Religion

Book excerpt: Religion: Super Religion is part of the Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks series dedicated to the study of religion. Composed of twenty-five thematic chapters, this volume reexamines the supernatural in the study of religion for the next generation of students and scholars. Toward this same end, Super Religion takes a robust interdisciplinary approach to a wide variety of religious traditions to engage with new thinking about such classical and contemporary topics as spirits, possession, vision, deification, the miraculous, magical powers, and the paranormal. Fields as diverse as modern medicine, philosophy, psychoanalysis, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, folklore studies, postcolonial criticism, popular culture studies, and New Testament criticism come into play. The volume also includes bibliographies, filmographies, images, a glossary, and a comprehensive index, all of which aid the reader in exploring the fantastic terrain of this ancient and yet ever new mode of human experience and inquiry.