Hugh B Urban
Biographic Data
| ID | 455904 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hugh B Urban |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hugh B |
| FAMILY NAME | Urban |
| SIGNATURE | URBAN H B |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Ohio State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1514-7817 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 146 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 51 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Esoteric Practices in a Reflexive and Critical Perspective: Comments on the Project Description for “Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective”
This article offers some brief comments and critical reflections on the project description for “Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective.” While there is much to praise in the proposal, I make three critical suggestions regarding: its definition of esoteric practices; the social and political dimensions of esotericism in its relationship to questions of power, race, and gender; and finally, the ironic “exoterici…
Getting on With It
The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy
Islam is in many ways a very open religion, but secrecy still played a role in early Islam and in Islam’s canonical texts. Secrecy is important for Sufis, who believe that the mystical experience should be kept secret, as should some forms of knowledge, and that some Sufis have access to the secrets of the unseen. These forms of secrecy have both protected Sufis from other Muslims who do not share their beliefs and bolstered the authority of Sufi…
Modernity and Neo-Tantra
This chapter examines the complex transformations of Tantra in the context of modernity, globalization, and capitalism since the early nineteenth century. In the eyes of most European Orientalist scholars, British colonial authorities, and Christian missionaries of the Victorian era, Tantra was seen as dark path of sexual deviance and black magic. Yet for many European and American authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, suc…
Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy
Dark Webs: Tantra, Black Magic, and Cyberspace
The Knowing of Knowing: Neo-Gnosticism, from the O.T.O. to Scientology
This article traces the idea of neo-Gnosticism in a series of occult and new religious movements from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Specifically, the article examines the links between two controversial groups that both described themselves as modern forms of Gnosticism: first, the European esoteric group, the Ordo Templi Orientis, and second, the American new religion, the Church of Scientology. Founded by Theodor Reuss in Ge…
The Cradle of Tantra’: Modern Transformations of a Tantric Centre in Northeast India from Nationalist Symbol to Tourist Destination
This article examines the modern transformations of the temple of the goddess, Kāmākhyā, and her most important festival, Ambuvācī Melā, in Assam. Since at least the eighth century, Kāmākhyā has been revered as one of the most important ‘seats of power’ or centres of the goddess that dot the landscape of South Asia. However, during the last century, this temple and its festivals have undergone a series of profound transformations—first, in the co…
Afterword
The Afterword includes an interview with Bruce Lincoln, in which he is asked to reflect on the current study of religion, methods of comparison, and the political implications of academic discourse. In addition to responding to specific points in these chapters, Lincoln also fleshes out what he thinks it would mean “to do better” in the critical study of religion amid the ongoing crises of higher education today. Perhaps most importantly, he refl…
Poétique et politique de la comparaison. Jonestown, 1978: Suicide révolutionnaire ou meurtre collectif? / The Poetics and Politics of Comparison. Jonestown, 1978 : From Revolutionary Suicide to Mass M…
Urban Hugh B., Barbu Daniel. Poétique et politique de la comparaison. Jonestown, 1978: suicide révolutionnaire ou meurtre collectif? / The Poetics and Politics of Comparison. Jonestown, 1978 : From Revolutionary Suicide to Mass Murder.. In: ASDIWAL. Revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions, n°13, 2018. pp. 33-40
Pilgrimage and Politics in Colonial Bengal: The Myth of the Goddess Sati
Pilgrimage and Politics in Colonial Bengal: The Myth of the Goddess Sati." South Asian Studies, 36(1), pp. 113–114
“The Third Wall of Fire”
This article examines the role of secrecy in the Church of Scientology, focusing on one of the most confidential and least studied aspects of the Church’s advanced auditing levels—Operating Thetan VIII. I use this example as a way of highlighting the complex ethical and epistemological problems in the study of secrecy in new religions. Here, I suggest an alternative approach to the study of secrecy by shifting our gaze away from the attempt to un…
Zorba the Buddha: "Sex, Spirituality, and Capitalism in the Global Osho Movement"
This book is the first comprehensive study of the life, teachings, and following of the controversial Indian guru known in his youth as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and in his later years as Osho (1931–1990). Most Americans today remember him only as the “sex guru” and the “Rolls Royce guru,” who built a hugely successful but scandal-ridden utopian community in central Oregon during the 1980s. Yet Osho was arguably the first truly global guru of the tw…
Zorba the Buddha: Sex, Spirituality, and Capitalism in the Global Osho Movement
Zorba the Buddha is the first comprehensive study of the life, teachings, and following of the controversial Indian guru known in his youth as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and in his later years as Osho (1931–1990). Most Americans today remember him only as the “sex guru” and the “Rolls Royce guru,” who built a hugely successful but scandal-ridden utopian community in central Oregon during the 1980s. Yet Osho was arguably the first truly global guru of…
Desire, Blood, and Power: Georges Bataille and the Study of Hindu Tantra in Northeastern India
New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements: Alternative Spirituality in Contemporary America
New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements is the most extensive study to date of modern American alternative spiritual currents. Hugh B. Urban covers a range of emerging religions from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including the Nation of Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, ISKCON, Wicca, the Church of Satan, Peoples Temple, and the Branch Davidians. This essential text engages students by addressing major theoretical and methodologi…
The Occult Roots of Scientology
The Church of Scientology remains one of the most controversial and poorly understood new religious movements to emerge in the last century. And among the most controversial questions in the early history of the Church is L. Ron Hubbard's involvement in the ritual magic of Aleister Crowley and the possible role of occultism in the development of Scientology. While some critics argue that Crowley's magic lies at the very heart of Scientology, most…
Matrix of Power: Tantra, Kingship, and Sacrifice in the Worship of Mother Goddess Kāmākhyā
Because the Goddess has come to the great mountain Nīlakūa to have sexual enjoyment with me [Śiva], she is called Kāmākhyā, who resides there in secret. Because she gives love, is a loving woman, i
Secrecy and New Religious Movements: Concealment, Surveillance, and Privacy in a New Age of Information
New religious movements offer important insights into many larger issues in contemporary culture, not least of which are the issues of religious secrecy and privacy in a new age of information. However, the role of secrecy in new religious movements is neither simple nor homogeneous, but rather extremely diverse and often changing in different social, political, and historical contexts. This article outlines five major forms of religious secrecy …
Fair Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America
Journal Article Fair Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America Get access Hugh B. Urban Hugh B. Urban Hugh B. Urban is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the Department of Comparative Studies, Ohio State University, 431 Hagerty Hall, Columbus, OH 43210. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 74, Issue 2, June 2006, Pa…
Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion
Review Article| March 01 2005 Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion Hugh B. Urban Hugh B. Urban Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2005) 8 (3): 131–132. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2005.8.3.131 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite…
Spiritual Capital, Academic Capital and the Politics of Scholarship: A Response to Bradford Verter
I would first like to thank Dr. Verter for taking the trouble to read and comment on my article, Sacred Capital: Pierre Bourdieu and the Study of (Urban 2003) in his piece for Method & Theory in the Study of Religion (Verter 2004). His critique contains several good points and has forced me to take a second look at my own interpretation of Bourdieu's work and its relevance for the study of religion. However, I must say that I was frustrated to se…
The Beast with Two Backs: Aleister Crowley, Sex Magic and the Exhaustion of Modernity
Infamous for his drug use and extreme sexual practices, and proclaiming himself the “Great Beast 666,” Aleister Crowley remains to this day one of the most influential and yet most often misunderstood figures in the history of Western new religious movements. This article offers a fresh approach to Crowley, by placing him within contemporary debates about modernism and postmodernism. By no means the outcast enemy of modern Western society so ofte…
Power Still Dwells: The Ethics and Politics of Comparison in A Magic Still Dwells
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2004 Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 16, 24-35 POWER STILL DWELLS: THE ETHICS AND POLITICS OF COMPARISON IN A MAGIC STILL DWELLS H ugh B. U rban [T]he student of religion, and most particularly the historian of religion, must be relentlessly self-conscious. Indeed, this self-con- sciousness constitutes his primary expertise, his foremost object of study. Jonathan Z. Smith (1982: xi) [T]here is a significan…
Sacred Capital: Pierre Bourdieu and the Study of Religion
This article offers a critical analysis of Pierre Bourdieu's work and its importance for the study of religion. Analysis and criticim of Bourdieu's theories with reference to the example of the Bāuls, a loose, eclectic tradition of wandering minstrels and self-proclaimed spiritual "madmen", which has flourished throughout Bengal (northeast India and Bangladesh) since at least the late nineteenth century, was chosen for two reasons: first, because…
The Torment of Secrecy: Ethical and Epistemological Problems in the Study of Esoteric Traditions
Sacred Capital: Pierre Bourdieu and the Study of Religion
This article offers a critical analysis of Pierre Bourdieu's work and its importance for the study of religion. Analysis and criticim of Bourdieu's theories with reference to the example of the Bāuls, a loose, eclectic tradition of wandering minstrels and self-proclaimed spiritual "madmen", which has flourished throughout Bengal (northeast India and Bangladesh) since at least the late nineteenth century, was chosen for two reasons: first, because…
The Cult of Ecstasy: Tantrism, the New Age, and the Spiritual Logic of Late Capitalism
Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Colonial Bengal
This book is a companion volume to the author's The Economics of Ecstasy: Tantra, Secrecy, and Power in Colonial Bengal, but while The Economics of Ecstasy engages the theoretical issues of secrecy and concealment associated with the Kartābhajās — a Bengali sect devoted to Tantra, an Indian religious movement notorious for its alleged use of shocking sexual language and rituals, this book presents the first English translation of the sect's body …
New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements: Alternative Spirituality in Contemporary America
New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements is the most extensive study to date of modern American alternative spiritual currents. Hugh B. Urban covers a range of emerging religions from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including the Nation of Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, ISKCON, Wicca, the Church of Satan, Peoples Temple, and the Branch Davidians. This essential text engages students by addressing major theoretical and methodologi…
Elitism and Esotericism: Strategies of Secrecy and Power in South Indian Tantra and French Freemasonry
Despite the proliferation of interest in the subjects of secrecy and esotericism throughout popular culture, media and entertainment, these phenomena have only recently begun to be treated seriously by historians of religions. In this essay, I suggest a new way of looking at esotericism by engaging in a comparative, cross-cultural analysis, and by looking in particular at its social and political implications. Specifically, I compare two traditio…
Fair Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America
Journal Article Fair Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America Get access Hugh B. Urban Hugh B. Urban Hugh B. Urban is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the Department of Comparative Studies, Ohio State University, 431 Hagerty Hall, Columbus, OH 43210. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 74, Issue 2, June 2006, Pa…
Avatar for Our Age: Sathya Sai Baba and the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism
Life itself is a market. Giving and taking, bargaining and speculating, is part of the game. Life has its ... profits and losses appreciation and balance sheets. But the giving of Bhakti [devotion] in exchange for Mukti [liberation] is the most powerful business of all.—Sathya Sai Baba (Gokak, V.K. 1975. Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, an Interpretation. Krishna Abhinav Publications, New Delhi, p. 237) It is your imperative duty to strive for the p…
The Marketplace and the Temple: Economic Metaphors and Religious Meanings in the Folk Songs of Colonial Bengal
The marketplace and the temple: traditionally, Western scholars have been nervous and ambivalent about bringing these two spheres into too close a proximity. On one side, historians of religions trained in the lineage of Joachim Wach or Mircea Eliade have long warned that "reductionism" is the cardinal sin in the study of religion, which is claimed to be asui generis, or irreducible phenomenon. Hence, "economic reductionism" or "vulgar economism"…
The politics of madness the construction and manipulation of the ‘Baul’ image in modern Bengal
(1999). The politics of madness the construction and manipulation of the ‘Baul’ image in modern Bengal. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies: Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 13-46
The Extreme Orient: The Construction of 'Tantrism' as a Category in the Orientalist Imagination
Although it has now come to be accepted as a basic part of the vocabulary of historians of religions, the category of ‘Tantrism’, as a singular abstract, and clearly defined entity is largely a product of nineteenth-century Orientalist and colonial discourse. Very quickly, moreover, this category was identified as the most extreme form of that tendency toward passion, licentiousness and moral depravity which was thought to characterize the ‘India…
Making a Place To Take a Stand: Jonathan Z. Smith and the Politics and Poetics of Comparison
The work of Jonathan Z. Smith represents perhaps the most intelligent and persuasive approach to the problem of comparison in the history of religions; yet it is also one that remains surprisingly undeveloped, leaving many troubling unanswered problems. The first problem is that one of Smith's finest insights is also one of the most theoretically confused-namely, his insight that comparison works essentially like a metaphor. Comparison, for Smith…
Zorba The Buddha: Capitalism, Charisma and the Cult of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
This essay suggests a new way of understanding the notorious Indian guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, by examining the intimate relationship between his religious teachings and his business practices. Rajneesh's ideal was in fact that of ‘Zorba the Buddha’, the perfect synthesis of the spiritual and material, the religious and capitalist impulses. After analysing and criticizing the classical Weberian concept of ‘charisma’, this paper argues that cha…
Secrecy and New Religious Movements: Concealment, Surveillance, and Privacy in a New Age of Information
New religious movements offer important insights into many larger issues in contemporary culture, not least of which are the issues of religious secrecy and privacy in a new age of information. However, the role of secrecy in new religious movements is neither simple nor homogeneous, but rather extremely diverse and often changing in different social, political, and historical contexts. This article outlines five major forms of religious secrecy …
Power Still Dwells: The Ethics and Politics of Comparison in A Magic Still Dwells
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2004 Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 16, 24-35 POWER STILL DWELLS: THE ETHICS AND POLITICS OF COMPARISON IN A MAGIC STILL DWELLS H ugh B. U rban [T]he student of religion, and most particularly the historian of religion, must be relentlessly self-conscious. Indeed, this self-con- sciousness constitutes his primary expertise, his foremost object of study. Jonathan Z. Smith (1982: xi) [T]here is a significan…
The Power of the Impure: Transgression, Violence and Secrecy in Bengali Śākta Tantra and Modern Western Magic
Since their first encounter with the complex body of texts and traditions called "Tantras," Western scholars have been simultaneously repulsed and horrified, yet also tantalized and titillated by the deliberate use of normally impure and defiling substances in Tantric practice. Yet, with a few exceptions, they have made little headway in interpreting the deeper religious and social role of impurity, either in Tantric ritual or in the history of r…
Songs of Ecstasy: Mystics, Minstrels, and Merchants in Colonial Bengal
The strategic uses of an esoteric text: The Mahanirvana Tantra
Dark Webs: Tantra, Black Magic, and Cyberspace
The Cradle of Tantra’: Modern Transformations of a Tantric Centre in Northeast India from Nationalist Symbol to Tourist Destination
This article examines the modern transformations of the temple of the goddess, Kāmākhyā, and her most important festival, Ambuvācī Melā, in Assam. Since at least the eighth century, Kāmākhyā has been revered as one of the most important ‘seats of power’ or centres of the goddess that dot the landscape of South Asia. However, during the last century, this temple and its festivals have undergone a series of profound transformations—first, in the co…
Zorba the Buddha: "Sex, Spirituality, and Capitalism in the Global Osho Movement"
This book is the first comprehensive study of the life, teachings, and following of the controversial Indian guru known in his youth as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and in his later years as Osho (1931–1990). Most Americans today remember him only as the “sex guru” and the “Rolls Royce guru,” who built a hugely successful but scandal-ridden utopian community in central Oregon during the 1980s. Yet Osho was arguably the first truly global guru of the tw…
Zorba the Buddha: Sex, Spirituality, and Capitalism in the Global Osho Movement
Zorba the Buddha is the first comprehensive study of the life, teachings, and following of the controversial Indian guru known in his youth as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and in his later years as Osho (1931–1990). Most Americans today remember him only as the “sex guru” and the “Rolls Royce guru,” who built a hugely successful but scandal-ridden utopian community in central Oregon during the 1980s. Yet Osho was arguably the first truly global guru of…
Matrix of Power: Tantra, Kingship, and Sacrifice in the Worship of Mother Goddess Kāmākhyā
Because the Goddess has come to the great mountain Nīlakūa to have sexual enjoyment with me [Śiva], she is called Kāmākhyā, who resides there in secret. Because she gives love, is a loving woman, i
Spiritual Capital, Academic Capital and the Politics of Scholarship: A Response to Bradford Verter
I would first like to thank Dr. Verter for taking the trouble to read and comment on my article, Sacred Capital: Pierre Bourdieu and the Study of (Urban 2003) in his piece for Method & Theory in the Study of Religion (Verter 2004). His critique contains several good points and has forced me to take a second look at my own interpretation of Bourdieu's work and its relevance for the study of religion. However, I must say that I was frustrated to se…
Playing the Field, Taking a Stand: A Reply to Sam D. Gill
Contemporary technology in the development of an optimal juvenile investigation
Feasibility of an Automated Intake Procedure for Human Services Workers
A substantial proportion of time and effort of human services personnel is being devoted to various kinds of intake procedures. The utilization of sophisticated information-processing technology offers an opportunity not only for improving the product of such intake procedures but also for using more efficiently and appropriately human resources in the human services professions. An automated intake procedure is conceptualized as a tool for syste…
Improving counseling through research: The need for an engineering as opposed to a scientific strategy
The strategic uses of an esoteric text: The Mahanirvana Tantra
The Remnants of Desire: Sacrificial Violence and Sexual Transgression in the Cult of the Kāpālikas and in the Writings of Georges Bataille
Notorious for its transgressive sexual and sacrificial practices, the Śaivite sect of the Kāpālikas, or skull bearers, has long been misunderstood by historians of religions. This essay suggests a new way of approaching the Kāpālikas by using some of the insights of the controversial French thinker, Georges Bataille. By examining the symbolism of sacrifice and sexuality, beheading and castration, and the dialectic between taboo and transgression,…
The poor company: Economics and ecstasy in the Kartabhaja sect of colonial Bengal∗
Zorba The Buddha: Capitalism, Charisma and the Cult of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
This essay suggests a new way of understanding the notorious Indian guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, by examining the intimate relationship between his religious teachings and his business practices. Rajneesh's ideal was in fact that of ‘Zorba the Buddha’, the perfect synthesis of the spiritual and material, the religious and capitalist impulses. After analysing and criticizing the classical Weberian concept of ‘charisma’, this paper argues that cha…
Elitism and Esotericism: Strategies of Secrecy and Power in South Indian Tantra and French Freemasonry
Despite the proliferation of interest in the subjects of secrecy and esotericism throughout popular culture, media and entertainment, these phenomena have only recently begun to be treated seriously by historians of religions. In this essay, I suggest a new way of looking at esotericism by engaging in a comparative, cross-cultural analysis, and by looking in particular at its social and political implications. Specifically, I compare two traditio…
Kālī's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna . Jeffrey J. Kripal
The Torment of Secrecy: Ethical and Epistemological Problems in the Study of Esoteric Traditions
The politics of madness the construction and manipulation of the ‘Baul’ image in modern Bengal
(1999). The politics of madness the construction and manipulation of the ‘Baul’ image in modern Bengal. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies: Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 13-46
The Extreme Orient: The Construction of 'Tantrism' as a Category in the Orientalist Imagination
Although it has now come to be accepted as a basic part of the vocabulary of historians of religions, the category of ‘Tantrism’, as a singular abstract, and clearly defined entity is largely a product of nineteenth-century Orientalist and colonial discourse. Very quickly, moreover, this category was identified as the most extreme form of that tendency toward passion, licentiousness and moral depravity which was thought to characterize the ‘India…
Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahāvidyās. David Kinsley
The Devil at Heaven's Gate: Rethinking the Study of Religion in the Age of Cyber-Space
Research Article| April 01 2000 The Devil at Heaven's Gate: Rethinking the Study of Religion in the Age of Cyber-Space Hugh B. Urban Hugh B. Urban Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2000) 3 (2): 268–302. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2000.3.2.268 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Ico…
Making a Place To Take a Stand: Jonathan Z. Smith and the Politics and Poetics of Comparison
The work of Jonathan Z. Smith represents perhaps the most intelligent and persuasive approach to the problem of comparison in the history of religions; yet it is also one that remains surprisingly undeveloped, leaving many troubling unanswered problems. The first problem is that one of Smith's finest insights is also one of the most theoretically confused-namely, his insight that comparison works essentially like a metaphor. Comparison, for Smith…
The Cult of Ecstasy: Tantrism, the New Age, and the Spiritual Logic of Late Capitalism
The Path of Power: Impurity, Kingship, and Sacrifice in Assamese Tantra
Infamous throughout both Indian and western literature as a land of black magic, violent ritual, and tribal superstition, the region of Assam in northeast India has long been imagined to be the heartland of the secret and licentious practice of Tantra. Yet, despite their infamous reputation, the Tantric traditions of Assam have seldom been explored in any serious way by modern scholarship but have instead typically been dismissed as a thin veneer…
Scholartracking: The Ethics and Politics of Studying "Others" in the Work of Sam D. Gill
What was I to do about the cold, hard fact that I and my teachers before me had manipulated cultural materials beyond the constraints of my sources to make them fit my views, my theories?.... I suspected ... that this incident reflects Western man's way of being in the world-colonist and imperialist, arrogant and insensitive, professing great humane causes but accomplishing the opposite. I began to fear that this tiny incident in my academic prac…
Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Colonial Bengal
This book is a companion volume to the author's The Economics of Ecstasy: Tantra, Secrecy, and Power in Colonial Bengal, but while The Economics of Ecstasy engages the theoretical issues of secrecy and concealment associated with the Kartābhajās — a Bengali sect devoted to Tantra, an Indian religious movement notorious for its alleged use of shocking sexual language and rituals, this book presents the first English translation of the sect's body …
The Marketplace and the Temple: Economic Metaphors and Religious Meanings in the Folk Songs of Colonial Bengal
The marketplace and the temple: traditionally, Western scholars have been nervous and ambivalent about bringing these two spheres into too close a proximity. On one side, historians of religions trained in the lineage of Joachim Wach or Mircea Eliade have long warned that "reductionism" is the cardinal sin in the study of religion, which is claimed to be asui generis, or irreducible phenomenon. Hence, "economic reductionism" or "vulgar economism"…
Playing the Field, Taking a Stand: A Reply to Sam D. Gill
Theosophy, Imagination, Tradition: Studies in Western Esotericism. Antoine Faivre , Christine Rhone
Sacred Capital: Pierre Bourdieu and the Study of Religion
This article offers a critical analysis of Pierre Bourdieu's work and its importance for the study of religion. Analysis and criticim of Bourdieu's theories with reference to the example of the Bāuls, a loose, eclectic tradition of wandering minstrels and self-proclaimed spiritual "madmen", which has flourished throughout Bengal (northeast India and Bangladesh) since at least the late nineteenth century, was chosen for two reasons: first, because…
The Power of the Impure: Transgression, Violence and Secrecy in Bengali Śākta Tantra and Modern Western Magic
Since their first encounter with the complex body of texts and traditions called "Tantras," Western scholars have been simultaneously repulsed and horrified, yet also tantalized and titillated by the deliberate use of normally impure and defiling substances in Tantric practice. Yet, with a few exceptions, they have made little headway in interpreting the deeper religious and social role of impurity, either in Tantric ritual or in the history of r…
Avatar for Our Age: Sathya Sai Baba and the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism
Life itself is a market. Giving and taking, bargaining and speculating, is part of the game. Life has its ... profits and losses appreciation and balance sheets. But the giving of Bhakti [devotion] in exchange for Mukti [liberation] is the most powerful business of all.—Sathya Sai Baba (Gokak, V.K. 1975. Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, an Interpretation. Krishna Abhinav Publications, New Delhi, p. 237) It is your imperative duty to strive for the p…
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