves, in ancient Egyptian and Incan societies. A glimpse of the legitimizing role of religion is also seen in the U.S. practice of having elected officials take an oath of office using the Bible or another holy book.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The psychologist Sigmund Freud believed that religion is the institution that prevents us from acting upon our deepest and most awful desires. One of his most famous examples is the Oedipal complex, the story of Oedipus who (unknowingly) had a sexual relationship with his mother and, once he discovered this, ripped out his own eyes in a violent and gory death. One possible interpretation of this story is that there is an unconscious sexual desire among males for their mothers and among females their fathers. These desires can never be acknowledged, let alone acted on, because of the damage they would cause to society.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (London: Puffin Press, 1995).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-17\" href=\"#footnote-331-17\" aria-label=\"Footnote 17\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[17]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0In one of his most well-known works, <em><em>Totem and Taboo<\/em>,<\/em> Freud proposes that religious beliefs provide rules or restrictions that keep the worst anti-social instincts, like the Oedipal complex, suppressed. He developed the idea of \u201ctotemic religions,\u201d belief systems based on the worship of a particular animal or object, and suggested that the purpose of these religions was to regulate interactions with socially significant and potentially disruptive objects and relationships.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (New York: W.W. Norton &amp; Company, 1950).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-18\" href=\"#footnote-331-18\" aria-label=\"Footnote 18\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[18]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">One interesting interpretation of religious beliefs that builds on the work of Durkheim, Marx, and Freud is Marvin Harris\u2019 analysis of the Hindu prohibition against killing cows. In Hinduism, the cow is honored and treated with respect because of its fertility, gentle nature, and association with some Hindu deities. In his book <em><em>Cow, Pigs, Wars, and Witches <\/em><\/em>(1974), Harris suggested that these religious ideas about the cow were actually based in an economic reality. In India, cows are more valuable alive as a source of milk or for doing work in the fields than they are dead as meat. For this reason, he argued, cows were defined as sacred and set apart from other kinds of animals that could be killed and eaten. The subsequent development of religious explanations for cows\u2019 specialness reinforced and legitimated the special treatment.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture (New York: Random House, 1974).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-19\" href=\"#footnote-331-19\" aria-label=\"Footnote 19\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[19]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">A symbolic approach to the study of religion developed in the mid-twentieth century and presented new ways of analyzing supernatural beliefs. Clifford Geertz, one of the anthropologists responsible for creating the symbolic approach, defined religion as \u201ca system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations&#8230;. by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Clifford Geertz, \u201cReligion as a Cultural System,\u201d in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, ed. Clifford Geertz, 87-125 (London: Fontana Press, 1993), 90-91.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-20\" href=\"#footnote-331-20\" aria-label=\"Footnote 20\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[20]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Geertz suggested that religious practices were a way to enact or make visible important cultural ideas. The symbols used in any religion, such as a cross or even a cow, can be interpreted or \u201cread\u201d by anthropologists to discern important cultural values. At the same time, religious symbols reinforce values or aspirations in members of the religious community. The Christian cross, which is associated with both death and resurrection, demonstrates ideas about sacrifice and putting the needs of others in the community first. The cross also symbolizes deeper ideas about the nature of life itself: that suffering can have positive outcomes and that there is something beyond the current reality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">A symbolic approach to religion treats religious beliefs as a kind of \u201ctext\u201d or \u201cperformance\u201d that can be interpreted by outsiders. Like the other theories described in this section, symbolic approaches present some risk of misinterpretation. Religious beliefs involve complex combinations of personal and social values as well as embodied or visceral feelings that cannot always be appreciated or even recognized by outsiders. The persistently large gap between emic (insider) and etic (outsider) explanations for religious beliefs and practices makes the study of religion one of the most challenging topics in cultural anthropology.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"H1\">ELEMENTS OF RELIGION<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Despite the wide variety of supernatural beliefs found in cultures around the world, most belief systems do share some common elements. The first of these characteristic is <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">cosmology<\/span><\/strong>, an explanation for the origin or history of the world. Religious cosmologies provide \u201cbig picture\u201d explanations for how human life was created and provide a perspective on the forces or powers at work in the world. A second characteristic of religion is a belief in the <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">supernatural<\/span><\/strong>, a realm beyond direct human experience. This belief could include a God or gods, but this is not a requirement. Quite a few religious beliefs, as discussed below, involve more abstract ideas about supernatural forces. Most religions also share a third characteristic: <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">rules governing behavior<\/span><\/strong>. These rules define proper conduct for individuals and for society as a whole and are oriented toward bringing individual actions into harmony with spiritual beliefs. A fourth element is <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">ritual<\/span><\/strong>, practices or ceremonies that serve a religious purpose and are usually supervised by religious specialists. Rituals may be oriented toward the supernatural, such as rituals designed to please the gods, but at the same time they address the needs of individuals or the community as a whole. Funeral rituals, for instance, may be designed to ensure the passage of a deceased person to the afterlife, but also simultaneously provide emotional comfort to those who are grieving and provide an outlet for the community to express care and support.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"H2\">Religious Cosmologies<\/h3>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Religious cosmologies are ways of explaining the origin of the universe and the principles or \u201corder\u201d that governs reality. In its simplest form, a cosmology can be an origin story, an explanation for the history, present state, and possible futures of the world and the origins of the people, spirits, divinities, and forces that populate it. The ancient Greeks had an origin story that began with an act of creation from Chaos, the first thing to exist. The deities Erebus, representing darkness, and Nyx, representing night, were born from Chaos. Nyx gave birth to Aether (light) and Hemera (day). Hemera and Nyx took turns exiting the underworld, creating the phenomenon of day and night. Aether and Hemera next created Gaia (Earth), the mother of all life, who gave birth to the sky, the mountains, the sea, and eventually to a pantheon of gods. One of these gods, Prometheus, shaped humans out of mud and gave them the gift of fire. This origin story reflects many significant cultural ideas. One of these is the depiction of a world organized into a hierarchy with gods at the top and humans obligated to honor them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Traditional Navajo origin stories provide a different view of the organization of the universe. These stories suggested that the world is a set of fourteen stacked \u201cplates\u201d or \u201cplatters.\u201d Creation began at the lowest levels and gradually spread to the top. The lower levels contained animals like insects as well as animal-people and bird-people who lived in their own fully-formed worlds with distinct cultures and societies. At the top level, First Man and First Woman eventually emerged and began making preparations for other humans, creating a sweat lodge, hoghan (traditional house), and preparing sacred medicine bundles. During a special ceremony, the first human men and women were formed and they created those who followed.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Sam D. Gill, Sacred Words: A Study of Navajo Religion and Prayer (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 1981), 52.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-21\" href=\"#footnote-331-21\" aria-label=\"Footnote 21\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[21]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Like the Greek origin story, the Navajo cosmology explains human identity and emphasizes the debt humans owe to their supernatural ancestors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The first two chapters of the Biblical Book of Genesis, which is the foundation for both Judaism and Christianity, describe the creation of the world and all living creatures. The exact words vary in different translations, but describe a God responsible for creating the world and everything in it: \u201cIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.\u201d The six-day process began with the division of light from darkness, land from water, and heaven from earth. On the fifth day, \u201cGod created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Gen. 1:21 NASB\" id=\"return-footnote-331-22\" href=\"#footnote-331-22\" aria-label=\"Footnote 22\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[22]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0On the sixth day, \u201cGod created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Gen. 1:27 NASB\" id=\"return-footnote-331-23\" href=\"#footnote-331-23\" aria-label=\"Footnote 23\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[23]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0This cosmology differs from the others in describing an act of creation by a single deity, God, but shares with the Greek and Navajo versions a description of creation that emphasizes the relationship between people and their creator.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Reading these cosmologies also raises the question of how they should be interpreted. Are these origin stories regarded as literal truth in the cultures in which they originated? Or, are the stories metaphorical and symbolic? There is no simple answer to this question. Within any culture, individuals may disagree about the nature of their own religious traditions. Christians, for instance, differ in the extent to which they view the contents of the Bible as fact. Cultural relativism requires that anthropologists avoid making judgments about whether any cultural idea, including religious beliefs, is \u201ccorrect\u201d or \u201ctrue.\u201d Instead, a more useful approach is to try to understand the multiple ways people interpret or make sense of their religious beliefs. In addition it is important to consider the function a religious cosmology has in the wider society. As Bronislaw Malinowski observed, a myth or origin story is not an \u201cidle tale, but a hard-worked active force.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays (Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1984[1926]), 199\" id=\"return-footnote-331-24\" href=\"#footnote-331-24\" aria-label=\"Footnote 24\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[24]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"H2\">Belief in the Supernatural<\/h3>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Another characteristic shared by most religions is a concept of the supernatural, spirits, divinities, or forces not governed by natural laws. The supernatural can take many forms. Some supernatural entities are <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">anthropomorphic<\/span><\/strong>, having human characteristics. Other supernatural forces are more generalized, seen in phenomena like the power of the wind. The amount of involvement that supernatural forces or entities have in the lives of humans varies cross-culturally.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Abstract Forces<\/h4>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Many cultures are organized around belief in an impersonal supernatural force, a type of religion known as <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">animatism<\/span><\/strong>. The idea of <em><em>mana<\/em> <\/em>is one example. The word itself comes from Oceania and may originally have meant \u201cpowerful wind,\u201d \u201clightning\u201d or \u201cstorm.\u201d Today, it still refers to power, but in a more general sense. Aram Oroi, a pastor from the Solomon Islands, has compared mana to turning on a flashlight: \u201cYou sense something powerful but unseen, and then\u2014<em><em>click<\/em><\/em>\u2014its power is made manifest in the world.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"The quote comes from Aram Oroi, \u201cPress the button, mama!:\u201dMana and Christianity on Makira in the Solomon Islands\u201d (paper presented at the Australia and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools Conference held in Auckland, June\/July 2013). His work is cited in Alex Golub, \u201cThe History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic\u201d The Appendix 2 no. 2 (2014) http:\/\/theappendix.net\/issues\/2014\/4\/the-history-of-mana-how-an-austronesian-concept-became-a-video-game-mechanic\" id=\"return-footnote-331-25\" href=\"#footnote-331-25\" aria-label=\"Footnote 25\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[25]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Traditionally, the ability to accumulate mana in certain locations, or in one\u2019s own body, was to become potent or successful.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Roger M. Keesing, \u201cRethinking \u2018Mana\u2019\u201d Journal of Anthropological Research 40 no. 1 (1984):137-156.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-26\" href=\"#footnote-331-26\" aria-label=\"Footnote 26\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[26]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Certain locations such as mountains or ancient sites (<em><em>marae<\/em><\/em>) have particularly strong mana. Likewise, individual behaviors, including sexual or violent acts, were traditionally viewed as ways to accumulate mana for oneself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Interestingly, the idea of <em>mana<\/em> has spread far beyond its original cultural context. In 1993, Richard Garfield incorporated the idea in the card game Magic: The Gathering. Players of the game, which has sold millions of copies since its introduction, use mana as a source of power to battle wizards and magical creatures. Mana is also a source of power in the immensely popular computer game World of Warcraft.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Alex Golub, \u201cThe History of Mana.\u201d\" id=\"return-footnote-331-27\" href=\"#footnote-331-27\" aria-label=\"Footnote 27\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[27]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> These examples do show <strong>cultural appropriation<\/strong>, the act of copying an idea from another culture and in the process distorting its meaning. However, they also demonstrate how compelling animist ideas about abstract supernatural power are across cultures. Another well-known example of animism in popular culture is \u201cthe Force\u201d depicted in the George Lucas <em><em>Star Wars<\/em><\/em> films. The Force is depicted as flowing through everything and is used by Luke Skywalker as a source of potency and insight when he destroys the Death Star.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Spirits<\/h4>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The line between the natural and the supernatural can be blurry. Many people believe that humans have a supernatural or spiritual element that coexists within their natural bodies. In Christianity, this element is called the soul. In Hinduism, it is the <em>atman<\/em>.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Jack David Eller, Introducing Anthropology of Religion.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-28\" href=\"#footnote-331-28\" aria-label=\"Footnote 28\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[28]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0The Taus\u016bg, a group who live in the Philippines, believe that the soul has four parts: a transcendent soul that stays in the spiritual realm even when a person is alive; a life-soul that is attached to the body, but can move through dreams; the breath, which is always attached to the body, and the spirit-soul, which is like a person\u2019s shadow.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Thomas M. Kiefer, The Taus\u016bg: Violence and Law in a Philippine Moslem Society (New York: Holt Rinehart, 1972).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-29\" href=\"#footnote-331-29\" aria-label=\"Footnote 29\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[29]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Many people believe that the spirit survives after an individual dies, sometimes remaining on Earth and sometimes departing for a supernatural realm. Spirits, or \u201cghosts,\u201d who remain on Earth may continue to play an active role in the lives of their families and communities. Some will be well-intentioned and others will be malevolent. Almost universally, spirits of the deceased are assumed to be needy and to make demands on the living. For this reason, many cultures have traditions for the veneration of the dead, rituals intended to honor the deceased, or to win their favor or cooperation. When treated properly, ancestor spirits can be messengers to gods, and can act on behalf of the living after receiving prayers or requests. If they are displeased, ancestor spirits can become aggravated and wreak havoc on the living through illness and suffering. To avoid these problems, offerings in the form of favorite foods, drinks, and gifts are made to appease the spirits. In China, as well as in many other countries, <strong>filial piety<\/strong> requires that the living continue to care for the ancestors.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Charles Ikels, Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.)\" id=\"return-footnote-331-30\" href=\"#footnote-331-30\" aria-label=\"Footnote 30\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[30]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0In Madagascar, where bad luck and misfortune can be attributed to spirits of the dead who believe they have been neglected, a body may be repeatedly exhumed and shown respect by cleaning the bones.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"\u201cMadagascar\u2019s Dance with the Dead,\u201d BBC, http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/programmes\/from_our_own_correspondent\/7562898.stm.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-31\" href=\"#footnote-331-31\" aria-label=\"Footnote 31\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[31]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_321\" style=\"width: 409px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-321\" class=\"wp-image-321 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164020\/religion_figure_3-e1512756602834.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"399\" height=\"374\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-321\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em><strong>Figure 3:<\/strong><\/em> A spirit house in Thailand. The houses provide shelter for local spirits that could trouble humans if they become displeased.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"_idGenObjectLayout-1\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"Normal\">If humans contain a supernatural spirit, essence, or soul, it is logical to think that non-human entities may have their own sparks of the divine. Religions based on the idea that plants, animals, inanimate objects, and even natural phenomena like weather have a spiritual or supernatural element are called <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">animism<\/span><\/strong>. The first anthropological description of animism came from Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, who believed it was the earliest type of religious practice to develop in human societies.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-32\" href=\"#footnote-331-32\" aria-label=\"Footnote 32\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[32]<\/sup><\/a>Tylor suggested that ordinary parts of the human experience, such as dreaming, formed the basis for spiritual beliefs. When people dream, they may perceive that they have traveled to another place, or may be able to communicate with deceased members of their families. This sense of altered consciousness gives rise to ideas that the world is more than it seems. Tylor suggested that these experiences, combined with a pressing need to answer questions about the meaning of life, were the basis for all religious systems.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Edward B. Tylor, \u201cThe Limits of Savage Religion\u201d Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21(1892): 283\u2013301.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-33\" href=\"#footnote-331-33\" aria-label=\"Footnote 33\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[33]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0He also assumed that animist religions evolved into what he viewed as more sophisticated religious systems involving a God or gods.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_326\" style=\"width: 435px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-326\" class=\"wp-image-326 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164026\/religion_figure_4-e1512756638857.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"352\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-326\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em><strong>Figure 4:<\/strong><\/em>The first Torii at he entrances to njikko Tosho-gu, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"_idGenObjectLayout-1\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Today, Tylor\u2019s views about the evolution of religion are considered misguided. No belief system is inherently more sophisticated than another. Several animist religions exist today and have millions of adherents. One of the most well-known is Shintoism, the traditional religion of Japan. Shintoism recognizes spirits known as <em><em>kami<\/em> <\/em>that exist in plants, animals, rocks, places and sometimes people. Certain locations have particularly strong connections to the kami, including mountains, forests, waterfalls, and shrines. Shinto shrines in Japan are marked by <em><em>torii <\/em><\/em>gates that mark the separation between ordinary reality and sacred space (Figure 4).<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Gods<\/h4>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The most powerful non-human spirits are gods, though in practice there is no universal definition of a \u201cgod\u201d that would be recognized by all people. In general, gods are extremely powerful and not part of nature\u2014not human, or animal. Despite their unnaturalness, many gods have personalities or qualities that are recognizable and relatable to humans. They are often anthropomorphic, imagined in human form, or <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">zoomorphic<\/span><\/strong>, imagined in animal form. In some religions, gods interact directly with humans while in others they are more remote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Anthropologists categorize belief systems organized around a God or gods using the terms monotheism and polytheism. <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Monotheistic<\/span><\/strong> religions recognize a single supreme God. The largest monotheistic religions in the world today are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Together these religions have more than 3.8 billion adherents worldwide.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Pew Research Center, \u201cThe Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050,\u201d April 2, 2015 http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2015\/04\/02\/religious-projections-2010-2050\/\" id=\"return-footnote-331-34\" href=\"#footnote-331-34\" aria-label=\"Footnote 34\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[34]<\/sup><\/a><strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Polytheistic<\/span><\/strong> religions include several gods. Hinduism, one of the world\u2019s largest polytheistic religions with more than 1 billion practitioners, has a pantheon of deities each with different capabilities and concerns.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"The characterization of Hinduism as polytheistic is contested. The deities in Hinduism can be viewed as a manifestation of Brahman, the most significant supernatural force.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-35\" href=\"#footnote-331-35\" aria-label=\"Footnote 35\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[35]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"H2\">Rules of Behavior<\/h3>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Religious beliefs are an important element of social control because these beliefs help to define acceptable behaviors as well as punishments, including supernatural consequences, for misbehavior. One well-known example are the ideas expressed in the Ten Commandments, which are incorporated in the teachings of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and prohibit behaviors such as theft, murder, adultery, dishonesty, and jealousy while also emphasizing the need for honor and respect between people. Behavior that violates the commandments brings both social disapproval from other members of the religious community and potential punishment from God.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Buddhism, the world\u2019s fourth largest religion, demonstrates the strong connection between spiritual beliefs and rules for everyday behavior. Buddhists follow the teachings of Buddha, who was an ordinary human who achieved wisdom through study and discipline. There is no God or gods in Buddhism. Instead, individuals who practice Buddhism use techniques like meditation to achieve the insight necessary to lead a meaningful life and ultimately, after many lifetimes, to achieve the goal of <em><em>nirvana<\/em><\/em>, release from suffering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Although Buddhism defies easy categorization into any anthropological category, there is an element of animatism represented by <em><em>karma<\/em><\/em>, a moral force in the universe. Individual actions have effects on one\u2019s karma. Kindness toward others, for instance, yields positive karma while acts that are disapproved in Buddhist teachings, such as killing an animal, create negative karma. The amount of positive karma a person builds-up in a lifetime is important because it will determine how the individual will be reborn. <strong>Reincarnation<\/strong><em>,<\/em> the idea that a living being can begin another life in a new body after death, is a feature of several religions. In Buddhism, the form of a human\u2019s reincarnation depends on the quality of the karma developed during life. Rebirth in a human form is considered good fortune because humans have the ability to control their own thoughts and behaviors. They can follow the Noble Eightfold Path, rules based on the teachings of Buddha that emphasize the need for discipline, restraint, humility, and kindness in every aspect of life.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Andrew Skilton, A Concise History of Buddhism (New York: Barnes and Noble Publishing, 2000).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-36\" href=\"#footnote-331-36\" aria-label=\"Footnote 36\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[36]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"H2\">Rituals and Religious Practitioners<\/h3>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The most easily observed elements of any religious belief system are rituals. Victor Turner (1972) defined ritual as \u201ca stereotyped sequence of activities &#8230; performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors\u2019 goals and interests.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Victor Turner, \u201cSymbols in African Ritual\u201d Science 179 (1972): 1100-05.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-37\" href=\"#footnote-331-37\" aria-label=\"Footnote 37\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[37]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Rituals have a concrete purpose or goal, such as a wedding ritual that results in a religiously sanctioned union between people, but rituals are also symbolic. The objects and activities involved in rituals \u201cstand in for\u201d or mean more than what they actually are. In a wedding ceremony in the United States, the white color of the wedding dress is a traditional symbol of purity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">A large amount of anthropological research has focused on identifying and interpreting religious rituals in a wide variety of communities. Although the details of these practices differ in various cultural settings, it is possible to categorize them into types based on their goals. One type of ritual is a <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">rite of passage<\/span><\/strong>, a ceremony designed to transition individuals between life stages.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Hove, UK: Psychology Press, 1960).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-38\" href=\"#footnote-331-38\" aria-label=\"Footnote 38\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[38]<\/sup><\/a> A second type of ritual is a <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">rite of intensification<\/span><\/strong>, actions designed to bring a community together, often following a period of crisis.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Eliot Dismore Chapple and Carleton Stevens Coon, Principles of Anthropology (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-39\" href=\"#footnote-331-39\" aria-label=\"Footnote 39\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[39]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0<strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Revitalization rituals<\/span><\/strong>, which also often follow periods of crisis in a community, are ambitious attempts to resolve serious problems, such as war, famine, or poverty through a spiritual or supernatural intervention.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Anthony F.C. Wallace, \u201cRevitalization Movements\u201d American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 264-281.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-40\" href=\"#footnote-331-40\" aria-label=\"Footnote 40\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[40]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Rites of Passage<\/h4>\n<p class=\"Normal\">In his original description of rites of passage, Arnold Van Gennep (1909) noted that these rituals were carried out in three distinct stages: separation, liminality, and incorporation. During the first stage, individuals are removed from their current social identity and begin preparations to enter the next stage of life. The liminal period that follows is a time in which individuals often undergo tests, trials, or activities designed to prepare them for their new social roles. In the final stage of incorporation, individuals return to the community with a new socially recognized status.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Victor W. Turner, \u201cBetwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage,\u201d The Proceedings of the New American Ethnological Society, 1964.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-41\" href=\"#footnote-331-41\" aria-label=\"Footnote 41\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[41]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Rites of passage that transition children into a new status as adults are common around the world. In Xhosa communities in South Africa, teenage boys were traditionally transitioned to manhood using a series of acts that moved them through each of the three ritual stages. In the separation stage, the boys leave their homes and are circumcised; they cannot express distress or signs of pain during the procedure. Following the circumcision, they live in isolation while their wounds heal, a liminal phase during which they do not talk to anyone other than boys who are also undergoing the rite of passage. This stressful time helps to build bonds between the boys that will follow them through their lives as adult men. Before their journey home, the isolated living quarters are burned to the ground, symbolizing the loss of childhood. When the participants return to their community, the incorporation phase, they are recognized as men and allowed to learn the secret stories of the community.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Casey Golomski, \u201cRites of Passage: 1900\u2019s to Present: Africa,\u201d in Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, &amp; Africa: An Encyclopedia (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2012).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-42\" href=\"#footnote-331-42\" aria-label=\"Footnote 42\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[42]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Rites of Intensification<\/h4>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Rites of intensification are also extremely common in communities worldwide. These rituals are used to bind members of the community together, to create a sense of <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">communitas<\/span> <\/strong>or unity that encourages people to see themselves as members of community. One particularly dramatic example of this ritual is the Nagol <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=l0Mq6rCfYtU\"><span class=\"Hyperlink\">land diving<\/span><\/a> ceremony held each spring on the island of Pentecost in Vanuatu in the South Pacific. Like many rituals, land diving has several goals. One of these is to help ensure a good harvest by impressing the spirits with a dramatic display of bravery. To accomplish this, men from the community construct wooden towers sixty to eighty feet high, tie ropes made from tree vines around their ankles, and jump head-first toward theground (Figure 5). Preparations for the land diving involve almost every member of the community. Men spend a month or more working together to build the tower and collect the vines. The women of the community prepare special costumes and dances for the occasion and everyone takes care of land divers who may be injured during the dive. Both the preparations for the land diving and the festivities that follow are a powerful rite of intensification. Interestingly, the ritual is simultaneously a rite of passage; boys can be recognized as men by jumping from high portions of the tower witnessed by elders of the community.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"For more information see Marc Tabani, \u201cThe Carnival of Custom: Land Dives, Millenarian Parades and Other Spectacular Ritualizations in Vanuatu\u201d Oceania 80 no. 3 (2010): 309\u2013329.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-43\" href=\"#footnote-331-43\" aria-label=\"Footnote 43\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[43]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_329\" style=\"width: 435px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-329\" class=\"wp-image-329 size-full aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2795\/2017\/12\/06164031\/religion_figure_5-e1512756665988.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"268\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-329\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em><strong>Figure 5:<\/strong><\/em> Land diving on Pentecost Island, Vanatu.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Rites of Revitalization<\/h4>\n<p class=\"Normal\">All rites of revitalization originate in difficult or even catastrophic circumstances. One notable example is a ritual that developed on the island of Tanna in the South Pacific. During World War II, many islands in the South Pacific were used by the U.S. military as temporary bases. Tanna was one of these locations and this formerly isolated community experienced an extremely rapid transformation as the U.S. military introduced modern conveniences such as electricity and automobiles. In an attempt to make sense of these developments, the island\u2019s residents developed a variety of theories about the reason for these changes. One possible explanation was that the foreign materials had been given to the islanders by a powerful deity or ancestral spirit, an entity who eventually acquired the name John Frum. The name may be based on a common name the islanders would have encountered while the military base was in operation: \u201cJohn from America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">When the war ended and the U.S. military departed, the residents of Tanna experienced a kind of trauma as the material goods they had enjoyed disappeared and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LMO7Yo4PM8U\"><span class=\"Hyperlink\">John Frum ritual began<\/span><\/a>. Each year on February fifteenth, many of the island\u2019s residents construct copies of U.S. airplanes, runways, or towers and march in military formation with replicas of military rifles and American blue jeans. The ritual is intended to attract John Frum, and the material wealth he controls, back to the island. Although the ritual has not yet had its intended transformative effect, the participants continue the ritual. When asked to explain his continued faith, one village elder explained: \u201cYou Christians have been waiting 2,000 years for Jesus to return to Earth, and you haven\u2019t given up hope.\u201d<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Paul Raffaele, \u201cIn John They Trust,\u201d Smithsonian Magazine, http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/people-places\/in-john-they-trust-109294882\/.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-44\" href=\"#footnote-331-44\" aria-label=\"Footnote 44\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[44]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This John Frum custom is sometimes called a <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">cargo cult<\/span><\/strong>, a term used to describe rituals that seek to attract material prosperity. Although the John Frum ritual is focused on commodities, or \u201ccargo,\u201d the term cargo cult is generally not preferred by anthropologists because it oversimplifies the complex motivations involved in the ritual. The word \u201ccult\u201d also has connotations with fringe or dangerous beliefs and this association also distorts understanding of the practice.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"H3\">Religious Practitioners<\/h4>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Since rituals can be extremely complicated and the outcome is of vital importance to the community, specialist practitioners are often charged with responsibility for supervising the details. In many settings, religious specialists have a high social status and are treated with great respect. Some may become relatively wealthy by charging for their services while others may be impoverished, sometimes deliberately as a rejection of the material world. There is no universal terminology for religious practitioners, but there are three important categories: priests, prophets, and shamans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\"><strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Priests<\/span><\/strong>, who may be of any gender, are full-time religious practitioners. The position of priest emerges only in societies with substantial occupational specialization. Priests are the intermediaries between God (or the gods) and humans. Religious traditions vary in terms of the qualifications required for individuals entering the priesthood. In Christian traditions, it is common for priests to complete a program of formal higher education. Hindu priests, known as <em><em>pujari<\/em><\/em>, must learn the sacred language Sanskrit and spend many years becoming proficient in Hindu ceremonies. They must also follow strict lifestyle restrictions such as a vegetarian diet. Traditionally, only men from the Brahmin caste were eligible to become pujari, but this is changing. Today, people from other castes, as well as women, are joining the priesthood. One notable feature of societies that utilize full-time spiritual practitioners is a separation between ordinary believers and the God or gods. As intermediaries, priests have substantial authority to set the rules associated with worship practice and to control access to religious rites.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Victor W. Turner, \u201cReligious Specialists,\u201d International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 13(1972): 437-444.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-45\" href=\"#footnote-331-45\" aria-label=\"Footnote 45\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[45]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The term <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">shaman<\/span><\/strong> has been used for hundreds of years to refer to a part time religious practitioner. Shamans carry out religious rituals when needed, but also participate in the normal work of the community. A shaman\u2019s religious practice depends on an ability to engage in direct communication with the spirits, gods, or supernatural realm. An important quality of a shaman is the ability to transcend normal reality in order to communicate with and perhaps even manipulate supernatural forces in an alternate world. This ability can be inherited or learned.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Piers Vitebsky, \u201cShamanism,\u201d Indigenous Religions: A Companion, ed. Graham Harvey(New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2000).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-46\" href=\"#footnote-331-46\" aria-label=\"Footnote 46\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[46]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Transcending from the ordinary to the spiritual realm gives shamans the ability to do many things such as locate lost people or animals or heal the sick by identifying the spiritual cause of illness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Among the Chukchi, who live in northern Russia, the role of the shaman is thought to be a special calling, one that may be especially appropriate for people whose personality traits seem abnormal in the context of the community. Young people who suffer from nervousness, anxiety, or moodiness, for example may feel a call to take up shamanistic practice.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Waldemar G. Bogoras, The Chukchi of Northeastern Asia American Anthropologist 3 no. 1(1901):80-108.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-47\" href=\"#footnote-331-47\" aria-label=\"Footnote 47\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[47]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> There has been some research suggesting that shamanism may be a culturally accepted way to deal with conditions like schizophrenia.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Rick Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule (South Paris, ME: Park Street Press, 2000).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-48\" href=\"#footnote-331-48\" aria-label=\"Footnote 48\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[48]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> If true, this might be because achieving an altered state of consciousness is essential for shamanic work. Entering an altered state, which can be achieved through dreams, hallucinogenic drugs, rhythmic music, exhaustion through dance, or other means, makes it possible for shamans to directly engage with the supernatural realm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Shamans of the upper Amazon in South America have been using <em><em>ayahuasca<\/em><\/em>, a drink made from plants that have hallucinogenic effects, for centuries. The effects of ayahuasca start with the nervous system:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"Quotation\">One under the control of the narcotic sees unroll before him quite a spectacle: most lovely landscapes, monstrous animals, vipers which approach and wind down his body or are entwined like rolls of thick cable, at a few centimeters distance; as well, one sees who are true friends and those who betray him or who have done him ill; he observes the cause of the illness which he sustains, at the same time being presented with the most advantageous remedy; he takes part in fantastic hunts; the things which he most dearly loves or abhors acquire in these moments extraordinary vividness and color, and the scenes in which his life normally develop adopt the most beautiful and emotional expression.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Avencio Villarejo, Asi es la selva (Lima, Peru: Centro de Estudios Teologicos de la Amazonia, 1988).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-49\" href=\"#footnote-331-49\" aria-label=\"Footnote 49\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[49]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Among the Shipibo people of Peru, ayahuasca is thought to be the substance that allows the soul of a shaman to leave his body in order to retrieve a soul that has been lost or stolen. In many cultures, soul loss is the predominant explanation for illness. The Shipibo believe that the soul is a separate entity from the body, one that is capable of leaving and returning at will. Shamans can also steal souls. The community shaman, under the influence of ayahuasca, is able to find and retrieve a soul, perhaps even killing the enemy as revenge.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Robert L. Carneiro, \u201cThe Amahuaca and the Spirit World\u201d Ethnology 3(1964): 6-11.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-50\" href=\"#footnote-331-50\" aria-label=\"Footnote 50\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[50]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Anthropologist Scott Hutson (2000) has described similarities between the altered state of consciousness achieved by shamans and the mental states induced during a rave, a large dance party characterized by loud music with repetitive patterns. In a rave, bright lights, exhausting dance, and sometimes the use of hallucinogenic drugs, induce similar psychological effects to shamanic trancing. Hutson argues that through the rave individuals are able to enter altered states of consciousness characterized by a \u201cself-forgetfulness\u201d and an ability to transcend the ordinary self. The DJ at these events is often called a \u201ctechno-shaman,\u201d an interesting allusion to the guiding role traditional shamans play in their cultures.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Scott R. Hutson, \u201cThe Rave: Spiritual Healing in Modern Western Subcultures,\u201d Anthropological Quarterly 73(2000): 35-49.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-51\" href=\"#footnote-331-51\" aria-label=\"Footnote 51\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[51]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">A <strong><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">prophet <\/span><\/strong>is a person who claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm and who can communicate divine messages to others. Many religious communities originated with prophecies, including Islam which is based on teachings revealed to the prophet Muhammad by God. In Christianity and Judaism, Moses is an example of a prophet who received direct revelations from God. Another example of a historically significant prophet is Joseph Smith who founded the Church of Latter Day Saints, after receiving a prophecy from an angel named Moroni who guided him to the location of a buried set of golden plates. The information from the golden plates became the basis for the Book of Mormon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The major distinction between a priest and the prophet is the source of their authority. A priest gets his or her authority from the scripture and occupational position in a formally organized religious institution. A prophet derives authority from his or her direct connection to the divine and ability to convince others of his or her legitimacy through charisma<span class=\"CharOverride-2\">.<\/span> The kind of insight and guidance prophets offer can be extremely compelling, particularly in times of social upheaval or suffering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">One prophet who had enormous influence was David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, a schism of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The Branch Davidians were <strong>millenarians<\/strong>, people who believe that major transformations of the world are imminent. David Koresh was extremely charismatic; he was handsome and an eloquent speaker. He offered refuge and solace to people in need and in the process he preached about the coming of an apocalypse, which he believed would be caused by the intrusion of the United States government on the Branch Davidian\u2019s lifestyle. Koresh was so influential that when the United States government did eventually try to enter the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993 to search for illegal weapons, members of the group resisted and exchanged gunfire with federal agents. Eventually, under circumstances that are still disputed, a fire erupted in the compound and eighty-six people, including Koresh, were killed.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Kenneth G.C. Newport, The Branch Davidians of Waco: The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Movement (London: Oxford University Press, 2006).\" id=\"return-footnote-331-52\" href=\"#footnote-331-52\" aria-label=\"Footnote 52\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[52]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Ultimately, the U.S. government helped to fulfill the apocalyptic vision of the group and David Koresh became a martyr. The Branch Davidians evolved into a new group, \u201cBranch, Lord our Righteousness,\u201d and today many await Koresh\u2019s return.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"John Burnett, \u201cTwo Decades Later: Some Branch Davidians Still Believe,\u201d National Public Radio http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2013\/04\/20\/178063471\/two-decades-later-some-branch-davidians-still-believe.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-53\" href=\"#footnote-331-53\" aria-label=\"Footnote 53\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[53]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"H1\">CONCLUSION<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Religion is of central importance to the lives of people in the majority of the world\u2019s cultures; more than eight-in-ten people worldwide identify with a religious group.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Pew Research Center, \u201cThe Global Religious Landscape,\u201d December 18, 2012. http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2012\/12\/18\/global-religious-landscape-exec\/\" id=\"return-footnote-331-54\" href=\"#footnote-331-54\" aria-label=\"Footnote 54\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[54]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> However, it is also true that the number of people who say that they have no religious affiliation is growing. There are now about as many people in the world who consider themselves religiously \u201cunaffiliated\u201d as there are Roman Catholics.<span class=\"Endnote-reference _idGenCharOverride-1\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Ibid.\" id=\"return-footnote-331-55\" href=\"#footnote-331-55\" aria-label=\"Footnote 55\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[55]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This is an important reminder that religions, like culture itself, are highly dynamic and subject to constant changes in interpretation and allegiance. Anthropology offers a unique perspective for the study of religious beliefs, the way people think about the supernatural, and how the values and behaviors these beliefs inspire contribute to the lives of individuals and communities. No single set of theories or vocabulary can completely capture the richness of the religious diversity that exists in the world today, but cultural anthropology provides a toolkit for understanding the emotional, social, and spiritual contributions that religion makes to the human experience.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\n<h2 class=\"H1\"><strong>DISCUSSION QUESTIONS<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li class=\"Discussion-Questions-numbered\">This chapter describes theories about religion developed by Durkheim, Marx, and Freud. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each theory? Which theory would be the most useful if you were attempting to learn about the religious beliefs of another culture?<\/li>\n<li class=\"Discussion-Questions-numbered\">Rites of passage and rites of intensification are an important part of many religious traditions, but these same rituals also exist in secular (non-religious) contexts. What are some examples of these rituals in your own community? What role do these rituals play in bringing people together?<\/li>\n<li class=\"Discussion-Questions-numbered\">Durkheim argued that a distinction between the sacred and the profane was a key characteristic of religion. Thinking about your own culture, what are some examples of ideas or objects that are considered \u201csacred\u201d? What are the rules concerning how these objects or ideas should be treated? What are the penalties for people who do not follow these rules?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\n<h3>GLossary<\/h3>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Animatism<\/span>: a religious system organized around a belief in an impersonal supernatural force.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Animism:<\/span> a religious system organized around a belief that plants, animals, inanimate objects, or natural phenomena have a spiritual or supernatural element.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Anthropomorphic:<\/span> an object or being that has human characteristics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Cargo cult<\/span>: a term sometimes used to describe rituals that seek to attract material prosperity. The term is generally not preferred by anthropologists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Collective effervescence: <\/span>the passion or energy that arises when groups of people share the same thoughts and emotions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Cosmology<\/span>: an explanation for the origin or history of the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Cultural appropriation<\/span>: the act of copying an idea from another culture and in the process distorting its meaning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Filial piety<\/span>: a tradition requiring that the young provide care for the elderly and in some cases ancestral spirits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Magic<\/span>: practices intended to bring supernatural forces under one\u2019s personal control.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Millenarians: <\/span>people who believe that major transformations of the world are imminent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Monotheistic<\/span>: religious systems that recognize a single supreme God.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Polytheistic<\/span>: religious systems that recognize several gods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Priests<\/span>: full-time religious practitioners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Profane<\/span>: objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or contempt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Prophet: <\/span>a person who claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm and who can communicate divine messages to others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Reincarnation: <\/span>the idea that a living being can begin another life in a new body after death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Religion<\/span>: the extension of human society and culture to include the supernatural.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Revitalization rituals<\/span>: attempts to resolve serious problems, such as war, famine or poverty through a spiritual or supernatural intervention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Rite of intensification<\/span>: actions designed to bring a community together, often following a period of crisis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Rite of passage<\/span>: a ceremony designed to transition individuals between life stages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Sacred<\/span>: objects or ideas are set apart from the ordinary and treated with great respect or care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Shaman<\/span>: a part time religious practitioner who carries out religious rituals when needed, but also participates in the normal work of the community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Sorcerer<\/span>: an individual who seeks to use magic for his or her own purposes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Supernatural: <\/span>describes entities or forces not governed by natural laws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Glossary\"><span class=\"CharOverride-2\">Zoomorphic<\/span>: an object or being that has animal characteristics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\n<h2 class=\"H1\">ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/h2>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Sashur Henninger-Rener is an anthropologist with research in the fields of comparative religion and psychological anthropology. She received a Master of Arts from Columbia University in the City of New York in Anthropology and has since been researching and teaching. Currently, Sashur is teaching with The University of LaVerne and the Los Angeles Community College District in the fields of Cultural and Biological Anthropology. In her free time, Sashur enjoys traveling the world, visiting archaeological and cultural sites along the way. She and her husband are actively involved in animal rescuing, hoping to eventually found their own animal rescue for animals that are waiting to find homes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"Endnote-text\">\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-331\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Edited by Nina Brown, Laura Tubelle de Gonzalez, and Thomas McIlwraith. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: American Anthropological Association. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/perspectives.americananthro.org\/\">http:\/\/perspectives.americananthro.org\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section><hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-331-1\">See Jean Clottes,<em> Cave Art<\/em> (London: Phaidon, 2010) <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-2\">O. Soffer, J. M. Adovasio, and D. C. Hyland \u201cThe \u2018Venus\u2019 Figurines: Textiles, Basketry, Gender, and Status in the Upper Paleolithic\u201d <em>Current Anthropology<\/em> 41 n. 4 (2000):511-537. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-2\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 2\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-3\">James Frazer, <em>The Golden Bough<\/em> (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1958[1890]),vii. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-3\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 3\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-4\">Edward B. Tylor, <em>Primitive Culture<\/em> (London: John Murray, 1871). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-4\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 4\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-5\">Emile Durkheim, <em>The Elementary Forms of Religious Life<\/em>, tr. Joseph R. Swain (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1965[1915]), 62. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-5\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 5\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-6\"> Jack David Eller, Introducing Anthropology of Religion (New York: Rouledge, 2007), 9. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-6\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 6\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-7\">Ibid. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-7\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 7\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-8\">Marcel Mauss,<em> A General Theory of Magic<\/em> (London, Routledge, 1972[1902]), 24. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-8\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 8\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-9\">Marcel Mauss, <em>A General Theory of Magic<\/em> (London, Routledge, 1972[1902]), 24. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-9\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 9\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-10\">Bronislaw Malinowski, \u201cRational Mastery by Man of his Surroundings,\u201d in <em>Magic, Science, &amp; Religion<\/em> (New York: McGraw Hill, 1955). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-10\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 10\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-11\">George Gmelch, \u201cBaseball Magic\u201d <em>Transaction<\/em> 8(1971): 39-41. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-11\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 11\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-12\"> Emile Durkheim, <em>Elementary Forms of Religious Life<\/em> (New York: The Free Press, 1912). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-12\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 12\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-13\">Ibid. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-13\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 13\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-14\">Kenneth D. Allan, <em>Explorations in Classic Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World<\/em>, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2005). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-14\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 14\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-15\">Mary Douglas, <em>Purity and Danger<\/em> (London: Routledge, 1966). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-15\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 15\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-16\">Karl Marx, <em>Critique of Hegel\u2019s Philosophy of Right<\/em> (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970[1844]). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-16\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 16\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-17\"> Charles Rycroft, <em>A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis<\/em> (London: Puffin Press, 1995). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-17\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 17\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-18\">Sigmund Freud, <em>Totem and Taboo<\/em> (New York: W.W. Norton &amp; Company, 1950). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-18\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 18\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-19\">Marvin Harris, <em>Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture<\/em> (New York: Random House, 1974). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-19\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 19\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-20\">Clifford Geertz, \u201cReligion as a Cultural System,\u201d in <em>The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays<\/em>, ed. Clifford Geertz, 87-125 (London: Fontana Press, 1993), 90-91. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-20\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 20\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-21\">Sam D. Gill, <em>Sacred Words: A Study of Navajo Religion and Prayer<\/em> (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 1981), 52. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-21\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 21\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-22\">Gen. 1:21 NASB <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-22\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 22\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-23\">Gen. 1:27 NASB <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-23\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 23\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-24\">Bronislaw Malinowski, <em>Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays<\/em> (Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1984[1926]), 199 <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-24\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 24\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-25\">The quote comes from Aram Oroi, \u201cPress the button, mama!:\u201dMana and Christianity on Makira in the Solomon Islands\u201d (paper presented at the Australia and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools Conference held in Auckland, June\/July 2013). His work is cited in Alex Golub, \u201cThe History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic\u201d <em>The Appendix 2<\/em> no. 2 (2014) http:\/\/theappendix.net\/issues\/2014\/4\/the-history-of-mana-how-an-austronesian-concept-became-a-video-game-mechanic <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-25\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 25\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-26\">Roger M. Keesing, \u201cRethinking \u2018Mana\u2019\u201d <em>Journal of Anthropological Research<\/em> 40 no. 1 (1984):137-156. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-26\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 26\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-27\">Alex Golub, \u201cThe History of Mana.\u201d <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-27\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 27\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-28\">Jack David Eller, <em>Introducing Anthropology of Religion<\/em>. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-28\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 28\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-29\">Thomas M. Kiefer, <em>The Taus\u016bg: Violence and Law in a Philippine Moslem Society<\/em> (New York: Holt Rinehart, 1972). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-29\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 29\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-30\">Charles Ikels, <em>Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia<\/em> (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.) <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-30\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 30\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-31\"> \u201cMadagascar\u2019s Dance with the Dead,\u201d BBC, http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/programmes\/from_our_own_correspondent\/7562898.stm. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-31\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 31\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-32\">Edward B. Tylor, <em>Primitive Culture<\/em>. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-32\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 32\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-33\">Edward B. Tylor, \u201cThe Limits of Savage Religion\u201d Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21(1892): 283\u2013301. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-33\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 33\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-34\">Pew Research Center, \u201cThe Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050,\u201d April 2, 2015 http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2015\/04\/02\/religious-projections-2010-2050\/ <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-34\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 34\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-35\">The characterization of Hinduism as polytheistic is contested. The deities in Hinduism can be viewed as a manifestation of Brahman, the most significant supernatural force. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-35\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 35\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-36\">Andrew Skilton, <em>A Concise History of Buddhism<\/em> (New York: Barnes and Noble Publishing, 2000). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-36\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 36\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-37\">Victor Turner, \u201cSymbols in African Ritual\u201d <em>Science<\/em> 179 (1972): 1100-05. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-37\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 37\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-38\">Arnold Van Gennep, <em>The Rites of Passage<\/em> (Hove, UK: Psychology Press, 1960). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-38\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 38\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-39\">Eliot Dismore Chapple and Carleton Stevens Coon, <em>Principles of Anthropology<\/em> (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-39\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 39\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-40\">Anthony F.C. Wallace, \u201cRevitalization Movements\u201d<em> American Anthropologist<\/em> 58 (1956): 264-281. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-40\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 40\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-41\">Victor W. Turner, \u201cBetwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage,\u201d <em>The Proceedings of the New American Ethnological Society<\/em>, 1964. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-41\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 41\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-42\">Casey Golomski, \u201cRites of Passage: 1900\u2019s to Present: Africa,\u201d in <em>Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, &amp; Africa: An Encyclopedia<\/em> (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2012). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-42\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 42\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-43\">For more information see Marc Tabani, \u201cThe Carnival of Custom: Land Dives, Millenarian Parades and Other Spectacular Ritualizations in Vanuatu\u201d <em>Oceania<\/em> 80 no. 3 (2010): 309\u2013329. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-43\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 43\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-44\">Paul Raffaele, \u201cIn John They Trust,\u201d Smithsonian Magazine,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/people-places\/in-john-they-trust-109294882\/\"> http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/people-places\/in-john-they-trust-109294882\/<\/a>. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-44\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 44\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-45\">Victor W. Turner, \u201cReligious Specialists,\u201d <em>International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences<\/em>, 13(1972): 437-444. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-45\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 45\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-46\">Piers Vitebsky, \u201cShamanism,\u201d<em> Indigenous Religions: A Companion<\/em>, ed. Graham Harvey(New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2000). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-46\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 46\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-47\">Waldemar G. Bogoras, The Chukchi of Northeastern Asia American Anthropologist 3 no. 1(1901):80-108. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-47\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 47\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-48\">Rick Strassman, <em>DMT: The Spirit Molecule<\/em> (South Paris, ME: Park Street Press, 2000). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-48\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 48\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-49\">Avencio Villarejo, <em>Asi es la selva<\/em> (Lima, Peru: Centro de Estudios Teologicos de la Amazonia, 1988). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-49\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 49\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-50\">Robert L. Carneiro, \u201cThe Amahuaca and the Spirit World\u201d <em>Ethnology<\/em> 3(1964): 6-11. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-50\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 50\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-51\">Scott R. Hutson, \u201cThe Rave: Spiritual Healing in Modern Western Subcultures,\u201d <em>Anthropological Quarterly<\/em> 73(2000): 35-49. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-51\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 51\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-52\">Kenneth G.C. Newport, <em>The Branch Davidians of Waco: The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Movement<\/em> (London: Oxford University Press, 2006). <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-52\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 52\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-53\">John Burnett, \u201cTwo Decades Later: Some Branch Davidians Still Believe,\u201d National Public Radio<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2013\/04\/20\/178063471\/two-decades-later-some-branch-davidians-still-believe\"> http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2013\/04\/20\/178063471\/two-decades-later-some-branch-davidians-still-believe<\/a>. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-53\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 53\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-54\">Pew Research Center, \u201cThe Global Religious Landscape,\u201d December 18, 2012. http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2012\/12\/18\/global-religious-landscape-exec\/ <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-54\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 54\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-331-55\">Ibid. <a href=\"#return-footnote-331-55\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 55\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":311,"menu_order":11,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology\",\"author\":\"Edited by Nina Brown, Laura Tubelle de Gonzalez, and Thomas McIlwraith\",\"organization\":\"American Anthropological Association\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/perspectives.americananthro.org\/\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-nc\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-331","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/331\/revisions\/757"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/331\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-culturalanthropology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}