blog.chasclifton.comLetter from Hardscrabble Creek – A Pagan Studies Blog by Chas S. Clifton

Letter from Hardscrabble Creek A Pagan Studies Blog by Chas S. Clifton Menu Search Search for: Search Four Notable Books in Pagan Studies On April 12, 2024 By Chas S. Clifton 1 Comment From Reading Religion , the book review website of the American Academy of Religion, a post by Ethan Doyle White, who writes, From Wiccan covens assembling in English drawing rooms to Rodnover midsummer gatherings in rural Russia, the modern Pagan religions represent a fascinating and diverse component of our contemporary religious landscape. Although their age, numerical size, and comparative cultural marginality leaves them outside the so-called world religions”’ that attract the bulk of our attentions, I strongly believe that this family of new religious movements warrants far greater understanding among scholars of religion. In particular, these traditions offer us important insights into the modern reception of Europe’s pre-Christian heritage, into the construction of new religions, and into the complex interplay of gendered, ethnic, and religious identities in the 21 st century. As co-editor of Equinox Publishing’s Pagan studies book series, I am happy to have acquired one of the four, Jefferson Calico’s Being Viking: Heathenism in Contemporary America. Calico’s Being Viking: Heathenism in Contemporary America is interesting in part because he was approaching Heathenry as a non-practitioner, something that set his work apart from much of the ethnographic research on modern Pagan traditions that had gone before. One of the things I particularly appreciated about Calico’s book was the attention he gave to issues of class, a topic often overlooked in academic studies of modern Paganism. Like the earlier work of Mattias Gardell, Calico’s project also highlighted the role of white nationalism and related far-right ideologies within certain sectors of the American Pagan milieu, an issue many other scholars had avoided. If you are reading this blog, you have probably read The Triumph of the Moon , but all of these are worthwhile — I need to find Kimberly Kirner’s American Druidry now. Share this: Email Print Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Reddit Twitter Pocket Pinterest Tumblr Telegram Like this: Like Loading... Spiritual Drama and the April 8th Eclipse On April 6, 2024 By Chas S. Clifton Religion scholar Bron Taylor, University of Florida who has worked mostly in the non-theistic side of nature religion, a.k.a dark green religion,” is i nterviewed about spiritual interpretations of the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse. To him, it’s partly about re-enchantment: People are on their own pilgrimages, and they’re trying to work out their meaning systems,” Taylor said. This widespread fascination with the eclipse is a prime example of a turn toward the re-sacralization of nature.” Read it all here. The wild world has something to say to us,” Taylor said, and we should be listening.” Share this: Email Print Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Reddit Twitter Pocket Pinterest Tumblr Telegram Like this: Like Loading... Patrick, Pagans and Party Animals” On March 16, 2024 By Chas S. Clifton A screenshot from Patrick, Pagans and Party Animals , a video about the saint and the explosion of the secular holiday of St. Patrick’s Day. Jenny Butler, a Pagan-studies scholar from University College Cork , appears at 3:00 and elsewhere to speak up for the Pagan” dimension of the story. Requires free Vimeo account. Share this: Email Print Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Reddit Twitter Pocket Pinterest Tumblr Telegram Like this: Like Loading... Imbolc on Ice On February 1, 2024 May 2, 2024 By Chas S. Clifton 2 Comments Look south from Bennett Avenue, the bi-level main street of Cripple Creek, Colorado , across Poverty Gulch (once lined by the saloons and brothels of Myers Avenue), and there it sits, like the citadel of the Ice King. At 9,494 feet (2,894 m.), the early February winds are still cutting and only the lengthening day suggests any turn toward spring. M. and I, plus my Pagan cousin and her partner, fortified ourselves with food and drink in a crowded restaurant and then zipped up all zippers and headed for the Ice Castle at our designated 6 p.m. entrance time. The restaurant’s Facebook page said that they were so busy with Ice Castle visitors that they were not taking reservations, but we snagged a table by showing up at 4:30, ahead of the dinner rush. This castle is a commercial venture . I had seen earlier versions in the ski town of Silverthorne in the 20-teens,and thought it would be cool-no-pun-intended to visit, but I was always on my way to or from somewhere else. Now we had our chance at Candlemas season. I like it when the Sacred Wheel matches up with popular activities, even when the coincidence is not planned. Daytime must be different, but at night the Ice Castle hits the same sort of Underworld vibe that I get sometimes in Taos at PASEO, the fall art festival, when clumps of dark-clad people walk dim Spanish colonial streets until suddenly illuminated by the flare of a flaming gate or a giant robot or an art work projected onto high adobe walls. (SeeThe Robot God and the Underworld Gate .”) So it was sort of like that but without the writhing silent-rave dancers. There was feasting and good conversation and then a chance to stock my memory with images and sensations. Cripple Creek is a small place, compared to its height c. 1900 when there were three railroads plus street cars and belching smokestacks. I walked Marco the dog around a little, strolling past some of the buildings I visited during a long-ago bout of ghost-hunting, back before the casinos came in. Those visits produced a little book, Ghost Tales of Cripple Creek , which in terms of copies sold is probably my biggest commercial success. Out of print now, but I see it is still on Amazon. (The photo was taken from the driveway of astrologer Linda Goodman’s house.) Share this: Email Print Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Reddit Twitter Pocket Pinterest Tumblr Telegram Like this: Like Loading... Helen Cornish on Witchcraft Drumming and Chanting On January 9, 2024 January 9, 2024 By Chas S. Clifton The article Musicking and Soundscapes amongst Magical-Religious Witches Community and Ritual Practices” by Helen Cornish is available as a free download from Religions journal. Abstract Drumming and chanting are core practices in modern magical-religious Witchcraft in the absence of unifying texts or standardized rituals. Song and musicality contribute towards self-creation and community making. However, Nature Religions and alternate spiritualities are seldom included in surveys of religious musicking or soundscapes. This article considers musicality in earlier publications on modern Witchcraft, as well as the author’s fieldwork with magical-religious Witches in the UK, to show the valuable contribution they make to discsusions on religious belonging and the sensorium through song, music, percussion, and soundscapes. Keywords: musicking ; soundscapes ; magical-religious Witchcraft ; contemporary Paganism ; ritual ; sensorium ; historicity Share this: Email Print Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Reddit Twitter Pocket Pinterest Tumblr Telegram Like this: Like Loading... The Creeping Menace of ‘Paganism’ On January 6, 2024 January 7, 2024 By Chas S. Clifton 2 Comments Dear god! Nature religion! (Illustration by Katie Martin, Getty Images). Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple and (visiting at) Harvard Divinity School is like someone who steps in dog shit, comes back indoors, and keeps wondering where the smell is coming from. We are all children of the same God,” he announces in a essay in The Atlantic (link goes to archived version). And we” are opposed to [small-p] paganism,” which is about power, nature-worship, and wealth-worship. Hug a tree or a dollar bill, and the pagan in you shines through.”((For Wolpe the exemplar of this paganism” is, of course, Donald Trump, that notorious tree-hugger. But it’s an election...