ABSTRACT
Every religion has concepts of extra-mundane operations involving forces or entities of a non-human kind. An account of a religion should indicate the raw material by reference to which these forces or entities have been conceptualized: simple extensions of human experience, as when gods are conceived as chiefs magnified; conversions of experience, as by giving superhuman endowment to a human foetus; disclaimers of the validity of human experience, by ascribing specifically non-human powers to what are imputed to be opposing forces of nature. The treatment should indicate the patterns of conceptualization, the major principles of classification of these powers or beings; it should also show the way in which they are a subject for intellectual exploration, fantasy development and emotional expression. Such themes are the basis of this chapter.
