Wisdom's place / Jonathan Z. Smith -- Ascent to the stars in a Mesopotamian ritual : social metaphor and religious experience / Tzvi Abusch -- A throne in the heavens : apotheosis in pre-Christian Judaism / John J. Collins --The seven heavens in Jewish and Christian apocalypses / Adela Y. Collins -- Paul and the beginning of Jewish mysticism / Alan F. Segal -- The practice of ascent in the ancient Mediterranean world / Martha Himmelfarb -- Mystical descents / Guy C. Stroumsa -- The crown of immortality : toward a redescription of Christian martyrdom / Arthur J. Droge -- Abathur, a new etymology / Nathaniel Deutsch -- The imagination of death in Jewish spirituality / Michael Fishbane -- Weeping, death, and spiritual ascent in sixteenth century Jewish mysticism / Elliot R. Wolfson -- Between authority and indeterminacy : some reflections on Kabbalistic hermeneutics / Moshe Idel -- Hekhalot and Miʻrāj : observations on the heavenly journey in Judaism and Islam / David J. Halperin -- The role of the "anima mundi" as mediator between the divine and created realms in the twelfth century / Bernard McGinn -- Death and the distribution of sacral power in early Japanese mythistory / Gary L. Ebersole -- To hell and back : death, near-death and other worldly journeys in early medieval China / Robert Ford Campany -- Sir Henry Vane : mystical piety in the Puritan revolution / W. Clark Gilpin -- Death, and near-death today / Carol Zaleski.