Mary Rudge is one of the too few people on this planetwho know the meaningful things to write about andwho have the ability to do this for the world.----Jack London George Rowan, Jr Musician, Cultural and Community Activist-'Jack London' George Rowan, Jr Award winning Musician, Culturaland Community Activist Mary reminds us of our basic human connectedness, one possible antidote against war... Elaine Starkmanco-editor State of Peace; The Women Speak

Of Mary Rudge's works (Water Planet) "..A major fi gure in international poetry [who] is reaching the peak of her poetic power and process..." Ty Hadman in Poet News "...captures the gold ring: the archetype that unites us all." Noni Howard, Publisher, New World Press "Mary Rudge is a poet whose message is a perpetual YES!" Lawrence Ferlinghetti "As when performing her award winning poem onstage at the Saturn Odyssey (Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco) along with Scotty of Star Trek crew, she makes an Odyssey into the deepest resources of the heart..." Natica Angilly, Artists Embassy International "Her poems...intensify our sense of that fl uid strength of the universe which lies deep in each of us..." Barbara Christian, University of California, Berkeley "Mary reminds us of our basic human connectedness, one possible antidote against war..." Elaine Starkman "The bedrock of Rudge's poetry is humanitarianism, a vision of a world where peace and harmony reign triumphant..." Publishers Weekly

James McClenon examines the relationship between wondrous events—extrasensory perception, apparitions, out-of-body and near-death experiences, sleep paralysis, psychokinesis, firewalking, psychic surgery, and spiritual healing—and the foundations of religious belief.

"If the Saint calls you, if you have an open road, then you don't feel the fire as if it were your enemy," says one of the participants in the Anastenaria. This compelling work evokes and contrasts two forms of firewalking and religious healing: first, the Anastenaria, a northern Greek ritual in which people who are possessed by Saint Constantine dance dramatically over red-hot coals, and, second, American firewalking, one of the more spectacular activities of New Age psychology. Loring Danforth not only analyzes these rituals in light of the most recent work in medical and symbolic anthropology but also describes in detail the lives of individual firewalkers, involving the reader personally in their experiences: he views ritual therapy as a process of transformation and empowerment through which people are metaphorically moved from a state of illness to a state of health. Danforth shows that the Anastenaria and the songs accompanying it allow people to express and resolve conflict-laden family relationships that may lead to certain kinds of illnesses. He also demonstrates how women use the ritual to gain a sense of power and control over their lives without actually challenging the ideology of male dominance that pervades Greek culture. Comparing the Anastenaria with American firewalking, Danforth includes a gripping account of his own participation in a firewalk in rural Maine. Finally he examines the place of anthropology in a postmodern world in which the boundaries between cultures are becoming increasingly blurred.

The Sri Lankan ethnic conflict that has occurred largely between Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus is marked by a degree of religious tolerance that sees both communities worshiping together. This study describes one important site of such worship, the ancient Hindu temple complex of Munnesvaram. Standing adjacent to one of Sri Lanka's historical western ports, the fortunes of the Munnesvaram temples have waxed and waned through the years of turbulence, violence and social change that have been the country's lot since the advent of European colonialism in the Indian Ocean. Bastin recounts the story of these temples and analyses how the Hindu temple is reproduced as a center of worship amidst conflict and competition.

This is the first volume of a projected three-volume work on the little-known South Indian folk cult of the goddess Draupadi and on the classical epic, the Mahabharata, that the cult brings to life in mythic, ritual, and dramatic forms. Draupadi, the chief heroine of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, takes on many unexpected guises in her Tamil cult, but her dimensions as a folk goddess remain rooted in a rich interpretive vision of the great epic. By examining the ways that the cult of Draupadi commingles traditions about the goddess and the epic, Alf Hiltebeitel shows the cult to be singularly representative of the inner tensions and working dynamics of popular devotional Hinduism.

This is the first volume of a projected three-volume work on the little known South Indian folk cult of the goddess Draupadi and on the classical epic, the Mahabharata, that the cult brings to life in mythic, ritual and dramatic forms. It focuses on the Draupadi cult's own double mythology, moving from its storieis about Draupadi's 'primal temple' near the capital of the medieval South Indian Kingdom of Gingee to its version of the Mahabharata war on the North Indian plain of Kuruksetra. Throughout, Hiltebeitel intertwines 'regional' data, gathered from both oral and written sources, with the 'epic', drawn from the cult's own performative traditions as well as from classical versions of the Mahabharata in both Tamil and Sanskrit. He re-examines many issues critical to Indological studies and takes up them while breaking new ground in investigating the further rapport between the Hindu goddess and the Indian epic. Future volumes will treat the rituals of the Draupadi cult and the Mahabharata as seen through a Draupadi cult retrospective. Contents List of Maps, List of Plates, List of Tables, Preface, Acknowledgements, Conventions, PART I: From Gingee: Introduction: Invocatory Songs to Draupadi, 'The Lady Who Resides in Gingee', The Draupadi Cult: Its Historical and Regional Settings, Social Background, Diffusion, Variation, and Change, The Sources of the Gingee Kingdom: The Living River and the Tree of Gold, Myths of the Melacceri Draupadi Temple, Muttal Ravuttan: Draupadi's Muslim Devotee, PART II: To Kuruksetra: The Draupadi Cult's Mahabharata: An Introduction, The Death of Baka: Prelude to the Drama Cycle, Additional Marriages, The two Sabhas: 'The Rajasuya Sacrifice' and 'Dice Match and Disrobing' , Arjuna's Tapas, Draupadi's Forest Exile and the Period in Disguise: Virapancali, Puvalicci, and Kuravanci, Krsna the Messenger, Aravan's Sacrifice, Pormannan's Fight: Pottu Raja at Kuruksetra, Pormannan's Flight: The War Kings Weapons and Their Mythical Sources, Kuruksetra: The Mahabharata War, When Draupadi Walked on fire, Appendix 1: The Lunar Dynasty from its origins to draupadi's Second Advent at Gingee, Appendix 2. An outline History of Gingee, Abbreviations, Bibliography, Index.