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[German Version] Holy mountains play a major role in many religious traditions. Little is known of the origins of this phenomenon and the real reasons for it – whether specific mountains were holy from the outset or came to be considered holy after the example of others. Apparently, though, neither Olympus, Kailas, Fuji, nor the mountains of Yahweh – not to mention the high places with sanctuaries of Canaanite and Germanic deities – owe their holiness simply to their physiogeographic features. As …

[German Version] Firmicus Maternus, Julius, member of a respected Sicilian family. Trained in both Latin and Greek, toward the end of this career as a lawyer c. 335 he composed the most comprehensive Latin handbook of astrology, the Matheseos libri VII (ed. Kroll-Skutsch, 1897–1913, repr. 1968; ET: Astrology Theory and Practice: Matheseos Libri VIII, 2005). He converted to Christianity, probably from philosophically excessive astral beliefs; then in De errore profanarum religionum (ed. Turcan, 1982) he was the first Christian (c. 350) to summon the emperors Consta…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies The term vision (from Lat. visio) denotes a clear perception of images of individual scenes or long sequences (some coupled with auditory [Auditory hallucination] or olfactory elements) in a waking state. Visions can…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies 1. Phenomenology Western, Christian connotations of the concept of the soul, imposed on the religio-historical evidence by outside studies, must be generally excluded if the soul is understood as the principle of manifestations of life that are perceptible (or culturally considered to be perceptible), although they are rarely categorized under a common umbrella term. It is therefore reasonable to speak of a multiplicity of souls – for example four among the Ob-Ugrians (Hasenfratz, Einführung, 38–41), five among the Proto-Germanic peoples ( ibid., 82–85); texts from India often count five “souls”: the power of breath ( prāṇa), the power of speech ( vāc), the power of sight ( cakṣus), the power of hearing ( śrotra), and the power of thought ( manas); collectively these are usually called prāṇa ( ibid., 94): the blood soul, the breath soul, the shadow soul, the name soul – or, with Hasenfratz, functional classes like the ego soul, the vital soul, the outward soul, the reincarnation soul, and the prestige soul ( …

[German Version] Virtually all over the world and among the most varied cultures, excavators of temples, fortifications, dikes, and other significant structures have found human and animal skelet…

[German Version] I. Archaeology – II. Religious Studies – III. House Church (in Early Christianity) – IV. Sociology I. Archaeology Functionally, the house was a building which, in contrast to a palace, served as a private dwelling. While circular structures have been identified in prehistoric Palestine, from the Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age the broad-room type of house dominated, that is, a one-room and one-floor structure with a single entrance on the long side. In addition, there were sometimes apsidial houses. For the Middle Bronze and Late Bronze Ages, the courtyard-house with a central, roughly square courtyard…

[German Version] Typology of religion groups religions according to shared features. Unlike the phenomenology of religion, which studies variations of particular phenomena in religions, typology of religion studies religions as totalities to determine common features. I. Typical Singularities G. Mensching was one of the few notable students of religion who followed F.D.E. Schleiermacher in treating type as “ambiguous: on the one hand . . . a common feature within different religious organisms, on the other, what is ‘typically’ singular and peculiar …

[German Version] In religious studies, intoxication is often understood as the state that is induced through the intake of euphoric substances. This is misleading because in an unfavorable setting or basic psycho- mental disposition of the consumer, it is not euphoria but states of anxiety (Anxiety and Fear) and depression that are induced. For this reason, it is preferable, in the history of religion and culture, to define intoxication as a state of enhanced emotionality induced by psychoactive drugs (besides euphoric substances, esp. inebriants, stimulants, and hallucinogens), but also by stimulating experiences such as music (I) or by behaviors such as monotonous movements, dance, or sexuality. Combinations of substances and behavioral elements are often chosen. The use of psychoactive substances is already attested in the earliest phases of human history; fly agaric (mushroom), soma/haoma, mead, pulque, and peyote (Peyote cult), which is still dispensed as host in the Native American Church, are some of the best known. The literate cultures of all periods were familiar with states of intoxication, notably in religion/ magic, healing, and daily life. In earlier times, intoxication and intoxicants were subject to strict taboos and were only permitted during ritual ceremonies; the use of intoxicants outside of these contexts was frequently regarded as a crime and severely punished. Religious traditions assign conflicting values to intoxication. The widespread positive evaluation probably goes back to the mind-altering properties of psychotropic substances and the aforementioned elements of behavior. Anyone who drank soma or mead gained access to the community of the gods, encountered the divine, received revelations, or became a god himself. Even gods owed a number of things to intoxicating beverages, as for instance Indra, who acquired his heroic strength through the excessive consumption of soma. States of intoxication are frequently spurned because they hamper necessary activities, such as the concentration required by the (Theravāda-)Buddhists (Hīnayāna) and by certain orientations of Hinduism for meditation; this is why intoxication is strictl…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Prostitution, the “oldest profession,” is a form of surrendering one’s own body, tendentially at will, to other people for sex. It can have various motivations, but here we shall consider primarily its religious context. Sacral prostitutes, male and female, have often been associated with temples. The phenomenon was widespread in the ancient Near East, with prostitutes devoted to various goddesses. Even in Jerusalem, prostitutes of both sexes ¶ apparently were not banned from the temple until after the Babylonian Exile (586 bce). According t…

[German Version] The care and style of one's hair is governed by the conventions prevailing at any one time, and a full head of hair is regarded everywhere as a sign of health, while its loss through violence or age is seen as dishonor or as powerlessness and decreasing vitality. This has resulted in hair being ascribed with a fairly constant symbolic and magical significance. As the hair (and nails) also continue growing shortly after de…

[German Version] The fugitive soul is represented pictorially in many forms. Late, principally Roman sarcophagi depict Prometheus (Culture hero) forming a human being as a statuette, to which Athena adds a butterfly (Gk …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Suicide is the violent taking of one’s own life by one’s own hand; it also includes voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide. Cultural traditions vary greatly regarding the admissibility of suicide. In tribal cultures, the aged and infirm in the Kalahari or other extremely arid regions ask their relatives for death. Kings and chiefs in African tribal cultures must kill themselves when the fortunes of war turn against them or they grow frail. To avoid dying in bed, Celts and Teutons often turned …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Practical Theology I. Religious Studies Especially in Germany, occultism (from Lat. occultum, “what is hidden [in the mysteries]”) became a collective term for all theories and practices dealing with “extrasensory” and “supernatural” forces after the appearance of H.P. Blavatsky’s theosophy in the 19th century. It differs from spiritualism in explaining spiritualist phenomena as being caused by an unspecified natural force. Bu…

[German Version] I. Natural Science – II. Religious Studies – III. Practical Theology I. Natural Science Parapsychology is the study of supranormal psychic phenomena (also known as psy-phenomena) such as extrasensory perception, telepathy, telekinesis or psychokinesis, remote viewing or second sight, spiritual healing, out-of-body and near-death experiences. All these phenomena are (psychic) effects from a distance, and therefore mental connections that obviate physical causal connections. Scientific research into psy-phenomena is based on three types to date: 1. on anecdotal material or reports of…

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In distinction from Indian or pseudo-Indian theosophical societies (see 4) of the Blavatsky type, theosophy in the traditional sense represents the concern in all religions to penetrate the deepest mysteries of the deity. In the early church and the Middle Ages “theosophy” was another term for theology. It came to be restricted to special kinds of Christianity only in the 18th century and now applies analogously to non-Christian phenomena. 1. Features As distinct from metaphysics and philosophy, theosophy relies generally on revelation. If this is not found in the Bible or some other writing, it lies for pansophists, for example, in the “book of nature.” We move on from God to the world, which is pantheistically understood as the development or unfolding of the Godhead (Pantheism). Unlike theologians, theosop…

T. Vaughan first introduced the term “anthroposophy” at the beginning of the 18th century in the title of a book. Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) adopted it to advance his Adyar theosophy. 1. Development Steiner was born on February 27, 1861, in Kraljevec, which was then in Aus…

In contrast to astronomy, which operates mechanistically, astrology rests on the conviction that the character and destiny (Fate and [Good] Fortune) of people can be decisively affected by the position of the stars at the moment of their birth. Only heavenly bodies that may be seen with the naked eye are relevant: the sun, the moon, the planets, and the “houses” to which these belong in the zodiac. Fixed stars outside the zodiac may figure in the calculations in a supplementary capacity. The demonstrable physical influence of heavenly bodies (esp. the sun) on terrestrial processes,…

In antiquity the word “esoteric” was used for knowledge that was imparted only to an inner circ…

Since the ninth and tenth centuries the Gk.-Arab. word alchēmeia has denoted the attempt to change base metals into silver and gold. This effort has been more than a mere curiosity in the history of science and technology, however, for in alchemy the smelting, alloying, and tinting of metals have been linked with the belief that one can help what is thought of as living nature achieve its quickest possible development and fulfillment. It was probably in Alexandria in the second century b.c. that popul…