Approaching the Sacred Grove : the Orphic Impulse in Pagan Religious Music

Download or read book Approaching the Sacred Grove : the Orphic Impulse in Pagan Religious Music written by Christopher W. Chase and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Contemporary religious Paganism (also called Neo-Paganism) is an emerging area of study for scholars of religion in the United States and elsewhere. This dissertation analyzes Pagan religious music in the context of a more general recurrent religious impulse encoded in literature, music and ideology. Among studies of contemporary American Paganism, few have examined the internal logics of musics created and distributed within the Pagan community. This dissertation discusses Pagan music in terms of its relationship with folk ideology, theology, ecclesiology, humor, youth, and Christianity. This dissertation utilizes discourse and image analysis of pre-recorded music, reviews, journals, sheet music and handouts from Wlccan, Druidry, Asatru, Church of All Worlds, and Thelemic sources. This work finds the dominant themes of Pagan music centering around rituals of sacred time, erotic and filial love, humor and theological kinship with sacred beings both within and beyond the world. Minor thematics of cultural politics, civil integration and resistance to modernity are also discussed. The dissertation concludes that the religious music of American Pagans is profoundly influenced by discourses of resistance, individualism, Congregationalism, and ecstatic tellurism"--Abstract.