Every now and then I'll discover some interesting examples of syncretism, extinct or obscure religious beliefs and so on that don't fit into any wider topics. Basically I figured I'd start a thread to see if anyone else had any similar examples or can offer any comments.
Saint Sarah the Black (Sarah e Kali) is a Romani saint or goddess that seems to be a mixture of the Three Marys and Kali. The city where I work has quite a few Romani residents so I learned about this on her holy day in May. As far as I know those who worship her revere her in a Christian context although realise that there is a link to their homeland of India. The historic witchcraft of my local area is actually indebted somewhat to Romani travellers, so this was interesting to me on this basis as well as the obvious Christian and Hindu syncreticm.
Ghulāt are “extremist” branches of Shia Islam. I came across this term by somehow ending up on the Ya'furiyya Shia Wikipedia page of which the last couple of bullet-points are the most interesting to me. In summary:
- They believed in reincarnation and that heaven and hell was whatever befell people in this world. As there was the possibility of being reborn as a animal or bird (and considered it undesirable) I assume they believed in something roughly analagous to Karma too.
- They believed the laws Mohammed outlined were optional as faith took precedence over moral law.