Tag Archives: Native Faith

A Pagan Studies Scholar, the Shah of Iran, and a Return to Aryan Native Faith

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As I write this, tens of thousands of Iranians (or let’s call them Persians) are demonstrating against the government of murderous black-turbaned mullahs who let the 1979 revolution and promptly immersed Iran in wars and supporting terrorism.

In many cases, this demand for a government is coupled with a desire to return to the Old Religion, which for them means Zoroastrianism.

Reza Pahlavi, son of the shah (king) who was deposed in 1979 and himself a US resident, has issued video statements supporting his revolution. I read that many protestors are chanting his name. He remains the crown prince, so if Iran becomes a constitutional monarchy, he would be shah.

His father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) was dying of cancer when he fled the country. He spent some time in a New York City hospital, where a member of his medical team was a nurse named Loretta Orion.

She, in turn, earned a PhD in anthropology, and became interested in the contemporary Pagan movement and in particular She wrote Never Again the Burning Times: Paganism Revived (1994) and It Were As Well to Please The Devil as Anger Him: Witchcraft in the Founding Days of East Hampton (2018), about a 17th-century witchcraft case on Long Island, New York.

I met her at the American Academy of Religion meeting in Philadelphia — 1995, I think, which would fit, since her book was just out then. There was no Pagan studies group yet, for we were just starting to find each other. She and I went out for a pizza slice or something, and she told me about attending to the shah, which all seemed kind of like ancient history by then.

And now the Pahlevi family is back in the news, and my feed on X is full of Persians saying how they can’t wait to get rid of the alien Semitic religion imposed on them by force (Islam) and go back to their Native Faith of Zoroastrianism, which has managed to cling on because it qualified as “heritage.”

Incidentally, “Iran” and “Aryan” (in its original sense) are at root the same word. So the Aryans want their old religion back.

So the (original) Aryans — some of them — want their Native Faith back, only in this case it is more or less monotheistic, but not always. If Iran/Persia is reinvented as a more secular republic, who knows what flowers might bloom?

Interview with Kaarina Aitamurto on Russian Paganism

Kaarina Aitamurto, Univ. of Helsinki

Kaarina Aitamurto, University of Helsinki, Finland

Prof. Kaarina Aitamurto, University of Helsinki, is interviewed here for the World Religions and Spirituality Project about her research on Paganisms in Russia. She has published on Russian Paganism in The Pomegranate (here and here) and co-edited the important collection Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe with Scott Simpson.

This interview was conducted by Ethan Doyle White. It also deals with her work on other minority religions in contemporary Russia.

I started my research through esoteric bookstores and stalls as well as inquiring if my Russian colleagues knew any Wiccan groups in Russia. Every way I turned there were hardly any signs of Wicca and questions about the topic usually led to ethnic Slavic Paganism. To be honest, I was initially a bit reluctant to change the topic of my research because it was the feminist aspect of Wicca that had appealed to me. In contrast, contemporary Slavic Paganism seemed emphatically patriarchal and conservative. Moreover, infrequently it was linked to intolerant nationalism. In many respects, this ethnic Paganism with its emphasis on warrior spirit and admiration of masculinity seemed to represent an opposite to the kind of feminist spirituality that had originally drawn me to Paganism. However, gradually I became captivated by Slavic Paganism. First, I have always loved Russian culture and folklore so, of course, being able to gain a new perspective on it was fascinating. Secondly, it was intriguing to notice that Rodnoverie contained many similar features to the forms of Paganism I had encountered previously and which had initially drawn me to it: the emphasis on independent thinking and individual freedom, a connection to nature, the central role of aesthetics and play in religious practice.

Download the whole interview as a PDF file here.or read it on Doyle White’s blog Albion Calling here.