Spectators gather at Stonehenge to watch a group of Druids carry out the Dawn Ceremony on the summer solstice, or longest day of the year, 1956

Stonehenge Before the Druids (Long, Long, Before The Druids)

The clash of academic archaeology and what might be called folk archaeology comes into stark focus at Stonehenge.
Marguerite Agniel, c. 1928

Religion of the Devil, Philosophy of the Coiled Serpent

In yoga’s early days in the United States, skeptics warned it would lead people (e.g., women) of good faith and standing into paganism and ill repute.
Jack Parsons

Sex-Cult Rocket Man

Jack Parsons, one of the “suicide squad” trio of young rocket-boy founders of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had an improbable extracurricular life.
Christ's Descent into Hell by Hieronymus Bosch

Fire and Brimstone

If our conception of hell was absent from Christianity at the time the religion was born, whence exactly does it hail?
Women from various districts are seen near cut-outs of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally held by Modi on December 21, 2021 in Allahabad, India.

Why Narendra Modi Presents Himself as a Guru

Drawing on traditions of monastic power, Modi’s party is trying to promote the image of India as a vishwaguru, or teacher to the world.
An abbey cellarer testing his wine. Illumination from a copy of Li livres dou santé by Aldobrandino of Siena, late 13th century

When Monks Went Undercover to Steal Relics

Because relics were understood to be capable of working miracles, any relic that was stolen must have wanted to be.
Satan's fall from heaven, into the logo for Chapo Trap House.

Satan, the Radical

There is a long history of leftist thinkers embracing Satan, usually just as a way to shake up political rhetoric.
Lion hieroglyphs

Leopards, Hippos, and Cats, Oh My! The World’s First Zoo

Hierakonpolis, the capital of Upper Egypt during the Predynastic period, is the site of the world’s first zoo.