Carmen Blacker – författare

This is a collection of portraits of twelve outstanding women who lived and worked in Cambridge during the century before women were admitted fully to membership of the University. The subjects include Jane Harrison, distinguished scholar of Greek religion, Mrs Sidgwick, founder of Newnham College, Eileen Power, medieval historian, Nora Chadwick, scholar of Norse and Celtic, Honor Fell, cell biologist and founding force behind the Strangeways Laboratory, Frances Cornford, poet, and Rosalind Franklin, whose work on DNA was essential to the Watson-Crick model. All were outstanding personalities as well as distinguished scholars, and the 'twelve portraits' give a vivid account of their lives and work.

First published in 1981, Divination and Oracles analyses the religious practices of the ancient world as they have been witnessed from Scandinavia to Tibet and Japan, from the third millennium BC until the present day. Divination and the consultation of oracles formed part of the religious practice of the ancient world and are part of the living folklore of the contemporary societies. They are subjects that are of immediate concern to anthropologists and not infrequently to the historians of early science. Written by the specialists in the early history of European and Asian Civilisations, the chapters call on the evidence of the written word of history and the surviving artefacts and inscriptions of archaeology. They describe the different methods that have been adopted and examine the types of question that feature in man’s attempt to seek guidance from other powers. The contributions show how an appeal to the irrational can affect the decision of prophet or statesman, or the way of life of farmer or sailor; and how such an appeal can also stimulate scientific enquiry into the cycles of nature. This book is a must read for scholars and researchers of religion, comparative religion, and ancient history.

First published in 1981, Divination and Oracles analyses the religious practices of the ancient world as they have been witnessed from Scandinavia to Tibet and Japan, from the third millennium BC until the present day. Divination and the consultation of oracles formed part of the religious practice of the ancient world and are part of the living folklore of the contemporary societies. They are subjects that are of immediate concern to anthropologists and not infrequently to the historians of early science. Written by the specialists in the early history of European and Asian Civilisations, the chapters call on the evidence of the written word of history and the surviving artefacts and inscriptions of archaeology. They describe the different methods that have been adopted and examine the types of question that feature in man’s attempt to seek guidance from other powers. The contributions show how an appeal to the irrational can affect the decision of prophet or statesman, or the way of life of farmer or sailor; and how such an appeal can also stimulate scientific enquiry into the cycles of nature. This book is a must read for scholars and researchers of religion, comparative religion, and ancient history.

In Ancient Cosmologies (1975) nine eminent scholars seek to answer the question, what was the shape of the universe imagined by those ancient peoples to whom all modern knowledge of geography and astronomy was inaccessible? How did the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Jews, Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Greeks and Norsemen conceive the form of the cosmos which accommodated not only the known face of the earth and the visible heavenly bodies but also those other worlds which it was deemed necessary to locate comprehensibly in space – the realms of the dead, both blessed and damned, and the countries inhabited by gods and demons?

In Ancient Cosmologies (1975) nine eminent scholars seek to answer the question, what was the shape of the universe imagined by those ancient peoples to whom all modern knowledge of geography and astronomy was inaccessible? How did the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Jews, Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Greeks and Norsemen conceive the form of the cosmos which accommodated not only the known face of the earth and the visible heavenly bodies but also those other worlds which it was deemed necessary to locate comprehensibly in space – the realms of the dead, both blessed and damned, and the countries inhabited by gods and demons?

This volume of the Collected Writings of Modern Western Scholars on Japan brings together the work of Carmen Blacker, who wrote extensively on religion, myth and folklore.

This classic work describes shamanic figures surviving in Japan today, their initiatory dreams, ascetic practices, the supernatural beings with whom they communicate, and the geography of the other world in myth and legend.