The Colonization of the Ayahuasca Experience
“If someone is from the Amazon,” says Evgenia Fotiou, an anthropologist who studies Western ayahuasca usage, “they bring some legitimacy” to an ayahuasca ritual.
Religious Identity and Supreme Court Justices
If successful, Amy Coney Barrett would become the 7th current Supreme Court justice to be raised a Catholic, and the sixth conservative Christian.
The Rise of Disability Stigma
Religion once held sway over how people thought about disability. How did that change with the rise of secularism?
Who Is Santa Muerte?
The folk saint Santa Muerte might seem mysterious, but her devotees embrace a wide variety of everyday practices.
Healing, Spirituality, and Black Lives Matter
Spirituality has long infused and inspired social justice movements. Activists today expand that heritage.
“Beating the Bounds”
How did people find out where their local boundaries were before there were reliable maps?
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.
Ancient Monks Got That Quarantine Feeling, Too
Listlessness, boredom, torpor, that "noonday demon" that tempts you away from spiritual connections—that's what was called acedia.
The Protestant Astrology of Early American Almanacs
The wildly popular books helped people understand farming and health through the movement of the planets, in a way compatible with Protestantism.
The Undercover Abolitionists of the 18th Century
Since many people considered them an off-putting radical sect, some Quaker abolitionists worked behind the scenes to eradicate slavery.