{"title":"Entering the Magic Mists","authors":"J. Butler","doi":"10.1558/ijsnr.37627","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.37627","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the ways in which contemporary Pagans in Ireland engage with traditional culture, as well as with notions of the Celtic, in forming identities that are regarded by some practitioners as being indigenous identities. This cultural process at work in the Pagan movement is examined against a backdrop of contested constructions of “Irishness” in different political and sociocultural milieus. Drawing from ethnographic research on the Irish Pagan community, the examination includes examples of mechanisms used by modern Pagans to engage with ancestral and historical cultures. In entering the magic mists to search for symbols and ideas to help connect to the “old religion,” modern Pagans create something new and unique while taking inspiration from the past. This overview of Pagans’ utilization of cultural forms, and their use of tradition, aims to communicate why this creative approach to the past, and resulting formation and maintenance of identities, is culturally significant in the Irish context.","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41846660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Archaeology, Historicity, and Homosexuality in the New Cultus of Antinous","authors":"E. White","doi":"10.1558/ijsnr.37618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.37618","url":null,"abstract":"In the second century, the Roman Emperor Hadrian deified his male lover, Antinous, after the latter drowned in the Nile. Antinous’ worship was revived in the late twentieth century, primarily by gay men and other queer-identified individuals, with Antinous himself being recast as “the Gay God.”","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42930988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Indigenizing the Goddess","authors":"Amy Whitehead","doi":"10.1558/ijsnr.37621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.37621","url":null,"abstract":"The Glastonbury Goddess religion in the South West of England began in the 1990s by a small group of women dedicated to reviving the Goddess of the land surrounding Glastonbury, interpreting and revitalizing myths and legends in relation to her, and reclaiming the Goddess as their own after centuries of male Christian dominated religion. Hugely successful, the group have constructed what they claim to be the first Goddess Temple dedicated to the indigenous goddess of Glastonbury in over 1500 years. The article will argue that territorialization, or “re-territorialization,” is one of the main strategies of this indigenizing process, and is carried out through the use and development of Glastonbury Goddess material cultures, ritual creativity and narratives, as well as international Goddess training programmes. Prompting the reclamation of local Goddesses in different parts of the world, the Glastonbury Goddess religion is having local and global reach.","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47770101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Witch” and “Shaman”","authors":"A. Puca","doi":"10.1558/ijsnr.37624","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.37624","url":null,"abstract":"From the very birth of the term, Strega (“Witch”) has been used with a negative connotation to describe women with powers aimed at harming people. Strega has its etymological origin in the Latin Strix, the owl believed to feed on human blood. Pop culture, books and media alike, also portrayed the witch as an evil character to the point where it became common parlance to address a person deemed evil as a witch. In the last three decades, with the popularization of paganism and Wicca, the term has been reclaimed and somehow sanitized by Pagans who neutrally describe this figure as someone who has the ability to change reality in accordance with the will. In more recent years, with the spread of shamanism, more practitioners start to either renounce the term “witch” in favour of Sciamano/sciamana (“Shaman”) or use them both to define themselves. By analysing the discourses that practitioners create around the terms “witch” and “shaman”by means of Paul Johnson’s categories, I will illustrate how both terms manifest a form of indigenization and extending. In conclusion, I will argue that indigenizing and extending may be seen as two aspects of the same phenomenon entailing the opening of cultural borders to the outside, reshaping both the imported and exported cultural elements.","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44545371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Studying the “Gnostic Bible”","authors":"F. Winter","doi":"10.1558/IJSNR.37405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/IJSNR.37405","url":null,"abstract":"In 1983, a book entitled El Pistis Sophia Develado (Pistis Sophia Unveiled) by the Colombian esoteric writer Samael Aun Weor, born Víctor Manuel Gómez Rodríguez (1917-1977), was published posthumously. It is considered a commentary to an important ancient Gnostic text, Pistis Sophia, that is read according to the Neo-Gnostic teachings of the author. This article provides insight into Weor's specific approach to this text and the \"Procrustean bed\" of interpretation he applied to it.","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1558/IJSNR.37405","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47695681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Transforming Deities","authors":"K. Rountree","doi":"10.1558/ijsnr.37404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.37404","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines a variety of ways in which deities from the ancient Mediterranean have been re-appropriated, re-interpreted, transformed, and invented for contemporary religious and socio-political purposes by local Pagan communities—especially in Greece, Italy, Iberia, and Malta—and by followers of the global Goddess spirituality movement.","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1558/ijsnr.37404","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48636658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ancient Goddesses for Modern Times or New Goddesses from Ancient Times?","authors":"Meret Fehlmann","doi":"10.1558/ijsnr.37402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.37402","url":null,"abstract":"This paper deals with the way the goddess(es) of ancient Crete and Greece are imagined and reappropriated in the feminist spirituality movement. It offers an overview over the different metamorphoses of these ancient goddesses in the twentieth century, and takes a closer look at the goddess-related work of Carol P. Christ.","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1558/ijsnr.37402","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44466199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exes speak out, Narratives of apostasy","authors":"Nicola Pannofino, M. Cardano","doi":"10.1558/IJSNR.34152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/IJSNR.34152","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents a study of the trajectories of apostasy from three religious movements, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Soka Gakkai Buddhist institute and the Church of Scientology, through the analysis of a body of autobiographical narratives posted online by Italian apostates. Even more than being the account of a past religious experience, these narratives are the last stage in the gradual articulation of a voice with which the disaffected believers publicly express a critical view of the organizations they have left, charging them with using practices of interdiction to prevent dissent by their members. The common theme that emerges from these stories is not the loss of faith, but the discovery of a hidden deception, the breach of the implicit pact of trust that bound the narrator to the religious group.","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1558/IJSNR.34152","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48388630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Role of Conspiracy Mentality and Paranormal Beliefs in Predicting Conspiracy Beliefs Among Neopagans","authors":"Asbjørn Dyrendal, L. Kennair, James R. Lewis","doi":"10.1558/ijsnr.36716","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.36716","url":null,"abstract":"Recent studies on conspiracy thinking has concluded that the strongest predictor of the tendency towards conspiratorial thinking is a one-dimensional construct-conspiracy mentality-that is relatively stable over time and valid across cultures. Lantian et al. (2016) found that a single, elaborate question can work as a measure of conspiracy beliefs. We assess the validity of this question for an untypical, religious group: self-identified Neopagans. We also test some recent findings on the relation between conspiracy thinking and paranormal beliefs, attitudes towards group equality, political identification, age, gender, and education. The general patterns hold up well in our investigation, but there was a clear distinction between conspiracy theories about powerful actors and those about minorities. The single-item measure was the largest predictor of the former kind of conspiracy belief followed by level of paranormal beliefs. Anti-egalitarianism and holding a right-wing political identity were the strongest predictors of conspiracy beliefs about minorities. Education was negatively related to conspiracy beliefs of all kinds.","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1558/ijsnr.36716","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48175736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"'The Mormon Jesus: A Biography', by John G. Turner","authors":"Daniel N. Gullotta","doi":"10.1558/IJSNR.33546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/IJSNR.33546","url":null,"abstract":"The Mormon Jesus: A Biography, by John G. Turner. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016. 368pp., 27 halftones. Hb. $29.95 / £21.95 / €27.00. ISBN-13: 9780674737433.","PeriodicalId":53821,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of New Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1558/IJSNR.33546","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43248849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}