Religious, Socio-cultural and Political Worldviews of Contemporary Pagans in the Czech Republic
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.33834Keywords:
Neo-Paganism, Contemporary Paganism, Politics, ValuesAbstract
This paper presents the results of a research inspired by Helen Berger’s Pagan Census, conducted among Czech Pagans. It explores the worldviews of Czech Pagans from different Pagan groups regarding the questions of spirituality (e.g. the beliefs about afterlife, reincarnation or magic), society and culture (e.g. LGBTQ+ rights, drugs or the status of women in society) and politics (e.g. regarding the market regulation, social welfare, as well as specific political party preferences). It focuses on the differences, as well as on the commonalities among various Pagan groups, as the Pagan movement is highly diversified and sprouts from several different sources: some groups have emerged from naturalizing and romanticizing tendencies and emphasize the sacredness of nature, worship, and respect for all of its creatures; while some groups have emerged from rather nationalistic tendencies and focus on the worship of the gods and ancestors with a strong emphasis on ethnic background. The results show that the vast majority of Czech Pagans believe in some sort of afterlife and more than a half of them believe in reincarnation. The vast majority also believe in magic and nearly a half of them practice it. While there are little differences between various Pagan groups on the left-right economic scale, as they all seem to be mostly centrist or slightly left of center, adherents of reconstructionist or ethnic Pagan groups tend to hold more conservative positions on the socio-cultural scale than the adherents of revivalist or eclectic Pagan groups.References
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Berger, Helen.. “Contemporary Paganism by the Numbers.” In Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, vol. 2, edited by James R. Lewis & Murphy Pizza, 153–170. Leiden: Brill, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004163737.i-650.48.
Berger, Helen A., ed. Witchcraft and Magic: Contemporary North America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812201253.
Burke, Daniel. “The Accused Kansas Killer’s Neo-Pagan Religion.” CNN Belief Blog, April 14, 2014. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/14/frazier-glenn-cross-racist-religion/.
Harvey, Graham. Contemporary Paganism: Religions of the Earth from Druids and Witches to Heathens and Ecofeminists. 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
Lewis, James R. Witchcraft today: An Encyclopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Traditions. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1999.
Morin, Roc. “The Rise and Fall of Eastern Ukraine’s All-Pagan Battalion.” Vice, May 13, 2015. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-rise-and-fall-of-eastern-ukraines-all-pagan-battalion-513.
Perlmutter, David. Investigating Religious Terrorism and Ritualistic Crimes. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781420041040.
Rountree, Kathryn. “Context Is Everything: Plurality and Paradox in Contemporary European Paganisms.” In Contemporary Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Europe: Colonialist and Nationalist Impulses, edited by Kathryn Rountree, 1–23. New York: Berghahn, 2015.
Velkoborská, Kamila. “The Brotherhood of Wolves in the Czech Republic: From Ásatrú to Primitivism.” In Contemporary Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Europe: Colonialist and Nationalist Impulses, edited by Kathryn Rountree, 86–109. New York: Berghahn, 2015.
Vencálek, Matouš. “Motivations for Taking the Pagan Paths: A Case Study among the Czech Pagans.” In Walking the Old Ways: Studies in Contemporary European Paganism, edited by Adam Anczyk and Halina Grzyma?a-Moszczy?ska, 119–30. Katowice: Sacrum, 2012.
York, Michael. The Emerging Network: A Sociology of the New Age and Neo-pagan Movements. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1995.
Zapotosky, Matt. “Feds: White Supremacists Plotted To Attack Synagogues, Black Churches.” The Washington Post, November 10, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/feds-white-supremacists-plotted-to-shoot-or-bomb-black-churches-jewish-synagogues/2015/11/10/2a0abbcc-87cf-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html.
Additional Files
Published
2018-03-07
Issue
Section
Special Section: Paganism and Politics
How to Cite
Vencálek, M. (2018). Religious, Socio-cultural and Political Worldviews of Contemporary Pagans in the Czech Republic. Pomegranate, 19(2), 233-250. https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.33834
