Contemporary Paganism Research Articles

“As Reflections in a Mirror” Kircher’s pictorial argument on modern paganism in the light of Pignoria

In the closing chapter of the first volume of Œdipus Aegyptiacus, Kircher presented an Egyptogenetic argument on modern paganism that was widely received, not least owing to his deliberate use of illustrations. He attributed great importance to these visualizations as structuring elements and corroborating evidence. Through his selection of images, he made a purposeful reference to Lorenzo Pignoria’s Egyptogenetic take on contemporary idolatry, first published in 1615. Through his pictorial strategy he succeeding in becoming integrated into the paganological discourse and reformed it by proposing methodological and theoretical innovations. His chapter became a reference work and remained influential for the interpretation of mostly Asian artefacts in the Republic of Letters for many decades.

Review: Constellated Ministry: A Guide for Those Serving Today’s Pagans, by Holli S. Emore

For at least twenty years now, sociologists of religion have been observing the growing routinization and societal integration of modern Pagan communities, at least in the United States. We can now find Pagans serving as prison chaplains, sitting on interfaith councils, and establishing institutions like the Cherry Hill Seminary in South Carolina. It is, in fact, the executive director of this seminary, Holli S. Emore, who has written this short book, in which she sets forward recommendations for those modern Pagans seeking to minister to their religious community. Rather than outlining methods of potential Pagan proselytization, which is often discouraged in modern Pagan circles, Emore notes that her book is aimed at those “with a genuine desire to support Pagan spiritual needs” (2).Emore notes that ministering to modern Pagans poses challenges that those catering to larger or better-established religious communities are less likely to face. The majority of modern Pagans in the United States are solitary practitioners, rather than members of a group congregation, and tend toward a more individualistic ethos. This means, as Emore notes, that ministering to these communities is unlikely to ever become a paying job. To deal with this unusual situation, Emore sets out what she calls a “constellated ministry.” Although I did not feel that the reader is given a crystal-clear definition of this concept, it appears to entail involvement in a broad network of groups rather than leadership of a single congregation, as well as a strong emphasis on operating online as a means of engaging with geographically scattered practitioners. Emore also stresses the need for modern Pagans to move away from the more secretive approaches that they have taken in the past and be more public, for instance, by building strong ties with other religious communities and with various non-religious interest groups.As part of her approach, Emore describes having interviewed around twenty-five Pagan leaders and devotes one of her chapters to including the comments that they have given her regarding their experiences. Through this, she highlights that few actually wanted to become leaders but found themselves falling into this position by chance, perhaps because of their own innate leadership abilities. Her research also included a Pagan Engagement and Spiritual Support Survey, conducted in 2016, the results of which she discusses in greater depth in an appendix. This offers us more data on why many Pagans choose to be solitaries, and usefully complements Helen Berger’s book Solitary Pagans: Contemporary Witches, Wiccans, and Others Who Practice Alone (2019; reviewed in Nova Religio 23, no. 4, April 2020).Many Pagans interested in ministry will undoubtedly find this a useful guide, especially if based in the United States. For scholars of new religions, this book offers an interesting insight into how modern Pagans in the United States are responding to their growing presence in the country’s religious landscape and adapting to the challenges posed by their community’s sociological makeup. Constellated Ministry can also be seen, along with the work of Michael York, as a move towards publishing theological and other insider-focused literature through established scholarly outlets, which can probably be seen as further evidence of the growing maturation of modern Paganism as an established part of the American religious landscape.

Nationalism and Conservatism in Neopagan Movements: The Case of PolishRodzimowierstwo

AbstractIn this article I explore the political aspects of contemporary Paganism. Based on my own fieldwork, I analyze the changes in views and attitudes in relation to nationalism among Polish followers ofRodzimowierstwo, which is a modern religious movement referring to the pre-Christian beliefs of the Slavs. I put forward the thesis that the attitude toward nationalism is an important element in shaping the dynamics of divisions within believers and at the same time radical nationalist views and attitudes present among them are marginalized. The gradual weakening of nationalist tendencies does not mean, however, the dissemination of liberal and universalist attitudes and views. Nationalism is being replaced by a specific type of conservatism, which consists in creating a clear opposition between “foreign” and “native” cultural patterns, and the postulate of preserving and defending the latter.

Who Owns the Heart of Vilnius? Pagans, Catholics, and Contested National Religious Heritage

The paper aims to contribute to the expansion of a cultural-geographical scope of studies on heritage contested by Pagans and a better understanding of construction of the religious and the secular in inter-religious heritage contestation. The presented case involves multiple stakeholders and a direct clash of the Catholic church and contemporary Pagans over a contested heritage site currently referred to as the archcathedral and the Cathedral Square located in the historical center of Vilnius, Lithuania. Based on observations of communal practices of Romuva, a community of contemporary Lithuanian Pagans, discourses and actions of the Catholic church and representatives of the Vilnius City Municipality and other relevant secular institutions, the analysis looks at both discursive and performative strategies employed by participants.

Sacredness of Museum Spaces in Activities of the Pagan Community Rus’ke Pravoslavne Kolo (Community of Rus’ people who praise gods)

This article focuses on the activities of one of the Native Faith organizations of Ukraine, the Rus’ke Pravoslavne Kolo (Community of Rus’ people who praise gods, hereafter CRLG). This organization was founded in October 2007. The center of the community’s activities is located in the city of Zaporizhzhia, located on the banks of the Dnipro River. The riverbed is divided by the island of Khortytsia, the largest island on the Dnipro, the pride of Ukraine and a national reserve. The island also contains important historical and archaeological sites. They are part of the CRLG’s religious and ritual activities. It should be noted that the island of Khortytsia and its objects (the complex of cromlechs of the Eneolithic period, the sanctuary of the Bronze Age, and the “Scythian Camp” tourist-memorial complex are important components of the religious self-identification of many contemporary Ukrainian Pagans. They give a feeling of belonging to antiquity, to spiritual sources. But it is the representatives of the CRLG, due to the geographical proximity to the museum space of the island of Khortytsia, who most actively use it in their religious and spiritual practices. Contemporary Pagans themselves also create museum spaces that have become part of the culture, such as the Rodovid wandering museum. In 2014, Bereginya Yana (Yasna) Yakovenko became its ideological inspirer and organizer. The museum exhibits are based on Yana Yakovenko’s collection of embroidered shirts (vyshyvankas). The Rodovid Museum began its active work precisely due to people’s interest inthe traditions of embroidery. Yana Yakovenko lectures at schools in Zaporizhzhia and conducts appropriate master classes. Today, the exhibits of this museum are in her home. The museum is “wandering” because it does not have a special room for its exhibits, but in 2020 Yana Yakovenko has officially issued documents for museum activities.

If That Which Thou Seekest Thou Findest Not Within Thee, Thou Wilt Never Find It On The Internet

This paper is an examination of the information behaviors and habits of practising Pagans and ritual magicians. Aspects of information behavior relevant to contemporary Paganism are discussed, before features of Paganism that may affect information needs and use are presented. An online questionnaire covering the six areas of information needs, access, retrieval, quality, use and literacy was administered with 142 respondents, and five of those were subsequently interviewed at length, before the results were analyzed using an interpretivist methodology, with reference to existing information behavior models deemed relevant. The results present the beginning stages of a model of Pagan and Occult information behavior, showing seven sliding scales concerning issues practicing Pagans and ritual magicians face when engaging with information, on which each individual may have very different positions.

VENERATION OF THE HOLY STONE VOLAS: HISTORICAL EVIDENCE AND MODERN PRACTICES

The paper is about the tradition of worshiping the cult stone Volas near the village of Kryzhovka, Minsk region. All known published and unpublished information about the cult stone is analyzed. Based on the author’s observations and polls, the modern cult of this boulder is characterized. The worship of the Volas stone is not associated with pre-сhristian times. The cult arose in the end of the 19th – early 20th century.
 The case of the Volas stone is interesting and peculiar because of combining various rather rare and archaic elements of traditional cult practices. Such an atypical combination may call into question the reliability of known information about the Volas stone. However, as it was shown in the article, the name, topography, motive of the legend, the function of treating animals, donations (towels, wool, horns, tails) and skulls hung on the trees around boulder, find their correspondences both in the Belarusian tradition and among other peoples.
 It is assumed that originally the boulder was not a place of religious worship of a deity, but was used in ritual and magical folk practices in order to save animals from diseases and protect them from harmful effects. The process of new mythologization, the emergence and evolution of a new custom of worship in the mainstream of modern paganism is clearly traced on the example of the stone Volas. Today this place is considered as the sanctuary of Veles/Volos. The formation of the modern tradition of veneration, as we can see, was influenced by the literary reconstructions of the Veles/Volos cult. Some of the new forms of worship do not contradict popular traditions. This can be explained by the good knowledge of special literature by modern pagans. At the same time, it’s not mechanical reconstruction, but natural worship with the appearance of new meanings.

Introduction

Introduction

Review: World Druidry: A Globalizing Path of Nature Spirituality, by Larisa A. White

Despite being one of the largest forms of modern Pagan religion, modern Druidry has been comparatively understudied by scholars, certainly in comparison with the likes of Wicca and Heathenry. It is for this reason that Larisa A. White’s new book is so welcome. It brings together the results of her World Druidry Survey, conducted between 2018 and 2020, through which she gathered data from 725 Druids living in thirty-four countries. As White notes, this makes it “the richest dataset on contemporary Druidry the world has yet to see” (viii).The survey was partially financed through the Mount Haemus scholarship scheme of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, with White herself being a long-term practitioner of Druidry, something she discusses early in her book. A broad range of topics are then covered—from the nature of Druidic theologies through to adherents’ fears regarding harassment and discrimination, and from which Druidic authors are most popular to how practitioners adapt their seasonal festivities to specific natural environments. In doing so, the variation that can occur both among different Druid groups and those in different continents is highlighted. Throughout, White makes extensive use of quotations from her respondents to help build a richer picture of Druidry as a lived practice.Where World Druidry could perhaps be strengthened is through a more comparative discussion bringing in the findings of other surveys of modern Pagan communities. No reference is made, for instance, to the seminal Pagan Census projects of Helen Berger et al., nor more recent surveys of the Heathen community by the likes of Joshua Cragle and Karl Seigfried. Such comparative discussion could help to illuminate the similarities and differences between modern Druids and other Pagan groups, or other new religious communities more broadly. Indeed, the book’s use of existing scholarship on modern Paganism in general is quite limited, perhaps because it is designed more for the edification of the Druidic community than for scholars of religion. Moreover, the book is fundamentally sociological in approach and does not really engage with historical or terminological issues. This means, for example, that the deeply contested term “Celtic” is presented without critical discussion, which could obscure important variation in what White’s Druidic respondents mean when they speak of a “Celtic” past or identity.These comparatively small issues aside, this is an invaluable piece of work for scholars of modern Druidry specifically, and scholars of modern Paganism more broadly, among whom it deserves a broad readership.

How Modern Witches Enchant TikTok: Intersections of Digital, Consumer, and Material Culture(s) on #WitchTok

WitchTok describes a sub-section of the social media platform TikTok, which caters to Contemporary Pagans and other practitioners of modern Witchcraft. Through short micro-videos, users share snapshots of their lives, providing a window into their religious identities and practices. Through a qualitative analysis of videos and comments, this exploratory study examines how modern Witches engage with religion through this digital space. Although this platform is wholly virtual, WitchTok is also eminently material. Through sharing and commenting on videos of spells, potions, altars, and other practices, users engage with a range of material objects. By announcing the magical properties of materials, instructing how to use certain objects, and advising where items can be found, WitchTok reveals how Witches conceptualize materiality and magic. The promotion of products, businesses, and personal brands in this space also reveals how Witchcraft is shaped by consumerism. In contrast to scholars who distinguish between “traditional” Witchcraft and “consumerist” Witches, I argue that WitchTok highlights the complex entanglements of Witchcraft with consumer capitalism.

Miejsca rytuałów współczesnych pogan w Krakowie

The Ritual Places of Contemporary Pagans in Kraków In the following article I describe ritual places used by four Kraków Neopagan groups (Native Polish Church, Group Mir, Free Rodnovers of Kraków, and Reformed Druids of Gaia Poland). The most important locations include the surroundings of Krakus Mound (along with the Liban quarry below and the ‘sacred circle’ on the opposite site of the quarry) and Grove by the Wilga river. The used sites and their context are analysed, as well as the reasons why a particular place was chosen. I focus on the perspective of my interviewees, using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis and the combination of the three approaches by Belden C. Lane. Based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews with members of the studied groups, I distinguish three categories of reasons (physical; connected to culture and tradition; metaphysical), which show the multidimensional character of the decisions made and many perspectives in which ritual places are perceived.

Oltre l’improvviso di Platone e Aristotele. Corollario sull’ipermetafisica dell’ἐξαίφνης tra Damascio e Dionigi ps.‑Areopagita

This essay strives to illustrate the unusual philosophical category of exaiphnēs (“sudden ; instant”) which is testified in Damascius’ De principiis ; Damascius is the last diadochus of Neoplatonic Academy. It will be illustrated how Damascius takes up a rare idea contained in Plato’s Parmenides on the sudden, rigorously adjusting this notion to describe the irreducible transcendence of the ineffable principle with respect to the One, just like the sudden bursts into time without belonging to it. It will therefore be shown how this specificity of exaiphnēs appears to be taken up and enhanced in a Christological key about the Incarnation by Dionysius ps.‑Areopagite, turning somehow the theoretical reflection of the contemporary pagan philosopher Damascius into a Christian one.

The Animistic Way: Contemporary Paganism and the Posthuman

This article aims to explore the affinities between contemporary Paganism and the posthuman project in how they approach the non-human natural world. On the one hand, posthumanism explores new ways of considering the notion of humans and how they are linked with the non-human world. On the other hand, Neopaganism expands this reflection to the spiritual domain through its animistic relational sensibility. Both perspectives challenge the modern paradigm where nature and humans are opposed and mutually disconnected. They instead propose a relational ontology that welcomes the “different other.” This integrated relationship between humans and the “other than human” can be understood through the semiotic Chora, a notion belonging to Julia Kristeva that addresses how the subject is not symbolically separated from the world in which it is contained.

The Political Theology of Origen of Alexandria

According to the prevailing view to date, early Christians showed no particular interest in politics. In this respect, the work of George Karamanolis, devoted to pre-Christian philosophical thought, is highly symptomatic. Although the author breaks down many stereotypical views of early Christian thinkers and presents a rather rich intellectual culture of these thinkers when Jerry approaches their political views, he notes: , As well as their modern pagan philosophers. "

Review: Contested Heritage: Relations between Contemporary Pagan Groups and the Archaeological and Heritage Professions in Britain in the Early 21st Century, by Will Rathouse

For most modern Pagans, the religions of pre-Christian Europe are regarded as ancestral and thus of key spiritual importance. As a result, many Pagans have expressed great interest in the archaeological evidence for these past societies as well as the ways in which this evidence is interpreted, displayed, and managed. In various cases, this has resulted in conflict between archaeologists and heritage managers on the one hand, and modern Pagans and members of allied subcultures on the other.Over the past twenty years, quite a bit of work on the relationship between these two interest groups (at least in Britain) has been published, most importantly Jenny Blain and Robert Wallis’ 2007 book on paganism and archeology, Sacred Sites, Contested Rites/Rights. In the latest contribution to this growing body of literature, Will Rathouse provides a summary of some of the core areas of contention, especially over public access to sites like Stonehenge, the excavation of significant prehistoric discoveries, such as Seahenge, and the retention and display of pre-Christian human remains. Restricting his focus to England and Wales, he looks in particular at the views of modern Pagan Druids. Drawing on his own experience as both an archaeologist and a practicing Pagan, Rathouse also offers his thoughts regarding how a more productive relationship can be cultivated between different interest groups, stressing the importance of “continuous engagement and respectful discourse between all interested parties” (128).Contested Heritage derives from Rathouse’s Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David in 2015, and its origins as a thesis feel apparent in the structure and style of the book. Although Rathouse engaged in ethnographic work as part of his project, he draws little upon it in this monograph, which instead focuses largely on summarizing and synthesizing pre-existing literature, both primary and secondary. In many areas, Contested Heritage covers ground already explored in Blain and Wallis’ book, although Rathouse also includes discussion of certain issues they did not, such as the Crossbones Graveyard in South London. The book contains nearly forty color images, although some have been reproduced poorly. Various spelling and grammar errors indicate the need for a more thorough copyedit by the publisher.Contested Heritage is primarily aimed at those working in archaeology or the heritage sector, as opposed to scholars of modern Paganism or new religious movements. Indeed, scholars of religion may be frustrated that it makes only limited use of the academic literature on modern Paganism. At no point does it cite anything from The Pomegranate, the only peer-reviewed journal devoted to the study of modern Pagan religions, for instance, and there are a range of studies of modern Pagan interactions with British archaeology that are similarly not cited. This is a drawback, although those scholars with a particular interest in modern Pagan relationships with archaeology and heritage may still find the book of interest.

Who Is, and Who Is Not a Pagan? Struggles in Defining Contemporary Paganism

The article deals with Pagan studies’ attempts to define contemporary Paganism and claims that definition-building is not a fruitful way of getting to a better understanding of the phenomenon. The article (i) introduces the ways that Pagan studies have tacked the issue of defining contemporary Paganism, (ii) providing particular examples, and (iii) scrutinizing them with a help of classificatory and referential optics. Some scholars in the field have suggested employing family resemblance and polythetic definition for solving the definitional issues. The article (iv) analyzes these propositions and argues why these proposals are not feasible ways of conducting the inquiry. Instead, (v) it proposes a completely different research approach: to formulate a hypothesis, pick a point of reference of contemporary Paganism and test its self-representation against the hypothesis, together with scrutinizing the history of Paganism conceptualizations during the centuries to find out how much these conceptualizations influence our present inquiries and insider self-representations.

“Connected to the past”

Contemporary rituals at archaeological sites display competing interpretations of the past, future, and related religious, identitary and political claims—as found in research on contemporary Paganisms. This paper examines such rituality and tradition-building among the Rainbow Family. The article compares the Rainbow case to research on Paganisms, after describing what kind of ritual expressions related to archaeological sites are found in a Rainbow Gathering and how the expressions relate to each other in the frame of the collective culture. The article provides an example of crafted rituals and folkloric narratives in an ‘event-cultural’ community that recognizes the right for subjective signification. It explains how narratives and practices, while not completely convergent, can still relate to each other in the collective frame without being a threat to social cohesion or cultural coherence. In the Rainbow case, a demand for shared beliefs is replaced with participation in the shared practices, and a broad ideological division accommodating various alternative-holistic religious traditions.

Magic and Politics: Conspirituality and COVID-19.

Why do people find conspiracy theories attractive, convincing, or useful? In this article, I analyze conspirituality—that is, the relationships between New Age spirituality and conspiracy theories—in Italy during the COVID-19 lockdown. After distinguishing between conspiracy-believing and belief in conspiracies, I claim that conspiracy-believing could be understood as an aesthetic (sensory and artistic) practice. In doing so, I offer a novel interpretation on conspiracism that complements current scholarship while departing from the latter’s focus on the cognitive and emotional weaknesses of those who adopt conspiracy theories. By engaging with the thought of Jacques Rancière, in conversation with studies on contemporary Paganism and Western esotericism, I consider the adoption of conspiracy theories as an expression of dissensus by a community of sense that does not look only for visibility but, rather, wants to be fully acknowledged, recognized, and legitimized in their “participatory”—or “magical”—way of inhabiting the world.

Embodied Engagements with the Megaliths of Carnac: Somatic Experience, Somatic Imagery, and Bodily Techniques in Contemporary Spiritual Practices

Abstract This article explores bodily interactions, somatic experiences, and embodiment of New Age and contemporary Paganism practitioners conducting spiritual practices in the megaliths of Carnac in northwest France. Inspired from the sensory ethnography approach and applying a specific methodological framework elaborated for this study, the article argues that participants’ spiritual experiences are constructed using three main elements: somatic experience, somatic imagery, and bodily techniques. Collected data provides understanding of the practitioner’s elaboration of spiritual experience, while also suggesting further inquiries to assess sensory models prevailing in contemporary spiritual practices.

A Political Profile of U.S. Pagans

AbstractAlthough prior research has explored the demographic characteristics, religious practices, and beliefs of modern Pagans, their political attitudes and actions have yet to be studied in depth. Further, most extant research is based on non-random samples of Pagans which calls into question the generalizability of prior findings. This article examines Pagans' political attitudes and behavior using a representative sample of Pagans in the United States drawn from the 2014 Pew Religious Landscape Study. Descriptive and multivariate analyses show that Pagan religious identity shapes political views and behavior despite the varied and decentralized nature of Paganism. Overall, Pagans are relatively liberal and supportive of issues common across Pagan traditions like the environment and LGBTQ rights. However, Pagans are somewhat less politically engaged than non-Pagans as evidenced by their lower levels of party identity and voter registration.