An outstanding reference source for the key topics, problems and debates in this crucial field and the first collection of its kind. Essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, comparative religion, new religious movements and religion and politics and related disciplines.

Introduction: From the Social Lives of Secrecy to the Secret lives of the Social: Notes on Religion, Power, and the Public Paul Christopher Johnson and Hugh B. Urban Part 1: Configurations of Religious Secrecy: Conceptual and Comparative Frameworks 1. Mysticism and Secrecy Arthur Versluis 2. Esotericism and Secrecy Kennet Granholm 3. Gender, Sexuality, and Secrecy Hugh B. Urban 4. Psychedelics and Secrecy Christopher Partridge 5. Architectures of Secrecy Paul Christopher Johnson 6. Secrecy, the Paranormal, and the Imaginal: The Remote Viewing Literature Jeffrey J. Kripal and Christopher Senn Part 2: Secrecy as Religious Practice 7. Secrecy in Islam, Sufism, and Shi'ism Mark Sedgwick 8. Concealing the Concealment: Towards a Theopolitics of Kabbalistic Esotericism Elliot R. Wolfson 9. Keeping Secrets: The Social Practice of Gnostic Secrecy April D. DeConick 10. Secrecy's Situational Ironies: Hiding and Its Consequences for Covert Buddhists in Japan Clark Chilson 11. Notions of Secrecy and the Unknown/ Hidden in Chinese Religions Barend ter Haar 12. Secrecy in South Asian Hindu Traditions: "The Gods Love What is Occult" Gordan Djurdjevic 13. Reflections on Secrecy in Yolngu Religion Ian Keen 14. AWO: The Nature of Secrecy in YoruÌbaì Religious Traditions: Conversations with Ifa Diviners Jacob K. Olupona Part 3: Secrecy and the Politics of the Present 15. Secrecy and Freemasonry Henrik Bogdan 16. The Sacred, the "Secret," and the Sinister in the Latter-day Saint Tradition Christopher James Blythe 17. The High Magic of Jesus Christ: Materializing Secrets in Brazil's Valley of the Dawn Kelly E. Hayes 18. Secrecy, Sex Abuse, and The Practice of Priesthood John C. Seitz 19. From Resistance to Terror: The Open Secret of Jonestown Rebecca Moore Part 4: Secrecy and Social Resistance 20. "Crypto-Paganism" in the Late Antique World: Models of Concealment in a Christian Empire, Fourth to Sixth Century CE David Frankfurter 21. Hopi Knowledge and the Ethnographic Allure of Secrets Adam Fulton Johnson 22. Secrecy, Spirit Work, and Women's Fugitive Speech in the Creolophone Caribbean Elizabeth McAlister 23. Lifting the Eucharistic Veil: Allan Rohan Crite as Afro-Anglican Mystagogue Hugh R. Page, Jr. and Stephen C. Finley Part 5: Secrecy, Terrorism, and Surveillance 24. Weaponizing Secrecy: The FBI's War on Black Radical Religion Sylvester Johnson 25. Varieties of Secrecy and Symbolism in American White Power Movements Damon Berry 26. The Islamic State and the Management of Secrecy Haroro J. Ingram and Craig Whiteside 27. Conspiracy Theories about Secret Religions: Imagining the Other David G. Robertson 28. Xenophobia and Conspiracism after 9/11 Michael Barkun 29. Imagining Secret Wars Mark Juergensmeyer. Index