Contemporary Paganism, Utopian Reading Communities, and Sacred Nonmonogamy: The Religious Impact of Heinlein's and Starhawk’s Fiction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v13i1.52Keywords:
Contemporary Paganism, utopian novels, science fiction and fantasy, Robert A. Heinlein, Starhawk, sexuality, ethical nonmonogamyAbstract
Contemporary Paganism’s emphasis on sacred story and narrative has led to an interdependent relationship with popular media. Pagans draw inspiration from fiction and also bring their practices to life in popular novels. Robert Heinlein’s 1961 Stranger in a Strange Land has had a major impact on the practice of ethical nonmonogamy in the Pagan community, an impact that is reflected in Starhawk’s 1993 The Fifth Sacred Thing. Along with liturgical echoes from Stranger, Starhawk’s novel contains sacred sex practices similar to those Heinlein describes. Unlike Heinlein, however, Starhawk is writing from life; The Fifth Sacred Thing reflects the developing real-life norms of her San Francisco-based Pagan community. Both novels also follow the generic conventions of the American utopian novel, a literary form that has influenced communal and millennial movements of the past. Together, Heinlein and Starhawk’s novels demonstrate how fiction can inspire religious practice that then appears again in fiction.References
Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-worshippers, and other Pagans in America Today. Completely revised and updated edition. New York: Penguin, 2006 [1979].
Berger, Helen A., Evan A. Leach, and Leigh S. Shaffer. Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.
Blackford, Russell. “Neo-Bible and Ur-Text: The ‘Original Uncut’ Stranger in a Strange Land.” Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction 53 (1991): 70-80.
Blackmore, Tim. “Talking with Strangers: Interrogating the Many Texts That Became Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.” Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 36:2 (1995): 136-50.
Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The Mists of Avalon. New York: Knopf, 1982.
Clifton, Chas. Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Contemporary Paganism in America. The Pagan Studies Series. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2006.
Crowley, Aleister, and Rose Edith Crowley. The Book of the Law, Liber al Vel Legis, with a facsimile of the manuscript as received by Aleister and Rose Edith Crowley on April 8,9,10, 1904 e.v. Centennial ed. York Beach: Weiser Books, in association with Ordo Templi Orientis, 2004.
Eller, Cynthia. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future. Boston: Beacon, 2000.
Fancourt, Donna. “Accessing Utopia through Altered States of Consciousness: Three Feminist Utopian Novels.” Utopian Studies: Journal of the Society for Utopian Studies 13:1 (2002): 94-113.
Farrar, Janet and Stewart. The Witches’ Bible. 1981, 1984. Custer, Wash.: Phoenix Publishing, 1996.
“The Fifth Sacred Thing.” Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Sacred-ThingStarhawk/dp/0553373803/.
“The Fifth Sacred Thing: A Narrative Film Project in San Francisco, CA.” Kickstarter. 23 June 2011. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fifthsacredthing/the-fifthsacred-thing.
Fitting, Peter. “The Concept of Utopia in the Work of Frederic Jameson.” Utopian Studies 9:2 (1998): 8-17.
Foster, Lawrence. “Free Love and Community: John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Perfectionists.” America’s Communal Utopias, edited by Donald E. Pitzer, 253–78. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
———. Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Fowles, John. Foreword to The Man Who Died by D.H. Lawrence. Hopewell: Ecco Press, 1994. 89-101.
Haran, Joan. “Theorizing (Hetero)Sexuality and (Fe)Male Dominance.” Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 45:1 (2004): 89-102.
Heinlein, Robert A. Grumbles from the Grave, edited by Virginia Heinlein. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989.
———. Stranger in a Strange Land: The Original Uncut Version. New York: Ace Books, 1991
Hunter, Jennifer. Rites of Pleasure: Sexuality in Wicca and NeoPaganism. New York: Citadel, 2004.
Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Jameson, Frederic. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso, 2005.
Kelly, Mark R. “The Locus Index to SF Awards: 1994 Lambda Awards.” Locus Magazine Online. 2007. http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Lambda1994. html.
Mattheson, Elise, ed. “Alt.Polyamory Frequently Asked Questions.” Internet FAQ Archives. 9 Sept 1997. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/polyamory/faq/.
McGuire, Cathleen and Colleen McGuire. “Grass-Roots Feminism: Activating Utopia.” Ecofeminist Literary Criticism, edited by Greta Gaard and Patrick D. Murphy, 186-203. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Miller, Sandra A. “Love’s New Frontier.” Boston Globe Sunday Magazine 3 Jan 2010. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2010/01/03/ loves_new_frontier/.
Moylan, Tom. Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia. Cultural Studies Series. Boulder: Westview, 2000.
Murstein, Bernard I. Love, Sex and Marriage through the Ages. New York: Springer, 1974. Newitz, Annalee. “Love Unlimited: The Polyamorists.” New Scientist 191:2559 (2006): 44–47.
Noyes, John Humphrey. First Annual Report of the Oneida Association. Oneida Reserve: Leonard, 1849.
Parrinder, Patrick, ed. Learning from Other Worlds: Estrangement, Cognition, and the Politics of Science Fiction and Utopia. Durham: Duke University Press 2001.
Patterson, William H. Jr., and Andrew Thornton. The Martian Named Smith: Critical Perspectives on Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Sacramento: Nitrosyncretic Press, 2001.
Pfaelzer, Jean. The Utopian Novel in America 1886-1896: The Politics of Form. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1984.
Pike, Sarah M. Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
——— New Age and Neopagan Religions in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Price, Joyce. “Polygamy Could Help Moms Who Work, Says Utah’s NOW.” Deseret News 12 Aug 1997. http://www.patriarchywebsite.com/resources/polygamyworking-moms.htm.
Radway, Janice A. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
“Religion/Hubbard Heinlein Bet.” The Alt.Folklore.Urban and Urban Legends Archive 16 Dec 1994. http://tafkac.org/religion/hubbard_heinlein_bet.html. Available through the Wayback Machine Internet Archive. http://web.archive.org/ web/20090419225736/http://tafkac.org/religion/hubbard_heinlein_bet.html.
Roemer, Kenneth M. Utopian Audiences: How Readers Locate Nowhere. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.
Roninspoon. “The Heinlein-Hubbard Wager Myth.” Everything2 29 Mar 2002. http:// www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1276839.
Ruppert, Peter. Reader in a Strange Land: The Activity of Reading Literary Utopias. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.
Russ, Joanna. To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Salomonsen, Jone. Enchanted Feminism: Ritual, Gender and Divinity among the Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco. London: Routledge, 2002.
Sarti, Ronald. “Variations on a Theme: Human Sexuality in the Work of Robert A. Heinlein.” In Robert A. Heinlein, edited by Martin Harry Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander, 107–36. New York: Taplinger, 1978.
Starhawk. “Declaration of Four Sacred Things.” Reclaiming Newsletter 28 (1990).
———. Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics. Boston: Beacon Press, 1982.
———. The Earth Path: Grounding Our Spirits in the Rhythm of Nature. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.
———. The Fifth Sacred Thing. New York: Bantam Books, 1993.
———. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. 20th anniversary edition. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999 [1979].
———. Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority, and Mystery. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.
Stark, Rodney and Reid Larkin Neilson. The Rise of Mormonism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
Sutton, Robert P. Communal Utopias and the American Experience: Religious Communities, 1732–2000. Westport: Praeger, 2003.
Tau Apiryon and Soror Helena. “Mystery of Mystery: A Primer of Thelemic Ecclesiastical Gnosticism.” Red Flame: A Thelemic Research Journal 2 (2002).
Zell, Morning Glory. “A Bouquet of Lovers: Strategies for Responsible Open Relationships.” Green Egg #89 (Beltane 1990). CAWeb: The Official Website of The Church of All Worlds, Inc. 2006. http://original.caw.org/articles/bouquet.html.
Berger, Helen A., Evan A. Leach, and Leigh S. Shaffer. Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.
Blackford, Russell. “Neo-Bible and Ur-Text: The ‘Original Uncut’ Stranger in a Strange Land.” Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction 53 (1991): 70-80.
Blackmore, Tim. “Talking with Strangers: Interrogating the Many Texts That Became Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.” Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 36:2 (1995): 136-50.
Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The Mists of Avalon. New York: Knopf, 1982.
Clifton, Chas. Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Contemporary Paganism in America. The Pagan Studies Series. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2006.
Crowley, Aleister, and Rose Edith Crowley. The Book of the Law, Liber al Vel Legis, with a facsimile of the manuscript as received by Aleister and Rose Edith Crowley on April 8,9,10, 1904 e.v. Centennial ed. York Beach: Weiser Books, in association with Ordo Templi Orientis, 2004.
Eller, Cynthia. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future. Boston: Beacon, 2000.
Fancourt, Donna. “Accessing Utopia through Altered States of Consciousness: Three Feminist Utopian Novels.” Utopian Studies: Journal of the Society for Utopian Studies 13:1 (2002): 94-113.
Farrar, Janet and Stewart. The Witches’ Bible. 1981, 1984. Custer, Wash.: Phoenix Publishing, 1996.
“The Fifth Sacred Thing.” Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Sacred-ThingStarhawk/dp/0553373803/.
“The Fifth Sacred Thing: A Narrative Film Project in San Francisco, CA.” Kickstarter. 23 June 2011. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fifthsacredthing/the-fifthsacred-thing.
Fitting, Peter. “The Concept of Utopia in the Work of Frederic Jameson.” Utopian Studies 9:2 (1998): 8-17.
Foster, Lawrence. “Free Love and Community: John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Perfectionists.” America’s Communal Utopias, edited by Donald E. Pitzer, 253–78. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
———. Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Fowles, John. Foreword to The Man Who Died by D.H. Lawrence. Hopewell: Ecco Press, 1994. 89-101.
Haran, Joan. “Theorizing (Hetero)Sexuality and (Fe)Male Dominance.” Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 45:1 (2004): 89-102.
Heinlein, Robert A. Grumbles from the Grave, edited by Virginia Heinlein. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989.
———. Stranger in a Strange Land: The Original Uncut Version. New York: Ace Books, 1991
Hunter, Jennifer. Rites of Pleasure: Sexuality in Wicca and NeoPaganism. New York: Citadel, 2004.
Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Jameson, Frederic. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso, 2005.
Kelly, Mark R. “The Locus Index to SF Awards: 1994 Lambda Awards.” Locus Magazine Online. 2007. http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Lambda1994. html.
Mattheson, Elise, ed. “Alt.Polyamory Frequently Asked Questions.” Internet FAQ Archives. 9 Sept 1997. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/polyamory/faq/.
McGuire, Cathleen and Colleen McGuire. “Grass-Roots Feminism: Activating Utopia.” Ecofeminist Literary Criticism, edited by Greta Gaard and Patrick D. Murphy, 186-203. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Miller, Sandra A. “Love’s New Frontier.” Boston Globe Sunday Magazine 3 Jan 2010. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2010/01/03/ loves_new_frontier/.
Moylan, Tom. Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia. Cultural Studies Series. Boulder: Westview, 2000.
Murstein, Bernard I. Love, Sex and Marriage through the Ages. New York: Springer, 1974. Newitz, Annalee. “Love Unlimited: The Polyamorists.” New Scientist 191:2559 (2006): 44–47.
Noyes, John Humphrey. First Annual Report of the Oneida Association. Oneida Reserve: Leonard, 1849.
Parrinder, Patrick, ed. Learning from Other Worlds: Estrangement, Cognition, and the Politics of Science Fiction and Utopia. Durham: Duke University Press 2001.
Patterson, William H. Jr., and Andrew Thornton. The Martian Named Smith: Critical Perspectives on Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Sacramento: Nitrosyncretic Press, 2001.
Pfaelzer, Jean. The Utopian Novel in America 1886-1896: The Politics of Form. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1984.
Pike, Sarah M. Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
——— New Age and Neopagan Religions in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Price, Joyce. “Polygamy Could Help Moms Who Work, Says Utah’s NOW.” Deseret News 12 Aug 1997. http://www.patriarchywebsite.com/resources/polygamyworking-moms.htm.
Radway, Janice A. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
“Religion/Hubbard Heinlein Bet.” The Alt.Folklore.Urban and Urban Legends Archive 16 Dec 1994. http://tafkac.org/religion/hubbard_heinlein_bet.html. Available through the Wayback Machine Internet Archive. http://web.archive.org/ web/20090419225736/http://tafkac.org/religion/hubbard_heinlein_bet.html.
Roemer, Kenneth M. Utopian Audiences: How Readers Locate Nowhere. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.
Roninspoon. “The Heinlein-Hubbard Wager Myth.” Everything2 29 Mar 2002. http:// www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1276839.
Ruppert, Peter. Reader in a Strange Land: The Activity of Reading Literary Utopias. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.
Russ, Joanna. To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Salomonsen, Jone. Enchanted Feminism: Ritual, Gender and Divinity among the Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco. London: Routledge, 2002.
Sarti, Ronald. “Variations on a Theme: Human Sexuality in the Work of Robert A. Heinlein.” In Robert A. Heinlein, edited by Martin Harry Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander, 107–36. New York: Taplinger, 1978.
Starhawk. “Declaration of Four Sacred Things.” Reclaiming Newsletter 28 (1990).
———. Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics. Boston: Beacon Press, 1982.
———. The Earth Path: Grounding Our Spirits in the Rhythm of Nature. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.
———. The Fifth Sacred Thing. New York: Bantam Books, 1993.
———. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. 20th anniversary edition. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999 [1979].
———. Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority, and Mystery. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.
Stark, Rodney and Reid Larkin Neilson. The Rise of Mormonism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
Sutton, Robert P. Communal Utopias and the American Experience: Religious Communities, 1732–2000. Westport: Praeger, 2003.
Tau Apiryon and Soror Helena. “Mystery of Mystery: A Primer of Thelemic Ecclesiastical Gnosticism.” Red Flame: A Thelemic Research Journal 2 (2002).
Zell, Morning Glory. “A Bouquet of Lovers: Strategies for Responsible Open Relationships.” Green Egg #89 (Beltane 1990). CAWeb: The Official Website of The Church of All Worlds, Inc. 2006. http://original.caw.org/articles/bouquet.html.
Published
2012-03-09
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Kraemer, C. H. (2012). Contemporary Paganism, Utopian Reading Communities, and Sacred Nonmonogamy: The Religious Impact of Heinlein’s and Starhawk’s Fiction. Pomegranate, 13(1), 52-76. https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v13i1.52
