Religion, the Occult, and the Paranormal (original) (raw)

"The field encompassed by the four-volume reprint series ‘Religion, the Occult, and the Paranormal’ is both fascinating and frustrating. The fascination stems (in part) from the contested nature of the content, and the multi-disciplinary nature of the existing scholarly literature, which includes perspectives from religious studies, cultural studies, cultural history, sociology, history, psychology, and a range of other disciplines including art history and literary criticism. The frustration stems chiefly from the misunderstood and much-maligned nature of the content, and the way in which specific elements – for example, tarot or astral travel – are taken out of context, or treated in a frivolous manner as is often the case with tabloid journalism. It is important to remember that many ‘occult’ (in the sense of esoteric or ‘hidden’) practices exist within both mainstream religions and new religious movements, as well as in the lives of otherwise quite ‘secular’ Western individuals (for example, bibliomancy, the use of books in divination). Further, ecstatic and mystical elements exist in ‘Eastern’ religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. There is also significant overlap with the New Age, which is a major market, cultural and religious force in the contemporary West, and synergies with conspiracy culture and other sources of ‘rejected knowledge’. The series comprises four volumes, which reprint 70 articles and chapters (of which no more than 25% will be chapters from edited volumes). The final shape of the four volumes is not yet definitively known, but is likely to be: Volume 1 (methodology and definition of the field), Volume 2 (historical material, ancient, medieval, early modern etc), Volume 3 (specific examples of modern occult and paranormal phenomena, defined groups etc), and Volume 4 (the occult and the paranormal in contemporary religion and popular culture).""