{"id":3829,"date":"2012-02-15T16:56:26","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T23:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3829"},"modified":"2012-02-15T16:56:26","modified_gmt":"2012-02-15T23:56:26","slug":"five-kinds-of-witch-and-other-reflections-on-the-academic-study-of-contemporary-paganism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3829","title":{"rendered":"Five Kinds of “Witch” and Other Reflections on the Academic Study of Contemporary Paganism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian writer, blogger, and scholar Caroline Tully continues her interview with Professor Ronald Hutton on the history of witchcraft and related topics.<\/a><\/p>\n

On the perceptions of conflict between scholars and practitioners:<\/p>\n

When some Pagans now express hostility to academics, they are generally doing so in defence of ideas which were originally articulated by other academics. Most often, they are defending what was the general scholarly orthodoxy about historical witchcraft in the mid twentieth century, represented finally and most famously by Margaret Murray of the University of London. What bewilders and angers some members of the public most about professional scholarship now is not actually that it is entrenched and manufactures consent, but that it has overturned many of the received truths of previous decades. To challenge orthodoxy effectively is currently the fastest and most certain way to make an academic career, and the pace of argument and change can be bewildering for people on the outside who want stability and certainty, or at least to continue to believe what they were originally taught about something.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest.<\/a><\/p>\n

The forthcoming issue of The Pomegranate<\/em> will include Tully’s own article on this topic, and it should be available as a free download.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian writer, blogger, and scholar Caroline Tully continues her interview with Professor Ronald Hutton on the history of witchcraft and related topics. On the perceptions of conflict between scholars and practitioners: When some Pagans now express hostility to academics, they are generally doing so in defence of ideas which were originally articulated by other academics. […]<\/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":[19,21,5,4,29],"class_list":["post-3829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-australia","tag-england","tag-paganism","tag-scholarship","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-ZL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12955,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12955","url_meta":{"origin":3829,"position":0},"title":"Witchcraft, Paganism, and Detective Fiction","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Jen Bloofield's Witchcraft and Paganism in Midcentury Women's Detective Fiction\u00a0is avallable as a free PDF download from Cambridge University Press through 7 July 2022, if I understand correctly. Paperback copies are US $20. From the publisher: Witchcraft and paganism exert an insistent pressure from the margins of midcentury British detective\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7724,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7724","url_meta":{"origin":3829,"position":1},"title":"Core Books in Pagan Studies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently completed an article on contempoary Paganism for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, so when it appears, I can at least say that I have been published by Oxford UP. Yay me. But is there still a market for academic encyclopedias in this day when undergrads must be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"magical religion","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/magical-religion.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6142,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6142","url_meta":{"origin":3829,"position":2},"title":"1971: Witches in Bellbottoms, Talking Heads","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a 1971 documentary from the BBC that is supposed to be about witches. But at the time it was made, no one was making much effort to sort out the new Pagan Witches, anthropological and folkloric witches, and Satanic witches of the Church of Satan variety. So what\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":992,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=992","url_meta":{"origin":3829,"position":3},"title":"Pomegranate 9.2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been remiss in not noting the contents of the latest issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. Videlicet:\u2022 \"The Quandary of Contemporary Pagan Archives,\"Garth Reese, \u2022 \"The Status of Witchcraft in the Modern World,\" Ronald Hutton,\u2022 \"Kabbalah Recreata: Reception and Adaptation of Kabbalah in Modern Occultism,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nature religion\"","block_context":{"text":"nature religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13560,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13560","url_meta":{"origin":3829,"position":4},"title":"Helen Cornish on Witchcraft Drumming and Chanting","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The article \"Musicking and Soundscapes amongst Magical-Religious Witches Community and Ritual Practices\" by Helen Cornish is available as a free download from Religions journal. Abstract Drumming and chanting are core practices in modern magical-religious Witchcraft in the absence of unifying texts or standardized rituals. Song and musicality contribute towards self-creation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":417,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=417","url_meta":{"origin":3829,"position":5},"title":"Paganism--religion or fad? Stay tuned'Australia\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism--religion or fad? Stay tuned'Australia Talks Back' tackles the question: Traditional religions continue to lose their flock to the evangelicals,but an increasing number of Australians are opting out of Christianity and turning to pre-Christian paganism, with its spells and witchcraft. Paganism may be on the rise, but is it a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829","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=3829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3831,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3829\/revisions\/3831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}