[The Pomegranate 16.

1 (2014) 5-23] ISSN 1528-0268 (print)

doi: 10.1558/pome.v16i1.18314 ISSN 1743-1735 (online)

Opinion

Deepening Conversations between Ritual Studies

and Pagan Studies

Michelle Mueller1
Graduate Theological Union
2400 Ridge Road, Berkeley
CA 94709, United States
mmueller@ses.gtu.edu

Abstract
Imagine a room with a desk and bookshelves. On the shelves are books by
Mircea Eliade, Starhawk, Catherine Bell, Victor Turner, Robert Graves,
Margot Adler, and maybe a few Tarot and oracle decks. The desk sup-
ports a messy stack of papers, a drained eco-friendly reusable Starbucks
mug, and a printed manuscript with notes. This is a typical home office
of a contemporary Pagan practitioner, whose career may vary from edu-
cation, software engineering, to a government agency or social services,
and so on. The short of the matter is that many scholarly books on ritual
theory are integrated into the library collections and knowledge set of
Pagan practitioners (part of the canon if you will). Important works in
ritual studies are warmly incorporated into a modern religious com-
munity’s sense of identity and their understanding of the history and
practice of religion. In this article, author lifts up the natural, existing
connections between Pagan studies and ritual studies and argues that
Pagan studies scholars can and ought to deepen the conversations by
drawing on other methodologies from ritual studies and sharing their
discoveries with the field of ritual theory. Author accomplishes this with
a broad overview of Pagan studies and ritual theory, with especial refer-
ence to rites of passage, and a sample analysis using liturgical theology
of a coming of age ritual for an adolescent male from Circle Round: Rais-
ing Children in Goddess Traditions.

Keywords: Pagan studies; rites of passage; ritual studies; ritual theory.

1. Michelle Mueller is a doctoral student in Cultural and Historical Studies of

Religions at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif. Mueller teaches as
adjunct faculty for Cherry Hill Seminary and other institutions.

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6 The Pomegranate 16.1 (2014)

Ritual studies and Pagan studies scholarship impact one another in

multi-directional ways. Ritual theory provides a framework to help
Pagans understand their traditions.2 Pagans also create rituals as
they learn more about historic or traditional rituals. In this paper, I
suggest that Pagans (practitioners and scholars) have a special rela-
tionship with ritual studies or ritual theory, that the relationship is
and has been invoked, and that there is reason (precisely because of
the particular relationship) to deepen this conversation, that is, to
use more practices from ritual studies within the interdisciplinary
field of Pagan studies; finally, I propose further ideas about how
ritual studies can continue to benefit Pagan studies with a sample
analysis of a coming of age ritual for young men.
This research consists of an exploration of specific ritual theories,
primarily those of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, and their
use in Pagan studies scholarship, with recommendations for further
intermixing of ritual studies and Pagan studies. I will emphasize the
category (highlighted by ritual theorists) of rites of passage (partic-
ularly puberty rites) and the ways that the category of rites of pas-
sage has continued in contemporary Pagan practice, literature, and
scholarship.
There are at least three communities involved in the conversa-
tions I describe: Ritual studies theorists and scholars, Pagan studies
scholars, and Pagan practitioners. These communities are intrinsi-
cally linked and overlapping: theories and scholars in ritual stud-
ies influence the practice of contemporary Paganism; Pagan studies
scholars are often Pagan practitioners themselves.3 Despite that the
three are unavoidably interconnected, the dialogue that I am most
interested in for this paper is that between ritual studies scholars
and Pagan studies scholars, and the role and impact the conversa-
tion can have for Pagan studies. Pagan studies is a new field and one
to which I am intellectually committed. I am suggesting the deepen-
ing of the conversations between ritual studies and Pagan studies
primarily to benefit the discipline of Pagan studies.

2. The concept of this paper was conceived through dialogue with Ste Kinney
in a Graduate Theological Union doctoral seminar on interdisciplinary perspectives
taught by Dr Judith Berling, and written during a Ritual Studies doctoral seminar
with Professor Andrea Bieler, formerly of Pacific School of Religion. I presented a
version of this paper in Contemporary Pagan Studies Group’s Contemporary Pagan
Theology and Praxology panel at the annual meeting for the American Academy of
Religion, Chicago, November 17-20, 2012.
3. Pagan practitioners are often well educated and conducting independent
research even if their professional career is in another area.

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 Mueller   Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies 7

Relationship Between Scholarship and Paganism

Awareness of the reception of scholarship in the modern Pagan
movement is on the rise. For example, when Marija Gimbutas,
feminist acheomythologist, learned of the reception of her work
in women’s spirituality circles, Gimbutas became intrigued and
made appearances at women’s spirituality gatherings as a speak-
er.4 Anthropologist Margaret Murray discovered that people were
reading her book, The Witch Cult in Western Europe, and using it in
a contemporary Pagan movement. This led to Murray later writing
the preface to Gerald Gardner’s Witchcraft Today, in which Murray
respectfully recognized the Witchcraft tradition practiced by Gard-
ner and others.5 More recently, Sarah Iles Johnston, a classicist who
focuses on Greek religion and magic,6 learned of interest in her work
from the modern Pagan community and, in response, gave a pre-
sentation on rituals for Demeter at PantheaCon 2012.7 After a fully
engaged session, Iles Johnston invited people to continue meeting
with her at another location after her program and share with her
their practices of reconstructing ancient ritual and religion.
There are obvious reasons why Pagans are drawn to ritual stud-
ies writing and scholarship. For one, they feel represented and
included. Even Mircea Eliade, one of the early traditional writers
on rites of passage, included Greco-Roman and Egyptian Pagan-
ism, contemporary indigenous practices, and the Christian eucha-
rist, among his examples of religious rituals. The style of comparing
Christian rituals and Pagan rituals without preference is characteris-
tic of ritual studies scholarship, such as in Victor Turner and Ronald
Grimes, and appeals to Pagans. Ritual theorists analyze ritual, a core

4. Joan Marler, “The Life and Work of Marija Gimbutas” (lecture for Sonoma
County Pagan Network Monthly Gathering, Santa Rosa, California, January 20,
2012) and Cynthia Eller, Living in the Lap of the Goddess: The Feminist Spirituality Move-
ment in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995).
5. Margaret Murray, introduction to Witchcraft Today, by Gerald Gardner
(1954; repr., Thame, England: I-H-O Books, 1999), 15.
6. Iles Johnston’s books have included Sarah Iles Johnston, Ancient Greek Divi-
nation (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), Sarah Iles Johnston, ed., Ancient Reli-
gions (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 2007), and Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead:
Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2013).
7. PantheaCon is an annual Pagan conference in San Jose, California. At the
time of our last speaking, Johnston hoped to return for PantheaCon 2013, but to my
knowledge has not made the trek back from Ohio (Personal conversation with Sarah
Iles Johnston, PantheaCon 2012).

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8 The Pomegranate 16.1 (2014)

component of Pagans’ religious identity, and evaluate early Pagan

practices as valuable expressions of humans relating with the Divine
and immanent divinity in the natural world. This approach speaks
to contemporary Pagan sentimentality.

Rites of Passage in Ritual Theory

Theorizing “rites of passage” has been a critical component of the
discipline (or subdiscipline) of ritual studies. Rites of passage may
include: birth, puberty, marriage or handfasting, divorce or hand-
parting, and death.8 These “rites of passage” are reinforced by aca-
demic ritual theorists and by Pagan practitioners and liturgists. My
point is that these different groups (academic ritual theorists, con-
temporary Pagan practitioners, and Pagan studies scholars) use the
same categories of rites of passage (although inevitably they may
perceive their significance differently or have different relationships
with them). I interpret that the three groups roughly talk about
the same thing. Pagan practice is influenced by the scholarship9—
contemporary Pagans, by virtue of reconstructing ancient religions,
are serious readers and integrate scholarly research into their cre-
ation of ritual.
Ritual theorist Ronald Grimes believes that initiation plays “a
privileged role in ritual theory…”10 Within ritual studies, Arnold
van Gennep began considering rites of passage, and theorized about
a tripartite structure, involving liminality, in all rites of passage. Van
Gennep’s attention was turned towards rites of passage as critical
experiences in human existence. He named “birth, childhood, social
puberty, betrothal, marriage, pregnancy, fatherhood, initiation into
religious societies, and funerals” as having recurring similar cere-
monies across cultures.11 Victor Turner furthered van Gennep’s
interest in rites of passage, upholding the tripartite structure of lim-
inality. Ritual theorists ever since have continued to analyze rites of
passage critically.

8. See Ronald L. Grimes, Deeply Into the Bone: Re-Inventing Rites of Passage
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
9. I discussed the influence of scholars on practice of contemporary Paganism
in Michelle Mueller, “Kore in Conflict: Feminist Neo-Pagans Look the Other Way as
the God Rapes the Goddess” (B.A. Thesis, Haverford College, 2005).
10. Grimes, Deeply Into the Bone, 113.
11. Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1960), 3.

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 Mueller   Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies 9

History of Pagan Studies Discipline

Contemporary Pagan studies, emerged as an academic discipline, I
would say, in the 1990s. Early contributions were Wendy Griffin’s12
and Helen A. Berger’s papers for annual meetings of the Association
of the Sociology of Religion13 and Chas S. Clifton’s Witchcraft Today:
the Modern Craft Movement with Llewellyn Publications,14 followed
by Ronald Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon in 1999 and Berger,
Leach, and Shaffer’s quantitative research on contemporary Pagans.15
The seeds of Pagan studies blossomed in the 2000s, as our scholars
began to produce volumes introducing the discipline of Pagan stud-
ies. AltaMira Press announced a forthcoming Pagan Studies book
series in the mid-2000s. First coordinated by Wendy Griffin and
Chas Clifton, currently published through Equinox (edited by Clif-
ton and Nikki Bado), the series has included Researching Paganisms
(Blain, 2004) and An Introduction to Pagan Studies (Davy, 2007).16 The
Pomegranate Journal, established in 1996 under Fritz Muntean and
revamped in 2003 with Equinox Publishing under Chas Clifton, has
been a significant measure for the growth of academic Pagan stud-
ies.17 Cherry Hill Seminary is another major development in Pagan

12. W. Griffin and Tanice G. Foltz published a paper first presented for the
Association for the Sociology of Religion as Wendy Griffin Lozano and Tanice G.
Foltz, “Into the Darkness: An Ethnographic Study of Witchcraft and Death,” Qualita-
tive Sociology 13.3 (1990): 211–34.
13. For an exploration of Pagan studies in Association for the Sociology of Reli-
gion prior to American Academy of Religion, see Michelle Mueller, “This Week in
San Francisco: Pagan Studies at Sociology of Religion and Other Conferences,”
August 11, 2014, https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8737E6dExXWUFBMYjdZTkFT​
MlU/edit
14. Chas S. Clifton, Witchcraft Today, Book One: The Modern Craft Movement (St.
Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1992).
15. Helen A. Berger, Evan A. Leach and Leigh S. Shaffer. Voices from the Pagan
Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States (Columbia:
University of South Carolina, 2003) and Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon
(New York: Oxford, 1999).
16. A full list of the series publications (to date) follows: Jenny Blain, Douglas
Ezzy and Graham Harvey, Researching Paganisms (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira
Press, 2004); Chas S. Clifton, Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in
America (Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2006); Barbara Jane Davy, Introduction to
Pagan Studies (Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2006); Constance Wise, Hidden Cir-
cles in the Web: Feminist Wicca, Occult Knowledge, and Process Thought (Lanham, MD:
AltaMira Press, 2008); and Kristy S. Coleman, Re-Riting Woman: Dianic Wicca and the
Feminine Divine (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2009).
17. This is not to discount related works prior to 1990, including feminist theal-

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10 The Pomegranate 16.1 (2014)

studies. The first Pagan seminary in the modern world, Cherry Hill
Seminary offers training for religious leadership and Pagan minis-
try that supplements what individuals may learn in a coven or tra-
dition. Cherry Hill Seminary offers masters degrees and certificates
for community leaders, and is currently working towards accredita-
tion. Wendy Griffin, Ph.D. joined Cherry Hill Seminary as Academic
Dean in 2011.
Pagan studies and ritual studies have been connected since the
beginning of Pagan studies, with Pagan studies scholarship fre-
quently citing ritual theorists.18 Contemporary Pagan studies has
been developing around and within the American Academy of Reli-
gion since the mid-nineties. Contemporary Pagan Studies has pro-
gressed through the stages at a remarkable pace, achieving Group
status in 2007, three years ahead of schedule, according to AAR
tradition.19

Paganism and Ritual

I have found that contemporary Pagan practice shares much of the rhet-
oric of ritual studies, frequently referencing identical terms from aca-
demic theory: “ritual” and “rites of passage.” Use of the term “ritual”

ogy. Rather, I am summarizing a trend in the coalescing of academic Pagan studies.

Emerging Pagan studies scholars are indebted and often gratefully so to feminist
thealogians/theologians who published before them.
18. Pagan Studies scholars have already been drawing on Ritual Studies and
ritual theories from anthropology and classical studies scholarship. The works of
Mircea Eliade, Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner around rites of passage and
theories of initiation have all been important for Pagan Studies scholars and in Neo-
Pagan literature. These theorists have contributed to actual religious practitioners’
(contemporary Pagans’) conceptions about the meaning of their religious experi-
ences and are influential on contemporary Paganism. Pagan Studies scholars since
the nineties have been relying heavily on ideas from Arnold van Gennep (1960);
Victor Turner, The Ritual Process; Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1969);
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, N.Y.: Perseus Book Group,
1973) and Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation (New York: Harper & Row,
1974).
19. Pagan practitioners have become involved in programming at American
Academy of Religion meetings. At 2011 AAR in San Francisco, the Covenant of the
Goddess hosted a reception for Pagan studies scholars to meet local leaders. Local
Pagan leaders including M. Macha NightMare led a Samhain Spiral Dance ritual at
the 2010 AAR meeting. This ritual demonstrates the relationship between practitio-
ners and the Pagan scholarship community. It shows the importance of the experi-
ence of ritual for Pagan studies scholars. The ritual was open to all, and conveyed the
experience and aesthetics of Paganism to scholars in all areas of religious studies.

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 Mueller   Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies 11

has been present from the beginning of the modern Pagan movement.
Gerald Gardner, the man who made Wicca a publicly known religion,
with his interviews and published books in the United Kingdom in
the 1950s, referred to Wiccan practices as “witch rituals” and included
a section so-named, within his chapter on “Witchcraft Practices” of
Witchcraft Today.20
In the 1970s, Ed Fitch and others formed The Pagan Way, an Amer-
ican tradition relying on Gardnerian structure for its basic format
with non-oathbound words so as to introduce the public to tradi-
tional Witchcraft without betraying Gardnerian secrets (earned by
study and initiation). Herman Slater published The Pagan Way’s rit-
uals in A Book of Pagan Rituals I and II (one volume) and Pagan Ritu-
als III: Outer Court Training Coven between the years 1978 and 1989.21
Contemporary Pagans differ from other religious communities in
their vocabulary for religious practices. Specifically, Pagans choose
the word “ritual” for what they do, whereas most contemporary
Christian communities call what they do “worship” or a “service.”
An exception persists with popular references to Jewish ritual.22 In
religious studies, it is important that we learn and strive to use the
preferred vocabulary of each community.23 It is my opinion that
Pagans have an investment in ritual studies since they define their
religious practice as ritual. I do not intend that Pagans claim ritual
studies as theirs exclusively; rather, I envision Pagans sharing ritual
studies with Christians, Jews, Muslims, indigenous people, and
people of other faiths, including those nondenominational. I believe
that Pagans have a special investment in ritual studies and should
claim it in scholarship. Including ritual studies in Pagan studies can
honor practitioners’ religious identification with ritual.
The primacy of ritual has continued throughout the contempo-
rary Pagan movement. Starhawk, Pagan author, activist, and ritual
leader, writes about ritual as community bonding for small and
large groups, in her experience in the Reclaiming Tradition.24 In this

20. Gardner, Witchcraft Today.

21. Herman Slater, ed., A Book of Pagan Rituals (1974; repr.; York Beach, ME:
Samuel Weiser, 1978) and Ibid., Pagan Rituals III: Outer Court Training Coven (New
York: Magickal Childe Publishing, 1989).
22. The rare times when I hear Pagans use different terminology is when they
are leading ritual in an interfaith context and may choose a label to help others
understand what they are doing.
23. Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One (New York: Harper One, 2010).
24. Starhawk, Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics (Boston: Beacon Press,
1997), Chapter 9.

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12 The Pomegranate 16.1 (2014)

regard, Starhawk agrees with many academic ritual theorists about

the purpose of ritual.25 Rituals solidify group identity, even when
people maintain their own individuality within community.26 Ritu-
als foster cohesion as a group and enable participation in something
larger than the individual. Starhawk shows how even a group that
celebrates uniqueness and individuality can find meaning in com-
munity, a value that is perhaps expressed best by Reclaiming’s com-
mitment to decision making by consensus. Starhawk’s exegeses of
ritual match largely with Victor Turner’s definitions.

Van Gennep’s Tripartite Structure and Wiccan Initiation

Nikki Bado’s work on Wiccan ritual is extremely significant in this
discussion. In “Mapping the Wiccan Ritual Landscape: Circles of
Transformation” and Coming to the Edge of the Circle: A Wiccan Initia-
tion Ritual, Bado considers van Gennep’s theories on initiation, and
poses alternative viewpoints that are informed by her personal expe-
rience in Wiccan initiation and academic expertise. Bado reflects that
she has experienced initiation (as initiate and initiator) as more com-
plex than van Gennep’s straightforward three-stage process.27
Bado contributes to my argument for the deepening of conver-
sations between ritual studies and Pagan studies. Pagan studies
scholars have been considering ritual theories established in ritual
studies, but we can give back even more by reflecting on our expe-
riences, as scholar-practitioners or participant-observers, from con-
temporary Pagan ritual to confirm, challenge, or deepen the ideas
set forth in ritual theory.28 Bado provides an example of reflecting on
theories from ritual studies and offering a revised analysis, gleaned
from the experience of Pagan practice. I encourage similar work in
order to deepen the conversation.
Bado offers other grounds on which she differs from van Gen-
nep: “Upon deeper reflection, I realized that initiation as an expe-
riential process is more extensive than any single event, no matter
how nuanced or multifaceted, could adequately encompass, and
therefore requires more than a simple structural analysis of a linear

25. See Grimes, Deeply Into the Bone, van Gennep, The Rites of Passage and Turner,
The Ritual Process.
26. Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage and Turner, The Ritual Process.
27. Nikki Bado-Fralick, Coming to the Edge of the Circle: A Wiccan Initiation Ritual
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 63.
28. Bado provides an example of reflecting on theories from Ritual Studies and
offering a revised analysis, gleaned from the experience of Pagan practice.

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 Mueller   Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies 13

transformation.”29 According to Bado, the example of Wiccan ini-

tiation uncovers the downfalls of a simplistic model of rites of pas-
sage or initiations. Bado rejects the notion of the edge of the magic
circle as a boundary, in van Gennep’s sense, for complex reasons.
Bado accounts for the many steps to becoming an insider: from
seeker to student to advanced student to initiate. The progression
towards initiate is not a cut-and-dry line. With respect, however, I
believe that many ritual theorists before now have considered the
complexities of rites of passage, that leading into a rite of passage
is a process of its own with a lifespan and consequently thereaf-
ter the initiate learns how to participate in the society with a post-
initiation role.30
Van Gennep’s third chapter, “Individuals and Groups,” focuses
on the society to which rites of passage relate. According to van
Gennep, a rite of passage reinforces the social norms of a particu-
lar society. Each individual experiencing the rite of passage is rein-
tegrated into the society with a new role. Van Gennep writes, “An
individual or group that does not have an immediate right, by
birth or through specially acquired attributes, to enter a particular
house and to become established in one of its sections is in a state of
isolation.”31 Van Gennep points to the serious importance of a rite of
passage for the continuation of a society. The rite of passage as an
upholder of a society or community has informed how scholars have
thought about Pagan religion from many disciplinary standpoints.32

Coven as Communitas
In The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Turner described
three different forms of “communitas,” the word he used for a soci-
ety within which a rite of passage occurs: (1) Existential or spontane-
ous, (2) normative, and (3) ideological.33 34 Continuing this dialogue

29. Bado-Fralick, 63.

30. See Turner, on liminal and liminoid, and Grimes (2000).
31. Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, 26.
32. Van Gennep’s ideas are in line with Frazer’s take on pagan religion (ritual of
the sacrificial king) from 1890 in James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in
Magic and Religion (1890; repr., New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1955).
33. Turner, The Ritual Process, 132.
34. For Pagans, the “society” is Pagan community more so than it is the general
population. Many Pagans are democratic and participate in their government, but
their primary culture is against the grain of normative society, hence the role of activ-
ism in contemporary Paganism. Turner perhaps introduced another opinion that

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14 The Pomegranate 16.1 (2014)

on Wiccan initiation and ritual theory, I will consider the possibility

of coven as communitas. A coven is a small group of Witches or Wic-
cans who likely meet for the eight Witches’ Sabbats, full moons, and/
or as needed by members. During the doctoral seminar in which I
wrote the first draft of this paper, a co-participant and I discussed, if
communitas, what type of communitas would a coven be? While the col-
league suggested that a coven, if communitas, would be normative
(a structure intentionally created and maintained), I made the case
that covens sometimes form spontaneously. A group of housemates
living together in a cooperative household, who may have been
brought together spontaneously, or at random (people responded
to posts on craigslist, or, a friend of a friend was recommended for
a room in a household). The household members may have come
together informally for Pagan rituals. Then, all of a sudden, while
living together, the housemates realize, We are a coven. A coven spon-
taneously forms of this group of housemates.35
A coven could also be normative, “where,” according to Turner,
“the need to mobilize and organize resources, and the necessity for
social control among the members of the group in pursuance of these
goals, the existential communitas is organised into a perduring social
system.”36 A priestess and priest in a Witchen37 tradition decide to
form a coven together. They post flyers in local Pagan stores, list on
WitchVox (a networking website for Pagans), and perhaps create a
Facebook page. They call the coven. Individuals petition to join; the
priest and/or priestess, and possibly new members, decide whom
to admit. There is a more normative structure to this paradigm than
spontaneous covens.38 There are certainly ideological elements to a

speaks to these distinctions. According to Ronald Grimes, “A new theoretical vision

of ritual began to emerge in the 1960s and 1970s in the prolific writings of Victor
Turner, who was largely responsible for a radical re-conception of ritual. He stood
conventional ritual theory on its head. For him, ritual was not the guardian of the
status quo or a means of gathering social consensus… Rather, ritual became deeply
subversive and creative” (Grimes [2000], 121). In Arnold van Gennep’s theory, a rite
of passage is one through which an individual passes to become a full member of
society. Social roles were very contained according to van Gennep. However, Turner,
and perhaps as a product of his time, publishing in the late sixties, suggested ways of
thinking of ritual as an opportunity to create or revision society.
35. Such cooperative households are described in Jone Salomonsen, Enchanted
Feminism (New York: Routledge, 2002).
36. Turner, The Ritual Process, 132.
37. A term that recognizes non-Wiccan Witchcraft.
38. Spontaneity is actually an important aspect to the Reclaiming tradition and
Reclaiming ritual. See Starhawk (1997).

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 Mueller   Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies 15

coven as well. A coven or other Pagan group often has an imagina-

tive ideal for itself. For example, Oberon Zell drew on ideals from
Robert Heinlein’s science fiction utopian novel, Stranger in A Strange
Land, when devising the structure (e.g. nests) for the Church of All
Worlds.39 Ideals from Stranger in a Strange Land, as interpreted by Zell
and others, inform the ideological communitas of the Church of All
Worlds.

Introducing Liturgical Studies

In this paper I have laid out some of the existing relationships be-
tween ritual studies and Pagan studies. There is also scholarship
under ritual studies, in the field of liturgical studies. It is my opin-
ion that practices of liturgical studies are underused in Pagan stud-
ies. Much of contemporary Pagan studies scholarship is anchored
in sociology and anthropology, and not in liturgical theology. I
suggest, continuing the interdisciplinary method that has defined
its development since the 1990s (at the latest), and including other
methods from liturgical studies. I suggest Pagan studies scholars—
as will come naturally to them as creative beings—incorporate tex-
tual analysis of liturgical studies with performance studies, similar
to the work Catherine Bell has done.
In “Ritual Studies and Liturgical Theology: An Invitation to Dia-
logue,” published in the first volume of the Journal of Ritual Studies,
Theodore W. Jennings, Jr. wrote, “parallel development in [religious
studies and systematic theology] has resulted in … ritual studies in
the former and liturgical theology in the latter.”40 Liturgical theol-
ogy is theology that accepts that liturgy is lived religion and that the-
ology is encoded in the liturgies and actions of religious traditions.
Liturgical theologians evaluate the symbolism of religious ritual and
are concerned with the theological meaning lived by individuals in
religious rites.
In order to argue my point that we as Pagan studies scholars can
take this dialogue even further, I will test out my proposed meth-
odology on a particular example from Circle Round: Raising Children
in Goddess Traditions by Starhawk, Diane Baker and Anne Hill.41 Ini-

39. Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961; repr., New York: Ace
Books, 2003).
40. Theodore W. Jennings, Jr, “Ritual Studies and Liturgical Theology: An Invi-
tation to Dialogue,” Journal of Ritual Studies 1.1 (1987): 35–55 (35).
41. Coming of age rituals for young women are often centered around menarche,

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16 The Pomegranate 16.1 (2014)

tially, I was interested in coming of age rituals and ritual initiations

into mystery traditions.42 Either of these would work well, but each
would offer enough material for one’s own paper.43
Puberty rites, where youth supposedly come of age as man or
woman, relate to my specialization in gender studies, hence my
choice. However, postmodern, transgender, and genderqueer Pagans
are challenging our categories of man and woman or boy and girl.
Many contemporary Pagan ritualists, among others, have considered
puberty changes as natural markers for coming of age.44 Assumptions
about body changes and coming of age can be troubling for transgen-
der youth whose body changes are associated with a gender that is not
their own.45 Furthermore, religious sacralizing of maleness or female-
ness can be traumatic if not done in a way that includes diversity.
These are a few of the very modern needs the contemporary Pagan
community faces. I look forward to considering puberty rites and its
implications for modern feminism and queer theory in future writing.

or “First Blood.” Coming of age rituals for young men may include an experience of
“The Hunt.” It is interesting that a community with such radical ideas about gender
would construct a Hunt ritual for developing young men, perhaps a carryover from
masculinist society. Yet, another possibility is that Pagan and feminist men wish to
reclaim masculinity in order to develop models of positive masculinity, and a hunt can
be part of survival and providing. The ritual I will analyze is “Coming-of-Age Blessing
for a Young Man” from Starhawk, Diane Baker and Anne Hill, Circle Round: Raising
Children in Goddess Traditions (New York: Bantam Books, 1998), 326-27.
42. Ronald Grimes writes at length about the lack of birth rituals in our (Ameri-
can) culture (though the impact of the feminist Pagan community on birth rituals is
lacking in Grimes’ report) in Grimes (2000).
43. Coming of age rites differ from mystery initiation rituals since initiations
into mystery traditions are voluntary. Nathan Mitchell supports this distinction,
having written that, “life-crisis rites attend to involuntary transitions (like the onset
of menstruation or the coming of death), while ascetic rites are chosen and volun-
tary” (Nathan D. Mitchell, “New Directions in Ritual Research,” in Liturgy and the
Social Sciences [Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999], 63-93, 79).
44. As an example, Starhawk, Baker and Hill have written, in their discussion
on coming of age and adolescence, “For girls this [physical maturity] is typically
marked by developing breasts and body hair, the onset of menses, and sexual attrac-
tions. Boys’ voices change, they develop body hair, and they experience nocturnal
emissions and sexual attractions. These dramatic changes transform children’s feel-
ings and needs as well as their bodies,” in Starhawk, Baker and Hill, Circle Round:
Raising Children in Goddess Traditions, 311–12.
45. I have begun to address these issues, having earned a second place award in
Graduate Student Paper competition, for Michelle Mueller, “Gender and the Gods:
Queer Challenges for Wicca and Feminist Neo-Paganism” (paper presented at the
annual meeting for the American Academy of Religion Western Region, Los Ange-
les, California, March 7-9, 2014).

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 Mueller   Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies 17

For now, I will focus on one coming of age ritual for a young man, as a
sample ritual to test my suggestions for deepening the conversations.46
Circle Round is one of the most comprehensive books on raising
children in Pagan traditions. In addition to activities for all the eight
Sabbats, the authors include two chapters on coming of age: on “ado-
lescence” and “rites of passage” respectively. The authors include a
few coming of age rituals in their chapter, “Coming of Age: Rites of
Passage,” affirming their understanding that one size, or one ritual
in this case, does not fit all, addressing my concerns about norma-
tive gendering rituals.47
In Circle Round, Pagan authors Starhawk, Diane Baker and
Anne Hill write, “To reach this point [adulthood], adolescents go
through a series of experiences designed to strengthen ties to them-
selves, their families, our society, our planet, and the Goddess.”48
This description of coming of age resonates with van Gennep and
Turner’s ideas on rites of passage: the initiand is a participant in
society, and the coming of age ritual strengthens one’s ties to the
community.

Sample Analysis: “Coming-of-Age Blessing for a Young Man”

The reader should understand that my example (or sample analysis)
is not the only way to read a ritual through the lens of ritual theory or
ritual studies. There are a multiplicity of ways to incorporate ritual
studies and ritual theory into academic Pagan scholarship, and it
is inventiveness that I am advocating for Pagan scholars. I under-
stand that many Pagan studies scholars have been drawing on the
field of ritual studies. I commend this work and suggest that we use
ritual studies to our benefit even more, and that we take pride in our
use of the discipline of ritual studies, as it reflects the importance

46. Other rites of passage are important in Pagan practice as well. Rituals
of birth are especially important for feminist Paganism, which often overlaps with
the holistic birth movement. Sarah Whedon, a Pagan scholar, manages PaganFa-
milies.com website and blog, has offered an “Introduction to Pagan Birth” course
at Cherry Hill Seminary and published Sarah Whedon, Birth on the Labyrinth Path:
Sacred Embodiment in the Childbearing Year (PLACE: Patheos Press, 2012).
47. The chapter includes: “My First-Blood Ritual,” “A First-Blood Blessing,”
“Emry’s Rite of Becoming a Man,” “Coming-of-Age Blessing for a Young Man,” and
“LaSara’s Coming of Age,” clearly a mix of blessings and rituals for young (pre-)ado-
lescents of Starhawk, Baker, and Hill.
48. Ibid., 312.

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18 The Pomegranate 16.1 (2014)

Pagans place on ritual.49 Among the many viable possibilities,50 I

have chosen to focus on one coming of age ritual for a young man
since girls’ coming of age rites in contemporary Paganism are dis-
cussed in many books on feminist spirituality; contemporary Pagan-
ism and men is an under-researched area.
The following table associates lines from the liturgy with Wiccan
principles, an example of a liturgical theological analysis. According
to my analysis, the liturgy of the “Coming-of-Age Blessing for a Young
Man” teaches young men to have a healthy sense of masculinity (“be
loved and be loving”), to treat their bodies as sacred temples, and that
they manifest the Divine and/or the Divine Principle of the God.

Verse from “Coming-of-Age Blessing for a Principle(s) the Verse Teaches

Young Man” in Circle Round
“Be free, be strong, be yourself, be lucky,
be proud to be a man, be loved and
loving.” (p. 326)
“May your body always be a blessing to
you, a temple of love and pleasure” (p. 326).
“Honor the tides and rhythms of your
body, the moments of rising and falling,
of hardness and softness, of the swelling
of passion and its spilling out, for they are
the living presence of the God, and within
you lies the circle of birth, growth, death,
and rebirth.” (p. 326) Of course this refers
to the Wiccan God, a different ideology
than monotheistic God.
“Yours is the power to plant the seeds of
life, and yours is the responsibility to be a
conscious guardian of that power” (p. 327).
• Appreciate a healthy sense of
masculinity, and a masculinity
that is positive at that (“be loved
and loving”).
• Your body is your temple.
Embodiment is an expression of
the Divine.
• “All acts of love and pleasure are
Her rituals” (traditional Wiccan
expression, with origin in Charge
of the Goddess if not sooner).
• People, bodies, and the Earth
are expressions of the Divine.
• As a man, you are a manifesta-
tion of the God.
• There is a fertility power of the
God/male.
• You are a guardian of power –
steward of Earth and protector
of one’s magic and power.

49. Catherine Bell’s ideas on ritualization as a process of ritualizing meaning

can be helpful in understanding Pagan ritual or liturgy.
50. I considered many rituals, including the compelling narrative of a menarche
ceremony in Carol P. Christ, Laughter of Aphrodite: Reflections on a Journey to the God-
dess (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), 192–99.

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 Mueller   Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies 19

This example is but an appetizer in the feast of pomegranates. As

Pagan studies scholars, we could apply liturgical studies analyses
to, among others, rituals by Janet and Stewart Farrar, Starhawk, Zsu-
zsanna Budapest, The Pagan Way tradition as captured in Herman
Slater’s books, or work by Victor and Cora Anderson and Orion Fox-
wood, for example, or compare liturgical theology (the embedded
theology within ritual) between these predominantly white Pagan
traditions and indigenous Paganisms around the world.

Conclusion
It is my argument that there is a particular relationship between
ritual studies and Pagan studies. With interest in ritual, the disci-
plines naturally share content. Scholars in Pagan studies are already
operating from an assumption that these ritual theories are useful.
I am proposing that Pagan studies scholars draw even more on the
field of ritual studies and regard it as one of their informing disci-
plines of importance.
Theorists most influential on contemporary Pagan practitioners’
understandings of ritual are, in my opinion, Arnold van Gennep,
Mircea Eliade and Victor Turner. Other ritual theorists, such as
Catherine Bell, have become popular among Pagans as well. For a
religious community that is outside the mainstream and on the edge,
finding ritual theorists that speak to their religious landscape is very
compelling, inspiring and moving.
Furthermore, the concepts of these theorists are integrated into
popular Pagan literature so that, even those Pagans who will never
pick up Rites of Passage by Arnold van Gennep, will likely read of
his name and his tripartite theory of ritual in a popular book on
Paganism. These ritual theorists become a class of theologians, who
speak with knowledge of the human experience and the cosmos,
whether or not it was their original intention to impact religious cul-
ture. There are other theorists who came after van Gennep, Eliade
and Turner that are being read by Pagan practitioners as well. As a
personal example, I first heard of Ronald Grimes while making my
way across country, when I met with a friend and fellow Pagan who
was downsizing her library. Ronald Grimes’ Deeply Into the Bone:
Re-Inventing Rites of Passage by is one of the books I acquired from
my Pagan friend.
My case is further made since, during my revisions of this paper,
Ronald Grimes has published his latest, The Craft of Ritual Stud-
ies, which he describes as the “grandchild” of his never written

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20 The Pomegranate 16.1 (2014)

introduction to ritual.51 Pagan practitioners and scholars will rec-

ognize the Craft as a familiar term for the art of magic and Pagan
ritual, perhaps stirring up the memory of Aidan Kelly’s Crafting the
Art of Magic and other volumes and ethnographic essays by various
scholars.52
As I expressed in the very opening of this paper, ritual theory
is integrated into the libraries of practicing Pagans. Pagans have
adopted ritual studies as relevant to their religious practice, and I
would like to encourage more awareness around this fact so that
we can then be even bolder in using ritual studies to benefit our
scholarship.
Liturgical studies is sometimes seen as a subdiscipline of ritual
studies, other times as a subdiscipline of Christian theology.53 Since
I am suggesting that Paganism has a special relationship to ritual
studies and consequently Pagan studies scholars should make use of
more of its methods, it is important to also take into account the reli-
gious or theological location of liturgical studies.
Perhaps it is because liturgical studies is rooted in Christian tra-
dition that Pagans are not fully making use of its methods. Despite
that possibility, there are skills to learn from liturgical studies many
written liturgies (ritual books) in Paganism—many of them new—
that scholars could study academically, along with the lived practice
which anthropologists study, through liturgical studies. Margaret
Mary Kelleher, Christian liturgical theologian, writes about “a well-
known principle that the church makes the eucharist and the eucha-
rist makes the church.”54 Likewise, a Pagan liturgy gives direction to
a performed ritual, but the ritual brings meaning to the practitioners.
It is my hope that, as Pagan studies specialists continue to make
use of broader aspects of ritual studies, that new possibilities will
be discovered. In this paper, I have suggested liturgical studies as a
tool of ritual studies that Pagan studies scholars can use to deepen
the conversation between their discipline and ritual studies. I believe
my colleagues in Pagan studies will uncover further areas in ritual
studies which we could use more vocally and effectively to explore
the experiences in contemporary Paganism. I have a strong sense

51. Ronald L. Grimes, The Craft of Ritual Studies (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2014), Kindle edition, 730.
52. Aidan A. Kelly, Crafting the Art of Magic, Book I: A History of Modern Witch-
craft, 1939–1964 (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1991).
53. See Jennings, “Ritual Studies and Liturgical Theology.”
54. Ibid.

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 Mueller   Conversations between Ritual Studies and Pagan Studies 21

that connecting ritual studies and Pagan studies will continue to

bear fruit—and may they be pomegranates!

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