Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Perspectives. Reading 1-1. Animism / Edward B. Tylor -- Reading 1-2. The Return of Totemism in Childhood / Sigmund Freud -- Reading 1-3. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life / Emile Durkheim -- 2. Myth, Cosmology, and Symbolic Classification. Reading 2-1. Harelips and Twins: The Splitting of a Myth / Claude Lévi-Strauss -- Reading 2-2. The Dogon / Marcel Griaule, Germaine Dieterlen -- Reading 2-3. Pollution / Mary Douglas -- 3. Gods, Spirits, and Souls. Reading 3-1. A Kernel of Doubt / Jack Goody -- Reading 3-2. The Universality of Ancestor Worship / Lyle B. Steadman, Craig T. Palmer, Christopher F. Tilley -- Reading 3-3. What Makes Anthropomorphism Natural: Intuitive Ontology and Cultural Representations / Pascal Boyer -- 4. Ritual. Reading 4-1. Ritual Symbolism, Morality, and Social Structure among the Ndembu / Victor W. Turner -- Reading 4-2. The Rites of Passage: Conclusions / Arnold van Gennep -- Reading 4-3. "Between Belief and Unbelief Lies the Performance of Salat": Meaning and Efficacy of a Muslim Ritual / Heiko Henkel -- 5. Practitioners of Ritual. Reading 5-1. Religious Specialists / Victor W. Turner -- Reading 5-2. The Woman Who Didn't Become a Shaman / Margery Wolf -- Reading 5-3. The Sound of Rushing Water / Michael J. Harner -- 6. Body and Mind. Reading 6-1. My Adventure with Ebene: A "Religious Experience" / Napoleon A. Chagnon -- Reading 6-2. "Thus Are Our Bodies, Thus Was Our Custom": Mortuary Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society / Beth A. Conklin -- Reading 6-3. "In Thy Blood Live": Gender and Ritual in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition / Leonie J. Archer --

7. Magic and Witchcraft. Reading 7-1. Sympathetic Magic / James G. Frazer -- Reading 7-2. Men Bewitch Others When They Hate Them / E. E. Evans-Pritchard -- Reading 7-3. Baseball Magic / George Gmelch -- 8. Death. Reading 8-1. "Voodoo" Death / Walter B. Cannon -- Reading 8-2. Symbolic Associations of Death / Peter Metcalf, Richard Huntington -- Reading 8-3. Making the King Divine: A Case Study in Ritual Regicide from Timor / David Hicks -- 9. Gender and Sexuality. Reading 9-1. The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol / Eric R. Wolf -- Reading 9-2. The Hijras of India: Cultural and Individual Dimensions of an Institutionalized Third Gender Role / Serena Nanda -- Reading 9-3. The Syphilitic Shock / Stanislav Andreski -- 10. The Natural Environment. Reading 10-1. Cosmology as Ecological Analysis: A View from the Rain Forest / G. Reichel-Dolmatoff -- Reading 10-2. Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations among a New Guinea People / Roy A. Rappaport -- Reading 10-3. Water Witching: An Interpretation of a Ritual Pattern in a Rural American Community / Evon Z. Vogt -- 11. Agents of Change. Reading 11-1. Judaism, Christianity, and the Socio-Economic Order / Max Weber -- Reading 11-2. Revitalization Movements / Anthony F. C. Wallace -- Reading 11-3. Cargo Cults / Peter M. Worsley -- 12. New Religious Movements. Reading 12-1. Apocalypse at Jonestown / John R. Hall -- Reading 12-2. The Unification Church / Eileen Barker -- Reading 12-3. Faith beyond Belief: Evangelical Protestant Conceptions of Faith and the Resonance of Anti-Humanism / Omri Elisha.