{"id":11101,"date":"2019-12-25T12:19:15","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T19:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11101"},"modified":"2019-12-25T12:23:04","modified_gmt":"2019-12-25T19:23:04","slug":"pagans-a-short-documentary-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11101","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Pagans,&#8221; a Short Documentary Film"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/video\/iframe\/604084\/\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">?<\/span><\/iframe><br \/>\nOooh, scary Pagans! We spend a lot of time with the curtains drawn, gazing at candles, right. We wear black robes . . .\u00a0 Seriously, there is some good stuff here:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/video\/index\/604084\/pagans\/\"> <em>Pagans<\/em>, a short documentary.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>To tell the story of the dramatic rise of neo-paganism in America, though, you quickly run into a roadblock. \u201cNo two pagans seem to agree on the same definition\u201d of <em>paganism<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iqbalahmed.com\/\">Iqbal Ahmed<\/a>, who spent two years researching a large community of pagans in Southern California for his short documentary <em>Pagans<\/em>, told me. Because of this confusion, Ahmed said, \u201cit\u2019s no wonder that relatively informed laypeople might have still have misconceptions about paganism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Ahmed came to the world of paganism with his own set of preconceived notions. \u201cPaganism conjured images of \u201980s films about satanic cults,\u201d he said. \u201cI envisioned blood rituals, pentagrams, and hedonism.\u201d <em>Pagans<\/em>, which is featured on <em>The Atlantic<\/em> today, aims to dispel some of this haze. By focusing on an intimate community of pagans who live within 200 miles of one another and often worship together, Ahmed\u2019s film showcases paganism\u2019s diversity of people and beliefs. \u201cI found pagans of every ilk,\u201d Ahmed said. Among his film\u2019s subjects are teachers, social workers, and PTA members who engage in various pre-Christian practices steeped in ceremony and superstition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>? Oooh, scary Pagans! We spend a lot of time with the curtains drawn, gazing at candles, right. We wear black robes . . .\u00a0 Seriously, there is some good stuff here: Pagans, a short documentary. To tell the story of the dramatic rise of neo-paganism in America, though, you quickly run into a roadblock. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,75,36,5],"class_list":["post-11101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-california","tag-movies","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2T3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8262,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8262","url_meta":{"origin":11101,"position":0},"title":"Call for Papers: Family, Home, and Ways of Life: Living Paganisms in a Globalized World","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Information on the upcoming Family, Home, and Ways of Life: Living Paganisms in a Globalized World conference in Krakow, Poland, 24-25 March 2017, may be found at this link. Presentations may address various issues within the following (suggested) topics: Everyday life of contemporary Pagans Understanding human relationships: from till death\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10799,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10799","url_meta":{"origin":11101,"position":1},"title":"A New Study of Solitary Pagans","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Solitary Pagans: Contemporary Witches, Wiccans, and Others Who Practice Alone is a new study from Helen A. Berger, a sociologist of religion who has been studying contemporary Paganism for decades. Her body of work is large enough now that future scholars will be returning to it again and again for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/solitary-pagans.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4662,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4662","url_meta":{"origin":11101,"position":2},"title":"Pagans in Winnipeg","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The trailer to a new documentary, The WinniPagans, focusing on the (largely Wiccan, I think) Pagan scene in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It will be available as video-on-demand \u2014 details at the website Complete with a cute Pagan puppy and a nice shot of Boletus edulis.","rel":"","context":"In \"Canada\"","block_context":{"text":"Canada","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=canada"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10298,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10298","url_meta":{"origin":11101,"position":3},"title":"&#8220;Patrick, Pagans and Party Animals&#8221;","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"It's the title of a documentary about St. Patrick, his era, and the growth of St. Patrick's Day as a festival, but I am blocked from embedding it here, so watch it on Vimeo.","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10197,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10197","url_meta":{"origin":11101,"position":4},"title":"&#8220;Solitary Pagans,&#8221; a New Academic Study","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the mid-1990s, Nancy Mostad, then the acquisitions editor at Llewellyn, told me that they estimated that 70 percent of purchasers of books on Paganism were solitaries.Hence the immense success -- by their standards -- of Scott Cunningham's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. Meanwhile, sociologist of religion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7277,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7277","url_meta":{"origin":11101,"position":5},"title":"TV Pagans Looking Good \u2013 or at Least Better","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"From the abstract to Robert A. Saunder's paper \"Primetime Paganism: Popular-Culture Representations of Europhilic Polytheism in Game of Thrones and Vikings,\" reprinted at Medievalists.net, in which he argues two points: First, that traditional filmic treatments of pagans [sic] qua villains is shifting, with contemporary popular culture allowing for more nuanced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11101"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11104,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11101\/revisions\/11104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}