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In 1931 Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote his famous Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough,” published posthumously in 1967. At that time, anthropology and philosophy were in close contact—continental thinkers drew heavily on anthropology’s theoretical terms, like mana, taboo, and potlatch, in order to help them explore the limits of human belief and imagination. Wittgenstein’s remarks on ritual, magic, religion, belief, ceremony, and Frazer’s own logical presuppositions are as lucid and thought-provoking now as they were in Wittgenstein’s day. Anthropologists find themselves asking many of the same questions as Wittgenstein—and in a reflection of that, this volume is fleshed out with a series of engagements with Wittgenstein’s ideas by some of the world’s leading anthropologists, including Veena Das, David Graeber, Wendy James, Heonik Kwon, Michael Lambek, Michael Puett, and Carlo Severi.

One of the more well-known of Wittgenstein’s thoughts about the nature of religious beliefs is that we go wrong if we try to vindicate or refute religious beliefs in the same way as we do in the sciences. This may make it seem as if Wittgenstein held a view where the world can be divided into two separate spheres, one hard, objective, world of facts where beliefs are held because we have proof for them, and another subjective, softer, vaguer, where our beliefs cannot be proven and are held for completely different reasons. Religious beliefs would thus fall into the second category. In this text, I will argue (1) that even though it is true that Wittgenstein did not think that religious beliefs were on a par with scientific beliefs (held for similar reasons, vindicated in similar ways), he nevertheless did not divide the world into two (in the above mentioned way); and (2) that Wittgenstein’s reflections on the nature of religious beliefs tells us something important about what it means to hold a belief (in general) that challenges several predominant theoretical views about beliefs. I will, with some help from C.S. Lewis, try to show that thinking about the differences in beliefs according to the predominant model—where the “beliefs” are fundamentally different in a scientific and a religious idioms, which leads us to think that one of them has to be endorsing the right, true, belief; or that they are incommensurable—is a model that misrepresents the “conflict.” The matter may not be as intellectual as one may be prone to think—given that the concept of “belief” is at the center—but may rather be best understood (and, hence, the difficulties most efficiently overcome) if we learn to exercise other features of our experience. In particular, we need to learn how to listen and look at things that sound and look strange. A self-critical training of one’s ears is what is needed. (And for these reasons, the article starts in a different register than one might expect.)

Water has always played a significant role in religions. This contribution seeks to investigate comparatively the figure of the rainmaker as presented in Traditional African religions and biblical texts. The phenomenon of the rainmaker is at the centre of this investigation. In Traditional African religions, the rainmaker is not only a figure controlling rain but also has a substantial social standing. In biblical texts, the rainmaker (of which Samuel and Elijah can be considered as examples), functions more like a prophet without an elite social and political status. Despite the differences in the status of the rainmaker among Traditional African religions and biblical texts, both traditions make it abundantly clear that rain originates with God. God sends or withholds the rain. The figure of the rainmaker as a social leader can today contribute to instilling a sense of using water responsibly and guiding communities in considering climate action to ensure sustainable living on land and water. A sense of concern over the responsible use of water will bind communities together. In this way, water can be a binding factor and stimulating topic-enhancing interreligious dialogue.Contribution: This contribution is a comparative study of the phenomenon of the rainmaker as presented in Traditional African religions and biblical texts. It aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, number 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation); number 13 (Climate Action) and number 15 (Life on Land).

This article explores how Woolf’s writing reflects on and reimagines humanity’s relationship with fire. Drawing on the work of environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne—who in coining the term ‘Pyrocene’ places human-fire alliance at the center of the Anthropocene narrative—it argues that flame is embedded in Woolf’s modernist ecological aesthetic. My primary focus is on The Waves (1931) and The Years (1937), where fire is variously associated with storytelling and communality, reverie and ritual, bodily experience and extreme weather. In doing so, the article considers Woolf’s allusions to the fiery worlds of Dante’s Inferno, Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, and James Frazer’s anthropological studies, as well as newspaper reports of a record-breaking heatwave and its impact on people, animals, and the environment. I suggest that to read Woolf and/in the Pyrocene is to attend to the capacious and transformative but also ambiguous and contradictory significance of her modernist fire ecologies. Rather than simply representing phases of the Pyrocene, Woolf presents her readers with pyro-scenes in which the creative potential of flame and language combine to ignite fire-centric stories.

The article sets out to understand the misconceptions and misrepresentations of religion in general and African religion in particular and how these fallacies have affected the latter since they entered the global scene. This also drives us to historicise religious discourses and eventually consider how its apologists and/or scholars of religion have responded since the first half of the 20th century. Have the African indigenous resources contributed positively in enriching Christianity and in building a theologia africana, and is the ‘poverty of Western Religious Experience’ the main factor that fuels the misunderstandings and falsifications? As part of the 50th commemoration of research in theology and religion, particularly through the Research Institute for Theology and Religion (RITR) at the University of South Africa (1975–2025), it strives to account for the scholarly developments that have triggered a paradigm shift, a phenomenon where the Gospel and Africa’s religio-culture are engaged in a dialogue of purpose that strives to offer authentic Christianity in Africa amid critics of such initiatives. It is conceptually informed by Cornelius Willem du Toit’s contrast between the ‘poverty of western religious experiences’ and African spirituality.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implicationsThrough its theo-historical-analytical design, this research article adds value to our knowledge of (South) African religion and the interdisciplinary world of academia by drawing its theoretical framework from the multidisciplinary works of Professor Cornel du Toit. It demonstrates RITR’s works, in the last 50 years (1975–2025), as an interdisciplinary enterprise that seeks to effectively address contemporary African concerns.

George James Frazer (1854-1941), the spiritual father of myth-ritual school, was bred up in the British tradition of empiricism. Believing in the evolutionary process of culture, Frazer mainly focused his attention on explaining such epistemic forms of thought as magic, religion and science. Accordingly, while interpreting the processes through which magic leads to religion and finally evolves into science, Frazer noticed the importance of myth and ritual and their position in this process. However, most researchers regard his reasoning in this regard as incoherent and variable. Thus, in this article, the author tries to reconsider the methodology and axioms on which Frazer relies as well as to make clear the position of myth in his anthropological system. The author believes that Frazer’s dual viewpoint about myth’s position results in no way from the attributed incoherency of his thoughts, but in fact his contemplations on intermediate levels, which make possible going from one stage to the other, provides him with an adequate explanation of the position of myth and its relation to ritual. In the end, it is revealed that Frazer thinks of myth as posterior to ritual in the first intermediate level, while prior to ritual in the second intermediate level. Accordingly, analyzing the validity of Frazer’s reasoning as well as his methodological and epistemic viewpoints, the author has put forth a couple of critical suggestion

This article analyzes the ritual of drowning Marzanna/drowning death (topienie Marzanny/smierci) and identifies factors responsible for changes in it and for its exceptional vitality. Four historical phases are described: a) the late Middle Ages, when it was seen as a remainder of the religion of pagan Slavs; b) the turn of the twentieth century, when it functioned in folk culture as a kind of magical purifying and vegetative practice; c) the second half of the twentieth century, when it was introduced to schools as a sort of educational play; and d) the beginning of the twenty-first century, when it has undergone revitalization in the religious practices of contemporary paganism. KEYWORDS: folk rituals, purifying and vegetative magic, de-sacralization, re-sacralization, contemporary paganism

Abstract This article considers the work of Jonathan Z. Smith, with particular focus on his essay \"When the Bough Breaks.\" After a brief summary of the essay, I will place it and its contributions within the broader context of my interactions with Smith and his work, reflecting on the ways in which Smith's scholarship has allowed me to understand the vital relationship between the questions we ask as scholars and the answers we offer.

An unforgettable story of perseverance and aspiration, this biography of Dr. Ian Frazer, the man whose vaccine for cervical cancer has helped save the lives of more than 275,000 women around the world each year, peels back the many layers of his extraordinary life. Given exclusive access to Frazer, biographer and journalist Madonna King tells of his ongoing struggle for funding cancer research, the herculean international legal battle waged to win the patent, the devastating loss of his friend and co researcher, Dr. Jian Zhou, and Frazer's ongoing commitment to have the vaccine made available in the developing world. This chronicle provides fascinating insight into the life of the Scottish-born Australian of the Year who is behind one of the great medical discoveries of the century.