Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality Religion in a Pluralistic World [Paperback]

An important book which deserves the careful attention of serious students of religion. Religious Studies Review

Anthropologist and spiritual explorer Felicitas Goodman offers a unified field theory of religion as human behavior. She examines ritual, the religious trance, alternate reality, ethics and moral code, and the named category designating religion.

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part One: Theory

Chapter 1. The Religious: Can It Be Defined?
Chapter 2. Human Evolution and the Origins and Evolution of Religious Behavior
Chapter 3. The Independent Variable: Interaction with the Habitat
Chapter 4. Dependent Variables
Ritual Behavior
The Religious Trance
The Alternate Reality
Good Fortune, Misfortune, and the Rituals of Divination
Ethics and Its Relation to Religious Behavior
The Semantics of Religion

Part Two: Ethnography

Chapter 5. The Hunter-Gatherers
Chapter 6. The Horticulturalists
Chapter 7. The Agriculturalists
Chapter 8. The Nomadic Pastoralists
Chapter 9. The City Dwellers

Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index