[The following is a guest post from
Patrick Wolff on
The Wild Hunt, a well known Neo-Pagan Blog. Wolff is a
professor of religious studies and holds a PhD in the history of
religious thought.)
Pagans Studied: The 2013 Conference on Current Pagan Studies
The ninth annual
Conference on Current Pagan Studies
met at Claremont Graduate University in the city of Claremont,
California on January 26-27. This is a unique academic conference, not
only for its topical focus on Pagan Studies, but for its inclusion of
both academic and non-academic Pagans as presenters. Both the conference
theme and the selection of keynote speakers exemplified the desire to,
as the tagline of the
conference website
puts it, bring “Academia and Community Together.” The conference theme,
“Pagan Sensibilities in Action,” covered not only ritual and spiritual
practice but history, art, social justice, environmental concerns,
psychology, politics, and other topics. The theme reflected a concern
that is current in many religions, a desire to explore the implications
of one’s theology (or thealogy, or theoilogy, as the case may be) in all
aspects of life.
The two keynote speakers embodied this theme, one a recognized
scholar in the fields of folklore and anthropology and the other an
activist with experience fighting for social justice as well as service
through disaster relief and emergency care.
Dr. Sabina Magliocco, Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Northridge, and author of numerous books including
Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America and
Neo-Pagan Sacred Art and Altars: Making Things Whole,
presented a lecture titled “The Rise of Pagan Fundamentalism.” Joking
that she hoped to avoid being tarred and feathered, Magliocco identified
two tendencies of Pagan Fundamentalism, both of which centered on the
concept of belief. As a broad religious phenomenon, fundamentalists in
all religions insist on a literalist interpretation of foundational
texts, and demand conformity of belief as the primary marker of a
genuine religious identity. Those who do not share these essential
beliefs are viewed with suspicion, or rejected as imposters.
Sabina Magliocco at the Conference on Current Pagan Studies. (Photo: Tony Mierzwicki)
The first belief is in the literal historicity of the foundational
narrative of paganism as an unbroken stream flowing from the ancient
past to the present. This “received” view of Pagan (particularly Wiccan)
history, shaped by Margaret Murray and Gerald Gardner, holds that the
Old Religion persisted throughout the centuries amidst persecution,
passed down as a closely guarded secret to initiates into the present
day. However, when subjected to the scrutiny of critical historical
scholarship, the foundational myth of pure Paganism transmitted through
the ages was revealed to be lacking in solid historical evidence.
Revisionists, most notably English historian Ronald Hutton, author of
Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft,
contended that Wicca was better understood as a new religious movement
than as a preserved ancient one. Counter-revisionists, such as Ben
Whitmore, author of
Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft,
have objected that Hutton overstated his case, ignoring or minimizing
evidence for continuity in the transmission of Wicca (to which Hutton
has replied in his article
“Revisionism and Counter-Revisionism in Pagan History” in the most recent issue of
Pomegranate).
The claims of revisionist historians can come as quite a shock to
Pagans who never had reason to question the received myth of Pagan
origins, and while many were open to the new perspective, others
experienced a crisis of cognitive dissonance which was countered by an
uncritical insistence on the literal truth of the myth of pagan origins
and a dismissal of, or attack on, revisionist arguments. Since the
revisionist perspective presented Wicca as an eclectic, creative
religious movement influenced by other forms of occultism and
Romanticism, those most opposed to it were often those whose Paganism
was heavily invested in the claim of possessing secret knowledge passed
through carefully guarded secret initiations. This debate over Pagan
origins is not merely an ivory tower discussion, since how Pagans view
their past will shape their future.
The second tendency that has emerged in Pagan Fundamentalism is a
belief in gods and goddesses as literal spiritual persons, formulated as
a reaction against the emergence of humanistic paganism and
panentheistic or archetypal interpretations of the divine. However,
Magliocco argued, historically Wiccans have varied greatly in their
theology, and found unity not in right belief, but in common practice.
Against this non-dogmatic tradition of finding shared identity through
ritual, Pagan Fundamentalists seek to exclude those who do not hold to
their “orthodox” pagan belief in the nature of the gods. This is
problematic, Magliocco argued, because it imported a criteria from the
dominant Abrahamic faiths that was ill-suited to the ritual-focused
nature of Paganism.
Why has belief emerged as a critical identity marker now, when it did
not function this way in the past? Magliocco pointed to several
reasons, such as a desire legitimate Paganism as a “real religion” in
the eyes of adherents of other religions (which comes as a result of the
growth in size and influence of Paganism), and a quest for certainty in
a tumultuous marketplace of religious ideas (a motivating factor in the
fundamentalist strand of all religions). But her third reason pointed
to what would become a theme throughout much of the rest of the
conference: the role of the Internet, and particularly comments on
blogs, that dank and murky lair of trolls, where insults fly freely and
rational reflection is beaten down by bombast. The Internet tends to
encourage “enclaves of idiosyncratic views,” unchallenged by real-world
interaction with those holding differing views, and provides a veil of
anonymity that allows abusive behavior that would not be tolerated in
face to face interactions. After her presentation, one questioner raised
the intriguing possibility that the Internet actually encourages
fundamentalism, since online (particularly in blogs and blog comments)
individuals are easily reduced to text-based persons.
The second keynote address, “Stirring the Cauldron of Pagan Sensibilities,” was presented by
Peter Dybing, a national disaster team Section Chief with experience as a firefighter and EMT as well as serving on the board member
100% for Haiti and a former National First Officer of
Covenant of the Goddess. Stressing is non-academic identity, Dybing challenged attendees to
“suspend your academic approach, and access your emotions,”
issuing a call to action rather than offering intellectual reflection.
His first two points called for a new look at the questions of Pagan
leadership and the role of elders. While acknowledging the strengths
found in Traditional (hierarchical, individual-focused) and Organic
(communal and local) models of leadership, as well as the dangers of
what he termed Fantasy Leadership (the self-appointed blogger harassing
his or her enemies online, “liked” by clique of online admirers ),
Dybing drew from his experience in disaster relief to formulate a
Transformative model of leadership, one that is mission-based and
organizationally-focused. Leadership should not be limited to the Priest
or Priestess as representatives of the God or Goddess, but should be
shared based on recognition of diverse skills and expertise. On the
related topic of Pagan elders, Dybing stressed the importance of
honoring the body of work left by an elder without venerating the
person. Elders, even after death, must be remembered as human beings,
not saints.
Peter Dybing at the Conference on Current Pagan Studies (Photo: Tony Mierzwicki)
Though the first part of presentation took up the majority of his
time, it was in the second part that Dybing most fully revealed his own
heart through a call to service as an expression of Pagan spirituality.
It was in offering direct aid for the good of others, whether in
international aid or in community service, that Dybing said he most
fully felt the presence of the Goddess. In a time of environmental
degradation, Dybing warned, we must expect a future of natural disasters
on an unprecedented scale, and Pagans are uniquely qualified to respond
to these challenges. While Magliocco made the case that Paganism should
continue to value ritual action over belief, Dybing called on Pagans to
pursue active service as a practice of Pagan spirituality.
The other twenty-five presentations were too varied and rich to be
adequately summarized here, with topics ranging from theology to
psychology, good pedagogy in the classroom to creating masks (and even
the pedagogy of making masks), environmentalism, politics, and
mysticism. One particularly exciting project described was the Pagan
History Project, which will record oral histories of Pagans, similar to
the oral history project being conducted by many universities of World
War II veterans. Several times a desire was expressed to continue
discussion after the conference ended, either on the
conference website or
Facebook
page. This does not seem to have happened yet, but it would be another
way to bring Pagan scholarship into conversation with the broader Pagan
community. In addition to the thoughtful nature of the presentations,
two other aspects of the conference are worth noting. First, there was
an ethos of dialogue and conversation among the approximately fifty
attendees, so much so that interaction between the presenter and
audience sometimes broke out in the middle of a presentation, a rare
occurrence in a typical academic conference. Second, the atmosphere of
the conference could be described as convivial, with a great deal of
laughter and good spirits. In this way, the conference itself was a
manifestation of Pagan sensibility.
Pagan Studies has come under recent criticism by some for a lack of
necessary critical distance from its subject (see, for example,, Markus
Altena Davidsen,
“What is Wrong with Pagan Studies?”
in Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, available online). This
criticism is not without merit. The calling of a scholar of religion is
not to support the religion being studied, but to understand it, and the
conclusions that come from scholarly inquiry are not always welcome to
those being studied (hence Magliocco’s “tar and feathering” comment).
Further, too much of an “insider” atmosphere can create an us-and-them
dichotomy which distances or even excludes outsiders. The “them” could
be non-insider scholars or practitioners of other religions, viewed as
outsiders who can never really “get” those on the inside (some of this
could be seen by the dramatic eye-rolling and snarky asides from one
presenter whenever he made mention of Christian beliefs, something that
would not be tolerated in other academic conferences). One Pagan
Reconstructionist presenter admitted she had felt nervous about
attending a conference of Wiccans and Neopagans, and while she was
warmly welcomed, her initial misgivings say something about how the
conference could be perceived by outsiders.
The lines of insider and outsider in scholarship are not always clear
cut, however, and if there is a danger in insider scholarship designed
to offer the benefits of scholarly insight to contribute to the
flourishing of one’s own religious community, the opposite danger is
scholarship for the sake of no one, except perhaps the expansion of the
scholar’s own reputation (and ego). Granted that much of what academics
call risky seems rather dreary to most people, the conference organizer,
Dorothea Kahena Viale, should be commended for taking the risk of
envisioning a conference that seeks to connect scholars with
practitioners and intellectuals with activists. There must be a place
for scholarship for the good of the community, and for Pagans, one place
this can be found is the Conference on Current Pagan Studies.
