Wednesday, March 25, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
Americas
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Texts
American Spiritualism — The Way of Continuous LifeAn ethnographic introduction to American Spiritualism — the nineteenth-century religious movement, founded on the claim that the dead can speak to the living, that became the first mass democratic spirituality in American history, gave birth to Espiritismo and Theosophy, and endures today in the channeling movement, the medium show, and every tradition that insists death is not the final word.BarquinhaAn ethnographic introduction to the Barquinha — the Little Boat — the smallest and most mysterious of Brazil's three ayahuasca religions, founded in 1945 near Rio Branco, Acre, by former sailor and converted alcoholic Daniel Pereira de Mattos (Frei Daniel), a disciple of Santo Daime's Mestre Irineu. Of the three, Barquinha is the most Catholic in form and the most Afro-Brazilian in practice, the most syncretic and the least studied, and the only one in which the spirits are not merely glimpsed but arrive.Brotherhood of Christ ChurchAn ethnographic introduction to the Brotherhood of Christ Church — the Iowa Essenes — a small intentional community founded in 1988 near Davis City, Iowa, by former Reorganized Latter Day Saint minister Ron Livingston. One of the most distinctive expressions of the Aquarian impulse in the American heartland: an Essene-identified Christian commune living without electricity or running water in the shadow of the TM movement, with its own scriptural revelation and a forty-year record of survival.CandombléAn ethnographic introduction to Candomblé — the Afro-Brazilian religion that emerged from the crucible of Atlantic slavery, survived three centuries of persecution through the fierce custodianship of Black women, and preserved one of the richest spiritual cosmologies in the Americas.Christian Science — Primitive Christianity RestoredAn ethnographic introduction to Christian Science — the religion founded in 1875 by Mary Baker Eddy on the conviction that Jesus's healings were not miracles of exception but demonstrations of divine law, that matter is ultimately unreal, and that sickness, sin, and death are errors of mortal mind correctable through prayer; the most metaphysically radical of the American mind-cure traditions and the first major American-born denomination led by a woman.Curanderismo — The Way of the HealerAn ethnographic introduction to curanderismo — the syncretic folk-healing tradition of Mexico and the US-Mexico borderlands, weaving together Mesoamerican medicine, Spanish Catholic devotion, and African healing knowledge into a living system that addresses illness of the body, spirit, and social world.Diné Religion — The Way of HózhóAn ethnographic introduction to the religion of the Diné (Navajo) people — the theology of hózhó as beauty, harmony, and sacred order; the emergence through the underworlds; the Holy People and Changing Woman; the Four Sacred Mountains that define the homeland; and the elaborate chantway tradition through which hataalii singers restore the world to balance.Espiritismo KardecistaAn ethnographic introduction to Espiritismo Kardecista — the reincarnationist, mediumistic, and charitable religion codified in nineteenth-century France by Allan Kardec and transformed by Brazil into one of the largest and most distinctively national religious movements in the modern world.Haitian VodouAn ethnographic introduction to Haitian Vodou — the Afro-Caribbean religion that emerged from West African traditions in the crucible of slavery, gave spiritual force to the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804, and became one of the most globally significant and most globally misrepresented living traditions of the modern world.Haudenosaunee — The Longhouse WayAn ethnographic introduction to the religion of the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) — the Sky Woman creation narrative, the Great Law of Peace, the Thanksgiving Address as daily covenant with creation, the ceremonial calendar and medicine societies, and the revitalization movement of Handsome Lake, whose Code of Gaiwiio is still recited in full at Tonawanda every year.Lakota Religion — The Way of the Sacred HoopAn ethnographic introduction to the religion of the Lakota people — the theology of Wakan Tanka the Great Mystery, the gift of the sacred pipe, the seven sacred rites, the vision of the flowering tree at the center of all nations, and the survival of a living tradition through colonization, massacre, and forced assimilation.Lucumí — La Regla de OchaAn ethnographic introduction to Lucumí — La Regla de Ocha — the Cuban expression of Yoruba orixá religion that survived the Middle Passage, slavery, colonial suppression, and Marxist atheism to become one of the most dynamic religious movements of the twentieth-century Americas.New Thought — The Way of the Positive MindAn ethnographic introduction to New Thought — the nineteenth-century American metaphysical movement that taught thought shapes reality, that God is infinite mind available to every person, and that health, harmony, and prosperity are the natural condition of being; the direct ancestor of Unity, Religious Science, the self-help industry, the prosperity gospel, and the contemporary language of manifestation.RastafariAn ethnographic introduction to Rastafari — the Jamaican religious movement born from the 1930 coronation of Haile Selassie I, whose theology of Black liberation, divine immanence, and repatriation to Africa spread across the world on the back of reggae music.Religious Science — The Practical InfiniteAn ethnographic introduction to Religious Science — the American philosophical-spiritual movement founded by Ernest Holmes in Los Angeles in 1926, built on the premise that an Infinite Intelligence underlies all existence and that affirmative prayer, practiced with precision and conviction, can align the individual with that Intelligence to produce healing, abundance, and freedom; the most intellectually systematic expression of the New Thought lineage, now continuing through Centers for Spiritual Living.Santo DaimeAn ethnographic introduction to Santo Daime, the syncretic Christian-Amazonian religion founded in the 1930s by Raimundo Irineu Serra in the Brazilian state of Acre — the Forest Doctrine, which centers on the sacramental brew Daime (ayahuasca), a body of revealed hymns, and a decolonial synthesis of folk Catholicism, Afro-Brazilian tradition, and indigenous Amazonian spirituality.The Holy PibyThe foundational scripture of the Afro Athlican Constructive Church, written by Robert Athlyi Rogers of Anguilla in 1924 — the first proto-Rastafarian text to identify Marcus Garvey as a divine apostle and to frame the liberation of Ethiopia's African diaspora as the central act of the twentieth century.The Promised KeyProto-Rastafarian tract by Leonard Percival Howell (G.G. Maragh), published c. 1935 in Jamaica. One of the foundational documents of the early Rastafari movement, identifying Emperor Haile Selassie I as King Alpha and Earth's Rightful Ruler.The Royal Parchment Scroll of Black SupremacyThe 1926 proto-Rastafarian text of Fitz Balintine Pettersburg — a visionary Jamaican preacher who proclaimed the coming of a Black divine sovereignty and whose work directly influenced Leonard Howell, the First Rasta.The Shakers — Hands to Work, Hearts to GodAn ethnographic introduction to the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing — the American religious community known as the Shakers, founded by Ann Lee in 1774, practicing celibacy, communal ownership, gender equality, and the theology of a dual-gendered God; now reduced to three members at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, and among the most theologically and aesthetically significant traditions in American religious history.Theosophy — The Ancient WisdomAn ethnographic introduction to Theosophy — the esoteric religious movement founded in New York in 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, which synthesized Western occultism, Hindu philosophy, and Buddhist cosmology into a system of hidden wisdom, and whose influence on the modern spiritual imagination has been so pervasive that most of its ideas now circulate without attribution.UmbandaAn ethnographic introduction to Umbanda — the Afro-Brazilian religion of spirit mediumship that emerged from the collision of African tradition, Kardecist Spiritism, and the Catholic-indigenous world of twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro, carrying millions through the century and remaining one of the most widely practiced religions in the Americas.Uniao do VegetalAn ethnographic introduction to the União do Vegetal (UDV) — the Brazilian Christian Spiritist religion founded in 1961 by José Gabriel da Costa (Mestre Gabriel) in the Amazon rainforest, whose sacramental use of Hoasca (ayahuasca) and Solomonic-Amazonian cosmology produced both a 24,000-member global institution and a landmark United States Supreme Court ruling on religious freedom.Unity — The Practical WayAn ethnographic introduction to Unity — the American metaphysical Christian movement founded in 1889 by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in Kansas City, built on affirmative prayer, the metaphysical interpretation of scripture, and the conviction that God is present in every person as the divine 'I AM'; the most institutionally durable expression of the New Thought lineage and the home of Silent Unity's 130-year continuous prayer ministry.