In this book, Efrosyni Boutsikas examines ancient Greek religious performances, intricately orchestrated displays comprising topography, architecture, space, cult, and myth. These various elements were unified in a way that integrated the body within cosmic space and made the sacred extraordinary. Boutsikas also explores how natural light or the night-sky may have assisted in intensifying the experience of these rituals, and how they may have determined ancient perceptions of the cosmos. The author's digital and virtual reconstructions of ancient skyscapes and religious structures during such occurrences unveil a deeper understanding of the importance of time and place in religious experience. Boutsikas shows how they shaped emotions, cosmological beliefs, and ritual memory of the participants. Her study revolutionises our understanding on ancient emotionality and cognitive experience, demonstrating how Greek religious spaces were vibrant arenas of a shared experience of the cosmos.

Traces the concept of kosmos as order, arrangement, and ornament in ancient philosophy, literature, and aesthetics.

In this guide to the cosmology of ancient Egypt, Jeremy Naydler recreates the experience of living in another time and place. Temple of the Cosmos explores Egypt's sacred geography and mythology; but more importantly, it reveals with unprecedented clarity an ancient consciousness in tune with the rhythms of the earth. The ancient Egyptians experienced their gods not as remote beings but rather as psychic and natural forces, transpersonal energies that played a part in everyday life. This direct experience of the gods shaped the Egyptian concepts of human development, healing, magic, and the soul's journey through the Underworld as described in the Books of the Dead. While building on the pioneering efforts of R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz and others, Temple of the Cosmos is much more than a recapitulation of previous theories of Egyptian spirituality. Rather, this book breaks new ground by placing the work of other Egyptologists in an original, magical context. The result is a brilliant reimagining of the Egyptian worldview and its sacred path of spiritual unfolding.

This book is a translation into English of La religion grecque by Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel, described by Dr Simon Price as 'an excellent book, by far the best introduction to the subject in any language'. It is the purpose of the book to consider how religious beliefs and cultic rituals were given expression in the world of the Greek citizen - the functions performed by the religious personnel, and the place that religion occupied in individual, social and political life. The chapters cover first ritual and then myth, rooting the account in the practices of the classical city while also taking seriously the world of the imagination. For this edition the bibliography has been substantially revised to meet the needs of a mainly student, English-speaking readership. The book is enriched throughout by illustrations, and by quotations from original sources.

This book offers a clear and concise historical overview of the major religious movements of the ancient Mediterranean world existing from the time of the second millennium BCE up until the fourth century CE, including both the Judeo-Christian and pagan religious traditions. Recognizing the significant role of religious institutions in human history and acknowledging the diversity of religious ideas and practices in the ancient Mediterranean world, “religion” is defined as a collection of myths, beliefs, rituals, ethical practices, social institutions and experiences related to the realm of the sacred cosmos. Without focusing too much attention on technicalities and complex vocabulary, the book provides an introductory road map for exploring the vast array of religious data permeating the ancient Mediterranean world. Through an examination of literary and archeological evidence, the book summarizes the fundamental religious beliefs and practices of the ancient Near Eastern world, including the religious traditions of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Israel. Turning westward, the fascinating world of ancient Greek and Roman religion is considered next. The discussion begins with a description of Minoan-Mycenaean religion, followed by a consideration of classical Roman and Greek religion. Next, the numerous religious movements that blossomed during Hellenistic-Roman times are discussed. In addition, the fundamental theological contributions of various Greco-Roman philosophical schools of thought, including Orphism, Stoicism, Pythagoreanism, Platonism and Neo-Platonism, are described. Greco-Roman philosophy functioned as a quasi-religious outlook for many, and played a decisive role in the evolution of religion in the classical and Hellenistic period. The theological speculations of the philosophers regarding the nature of God and the soul made a huge impact in religious circles during the classical and Hellenistic era. Moving forward in history from archaic and classical times to the later Hellenistic-Roman period, the old religious order of the past falls by the wayside and a new updated religious paradigm begins to develop throughout the Mediterranean world, with a greater emphasis being placed upon the religious individual and the expression of personal religious feelings. There are several important social and historical reasons for this shift in perspective and these factors are explained in the chapter focusing upon personal religion in Hellenistic times. Since the entire religious topography of the ancient Mediterranean world is rarely outlined in a single volume, this book will be a welcome addition to anyone’s library.

Famed historian of religion Mircea Eliade observes that even moderns who proclaim themselves residents of a completely profane world are still unconsciously nourished by the memory of the sacred. Eliade traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times in terms of space, time, nature, and the cosmos. In doing so he shows how the total human experience of the religious man compares with that of the nonreligious. This book serves as an excellent introduction to the history of religion, but its perspective also emcompasses philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. It will appeal to anyone seeking to discover the potential dimensions of human existence. -- P. [4] of cover.

In this volume, Costache endeavours to map the world as it was understood and experienced by the early Christians. Progressing from initial fears, they came to adopt a more positive view of the world through successive shifts of perception. This did not happen overnight. Tracing these shifts, Costache considers the world of the early Christians through an interdisciplinary lens, revealing its meaningful complexity. He demonstrates that the early Christian worldview developed at the nexus of several perspectives. What facilitated this process was above all the experience of contemplating nature. When accompanied by genuine personal transformation, natural contemplation fostered the theological interpretation of the world as it had been known to the ancients.

This book sheds new light on Plato's cosmology in relation to Greek religion by examining the contested distinction between the traditional and cosmic gods. A close reading of the later dialogues shows that the two families of gods are routinely deployed to organise and structure Plato's accounts of the origins of the universe and of humanity and its social institutions, and to illuminate the moral and political ideals of philosophical utopias. Vilius Bartninkas argues that the presence of the two kinds of gods creates a dynamic, yet productive, tension in Plato's thinking which is unmistakable and which is not resolved until the works of his students. Thus the book closes by exploring how the cosmological and religious ideas of Plato's later dialogues resurfaced in the Early Academy and how the debates initiated there ultimately led to the collapse of this theological distinction.

From the recovery of ancient ritual magic at the height of the Renaissance to the ignominious demise of alchemy at the dawn of the Enlightenment, Mark A. Waddell explores the rich and complex ways that premodern people made sense of their world. He describes a time when witches flew through the dark of night to feast on the flesh of unbaptized infants, magicians conversed with angels or struck pacts with demons, and astrologers cast the horoscopes of royalty. Ground-breaking discoveries changed the way that people understood the universe while, in laboratories and coffee houses, philosophers discussed how to reconcile the scientific method with the veneration of God. This engaging, illustrated new study introduces readers to the vibrant history behind the emergence of the modern world.

Cosmography is defined here as the rhetoric of cosmology: the art of composing worlds. The mirage of Hyperborea, which played a substantial role in Greek religion and culture throughout Antiquity, offers a remarkable window into the practice of composing and reading worlds. This book follows Hyperborea across genres and centuries, both as an exploration of the extraordinary record of Greek thought on that further North and as a case study of ancient cosmography and the anthropological philology that tracks ancient cosmography. Trajectories through the many forms of Greek thought on Hyperborea shed light on key aspects of the cosmography of cult and the cosmography of literature. The philology of worlds pursued in this book ranges from Archaic hymns to Hellenistic and Imperial reconfigurations of Hyperborea. A thousand years of cosmography is thus surveyed through the rewritings of one idea. This is a book on the art of reading worlds slowly.