The Goddess Revival is a Christianity Today Book Award Winner, 1996. All of the authors are clearly sympathetic to the problems women have faced in the church throughout its history. They empathize with women who shun the patriarchal oppression of their churches to turn to goddess spirituality. They are also solidly grounded in the Scriptures, Christian theology and church history. They recognize the bondage imposed by goddess worship. This book presents a scholarly and clear consideration of the issues involved and builds a strong case for Christianity as the most woman-friendly alternative. While providing a comprehensive study of goddess spirituality and examining the roots of the movement, the authors focus primarily on God and the way people have understood God through the centuries--in both paganism and the Judeo-Christian tradition--as both male and female. They demonstrate how the uniqueness of God contrasts with the multiplicity of gods and goddesses in pagan spiritualities, while comparing the values in both traditions that are similar (that is, a search for what is good, inner empowerment, unity, positive social change). In the process of building a clear Christian theology, they gently counter the arguments of their pagan opponents. In the end, the reader is left with a glorious picture of the one true God and a clear apologetic for those in nursing who insist that the Christian God is too oppressive and patriarchal to merit our allegience. The appendixes provide a powerful case study of a young woman drawn into witchcraft. She explains why it appealed to her, then how it enslaved her and destroyed her marriage and other relationships. . . The two final appendixes offer some excellent biblical studies on the issues raised in the book. The total package provides an outstanding resource -- Journal of Christian Nursing

Explicitly acknowledging its status as a strī-śūdra-veda (a Veda for women and the downtrodden), the Mahābhārata articulates a promise to bring knowledge of right conduct, fundamental ethical, philosophical, and soteriological teachings, and its own grand narrative to all classes of people and all beings. Hiltebeitel shows how the Mahābhārata has more than lived up to this promise at least on the ground in Indian folk traditions. In this three-part volume, he journeys over the overlapping terrains of the south Indian cults of Draupadī (part I) and Kūttāṇṭavar (part II), to explore how the Mahābhārata continues to be such a vital source of meaning, and, in part III, then connects this vital tradition to wider reflections on prehistory, sacrifice, myth, oral epic, and modern theatre. This two volume edition collects nearly three decades of Alf Hiltebeitel’s researches into the Indian epic and religious tradition. The two volumes document Hiltebeitel’s longstanding fascination with the Sanskrit epics: volume 1 presents a series of appreciative readings of the Mahābhārata (and to a lesser extent, the Rāmāyaṇa), while volume 2 focuses on what Hiltebeitel has called “the underground Mahābhārata,” i.e., the Mahābhārata as it is still alive in folk and vernacular traditions. Recently re-edited and with a new set of articles completing a trajectory Hiltebeitel established over 30 years ago, this work constitutes a definitive statement from this major scholar. Comprehensive indices, cross-referencing, and an exhaustive bibliography make it an essential reference work. For more information on the first volume please click here.

This book explores the religious foundations, political and social significance, and aesthetic aspects of the theatre created by the leaders of the Occult Revival. Lingan shows how theatre contributed to the fragmentation of Western religious culture and how contemporary theatre plays a part in the development of alternative, occult religions.

Women, Press, and Politics explores the literary and historical significance of women writing for the most influential body of nationalist journalism during the Irish revival, the advanced nationalist press. This work studies women’s writings in the Irish national tradition, focusing in particular on leading feminine voices in the cultural and political movements that helped launch the Eater Rising of 1916: Augusta Gregory, Alice Milligan, Maud Gonne, Constance Markievicz, Delia Larkin, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, and Louie Bennett. Karen Steele argues that by examining the innovative work of these writers from the perspective of women’s artistry and women’s political investments, we can best appreciate the expansive range of their cultural productions and the influence these had on other nationalists, who went on to shape Irish politics and culture in the decades to come.

This book is confined to offering a description of objects of Egyptian architecture and art in the larger sense; though occasionally the importance of some exceptionally notable smaller specimen of art or craftsmanship may warrant its inclusion.

The translations of the Egyptian hymns and religious texts printed in this and the two following volumes form a representative collection of the various compositions which the Egyptian inscribed upon the walls of tombs and sarcophagi, coffins and funeral stelae, papyri and amulets, etc., in order to ensure the well-being of their dead in the world beyond the grave. These translations first appeared in the third volume of my work on The Book of The Dead, which was published under the title "The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day" at the end of the year 1897, where they seemed to be a necessary accompaniment to the edition of the hieroglyphic texts of Theban Recension and the hieroglyphic vocabulary thereto. The demand for that bulky and comparatively expensive work proved that it filled a want, but soon after its appearance frequent requests were made that the English translation might be issued in a smaller and handier form.

In this beautifully illustrated and closely argued book, a completely updated and much expanded third edition of his magisterial survey, Curl describes in lively and stimulating prose the numerous revivals of the Egyptian style from Antiquity to the present day. Drawing on a wealth of sources, his pioneering and definitive work analyzes the remarkable and persistent influence of Ancient Egyptian culture on the West. The author deftly develops his argument that the civilization of Ancient Egypt is central, rather than peripheral, to the development of much of Western architecture, art, design, and religion. Curl examines: the persistence of Egyptian motifs in design from Graeco-Roman Antiquity, through the Medieval, Baroque, and Neo-Classical periods rise of Egyptology in the nineteenth and twentieth-century manifestations of Egyptianisms prompted by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb various aspects of Egyptianizing tendencies in the Art Deco style and afterwards. For students of art, architectural and ancient history, and those interested in western European culture generally, this book will be an inspiring and invaluable addition to the available literature.

This book has text and analysis of a key Egyptian ritual which was performed when preparing the corpse of a pharaoh for mummification. This is known as the "Book of the Opening of the Mouth". The ritual consisted of offering a long sequence of foodstuffs, beverages, cosmetics and other consumables, along with a litany recited by the priests. This text was also painted on the walls of the royal tomb. This recitation may be tedious and repetitous, but there is a reason that I've gone to the trouble of creating an etext of this book. Although Budge doesn't emphasize this, this text comprises an important part of the 'Pyramid Texts', of which only portions are available in public domain English translation.

This is the first volume of a projected three-volume work on the little-known South Indian folk cult of the goddess Draupadi and on the classical epic, the Mahabharata, that the cult brings to life in mythic, ritual, and dramatic forms. Draupadi, the chief heroine of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, takes on many unexpected guises in her Tamil cult, but her dimensions as a folk goddess remain rooted in a rich interpretive vision of the great epic. By examining the ways that the cult of Draupadi commingles traditions about the goddess and the epic, Alf Hiltebeitel shows the cult to be singularly representative of the inner tensions and working dynamics of popular devotional Hinduism.