- The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Categorizing Religious Organizations: In Search of a Theoretically Meaningful Strategy
- Conversion
- Charisma and Authority in New Religious Movements
- Disaffiliation and New Religious Movements
- Seekers and Subcultures
- Quantitative Approaches to New Religions
- Psychology and New Religious Movements
- As It Was in the Beginning: Developmental Moments in the Emergence of New Religions
- The North American Anticult Movement
- The Christian Countercult Movement
- Legal Dimensions of New Religions: An Update
- Brainwashing and “Cultic Mind Control”
- From Jonestown to 9/11 and Beyond: Mapping the Contours of Violence and New Religious Movements
- Conspiracy Theories and New Religious Movements
- Satanic Ritual Abuse
- Cult Journalism
- Invention in “New New” Religions
- Children in New Religions
- Media, Technology, and New Religious Movements: A Review of the Field
- New Religions and Science
- Gender and New Religions
- Sex and New Religions
- Occulture and Everyday Enchantment
- Rituals and Ritualization in New Religions Movements
- The Mythic Dimensions of New Religious Movements: Function, Reality Construction, and Process
- Religious Experiences in New Religious Movements
- New Religious Movements and Scripture
- Material Religion
- Hagiography: A Note on the Narrative Exaltation of Sect Leaders and Heads of New Religions
- Millennialism: New Religious Movements and the Quest for a New Age
- What Does God Need with a Starship?: UFOs and Extraterrestrials in the Contemporary Religious Landscape
- Late Modern Shamanism in a Norwegian Context: Global Networks—Local Grounds
- Modern Religious Satanism: A Negotiation of Tensions
- Western Esotericism and New Religious Movements
- The New Age
- The Study of Paganism and Wicca: A Review Essay
- Native American Prophet Religions
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
In the twentieth century, all across Europe, new religious communities appeared which drew inspiration from historical Paganisms. The Wiccan tradition, first presented in the United Kingdom in the second half of the twentieth century by Gerald Gardner, has been one of the most influential and far-reaching. Well-known currents in the English-speaking world also include Druidry and Germanic Heathenism, as well as many others. Their entrance onto the religious scene has been met with various responses from the media and scholarship. This chapter addresses selected themes in the development of academic “Pagan Studies.” These include the definitional difficulties in describing a diverse field, the special methodological concerns and approaches which have arisen, and the increasing internationalization of study.
Keywords: Paganism, Neopaganism, Wicca, nature religion, Goddess movement, New Religious Movements
Kaarina Aitamurto received her doctoral degree from the University of Helsinki. Her dissertation analysed Russian contemporary Paganism and nationalism. In her post-doctoral studies, she focuses on Muslim minorities in ethnically Russian areas. Aitamurto holds a position of a post-doctoral researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute and is a member of The Finnish Centre of Excellence in Russian Studies – Choices of Russian Modernisation, funded by the Academy of Finland. She is the editor of a book Modern Pagan and Native Faiths in Central and Eastern Europe.
Scott Simpson is a senior lecturer at the Institute of European Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He is the author of Native Faith: Polish Neo-Paganism at the Brink of the 21st Century (2000) and co-editor of Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe (2014). His personal interests include gardening and cooking.
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- The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Categorizing Religious Organizations: In Search of a Theoretically Meaningful Strategy
- Conversion
- Charisma and Authority in New Religious Movements
- Disaffiliation and New Religious Movements
- Seekers and Subcultures
- Quantitative Approaches to New Religions
- Psychology and New Religious Movements
- As It Was in the Beginning: Developmental Moments in the Emergence of New Religions
- The North American Anticult Movement
- The Christian Countercult Movement
- Legal Dimensions of New Religions: An Update
- Brainwashing and “Cultic Mind Control”
- From Jonestown to 9/11 and Beyond: Mapping the Contours of Violence and New Religious Movements
- Conspiracy Theories and New Religious Movements
- Satanic Ritual Abuse
- Cult Journalism
- Invention in “New New” Religions
- Children in New Religions
- Media, Technology, and New Religious Movements: A Review of the Field
- New Religions and Science
- Gender and New Religions
- Sex and New Religions
- Occulture and Everyday Enchantment
- Rituals and Ritualization in New Religions Movements
- The Mythic Dimensions of New Religious Movements: Function, Reality Construction, and Process
- Religious Experiences in New Religious Movements
- New Religious Movements and Scripture
- Material Religion
- Hagiography: A Note on the Narrative Exaltation of Sect Leaders and Heads of New Religions
- Millennialism: New Religious Movements and the Quest for a New Age
- What Does God Need with a Starship?: UFOs and Extraterrestrials in the Contemporary Religious Landscape
- Late Modern Shamanism in a Norwegian Context: Global Networks—Local Grounds
- Modern Religious Satanism: A Negotiation of Tensions
- Western Esotericism and New Religious Movements
- The New Age
- The Study of Paganism and Wicca: A Review Essay
- Native American Prophet Religions
- Index
