{"id":648,"date":"2006-04-13T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-13T17:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=648"},"modified":"2006-04-13T17:13:00","modified_gmt":"2006-04-13T17:13:00","slug":"648","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=648","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The encylopedic mind of J. Gordon Melton<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Times<\/em> interviews J. Gordon Melton, a major figure in the study of new religious movements<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s often said of academics, but for J. Gordon Melton it’s true: He really does have an encyclopedic mind.<\/p>\n

After all, Melton is the author of the <\/em>Encyclopedia of American Religions, the <\/em>Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology and the <\/em>Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena.<\/p>\n

Then, for fun, there’s <\/em>The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead.<\/p>\n

“It’s my little niche,” Melton said.<\/p>\n

Actually, it’s a big niche.<\/p>\n

Erudite and eternally curious, Melton, 64, is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on religion (and vampires too, but more on that later). The research specialist with the department of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara has written 30 books and co-written or edited 17 more, all of which are expansive and eclectic, and weave a colorful and diverse history of the currents of spiritual worship and tensions around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

He is the reason that I was shipping cartons of old Pagan magazines to Santa Barbara<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tag: New Religious Movements<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The encylopedic mind of J. Gordon Melton The Los Angeles Times interviews J. Gordon Melton, a major figure in the study of new religious movements. It’s often said of academics, but for J. Gordon Melton it’s true: He really does have an encyclopedic mind. After all, Melton is the author of the Encyclopedia of 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":[],"class_list":["post-648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-648","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":213,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=213","url_meta":{"origin":648,"position":0},"title":"Pagan Studies audio files The\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagan Studies audio files The organizers of this year's ASANAS conference on new religious movements have put several presentations online as MP3 files, including talks by J. Gordon Melton, Graham Harvey, and Leuan Jones. Visit the download page if you have a high-speed Web connection: these files range from 18-30\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":476,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=476","url_meta":{"origin":648,"position":1},"title":"Pagan archivesI recently sent my\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagan archivesI recently sent my eighth carton of Pagan magazines, dating from the 1970s to last year, to the University of California, Santa Barbara.That particular UC campus is known for its religious-studies department. J. Gordon Melton, a well-known scholar of new religious movements, is also affiliated with the university, although\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":187,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=187","url_meta":{"origin":648,"position":2},"title":"More Wiccan History","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The Founding Fathers of Wicca,\" a graduate-school paper by Susan Young, currently at the University of Alberta, explores Aleister Crowley's liturgical and other influence on Gardnerian Wicca. It was published in Axis Mundi: A Student Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, whose article index is here. The paper is\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":1165,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1165","url_meta":{"origin":648,"position":3},"title":"Blogging CESNUR, 2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday's CESNUR plenary session focused on Western esotericism, which is getting more respect as a \"player\" in history.Gordon Melton passed out a fancy diagram of the Western esoteric tradition, including everyone from Swedenborgians to flying saucer religions to Wiccans.Wicca was placed under ritual magic, although at some distance. Fair enough:\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":1736,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1736","url_meta":{"origin":648,"position":4},"title":"“Agora”: Pagans vs. Christians or Atheists vs. Religious?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Living in the cinematic boonies as I do, I will probably not see Agora until it comes out on DVD. Here is a long dissection of it, from period-incorrect Roman armor to its avoidance of exactly what Hypatia taught: But because the film never bothers to make her neo-Platonist asceticism\u2026","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":7886,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7886","url_meta":{"origin":648,"position":5},"title":"CFP: Women in World Religions","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Author-scholars are needed for the two volume reference work, Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture Across History, to be published by ABC-CLIO Publishing. We seek contributors with expertise in Women, Religion, and History to write articles of 500 to 2000 words, with overview, historical background, and selected\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"reli\"","block_context":{"text":"reli","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=reli"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648","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=648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}