Carole M Cusack
Biographic Data
| ID | 1059893 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carole M Cusack |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carole M |
| FAMILY NAME | Cusack |
| SIGNATURE | CUSACK C M |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1940-3913 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 117 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 115 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Religion and Change in Australia, by Adam Possamai and David Tittensor
Religion and Change in Australia, by Adam Possamai and David Tittensor. London and New York: Routledge, 2022. AU$67.99. Pb. xv + 213pp. ISBN: 9781032186030
Sexual Abuse in Religion, by Marta Trzebiatowska and Steve Bruce
Sexual Abuse in Religion, by Marta Trzebiatowska and Steve Bruce. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. eBook. x + 267 pp. €45.00. ISBN: 9783032049919
Intentional Transformative Experiences: Theorizing Self-Cultivation in Religion and Esotericism
Intentional Transformative Experiences: Theorizing Self-Cultivation in Religion and Esotericism, edited by Sarah Perez, Bastian van Rijn and Jens Schlieter. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024. Open Access eBook. viii + 330 pp. ISBN: 9783110909883
The Appeal of Stones Standing in the Landscape: Monuments Old and New as Sites of Ritual and Re-enchantment
The megalithic monuments of Europe fascinate moderns, and many imitations have been built in the Old and New Worlds. Imitation megaliths built in European colonies that have no comparable historical sites (like America and Australia) can exercise an attraction similar, if not identical, to that of the originals. The construction of these monuments is a contemporary re-enchantment of the landscape, which renders it especially appropriate for ritua…
Iconophages: A History of Ingesting Images, by Jérémie Koering
Iconophages: A History of Ingesting Images, by Jérémie Koering, trans. Nicholas Huckle. Zone Books, 2024. Hb. 480 pp. $54.12. ISBN: 9781890951276
Islam and Pseudoscience, by Stefano Bigliardi
Islam and Pseudoscience, by Stefano Bigliardi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025. Ebook. 76 pp. AU$34.95. ISBN: 9781009608213 (Pb.); 9781009608237 (ebook)
Animation Between Magic, Miracles and Mechanics: Principles of Life in Medieval Imagery, by Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen, Laura Katrine Skinnebach, and Henning Laugerud (eds.)
Animation Between Magic, Miracles and Mechanics: Principles of Life in Medieval Imagery, by Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen, Laura Katrine Skinnebach, and Henning Laugerud (eds.). Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2023. Hb. 295 pp. US$94.68. ISBN: 9788772196534
Queens of the Wild: Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe, by Ronald Hutton
Queens of the Wild: Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe, by Ronald Hutton. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2022. Hb. x + 245 pp. US$86.95. ISBN: 9780300261011
The Cosmic Movement: Sources, Contexts, Impact, by Julie Chajes and Boaz Huss (eds.)
The Cosmic Movement: Sources, Contexts, Impact, by Julie Chajes and Boaz Huss (eds.). Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2020. eBook. 538 pp. ₪78. ISBN: 9789655363197
America’s Forgotten Muslims: The Untold Story of Professor Ezaldeen and the Hamitic-Arabs of America, by Fathie bin Ali Abdat
America’s Forgotten Muslims: The Untold Story of Professor Ezaldeen and the Hamitic-Arabs of America, by Fathie bin Ali Abdat. Magribine Press, 2024. ePDF. 630 pp. ISBN: 9798334661158
Relating with More-than-Humans: Interbeing Rituality in a Living World, edited by Jean Chamel and Yael Dansac
Relating with More-than-Humans: Interbeing Rituality in a Living World, edited by Jean Chamel and Yael Dansac. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. ePDF. xiv + 253 pp. ISBN: 978-3-031-10294-3
Esotericism and Religious Studies: Historical Relationships and Contemporary Challenges
The emergence of the academic study of Esotericism was closely linked to both Religious Studies and Sociology. In the 1970s sociologists Colin Campbell, Marcello Truzzi, Edward A. Tiryakian, and Patricia A. Hartman, with historian of religion Mircea Eliade, wrote pioneering studies on occult and esoteric subjects. These initially marginal works gained traction in the study of new religious movements ( NRM s) and of non-religious subcultures. The …
Editor’s Preface
This is the sixth issue of Journal of Daesoon Thought and the Religions of East Asia in our fourth year of publication.It feels that the culture the publisher Daejin Academy of Sciences (DAOS) and the Editorial Board have sought to build through this new publication and the annual JDTREA Conference that serves as an incubator for articles featured in JDTREA have matured.JDTREA continues to build a global readership with interest in Asian religion…
New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion, by Olav Hammer and Karen Swartz-Hammer
New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion, by Olav Hammer and Karen Swartz-Hammer. Cambridge Elements. 2024. Pb. 72pp. $20.00. ISBN-13: 978-1-009-50074-6 (Hb.); 978-1-009-01459-5 (Pb.)
New Religious Movements: The Basics, by Joseph P. Laycock
New Religious Movements: The Basics, by Joseph P. Laycock. Routledge, 2022. ebook. 146pp. $14.99. ISBN-13: 978-1-032-10207-8 (Hb.); 978-1-032-10208-5 (Pb.); 978-1-003-21421-2 (eBook)
Wulfila, the Gothic Bible, and the Mission to the Goths: Rethinking the 'Apostle to the Goths' in Terms of Homoian Theology, Conversion as a Strategy of Empire, and Fourth Century Social and Cultural …
Wulfila (c. 311-c. 383) translated the Bible into Gothic, creating the first literary text in a Germanic language. His biography is contested; his parentage, place of birth, episcopal consecration, and theological position are all disputed. The fourth century saw heated debates about the Trinity, and the Goths were often termed 'Arians', despite the fact that the teachings of the African presbyter Arius (c. 256-336) were not directly transmitted …
Editor’s Preface
This new issue of the Journal of Daesoon Thought and the Religions of East Asia is the fourth to date, and it has been a privilege to be associated with this ground-breaking Korean journal and to participate in its growth and academic development.That the focus is equally on the Korean new religion of Daesoon Jinrihoe and the contemporary religious climate of East Asia is a particular strength: the richness and diversity of new religions in Asia …
Editor’s Preface
The Religion of Falun Gong, by Benjamin Penny
The Religion of Falun Gong, by Benjamin Penny, University of Chicago Press, 2012. 272pp. Hb. US$62.00, ISBN-13: 9780226655017; PDF US$62.00, ISBN-13: 9780226655024; ePub US$62.00, ISBN-13: 9780226655024
Slavic Gods and Heroes by Judith Kalik and Alexander Uchitel
Slavic Gods and Heroes by Judith Kalik and Alexander Uchitel. Routledge, 2019. 198pp., Hb. US$136.00, ISBN-13: 9781138493193; Pb. US$52.95, ISBN-13: 9780367588649; eBook, US$52.95, 9781351028707
Developing Magical Consciousness: A Theoretical and Practical Guide for the Expansion of Perception
In Developing Magical Consciousness: A Theoretical and Practical Guide for the Expansion of Perception, Susan Greenwood aims to bridge the gulf between Indigenous worldviews and the scientific worldview of the West to offer “an alternative mythological framework for developing Western magical perception” (1) and to exemplify how to develop magical perception. She argues that such perception is a rejected or marginalized form of knowledge in post-…
Religion and Celebrity
The English word “celebrity” is derived from Latin “celeber,” which meant frequented or honored. The modern phenomenon of celebrity has been traced to the mid‐eighteenth century, when it emerged from a confluence of material consumption, the invention of the fashion industry, and the mass‐circulation newspaper. Celebrity entwined with spectacle to separate the image of the famed person from their real existence, and by the twenty‐first century th…
Editor’s Preface
The first contribution is by Don Baker (University of British Columbia, Canada), and is titled "Introducing Daesoon Philosophy to the West."This article traces the complexities of cross-cultural communication, taking as its subject matter how Western people might be brought to an understanding of the "quintessentially Korean" content of Daesoon Jinrihoe.This article covers important content regarding the universality of some religions' messages, …
Editor’s Preface
The publication of the first issue of Journal of Daesoon Thought and the Religions of East Asia (JDTREA) in late 2021 was an important scholarly moment of pride for Daejin University and the Daesoon Academy of Sciences as academic institutions, and also for Daesoon Jinrihoe, South Korea's largest new religious movement.For me as Editor, it signalled the start of an enterprise that will contribute significantly to the emergent body of research in …
Scriptures in the Study of G. I. Gurdjieff and the “Work”
.
Play, narrative and the creation of religion: Extending the theoretical base of 'invented religions
What may be termed 'invented religions', self-consciously fictive movements that emerge from alternative subcultures in the West from the 1950s to the present include Discordianism, the Church of all Worlds, the Church of the SubGenius, Jediism and Matrixism. This study employs the model of origin and development of religion from Bellah [Bellah, Robert N. 2011. Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. Cambridge, MA: The…
Ritual, Liminality and Transformation: Secular spirituality in Sydney's gay bathhouses
In the twentieth century religion was radically transformed, as the sacred uncoupled from the institutional Churches. This enabled the sacred to be experienced through what were previously ‘secular’ activities, including sport, rock music, psychoanalysis and sexuality. Individualism and prosperity combined to encourage a focus on personal transformation as the primary religious process. The 1960s also saw calls for self-determination and equality…
Some Recent Trends in the Study of Religion and Youth
From the beginning of the twenty‐first century there has been a sharp increase in research on the ways in which young people engage with religion and spirituality. Three trends are apparent: first, there has been a shift away from focusing on the formal processes of young people's religious socialisation and a realisation that youth exercise considerable agency in their construction of personal and group identities; second, the 1970s and 1980s as…
Spiritual Dimensions of Self-Transformation in Sydney's Gay Bathhouses
Interview-based research among patrons and proprietors of Sydney's gay bathhouses, asking about experiences of homosexual being from the 1960s to the early 1980s generated intriguing findings. Despite the apparent disconnect between traditional religious affiliation and the outlaw gay lifestyle of the bathhouses, a majority of interviewees asserted that spirituality and self-transformation was as important to them as sexual exploration and libera…
Charmed Circle: Stonehenge, Contemporary Paganism, and Alternative Archaeology
The impressive stone circle Stonehenge is understood by academic archaeologists to be a site of ritual significance to the prehistoric inhabitants of Wiltshire. It is constructed on cosmological principles based on a solar alignment, reflecting “a distinctive idea of time, which revolved around the cyclical movements of sun, moon, and stars across the heavens, as indicators of the passing seasons” (Fagan 1998:160). This article sketches mainstrea…
Prehistoric Monuments as Numinous Sites of Spiritual Tourism: The Rollright Stones
Prehistoric monuments in Britain are sites that have "drawn" people throughout history, due to their impressive size, dramatic location in the landscape, and the sense of permanence and timelessness they convey. The religious attraction of such stones for modern Pagans has been studied in some detail, particularly in terms of renowned circles like Stonehenge and Avebury, but the appeal that Neolithic monuments have for "spiritual tourists" has no…
Fiction into religion: Imagination, Other Worlds, and Play in the Formation of Community
Research into religions founded upon explicitly fictional sources is a recent development in the study of religion. Such research is social scientific in orientation and emphasises: the persuasive power of shared narratives among subcultural groups; the ‘cognitive’ methodological turn that has gained ground since the 1980s regarding the origin and function of religion; and the individualistic and affective ways that elements from traditional reli…
Introduction: Making it (all?) up – ‘invented religions’ and the study of ‘religion’
The editors of the special issue ‘Invented Religions: Creating New Religions through Fiction, Parody and Play’ outline the aims of the collection and place it in the context of debates on ‘invented religions’ and the ‘invention of tradition’. We introduce key concepts employed by contributors, place the category of ‘invented religion’ in a wider constructionist context, contrast it with the seminal notion of ‘invention of tradition’ and note some…
Special Feature Introduction: The Sacred Tree
Special Feature Introduction: The Sacred Tree
Fantasy and belief: Alternative religions, popular narratives and digital cultures
Danielle Kirby's Fantasy and Belief is a re-working of her doctoral dissertation, which was submitted in 2009. The substantive foci of Religious Studies have changed considerably in the past four y
Pathways in modern Western magic
Pagan Saxon Resistance to Charlemagne’s Mission: ‘Indigenous’ Religion and ‘World’ Religion in the Early Middle Ages
What is “known” about the interplay between Paganism and Christianity in the Middle Ages grows more problematic with every new scholarly contribution. Recently it has become fashionable to assert that nothing can be known of the earlier oral tradition of Pagans, as all that remain are Christian texts written by Christian clergy who drew upon Biblical models such as Canaanite “idolatry” to depict the Paganism of medieval peoples like the Anglo-Sax…
The religion in Olympic tourism
Olympic tourism has been likened to pilgrimage [Weed, M. (2008). Olympic tourism. Oxford: Elsevier], and Olympic sites called ‘shrines’ for the ‘pious sport tourist’ [Gammon, 2004]. Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, promoted the ‘cult of the human being’ [Ruprecht, L.A. (2008). Greek exercises: The modern Olympics as Hellenic appropriation and reinvention. Thesis eleven, 93, pp. 72–87], which had distinctly religious overtones.…
The Goddess Eostre: Bede’s Text and Contemporary Pagan Tradition(s)
Modern Pagan groups often consult texts from the European Middle Ages and rely upon scholarly assessments of the authenticity of these texts and the traditions they contain. Often these texts become ‘scripture’ for Pagans and are thus vitally important for identity and community. This applies equally to Traditional and Eclectic Pagans, although they differ in their attitude to the past, the former group engaging in reconstruction where the latter…
Alister E. McGrath, Theology: The Basics.
Alister E. McGrath, Theology: The Basics, Blackwell, Oxford, 2004, pp. xxv + 162, ISBN 1405114258
Adam Possamai, In Search of New Age Spiritualities.
Adam Possamai, In Search of New Age Spiritualities. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005, pp. 160, ISBN 0754652130.
The Goddess Eostre: Bede’s Text and Contemporary Pagan Tradition(s)
Modern Pagan groups often consult texts from the European Middle Ages and rely upon scholarly assessments of the authenticity of these texts and the traditions they contain. Often these texts become ‘scripture’ for Pagans and are thus vitally important for identity and community. This applies equally to Traditional and Eclectic Pagans, although they differ in their attitude to the past, the former group engaging in reconstruction where the latter…
Eric Csapo, Theories of Mythology.
Eric Csapo, Theories of Mythology. Blackwell, Oxford, 2005, pp. xiii + 338, ISBN 0631232486 (pbk).
Konkokyo (Golden Light Teachings) and Modernity: A Test of the Faivre-Hanegraaff Six-Point Typology of Western Esotericism
Scholarly interest in Japanese new religions (shin shukyo) or newly arising religions (shinko shukyo) appears to have peaked in the 1960s when a number of book-length studies appeared. In the early twenty-first century, such movements have been marginal within the academic study of religion. This may be due to three stereotypes that were promoted in the 1960s as to the nature and function of Japanese new and ‘new new’ religions (shin shin shukyo)…
New Rights New Zealand: Myths, Moralities and Markets ‐ by Dolores Janiewski, and Paul Morris
The Western Construction of Religion: Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology ‐ by Daniel Dubuisson
Ritual, Liminality and Transformation: Secular spirituality in Sydney's gay bathhouses
In the twentieth century religion was radically transformed, as the sacred uncoupled from the institutional Churches. This enabled the sacred to be experienced through what were previously ‘secular’ activities, including sport, rock music, psychoanalysis and sexuality. Individualism and prosperity combined to encourage a focus on personal transformation as the primary religious process. The 1960s also saw calls for self-determination and equality…
Hugh B. Urban, Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism.
Hugh B. Urban, Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2006, pp. xi + 336, ISBN 978-0-520-24776-5 (Hbk). R
Douglas E. Cowan and David G. Bromley, Cults and New Religions: A Brief History.
Douglas E. Cowan and David G. Bromley, Cults and New Religions: A Brief History. Blackwell, Oxford, 2008, pp. xii + 260, ISBN 978-1-4051-6128-2 (pbk).
Religion and Retributive Logic: Essays in Honour of Professor Garry W. Trompf
Hippies of the Religious Right – By Preston Shires
Religion and the Domestication of Dissent: Or, How to Live in a Less than Perfect Nation – By Russell T. McCutcheon
Spiritual Dimensions of Self-Transformation in Sydney's Gay Bathhouses
Interview-based research among patrons and proprietors of Sydney's gay bathhouses, asking about experiences of homosexual being from the 1960s to the early 1980s generated intriguing findings. Despite the apparent disconnect between traditional religious affiliation and the outlaw gay lifestyle of the bathhouses, a majority of interviewees asserted that spirituality and self-transformation was as important to them as sexual exploration and libera…
Nancy K. Stalker, Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan.
Nancy K. Stalker, Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan. University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2008, pp. x + 265, ISBN 978-0-8248-3172-1 (hardback).
Wilburn Hansen, When Tengu Talk: Hirata Atsutane’s Ethnography of the Other World.
Wilburn Hansen, When Tengu Talk: Hirata Atsutane’s Ethnography of the Other World, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2008, pp. 268, ISBN: 978-0-8248-3209-4 (hbk).
Religion and retributive logic: Essays in honour of professor Garry W. Trompf
Troublesome Corpses: Vampires and Revenants from Antiquity to the Present - By David Keyworth
Sacred Dialogues: Christianity and Native Religions in the Colonial Americas 1492-1700 - By Nicholas Griffiths
The Lloyd Geering Reader: Prophet of Modernity - Edited by Paul Morris and Mike Grimshaw
Red Cactus: The Life of Anna Kingsford - By Alan Pert
Making Pilgrimages: Meaning and Practice in Shikoku - By Ian Reader
George Mountford Adie and Joseph Azize, George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia.
George Mountford Adie and Joseph Azize, George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia. Lighthouse Editions Limited, Cambridge, 2007, pp. xix + 309, ISBN: 978-1-904998-02-0 (Pbk).
Paul Beirne, Su-un and his World of Symbols: The Founder of Korea’s First Indigenous Religion.
Paul Beirne, Su-un and his World of Symbols: The Founder of Korea’s First Indigenous Religion. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2009, pp. xxi + 206, ISBN 978-0-04-7546-6284-6 (Hbk).
Adam Possamai, Sociology of Religion for Generations X and Y.
Adam Possamai, Sociology of Religion for Generations X and Y. Equinox Publishing Ltd, London and Oakville, 2009, pp. x + 225, ISBN: 9781845533045 (hbk), 9781845533038 (pbk).
Philosophy (67 works) · History (59 works) · Sociology (48 works) · History (40 works) · Religious studies (40 works) · Art (35 works) · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices (33 works) · Philosophy (29 works) · Theology (27 works) · Computer Science (26 works)