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Links

sacred-texts.com collage of texts, (c) 1999, J.B. Hare

READ THIS FIRST

I am not soliciting suggestions for links at this time. New links to external sites are added at my discretion, if I believe them to be appropriate. Do not send unsolicited emails requesting link exchanges. They will be ignored.

Linking Criteria

Sacred Texts relies far more on material located at this site than links to external sites. Where appropriate I have linked to resources at external sites. These are clearly labelled as such; of course, sacred-texts has no control over the content of external sites. Linked sites are selected because they have a resource sacred-texts would ideally provide on-site, but cannot either because of copyright or space restrictions.

Sacred-texts is not a web directory, a search engine, or portal; there are many other sites that perform this function much better than I could, particularly Yahoo, Zeal, Google and the Open Directory Project.

Sacred-texts doesn't usually link to general interest sites. Linked sites typically have a large archive of public domain texts about some topic related to the theme of sacred-texts, that is, religion, mythology, folklore, and so on.

Here are the specific criteria for links:

1) Public domain etexts.
2) Lots of them.
3) On the topic of religion, mythology, etc.
4) Freely accessible.
5) Archive.

1) Public domain etexts.
By this is meant complete and accurate scans of redistributable or public domain books up to current practices and standards of the free etext movement, in plain text or HTML format; not just short articles, and not just repostings, framesets or links to material available elsewhere.

2) Lots of them.
Having just one text doesn't count. Linked sites have extensive, unique content, including at least several texts not found elsewhere. I don't normally link to sites which are soley about one author, either.

3) On the topic of religion, mythology, etc.
Sites about sports, cooking, dating, gifts, shopping, etc. by definition are excluded from this criteria.

4) Freely accessible.
This content has to be available freely and anonymously; this means visitors don't have to pay to access the content or go through a registration process.

5) Archive.
An archive is different than an advocacy site, in that a site's central mission is collecting and organizing texts, rather than advocacy for a particular point of view. This doesn't mean that the people running a site can't have or express a point of view, or have obvious ties to some belief system, simply that this is secondary to the archival function of the site.


Links are added solely at my discretion. If I don't add a link, this doesn't mean that I don't respect your beliefs. Nor does it mean that I disapprove of your site. It simply means that your site currently doesn't meet the criteria I stated above.

Conversely, links that I do add shouldn't be considered an endorsement of views held by the site linked to; as I have stated elsewhere, I encourage readers to make up their own minds.


Examples

The best way to explain the extremely rare type of site that I link to is by example. This is my short list of sites that meet the linking criteria described below. Each of these sites has warranted one or more links from sacred-texts.com. If you want me to link to your site, your site needs to have extensive content similar to these sites:

Ex-Classics
Twilit Grotto: Esoteric Archives
sacredspiral.com
northvegr.org
SriPedia Initiative
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Digital Christian Library

If not, sorry.


ONE WAY TO GET A LINK

It will weigh heavily in your favor if: 1) your site actually meets the criteria listed above and 2) contributes one or more public domain etext which you've scanned and proofed to sacred-texts.


HOW NOT TO GET A LINK

Send an obvious form letter requesting a link exchange. This is more likely to get a creatively worded email response from me (depending on how cranky I am at the time). After all, if you have actually read to this point you have been warned.


Other Links

Here are a few more links which I've added for one reason or another.

I have included crosslinks where appropriate to the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (OCRT) site. This site has independently reviewed factual articles about many religions. Often controversial, always educational, OCRT is a one-stop source if you want deep background material on the texts presented at this site.

Another site located in my hometown of Santa Cruz, CA, with very similar philosophy as Sacred Texts is the World Prayers Project.

Adherents.com has detailed statistics on the numbers of adherents to various religions, and takes special care to sort out the hype from the facts. It is also a good place to learn about current debates about the classification of the worlds' religions.

I also like the Encylopedia Mythica site; this is a massively hyperlinked site with information on mythology and folklore of every culture.

Got Mead? - Did you know there are hundreds of references to mead, fermented honey-based wine, hidden at sacred-texts? A complete list can be found here.

World Mysteries - Explore lost civilizations, ancient ruins, sacred writings, unexplained artifacts, and science mysteries. Highly recommended

Treasure Coast Mysteries
A completely different kind of mysteries...
The proprietor of this website is a Mystery writer. He contacted me because he needed some deep background information on Hawaiian ethnobotany for his latest book, Treasure Coast Archipelago. To make a long story short, he ransacked my brain about Hawaiian shamanism, and in return he made sacred-texts into a plot point. If you like mysteries, or have a yen to go fishing in Florida, give his site a look!

SACRED TEXTS NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT

It costs thousands of dollars a year to pay for this sites' bandwidth and maintenance. Without your continued support, sacred-texts would go offline or have to be scaled back. Your support is crucial; this site does not receive grants or institutional support.

The best way to support the site is to purchase the CD-ROM. The Sacred-texts CD-ROM has hundreds of books on it that are extremely hard to locate, including all of the major world scriptures. If you buy a copy, you can feel good knowing that you are helping keep this site online.

--J.B. Hare

This site is available on CD-ROM!

Buy it now

"Stunning"
read more...

The Internet Sacred Text Archive CD-ROM includes electronic texts of nearly a thousand of the most important books and articles ever written, including over two hundred transcribed specially for sacred-texts. Years of extensive research and scholarship went into this CD-ROM: all the core texts of religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric are on one disk.

"worth far more than the price"
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This collection includes the full text of each book, many with footnotes and illustrations. To buy all of these books you would have to spend tens of thousands of dollars, even if you could find them: many are out of print and hard to obtain at any price. You pay just pennies a book: the CD-ROM costs just $49.95; worldwide shipping is free when you buy direct!

"Phenomenal collection"
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Everything on the disk can be viewed in a standard web browser on your PC or Macintosh. Proceeds from sales of the CD-ROM go to support free access to the Internet Sacred Text Archive on the web and development of new etexts.