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Religious Studies Review

ISSN 0319-485X

7 papers in the library · publishing 2018-2026

Papers

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MAX WEBER, RUDOLF STEINER, AND MODERN WESTERN ESOTERICISM: A TRANSCULTURAL APPROACH. By AaronFrench. Asia, Europe, and Global Connections. Routledge, 2025. Pp. viii + 200. Hardback, $150.00.

Religious Studies Review June 1, 2026 Lehel Balogh

Although many of the essays in this book are exceptional, I find David Feltmate's contribution noteworthy.He addresses the scholarly economic and political problems of studying religion and film and television in today's professorship economy and why he still finds meaning in studying film and television through religious studies.The rest of this volume remains impressive, and it will certainly...

JACOB BOEHME AND THE SPIRITUAL ROOTS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY: DREAMS, ECSTASY, AND WISDOM. By Glenn J.McCullough. Studies in Theology and Religion, 35. Brill, 2025. Pp. xviii + 308. Hardback, €161.00.

Religious Studies Review December 1, 2025 Andrej Kapcár

McCullough is an assistant professor of practical theology and spiritual care at the University of Toronto. He offers a detailed and engaging study that connects early modern mysticism with the foundations of modern psychotherapy. By positioning the seventeenth-century German philosopher and Christian mystic, Jacob Boehme (1575–1624) within a longer intellectual lineage reaching back to Saint...

ʿILM‐I ILĀHĪ DAR SUNNAT‐I ʿIRFĀNĪ VA ṢADRĀʾĪ, DIVINE KNOWLEDGE IN THE MYSTICAL AND SADRAEAN TRADITION. By Seyyed AhmadGhaffari Qarabagh. Iranian Research Institute of Philosophy, 2025. Pp. 462. 4,400,000 IRR.

Religious Studies Review December 1, 2025 Moslem Tahiri

The book Divine Knowledge in the Mystical and Sadraean Tradition by Seyyed Ahmad Ghaffari Qarabagh is a profound and systematic study of one of the most intricate theological and philosophical topics in Islamic thought: divine knowledge. The author adopts a comparative approach, examining and contrasting the perspectives of Islamic mysticism (particularly Ibn ʿArabī and his followers) and Mullā...

GLOBAL AYAHUASCA: WONDROUS VISIONS AND MODERN WORLDS. By Alex K.Gearin. Spiritual Phenomena. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2024. Pp. xiv + 280. Hardback, $90.00; Paperback, $22.50.

Religious Studies Review December 1, 2024 Elena Popov

Gearin, an Australian medical anthropologist, specializes in the globalization of psychedelics and intercultural ethics in medical tourism. He earned his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Queensland in 2015 and has conducted fieldwork in Australia, Peru, and China. Global Ayahuasca represents a culmination of his ethnographic research, offering a comparative analysis of ayahuasca's...

THE ELOQUENT BLOOD: THE GODDESS BABALON AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF FEMININITIES IN WESTERN ESOTERICISM. By Manon HedenborgWhite. Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 374. Hardback $105.00.

Religious Studies Review September 1, 2022 Manon Hedenborg

In recent decades, the study of new religious movements and contemporary forms of esotericism evolved to become an important aspect within the study of religion.1 This is all the more true when we add gender to the mix. Indeed, as argued by Ursula King, “without the incisive, critical application of the category of gender it is no longer possible to accurately describe, analyze or explain any...

IMAGINING THE EAST: THE EARLY THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. Edited by TimRudbøg and ErikReenberg Sand. Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. x+384. Hardback, $99.00.

Religious Studies Review February 20, 2020

The Theosophical Society (est. 1875 in New York by H. P. Blavatsky, H. S. Olcott, and others) is increasingly becoming recognized for its influential role in shaping the alternative new religious and cultural landscape of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and perhaps especially for being an early promoter of interest in Eastern religions and philosophies. Many scholars now point to...

ESOTERICISM AND NARRATIVE: THE OCCULT FICTION OF CHARLES WILLIAMS. By ArenRoukema. Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism, 24. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018. Pp. xii+318. Hardback, $228.00.

Religious Studies Review May 29, 2018 A. Roukema

Book synopsis: Esotericism and Narrative: The Occult Fiction of Charles Williams situates the life and fiction of the Inkling Charles Williams in the network of modern occultism, with special focus on his initiatory experiences in A.E. Waite’s Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. Aren Roukema evaluates fictional projections of magic, kabbalah, alchemy and ritual experience in Williams’s seven novels...