Cultpunk Religion is the emulation of the adult by the child. Religion is the encystment of past beliefs: mythology, which is guesswork, the hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, those pronouncements which men have made in search of personal power, all of it mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always the ultimate unspoken commandment is … Read moreBreaking the Unspoken Commandment (Children of Dune, 1976)
There’s no cult like the cult of celebrity …
Jason Ananda Josephson Storm writes for the Center for the Study of World Religions on the short-lived new religion of Denshinkyō: Scholars dismiss The Religion of the Electric Gods as a byproduct of a 1945 Japanese law code that granted tax exemptions to religious institutions without specifying exactly what constituted a religion. Indeed, groups such … Read moreThe Religion of the Electric Gods
Professor Yvonne Chireau explores the tradition of Hoodoo in the deep south and how its beliefs and traditions in spirituality, ancestors, the hereafter, and defense against evil inform the world and characters of the recent movie Sinners. Wunmi Mosaku, who plays Annie, shares how important her role was in the making of this film and … Read more“Spirits of the Deep South”
Samuel Firman writes for the BBC: Set amid the hilly wetlands of the Somerset Levels, Glastonbury has been a spiritual magnet for centuries. In the Middle Ages, many believed that Joseph of Arimathea visited with the Holy Grail, and the sacred cup is central to the Arthurian legends that infuse the town and its landscapes. Glastonbury is also considered the hub … Read moreThe Archdruid of Stonehenge’s Guide to Pagan Glastonbury
Brian James of the Howl in the Wilderness podcast speaks with Tony Wolf on the recent Poetic Faiths interview anthology and on the practicalities of embodied philosophy.
16000 years ago, the Mammoth Skull God Nunnynunni accompanies his tribe across the land bridge from Siberia to a new world in this mesmerizing sequence from American Gods.
August Boatwright (Queen Latifah) tells the story of the Black Madonna to the Daughters of Mary during a homegrown ritual melding Catholic and African traditions, in this scene from The Secret Life of Bees.
James Parker reviews Manvir Singh’s new book Shamanism: The Timeless Religion for The Atlantic: Singh is less interested in the specific contents of trance states, or in a psychic map of shamanic otherness, than in shamanism as a world-historical phenomenon, popping up all over, almost a function of human consciousness. It starts, for him, in … Read more“Return of the Shaman”
Click here to read D.G. Charlton’s illuminating essay on 19th century secular religions, as exemplified by the life’s work of French man of letters Louis-Nicolas Menard.