Magic and the Supernatural in the Ancient World

• Allow me to show my ignorance and ask: what exactly determines whether a food is kosher or not (doesn't really have to do with the discussion, but I'm curious)?
• Do you think the situation in Waco was handled poorly? Would you have done anything different? If so, what?
• The article on Jonestown refers (several times) to the horrors that occurred there. What exactly, other than the mass murder/suicide, went on in Jonestown?

• If the health food movement can be seen as a religious movement, couldn't the junk food movement be seen as magical?
• Why do people prefer pseudoscience to actual science?
• Is American society really as diverse as it would like to believe? The fact that there is the "anti-cult" mentality still would suggest otherwise.

Bradley Laye

• 1. Jim Jones is described as charismatic and that he had a strong apocalyptic feeling, but wasn't he insane? If I recall from syphylis?
• 2. What would happen if the Pope declared that everyone should kill themselves when he dies or on a specific date?
• 3. Are apocaplyptic tendancies necessary to be "cult?"

Zach Harrelson:zharrel@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu
• In the Jonestown article an interesting point was raised. Society-at-large clams other-world communal societies are brainwashed by charismatic leaders. Other-world communal societies, in turn, claim that society-at-large is brainwashed by dominant institutions at the top of the power structure. Aren't we all brainwashed to some extent via socialization? Doesn't the often salacious and inaccurate information provided by the government and media bias our views about everything?
• I find it strange that serpent handlers in West Virginia create a bad or lethal situation in the hopes of finding good in their lives via recovery. To find "good" they have to make "bad" and hope it turns into "good." What is even stranger is that, in 1976, only 20 deaths had been recorded. Many more people were bitten or injured but actually recovered. Is this successful recovery rate related to a faith or support structure similar to that invlved with traditional societies' treatment of mental illness?
• After reading Barkun's article I have a much different perspective on the Waco incident than I held before. As posttribulationists, was the large weapons arsenal maintained by Koresh intended for protection against persecution from society-at-large? Or was this arsenal intended for some sort of attack on the outside world? Or was it maybe a sort of psychological mechanism of social control used by Koresh over the Branch Davidians?

• 1. After I got over the bizarre nature of the article "You are what you eat: Religious aspects of The Health Food Movement," I found the rejection of traditional definition of religion central to Dubisch's argument. In light of this significance, how much more bizarre would her argument be with our definition of religion?
• 2. Is the resurgence of witchcraft/satanism/astrology a revitalization movement? If so, what kind?
• 3. Truzzi states that the vast majority of modern witches "belong to no organized group and have obtained their knowledge from their readings and conversations with others uninitiated into covenhold secrets. The typical person of this class is a young high-school or college-age girl who, for a variety of reasons, self-designates herself as a witch to her peers; because her status is attractive to her friends but elicits fear in her enemies, it produces many social rewards for her." How different is this view from ours about witches in antiquity?

• The article concerning the events at Waco brings up an interesting question for the U.S. gov't in international relations as well. How do they go about dealing with such groups as Islamic-fundamentalists whom claim that the Koran teaches them to die as martyrs against Je3ws and other "enemies"?
• John Hall, in his article on Jonestown brings up the point that most of the followers were subject to brainwashing of some sort. I think that all religions include a type of brainwashing, even those that appeal to mass populations, such as Judiasm, Christianity etc.
• Where does the church of Isis fall when discussing mystery cults? In Egypt, I came across a religious group whose leader was present and was named Isis. They claimed that Egypt was the center of the universe and that members of the church had to make pilgrimages to this holy land. The group wasa called "Circle of Light."