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    Religion, Myth, and Magic: The Anthropology of Religion
    Religion, Myth, and Magic: The Anthropology of Religion
    Religion, Myth, and Magic: The Anthropology of Religion
    Audiobook7 hours

    Religion, Myth, and Magic: The Anthropology of Religion

    Written by Susan Johnston

    Narrated by Susan Johnston

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Anthropologist Susan Johnston turns a scholarly eye on one of humankind's primary interests throughout history: the spiritual belief system. Beginning her lectures with an attempt to define religion, Professor Johnston continues this intriguing study with an examination of mythology and symbols, rituals and witchcraft, gender, politics, and religion's place in the many customs surrounding death. A continuing and often contentious presence in the world today, religion, from its origins to the present, is a key component for understanding communities and cultures all over the globe.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 30, 2009
    ISBN9781449804985
    Religion, Myth, and Magic: The Anthropology of Religion

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    • 4/5
      This book turned out to be a very basic anthropological study of religion. A few ideas were very interesting to me. Johnston tells a creation story from a tribe in Papua New Guinea which states that the world was at first populated by nothing but people, there were no other features. After a while the people were cold and hungry so one man stood up and assigned some of the people to be mountains, some grass, some trees, some fish, etc. When the world was full of all other needed things the people who were left became the ancestors of modern people. I can't imagine a creation story that starts rather than ends with people. The other part I liked best was her discussion of the formation of new religions. Johnston says that new religions are formed when there is political oppression and a new movement arises to modify the current religion to fit new circumstances. She says the new movements are generally started by one person with some simple rules. The first one she mentions was the Ghost Dance religion which was a response to white oppression of the Indians. The one I thought of, having been a Mormon myself, was Joseph Smith's creation of that religion, but she doesn't mention that. What she does surprisingly come up with is that the Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians so Moses founded a new Judaism, with the ten commandments, when he lead people out of their circumstances. Then she said when the Romans began to oppress the Jews Jesus founded his new religion in response. Again, I'd never thought in such ways.Being an anthropologist she's very objective, sometimes I thought overly so. In describing female genital mutilation as a kind of women's coming of age ritual she says it can be uncomfortable. Perhaps not quite a strong enough word. She did, however, help me somewhat overcome my phobia of veiling describing it along the same terms as a way for women to assert their femininity. She shows how modern, even feminist, women might embrace the wearing of the veil. Objectivity can be useful if not taken too far. The same, I think, could be said of many religious rituals.