Journal on New Religious Movements Seeks Submissions

Call for Papers and Invitation to Subscribe:

The International Journal for the Study of New Religions, published by Equinox in association with the International Society for the Study of New Religions (Sweden), is a new, international vehicle for publishing theoretical and empirically-based studies in the field of new religions.

International Journal for the Study of New Religions considers submissions from both established scholars and research students from all over the world. Articles should be written for a general scholarly audience. All articles are refereed. International Journal for the Study of New Religions is published biannually in May and November. Each issue includes articles and a number of book reviews. The journal is published simultaneously in print and online.

The term “New Religions” can be defined in several ways. ISSNR and IJSNR has chosen to adopt a broad definition. In the narrow sense, “New Religions” is a term applied especially to religious phenomenon that emerged in the West after the mid-1900s.

More widely understood, the term can also include older religious movements or organizations which are “new” in a specific historical context. The term encompasses organized groups as well as less organized movements. Many of these groups and movements are international and can be found in numerous countries.

There are also new religious movements that are specific to a particular country or to a particular area of the world. In recent decades, new religions or new religious movements outside of the Western context have attracted attention.

Additionally, the concept of New Religions includes contemporary Paganism, less organized phenomena, such as the so-called New Age and alternative spirituality, as well as new expressions within established religions.

Papers of no more than 10,000 words (including abstracts and referencing) should should be submitted through the journal website:

Enquiries can be directed to the editors:
Carole M. Cusack (University of Sydney, Australia) carole.cusack@sydney.edu.au
Liselotte Frisk (Dalarna University, Sweden) lfi@du.se

Enquiries about book reviews should be directed to the book review editor:
James R. Lewis (University of Tromsø, Norway) james.lewis@uit.no

Subscription to International Journal for the Study of New Religions is available through the journal website (see the pull-down menus ‘Subscriptions’). Subscription may be to IJSNR alone, or may include membership to the International Society for the Study of New Religions.

The International Society for the Study of New Religions’ inaugural conference will be held at the University of Gothenburg fro May 5-7, 2011. A call for abstracts and further information will be available soon.

Thinking about ‘Nature Religion’ in the Snow

I spent about an hour today on the snow shovel after fifteen inches fell yesterday, laughing a bitter and sardonic laugh at people who associate flowers and bunny wabbits with the spring equinox. (At least the Sun is stronger now than in midwinter.)

Today’s preoccupation is the talk that I have to give tomorrow on nature religion to some Unitarians.

First off, it’s not an easy term to define. I can think of at least three definitions for “nature religion.”

1. One was developed by Catherine Albanese, historian of American religion: “a symbolic center and the cluster of beliefs, behaviors, and values that encircles it.” (Nature Religion in America, 7)

To Albanese, the term was a “scholarly construct” that made it possible to talk about various attitudes and activities under one heading, everything from “natural healing” to national parks to New Agey dietary fads.

I was present at an American Academy of Religion panel c. 1998 when Professor Albanese learned to her surprise that “nature religion” was also a term self-applied by many contemporary Pagans. Pagans had simply not been on her mental radar.

2. My own research, however, showed various Pagans using “earth religion” and “nature religion” to describe themselves (and to avoid loaded terms like Witch and Pagan) at least as long ago as 1970. And 1970 happens to be the year when the first Earth Day was observed.

3. Somewhat similar to Albanese, another religious studies professor, Bron Taylor, has a recent book called Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future.

Not particularly theistic, Taylor defines “dark green religion” as “religion that considers nature to be sacred, imbued with intrinsic value, and worthy of reverent care.” The “dark” suggests not just intensity but also nature religion’s propensity to “precipitate or exacerbate violence” (ix).

Once jokingly described to me as “the house intellectual of Earth First!” Taylor has had a long interest in studying ecotage and other environmental violence, along with more peaceful manifestations of nature religion as  surfing culture.

Consequently, where Albanese tends to be more interested in the nineteenth century, Taylor is more focused on contemporary environmentalism and politics.

Who Was Hypatia?

On the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, a mob led by Peter the Lector brutally murdered Hypatia, one of the last great thinkers of ancient Alexandria. Mary Evans Picture Library / AlamyWith the build-up among Pagan moviegoers for a North American release of Alelejandro Amenabar’s Agora, here is a quick biography of the philosopher Hypatia herself and the religious conflicts that led to her murder by a Christian mob. (She was a bit older at her death than is Rachel Weisz.)

(Via Rogue Classicism)

Talking to UUs about Nature Religion

I am busy working up a talk on “nature religion” to give to a Unitarian Universalist congregation on Sunday.

Hey, it’s a change: bring in the Pagan speaker at Ostara instead of Samhain. On the other hand, they did originally try to get me at Samhain, but someone messed up the scheduling. This is better, actually.

It’s a good thing that Unitarians tend to be a bookish crowd, so I do not have to sing, dance, lead breathing exercises, etc. There are others who are so much better at all that.

I can talk, however. But I will have to repress the tendency to want to turn and write on the blackboard.

I will lean heavily on the “three kinds of nature religion” described in Her Hidden Children and of course on Catherine Albanese’s work on nature as a source of sacred value in American religion.

Looking at books makes me painfully aware how much I need to start on a new writing project before my brain atrophies.

Why You Should Lock Your Car While Shopping at Whole Foods

“Ethical consumers less likely to be kind and more likely to steal, study finds,” is the subhead on an article in the lefty British newspaper The Guardian.

OK, several caveats. This is one study by two social scientists in Canada. Science reporting in the daily press is sometimes sensationalized, and, further, I think you can design a psychological survey to prove anything. (Actual social scientists may want to differ, but that is my impression.)

But it’s ironic to see The Guardian sticking it to Al Gore:

When Al Gore was caught running up huge energy bills at home at the same time as lecturing on the need to save electricity, it turns out that he was only reverting to “green” type.

If I am at all inclined to believe Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, it is because in my youth I met too many people who preached “peace and love, man,” but who would steal anything not nailed down. Their professions of morality in some areas seemed to excuse (to them) their behavior in other areas.

A PDF file of the study itself is available at Professor Mazar’s site.

Movieland’s Wacky Witches & Pathetic Pagans

Gus diZerega is looking to compile a master list of “the worst portrayals of Pagans and Witches” in the movies.

Go visit him and offer your suggestions.

Esoteric Poetry Competition Announced

News release:

ESOTERIC POETRY INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION esotericpoetry@googlemail.com

YOU ARE INVITED TO SEND short poems of up to eight lines (not including the title) on an esoteric subject. These may refer in a general sense to ‘inner’ knowledge, this may be esoteric in the sense of inner knowledge as in:

Astrology,

Alchemy

Gnosticism

Magic

but may also be understood in relation to the experience of seeking an understanding of an unending number of life’s challenges or disciplines: justice, plumbing, child rearing and the perfect omelette spring to mind.

Poems may for example reveal hitherto unknown secrets, conceal them, or relate to the subject matter in another way. All poems will be judged solely on literary merit

Competition sponsored by
The Cambridge Centre for the study of Western Esotericism
www.ccwe.wordpress.com

==================================
In conjunction with Heffers Bookshop, Cambridge, UK
www.blackwell.co.uk
and Waterloo Press www.waterloopresshove.co.uk
===================================

PRIZES:
1st £300
2nd £150
3rd £75

SEE www.ccwe.wordpress.com
ENTRY PAGE for details of terms and conditions and how to enter.

SEE RESULTS AND PRIZE GIVING PAGE
Prize winners will be announced at Heffers Bookshop, Cambridge, UK Thursday 18th November 2010 and on this website later that evening and by email the following day. Winners unable to attend the heffers prize-giving evening at heffers will be sent their prizes via paypal in GBP. CLOSING DATE FOR ONLINE ENTRIES: 15 SEPTEMBER, 2010 midnight GMT

see JUDGES PAGE for details of the judges
Daniel Healy
Helen Ivory
Jon Woodson
===============
contact: Sophia Wellbeloved: esotericpoetry@googlemail.com

—
Dr Sophia Wellbeloved
Director, Lighthouse Editions
www.gurdjieff-books,net
www.gurdjieffbooks.wordpress.com
www.sophiawellbelovedpoetry.wordpress.com

Director, The Cambridge Centre for the study of Western Esotericism www.ccwe.wordpress.com

CCWE is  independent of any academic or esoteric communities, the co-ordinators share an interest in the need for a wider dialogue between scholars and practitioners in the field of Western Esotericism and in the establishment of a secular space in which an interdisciplinary network can thrive.   From 2009 CCWE has operated within Lighthouse editions Limited, a small publishing company Directors: Dr Sophia Wellbeloved, Jeremy Cranswick – see http://gurdjieffbooks.wordpress.com

Gallimaufry with Distinctions

• Ule-Alfarrin (a/k/a Robin Artisson, if I am not mistaken) lists differences between “New Ager” and “Heathen.” I like this one:

13. Almost no one who in the course of their religious practice, takes a first, middle, or last name which is the same as an animal, a plant, a weather-based phenomenon, an element, a mineral, or a combination of any of those things can speak for me, nor do they likely believe anything like me.

Being a Heathen is often about making such distinctions, ja?

• Anne Johnson discusses building fairy houses. She understands that the fairies are not always cute.

• Talking to Unitarians about animism. I have to do something similar later this month.

• Anne Hill suggests two great books on dreams. She should know.

Wicca as the (Untrustworthy) Other, Again

For environmental news of the West, I have subscribed since the 1980s to High Country News, a biweekly magazine.

For the first time since a rancher named Tom Bell started the magazine in Lander, Wyoming in 1970, HCN has jumped on the bandwagon of anti-Wiccan snark.

In a blog post called “Witches and Rifles,” editor Jonathan Thompson last month took on the well-covered issues of the Air Force Academy’s earth-religions worship circle and managed to blend it with the other well-covered issue of the Bible verse coded into rifle sight systems made by military contractor Trijicon:

COLORADO

Should the Urantians face persecution for their religious beliefs, they could always consider buying real estate in another part of the West, namely Colorado Springs. There, the U.S. Air Force Academy has set aside an outdoor worshipping area for “Pagans, Wiccans, Druids and other Earth-centered believers,” according to the Associated Press. The academy has long been criticized for erasing the line dividing church and state in a heavily evangelical Christian-leaning manner.

It was recently revealed that the military had been using rifle scopes that were engraved with biblical references by the manufacturer. No news yet on whether any future firearms will be engraved with secret Wiccan code.

Jonathan Thompson’s attitudes are typical of what you find in most elite media outlets as well as academia, however. It is not Wicca that is suspicious—all religious affiliation is suspicious to people like him.

Having worked in both journalism and academia, here is my quick guide towards religion as typically understood by inhabitants of both those worlds (such as Jonathan Thompson):

  • Jews are generally all right, particularly if they write for Tikkun magazine, but Israelis are scary.
  • Christians are at best hypocrites. At worst, you can expect them to fortify themselves in rural compounds and commit incest—-and those are the Presbyterians.
  • The Catholic Church, however, is easy to cover (except for the parts that are in Latin) for anyone experienced in big-city “machine” politics, such as Democrats in Chicago.
  • Buddhists are all right if they are poets. Ethnic Buddhists (for example, Vietnamese) are invisible.
  • Hindus, Sikhs, ethnic Taoists, etc., are generally invisible.
  • Muslims must be treated carefully because they might explode.
  • And Pagans? They are easy to ridicule because, after all, people like Jonathan Thompson, editor of High Country News, don’t know any.

Somehow I think that Tom Bell, the old rancher, might actually have been more accepting. But I never had the privilege of meeting him.

Nothing thrills an archaeologist…

… like a mass grave. Maybe it helps if said grave is 1,000 years old.

To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development. Any mass grave is a relatively rare find, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual.