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The Ritual Roots of Animism, Drama and Sports: The Work of Jane Harrison and the Cambridge Ritualists

My friends claim that I am irreverent to the Olympian gods. My interests I am told are unduly focused on ghosts, bogies and pillar cults. I prefer savage disorders, Dionysian origins, the tearing of wild bulls to the ordered and stately ceremonial of Panathenaic processions….The gods who once mirrored human unity with nature came to […]
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Aryan Idols and the Search for Indo-Europeans

Orientation Purpose of this article Almost 2 years ago I wrote an article called Aryan Right-Wing Mythology for the New Age based on the work of Robert Ellwood (The Politics of Myth). In it Ellwood showed the conservative nature of popular mythologists Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell. My purpose was to show how […]
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The Monotheistic Roots of Nationalism Part I

Do religion and nationalism compete with each other? Do they replace each other? Do they amplify each other and drive each other forward? Do they exist in symbiosis? Theorists of nationalism have struggled with this question. At one extreme of the spectrum is the early work of Elie Kedourie (1960), who argued that nationalism is a modern, […]
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Sacred Tree or Paradise Tree? The Christmas Tree and Nature

A red bauble on a Christmas tree (a symbol of apples?) The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews used evergreen wreaths, garlands, and trees to symbolise their respect for nature and their belief in eternal life. The pagan Europeans worshipped trees and had the custom of decorating their houses and barns with evergreens, or erecting a […]
