About this book

A religion might begin as a way to interpret the universe, but it ends as a way to understand what it means to be human. Therefore, I devote this book to new and little-known religions, to religions that haven’t been discovered yet by others. These religions, I feel, can teach us important things about ourselves.

Any unauthorized exhibition, distribution, or copying of this book or any poem therein may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution. All religions, names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this book are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. The religions described here are not intended to be adopted, believed in, or practiced, nor should they without authorization become the germ of a script or scripture for any actual religion or other work. They are intended as purely works of the imagination. No person or entity associated with this book received payment or anything of value, or entered into any agreement, in connection with the depiction of any religion, faith, belief, or practice. No animals were harmed in the making of this book.

The cover

The cover illustration is a section from Christ Enthroned, Book of Kells, Folio 32v, in the public domain.

Acknowledgements

“Order of splendor and happiness,” “Worship of Wen Gon,” “X-Y,” “Teachers of Enlightenment,” and “Godx for everything” are in The Antonym, 3 September 2021.

“Gathering of the Seventy Elohim” and “Subete no kamigami no jinja” are in In Parentheses (Volume 7, Issue 1), Summer 2021.

“Sanctuaries of Eternal Lights,” “Center for Creative Science,” and “São Doné Zims” are in Rigorous (Volume 5, Issue 3), August 2021.

Links and shortcuts

In any page, you can click on or touch links to jump around in this book.

• Each entry in the contents links to the poem.
• The title for a poem links back to the contents, highlighting the entry for the poem.
• Words in the headers and footers link to the index, the contents, a listing of books by the author, to this page, and to the previous and next poems in the book.

You may find the following keyboard equivalents to be convenient. Here I use the symbol ⌥ for the option key on Mac/OS or the alt key on Windows, ⇧ for the shift key, and ⏎ for the return (enter) key. Arrow keys are ◄ (left), ► (right), ▲ (up), and ▼ (down).

The author

Tom Sharp is a Native American of Aleut heritage, a member of Seldovia Village Tribe. He is the author of numerous books, including Spectacles: A Sampler of Poems and Prose, Taurean Horn Press (ISBN 0-931552-10-9), a novel, Hans and the Clock (ISBN 979-8580172484), The book of science, SciFi (ISBN 979-8694935210), Things People Do (ISBN 979-8687425568), The book of beliefs (ISBN 979-8683553593), The I Ching (ISBN 979-8573510620), Images (ISBN 979-8577560515), Aleut Artifacts (ISBN 979-8575608998), Aleut Words (ISBN 979-8582103394), and First Nations (ISBN 979-8682924769). Tom Sharp is also the author of “Objectivists” 1927-1934: A critical history of the work and association of Louis Zukofsky, William Carlos Williams, Charles Reznikoff, Carl Rakosi, Ezra Pound, and George Oppen.