The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (781 page)

), the following are important: Sh
gatsu (New Year, for about one week from 1 Jan., prepared for by cleaning homes and putting up a straw rope,
shimenawa
, symbolizing the binding of the home to divine power); Kosh
gatsu (lesser New Year, following the lunar calendar, 15 Jan.); Setsubun (the turning of the seasons, held on the last day of winter, with the driving out of evil spirits from the home (‘Oni wa soto’)); Hana matsuri (3 Mar., the doll festival, associating the girls of the family with illustrious figures); Haru no shanichi (the day for the veneration of the protective deity, or
kami
; the full veneration, Aki no shanichi, is held at the autumn equinox); Haru no higan (festival of the spring equinox; but because
higan
means, for Buddhists, ‘the further shore’, people visit their homes and ancestral graves; Aki no higan is held at the autumn equinox); Hana matsuri (8 Apr., the festival of flowers, observed by ascending a hill and gathering wild flowers, which, when they are brought home, lead the mountain deities (
yama no kami
) to follow); Tango no sekku (5 May, festival for celebrating the growth and achievements of boys); Suijin matsuri (15 June and 1 Dec., festivals of the kami of water, to seek their protection against the vindictive
gory
); Tanabata (star festival, when craftsmen seek improvement in their skills by writing poems and floating them away on bamboo leaves on streams); Bon (sometimes O-bon, 13–16 July, feast for the dead, when the spirits of ancestors are welcomed back into the home and visits are made to attend to graves); Tsukimi (viewing the moon, 15 Aug. according to the lunar calendar, with offerings of the first-fruits of rice).

 
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Festival of Light
.

Interdenominational movement founded in 1971 to promote action based on informed Christian opinion concerning declining moral values, particularly in the field of family ethics. It was renamed CARE (Christian Action Research and Education) in 1983.

 
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(Port.,
feitiço
, ‘made thing’). An object held in awe or reverence. The term has had a wide range of uses and meanings. In origin, it derives from the observations made by early traders and travellers in W. Africa of objects (often worn) held in high regard. From this it was concluded that a fetish was an idol. It was then recognized that these objects were not so much worshipped as used to exercise power, and the word began to be used of objects containing force. Beyond that, the word ‘fetish’ was taken up in psychoanalysis to refer to a sexual tendency to obtain erotic satisfaction from objects rather than people, even if only of objects associated with people. Colloquially, a fetish is an object of obsessive preoccupation, ‘making a fetish of something’.

 
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(1804–72).
German philosopher and religious thinker whose theory of
projection
greatly influenced, among others, Karl
Marx
. In
The Essence of Christianity
(1841) and then again in
Principles of the Philosophy of the Future
(1843), Feuerbach argued that God is humanity's self-alienated essence projected onto a cosmic screen: in worshipping God, people are simply worshipping themselves. Theology is reduced without remainder to anthropology. Anything less leads necessarily to contradictions.

 
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