Touching the Divine: Recent Research on Neo-Paganism and Neo-Shamanism

Why do religions that are in some sense invented out of the western scholarship on shamanism and paganism have such a hold on the western imagination? This article reviews four recent contributions to the literature on neo-paganism and neo-shamanism. As exemplified in the books under review, these religions have three basic characteristics—magical realism, playfulness, and experientalism—which are not unique to them, but shared by many modern faiths. The article argues that these are not primitive throw-backs but ways of responding to the doubt and skepticism of a modern pluralistic age.     

Milton,drama, and Greek texts: preface

ABSTRACT

This collection of essays explores the connection between Milton’s approach to drama and his engagement with Greek antiquity. Paying attention to early Christian and early modern interpretive traditions as well as Greek literature, it situates the power of this conjunction for Milton within the larger project of the northern Renaissance.     

Alternative identity,alternative religion? Neo‐paganism and the Aryan myth in contemporary Russia

ABSTRACT. As in all post‐Soviet states, the Russian intelligentsia has been preoccupied with the construction of a new national identity since the beginning of the 1990s. Although the place of Orthodox religion in Russia is well documented, the subject of neo‐paganism and its consequent assertion of an Aryan identity for Russians remains little known. Yet specialists observing the political and intellectual life of contemporary Russia have begun to notice that the development of references to ‘Slavic paganism’ and to Russia's ‘Aryan’ origin can be found in the public speeches of some politicians and intellectual figures. This article will attempt, in its first section, to depict the historical depth of these movements by examining the existence of neo‐pagan and/or Aryan referents in Soviet culture, and focusing on how these discourses developed in different spheres of post‐Soviet Russian society, such as those of religion, historiography, and politics.