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"Have we met the Other? Is it Us?" : Pagan Identities Through Board Games, Music, Rhizomes and Conversion

Submitted to Program Units
1: Contemporary Pagan Studies Unit

Christopher Chase, Iowa State University, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

There is deep interest in the scholarly community of Pagan Studies in the processes of otherization and conscious estrangement. ‘Pagan’ as a discursive polysemy inflects along multiple metaphoric and metonymic trajectories both before and alongside the development of Contemporary Paganism as a religious category. Its role as anti-Christian slur finds developments in historic board games that reflect and reproduce popular prejudices, yet its role as transgressive Other carries currency for religious seekers. Roots in Romanticism and the Natural Sublime invite descriptions as “nature religion,” yet increasing numbers of witches identify as secular, rejecting religious identity altogether. This session looks to material and sonic culture, ideological competition and rhizomatic spread as substrates for elaboration, recursion and rejection.

Papers

  • Grace Harrington, Boston University School of Theology

    (Working Title): Playing the Pagan: How a proselytizing board game led to violence

    Abstract

    It was 1844 in Salem, Massachusetts when the W. and S.B. Ives Company published a provocative new board game: “The Game of Pope and Pagan, or Siege of the stronghold of Satan, by the Christian army.” Likely inspired from The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, this two player, missionary-based game pits the “papal and pagan Antichrist” against the Christian (meaning Protestant Christian) army. According to the board, the white pieces representing Christian missionaries symbolize “innocence, temperance, and hope.” The pope and pagan are in black, denoting “their grief at the daily loss of empire.” Perhaps the makers thought it would just be fun and games, but The Pope and Pagan only fanned the Nativist flames of anti-Catholic and anti-pagan hatred and violence in America.

  • Humberto Perez, Florida State University

    Power and Attachment: A Look at Conversion to the Wiccan Faith

    Abstract

    Wicca has been one of the fastest growing religions in the United States in recent times. Although the rate of individuals being born into the religion is increasing, the vast majority of adherents to the Wiccan faith are converts from other religions. What do these individuals find so appealing about Wicca that they shed their old religious beliefs and convert? The works of Pierre Bourdieu and attachment theory provide a sound basis for answering that question. This paper will look at the reasons given by converts to the Wiccan faith for their decision to convert to the faith, and they will be analyzed using Bourdieu's theory of power dynamics along with attachment theory to identify the psychological factors and motivations behind individuals converting to the Wiccan religion.

  • Sam Cole-Osborn, Boston University

    The Old Ones Are With Us: Exploring Romantic Pagan Theologies in Contemporary American Black Metal

    Abstract

    Black metal – an inaccessible underground subgenre of heavy metal music – has a controversial relationship to mainline religion and theology. This paper interrogates the theological meanings in the lyrics, compositions, and aesthetics of a variety of contemporary American black metal bands to show that the musical scene is actively engaged in the work of constructive theology. These theologies employ a variety of wisdom traditions including Romantic philosophy, pre-Christian polytheism, occultism, Gnostic theology, pantheism, and surrealism. I argue that the contemporary black metal scene in America is currently describing a complex, participatory, pagan theology, inspired by pre-Christian religion as well as the Romantic movement in Europe and America. Finally, I will suggest, through specifics examples in the music, that this Romantic paganism proposes important ecological and ethical perspectives that are relevant in our era of extractivist ecocide.  

  • Mary Hamner, University of North Carolina At Chapel Hill

    Tired of Trees: Discarding Nature Religion for a Rhizomatic Model of Contemporary Witchcraft

    Abstract

    Witches on social media are not only redefining the boundaries of their traditions, they are eschewing the category of religion entirely, adopting the language of secularism to describe their magical identities. Secular witches compose a rapidly growing presence on sites like TikTok, Tumblr, and Instagram, and their perspectives are making their way into traditional publishing, sometimes to the bewilderment of both other witches and scholars alike. When witches of previous decades have fought so publicly to be members of a “religion,” how do practitioners who actively defy this categorization fit into these movements? With an understanding of religion as an inherently political category, this paper affirms the efforts of secular witches to recast their craft by using Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome to think about not just how we define religious groups, but how we consider groups that insist that what they are doing is firmly not religion.

Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone
Accessibility Requirements

Resources

Wheelchair accessible

Comments

No special requests or necessary accommodations. No AV requirements.

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

2 Hours

Schedule Preference

Sunday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Schedule Info

Sunday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Tags

#psychology and spirituality
#contemporary Paganism #Wicca
#Conversion
#Paganism
#heavy metal
#romanticism
#theology
TikTok
social media
secularism
Secular Witchcraft
witchcraft
Wicca
Deleuze
Deleuze and Guattari

Session Identifier

A24-208