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The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony from her Canonization Hearings

This book is a study and translation of the testimony given by witnesses at the canonization hearings of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who died in 1231 at age 24 in Marburg, Germany. In January 1233 and ... More

This book is a study and translation of the testimony given by witnesses at the canonization hearings of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who died in 1231 at age 24 in Marburg, Germany. In January 1233 and again in January 1235, papal commissioners interviewed hundreds of people as witnesses to the healing miracles associated with Elizabeth’s shrine. What these witnesses said about their maladies and their cures provides an unusually clear window into the workings of a nascent saint cult within the context of rural Germany. When the commission convened for the second time, it also heard from Elizabeth’s four closest associates, the so-called handmaids who had witnessed her transformation —under the guidance of her confessor Conrad of Marburg —from the powerful wife of the Thuringian landgrave (Ludwig IV) to a humble hospital worker in Marburg. Their statements, along with that of Conrad himself, allow for a better understanding of the effects of mendicant spirituality (normally associated with more urban environments) on a woman from the highest levels of German society.Less

Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Colonial Bengal

Hugh B. Urban

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 ... More

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 of highly esoteric, mystical poetry and songs. The period from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, during which these lyrics were written, was an era of change, experimentation, and transition from the older medieval styles to the new literary forms of “modern” Bengal. The original songs presented are an important part of this transitional period, reflecting the search for new literary forms and experimentation in new poetic styles. Long disparaged as an inferior, low‐class, or corrupt form of Bengali literature, these songs are concerned with contemporary social life in colonial Calcutta and with the real lives of common lower‐class men and women. With their vision of a universal “religion of humanity,” open to men and women of all classes, the Kartābhajā songs offer an alternative model of community, which made a special appeal to the working classes of colonial Calcutta. They delight in ridiculing and satirizing the foppish British rulers and pretentious upper classes, although at the same time, however, the satirical urban imagery is mingled with older Tantric connotations and employed in ingenious new ways to express profoundly esoteric and mystical religious ideas.Less

Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins

Steven J. Friesen

Examines the relationship between imperial cults and the Book of Revelation, focusing especially on the Roman province of Asia during the early Empire. The main argument is that Revelation and ... More

Examines the relationship between imperial cults and the Book of Revelation, focusing especially on the Roman province of Asia during the early Empire. The main argument is that Revelation and imperial cult institutions were in direct contradiction regarding cosmology and eschatology. The exaggerated cosmology of imperial cult institutions resulted in an absurd eschatology – their emphasis on Roman imperial order was so strong that they could not envision an end to Roman rule. Revelation, on the other hand, denigrated all temporal authority and focused attention on the throne of God in heaven and the eschatological inauguration of the New Jerusalem. In this way, the author of Revelation produced one of humanity's great religious critiques of hegemony, a critique that attempted to establish and maintain a just community in the face of imperial oppression.Less

Aniconism in Greek Antiquity

Milette Gaifman

This book explores a phenomenon known as aniconism — the absence of figural images of gods in Greek practiced religion and the adoption of aniconic monuments, namely objects such as pillars and ... More

This book explores a phenomenon known as aniconism — the absence of figural images of gods in Greek practiced religion and the adoption of aniconic monuments, namely objects such as pillars and poles, to designate the presence of the divine. Shifting our attention from the well-known territories of Greek anthropomorphism and naturalism, it casts new light on the realm of non-figural objects in Greek religious art. Drawing upon a variety of material and textual evidence dating from the rise of the Greek polis in the eighth century bc to the rise of Christianity in the first centuries ad, this book shows that aniconism was more significant than has often been assumed. Coexisting with the fully figural forms for representing the divine throughout Greek antiquity, aniconic monuments marked an undefined yet fixedly located divine presence. Cults centred on rocks were encountered at crossroads and on the edges of the Greek city. Despite aniconism's liminality, non-figural markers of divine presence became a subject of interest in their own right during a time when mimesis occupied the centre of Greek visual culture. The ancient Greeks saw the worship of stones and poles without images as characteristic of the beginning of their own civilization. Similarly, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the existence of aniconism was seen as physical evidence for the continuity of ancient Greek traditions from time immemorial.Less

The Kingdom of Matthias

Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz

In the autumn of 1834, New York City was awash with rumors of a strange religious cult operating nearby, centered around a mysterious, self-styled prophet named Matthias. It was said that Matthias ... More

In the autumn of 1834, New York City was awash with rumors of a strange religious cult operating nearby, centered around a mysterious, self-styled prophet named Matthias. It was said that Matthias the Prophet was stealing money from one of his followers; then came reports of lascivious sexual relations, based on odd teachings of matched spirits, apostolic priesthoods, and the inferiority of women. At its climax, the rumors transformed into legal charges, as the Prophet was arrested for the murder of a once highly regarded Christian gentleman who had fallen under his sway. This book recaptures the strange tale, providing a window into the turbulent movements of the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening—movements which swept up great numbers of evangelical Americans and gave rise to new sects like the Mormons. Into this teeming environment walked a down-and-out carpenter named Robert Matthews, who announced himself as Matthias, prophet of the God of the Jews. His hypnotic spell drew in a cast of unforgettable characters: the meekly devout businessman Elijah Pierson, who once tried to raise his late wife from the dead; the young attractive Christian couple, Benjamin Folger and his wife Ann, who seduced the woman-hating Prophet; and the shrewd ex-slave Isabella Van Wagenen, regarded by some as “the most wicked of the wicked.” None was more colorful than the Prophet himself, a bearded, thundering tyrant who gathered his followers into an absolutist household, using their money to buy an elaborate, eccentric wardrobe, and reordering their marital relations. By the time the tensions within the kingdom exploded into a clash with the law, Matthias had become a national scandal.Less

The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World

David Ulansey

This book argues that the Roman cult of Mithras did not originate in Persia, as previously thought. Instead, the author suggests that the cult was triggered by the reaction of a group of Tarsian ... More

This book argues that the Roman cult of Mithras did not originate in Persia, as previously thought. Instead, the author suggests that the cult was triggered by the reaction of a group of Tarsian intellectuals to the discovery in 128 BCE of the Precession of the Spheres. To these fatalistic Stoics the only possible explanation for this phenomenon was the existence of a divinity powerful enough to shift the heavens, and this was to become the revelation at the heart of the Mithraic mysteries. This information was then married to the astrology of the zodiac and to the symbolism of popular Tarsian myths surrounding Perseus to create the fabric of the religion. This study is a carefully researched description of an ancient cult, which has long fascinated scholars by virtue of the lack of written evidence concerning it and the paradoxical wealth of artefacts and iconography uncovered by archaeologists.Less

Science Fiction Double Feature: The Science Fiction Film as Cult Text

J. P. Telotte and Gerald Duchovnay (eds)

Critical discussion of cult cinema has often noted its tendency to straddle or ignore boundaries, to pull together different sets of conventions, narrative formulas, or character types for the almost ... More

Critical discussion of cult cinema has often noted its tendency to straddle or ignore boundaries, to pull together different sets of conventions, narrative formulas, or character types for the almost surreal pleasure to be found in their sudden juxtapositions or narrative combination. With its own boundary-blurring nature — as both science and fiction, reality and fantasy — science fiction (sf) has played a key role in such cinematic cult formation. This volume examines that largely unexplored relationship, looking at how the sf film's own double nature neatly matches up with a persistent double vision common to the cult film. It does so by addressing key questions about the intersections of sf and cult cinema: how different genre elements, directors, and stars contribute to cult formation; what role fan activities, including ‘con’ participation, play in cult development; and how the occulted or ‘bad’ sf cult film works. The volume pursues these questions by addressing a variety of such sf cult works, including Robot Monster (1953), Zardoz (1974), A Boy and His Dog (1975), Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Space Truckers (1996), Ghost in the Shell 2 (2004), and Iron Sky (2012). What these chapters afford is a revealing vision of both the sf aspects of much cult film activity and the cultish aspects of the whole sf genre.Less