Showing results for "Icons" in Religious Studies

The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom. The book was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased, and was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not written on papyrus. A number of the spells which make up the Book continued to be separately inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as the spells from which they originated always had been.

Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhartha Gautama, was a spiritual teacher who lived in ancient India between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. He is the founder of Buddhism, one of the major religions of the world. Buddha was born into a royal family, but he renounced his luxurious lifestyle at the age of 29 to seek the truth about life and the nature of suffering. He spent six years as a wandering ascetic before attaining enlightenment at the age of 35.

Before Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King was identified with Moses, African Americans identified those who challenged racial oppression in America with Samson. In Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper tell the story of how this biblical character became an icon of African American literature.

Aleister Crowley was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. Crowley declared his followers should "Do what thou wilt" and seek to align themselves with their True Will through the practice of magick. Herein is a treasury of his long-lost writings.

Aleister Crowley was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was trained in ceremonial magic. Crowley declared his followers should "do what thou wilt" and seek to align themselves with their true will through the practice of magic.