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Book SynopsisOne of the first attempts ever to present in a systematic way a non-western semiotic system. This book looks at Japanese esoteric Buddhism and is based around original texts, informed by explicit and rigorous semiotic categories. It is a unique introduction to important aspects of the thought and rituals of the Japanese Shingon tradition. Semiotic concerns are deeply ingrained in the Buddhist intellectual and religious discourse, beginning with the idea that the world is not what it appears to be, which calls for a more accurate understanding of the self and reality. This in turn results in sustained discussions on the status of language and representations, and on the possibility and methods to know reality beyond delusion; such peculiar knowledge is explicitly defined as enlightenment. Thus, for Buddhism, semiotics is directly relevant to salvation; this is a key point that is often ignored even by Buddhologists. This book discusses in depth the main elements of Buddhist semioticTrade ReviewSumming up, the main strength of this book is its success in offering a new analytical apparatus to clarify the semiotic structures that underlie the transmissions and practices of Shingon lineages, so often dismissed out of hand as rand and irrational. Rambelli manages admirably to avoid two pitfalls: he neither stays too close to the original texts, losing the analytical edge that makes this enterprise valuable, nor does he stray away from them that he ends up constructing a semiotic abstraction that forces alien concepts onto Shingon doctrine. -- Mark Teeuwen, Oslo University, Norway * Monumenta Nipponica 69:2 *Table of ContentsPreface: Semiotics and Buddhism 1. The Episteme of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism 2. Semiotics and Ontology: A Pansemiotic Universe 3. Mantra and Siddham: Esoteric Linguistics and Grammatology 4. The Semantic System of Esoteric Buddhism 5. Mandala and the Representation of Reality 6. Semiotic Soteriology 7. Conclusion: Buddhist Semiurgy Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDouglas Ezzy is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Tasmania, Australia.Trade ReviewDouglas Ezzy offers an intriguing and rich ethnographic study of rituals that confront sex and death in a Contemporary Pagan temporary community setting. In the first in-depth study of its kind, he discusses and analyzes these important yet contentious themes in Pagan ritual in a respectful manner that provides much insight into the practitioners’ mindsets. It is exciting to see a scholar of Ezzy’s calibre grapple with these difficult issues. * Shawn Arthur, Assistant Professor of Asian Religions, Appalachian State University, USA *Douglas Ezzy offers us a potent brew of embodiment, performance, liminality, sexuality, myth-making, and much more. His clear analysis should inspire us to think again about ritual and religion from relational perspectives. * Graham Harvey, Reader in Religious Studies and Head of Department, The Open University, UK *Sociologist Ezzy takes readers inside the pagan subculture, showing how even short-lived festivals and gatherings exert a powerful force over practitioners. The book is an in-depth study of a controversial pagan festival in Australia, Faunalia, which ran for nine years beginning in 2000. The organizers reconstructed rituals with dark and contested pasts, particularly the erotic Baphomet rite, where participants celebrate a devil-like hermaphroditic deity by entering trance states and dancing around a bonfire naked. In the "Underworld" rite, participants role-play their own deaths. Ezzy's sympathetic account of these events is retold through participants' eyes rather than through his own firsthand observation, though he is a pagan and has participated in the festival. He argues that these emotionally intense rituals add "soul" to participants' lives, allowing them to transcend ordinary reality for a brief time and get in touch with their "true selves." Ezzy finds that participants report resolutions of internal conflicts and a new sense of self-worth, even years after taking part in these rituals. Summing Up: Recommended. Upperdivision undergraduate students and above. -- R. P. Cimino, University of Richmond * CHOICE *Sociologist Douglas Ezzy takes us to Australia in his new book about a pagan festival called by the pseudonym Faunalia […]For a few people for a little while at least, Faunalia appears to give purpose and transform consciousness; it would be interesting to know how long that purpose and transformation endure and what those individuals seek next. -- Jack David Eller * Anthropology Review Database *Table of Contents1. Introduction 2. Soul 3. Ritual 4. Death: The Underworld Rite 5. Shadow 6. The Baphomet Rite 7. Ethics 8. Religion 9. Conclusion

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