Comparing Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective: Experiments in Collaborative Authorship

This volume is a collection of cross-disciplinary papers co-authored by scholars from different academic fields. Readers will be intrigued to discover unexpected parallels between contemporary practices across diverse cultural and religious contexts. These include, for example, the casting of lots in Chinese temple oracles and the African-Yoruba divination system; ritual consultations in Senegal and Brazil; the marginalization of ritual practices in Indonesia, Bhutan, and Nigeria; the crossroads of late Soviet and US-based esoteric milieus; adaptations of Buddhist, Hindu, and Daoist practices in a modern esoteric movement (Thelema); and the spread of the Solomonic art of conjuring spirits in both scriptural and non-scriptural practice traditions. These examples offer rich opportunities for meaningful comparison.