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Author : J. Gordon Melton
Publisher : Scholarly Title
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 1982
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : IND:39000005620062
Author : James R. Lewis
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 1996-04-19
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781438410722
This comprehensive anthology examines contemporary neo-paganism ranging from goddess theology to historical-critical essays. Many of the contributors are academically trained neo-pagans, and the resulting volume is a benchmark study of a significant movement that promises to reshape the religious landscape of the next century.
Author : Alex Mar
Publisher : Sarah Crichton Books
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2015-10-20
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780374709112
"Witches are gathering." When most people hear the word "witches," they think of horror films and Halloween, but to the nearly one million Americans who practice Paganism today, witchcraft is a nature-worshipping, polytheistic, and very real religion. So Alex Mar discovers when she sets out to film a documentary and finds herself drawn deep into the world of present-day magic. Witches of America follows Mar on her immersive five-year trip into the occult, charting modern Paganism from its roots in 1950s England to its current American mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area; from a gathering of more than a thousand witches in the Illinois woods to the New Orleans branch of one of the world's most influential magical societies. Along the way she takes part in dozens of rituals and becomes involved with a wild array of characters: a government employee who founds a California priesthood dedicated to a Celtic goddess of war; American disciples of Aleister Crowley, whose elaborate ceremonies turn the Catholic mass on its head; second-wave feminist Wiccans who practice a radical separatist witchcraft; a growing "mystery cult" whose initiates trace their rites back to a blind shaman in rural Oregon. This sprawling magical community compels Mar to confront what she believes is possible-or hopes might be. With keen intelligence and wit, Mar illuminates the world of witchcraft while grappling in fresh and unexpected ways with the question underlying every faith: Why do we choose to believe in anything at all? Whether evangelical Christian, Pagan priestess, or atheist, each of us craves a system of meaning to give structure to our lives. Sometimes we just find it in unexpected places.
Author : Helen A. Berger
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2021-11-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781643362878
A Community of Witches explores the beliefs and practices of Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft—generally known to scholars and practitioners as Wicca. While the words "magic," "witchcraft," and "paganism" evoke images of the distant past and remote cultures, this book shows that Wicca has emerged as part of a new religious movement that reflects the era in which it developed. Imported to the United States in the later 1960s from the United Kingdom, the religion absorbed into its basic fabric the social concerns of the time: feminism, environmentalism, self-development, alternative spirituality, and mistrust of authority. Helen A. Berger's ten-year participant observation study of Neo-Pagans and Witches on the eastern seaboard of the United States and her collaboration on a national survey of Neo-Pagans form the basis for exploring the practices, structures, and transformation of this nascent religion. Responding to scholars who suggest that Neo-Paganism is merely a pseudo religion or a cultural movement because it lacks central authority and clear boundaries, Berger contends that Neo-Paganism has many of the characteristics that one would expect of a religion born in late modernity: the appropriation of rituals from other cultures, a view of the universe as a cosmic whole, an emphasis on creating and re-creating the self, an intertwining of the personal and the political, and a certain playfulness. Aided by the Internet, self-published journals, and festivals and other gatherings, today's Neo-Pagans communicate with one another about social issues as well as ritual practices and magical rites. This community of interest—along with the aging of the original participants and the growing number of children born to Neo-Pagan families—is resulting in Neo-Paganism developing some of the marks of a mature and established religion.
Author : Helen A. Berger
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 217 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2011-03-19
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780812201253
Magic, always part of the occult underground in North America, has experienced a resurgence since the 1960s. Although most contemporary magical religions have come from abroad, they have found fertile ground in which to develop in North America. Who are today's believers in Witchcraft and how do they worship? Alternative spiritual paths have increased the ranks of followers dramatically, particularly among well-educated middle-class individuals. Witchcraft and Magic conveys the richness of magical religious experiences found in today's culture, covering the continent of North America and the Caribbean. These original essays survey current and historical issues pertinent to religions that incorporate magical or occult beliefs and practices, and they examine contemporary responses to these religions. The relationship between Witchcraft and Neopaganism is explored, as is their intersection with established groups practicing goddess worship. Recent years have seen the growth in New Age magic and Afro-Caribbean religions, and these developments are also addressed in this volume. All the religions covered offer adherents an alternative worldview and rituals that are aimed at helping individuals redefine themselves and make their interactions with the environment more empowered. Many modern occult religions share an absence of dogma or central authority to determine orthodoxy, and have become a contemporary experience embracing modern concerns like feminism, environmentalism, civil rights, and gay rights. Afro-Caribbean religions such as Santería, Palo, and Curanderismo, which do have a more developed dogma and authority structure, offer their followers a religion steeped in African and Hispanic traditions. Responses to the growth of magical religions have varied, from acceptance to an unfounded concern about the growth of a satanic underground. And, as magical religions have flourished, increased interest has resulted in a growing commercialization, with its threat of trivialization.
Author : Michael Jordan
Publisher : Trafalgar Square Publishing
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : IND:30000063994283
REF Jordan (Encyclopedia of Gods, LJ 7/93) gives brief definitions of the terms, events, people, and holidays of the pagan movement, a faith based on the concept that the earth is sacred and the feminine is present in worship. He offers interviews with Vivienne Crowley, Olivia Durdin-Robertson, Maxine Sanders, and Doreen Valiente, who are extremely important to the pagan and witchcraft movements in Great Britain. The entries are concise, well written, informative, and balanced. While some cover the American pagan movement, the focus is on witchcraft and paganism in Great Britain. Even so, this is an important volume for American audiences because the British movements have deeply influenced much of American witchcraft. The photographs are spectacular. Highly recommended for collections that serve patrons practicing or studying alternative religions and appropriate for academic and general collections in public libraries. Gail Wood, SUNY Coll. at Cortland, N.Y.-
Author : Sabina Magliocco
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2010-11-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780812202700
Taking the reader into the heart of one of the fastest-growing religious movements in North America, Sabina Magliocco reveals how the disciplines of anthropology and folklore were fundamental to the early development of Neo-Paganism and the revival of witchcraft. Magliocco examines the roots that this religious movement has in a Western spiritual tradition of mysticism disavowed by the Enlightenment. She explores, too, how modern Pagans and Witches are imaginatively reclaiming discarded practices and beliefs to create religions more in keeping with their personal experience of the world as sacred and filled with meaning. Neo-Pagan religions focus on experience, rather than belief, and many contemporary practitioners have had mystical experiences. They seek a context that normalizes them and creates in them new spiritual dimensions that involve change in ordinary consciousness. Magliocco analyzes magical practices and rituals of Neo-Paganism as art forms that reanimate the cosmos and stimulate the imagination of its practitioners. She discusses rituals that are put together using materials from a variety of cultural and historical sources, and examines the cultural politics surrounding the movement—how the Neo-Pagan movement creates identity by contrasting itself against the dominant culture and how it can be understood in the context of early twenty-first-century identity politics. Witching Culture is the first ethnography of this religious movement to focus specifically on the role of anthropology and folklore in its formation, on experiences that are central to its practice, and on what it reveals about identity and belief in twenty-first-century North America.
Author : James R. Lewis
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 1996-01-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0791428893
Provides an overview of neo-paganism from the Goddess to magic and rituals, from history and ethics to the relationship of neo-paganism to Christianity.
Author : J. Gordon Melton,Isotta Poggi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 0815304994
Melton ( Religious leaders of America, Directory of religious organizations ) assembled the first edition for release in 1982 under the title Sects and cults in America bibliographical guides, v.1 . The second edition has nearly doubled (to 2,540 entries) with the publishing of the 1980s. Two prefa
Author : Susan Greenwood
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 221 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2020-08-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781000181227
Anthropology's long and complex relationship to magic has been strongly influenced by western science and notions of rationality. This book takes a refreshing new look at modern magic as practised by contemporary Pagans in Britain. It focuses on what Pagans see as the essence of magic - a communication with an otherworldly reality. Examining issues of identity, gender and morality, the author argues that the otherworld forms a central defining characteristic of magical practice. Integrating an experiential ethnographic approach with an analysis of magic, this book asks penetrating questions about the nature of otherworldly knowledge and argues that our scientific frameworks need re-envisioning. It is unique in providing an insider's view of how magic is practised in contemporary western culture.
Author : Allen Scarboro,Nancy R. Campbell,Shirley A. Stave
Publisher : Praeger
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 1994-09-30
Category : Education
ISBN : UOM:39015017426241
This is the only ethnography of a living community of witches in the United States. Ravenwood, based near Atlanta, is one of the largest American covens and has supported and encouraged this research through to publication. Of unprecedented importance in clearing the name of witchcraft, the leader of the coven is a civil rights activist, still dedicated in her wiser years to the individual's right to freedom of religion. A must read in women's studies, shamanism, comparative religion and American studies.
Author : Owen Davies
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2013-02-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9780191625145
America Bewitched is the first major history of witchcraft in America - from the Salem witch trials of 1692 to the present day. The infamous Salem trials are etched into the consciousness of modern America, the human toll a reminder of the dangers of intolerance and persecution. The refrain Remember Salem! was invoked frequently over the ensuing centuries. As time passed, the trials became a milepost measuring the distance America had progressed from its colonial past, its victims now the righteous and their persecutors the shamed. Yet the story of witchcraft did not end as the American Enlightenment dawned - a new,long, and chilling chapter was about to begin.Witchcraft after Salem was not just a story of fire-side tales, legends, and superstitions: it continued to be a matter of life and death, souring the American dream for many. We know of more people killed as witches between 1692 and the 1950s than were executed before it. Witches were part of the story of the decimation of the Native Americans, the experience of slavery and emancipation, and the immigrant experience; they were embedded in the religious and social history of the country. Yetthe history of American witchcraft between the eighteenth and the twentieth century also tells a less traumatic story, one that shows how different cultures interacted and shaped each others languages and beliefs. This is therefore much more than the tale of one persecuted community: it opens a fascinating window on the fears, prejudices, hopes, and dreams of the American people as their country rose from colony to superpower.
Author : Raymond Buckland
Publisher : Llewellyn Worldwide
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 1986
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9780875420509
"This complete self-study course in modern Wicca is a treasured classic - an essential and trusted guide that belongs in every witch's library."---Back cover
Author : Gary R. Varner
Publisher : Lulu.com
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2007-01-03
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9781430318132
The Dark Wind provides a survey of witches around the world, their prehistoric origin and how society has viewed them throughout history. Folklorist Gary R. Varner explores the use of magic, spells and curses among indigenous groups as well as state approved religions such as those observed in ancient Rome and Greece, and how even contemporary Christianity uses many of the same "magic" combinations. Also examined is the current "witch craze" in several countries where thousands are being killed as witches, the underlying reasons for this tragedy and the history of anti-witchcraft laws. The Dark Wind is a book for everyone interested in anthropology, archaeology, ancient history, religion and the occult. Illustrated with contemporary woodcuts and drawings. The author is a member of the American Folklore Society and the Foundation for Mythological Studies.
Author : Gerina Dunwich
Publisher : Citadel Press
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Goddess religion
ISBN : 0806512385
Traces the origins of Wicca and offers up a cauldron brew of spells, unusual recipes and fascinating Pagan lore. Also contains easy-to-follow rituals for the eight annual sabbats observed by Wiccans, an up-to-date listing of Pagan periodicals and sections on herbalism, tree magick and dreams. The author, a practising Witch, reveals the ancient secrets of magick and divination and offers her insights on Wiccan history, deities, tools, ethics and much more.