This innovative introduction to the anthropological study of religion challenges traditional categories and assumptions, arguing that too many of them reflect ethnocentric perspectives long discarded in contemporary anthropology. Instead, Klass explores the culturally universal institution of religion, working from operational, non-judgmental definitions that avoid the issue of whether a given belief is "true." Offering examples from the ethnographic literature, he explores values, witchcraft, shamans, ghosts, revitalization, and other topics. In the final chapters, he considers such issues as the emergence of new religious movements and leaders and the continuing ideological conflict between proponents of scientistic, fundamentalist, and post-rationalist systems of thought.