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Pagan Studies
Pagan studies is the multidisciplinary academic field devoted to the study of modern paganism, a broad assortment of modern religious movements, which are typically influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of premodern Europe. Carpenter 1996. p. 40. Pagan studies embrace a variety of different scholarly approaches to studying such religions, drawing from history, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, folkloristics, theology and other religious studies. Background The earliest academic studies of contemporary paganism were published between 1970 and 1980 by scholars like Margot Adler, Marcello Truzzi and Tanya Luhrmann, although it would not be until the 1990s that the actual pagan studies discipline properly developed, pioneered by academics such as Graham Harvey and Chas S. Clifton. Increasing academic interest in Paganism has been attributed to the new religious movement's increasing public visibility, as it began interacting with the interfaith m ...
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Modern Paganism
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Africa and the Near East. Although they share similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, and do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts. Scholars of religion may characterise these traditions as new religious movements. Some academics who study the phenomenon treat it as a movement that is divided into different religions while others characterize it as a single religion of which different pagan faiths are denominations. Because of these different approaches there is disagreement on when or if the term ''pagan'' should be capitalized, though specialists in the field of pagan studies tend towards capitalisation. Prominent modern pagan religions include Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, Rodnovery, and the Goddess movement ...
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Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred ''tumuli'' (burial mounds). Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from around 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, althou ...
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Paganism In The Modern World
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In the time of the Roman empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not '' milites Christi'' (soldiers of Christ).J. J. O'Donnell (1977)''Paganus'': Evolution and Use ''Classical Folia'', 31: 163–69. Alternative terms used in Christian texts were ''hellene'', ''gentile'', and ''heathen''. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Graeco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly connoted the " religion of the peasantry". During and after the Middle Ages, the term ''paganism'' was applied to any non-Christian religion, and the term presumed a be ...
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Lake District
The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordsworth and other Lake Poets and also with Beatrix Potter and John Ruskin. The Lake District National Park was established in 1951 and covers an area of . It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2017. The Lake District is today completely within Cumbria, a county and administrative unit created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972. However, it was historically divided between three English counties ( Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire), sometimes referred to as the Lakes Counties. The three counties met at the Three Shire Stone on Wrynose Pass in the southern fells west of Ambleside. All the land in England higher than above sea level lies within the National Park, including Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England. ...
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Ambleside
Ambleside is a town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Lakes, Cumbria, Lakes, in Cumbria, in North West England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Westmorland, it marks the head (and sits on the east side of the northern headwater) of Windermere, England's largest natural lake. In the Lake District National Park, it is south of the highest road pass in the Lake District, Kirkstone Pass and both places are the meeting point of well-marked paths and mountain hiking trails. In 2020 it had an estimated population of 2596. In 1961 the parish had a population of 2562. Economy Local government services Ambleside is co-administered by South Lakeland District Council and in minor matters forms part of the Lakes, Cumbria, Lakes Civil parishes in England, civil parish. The other main co-administration is Cumbria County Council. Ambleside was formerly a Township (England), township, in 1866 Ambleside became a civil parish in its own right until it was abolished on 1 ...
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Michael York (religious Studies Scholar)
Michael York is a UK-based American Religious Studies scholar who specializes in the study of pre-Christian European religion and its relation to contemporary Paganism. In 2003, he published ''Pagan Theology'', in which he put forward the idea that the ancient pre-Christian and pre-Islamic religions of Eurasia, indigenous religions from across the globe, and contemporary Pagan faiths could all be constituted as forms of paganism Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christianity, early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions ot .... Michael York participated in TEDxLambeth 2019 as a speaker. Personal life Describing his own religious beliefs and his affection for paganism, York remarked that: :If I had to name my own denominational predilection, I would say that I am a "religionist." I believe in religion itself and its central role in ...
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Interfaith
Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. It is distinct from syncretism or alternative religion, in that dialogue often involves promoting understanding between different religions or beliefs to increase acceptance of others, rather than to synthesize new beliefs. The Archdiocese of Chicago's Office for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs defines "the difference between ecumenical, interfaith, and interreligious relations", as follows: *"ecumenical" as "relations and prayer with other Christians", *"interfaith" as "relations with members of the 'Abrahamic faiths' (Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions)," and *"interreligious" as "relations with other religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism". Some interfaith dialogues have more recently adopted the name interbelief dialogue,
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New Religious Movements
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or they can be part of a wider religion, in which case they are distinct from pre-existing denominations. Some NRMs deal with the challenges which the modernizing world poses to them by embracing individualism, while other NRMs deal with them by embracing tightly knit collective means. Scholars have estimated that NRMs number in the tens of thousands worldwide, with most of their members living in Asia and Africa. Most NRMs only have a few members, some of them have thousands of members, and a few of them have more than a million members.Eileen Barker, 1999, "New Religious Movements: their incidence and significance", ''New Religious Movements: challenge and response'', Bryan Wilson and Jamie Cresswell editors, Routledge There is no single, a ...
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The Pomegranate (journal)
''The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies'' is a peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of Pagan studies including historical, sociological, and anthropological studies dealing with Paganism (contemporary), contemporary Paganism and other forms of paganism, pagan religion. Since 2004 the journal has been published by Equinox Publishing (London), Equinox Publishing and the editor-in-chief is Chas S. Clifton (Colorado State University–Pueblo). The journal was established as a scholarly but not fully peer-reviewed publication in 1996 by Fritz Muntean and Diana Tracy with the subtitle ''A New Journal of Neopagan Thought''. In 2001 the production of the journal was put on hiatus, as Muntean stepped down as editor, to be replaced by Clifton when it resumed publication, this time as a fully peer-reviewed academic publication and with its current subtitle. History The idea for ''The Pomegranate'' was initially developed by Fritz Muntean, ...
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