The Anthropology of Religious Charisma Ecstasies and Institutions

by Lindholm, Charles

• ISBN13: 9781137377623
• ISBN10: 1137377623
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-12-18
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

How can the irrational force of charisma co-exist within rationalized religious institutions? To answer this question, this book provides the first comparative anthropological explorations of charisma as it occurs among Charismatic Catholics, Evangelical Protestants, Sufis, Hassidic Jews, Buddhist cultists, and Native American shamans in locations ranging from Massachusetts to Syria; from Taiwan to the Dominican Republic; from Angola to the jungles of Paraguay, from Rome to Brooklyn. These cases reveal how various religious traditions incorporate ecstatic charismatic experiences within their overarching organizational systems, and so provide new insight into the nature of religion today.

Author Biography

Charles Lindholm is University Professor of Anthropology at Boston University, USA. His most recent books are Culture and Authenticity (2008) and The Struggle for the World: Liberation Movements for the Twenty-first Century (co-authored with José Pedro Zúquete, 2010).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Charisma in Theory and Practice; Charles Lindholm
PART I: PERFORMING CHARISMA
1. Performing the Charismatic Ritual; Keping Wu
2. Knowledge and Miracles: Modes of Charisma in Syrian Sufism; Paulo G. Pinto
PART II: GENDERING CHARISMA
3. Female Sufis in Syria: Charismatic Authority and Bureaucratic Structure; Gisele Fonseca Chegas
4. The Gender of Charisma: Notes from a Taiwanese Buddhist Transnational NGO; C. Julia Huang-Lemmon
5. Residual Masculinity and the Cultivation of Negative-Charisma in a Caribbean Pentecostal Community; Brendan Jamal Thornton
PART III: CHARISMA AND POLITICS
6. Extraordinary Times: Charismatic Repertoires in Contemporary African Prophetism; Ruy Llera Blanes
7. The Routinization of Improvisation in Avá-Guaraní Shamanic Leadership; Eric Michael Kelley
PART IV: POSTHUMOUS CHARISMA
8. Unruly Miracles: Embodied Charisma and Modern Sainthood, from Padre Pio to "Papa Buono"; Sara M. Bergstresser
9. Habad, Messianism, and the Phantom Charisma of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Scheerson; Yoram Bilu