586â Glossary

H

Hamasâ a paramilitary party in Palestine formed in 1987 that gained control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. It is otherwise known as the Islamic Resistance Movement and is dedicated to the overthrow of Israel.

Haredimâ Hebrew term for ultra-Orthodox Jews. It means ‘those who tremble’ in the presence of God because they are ‘God-fearing’.

Hermeneuticsâ the art of interpreting; originally the arts of interpreting literary, legal, and biblical texts, it is now used for the art of interpreting any meaningful content.

Heteronormativityâ is the view that the proper and normative form of sexuality is that between the group marked as men and the group marked as women.

Hierophanyâ from the believer’s perspective, a sense of the revelation of the sacred in or through a particular object or form.

Hindu nationalismâ a movement that insists that to be a ‘real’ Indian entails being a Hindu.

Historical consciousnessâ the awareness that everything human is relative, or related to the context in which it arose or exists.

Homo Religiosusâ ‘religious man’, understood as that type of human who experiences the world as having a sacred dimension.

Humanistic psychologyâ a school of academic psychology, influenced partly by existentialism, but more extensively by common sense, that reintroduced humanistic considerations, in reaction against behaviourism’s exclusively mechanical vision of people.

Hybridityâ the constant and organic fusion, intermixture and translation of cultural practices.

I

Identityâ the dialectical interrelation of contextual identifications ascribed by the self and others.

Ideologyâ a term used by Karl Marx to refer to the values and beliefs of the dominant class in society who produced a false consciousness in those excluded from the means of production.

Illusionâ an unprovable belief, unreliable for Freud, harmless for Winnicott.

Imagistic religiosityâ a mode of transmitting religious knowledge through infrequently performed but emotionally salient rituals that promote individual reflections by each participant and that become encoded in the episodic (autobiographical) memory of followers.

Indologyâ the academic study of India, focusing on the philological analysis of its classical texts.

Glossaryâ 587â

Ineffabilityâ the quality of being inexpressible through words or concepts. This is a key idea about the nature of the ultimate reality propounded by many mystics from a variety of religious traditions. In modern discussions of mysticism this term is usually taken as referring to the inexpressible nature of mystical experiences.

Intelligent designâ the name for the most recent version of anti-Darwinian creationism, presented by its defenders as a scientific theory about the inexplicability in naturalistic terms of certain forms of biochemical complexity.

Intentionalityâ phenomenological concept that consciousness is always consciousness of something; that consciousness always has an intentional object.

L

Lifeworld (Lebenswelt) â concept introduced by Husserl to indicate the pre-epistemological ground of phenomenology in terms of shared, intersubjective givenness of universe of lived experience.

Local and globalâ two important and interconnected scales of analysis for the spatial study of religion.

Logocentrismâ Jacques Derrida’s critique of privileging speech over writing.

M

Mediatizationâ the process by which social structures and practices, or public awareness of these, becomes so dependent on media use that those structures and practices are shaped by the ‘logic’ of that media (e.g. politicians’ adapting their political messages to soundbites to fit the format of contemporary print and broadcast news media). In the context of religion, the mediatization thesis suggests that religious practices and communities are shaped and transformed by the media on which they are dependent.

Mental representationsâ thoughts, beliefs or ideas formed by the mind in relationship to the world (whether correctly or not).

Metaphysics of presenceâ the assumption that reality is immediately present to consciousness rather than caught in the problems of language and representation.

Metarepresentationsâ second-order representations (of mental representations) which allow for self-reflection, critical thought or imaginative possibilities.

Methodological naturalismâ a conceptual framework for the study of natural and social phenomena that precludes recourse to supernatural/non-natural sources of explanation.

Midrashâ a mode of legal or homiletic biblical interpretation typically employed in Rabbinic Judaism.

Migrationâ mobility and relocation from one place to another for various reasons – whether voluntary or forced – often creating minorities marked out from majorities in terms of race, language, culture and/or religion.

588â Glossary

Monisticâ the view that a society or culture has essentially only one identity or character, as opposed to several (pluralistic).

Multiculturalismâ the public recognition of difference including cultural and religious difference by the nation-state and civil society.

Muslim Brethrenâ a radical and fundamentalist group, founded in Egypt in 1929, to oppose secularization and promote a restoration of strict Islam.

Mythâ a story, which can be about anything and which has as its characters gods, humans, or animals, that expresses a deeply cherished conviction.

Myth-ritualismâ the theory of myth which contends that some or all myths were originally or subsequently linked to rituals, so that myth can only be understood in relation to ritual.

N

Natural theologyâ discourse about God based on the natural human faculties of observation and reason, rather than proceeding from supernatural sources such as revelation or religious experience; particularly applied to works seeking to infer the existence and attributes of God from the properties of the natural world.

Naturalismâ a version of atheism in which it is held that the universe is a closed system which operates according to natural laws and the natural order of things; opposed to supernaturalism.

Neurotheologyâ an attempt by some to explain religion by correlating neural states with subjective religious experiences.

New new religionsâ the term ‘new new religions’, or ‘shin-shin-shûkyô’ was used by scholars to designate new religious groups that emerged in Japan in the 1970s in order to differentiate them from earlier Japanese ‘new religions’. More recently, it was applied by Melton (2007) to religious groups established in America after 1990.

New religious movementâ the category of ‘new religious movement’ (NRM) has been adopted by the majority of scholars of new religion as an ostensibly neutral term that circumvents the pejorative associations of ‘sect’ and ‘cult’.

Noological argumentsâ arguments for the existence of God in which it is claimed that certain mental states (including the notions of rationality or consciousness) imply God as their ground.

Numenâ a Latin term referring to the powerful presence of a divine being. Made famous in the modern era by Rudolph Otto (1869–1937), who argued in his work Das Heilige (1917; English translation ‘The Idea of the Holy’, 1923) that the essential and distinctive aspect of religious experiences is their ‘numinous’ quality. Otto defined the numinous experience as being a ‘creaturely feeling’ (following Lutheran theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, 1768–1834) of mysterium tremendum et fascinans, a mysterious, awe-inspiring and deeply attractive experience of the power of the ultimate reality. Otto believed that this experience was the ‘non-rational’ root of all human experiences of the religious but that it needed to be tempered by an appeal to rationality and orthodoxy. Mystics, according to Otto, are those figures within a religious tradition who place particular emphasis upon the ‘non-rational’ aspects of religious experience.

Glossaryâ 589â

O

Object relations theoryâ a school of psychoanalysis, initially developed in Britain, that emphasizes the role of unconscious relationships with the objects of love and hate.

Oedipus complexâ boys’ age-appropriate desires, between four and five-and-one-half, to kill their fathers and marry their mothers; in Freud’s view, the inappropriate persistence of the Oedipus complex later in life characterized neurosis.

Ohmazdâ the Middle Persian form of the older Ahura Mazda, God in Zoroastrianism.

Ontological argumentsâ a priori arguments for the existence of God in which it is argued that it is logically impossible that God does not exist.

Orientalismâ originally a descriptive term denoting the academic enterprise of studying the Orient, the word has, under the influence of Edward Said, increasingly been used in a pejorative sense to denote academic/intellectual interest in the East that is tainted by its complicity with Western colonialism. Generally speaking, Orientalism denotes a paradigmatic ‘style of thought’ focused on an essentialized separation of ‘East’ and ‘West’.

Originâ either the historical origin – when and where religion first arose – or the recurrent origin, the cause of religion whenever and wherever it arises. The recurrent origin, on which theories of religion, is a need that exists before religion and is the necessary or (less often) sufficient cause of the creation of religion.

P

Pantheismâ the view that God and all that exists are the same; typically includes the notion that the ‘all’ is ultimately impersonal.

Parsisâ literally the people from Pars or Persia, descendents of those refugees who migrated after the Islamic invasion of Iran probably in the seventh or eighth century. They settled in North West India and are now mainly found in Mumbai but there are important diaspora groups in most Western countries. Their religion is Zoroastrianism.

Phenomenologyâ in philosophy, an analysis not of things in themselves but of ‘intentional’ objects, that is, objects as they are presented to the mind; in religious studies, the word generally refers to the scholarly attempt to identify the basic features of religion.

Phenomenology of religionâ scholarly approach and discipline that has a general sense of the descriptive study of observable phenomena and a narrower sense related to the philosophical approach that uses a phenomenological method.

Philologyâ the study of languages and texts, and more broadly, the use of texts to study cultural worlds, as in the study of ancient Chinese, Greek, Persian, or Sanskrit.

Phonologismâ the priority of the spoken word, what Jacques Derrida called the ‘exclusion or abasement of writing’ (On Grammatology [1967] 1976, Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 102).

Pilgrimageâ the movement of people to places held to be sacred; a metaphor for significant personal journeys and quests.

590â Glossary

Plausibility structuresâ the social and economic structures and contexts in which religious worldviews are grounded and supported. The concept implies that religion remains strongest in societies where it is monopolistic and supported by a dialectical, mutually sustaining, and mutually determining relationship with a social base.

Polymethodicâ the use of a number of methods in a study.

Polytheticâ a kind of definition that does not define a word in terms of a single feature or essence (e.g. ‘even numbers are divisible by two without remainder’) but instead in terms of a variety of characteristics, a bundle of which makes an instance a member of the class, but none of which must be present in every instance.

Positivismâ a philosophical assertion that reality and truth were immediately present to sense experience.

Postcolonialismâ is a social and political movement that emerged in late 1950s in colonized locations sometimes known as the global south. It seeks to critically engage Eurowestern colonialization.

Primatologyâ the study by anthropologist, biologists, and psychologists, among others, of the order of mammals that includes monkeys, apes, and humans, and of their ancestors.

Privatization of religionâ this term refers to the process by which the locus of religion shifts from the public sphere to the private lives or inner personal experience of individuals.

Process theologyâ a school of theology (originated by Alfred North Whitehead and further developed by Charles Hartshorne) in which God is understood to be interdependent with the world and is also affected by those in the world; God and the world evolve together.

Psychoanalysisâ the school of psychotherapy that Sigmund Freud founded. Purity lawsâ religious prescriptions to guard against the danger of pollution.

Q

Quantum theoryâ a branch of fundamental theoretical physics developed in the early twentieth century seeking especially to describe the properties of the smallest constituents of matter, which behave sometimes as waves and sometimes as particles.

R

Rational choice theory of religionâ a deductive theory of religion based on the utilitarian assumption that people’s preferences are stable across time and space and that actions can be understood as choices made by weighing options in terms of costs and benefits.

Reductionâ the explanation of one domain in terms of another, such as the ‘reduction’ of biological processes in cells to chemical reactions or the explanation of religious elements in sociological or psychological terms.

Reflexivityâ critical self-reflection on academic methods and theories.

Glossaryâ 591â

Religion, minimal definition ofâ costly behaviour or ideas or sets of costly behaviours or ideas that are legitimated by claims to the authority of superhuman agents provide necessary (if insufficient) attributes for analytically stipulating data that might be termed ‘religious’ .

Religiongeschichteâ comparative historical study of various religious traditions.

Religionswissenschaftâ a loan-word from the German language designating in a broad and general way the scientific study of religions and religious phenomena.

Religious authorityâ the ability to influence or enforce, arising from office, knowledge or expertise.

Religious environmentalismâ response to the environmental crisis by religions of the world, including theological, institutional, political, and ritual developments.

Religious geographyâ a branch of theology and religious studies in which scholars examine the effect of place, landscape and the environment on religious ideas and practices.

Religious historyâ study of religious life in the past in its social, political, and cultural context on the basis of rigorous objective analysis of primary sources.

Religious mappingâ locating and surveying the presence of religions within a designated area and examining their manifestations, interconnections, functions and representations.

Religious pluralismâ a term used with a variety of connotations to refer to the diversity of religious forms, but in a normative sense applied particularly to the philosophical position, espoused by John Hick which claims that all religions are equally valid paths to the same divine reality.

Religious studiesâ academic inquiry into questions such as the essence and origin of religion, its description and function, its language and the relation between religions, undertaken with a concern for academic autonomy from theological confession.

Ritualâ an action, which is usually public but which can also be private, that is prescribed and that cannot be altered in any way.

S

Sacralizationâ to make something sacred, or imbue it with sacred character, such as a ruler or system of governance.

Sacred spaceâ space produced by a process of ritualization or sacralization; a place deemed to be imbued with special meaning, power and ritual significance; the study of sacred space has been an important sub-field within the study of religions, associated especially with Mircea Eliade and Jonathan Z. Smith.

Scriptural reasoningâ an open-ended practice of prayerful reading and dialogical reasoning by scholars, exegetes, commentators from the three Abrahamic traditions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Scriptureâ the privileged text(s) of a religious community.

592â Glossary

Sectâ ‘sect’ has been applied by sociologists to breakaway groups from established religious organizations and to religious groups with high boundaries that offer exclusive paths to salvation. Because the term accumulated negative connotations, ‘new religious movement’ is now more commonly used by scholars.

Secularizationâ a sociological concept embodying various ideas about trends in human society that include the alleged marginalization of religious influences in the political and cultural spheres and/or the decline of individual religious belief and practice.

Secular spaceâ often associated with the public realm of government and civil society, as opposed to the private domain of the individual, family and religious organizations; space claimed by secularists and, at times, contested by religious bodies.

Semioticsâ the study of signs, the way meaning is constructed and conveyed in systems of social communication.

Senses of scriptureâ varieties of interpretative (especially non-literal) procedures applied to sacred texts.

Shamanismâ a complex of ritual practices and symbols – stemming from Siberia, butÂfound also in Central and East Asia and among native peoples in the Americas – centred on the mediatory figure of the shaman who is believed to be able to communicate with and travel to the spirit world for the purposes of healing communities.

Social Darwinismâ an attempt to adapt Darwin’s theory of natural selection to social processes. This attempt, especially popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, supposed that competition drives social evolution and that the strongest or fittest will survive. It was used to justify, among other ideologies, military conquest, colonialism, slavery, unregulated capitalism, and eugenics.

Soteriologyâ the Christian doctrine of salvation – the theological category within which the relationship of Christianity to other religions has traditionally been conceived.

Spatial study of religionâ examining religion and religions through a spatial lens; applying a spatial approach or methodology to the study of religion.

Spatial turnâ scholarly trend from the late 1960s onwards in which the concept of ‘space’ was redefined and reappropriated by social and cultural theorists, such as Foucault and Lefebvre, and radical geographers, such as Harvey, Massey and Soja.

Special agent ritualâ a form of religious ritual in which a superhuman agent occupies the role of actor. Typically, a participant serves as the patient of such a ritual only once.

Special patient ritualâ a form of religious ritual in which a superhuman agent is the recipient of the ritual actions. A participant serving in such a ritual typically participates in these rituals more than once.

Spirit possessionâ concept that religious practitioners may be possessed by spirits and deities – wittingly or unwittingly – to enable communication with the spirit world, and eventually healing,Âas well asÂspiritual and social transformation.

Substantificationâ the making of something into a substance or essence; the process of making something appear given with reality rather than constructed in history or through language.

Superegoâ a term invented by Freud to name the agency within the mind that accomplishes self-observation, judgements of conscience, and the formation and maintenance of ideals.

594â Glossary

W

Westoxificationâ this idea, first popularized during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, refers to the processes of cultural, military and political influence exerted by the West on nonWestern (specifically Islamic) societies, which are seen as polluting and ‘toxic’ for the integrity and independence of those societies and the values they seek to uphold. The term probably originated in Iran, where in Farsi it is gharbzadegi. Jalal Al-e Ahmad is sometimes credited with coining or popularizing it.

WisdomÂâ a wide-ranging term which may embrace describing, understanding, explaining, knowing and deciding, not only regarding matters of empirical fact but also regarding values, norms, beliefs and the shaping of lives, communities and institutions.

Z

Zionismâ a modern movement and ideology of Jewish nationalism and political liberation, founded as a result of increased anti-Semitism in Europe and Russia in the late nineteenth century.

Zoroasterâ the priestly prophet who revealed God’s teachings in Zoroastrianism. He lived approximately in the thirteenth century bce in north-east Iran.

Zoroastrianismâ the religion of Zoroaster who lived in North East Iran probably in the thirteenth century bce. It teaches that God (Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord) created the world perfect but it is assaulted by evil (Angra Mainyu, the Destructive Spirit) with suffering, misery and death. It is an important human duty to fight evil and protect the Good Creation. Traditionally it taught there will be a last great conflict between good and evil when good will triumph, the dead will be raised and all dwell with God in a perfect existence.