AAR 2016

Gold Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol  1962

Last November, with help from the Covenant of the Goddess, I again attended the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Antonio.  (This year the meeting will be in Boston.)

If you’ve read any of my other posts about these annual meetings, you know that in addition to the Pagan Studies Section, I attend other sessions on other topics when they don’t conflict with Pagan Studies sessions.  This year was no different.

Kerry Noonan and I shared a room, where I listened to her rehearse her paper, sans Power Point.  It interested me, as did some of the other papers in that session.  One can always learn from other religions.  Not necessarily theology, faith, or belief; rather organizations and methods, successes and mistakes, things we may wish to emulate (organization-wise) and those we should avoid.  We also learn what I call “sacred technology,” by which I mean such things as visualization, meditation, chanting, breathwork, dancing, liturgical skills.

So the first session I attended was that of the Roman Catholic Studies Group, entitled

Ex-Catholics: Thresholds of Catholic Identity and Defiance.  According to a Pew survey, Catholicism … has been losing adherents, mostly to the secular, … but also due to relevance.

«    Nicholas Rademacher – “Rethinking Resistance: Varieties of Dissent and Patterns of Solidarity among U.S. Catholics.”  Many observers gloss over differences among dissenting Catholics of the mid to late twentieth century, collapsing a diverse movement into a seeming homogeneous group.  Even the radicals themselves perpetuated an impression of homogeneity in order to present a united front to the public eye.  While many dissenters at mid-century promoted similar ideas about racial and economic justice, pacifism, and a more egalitarian ecclesiology, they traveled different paths and even corrected one another from time to time.  Yet they rarely if ever publicly reproached one another.  A closer look at the internal conversation of the period by way of diary accounts, correspondence, and the public record reveals important distinctions and even disagreements among and between those who dissented within and against the Roman Catholic Church on social justice themes.

We’ve long included many, many ‘recovering Catholics’ in our Pagan communities, along with Jewitches, Buddheo-Pagans, Quagans, and Atheo-Pagans.  Some Pagans design rituals that have been influenced by Catholic ritual, not to mention the liberal use of frankincense and myrrh in our workings.[1]  Some Pagan organizations go so far as to mimic Roman Catholic hierarchy, assuming such titles as Reverend and Right Reverend, wearing [green or purple] Roman collars, and employing fractured Elizabethan English.  Not my personal cup of tea, but if using these methods aids practitioners to achieve a more spiritually receptive state and feel more compassionate toward and bonded with their co-practitioners, more power to them.

Dr. Rademacher spoke of “defecting in place,” citing Catholics working for social justice causes.  Among them, Dorothy Day, Daniel Berrigan and his brother Phillip, the latter’s wife and former nun, Elizabeth McAlister, Thomas Merton, and Mary Elizabeth Walsh.  These people interpreted church teachings as a living gospel calling for activism in pursuit of a better world.  From the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt forward, they sought to foster solidarity within the social justice movement.  They saw priests moving into middle class privilege, while they instead worked in the Bowery, established settlement houses, participated in hunger and peace marches, and in general chose to live with and among marginalized people instead of returning to middle class comfort.

«    Kori Pacyniak – “Ex-Catholics: Exile or Exodus in the Borderlands of the Church.”  As numbers of “former” or” ex” Catholics increase, various questions remain.  Why do some leave while others remain and work for change within.

Ms. Pacyniak, whose studies focus on queer theology, trans theology, and trauma theology, spoke of liminal overlapping space.  Many LGBTQIA Catholics leave their place of origin to find a more accepting space and a better life.  They seek these demilitarized places where they are both inside and outside, “both me and not me.”  These borderlands as places of “becoming.”  She also stressed the distinction between the exodus where one has agency, as opposed to excommunication which is not of one’s doing.

Often these dissenting Catholics find a welcoming home and a more relevant and satisfying religious practice within Pagan communities.

«    Meredith Massar Munson – “All That Glitters Is Not Gold: Andy Warhol’s Byzantine Icon, Gold Marilyn Monroe.”  When did celebrity become iconic?  Born of devout Byzantine-Ruthenian immigrants in Pittsburgh, Andy Warhol spent his childhood in the rich visual culture of the Byzantine Catholic tradition.  His 1962 painting, Gold Marilyn Monroe, has been casually associated with Byzantine icons since its creation.  However, scholars have not gone beyond the canvas’s gilded visage to explore the extremely provocative connotations that such a connection might actually hold.  An investigation of the artist’s personal Byzantine-Catholic history posits this painting as directly indebted to the long-standing icon tradition, and furthermore, as intrinsically connected to the acheiropoieta, [made without hands] the image not by human hands.  Warhol’s iconic painting opens the door for a cultural critique that compares and contrasts fame and exploitation.  This paper will endeavor to place Gold Marilyn within the much larger dialogue concerning the role of the icon, bridging the gap between the secular and the spiritual.

I had never heard of Byzantine-Ruthenian Catholicism before.  I was aware that Andy Warhol was Catholic, but I knew neither its particular flavor nor its prominence/importance in his life.  He attended Mass daily.

My interest in this talk was the examination of pop icons in light of the fact that many Pagans are idolaters or use iconic images as objects of reverence and/or for focused meditation.  Not all, of course, but many.  It is not uncommon to see on an altar a Wonder Woman action figure or a little Batman doll or some other object marketed as a toy.

We have our own versions of the Catholic Marian cults, such as the Ord Brighideach International, to which I belong, and the Covenant of Hekate.  Moreover, there are numerous orders, sisterhoods, and fellowships dedicated to the worship of specific deities.  Further, I know there are people, Pagans and cowans alike, who maintain special areas of their homes dedicated to Marilyn Monroe herself.  The painting called Gold Marilyn Monroe, created by the “pope of pop,” exemplifies this appreciation of graven images.

«    Kerry Noonan – “’I’m Going to Try Reiki Next, and I’m Not Going to Confession!’ Negotiating Vernacular Catholicism.”  In a guided meditation in a yoga studio, a conservative Catholic woman listens to the messages channeled by a psychic teacher -– messages from deceased loved ones, archangels, the Virgin Mary.  She’s not a “fallen-away” Catholic, nor a New Ager; Catholicism is part of her identity, and she works to integrate these new practices into an identity that eschews them.  Employing Leonard Primiano’s concept of  “vernacular religion,” I aim to better understand her and others like her who, while seeking direct and embodied experiences of the Divine, incorporate new practices and place them in familiar Catholic contexts.  In light of Catherine Albanese’s assertion that Americans have practiced “combinative” religion for centuries, and Robert Orsi’s contention that religious traditions are “zones of improvisation and conflict,” I explore the possibility that we can see this woman not as an orthodox outlier, but as emblematic of important trends in the American religious landscape.

This process of syncretism is a fairly common phenomenon among Pagan religions, Witchcraft in particular.  We often learn meditative techniques from Asian religions rhat may enhance our own.  Tibetan Buddhism employs the use of yantras as foci for visualization.  We also sing Hindu chants, purported Native American chants of various kinds, and chants from Voudoun.  We borrow rhythms.  We dance English, French, and Basque folk dances.

Contemporary Pagan Studies Group(1)

Modernity and Postmodernity:  Pagans Reimagining the Future.  Modern Pagan movements still struggle with identity and history, especially when former “historical” and ideological foundations are challenged by new interpretations or others’ voice.  Participants will present summaries of their papers and discuss with each other and the audience issues of history, identity and ethnicity across boundaries, and the pressures of institutionalization.  

Sabina Magliocco presided and Amy Hale responded to the following speakers;

«    Barbara Jane Davy — "Reconstruction Alternatives: Wicked Dilemmas for Contemporary Pagan Responses to Modernity." (description too long to type)

«    Stephen Quilley — "Reconstruction Alternatives: Wicked Dilemmas for Contemporary Pagan Responses to Modernity." (description too long to type)

«    Thomas Berendt —  "Postmodern Paganisms: Embracing Polytheitic Plurality, Diversity, and Hybridity.” (description too long to type)

«    Christopher W. Chase — "Differential Modernities: Rethinking Vodou in Contemporary Paganism."  “…contends that Pagan traditions respond to modernity according to sociohistorically contingent circumstances. As an example, Vodou has developed a Christian ecclesia model in Haiti in response to Pentecostalism, while tracking along a decentralized initiatory path in the U.S., similar to other Pagan traditions.

As you can tell from these descriptions, we Pagans are protean in our tendency to evolve and change.

I apologize for the skimpiness of commentary on the Pagan Studies sessions.  In the two years since I suffered a stroke, I have not fully regained my ability to handwrite, so my notes are minimal and often indecipherable.  Fortunately, Christine Hoff Kraemer shares a thorough report of her experience of this event on The Wild Hunt. 

Contemporary Pagan Studies Group(2)

Dilemmas of Identity and Formation in Contemporary Paganism:  Tropes of anti-modernism and primitivism inform the development of contemporary Pagan movements, yet these groups are sometimes described as postmodern as well.”  Papers and discussion of “whether the central tenets of postmodernism – plurality, diversity, and hybridity – chiefly influence such movements today or whether protests against modernity and reconstructions of fictive pre-modern societies and world views drive them equally.

Jone Salomonsen presided and Shawn Arthur responded to the following speakers:

«    Gwendolyn Reece – “The Scalability Crisis: Contemporary Paganism and Institutionalization.”  “…argues that one of the primary driving forces behind the trend towards institutionalization in Contemporary Paganisjm … (description too long to type)

This paper specifically speaks of the dilemmas we, as a fast-growing constellation of Nature-based and/or heritage-based, and related non-Abrahamic religious groups, confront when trying to create institutions that address our professional needs from a less conventional and, given our great diversity, from a somewhat Pagan perspective.  This has been the work of Cherry Hill Seminary, among other worthy efforts.

«    Patricia E’Iolana  -- “An Imagined and Idealised [sic] Past as a Source for Revisionist Rhetoric: The Dual Lives of the 1921 Murray Thesis.” (description too long to type)

«    Lee Gilmore – “Pagan and Indigenous Communities at the Parliament (Part 2): The Myth of the Unbroken Line in Constructions of Authenticity.” (description too long to type)

«    Leigh Ann Hildebrand – “Jews (and Jewitches) Touching Trees: Hybrid Jewish/Pagan Identity, Ritual Practice, and Belief.” (description too long to type)

The phenomenon of Jewitches has long been a facet of the Craft.  About twenty years ago Jewitches in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) published a newsletter call Di Shmatteh (the rag).  Since then, various blends or dual perspectives have arisen:  Buddheo-Pagan, Quagan, Atheo-Pagan, and even Christo-Pagan.  As a person reared in Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, I don’t get this last one, but then again, it’s not mine to get.

The work of scholars and supporters at Cherry Hill Seminary is one manifestation of the expression of these issues of legitimacy, identity, and sustainability.  In fact, one of the older and still extant Pagan organizations, the Covenant of the Goddess, in its annual Leadership Institute, has recently done in a daylong focus on examining the current state of the Craft and Paganism, and locating CoG’s place in that larger community and in the world.

Native Traditions in the Americas Group

Indigenous Religious Hybridity and the Transformation of Traditions:  This session addresses different forms of religious hybridity.  Zitkala-Sa, or Gertrude Simmons Bonin, was an important Dakota leader who drew from her own cultural traditions as well as her education in boarding schools to publish at the national level and serve as an agent of the government.  Patron Saint Feast Days incorporate from and negotiate between indigenous and Christian practices.  Research on the Ohlone Shell Walk illustrates the revitalization of traditions while highlighting the relationship between religious and political activity.

«    Abel Gomez -- “Shellmound Peace Walk: Prayer, Pilgrimage, and Activism in Ohlone Territory” Ohlone communities of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas are experiencing a cultural renewal, despite their non-recognized status.  Central to this revival is the protection of burial sites, most of which have been destroyed because of urban development.  This paper focuses on Ohlone activist Corrina Gould’s efforts to honor the burial place of her ancestors through Shellmound Peace Walks.  Beginning in 2005, Gould has organized three-week long pilgrimages to the shellmounds (burial sites) of her ancestors.  At each stop, participants heard stories of the site and offered prayers and tobacco.  Drawing on fieldwork, historical writings, and oral histories, I argue that the Shellmound Peace Walks demonstrate the interconnectivity of religion and political activism in Native communities.  For Ohlone solidarity with non-Native people.

I was initially drawn to this section because I saw that Abel Gomez was one of the presenters.  He is a young man from the S.F Bay Area I’ve met through local Reclaiming. 

Another draw was the fact that the topic is about a region I call home.  Much of the southern Baylands and the land on the other side of SF Bay from where I write is home to Ohlone people.  My neighboring county to the north is Coast Miwok country.[2]  There are 425 shellmounds in the salt marshes and mudflats around San Francisco Bay and beyond (San Pablo Bay, Suisun Bay, Carquinez Strait).  

Over the time since Europeans settled this area, the largest, once a burial ground rising 60 feet high and dating back to 800 BCE, has been desecrated by being used for an amusement park and later as a dumping ground for toxic chemicals.   Since 1999 a shopping center occupies most of that shellmound, with a memorial park nearby, now designated Emeryville Shellmound, California Historical Landmark #335.

From time to time I have received email posts soliciting people to attend these peace walks.  I appreciated hearing this more detailed information about these activities.  Abel’s contention of the interconnectivity of Native religions and political activism matches my own convictions.

I have attended public Witchen sabbat celebrations at the Emeryville Shellmounds.  From that spot one can see beautiful sunsets behind some of the land surrounding the Bay.  I like to think that, rather than using the site as a dumping ground, by performing our sabbats on what is left of this formerly 60-foot high mound, we in some small way honor the ancestors of our Ohlone neighbors.

«     “Boundaries in the Borderlands: Pueblo Indian Patron Saint Feast Days and the Negotiation of Catholicism” 

Once again my post-stroke ability to take notes results in my inability to interpret my compromised handwriting.

Zitkala-Sa, Joseph T. Keiley

«    “Zitkala-Sa: A Warrior of Survivance [sic] between Traditionalism and Progressivism”

A mixed-ethnicity[3] woman who identified with her mother’s Yankton Sioux heritage, Zitkala-Sa, “Red Bird,” whose Euro-name is Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, first entered my consciousness a few years ago when I came upon the following quote:

“A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.”

Zitkala-Sa was an amazing person.  She straddled two cultures, seeking the knowledge and wisdom of both, and she took those understandings into the world beyond the reservation.  She even wrote a Native-themed opera, “The Sun Dance Opera,” that was first performed on stage in 1913.  Her finding values in both cultures in which she found herself immersed seems relevant to what many contemporary Pagans have been doing by learning about our various heritages, and blends of heritages.   We syncretize what resonates for us into spiritual practices that give expression of who we are and enrich the meaning in our rituals.

I’m registered for the AAR Annual Meeting in Boston and hopeful that I’ll have enough money to get there.

In service to Coventina,
Macha NightMare

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[1]   The inmates in our circle at San Quentin State Prison, unlike in many other prisons, are allowed flame and incense, at least when I’m there, and they all love incense.  So we use it liberally and they emerge from circle with the scents permeating their hair and clothing and reminding them of where they’ve just been.

[2]   See Big Time at http://besom.blogspot.com/2010/07/big-time.html.

[3]   I feel uncomfortable assigning the word race to people of any heritage or complexion because humans comprise one race or species.

AAR Annual Meeting - IV

"The Nightmare" by John Henry Fuseli

  November 2014

San Diego, CA

Day Two:  Saturday Late Afternoon and Evening

For the 4:00 p.m. session I passed on three others of interest.

Indigenous Religious Traditions focused on “Ritual Objects and Materiality in the Study of Native American Traditions.”  Anthropologists have considered the importance of social and historical context while neglecting physicality and materiality in such circumstances as indigenous rituals “tied to particular places and things in irreducible ways.  Panelists spoke on

·      “Maya Persons, Places, & Things: Relational Theory and Maya Blood Offerings to the Ceiba Tree”;

·      “Ayahuasca as ‘Teacher Plant’: An Ethno-Metaphysics of Santo Daime’s Botanical Sacrament”;

·      “Animacy and Agency in Puppets, Masks, and Other Ritual Objects”;

·      “La Vara: Divining Bundle of the Highland May Ritual Specialist”; and

·      “The Way of the Mask: The Intersection of Ritual and Value in Highland Guatemalan Religious Dance Masks.” 

Blood offerings, entheogens/psychotropics, puppets (poppets?), masks – just some of the less conventional sacred technologies that we Pagans often employ.

Ritual Studies Group: “Ritual Assembly and the Dynamics of Democracy.”  This panel offered five different ways in which ritual acts and performances reveal and mobilize culture resources and initiate changes to establish new conditions for democratization processes. …[P]eople entering ritual activities establish new conditions and forms of social and political engagement, and … how they are continuously renegotiating social identities.  …[R]ituals significantly impact democratic processes, both in reshaping society and providing the grounds for responding to local and global crises.  Thus ritual is not just the outcome of social construction, but serves as a precondition for the construction and transformation of society.”

As a ritualist myself, I do see ritual as a vehicle of social change (not necessarily with respect to democracy).  The cultures from which these papers were drawn include, among others, Hong Kong, rural Uttar Pradesh, Norway, and Turkey.

Tantric Studies Group: “Out for Blood: Sacrifice, Tantra, and Normative Hinduism.”  “Taking animal sacrifice as the quintessential pubic marker of Shakta Tantra in much of South Asia, this panel examines how historical, regional, practical, and economic contexts have shaped the ways various traditions … relate the theory and practice of blood offerings to mainstream brahmanical Hinduism…case studies detail some of the social effects and rhetorical uses of … sacrifices within Tantra and Shaktism…while particularizing our understanding of how these categories relate to other comparatively peripheral formations including folk and tribal religions.  Taken together, these papers highlight the role of sacrifice as a flashpoint for divergent articulation and valuations of Hinduism’s center and its frontiers.”  [emphasis added]  Could you not change a few words and apply this statement to contemporary Paganism?  Given much discussion of animal sacrifice in the Neo-Pagan world, it would seem we might have something to learn from these traditions.

One paper in particular, “Blood in the Mainstream: Kali Puja and Tantric Orthodox in Early Modern Bengal,” intrigued me because I am a devotee of Ma Kali.  I perform Kali puja at the New Moon at a local store before altar in a temporary temple.  The pujaris (priest/esses) who conduct the ceremonies I attend are trained at Dakshineshwar, and the kirtan singers and musicians are mainly Indian rather than Euro-Americans, though I’ve seen no evidence of blood sacrifice, and suspect that most attendees are vegetarians.

When I ran into Steve Wehmeyer on Friday, he said he’d come to substitute for his wife, Kerry Noonan, to chair a wildcard session that he raved would be my best option among all these tempting sessions.  So that’s where I went.

* * * * *

Wildcard Session:  “Contemporary Scholars, Contemporary People, and Belief in Spirits: Folklore, Religion and the Supernatural.”  

We met in a moderate-sized room, and there were folks sitting on the floor and hanging in the doorway.  This panel could easily have filled a larger meeting space.  This, to me, indicates a growing interest in exploring these phenomena, and comparing them with our own personal experiences.  Perhaps ‘religious scholarship meets UPGs (unverified personal gnosis).’

Robert Glenn Howard, from the University of Wisconsin spoke on “Hoarding the Spirit: Discourse Approach to Folklore of the Supernatural.”   He explained that discourse analysis accepts the experience of the spiritual being as real at the level of experience.  The vernacular authority, on the other hand, is “an appeal to trust in what is handed down outside of any formally instituted social formation.”  He cited Don Yoder’s definition of folk religion, that folk religion is separate from but not necessarily in opposition to or replacement of official religion.[1]

As I mentioned above, I am a Kali worshipper, so I was familiar with the next panelist, Jeffrey Kripal , from his controversial book Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna.  I also heard him speak on a panel on North American Hinduism at the AAR in San Francisco in 2011. 

At this session, Dr. Kripal gave something of a fan’s appreciation entitled “Comparativism Unbound: The life and Work of David Hufford.”  It seems that Dr. Hufford has been Dr. Kripal’s mentor for most of his professional life, and from what we saw and heard, this relationship proved beneficial to religious scholarship. 

He described what he calls ‘supernatural assault phenomena,’ also known as ‘sleep paralysis’ or ‘Old Hag Syndrome.’   These phenomena are called by many terms and found throughout the world.  Described as an experience that occurs when one is awake, lying supine, and experiences physical paralysis, fear, the sense that someone is in the room, someone is on one’s chest.  An ‘old hag attack may be accompanied by the sound of footsteps, very soft, wearing no shoes.  This is the source of such phrases as “hag-ridden” and “haggard.” 

Dr. Hufford’s research centered in Newfoundland, where the included his own experience plus cross-cultural subjects.  He “found that these assaults are not associated with any anthropological variable. … People are being perfectly rational when they are reporting them.”[2] 

“Sleep paralysis does not seem to be causal.  It is more like the metaphor: the sun must go down for us to see the stars.  Night is a condition for us to see the stars but they do not cause the stars.” [3] 

David J. Hufford, from Penn State-Hershey and currently working with the Samueli Institute exploring the science of health presented a talk entitled “The Experience-Centered Approach to Spiritual Belief: Understanding the Persistent Enchantment of Modernity” immediately after Dr. Kripal.

Wow, this talk was even more fascinating than the two previous talks!  Gwendolyn took lots of notes, not especially easy for this reader to interpret, because we all have our own shorthands in note-taking.  Rather than incorporating her notes here, I’ll simply note a couple of things that impressed me most. 

Francisco Goya "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"

Dr. Hufford cited Francisco Goya’s 1799 etching called “The Sleep of Reason Produces
Monsters,” which I include here because, as they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

He has also published what appears to be a fascinating study, The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions.   I recommended Hubbard’s book to my friend Megory Anderson, thinking it might prove germane to her work with the dying.  .  Further, Dr. Hufford's work at the Samueli Institute benefits veterans who return from the front with hidden injuries.

Our own Sabina Magglioco provided the response to the panelists, wearing her super-cool magical coat. 

* * * * *

 

Pagan Studies Dinner

Finally, on Saturday evening the Pagan scholars and other Pagans in attendance met for a dinner filled with lively chat and warm camaraderie.  This dinner is one of the few opportunities for all of us to see one another, since the Annual Meeting itself is vast and varied, and chances of our crossing paths are limited.

Yours in service to Coventina,
Macha NightMare/Aline O'Brien

---

[1]   Thanks to Gwendolyn Reece for sharing some of her notes on these sessions.

[2]    Gwendolyn Reece.

[3]    Gwendolyn Reece.

AAR Annual Meeting, Part V

Shawn Arthur of Appalachian State University presided over the Contemporary Pagan Studies session on Pagan Analysis and Critique of "Religion on Monday afternoon. 

Suzanne Owen's paper described "Definitions, Decisions, and Druids: Presenting Druidry as a Religion."  In England, where they do not have separation between church and state, residents are asked to state their religions on census forms.  For religious groups other than those of the state religion to thrive, they must be sanctioned or approved or in some way officially recognized by the government.  In recent years Druids have sought, and eventually received, such recognition.  Dr. Owens' paper detailed their efforts.  During Q&A, Patrick McCollum noted that this case in England has been useful in efforts here in the U.S. for inmates who are Druids (and other Pagan inmates) to assemble as a group in prison chapels for worship and ceremony.

Dr. Christine Kraemer, Cherry Hill Seminary, delivered an excellent paper on "Perceptions of Scholarship in Contemporary Paganism."  Of course, since Christine is Chair of CHS' Department of Theology and Religious History, I'm confident that she's knowledgeable and current on such matters.  She offers several examples of Pagan critiques of Pagan scholars and their responses -- Ronald Hutton, Ben Whitmore, Aidan Kelly, Don Frew, et al.  While confirming the value of these critiques, she also cites Richard Hofstader's contentions, propounded in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life , that this attitude is "historically rooted in deeply held American values such as egalitarianism and democracy." He claims that nineteenth-century evangelical religions have influenced American thought so that it expresses "more heart-centered than head-centered values," and that this attitude is found among modern amateur Pagans as well.

Helen Berger, Brandeis University, delivered a paper called "Fifteen Years of Continuity and Change within the American Pagan Community" that follows up on her earlier studies.  She noted that religions either die or change.1  Among the changes she found in her follow-up studies are: 

1. The population of American Witches and Pagans2 who are female has increased from 65% to 71%.
2. Pagans are geographically more evenly spread, pointing towards "normalization."
3. Pagans are more educated than most Americans; 98% have high school diplomas compared to 87% for the rest of the population.
4. There are fewer "older" Pagans.  I don't recall that Helen specified what age would be considered "older," but it appears that more of her respondents were "younger."  This fact, coupled with the fact that religions either change or die, reinforces the need for us to explore the notion of eldership, as I've been doing.3
5. Seventy-eight percent of those surveyed claim to be solitary; 86% of "younger" people consider themselves to be solitaries.

These data provoked lots of questions.  For me, I wonder if the fact that so many claim to be solitaries reflects perhaps: A dearth of teachers and/or training covens? An unrealistic expectation of what covens are? An indication of poor social skills and difficulty getting along with others or building trust with others?  A move away from a more private practice and towards a preference for larger-group or community rituals?

Caroline Tully, University of Melbourne, delivered the final paper, "Researching the Past as a Foreign Country: Cognitive Dissonance as a Response by Practitioner Pagans to Academic Research on the History of Pagan Religions."  Caroline is someone many of us have known for some years online, but on this, her first trip to the U.S., we had the good fortune to meet her and hang out.  Her paper reminded me once again of a phenomenon in Paganism that I call a "yearning for authenticity."  Many people, not just Pagans -- Christians are a fine example -- seem to require evidence of antiquity or of a long unbroken (or broken and reclaimed, revived, reconstructed) tradition to cite as a claim of authenticity, to claim credibility.  I am not among them.  On the contrary, I see much syncreticism in almost every religion of which I have some knowledge.  I don't think a religion is more or less authentic because of its alleged antiquity.  I think it's authentic if it speaks to its practitioners' spiritual needs, if the practice of its forms offers meaning and comfort,

Later I attended the Comparative Studies in Religion Section session on Noncanonical/Nationalist Reinventions of Religions' Narratives of Origin, Christopher Patrick Parr, Webster University, presiding.  Chris, who teaches religious studies and I had encountered one another at other sessions and we had a friendly chat before the meeting began.  The subject intrigued me.  Pagans have many stories of their origins. All religions and ethnicities and groups of people seeking to distinguish themselves from the rest of the world, or seeking to define themselves, and seeking a sense of group solidarity and cohesion, have narratives of origin.  We Pagans have a few ourselves.

I apologize ahead of time for confusion about which speaker was speaking about what, since the program only listed their names and not the titles of their papers.

The first speaker said that there were numerous neopagan nationalist groups in Russia who posit an advanced Russian civilization before St. Cyril, and that they claim a conspiracy of silence on the part of monks and others to suppress knowledge of this earlier time.  These groups are more bookish than outdoorsy and do not perform outdoor rituals.  They claim a mysterious Russian or Cyrillic or "planetary" alphabets comprised of 147 characters, and that the monks' theft of this alphabet paved the way for aliens and alien culture to proliferate in Russia.  Slavs had an autochthonous alphabet and writing before Cyril.

To me, the most interesting paper was about Buddha Shakyamuni and Mother Earth, or Mae Thoranee.  Mae Thoranee is a Thai and Laotian Earth mother figure found beneath the Buddha in statues and paintings.  The fingers of the Buddha's right hand touches the earth.  A tiny image of Mae Thoranee appears underneath the larger image of the Buddha.  This Mae Thoranee foundation upon which the Buddha rests reminds me of the appellation of Mary as Mother of God found in Catholic prayer.

Mae Thoranee, protrectress of the land and its fertility, exists in localized versions.  She is both animist and Buddhist; the soil is her spirit and the trees are her children.  Merit is stored in the water in her hair.  She is shown wringing water from her hair, pouring the waters of merit to redistribute it among any wandering spirits.  One of the slides showed a statue of Mae Thoranee in the act of wringing water from her air on the grounds in front of a civic building.

Another paper was about Takeuchi Kiyomaro (1874-1965), a priest of the Shinto sect known as "Takeuchi-bunsho," dating from the 3rd-4th centuries CE.  The speaker told of how this sect, and others, asserted the superiority of the Japanese people.

* * * * *

Tuesday morning, the last half-day, and which session to savor? I was interested in:

• Ethics Section, Economic Ethics and Political Reform, in particular, "Whole Foods or Whole People?: The Madness of Neoliberalism and the Paradoxical Political Economy of Hunger" and "Reforming Economic Excess: Towards a Solidarity Economy."  I don't know how much effect a bunch of academics talking about these topics might have to influence economic change or to fill empty stomachs.

• North American Religions Section, Industrial Effervescence: Manufacturing Economic Selves and Producing Religious Collectivity in American History, in particular, "Gilded Age Railroad Brotherhoods as Industrial Religion" and "Parts of a Whole: Ecological Consumerism in a Global Age." I find the whole culture of railroads fascinating, and know little about it.  I'm also intrigued by brotherhoods, lodges, and other "in-group" organizations.  I suspect we could learn more about creating group cohesion, group identity, group solidarity from studying these phenomena.

• Women and Religion Section.  Performing Gender and Identify through Song in South Asia, "Dancing with the Goddess, Singing for Ourselves."

However, I attended the session on North American Hinduism Consultation, California Dreaming: South Asian Religions Encounter the Counterculture.

"Utopian Settlements, Californian Vedanta, Huxley, Isherwood, and Friends," presented by Smitri Srinivas of UC-Davis, described places and people I've heard of or encountered in my years in California.  It was interesting to hear these times spoken of from a historical and analytical perspective when one has some awareness of how they have influenced one's life.  I say that as a person who lived in the heart of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury during the 1960s.

"The  Reception of Kundalini Yoga in California and Its Relation to Sikh Dharma/3HO," was presented by Michael Stoeber, himself a practitioner of kundalini yoga.

"California Hinduism: The Shiva Lingam of Golden Gate Park, 1989-1994," by Eliza Kent, Colgate University, related to a new audience a story I like to cite when the topic of sacred images and sites comes up.  I remember when this occurred; it's a wonderful tale.

Jeffrey J. Kripal of Rice University and Shana Sippy, Carleton College offered thoughtful responses.  I'm familiar with Dr. Kripal from my readings about my matron, Kali Ma.  He wrote Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna as well as other writings on Kali.


I enjoyed comments from people of a certain age, myself included, during the Q&A session at the end of the session.


As I was leaving the room, I was pleased to encounter Samir Kaira, a friend from the Hindu American Foundation.  I had expected to run into others from that organization over the course of the Annual Meeting, but other than seeing Dr. Mihir Meghani at the Pagan studies reception on Saturday night, I saw no one.  No doubt this is because there were so many intriguing sessions and they probably focused on the Hindu related ones while I focused on the Pagan ones.


This concludes my reports on the 2012 AAR Annual Meeting.


In service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare

~~~~~~~~~~

1.  Interestingly, it is our survival, and the changes necessary to ensure it, that motivate my work.


2.  She did not, to my knowledge, make a distinction between the terms Paganism and Witchcraft.


3.  Please see my survey on Survey Monkey  Note that this survey has been extended to January 15, 2012, so if you haven't already participated, I invite you to do so now.

AAR Annual Meeting, Part III

Here are a few of the intriguing sounding presentations I missed on Sunday:

• New Religious Movements Group, Strategies of Legitimation in New Religion, one talk in particular:  "Jungian Archetypes, Metagenetics, and Kennewick Man: Scientific Discourses and Racial Theory in American Folkish Asatru," Carrie Dohe, University of Chicago.

• Ritual Studies Group, Case Studies in Ritual Practice, three papers: "Homa: An Exemplary Asian Fire Sacrifice, Holly Grether, UC Santa Barbara; "Dismantling Gender: Between Ancient Gnostic Ritual and Modern Queer BDSM," Johathan Cahana, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; and "Ritual as Technology of the Body in Early Confucianism." Ori Tavor, University of Pennsylvania.  The second paper seemed especially helpful given ongoing discussions of gender within contemporary Paganism.

• North American Hinduism Group, Constructions of Hindu Selves and Hindu Others in North America, in particular "Sightings and Blind Spots: The 'Protestant Lens' and the Construction of Hinduism," Michael Altman, Emory University.  Again, because we are a new religious movement, and because there is a phenomenon identified in the field of ritual studies known as "the Protestantization of religion," whereby immigrant religions strive for assimilation by adopting a Protestant church structure, I thought this talk might offer insights and ideas that might prove useful to us as we Pagans establish ourselves within wider society.  We can learn what methods and templates suit the organizational structures and institutions we create and adopt or adapt them, and we can learn what customs, roles, policies, and forms don't suit us and might compromise our uniqueness.  In other words, what to emulate and what to avoid.  As someone who's been deeply involved for the past ten years or so with establishing a Pagan seminary, I'm acutely aware of the tendency to parrot the "overculture" -- because it's easiest, because it's what we're familiar with.  At the same time, I try to consider whether these forms and roles are concordant with who we are.

• Death, Dying, and Beyond Consultation, Death in Popular Culture, featured "The Power of Death and Dying: Images as a Means of Conversion and Modes of Shaping Afterlife Beliefs in Nineteenth Century America," The Guide of Souls: Characteristics of the Psychopomp in Modern American Media," (there's that pop culture theme again) "Shimmering Between the Symbolic and Real in Pan's Labyrinth and The Fisher King," and "Jewish Ghosts: A Content Analysis of Some Jewish Folklore."  This is just one of the death and dying sessions I'd have liked to attend.  I did, however, run into my friend Megory Anderson at Starbuck's between sessions.  Megory founded the Sacred Dying Foundation, on whose Advisory Board I serve.  We met when we were both researching books on death and dying; there is a Pagan blessing from The Pagan Book of Living and Dying in the alternative religions section of her book, Sacred Dying: Creating Rituals for Embracing the End of Life.

• Anthropology of Religion and Ritual Studies Groups, Ritual and the Construction of Sacred Space.  Right up our Witchen alley, right?  Of the three papers, I was most intrigued by "A Trip to the Spring: A Four-Generation Water Ritual at Shingleroof Camp Meeting."  Summer camps seem to be one of the ongoing themes addressed this year.

• Templeton Lecture, Martin J. Rees, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and Astronomer Royal -- pretty impressive title, huh?  It appears he's also titled, Baron Rees of Ludlow -- gave a lecture entitled "Our Final Hour: Can Our Species Determine the Fate of the Earth?" I figured that Dr. (or might the proper title be 'Sir' or 'Baron'?) Rees, a theoretical astrophysicist and winner of this year's Templeton Prize, would be offering his scientific perspective on this rather daunting topic and that he was probably well worth listening to, but alas, I had no time to attend.

• PlenaryAddress, New Thoughts on Solidarity, considering the relationship between sexual and religious minorities in the context of the right to appear in public [?]... [and] the affiliative meanings of queer in light of new efforts to separate queer politics from anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles," Judy Butler, UC Berkeley, panelist.

• The theme of the Body and Religion Group was Somatospiritual Development: Matter, Symbol, Transformation, again reflecting notions of both embodiment and the embodied spiritual experience and secular culture's influence.  Of five papers, one, "Muscled, Mean, and Sometimes Moral: Professional Wrestling and the Embodiment of Cultural-Ethical Tensions," Dan Mathewson, Wofford College, interested me most.  Our religion(s) is an embodied practice, meaning that we do our rituals, we perform them with our bodies and voices, rather than listening to an authority figure, often presumed to be more spiritually evolved or "closer to God" than the assembly, tell us what to say and do.  We often explain this to mainstream religious practitioners as being experienced rather than revealed (i.e., revealed to Moses or some other mortal).

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation held a session on Religion and the Internet.  Had I perfected the art of bilocation, I'd have attended this for two reasons: one is that I wrote a book called Witchcraft and the Web: Weaving Pagan Traditions Online, which discussed the effects the Internet has had on Paganism and the Pagan presence on the Web. The other is that I made the acquaintance of a lovely man named Dr. Ian Jamison, a Face to Faith Teacher Trainer with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation -- and he reads this very blog!

What I've listed here is just a sampling of the many sessions that I was interested in yet had to forgo in order to go to ones I felt were even more important to me to attend.  These should give you an idea of the breadth and depth of studies given voice at this annual meeting of 10,000 people -- religious studies scholars, religious leaders and practitioners, religion journalists, seminarians, publishers of religious titles, and many more.  You can also see how difficult making those choices is.  You can also see thematic threads having to do with pop culture and secularism, mixed and revived cultural and religious practices, legitimation, multiculturalism. All the while, the elephant in the meeting rooms, sometimes named, was Occupy San Francisco nearby and the Occupy Movement in general, as I've mentioned before.

Check back here in a few days for more detailed posts about the sessions I did attend.

In service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare