{"id":7724,"date":"2016-02-04T13:20:18","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T20:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7724"},"modified":"2016-02-08T08:46:35","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T15:46:35","slug":"core-books-in-pagan-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7724","title":{"rendered":"Core Books in Pagan Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently completed an article on contempoary Paganism for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion<\/em>, 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 taught how to use reference books? Someone must think so.<\/p>\n

As to the article, instead of writing another “it all started with Gerald Gardner” article, I decided to give more space to (a) the Romantic movement and (b) the Latvian and Lithuanian reconstructionists of the 1920s and 1930s, that two-decade space when their nations escaped centuries of German and Russian colonization before being dumped in 1940 back into it\u2014the Third Reich and then the USSR.<\/p>\n

\"magicalThe editors wanted a brief bibliography, of course, with primary and secondary sources, so I just went along my Pagan-studies bookshelves, grabbing this and that, including some titles that I think have always been under-appreciated.<\/p>\n

Jim Lewis’s <\/a>edited collection Magical<\/a> Religion and Modern Witchcraft<\/a> <\/em> was published twenty years ago, yet it is still relevant in the questions that it raises. Some of the chapters later turned into books, such as “Ritual Is My Chosen Art Form: The Creation of Ritual as Folk Art among Contemporary Pagans,” by Sabina Magliocco.\"researching<\/p>\n

Likewise, the collection Researching Paganisms<\/em><\/a> (2004) discussed issues of “religious ethnography” that every scholar of\u00a0 religion should read, not just those studying some form of Paganism. From the description:<\/p>\n

Should academic researchers “go native,” participating as “insiders” in engagements with the “supernatural,” experiencing altered states of of consciousness? How do academics negotiate the fluid boundaries between worlds and meanings which may change their own beliefs? Should their own experiences be part of academic reports? Researching Paganisms<\/i> presents reflective and engaging accounts of issues in the academic study of religion confronted by anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, historians and religious studies scholars?as researchers and as humans?as they study contemporary Pagan religions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"paganism<\/a>Here is the rest of the bibliography. I do not claim that it is complete, but it is representative. For example, if you look into the The Paganism Reader<\/a>, <\/em>which Graham Harvey<\/a> and I compiled, you will see material from ancient centuries up into the early twentieth, for example, so it covers a lot of ground. Pity it got such a boring cover.<\/p>\n

Primary Sources
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Buckland, Raymond. Buckland\u2019s Complete Book of Witchcraft<\/em>. St. Paul: Llewellyn, 1986.<\/p>\n

Clifton, Chas S., and Graham Harvey, eds. The Paganism Reader<\/em>. London: Routledge, 2004.<\/p>\n

Gardner, Gerald B. Witchcraft Today.<\/em> London: Ryder and Co, 1954.<\/p>\n

Graves, Robert. The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth<\/em>. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1948.<\/p>\n

McNallen, Stephen A. Asatru: A Native European Spirituality<\/em>. Nevada City, Calif.: Runestone Press, 2015.<\/p>\n

Murray, Margaret. The God of the Witches<\/em>. London: Sampson Low, 1931.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology. <\/em>Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1921.<\/p>\n

Valiente, Doreen. The Rebirth of Witchcraft. <\/em>London: Robert Hale, 1989.<\/p>\n

Zell-Ravenheart, Oberon, ed. Green Egg Omelette: An Anthology of Art and Articles from the Legendary Pagan Journal<\/em>. Franklin Lakes: New Page Books, 2009.<\/p>\n

Further Reading<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Aitamurto, Kaarina, and Scott Simpson, eds. Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe<\/em>. Studies in Historical and Contemporary Paganism. Durham: Acumen, 2013.<\/p>\n

Berger, Helen. A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States<\/em>. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.<\/p>\n

Berger, Helen, and Douglas Ezzy. Teenage Witches: Magical Youth and the Search for Self<\/em>. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007.<\/p>\n

Blain, Jenny, Douglas Ezzy, and Graham Harvey, eds. Researching Paganisms<\/em>. The Pagan Studies Series. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2004.<\/p>\n

Clifton, Chas S. Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America<\/em>. The Pagan Studies Series. Lanham, Md., Altamira Press, 2006.<\/p>\n

Davy, Barbara Jane. Paganism<\/em>, 3 vols. Critical Concepts in Religious Studies. London: Routledge, 2009.<\/p>\n

Doyle White, Ethan. Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft. <\/em>Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.<\/p>\n

Eller, Cynthia. Living in the Lap of the Goddess: The Feminist Spirituality Movement in America. <\/em>Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.<\/p>\n

Harvey, Graham. Animism<\/em>. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.<\/p>\n

Hutton, Ronald. Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain<\/em>. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft<\/em>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. Witches, Druids and King Arthur. <\/em>London: Hambledon and London, 2003.<\/p>\n

Johnston, Hannah E., and Peg Aloi, eds. The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture. <\/em>Controversial New Religions. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.<\/p>\n

Lewis, James R., ed. Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft<\/em>. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.<\/p>\n

Magliocco, Sabina. Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America<\/em>. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.<\/p>\n

Myers, Brendan. The Earth, the Gods and the Soul: A History of Pagan Philosophy from the Iron Age to the 21st<\/sup> Century.<\/em> Winchester: Moon Books, 2013.<\/p>\n

Pike, Sarah M. Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community. <\/em>Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. New Age and Neopagan Religions in America<\/em>. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.<\/p>\n

Rountree, Kathryn, ed. Contemporary Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Europe: Colonialist and Nationalist Impulses<\/em>. New York: Berghahn, 2015.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. Embracing the Witch and the Goddess: Feminist Ritual-Makers in New Zealand<\/em>. London: Routledge, 2004.<\/p>\n

Salomonsen, Jone. Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco<\/em>. London: Routledge, 2002.<\/p>\n

Weston, Donna, and Andy Bennett. Pop Pagans: Paganism and Popular Music. <\/em>Studies in Historical and Contemporary Paganism. Durham: Acumen, 2013.<\/p>\n

Wise, Constance. Hidden Circles in the Web: Feminist Wicca, Occult Knowledge, and Process Thought. <\/em>The Pagan Studies Series. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2008.<\/p>\n

York, Michael. Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion<\/em>. New York: New York University Press, 2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 taught how to use reference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[137,201,230,5,7,4],"class_list":["post-7724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-latvia","tag-lithuania","tag-paganism","tag-publishing","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-20A","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8023,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8023","url_meta":{"origin":7724,"position":0},"title":"Being an “Oxbridge Scholar”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday's mail brought my contributor's copy of The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, to which I contributed an article on contemporary Paganism. There ought to be a long German compound word for \"fear of looking at something you wrote several years ago.\" The back cover of this hefty\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0521509831","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11709,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11709","url_meta":{"origin":7724,"position":1},"title":"Witchcraft: You’re Not Making It Strange Enough","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The final article in the \"Paganism, art, and fashion\" issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies argues that books and television series based on historical witchcraft make it too safe and fail to portray \"the genuine strangeness of witches and magic users in all periods and cultures.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"history\"","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/discovery2-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4387,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4387","url_meta":{"origin":7724,"position":2},"title":"Critiquing Pagan Studies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Several friends mentioned today an essay based on the\u00a0Handbook of Contemporary Paganism \u00a0 (Leiden: Brill, 2009) which in its abstract makes this critique: [The essay] demonstrates that pagan studies is dominated by the methodological principles of essentialism, exclusivism, loyalism and supernaturalism, and shows how these principles promote normative constructions of\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":6201,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6201","url_meta":{"origin":7724,"position":3},"title":"Isis Gets Some Ink*","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A fairly straight-forward article on one of the Denver area's longer-lived occult bookstores, Isis Books, appeared in Sunday's Denver Post. \"Makeshift Egyptian temple\" is not quite right, though. The building used to be a mortuary with columns out front (where the limos used to pull up) that lent themselves to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.isisbooks.com\/images\/sign_frontLg.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7995,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7995","url_meta":{"origin":7724,"position":4},"title":"A Small Victory in the Struggle for the Capital P","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I was contacted some time ago to write an article on contemporary Paganism for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, now in production. After the usual writerly procrastination, I cranked out my 8,000 words (or whatever it was) and sent it in. Then, in April, the copyedited version arrived for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4848,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4848","url_meta":{"origin":7724,"position":5},"title":"More on “Europe’s Oldest Paganism”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Following up on last July's post about Mari Paganism, here via Forging the Sampo is another contemporary journalistic article with links. Two of the grandmothers are less concerned, lying down in the grass in their shawls as their grandsons collect wood for the fire. \u201cIn [Orthodox] Church, you have to\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\/7724","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=7724"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7743,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7724\/revisions\/7743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}