Browse by Era

I

Prehistory before c. 3500 BCE

Before writing, belief left its mark in ochre, in bone, and in stone. The earliest evidence of ritual — deliberate burial, painted caves, and the great megaliths — and what it can and cannot tell us about the first religious imagination.

The PaleolithicThe NeolithicAboriginal Australian DreamingThe San & Southern African Rock ArtSiberian & Arctic Shamanism

II

The Bronze Age c. 3300 – 1200 BCE

The first civilizations learned to write, and with writing came the first scriptures. Gods of the city and the river, kings who spoke for heaven, and the earliest recorded myths of creation, order, and the flood.

MesopotamiaEgyptIndus ValleyEarly VedicHittite & AnatolianMinoan CreteThe Olmec

III

The Early Iron Age c. 1200 – 550 BCE

Empires fell and smaller peoples found their voices. The world of pre-exilic Israel, the earliest Greece of Homer and Hesiod, the reforms of Zoroaster, and the ritual order of early China.

Pre-exilic IsraelEarly GreeceZoroasterEarly ChinaCanaanite & PhoenicianNubia & KushThe Etruscans

IV

The Axial Age c. 800 BCE – 200 CE

Across a few centuries and half a world, humanity asked its deepest questions anew — and the answers still shape us. Classical Greece, Second Temple Judaism, the Buddha, Confucius and the Dao, Rome, and the Celtic and Germanic north.

Classical GreeceSecond Temple JudaismBuddhismConfucianism & DaoismRomeCeltic & GermanicJainismThe Upanishads & the Hindu SynthesisThe Scythians & the Steppe

V

Late Antiquity c. 200 – 800 CE

The old gods gave way and new faiths spread along the roads of empire. Early Christianity and its rival Gnosticisms, the Roman mystery cults, the making of Rabbinic Judaism, and the flowering of Mahayana Buddhism.

Early ChristianityGnosticismPistis SophiaRoman mystery cultsRabbinic JudaismMahayana BuddhismManichaeismPre-Islamic ArabiaThe First Christian Kingdoms

VI

The Early Medieval c. 800 – 1100 CE

A new revelation reshaped three continents, while older ways endured at the edges. The rise of Islam, the patristic Christian settlement, Norse paganism before the cross, the currents of Tantra, and the kami of Shinto.

IslamPatristic ChristianityNorse paganismTantraShintoTibetan & Vajrayana BuddhismZen & Pure Land BuddhismEastern Orthodoxy & ByzantiumKoreaShi'ism

VII

The High Medieval c. 1100 – 1500 CE

An age of mystics and system-builders on every continent. Kabbalah and Sufism, the great scholastic syntheses, the temple religions of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca, and the devotional fire of the Bhakti movements.

KabbalahSufismScholasticismThe MayaThe AztecThe IncaBhaktiMandaeans, Yazidis & DruzeSlavic & Baltic PaganismNative North AmericanThe Cathars & Medieval HeresyTengri & the Mongols

VIII

The Early Modern c. 1500 – 1800 CE

Reformation and rupture, encounter and conquest. The splintering of Western Christianity, the terror of the witch trials, the religions of Africa on the eve of the colonial age, and the birth of Sikhism.

The ReformationThe Witch TrialsAfrican Traditional ReligionSikhismOceaniaSabbateans, Frankists & HasidimAkbar & the Mughal Synthesis

IX

The Modern Age c. 1800 – present

Faith did not fade; it multiplied and remade itself. New religious movements, Spiritualism and the séance, the revival of Paganism and Wicca, Theosophy and the occult, and the living syntheses of the diaspora.

New Religious MovementsSpiritualismTheosophy & the Occult RevivalWicca & Modern PaganismSatanismAfrican Diaspora ReligionsPentecostalism & Global ChristianityBahá'í & New FaithsSecularism & the NonesGlobal Hinduism & the Guru Movements