Down through the ages, anthropologists note among humankind of all continents what amounts to a spiritual appetite that is fed by nascent religions served up by a wide range of local idealists, zealots, and dreamers, more than a few of whom were considered quite bizarre in their day. These spiritualists, history instructs, usually proclaim an innate power to influence supernatural forces and thus promote themselves as sacerdotal rainmakers who can singularly petition the gods to relieve their besieged people of some earthly suffering, spare them dangers seen and unseen, and ultimately grant
...more
