Contemporary and Historical Paganism – serie

Contemporary Paganism has been a growing segment of American religiosity for over forty years and is composed of a variety of groups, practices, and ideologies. Asatru (Asatru), a movement that seeks to revive the practice of pre-Christian Norse religion, remains one of the least studied of these Pagan movements despite its growing prominence in the Pagan community. Being Viking provides a rigorous ethnographic account of the Asatru religion in America, also known as Heathenry or Heathenism. Arising from five years of original ethnographic fieldwork among American Asatru adherents, the book expands our understanding of this religious movement by providing a comprehensive analysis as part of the American religious context. Asatru is a reconstructionist form of contemporary Paganism, deriving its sacred stories, polytheism, and religious culture from an interaction with the ancient Paganisms of pre-Christian northwestern Europe. Yet, contemporary tributaries shape the movement's reception of the past and its enactment of the ideas and practices discovered there. American Asatru encompasses a diversity of approaches and offers a distinctive counterpoint to some of the characteristic patterns of religious life found in other forms of contemporary Paganism. Being Viking examines the complex interaction of new and old that influences Asatru symbolism, spirituality, and social organization. In addition to describing its rich religious ideology, Being Viking sets the movement within the context of contemporary American culture. Scholars have recognized that new religions offer alternative solutions to the felt tensions of society. Using this paradigm, Asatru is seen as a movement that provides creative religious solutions to the tensions experienced by modern Americans. This study addresses several of those points, including the socially isolating effects of modernity, women's roles, epistemology, and human relationships with nature. Asatru draws on ancient Norse ideas and practices to create new modes of living in the modern world that seek to create meaning and deepen the lived experience of its contemporary adherents. Asatru is in the process of emerging as a viable and complex religion that achieves a degree of cultural continuity by reinvigorating certain American values. In this light, Asatru is a new American religion that incorporates and adapts important cultural values while at the same time challenging some scholarly assumptions about new religions.

Contemporary Paganism has been a growing segment of American religiosity for over forty years and is composed of a variety of groups, practices, and ideologies. Asatru (Asatru), a movement that seeks to revive the practice of pre-Christian Norse religion, remains one of the least studied of these Pagan movements despite its growing prominence in the Pagan community. Being Viking provides a rigorous ethnographic account of the Asatru religion in America, also known as Heathenry or Heathenism. Arising from five years of original ethnographic fieldwork among American Asatru adherents, the book expands our understanding of this religious movement by providing a comprehensive analysis as part of the American religious context. Asatru is a reconstructionist form of contemporary Paganism, deriving its sacred stories, polytheism, and religious culture from an interaction with the ancient Paganisms of pre-Christian northwestern Europe. Yet, contemporary tributaries shape the movement's reception of the past and its enactment of the ideas and practices discovered there. American Asatru encompasses a diversity of approaches and offers a distinctive counterpoint to some of the characteristic patterns of religious life found in other forms of contemporary Paganism. Being Viking examines the complex interaction of new and old that influences Asatru symbolism, spirituality, and social organization. In addition to describing its rich religious ideology, Being Viking sets the movement within the context of contemporary American culture. Scholars have recognized that new religions offer alternative solutions to the felt tensions of society. Using this paradigm, Asatru is seen as a movement that provides creative religious solutions to the tensions experienced by modern Americans. This study addresses several of those points, including the socially isolating effects of modernity, women's roles, epistemology, and human relationships with nature. Asatru draws on ancient Norse ideas and practices to create new modes of living in the modern world that seek to create meaning and deepen the lived experience of its contemporary adherents. Asatru is in the process of emerging as a viable and complex religion that achieves a degree of cultural continuity by reinvigorating certain American values. In this light, Asatru is a new American religion that incorporates and adapts important cultural values while at the same time challenging some scholarly assumptions about new religions.

It is said that Pagan traditions are the fastest-growing religious group in America. Numbers are tricky to come by, but we know that contemporary Pagans report themselves as living in every American state, and in countries around the world. This volume reviews the shifting landscape of current Pagan spirituality, the unique culture and needs which must be understood in order to engage with contemporary Pagans, and the implications for future leadership, including organizational models, training and educational needs. The author has interviewed Pagan leaders about their own experiences and looks at data from the Pagan Engagement and Spiritual Support survey of 2016 to answer questions such as What does "ministry" mean for Pagans? Who do Pagans turn to for spiritual support? Who ought to be providing that support? Do Pagans want leaders who are trained for ministry? What kind of training do they need, and how do they get it? If you are a Pagan who wishes to support others in these ways, you will find here a framework for your own work, including stories and examples. If you are an interfaith minister, a chaplain, or a spiritual leader who finds that Pagans are intersecting with your work, you will become acquainted with the culture of this old-but-new spirituality. If you are an educator, may you find Constellated Ministry useful in teaching seminarians and students of religious studies.

It is said that Pagan traditions are the fastest-growing religious group in America. Numbers are tricky to come by, but we know that contemporary Pagans report themselves as living in every American state, and in countries around the world. This volume reviews the shifting landscape of current Pagan spirituality, the unique culture and needs which must be understood in order to engage with contemporary Pagans, and the implications for future leadership, including organizational models, training and educational needs. The author has interviewed Pagan leaders about their own experiences and looks at data from the Pagan Engagement and Spiritual Support survey of 2016 to answer questions such as What does "ministry" mean for Pagans? Who do Pagans turn to for spiritual support? Who ought to be providing that support? Do Pagans want leaders who are trained for ministry? What kind of training do they need, and how do they get it? If you are a Pagan who wishes to support others in these ways, you will find here a framework for your own work, including stories and examples. If you are an interfaith minister, a chaplain, or a spiritual leader who finds that Pagans are intersecting with your work, you will become acquainted with the culture of this old-but-new spirituality. If you are an educator, may you find Constellated Ministry useful in teaching seminarians and students of religious studies.

The English writer, self-proclaimed radical Traditionalist, and esoteric theorist John Michell (1933–2009) influenced esotericists, New Agers, and contemporary Pagans with his theory of “Sacred Place”. Through books such as The Flying Saucer Vision (1967) and The View over Atlantis (1969), he aimed to re-sanctify the English landscape, and to launch a revived Golden Age with Glastonbury as the point of departure.In Michell’s cosmology, the concept of the Heavenly City is reified by a triumvirate of the lost Atlantis, contemporary Glastonbury, and the prospective New Jerusalem. His millenarian vision continues a longstanding tradition of attributing spiritual qualities to Glastonbury, notably integrating sacred geometry and numerology. Ronald Hutton described The View over Atlantis as “almost the founding document of the modern earth mysteries movement.”Albion’s Sage for the New Age explores and contextualizes sacred place and nature theories within the frame of alternative religious groups to support an analysis of Michell’s Sacred Place Theory. The book also elaborates on specific topics such as the contemporary religious current of nature religion, and the British Earth Mystery Movement. Additionally, it examines the reception of Michell’s ideas within the “greener” segment of the European New Right and within the American “alternative right”.

The English writer, self-proclaimed radical Traditionalist, and esoteric theorist John Michell (1933–2009) influenced esotericists, New Agers, and contemporary Pagans with his theory of “Sacred Place”. Through books such as The Flying Saucer Vision (1967) and The View over Atlantis (1969), he aimed to re-sanctify the English landscape, and to launch a revived Golden Age with Glastonbury as the point of departure.In Michell’s cosmology, the concept of the Heavenly City is reified by a triumvirate of the lost Atlantis, contemporary Glastonbury, and the prospective New Jerusalem. His millenarian vision continues a longstanding tradition of attributing spiritual qualities to Glastonbury, notably integrating sacred geometry and numerology. Ronald Hutton described The View over Atlantis as “almost the founding document of the modern earth mysteries movement.”Albion’s Sage for the New Age explores and contextualizes sacred place and nature theories within the frame of alternative religious groups to support an analysis of Michell’s Sacred Place Theory. The book also elaborates on specific topics such as the contemporary religious current of nature religion, and the British Earth Mystery Movement. Additionally, it examines the reception of Michell’s ideas within the “greener” segment of the European New Right and within the American “alternative right”.

Based on an ethnographic research among contemporary Pagan communities in Southern Italy (Salento, Apulia), The Spider Dance challenges ideas of historicity, healing, place-making and the experience of time among persons engaged in reviving, continuing, or re-creating traditional Pagan practices. The Spider Dance looks at a specific Pagan group, the sisters of the cerchio (circle), and their ritual practice and interpretation of the traditional dance and music called pizzica. Pizzica, both in the history of Salento and in the scholarly tradition that studied it, is associated with tarantismo, a phenomenon present in that area for centuries and attested until the 1980s. Affecting mostly (but not only) women, tarantismo has been described in the form of malaise and physical suffering—sometimes also as a form of “possession”—thought to be provoked by the bite of tarantula spiders, and cured with pizzica music and dance. At the turn of the century tarantismo disappeared and new forms, called neotarantismi, emerged. Not specifically linked to suffering and healing anymore, they have been interpreted mainly as forms of identity politics. The Spider Dance describes a novel “spiritual” form of neotarantismo, whose relevance is not limited to a description of the cerchio and their Pagan practices. It also makes some key practical and theoretical contributions to the study of contemporary religions, of “historicities,” and to scholarly debates around “well-being,” in Italy and abroad.

Based on an ethnographic research among contemporary Pagan communities in Southern Italy (Salento, Apulia), The Spider Dance challenges ideas of historicity, healing, place-making and the experience of time among persons engaged in reviving, continuing, or re-creating traditional Pagan practices. The Spider Dance looks at a specific Pagan group, the sisters of the cerchio (circle), and their ritual practice and interpretation of the traditional dance and music called pizzica. Pizzica, both in the history of Salento and in the scholarly tradition that studied it, is associated with tarantismo, a phenomenon present in that area for centuries and attested until the 1980s. Affecting mostly (but not only) women, tarantismo has been described in the form of malaise and physical suffering—sometimes also as a form of “possession”—thought to be provoked by the bite of tarantula spiders, and cured with pizzica music and dance. At the turn of the century tarantismo disappeared and new forms, called neotarantismi, emerged. Not specifically linked to suffering and healing anymore, they have been interpreted mainly as forms of identity politics. The Spider Dance describes a novel “spiritual” form of neotarantismo, whose relevance is not limited to a description of the cerchio and their Pagan practices. It also makes some key practical and theoretical contributions to the study of contemporary religions, of “historicities,” and to scholarly debates around “well-being,” in Italy and abroad.

This book is a unique documentary history of the religious tradition known as contemporary Paganism. It covers the period from around 1700 to 1950, with an emphasis on developments in Great Britain.Through the medium of pertinent texts accompanied by narrative and commentary, it seeks to explain and illustrate how this fascinating tradition was conceived and how it evolved over time. It takes in the various twists and turns in the story, from the first stirrings of revival in the Enlightenment years, via Romantic poets and Victorian occultists, to the Woodcraft and witchcraft movements of the twentieth century.Some of the texts that are reproduced are well-known and familiar, while others are being made widely available for the first time.The story of how Pagan religious traditions came be revived in the modern world has been told many times, but the scholarship has tended to focus disproportionately on developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In particular, researchers have tended to focus on the decades after 1950, when Gerald Gardner and his followers were publicizing the witch religion of Wicca and the work of Aleister Crowley underwent a rediscovery.The Pagan Revival is a valuable resource for academics and students in the fields of Pagan studies, cultural history and the history of ideas. It will also be of interest to general readers who are curious about this absorbing chapter of modern religious history.