{"id":4920,"date":"2012-12-31T16:11:06","date_gmt":"2012-12-31T23:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4920"},"modified":"2013-01-01T10:20:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-01T17:20:31","slug":"end-of-year-lists-books-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4920","title":{"rendered":"End of Year Lists: Books, Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Religion Dispatches <\/em>lists five important new books on alternative and metaphysical spirituality in America<\/a> \u2014 I prefer that to saying they are about the “nones,” which is a vague term \u2014 yes, well, so is “alternative.”<\/p>\n

Catherine Albanese of UC-Santa Barbara has done important work in identifying first the non-theistic “nature religion” current\u00a0<\/a> in American thought and secondly the importance of the metaphysical current in the book mentioned here: A Republic of Mind and Spirit<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

And one of the Pagan studies crowd, Lee Gilmore, gets a mention for her book on Burning Man.<\/em><\/a> You can also read a longer interview with her at the site.<\/a><\/p>\n

A burst of blogging at The Juggler <\/em> produces lists of the worst Pagan movies of 2012<\/a>, plus the best Pagan movies<\/a>, environmental Pagan movies<\/a>, and more \u2014 look around<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not a year’s end “Best Of” list, but still a round-up of scientific thinking about alien life and and fictional treatments of alien invasions at Instapundit.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

And may your 2013 be a “Best Of” as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Religion Dispatches lists five important new books on alternative and metaphysical spirituality in America \u2014 I prefer that to saying they are about the “nones,” which is a vague term \u2014 yes, well, so is “alternative.” Catherine Albanese of UC-Santa Barbara has done important work in identifying first the non-theistic “nature religion” current\u00a0 in American […]<\/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":[10,36,5,4],"class_list":["post-4920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-movies","tag-paganism","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1hm","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7581,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7581","url_meta":{"origin":4920,"position":0},"title":"The Passing of Carl Weschcke","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"First, the official announcement from Llewellyn, then my comments. It is with profound sadness we share the news of Carl Llewellyn Weschcke\u2019s passing. He passed peacefully on Saturday, November 7 surrounded by family. He was 85. Carl Llewellyn Weschcke was Chairman and the driving force behind Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"weschcke","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/weschcke-219x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6506,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6506","url_meta":{"origin":4920,"position":1},"title":"What Does the New AP Stylebook Say?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Last December I reported on an effort spearheaded by Oberon Zell to get Pagan (in the religious sense) capitalized in both the Associated Press Stylebook and the University of Chicago Press's Manual of Style. The first is used mainly by journalists (when they remember), the second by writers and editors\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":1290,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1290","url_meta":{"origin":4920,"position":2},"title":"A Pagan Festival Just up the Road","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this month, I was reading the Ca\u00f1on City Daily Record\u2014a humdrum piece about a city council meeting in the nearby town of Florence\u2014when this jumped out at me:\"We are welcoming to a great variety of spiritual seekers who would classify themselves in many ways, including alternative spirituality, metaphysical, holistic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10197,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10197","url_meta":{"origin":4920,"position":3},"title":"“Solitary Pagans,” 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":14029,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14029","url_meta":{"origin":4920,"position":4},"title":"Tarot Thoughts — And Eden Gray’s Surprising Story","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 25, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I decided to get more serious about Tarot after all these years. Maybe some day people will see me as a wise old man, but I will need some props \u2013\u00a078 of them, to be precise. I actually learned to use the I Ching in a superficial bohemian way before\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Tarot\"","block_context":{"text":"Tarot","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=tarot"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/eden-gray-doctor-x.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5113,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5113","url_meta":{"origin":4920,"position":5},"title":"Wicca, Recategorized by Librarians, Now by Booksellers as Well","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2007, the\u00a0 news was that books on Wicca were re-categorized by the Library of Congress from BF (psychology, abnormal) to\u00a0 BP 600, a sort of catch-all for \"other beliefs and movements.\" A new Dewey Decimal number was assigned as well, for libraries using that system. Now the change is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"libraries\"","block_context":{"text":"libraries","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=libraries"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4920","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=4920"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4935,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4920\/revisions\/4935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}