Burning Saints

Dimitris Xygalatas is Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Aarhus University.

• 1. Introduction 2. Tradition in the Making 3. The Ethnographic Setting 4. Fire-walking in Agia Eleni 5. Knowledge and Revelation Among the Anastenaria 6. Ritual and Mind 7. Costly Rituals 8. Arousal, Emotion, and Motivation 9. The Physiology of High-Arousal Rituals 10. Putting it all Together Bibliography

"In conclusion, Xygalatas offers the most well-presented, defended, and empirically backed, overview of “extreme rituals” available. His attention to historical, anthropological, and scientific detail will hopefully become a prototype for future publications and research programmes in the field. Throughout its chapters the book offers valuable new insight to specialists of similar historical, anthropological, cognitive, and physiological topics. The book ultimately is a contribution to many fields but above all else, it is a contribution to interdisciplinary and scientific approaches to complex phenomena." Justin E. Lane, Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, Journal of Cognitive Historiography