This thesis analyzes the 35-year-run of the Ladies' Repository, and Gatherings of the West, a monthly periodical distributed by the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1841-1876. This thesis will first look at the publication history of The Ladies' Repository to understand why this publication was financed by the church, what its readership looked like, and why it ceased publication in 1876 (or, rather, why the money ran out). Second, and the main thrust of my argument, is that this particular magazine decentralized the idea that private and public spheres could not be transgressed unless some rhetorical trickery was afoot. For The Repository women's agency is not understood in the confines of the domestic sphere, but through articles about female missionaries the domestic sphere was always considered to be doing public good. I argue that the articles in The Repository oriented women to an idea of western expansion that called on them to missionize or support itinerant husbands in order to see America manifest from sea to shining sea. Finally, while many narratives of westward expansion in America characterize the frontier, or any land outside the geographical borders, as masculine, I argue that The Ladies' Repository gives scholars a sketch of a feminine, yet still uncharted West. To do this, I connect this westward expansion to Methodist understanding of nature, natural power, and God's providence. Through this, while men might have done the conquering of the West, women domesticated this unruly, and seemingly unbounded space. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 20, 2018. / Ladies' Repository, Methodist, missionaries, Nineteenth Century, popular literature, women's magazines / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Thesis; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Jamil Drake, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

This thesis’ aim is to examine the central and considerable Christian symbols in the tale ofNarnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis. The method used in this thesishas been as a content analysis of the book from 1950 and the two films from 1988 and 2005,which has been created from the books’ content. In order to identify the Christian symbolismin the content analysis, Propp’s structuralism has been applied to explore the differences andthe development of the story in the material and the structure of the tale’s storyline andcharacters. Based on that all stories have the same characters and storyline through all theages. The assumption has been proven by applying both the theory to the study and with helpfrom the complementary studies with similar perceptions in their work, which will bepresented throughout the whole thesis.

This thesis aims to study how Sam Harris has reinterpreted the meaning of some central buddhist concepts to fit within the contemporary discourse of secular mindfulness. To do this, the discourse analytical method of Laclau and Mouffe has been used. The studied material is As it is volume 1 and 2 by the dzogchen-lama Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, and the book and app Waking Up by Sam Harris. The study analyses and compares the use of three concepts, three nodal points, in the discourses of traditional dzogchen and contemporary secular mindfulness: ”buddhism”, ”teacher” and ”enlightenment”. A general comparison is also made between the different world views that appear in As it is and Waking Up, respectively. The major findings of the study are: In the dzogchen-discourse of Tulku Urgyen ”buddhism” is seen as a religious creed, with a multifaceted cosmology in which the Buddha is considered to have divine powers. In the secular mindfulness discourse of Sam Harris ”buddhism” is described as a testable proto- science, in which the Buddha is equated with a skilled psychologist. In the dzogchen-discourse of Tulku Urgyen a “teacher” gets his authority by referring to a line of teachers going back to the Buddha. The teacher is considered to have supernatural powers and the student is expected to show devotion. In the secular mindfulness discourse of Sam Harris a ”teacher” only needs to have practical expertise, and the student is supposed to question and test the teacher's statements. Briefly, this can be described as a change from a religious guru to a secular coach. In the dzogchen-discourse the concept of enlightenment is associated with salvation and described as the only way to escape new painful reincarnations. Enlightenment is also linked to compassion and considered an altruistic project. In the secular mindfulness discourse of Sam Harris the quest for enlightenment is described as an individualistic health project, aimed at increasing mental well-being, personal development and happiness. Keywords: Sam Harris, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, dzogchen, buddhism, secular mindfulness, enlightenment, discourse analysis.

I propose to examine the mythological and ritual significance of an important yet little-known Tibetan protector deity named Tsiu Marpo (Tsi'u dmar po). Tsiu Marpo is the protector deity of Samyé (Bsam yas) monastery (est. 779 C.E.), the oldest Buddhist monastery in Tibet. Almost nothing is known of this figure in available scholarship. De Nebesky-Wojkowitz 1998, Gibson 1991, and Kalsang 1996 are the only secondary sources available on Tsiu Marpo, and the latter source provides a very poor and rudimentary history. The first two sources are informative; however, de Nebesky-Wojkowitz is outdated and Gibson only briefly examines Tsiu Marpo for the purpose of his larger argument. Due to this paucity of information, in order to understand better this deity and his importance in Tibet, I will explore Tsiu Marpo through four venues representative of his influential role: his origin story and its connection with Tibetan cultural history, his iconography and its representation of Tibetan expressions of violence, his involvement in apotropaic ritual, and his importance within the Tibetan oracle tradition. This last venue of exploration will pull from all previous venues in order to elaborate on the oracle tradition as a dynamic outlet, through which the ritual program of the deity is enacted for a social service, and which utilizes iconographically significant ritual implements to submerge the service within a realm of sacrality. Through this detailed examination of one Tibetan protector deity, I hope to provide a template for further studies on protector deities as a whole, an arena of Tibetan studies that is still dim and disorganized. Therefore, my thesis will begin with an introduction to Tibetan protector deities, the texts through which they are encountered, and the various sources that have contributed to the figure of Tsiu Marpo and of protector deities in general. From there my focus will contract into a detailed exploration of the protector deity Tsiu Marpo and expand outward into his iconographic, cosmologic, ritual, and oracular importance. My conclusion will tie these observations together to illustrate the multifaceted connections between the ritual and the social in Tibetan Buddhism and the importance of protector deities as a cohesive force between multiple cultural milieus, particularly lay and monastic communities. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Religion in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2006. / March 31, 2006. / Tsi'u Dmar Po, Bsam Yas, Samye Monastery, Wrathful Deities, Oracles, Protector Deities, Tibetan Deities / Includes bibliographical references. / Bryan Cuevas, Professor Directing Thesis; Kathleen Erndl, Committee Member; John Corrigan, Committee Member.

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, better known by his English name George Santayana, was a prominent philosopher, novelist, and poet during the first part of the twentieth century. In this dissertation, I use Santayana’s life and work to argue for the importance of a treatment of aesthetics in the field of religion that considers the way these two overlapping concerns shape conceptions of individual subjectivity. Specifically, I use Santayana’s notion of religion as a type of poetic production to point to the way aesthetics can provide discursive tools for analyzing the way consciousness is perceived and articulated by subjects in modernity. I term Santayana’s method “plastic religion” for its emphasis on the way subjectivity both shapes and is shaped by encounters with the environment. This work compliments traditional approaches to aesthetics in the field of American religious history which emphasize sensory data as evidence of commercial activity and institution-building, while also suggesting that this information provides historians a unique perspective through which they can engage critically with identity formation and expression. In this dissertation, I take up Santayana as the explicit subject, but I also view his insistence that religion and poetry are bound together as methodologically instructive. In each chapter, I offer historically-minded readings of Santayana’s life and writing regarding religion that also present interpretive approaches that account for aesthetics. Chapter One provides an overview of Santayana’s life and work framed around three instances of metanoia, or conversion. Typically translated as a “change of heart,” the term metanoia has both theological and poetic connotations that suggest the reformation of perception. Santayana used the term in his autobiography to describe a moment in 1893 when, after experiencing a series of personal tragedies, his sense of self was altered, and he became committed to living a life of personal and professional detachment. In this chapter, I suggest that, in keeping with Santayana’s use of the term, moments in which the self-conception of a subject is dramatically altered can be located in documentary evidence and can help shape the framework of biographical narrative. Chapter Two maps the career-spanning debates between Santayana and William James, Josiah Royce, and John Dewey regarding the relationship between religion and experience. Using Santayana’s description of American philosophy’s division between “the skyscraper” and “the colonial manse” as a general spatial metaphor, I argue that Santayana’s understanding of religion’s plasticity was influenced by his debates with Royce and James, and affirmed later in his life through his public back-and-forth with Dewey. I also use this chapter to position Santayana in relation to the idealism, pragmatism, and naturalism that were prevalent over the course of his life in his philosophical environment. Chapter Three describes in detail Santayana’s definition of religion as a type of poetic expression as contained in his book Interpretations of Religion and Poetry, and it positions this perspective in the broader aesthetic tradition of American spirituality as described by historians William Clebsch and Henry Samuel Levinson. According to Clebsch and Levinson, individuals within the aesthetic tradition of American spirituality treat religion as a process of creative consciousness building using responses to existing traditions and their own experience. This religious style began with Jonathan Edwards and then carries on through Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, and Santayana. I define Santayana’s position as “plastic religion” for the emphasis it places on the creation of reality, for the subject and for the surrounding environment, through form. Chapter Four outlines the manner in which Santayana’s understanding of religion’s plasticity shaped his approach to the curation of his national, racial, and religious identity. I argue that Santayana’s perspective on the ability of the individual to exercise agency when directing their perception was endowed by his view of religion. I also indicate the way this allowed him to translate philosophic notions of the self to expressions of cultural identity. For Santayana, this approach made it possible to navigate the complex terrain of his own “variations,” but it also, at times, left him vulnerable to the harboring of prejudice. Chapter Five examines the influence Santayana’s treatment of religion had on a diverse array of individuals during the 20th century. Alfred North Whitehead, the English mathematician and philosopher, found in Santayana’s discussion of religion a critical tool for his understanding of religious difference. Alain Locke, the leader of the New Negro movement in the 1920s, drew on Santayana’s description of religion when formulating his views on value relativism and cultural pluralism. Russell Kirk, the Catholic traditionalist, understood Santayana as a vital link in the progression of conservative thought. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / July 24, 2019. / Aesthetics, American Religious History, Identity, Plasticity, Pragmatism, Santayana / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Ruse, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member; Jamil Drake, Committee Member.

The rise of spiritualism in the late nineteenth century raised new ways to perceive the dead. A new possibility to communicate with the deceased attributed novel characteristics to the human soul. Building upon this spiritualist discourse, the prominent theory-crafter of the Theosophical Society, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), thought the spirit of the dead, which she differentiated from the soul, to be a separate but connected component of the physical body. As such, this component should be separable from the physical body before death. Blavatsky developed the theory into an ontology (theory of what there is), cosmogony (the origin of the universe), physiology (the constitution of the human body), and soteriology (a doctrine of salvation). The separation possible before death became known as astral projection and it was a way to liberate the ‘astral body’ from its physical sheath, enabling the individual to travel spatially and temporally. Astral projection was regarded the apex of magic and a highly valued goal, actively pursued. Unlike previous studies, this thesis aims to explain the phenomenon of astral projection, how it was perceived and constructed, from both an emic as well as etic perspective. Using discourse analysis, this thesis aims to explore and discuss how Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society diachronically constructed their understanding of the practice and the mechanisms enabling it. In addition, this thesis also aims to trace the evolution of astral projection in the Theosophical Society from its founding in 1875 to Blavatsky’s death in 1891 as well as what functions the practice filled. This is achieved in two sections, through three steps, split between the ‘early’ and the ‘later’ Theosophical Society; this thesis examines the physiology presented, followed by the second step of surveying the ontology represented, which lastly explores how these are used to explain the phenomenon of astral projection.

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The purpose of this paper is to trace some of the accepted characteristics of the devil to their origins through a study of folklore and ancient religions. The characteristics include the principal form taken by each devil and trace its beginnings through folklore; the animals connected with these devils; powers allotted to these devils; and purposes served by these devils.

Bibliography: pages 462-481. / This dissertation is a study of the method whereby the employment of variant philosophical, metaphysical, or theological data emanating from biblical or aggadic sources, yields variant practical halakic results. The extent to which the cogitative assimilation of these data directly affects one and influences one's actions in practice is the extent to which this process has been operationally effective in the concrete translation of thought into action.

The demands of a global Cold War led the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and its successor organization, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to forge unprecedented relationships with Catholics, Buddhists, and Muslims around the world in the fight against Communism. These religious groups offered valuable networks of information about and throughout geopolitical hot spots including Vietnam, Italy, and North Africa. In its strategic approach toward religious tolerance, the intelligence community drew on existing understandings of "foreign" religions in American culture even as it revised these understandings to be more useful to national security goals. From World War II through the early Cold War, American intelligence officers honed this approach in the context of two burgeoning discourses in American culture: a renewed attention to religious pluralism as well as a newfound national interest in "world religions." The CIA's use of these discourses reshaped the way in which religion was a central component of American identity and national security, at home and abroad. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / February 23, 2016. / CIA, Cold War, OSS, Religion, World Religions / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kurt Piehler, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.