The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (209 page)

Anthony, Susan
(advocate of women's suffrage)
:

see
FRIENDS, THE SOCIETY OF
.

 
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Anthropology of religion
.

In the co-ordinating of anthropology as a discipline in the later 19th cent., the study was concerned with what were thought to be ‘primitive’ religions, i.e. those which were believed to be closer to an original state, cruder and simpler than developed, historical religions. Few anthropologists today think that the religions of non-westernized small-scale societies are different in kind from religions of the
great traditions
. Instead, they tend to be impressed by the fact that similar beliefs,
rituals
,
myths
, etc., can be found in both contexts. Religion is seen as a major part of the ways in which individuals and societies organize and sustain their lives. Anthropologists tend to focus on such issues as kinship organization, myth, ritual and
symbols
,
magic
and
witchcraft
. During the first half-century, anthropologists of religion developed both structuralism and functionalism. But structure/function has ceased to dominate analysis, and in recent years there has been a return to the social and individual construction of meaning and significant space.

 
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(Gk., ‘of human form’). The attribution of human qualities to the divine, as also to other items in the environment, hence the conceiving of God or the gods, or of natural features, in human form. The status of such language and descriptions has been a matter of fierce debate in those religions which rely on revelations which describe God in terms of human qualities—e.g. sitting on a throne (in Islam, see
TANZ
H
). In general the limitations of
analogical
language and of
symbols
led in the direction of the
via negativa
. That is true even of Hinduism, but in that case the prevailing sense of God underlying all appearance makes the occurrence of anthropomorphism deceptive: there is a real presence through the image, and thus through sound and language (see e.g.
ABDA
;
MANTRA
;
MA
ALA
).

 
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Anthroposophical Society, The
.

Organization founded by the Austro-Hungarian Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) in 1912, which has for its principal aim the development of new perspectives for the study of humanity. Matter, in Steiner's view, is a necessary evil, for without descending into matter, spirit cannot rise up and acquire an individuated form. Humans are the high point of this process of the evolution of spirit.

 
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