Pub Date : 2016-05-11DOI: 10.1558/POME.V18I2.29886
Laurel Zwissler
Contemporary Pagans have historically been invested in the idea of Paganism’s survival from pre-Christian times through the early modern witchcraft trials to the present, but the story takes on specifically gendered significance within spiritual feminism. The “Burning Times” complex of ideas combines stories of horrific and often sexualized torture with assertions that the true religion of persecuted Witches was not only Pagan, but traces back to Neolithic, Goddess-centered matriarchy. Foundational spiritual feminists Mary Daly, Zsuzsanna Budapest, and Starhawk, as well as first-wave author Matilda Joslyn Gage, have put horror stories of the witch hunts in their publications, each deriving different feminist mandates from these shared tales of torture. I also take this opportunity to reflect on some of my own experiences as a scholar and feminist engaged with the moral weight of witchcraft history.
{"title":"Witches’ Tears: Spiritual Feminism, Epistemology, and Witch Hunt Horror Stories","authors":"Laurel Zwissler","doi":"10.1558/POME.V18I2.29886","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/POME.V18I2.29886","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary Pagans have historically been invested in the idea of Paganism’s survival from pre-Christian times through the early modern witchcraft trials to the present, but the story takes on specifically gendered significance within spiritual feminism. The “Burning Times” complex of ideas combines stories of horrific and often sexualized torture with assertions that the true religion of persecuted Witches was not only Pagan, but traces back to Neolithic, Goddess-centered matriarchy. Foundational spiritual feminists Mary Daly, Zsuzsanna Budapest, and Starhawk, as well as first-wave author Matilda Joslyn Gage, have put horror stories of the witch hunts in their publications, each deriving different feminist mandates from these shared tales of torture. I also take this opportunity to reflect on some of my own experiences as a scholar and feminist engaged with the moral weight of witchcraft history.","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"18 1","pages":"176-204"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67611606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-26DOI: 10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29756
D. Ezzy
Introduction to The Pomegrante Special Issue: Paths into Pagan Studies: Autobiographical Reflections. The individual contributions comprise one extended article.
介绍石榴特刊:路径进入异教研究:自传体的反思。个人投稿包括一篇扩展文章。
{"title":"The pagan Studies Archipelago: Pagan studies in a cosmopolitan world","authors":"D. Ezzy","doi":"10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29756","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29756","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction to The Pomegrante Special Issue: Paths into Pagan Studies: Autobiographical Reflections. \u0000 \u0000The individual contributions comprise one extended article.","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"17 1","pages":"72-80"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67610747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-21DOI: 10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29701
Chas S. Clifton
Tracing the history of Pagan studies, primarily in the United States, I look back to the Pomegranate's inspiration, Iron Mountain: A Journal of Magical Religion and touch on some high points in the history of Pagan studies book publication well.
{"title":"A Double Issue of The Pomegranate: The First Decades of Contemporary Pagan Studies","authors":"Chas S. Clifton","doi":"10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29701","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29701","url":null,"abstract":"Tracing the history of Pagan studies, primarily in the United States, I look back to the Pomegranate's inspiration, Iron Mountain: A Journal of Magical Religion and touch on some high points in the history of Pagan studies book publication well.","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"42 1","pages":"5-13"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67611076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-18DOI: 10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29680
Adrian J. Ivakhiv
An academic biography serves as an opportune moment for thinking about how one's research in Pagan studies fits the larger patterns of one's research and life trajectory. In this (auto)biographer's case, it informs a debate over whether Paganism is or ought to be a religion among other religions, or a set of sensibilities -- including sensorial engagements, individual and collective, with a common material world. I argue that the latter should have its place at the table of Pagan studies, as it draws on the study of Pagan religiosities to produce insights that can inform a much broader set of debates about religion, imagination, environment, identity, and even politics.
{"title":"Pagan(ish) Senses and Sensibilities","authors":"Adrian J. Ivakhiv","doi":"10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29680","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29680","url":null,"abstract":"An academic biography serves as an opportune moment for thinking about how one's research in Pagan studies fits the larger patterns of one's research and life trajectory. In this (auto)biographer's case, it informs a debate over whether Paganism is or ought to be a religion among other religions, or a set of sensibilities -- including sensorial engagements, individual and collective, with a common material world. I argue that the latter should have its place at the table of Pagan studies, as it draws on the study of Pagan religiosities to produce insights that can inform a much broader set of debates about religion, imagination, environment, identity, and even politics.","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"51 1","pages":"194-205"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67611004","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-18DOI: 10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29681
Michael York
From early encounters with Methodism, Will Durant and Anton LaVey, my spiritual questing intersected with the Haight-Ashbury Counterculture. One culmination of this encounter was the emergence of the Strawberry Hill Coven. A second culmination was my disenchantment with Turtle Island and self-exile to Europe. In time – after many years of wandering through both Europe and India, I began to read for my Ph.D. at King’s College London and became completely seduced by the academic world. This seduction coincided with the rise of contemporary Western paganism as a new religious movement as well as the sociological interest in understanding the movement. The rest of this contribution delineates what I have been able to witness of the advance of Pagan Studies within the field of education. Successes have been slow but incremental and steady. For the well-being of our planet, they are also vitally necessary.
{"title":"Navigating Academia and Spirituality from a Pagan Perspective","authors":"Michael York","doi":"10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.29681","url":null,"abstract":"From early encounters with Methodism, Will Durant and Anton LaVey, my spiritual questing intersected with the Haight-Ashbury Counterculture. One culmination of this encounter was the emergence of the Strawberry Hill Coven. A second culmination was my disenchantment with Turtle Island and self-exile to Europe. In time – after many years of wandering through both Europe and India, I began to read for my Ph.D. at King’s College London and became completely seduced by the academic world. This seduction coincided with the rise of contemporary Western paganism as a new religious movement as well as the sociological interest in understanding the movement. The rest of this contribution delineates what I have been able to witness of the advance of Pagan Studies within the field of education. Successes have been slow but incremental and steady. For the well-being of our planet, they are also vitally necessary.","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"15 1","pages":"115-127"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67611026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.28136
Melissa Harrington
This reflexive biography discusses how discovering Wicca initiated a dual learning process within the international magical community and the Academy. It describes an ongoing dynamic of personal, intellectual and spiritual development within the context of two communities, and examines perceptions and experiences of the personal, public and contested interactions of scholar and practitioner. It demonstrates the complexities of belonging to, and choosing association with, perceived communities, and how these choices influence methodological and theoretical choices in research and publishing. It highlights the dichotic and unnatural simplicity of the “insider/outsider” position, particularly within our own culture, and some of the pressures on people who identify as members of both communities. It concludes by recommending Graham Harvey’s concept of “guesthood” when working with any community, and argues that in researching our own culture in our own language it is not only easy and polite to share conclusions and invite response from the researched, but recommended in order to produce work with greater depth that avoids problematical assumptions of the researcher as superior and detached. The paper also discusses the development of Pagan Studies, and how the study of contemporary Paganism is beginning to contribute new challenges, methods and tools to the academic study of religion.
{"title":"Reflecting on Studying Wicca from within the Academy and the Craft: An Autobiographical Perspective","authors":"Melissa Harrington","doi":"10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.28136","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.28136","url":null,"abstract":"This reflexive biography discusses how discovering Wicca initiated a dual learning process within the international magical community and the Academy. It describes an ongoing dynamic of personal, intellectual and spiritual development within the context of two communities, and examines perceptions and experiences of the personal, public and contested interactions of scholar and practitioner. It demonstrates the complexities of belonging to, and choosing association with, perceived communities, and how these choices influence methodological and theoretical choices in research and publishing. It highlights the dichotic and unnatural simplicity of the “insider/outsider” position, particularly within our own culture, and some of the pressures on people who identify as members of both communities. It concludes by recommending Graham Harvey’s concept of “guesthood” when working with any community, and argues that in researching our own culture in our own language it is not only easy and polite to share conclusions and invite response from the researched, but recommended in order to produce work with greater depth that avoids problematical assumptions of the researcher as superior and detached. The paper also discusses the development of Pagan Studies, and how the study of contemporary Paganism is beginning to contribute new challenges, methods and tools to the academic study of religion.","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"17 1","pages":"180-193"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67610897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-10-18DOI: 10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.26652
Archana Barua
India’s northeastern state of Assam (ancient Prāgjyotishapur and Kāmarūpa), known for its goddess shrine, the Devipītha (Seat of the goddess) Kāmākhyā, has enriched the mosaic of the Indian religious tradition with its unique contribution in Shaktism and Tantrism. Shaktism and Tantrism represent a particular phase of religion which was in the main personal and esoteric. Assam or the northeast of Bengal, is the source from which ShāktaTāntric beliefs and practices found its AustricTibetan base around Devipitha Kamakhya and it became a strong Tantric center that remained influential in Bengal, Orissacentric Eastern regions that resulted in mantra, yantra, cakra, etc. In this context, this article tries to address some such interesting features of the Mother Goddess Kāmākhyā and her various transformations.
{"title":"Elements of Magic, Esotericism, and Religion in Shaktism and Tantrism in Light of the Shakti Pitha Kāmākhyā","authors":"Archana Barua","doi":"10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.26652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.26652","url":null,"abstract":"India’s northeastern state of Assam (ancient Prāgjyotishapur and Kāmarūpa), known for its goddess shrine, the Devipītha (Seat of the goddess) Kāmākhyā, has enriched the mosaic of the Indian religious tradition with its unique contribution in Shaktism and Tantrism. Shaktism and Tantrism represent a particular phase of religion which was in the main personal and esoteric. Assam or the northeast of Bengal, is the source from which ShāktaTāntric beliefs and practices found its AustricTibetan base around Devipitha Kamakhya and it became a strong Tantric center that remained influential in Bengal, Orissacentric Eastern regions that resulted in mantra, yantra, cakra, etc. \u0000In this context, this article tries to address some such interesting features of the Mother Goddess Kāmākhyā and her various transformations.","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"42 1","pages":"51-70"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67610199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-10-01DOI: 10.1558/pome.v16i1.26451
Christopher W. Chase
{"title":"Kristine Juncker, Afro-Cuban Religious Arts: Popular Expressions of Cultural Inheritance in Espiritismo and Santeria (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2014), xx + 174 pp., $74.95 (cloth).","authors":"Christopher W. Chase","doi":"10.1558/pome.v16i1.26451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v16i1.26451","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"16 1","pages":"125-129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67610291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-08-05DOI: 10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.27929
Fritz Muntean
{"title":"The Old Pomegranate and the New","authors":"Fritz Muntean","doi":"10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.27929","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/POME.V17I1-2.27929","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"17 1","pages":"81-85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67610676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-08-01DOI: 10.1558/pome.v16i1.26443
R. Hutton
{"title":"Valerie Kivelson, Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2013), 349 pp., $79.95. (cloth), $27.95 (paper).","authors":"R. Hutton","doi":"10.1558/pome.v16i1.26443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v16i1.26443","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41407,"journal":{"name":"Pomegranate","volume":"16 1","pages":"121-124"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67610090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}