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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.
Ten years on from the groundbreaking Triumph of the Moon: A history
of Modern Pagan Witchcraft by Professor Ronald Hutton, a selection
of worldwide scholars, some 'big names; some newer in the field,
with nearly two centuries of hands-on pagan research experience
between them, present a collection of researches inspired by,
deriving from or just celebrating the immense impact of that
seminal book. The topics cover many historical periods, many
academic disciplines and it provides a wealth of information of use
to academic scholar and interested freelance reader alike. Includes
an extended essay by Ronald Hutton on the history of such
scholarship, the state of it today and some of his thoughts for the
future.
Fire-cat masks, earth mother icons, henna tattoos, ankhs, and water
altars--these objects may sound like the inventory in an ancient
druid's sanctuary. But they are part of the sacred reliquary
created by contemporary artists and practitioners of Neo-Pagan
ritual. Calling themselves "witches" and "pagans" and drawing
inspiration from pre-Christian polytheistic worship, the
practitioners of Neo-Paganism have often been misunderstood by
outsiders. In the uninitiated, their art and iconography have
inspired fear. In featuring the works of ten artists, Sabina
Magliocco's Neo-Pagan Sacred Art and Altars unlocks the meanings of
this religion's creativity and symbolism and makes its sacred
nature understandable to non-specialists. A stunning array of color
plates and halftones will touch the imagination of insiders and
outsiders alike, revealing the imaginative skills of some of the
movement's most celebrated artists, as well as amateurs working at
home with family and friends. These masks and altars, earrings and
necklaces create one of the Neo-Pagan movement's most striking
features--its ritual art. Yet this is one of the first books to
focus on these spiritual objects rather than on the sociology and
psychology of the followers. The odd array of costumes and jewelry,
as well as the juxtaposition of neo-primitive and medieval-looking
styles, troubles outsiders and contributes to the movement's
undeserved reputation for attracting eccentrics. Yet its sacred art
is part of one of the most flourishing contemporary traditions in
the United States. Sabina Magliocco is an assistant professor of
anthropology at California State University (Northridge). Her
previous book, The Two Madonnas: The Politics of Festival in a
Sardinian Community (1993), won the 1994 Chicago Folklore Prize.
She has been published in such periodicals as Journal of American
Folklore, Western Folklore, and Fabula.
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