Organizing data from cultures the world over, Mircea Eliade, one ofthe preeminent interpreters of world religion in the twentieth century, lays out the basic pa

First published 1958; preparation of sacred ground, separation from women; Kurnai initiation mystery; tooth avulsion Yuin, Murring & Waradjuri, initiatory ordea

A fifteen-year-old American girl reluctantly accompanies her family to Kenya, where she falls in love with a young Frenchman and gradually with Africa itself.

Thinkers and activists from many orientations and traditions are now coming together to explore ways to reconstitute rites of passage as a form of community hea

Famed historian of religion Mircea Eliade observes that even moderns who proclaim themselves residents of a completely profane world are still unconsciously nou