Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community

Review by S. parker for Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community
Rating:
A very look at how the modern Pagan festival movement is creating personal identity in the Neopagan movement. The author did her research at fests in the Midwest, mainly Pagan Spirit Gathering and Starwood, and obviously enjoyed herself. She speaks glowingly of the power fo key moments at the fests, and examines how Pagans are contructing ‘magical identities’ in the midst of the modern world. Interesting sociological study.

Review by Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran for Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community
Rating:
I am forced to wonder whether or not the Pagan people Pike interviewed were aware of the marginalizing tone of her work before she interviewed them. For example, in the chapter entitled “Blood That Matters: Neopagan (sic) Borrowing,” she accuses Neo-Pagan people of abdicating their responsibility to the cultures whose traditions they borrow in a section of the chapter entitled “Cultural Strip-Mining.” In addition, she does this after mentioning several Neo-Pagan people by name, which unfortunately links these people directly to her accusations. No reasonable human being would volunteer to be insulted in this way, so it must be concluded that Pike deliberately misrepresented her intentions to the Pagan community in order to gain their trust.In the same chapter she says, “Neopagan (sic) ways of knowing are not what academic scholars of ancient or non-Western cultures would call “scholarship,” though Neopagans (sic) themselves use this term.” Again, she makes this accusation after making reference to specific Pagans by name.Finally, there are pictures of Pagan people in various states of undress and pictures of Pagan shrines in this text. Strict rules govern the use of cameras at Pagan festivals; those who wish to take pictures must provide reasonable assurances that the subject of the photo will be respected according to whatever conditions the subject lays down. Clearly Pike has violated the spirit and/or the language of whatever provisions her subjects gave her by marginalizing their faith in her work.As both a Neo-Pagan and a traditional scholar (B.A. in Celtic Studies/Anthropology at University of Toronto, M.A. in English Literature at University of Maine), I am mortified both as a scholar and a person of faith at the betrayal of trust Pike has visited upon my community. It is as if she walked into our community with promises of guns and whiskey or tetanus vaccinations, and took from us our dignity in the grand old anthropological style.