Exam 2 Study Guide Essay

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* 83-86 (rituals) * Talked about rituals being religion in action * Ritual accomplishes what religion sets out to do. * Creates those values and arrangements. * 108-115 (myerhoff wirikuta) * Wirikuta, place once inhabited by the first people * Separations are obliterated (between sexes, age, etc) * Deer, representing the huichols past life as nomadic; Maize, current life as agriculturists; peyote, the private, spiritual vision of each individual. * Every so often, reverse names of things, only in peyote country. (every year, the leader makes the changes…. Eyes are tomatoes…. Weird. * 142-149 (turner specialists) * Talked about shaman, specialists, priests, prophets, medium, diviners, etc. * 150-157 (shaman) * Shamanism is probably the world’s oldest form of religion. Term not traditionally used in any indigenous culture because every language has its own term for a shaman, and the ism implies formal doctrine. Shamanism should perhaps be used only for religions of the non-Euro peoples of the circumpolar north. Shamanic believers generally say that many features of the world may be imbued with some form of spirits. Shamanism is often inherited within a lineage or kin-group, but the shaman doesn’t choose their path. Spirits choose the path. * Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down * 283-289 Witchcraft * By women denying sex, food, nurture; this is seen as evidence of witchcraft. A womans soul and body were seen as inferior. Devil worship was linked with witchcraft, causing an image of witchcraft to be lethal to women. Societies of the simplest technology did no concern themselves with witchcraft. But once the sedentary lifestyle were to come about, witchcraft fears will be rampant. They solve disputes by refusing to acknowledge them. The decline of magic coincided with a marked improvement in the extent to which the environment became amenable to control. Better life = who cares. * 299-307 wicca * Modern witchcraft was created by Gerald gardner. Witchcraft is meant to be a revival of an ancient nature-religion when earth was worshipped as a woman. Witchcraft, they say, is about the tactile, intuitive understanding of the turn of the seasons. Gardner began initiating people into groups called covens, which were run by women called “high priestesses”. Covens performed spells and rituals at full moons to wish health, or jobs. Witchcraft appeals to feminism because they worship a female deity. Witch is seen as the males fearful rejection of a woman too beautiful or sexy.

Elements/functions of a good (abstract, introduction, body, and summary conclusion) quoting and paraphrasing long quotes plagiarism citation format works cited format writing tips and techniques religious specialists – One who devotes himself to a particular branch of religion or religious system.
Magician – In societies where such power is regarded as impersonal, it is described as magic.
Priest – the functioning of a regularly organized and permanent enterprise concerned with influencing the gods. A priest’s power is inherited or is derived from the body of codified and standardized ritual knowledge that he learns from older priests and later transmits to successors.
Prophet – Founded on revelation and personal ‘charisma’.
Charisma – Capacity to achieve the ecstatic state which are viewed, in accordance with primitive experience, as the preconditions for producing certain effects in meteorology, healing, divination, and telepathy. May be either ascribed or achieved.
Shaman – Ritual practitioner whose status is acquired through a personal communication from a supernatural being. Powers are from divine stroke.
Medium – One who is possessed by a spirit and serves as a means of communication between the spirit world and other humans. Needs not exert mastery; he is rather the vessel of the transhuman entity.
Divination – Inquiry about future