Shortly after 1 p.m. on May 21, 1991, a secretary working on the third floor of Swift Hall at the University of Chicago heard a faint “pop,” as she described it. The sound came from the men’s restroom next to her office. It was produced by a .25-caliber (6.35 mm) pistol that had fired one round into the head of Prof. Ioan Culianu, a rising scholar of esotericism and Gnosticism and a protegé of the famous historian of religion Mircea Eliade1 (1907–1986).
The killer was never caught. He did stalk Culianu during a book-sale event, which brought numerous outsiders into the building, but he also had to be someone who would not look out of place in an academic setting.
My review of Secrets, Lies, and Consequences was just published in the American Academy of Religion’s free Reading Religion site, and you can read it here.
I sweat bullets over that review, because its length was limited, and yet I was trying to fit in bits of Romanian history, Eliade’s life story, as well as Lincoln’s conjectures about the killer’s motive—which might have been a certain person saying, in effect, “Who will rid me of this troublesome scholar?”
I have defended Eliade here before against accusations about what he wrote or did in the 1930s. See, for instance, “Mircea Eliade, Witches, and Fascists” from 2020, where I did have room to go into the history more than I could do in a book review.
I always took Eliade at his word (in his published journals ) that when he left Romania to serve as a diplomat in Lisbon, he left all his previous associations behind. One thing that Lincoln’s book does is make me wonder, was I right or was I too naive?
“Politics is downstream from culture,” people like to say online — which is just a re-statement of something that I have long believed, that “Life imitates Art.”
Maybe I am just reflecting my online environment and the podcasts that I listen to, but folklore is suddenly big. My feed has a lot of British contributors in it; some have MA’s in folklore, which won’t get you a teaching job but maybe will give you the skills to write, make videos, and so forth.
So there is a plethora of podcasts, such as the Modern Fairy Sightings podcast, hosted by Jo Hickey-Hall, one of Ronald Hutton’s former graduate students. Zines like I haven’t seen them since pre-Internet days. One of my favorites is Hellebore, edited by Maria Pérez Cuervo, also a former grad student (fill in the blank).
So this is also niche stuff, but you have to add it up.
These traditions may seem to belong to another time – yet interest in paganism and folklore is growing across the globe. Shamanism, although not an organised faith, is the fastest growing religion in England and Wales, according to the 2011 and 2022 censuses. In the US, the number of Wicca adherents is now over 1.5 million. Wicca, founded in the early half of the 20th century by Gerald Gardner, is one of the most influential and popular branches of the modern neopagan movement, with a complex variety of branches, denominations and traditions across the world.
I am not sure where those numbers come from, so just consider them to be “hand-waving.” Counting Pagans is a real difficult problem.
North America’s Pagan resurgence, should one occur, is going to look different. But there are cross-overs. Just today I stopped at the nearest small-town grocery store. This guy was stocking the shelves (not one of the employees that I recognized, so maybe new), and he was wearing a big ol’ Mjölnir amulet around his neck, maybe a reproduction of the one at the linked page.
This is what a background in religious studies plus sleep-deprivation will do to you.
On Friday I was in Manitou Springs, the old spa town on the west side of Colorado Springs, where I spent most of my twenties and had various formative experiences, such as meeting my wife, forming a coven, running a business, deciding to go to grad school — everyday stuff.
Manitou has always been a tourist town, first peddling mineral springs, then a sort of generic “rubber tomahawks” Western tourism during the 1950s–1970s, with digressions into low-end art galleries, head shops, mountain-man paraphernalia, natural food stores, and of late New Agey stuff.
Having bought something at a shop selling Southwestern Indian jewelry, I went to Red Dog Coffee for a burrito, then crossed Manitou Avenue from the shady side (left of photo) toward the sunny side, where I had parked. I was tired, Foggy-brained. Needed coffee. I was so tired that I left my purchase there on the coffee house counter, and one of the baristas brought to my table. Duh!
In the crosswalk, I heard a resonant, ringing sound. I saw a man in a red coat holding a large red bowl, one of those “singing bowls” that played by running a wooden rod around inside the rim.
It made perfect sense! Adapting to the New Agey vibe in Manitou, the Salvation Army, collecting for its Christmas charity work, had switched to a singing bowl instead of the usual sidewalk bell-ringer with a kettle on a tripod. It was a “begging bowl,” like those used by some Buddhist monks!
I started feeling in my jeans pocket to see how much post-coffee change I had — or should i pull out some bills? (It’s a Christian denomination, but I still support the SA’s efforts).
Then I stepped up onto the sidewalk and turned toward the bowl-player. He was talking, trying to pull people into a gift shop. If I had dropped coins into his singing bowl, he might not have been pleased.
I walked a few yards to my parking spot, shaken to realize that I had been half in a dream-state. And I still had to drive through a hour and a half of high-speed multi-lane freeway traffic to Denver to visit a sick friend, which was Part 2 of my trip. Wake up! Be here now! No dreaming!
But we are always dreaming, just as the stars are always shining even when the Sun’s light over-powers them.
Romuva has been granted official recognition following the Constitution and the Law on Religious Communities and Associations, as well as the Justice Ministry’s conclusion that it meets legal requirements. The ministry noted that Romuva has been active in Lithuania for 25 years [see below for why that matters] while its teachings and rites do not contradict Lithuanian laws and generally accepted moral norms. Romuva applied for official recognition on 17 May 2017, but at the time parliament rejected the move.
In 2019, [and again in 2023] the organisation appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ruled in 2021 that by refusing official recognition parliament violated the European Convention on Human Rights
Lithuania’s rulers abandoned Paganism in the 1200s (for political reasons at least partly), and the country became majority Roman Catholic. But if any European country did have a hidden “Pagan survival,” it was Lithuania. Or the nearest thing to it.
Once free of the USSR in 1990, Lithuania set up a hierarchy of “registered” religions — a hierarchy that might be on its way out. Right now, it looks like this, says Scott Simpson, lecturerer at Jagiellonian University in Poland and co-editor of Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe.
The media understandably struggle to explain the complex Romuva situation in simple and interesting terms to the average reader. They sometimes err on the side of making it sound like this is the first time that Romuva is counted as a religion at all, and sometimes err on the side of making it sound like they jumped straight to ‘established church’ (TASS has good example of that).
What has happened is that the religious organisation of Romuva, in keeping with Lithuanian law in spite of some hard-to-forgive discriminatory delay, has moved from being in the first tier (a ‘registered’ religious organisation) to being in the second tier (a ‘state-recognised’ religious organisation). This will give them some more abilities, such as their religious marriages can automatically be counted as state marriages without the need for a separate trip to the registry office.
The change in status for the religious organisation isn’t, in theory, a change in status for the religion. Citizens of Lithuania have freedom of religion and conscience, and can practice their religions without registration if they wish to do so. (You could call that ‘level 0’ of registration.) But what those citizens get by registering as a religious organisation is the ability to act as a legal corporate entity, for example to collect funds in an organisation-owned bank account. Of course, there is also an intangible psychological and social element of seeming like a legitimate religion when one has an official registration. (You could call this ‘level 1’ of registration.)
One of the most important metrics for making the jump upwards is to have been registered as an organisation at level 1 for at least 25 years. Therefore, over time, there should be a small surge in requests to the Seimas for movement from ‘registered’ to ‘state-recognised’. Romuva reached that criterion long ago and yet was refused (twice!) the change in status by the Seimas. This was a democratic vote, and yet the lack of solid objections to Romuva (that is, they were not credibly accused of crimes against the state or any other saliant wrongdoing that could make them undesirable to the Lithuanian state) means that this decision was discriminatory. That’s not just my opinion, it was also the opinion of the European Court of Human Rights. At least one other religious organisation has been refused in a similar way: the Jehovah’s Witnesses. But a new government has come into power in Lithuania with a different composition of MPs and they voted this week to move Romuva to the position that they have qualified for. (We will see if the Jehovah’s Witnesses also get another chance in the coming weeks. Blood transfusions might be considered more an issue there.)
Presumably, although Romuva must be pleased to have been moved one rung up, they will someday want to try to move to the next rung, ‘traditional religion’. (We can call this one ‘level 3’.) It is much less clear what the procedure would be for doing that, or whether it is possible at all. The 1995 law says: ‘The State shall recognise nine traditional religious communities and associations existing in Lithuania, which comprise a part of Lithuania’s historical, spiritual and social heritage: Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, Evangelical Reformed, Russian Orthodox, Old Believer, Judaist, Sunni Muslim, and Karaite.’ One possible interpretation is that you only get on that list by being named on the list in the 1995 law. And therefore, no-one else will ever be added unless the Seimas decides to pass a new law that supersedes that one. Romuva will want to claim that they are ‘part of Lithuania’s historical, spiritual and social heritage’ and therefore should be added.
But if Romuva make a play for level 3, they will face a much murkier set of criteria with a lot more difficulty in proving incontestably to all stakeholders that they qualify. Romuva firmly believe that they should be recognised as continuing the ancient tradition which survived nearly intact from times centuries before those other ‘traditional’ religion’s arrival in Lithuania. (Note that current scholars of ancient Lithuanian religion are not in unanimous agreement with Romuva’s conviction in more than one way.) And they believe that their religion remained hidden in Lithuanian folk culture throughout the centuries means that they represent ‘spiritual and social heritage’ par excellence. To them, it is a gross injustice that they were not on the short list to start with.
But, because the current Romuva started their project in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and their current organisation was only registered in 1992, they will have to fight to be recognised as legally representing the same religion as existed in the 15th century. Technically, the precedence of Sunni Islam in Lithuania (where fragmentation of organisations does not mean that they lose ‘traditional’ status as a religion) means that they don’t actually need to show that this contemporary organisation is the same as that ancient organisation.
So far, so good. But they do need to show that this contemporary religion is the same as that ancient religion. (Cue discussion of the Ship of Theseus, etc.) As much as the adherents of Romuva believe in their hearts that these two things are essentially identical, their critics will have no great difficulty in finding academic experts who will call that into question and call them related, but essentially different. Academic fashions change, and different paradigms circulate today than circulated back in the 1970s. And without a very clear consensus from a strong majority of experts who are consulted on this, the Seimas has no great motivation to initiate the messy and controversial process of drafting and passing a new law specially for them. Especially knowing that it is likely to get bogged down in an abstruse discussion of nit-picky historical and archaeological details right from the start.
I suspect that the clock is ticking on these kinds of laws, anyhow. They are out of touch with the rest of EU law and they regularly run afoul of the European Court of Human Rights. I would bet that Lithuania tosses out the whole ladder system long before Romuva manages to climb to the highest rung.
Pagan Religions in 5 Minutes brings together seventy short essays, each answering a question such as “Do all Pagans follow the same festivals?”1 or “What are Technopagans?” or “What is the difference between Wicca and witchcraft?”
In the video, book co-editor Angela Puca is joined by three other Pagan studies scholars — Sabina Magliocco, Jenny Butler, and Giovanna Parmigiani — to discuss the book and related questions.
I am not a Pagan teacher, Witchcraft influencer, or anything like that. Usually i see myself as the person approaching a panelist at an American Academy of Religion session, saying, “Would you consider turning your paper into an article for The Pomegranate?” Kind of a behind-the scenes person.
I figure I will talk about the state of Pagan studies in academia, about Pagan history in the Anglosphere, and whatever other skeletons I can drag out of the closet. (Holli Emore, Cherry Hill’s executive director, is interested in a 1980 case where a Wiccan leader was charged with murder after a Halloween shooting in the Texas Panhandle.)
I did my term as co-chair of the Contemporary Pagan Studies unit, but under the AAR system (which is wise), you get five years, and then it is someone else’s turn, so that they can get the professional exposure, make connections, and bring in fresh ideas.
So this interview will be live-cast on Zoom but later put on up on the Cherry Hill site to watch for free, along with others, such as these Pagan scholars:
A possible animal sacrifice location in the Howard Beach area. J.C. Rice (New York Post)
The New York Post had two articles recently on apparent animal sacrifice in the Jamaica Bay area of Long Island (politically in both Brooklyn and Queens).
Animal sacrifices are surging in Queens, with chickens, pigs and rats being tortured, mutilated or killed in “twisted” religious rituals in parkland surrounding Jamaica Bay, The Post has learned.
In a little over a month, at least nine wounded animals or carcasses have been discovered in the federally-managed Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Broad Channel — including five live pigs with partially severed ears.
Creatures recovered from the revolting scene also include a near-dead baby rat tied up in a bag with chicken bones; a freshly decapitated chicken head; a live hen in distress; and a dead dog with its neck snapped.
Ethnographically, the article adds, “Jamaica Bay has been a popular religious site among members of the Hindu Guyanese and Indo-Caribbean diaspora living in nearby neighborhoods, including Richmond Hill and Ozone Park..”
In essence, per the Court, animal sacrifice for religious purposes is not illegal in the United States under the First Amendment.
Animal sacrifice pops up repeatedly in the Bible. Many Muslims partake in qurban (animal sacrifice) at the feast of Eid al-Adha. Some Orthodox Jews have a practice of waving a live chicken overhead while praying on Yom Kippur Eve, then slaughtering it for a meal according to the kosher rules. And Christians describe Jesus as the Supreme Sacrifice, some descibing themselves as “washed in the blood of the [sacrificial] Lamb.“
A. J. Jacobs, a non-religious Jewish writer in NYC, devotes a semi-humorous section of his book A Year of Living Bibically to attempting to join Hasidic Jews iin this ritual.1
Animal sacrifice was a key religious practice of the pre-Christian peoples of Germanic Northern Europe. It is now being revived by some modern Pagans who reconstruct pre-Christian Germanic religious traditions, drawing on medieval Icelandic literature as well as Anglo-Saxon literature and other related sources (155).
Jefferson Calico’s 2018 book Being Viking: Heathenism in Contemporary Americadevotes an entire chapter to the topic, examining its social, religious, and ethical contexts, noting that “Eating the sacrifice2 becomes a sacred as well as a dissenting act that calls into quesion and occasions a critique of secular, mainstream American eating practices” (314).
The Asatru would have eaten the “blotted” pig — were the ones found abandoned by some urban homesteader? A dead dog? Killed in ritual or killed to cause pain to its owner? Baby rat? (Mom made him get rid of it?). Cops3 operate with simple categories. What happens when you make a collar and end up in court being grilled4 by a First Amendment lawyer? Is it easier just to put up some lights than sort out the perpetrators, when some are criminals and others part of a protected class?
Subtitled “One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible,” the book describes his attempt to follow all the Hebrew Bible’s rules while living in New York City — with a very patient wife. [↩]
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