Sarah M. Pike | |
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Occupation(s) | professor, Author, and Scholar |
Academic background | |
Education | PhD, (with distinction) Religious Studies, Indiana University (PhD minor, Women's Studies), 1998 MA, Religious Studies, Indiana University, 1989 BA, cum laude, Religion, Duke University, 1983 |
Alma mater | Indiana University, Duke University |
Doctoral advisor | Robert Orsi |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Comparative Religion |
Institutions | California State University,Chico |
Sarah M. Pike is an American author and professor of comparative religion in the Department of Religious studies at California State University,Chico. [1] [2] Her interests include paganism,environmentalism,religion and ecology,and ritual studies. [1] Her research on neopaganism and radical environmentalism has been lauded as being significant to the study of festival and group behaviour. [2] [3] She is the president of the International Society for the Study of Religion,Nature,and Culture,co-chair of the American Academy of Religion,Ritual Studies Group,and director of the California State University,Chico Humanities Center. [4] [5]
Pike completed her BA, cum laude, in Religion at Duke University in 1983. She earned her MA and PhD (with distinction) in Religious studies from Indiana University in 1989 and 1998 respectively. [6] Her doctoral advisor was Robert Orsi. [7] During her time at Indiana University,Pike extensively observed and involved herself within local (Midwestern) neopagan communities and gatherings as part of her field research. [8]
Pike's most recent book titled For the Wild:Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism [9] covers issues regarding the demonization of radical environmentalists and how religious studies translate into nature and ecology. [2] She explores the motivations for those who partake in risky and illegal behaviour to protest against the destruction of natural habitats and forestry. [2] Her first book,Earthly Bodies,Magical Selves, primarily focuses on neopagan festival behaviours including witchcraft,magic,Spiritualist gatherings,as well as individual and group identity. [3] [10] In her book,New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, Pike sees members of neopagan religions as placing high emphasis on ritual practice as a way of shaping individual and group identities,having significant connections with nature,and understanding God as a living entity. [11]
Pike has written several articles and book chapters on topics such as Burning Man, neopaganism, rituals, environmentalism, youth spirituality, New religious movement and animal rights activism. [6] [5] Her work also includes Wiccan ritual practices pertaining to sexuality, polyamory, and marriage. [12]
Year | Journal/Book | Article/Chapter |
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2018 | Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Nature, edited by Laura Hobgood and Whitney Bauman. London: Bloomsbury. [13] | "Feral Becoming and Environmentalism's Primal Future” |
2016 | Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture | "Mourning Nature: The Work of Grief in Radical Environmentalism” [14] |
2016 | Spiritualizing the City: Agency and Resilience of the Urbanesque Habitat, edited by Victoria Hegner and Peter Jan Margry (New York: Routledge) [15] | "The Dance Floor as Urban Altar: How Ecstatic Dancers Transform the Lived Experience of Cities” |
2014 | Social Science Research Council Forum, “Reverberations: New Directions in the Study of Prayer." [16] | "Sweating Our Prayers in Dance Church" |
2014 | Religion and the Marketplace in the U.S., edited by Detlef Junker, Jan Stievermann, and Philip Goff. London and New York: Oxford University Press [5] | "Selling Infinite Selves: Youth Culture and Contemporary Festivals” |
2013 | Social Science Research Council Forum, “Reverberations: New Directions in the Study of Prayer.” [16] | "Prayer and Presence in Unexpected Places” |
2012 | The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the American News Media, edited by Diane Winston. London and New York: Oxford University Press [17] | "Witchcraft Since the 1960s” |
2011 | Children and Religion: A Methods Handbook, edited by Susan B. Ridgely. New York: New York University Press [18] | "Religion and Youth Culture” |
2010 | God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture, edited by Katherine McCarthy and Eric Mazur. New York: Routledge, Inc. [19] | "Desert Goddesses and Apocalyptic Art: Making Sacred Space at the Burning Man Festival" |
2010 | Weinhold, J. & Samuel G. (eds.) "The Varieties of Ritual Experience," in Ritual Dynamics and the Science of Ritual. Volume II – Body, Performance, Agency and Experience, ed. by Axel Michaels et al. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz [20] | "Performing Grief in Formal and Informal Rituals at the Burning Man Festival” |
2009 | Journal of the American Academy of Religion , 77: 647–672. | "Dark Teens and Born-Again Martyrs: Captivity Narratives After Columbine” [21] |
2008 | Key Words in the Study of Media and Religion, edited by David Morgan. New York: Routledge [4] | "Religion” |
2006 | Teaching New Religious Movements, edited by David G. Bromley. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press [6] | "Men and Women in New Religious Movements: Constructing Alternative Gender Roles” |
2004 | Researching Paganisms, edited by Jenny Blain, Doug Ezzy and Graham Harvey. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press [22] | "Gleanings from the Field: Leftover Tales of Grief and Desire” |
Year | Award/Grant |
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2015 | Visiting Scholar, University of Oslo [9] |
2013 to 2017 | Norwegian Research Council multiyear grant for international collaborative project [9] |
1999 | American Academy of Religion Individual Research Grant to aid in publication of Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves. [7] |
Dianic Wicca, also known as Dianic Witchcraft, is a modern pagan goddess tradition focused on female experience and empowerment. Leadership is by women, who may be ordained as priestesses, or in less formal groups that function as collectives. While some adherents identify as Wiccan, it differs from most traditions of Wicca in that only goddesses are honored.
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a type of 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 as a result, they do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts. Scholars of religion often 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.
Wicca, also known as "The Craft", is a modern pagan, syncretic, earth-centered religion. Considered a new religious movement by scholars of religion, the path evolved from Western esotericism, developed in England during the first half of the 20th century, and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for theological and ritual purposes. Doreen Valiente joined Gardner in the 1950s, further building Wicca's liturgical tradition of beliefs, principles, and practices, disseminated through published books as well as secret written and oral teachings passed along to initiates.
Starhawk is an American feminist and author. She is known as a theorist of feminist neopaganism and ecofeminism. In 2013, she was listed in Watkins' Mind Body Spirit magazine as one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People.
The Goddess movement is a revivalistic Neopagan religious movement which includes spiritual beliefs and practices that emerged predominantly in the Western world during the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction both against Abrahamic religions, which exclusively have gods with whom are referred by masculine grammatical articles and pronouns, and secularism. It revolves around Goddess worship and the veneration for the divine feminine, and may include a focus on women or on one or more understandings of gender or femininity.
Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today is a sociological study of contemporary Paganism in the United States written by the American Wiccan and journalist Margot Adler. First published in 1979 by Viking Press, it was later republished in a revised and expanded edition by Beacon Press in 1986, with third and fourth revised editions being brought out by Penguin Books in 1996 and then 2006 respectively.
Nature worship also called naturism or physiolatry is any of a variety of religious, spiritual and devotional practices that focus on the worship of the nature spirits considered to be behind the natural phenomena visible throughout nature. A nature deity can be in charge of nature, a place, a biotope, the biosphere, the cosmos, or the universe. Nature worship is often considered the primitive source of modern religious beliefs and can be found in pantheism, panentheism, deism, polytheism, animism, Taoism, totemism, Hinduism, shamanism, some theism and paganism including Wicca. Common to most forms of nature worship is a spiritual focus on the individual's connection and influence on some aspects of the natural world and reverence towards it. Due to their admiration of nature, the works of Edmund Spenser, Anthony Ashley-Cooper and Carl Linnaeus were viewed as nature worship.
The Starwood Festival is a seven-day New Age neopagan and world music festival. It takes place every July in the United States. The Starwood Festival is a camping event which holds workshops on a variety of subjects. There are also live musical performances, rituals, bonfires, multimedia presentations and social activities. It is a clothing optional event, and skyclad attendance is common.
Celtic neopaganism refers to any type of modern paganism or contemporary pagan movements based on the ancient Celtic religion. One approach is Celtic Reconstructionism (CR), which emphasizes historical accuracy in reviving Celtic traditions. CR practitioners rely on historical sources and archaeology for their rituals and beliefs, including offerings to spirits and deities. Language study and preservation are essential, and daily life often incorporates ritual elements. While distinct from eclectic pagan and neopagan witchcraft traditions, there is some overlap with Neo-druidism.
Louis Martinié is an author, "internationally known" percussionist, practitioner of a multitude of religions among them being New Orleans style Voodoo, and co-author of the book New Orleans VooDoo Tarot (1992), with Sallie Ann Glassman.
Wiccan views of divinity are generally theistic, and revolve around a Goddess and a Horned God, thereby being generally dualistic. In traditional Wicca, as expressed in the writings of Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente, the emphasis is on the theme of divine gender polarity, and the God and Goddess are regarded as equal and opposite divine cosmic forces. In some newer forms of Wicca, such as feminist or Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is given primacy or even exclusivity. In some forms of traditional witchcraft that share a similar duotheistic theology, the Horned God is given precedence over the Goddess.
Modern paganism in the United States is represented by widely different movements and organizations. The largest modern pagan religious movement is Wicca, followed by Neodruidism. Both of these religions or spiritual paths were introduced during the 1950s and 1960s from Great Britain. Germanic Neopaganism and Kemetism appeared in the US in the early 1970s. Hellenic Neopaganism appeared in the 1990s.
Neopagan witchcraft, sometimes referred to as The Craft, is an umbrella term for some neo-pagan traditions that include the practice of magic. These traditions began in the mid-20th century, and many were influenced by the witch-cult hypothesis; a now-rejected theory that persecuted witches in Europe had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion. The largest and most influential of these movements was Wicca. Some other groups and movements describe themselves as "Traditional Witchcraft" to distinguish themselves from Wicca.
A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States is a sociological study of the Wiccan and wider Pagan community in the Northeastern United States. It was written by American sociologist Helen A. Berger of the West Chester University of Pennsylvania and first published in 1999 by the University of South Carolina Press. It was released as a part of a series of academic books entitled Studies in Comparative Religion, edited by Frederick M. Denny, a religious studies scholar at the University of Chicago.
Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America is a folkloric and anthropological study of the Wiccan and wider Pagan community in the United States. It was written by the American anthropologist and folklorist Sabina Magliocco of California State University, Northridge and first published in 2004 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. It was released as a part of a series of academic books titled 'Contemporary Ethnography', edited by the anthropologists Kirin Narayan of the University of Wisconsin and Paul Stoller of West Chester University.
Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco is an anthropological study of the Reclaiming Wiccan community of San Francisco. It was written by the Scandinavian theologian Jone Salomonsen of the California State University, Northridge and first published in 2002 by the Routledge.
Living Witchcraft: A Contemporary American Coven is a sociological study of an American coven of Wiccans who operated in Atlanta, Georgia during the early 1990s. It was co-written by the sociologist Allen Scarboro, psychologist Nancy Campbell and literary critic Shirley Stave and first published by Praeger in 1994. Although largely sociological, the study was interdisciplinary, and included both insider and outsider perspectives into the coven; Stave was an initiate and a practicing Wiccan while Scarboro and Campbell remained non-initiates throughout the course of their research.
Magic, Witchcraft and the Otherworld: An Anthropology is an anthropological study of contemporary Pagan and ceremonial magic groups that practiced magic in London, England, during the 1990s. It was written by English anthropologist Susan Greenwood based upon her doctoral research undertaken at Goldsmiths' College, a part of the University of London, and first published in 2000 by Berg Publishers.
Modern paganviews on LGBT people vary considerably among different paths, sects, and belief systems. There are some popular neopagan traditions which have beliefs often in conflict with the LGBT community, and there are also traditions accepting of, created by, or led by LGBT individuals. The majority of conflicts concern heteronormativity and cisnormativity.
Modern paganism and New Age are eclectic new religious movements with similar decentralised structures but differences in their views of history, nature, and goals of the practitioner. Modern pagan movements, which often have roots in 18th- and 19th-century cultural movements, seek to revive or be influenced by historical pagan beliefs. New Age teachings emerged in the second half of the 20th century and are characterised by millenarian ideas about spiritual advancement. Since the counterculture of the 1960s, there has been interaction, mutual influence, and often confusion in the popular mind between the movements.
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