Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion

Notes

Notes Notes to the Preface 1. Peter Wood, “Strange Gods: Neo-Paganism on Campus,” National Review online, 5 September 2001, http: www.nationalreview.com/comment/commentwood090501 .shtml. 2. Wood, “Strange Gods.” Notes to the Int ro duction 1. Chuvin 1990:8ff. See also Jones and Pennick 1995:1. N ote s to C h a p ter 1 1. Barrett 1982:848. The following distribution has been tabulated from the figures given by the world’s regions, adding together “members” of the same traditions across the various regions and computing respective percentages against the world population as a whole. In the World Christian Encyclopedia, Barrett breaks down the major religions of the world under the heading “World Religions,” each of which in 1980 had more than 2 percent of the world’s population: Christianity, 32.6%; Islam, 16.5%; Hinduism, 13.3%; Buddhism, 6.3%; Chinese folk religion, 4.5%; and Asiatic new religions 2.2%. The encyclopedia includes as worldwide quasi religions both agnosticism (16.4%) and atheism (4.5%). It excludes primal and tribal religions (2.4%), since these are local and not universal expressions. 2. This is a term used by Paul Tillich in his Christianity and the Encounter of the World’s Religions (1963) to describe the secular systems that have arisen from the Judeo-Christian tradition and are antagonistic to it as well as other religions in general. See Barrett 1982:836, 840. 3. Barrett 1982:829. 4. Barrett 1982:72. 5. Barrett 1982:72. 6. Barrett 1982:846. 7. Barrett 1982:72. 8. Barrett draws his understanding of Afro-American spiritism from Simpson 169 (1978). He estimates the number of global adherents as 1,777,100 in 1970; 3,100,400 (in 21 countries) in 1980; and 3,810,300 in 1985. 9. Separate categories that Barrett (1982:71ff) includes under Roman Catholic Christians and not included in my compilations for pagans are Spiritist Catholics (Roman Catholics involved in organized spiritism, high or low, and including syncretized spirit possession cults) and Christo-pagans (Latin American Amerindian Roman Catholics who have syncretized folk Catholicism with organized traditional American Indian religion). Barrett (1982:820) lists the number of Christo-pagans as 12,919,700 in 1970; 15,698,900 in 1980 (in 16 countries); and 17,131,400 in 1985. 10. Chuvin 1990:7–9; Fox 1987:30ff; Hutton 1999:4. 11. Chuvin 1990:10. 12. Fung [1948] 1960. In his foundational six-volume study of Chinese religion , de Groot (1892–1910) emphasizes the animist religion of the people rather than the three religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Bloomfield (1983:36) refers to “the mélange of animism, Tao-Buddhist scraps and patches, folk-myth and magic and long centuries of supernatural practices that is now the religion of the Chinese.” Figures for the numbers of Chinese folk religionists are difficult to ascertain. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, public worship was discouraged, and the vernacular faith was no longer considered a religion. “It is clear that many aspects of popular or diffused religion in China, such as reverence for ancestors, family and even communal festivals, and belief in local deities and spirits continue to survive, albeit in restricted forms in the rural areas of mainland China” (Hinnells 1984:83). While Barrett’s (1982) figures include Taiwan and Hong Kong and also indicate a decrease from 1980 to 2000, Chinese folk religionists range between 130 million and 215 million people. 13. Some key works on classical Chinese religion are Adler 2002; Baity 1975; Day 1940; Eberhard 1967; de Groot [1892–1910] 1964; Jochim 1986; Maspero 1978; Smith 1971; Thompson 1979; Wolf 1974; and Yang 1967. For an overview of Taoism both past and present, see Kohn 2001. Also Blofeld 1978; Liu 1979; Welch 1965; and Welch and Seidel 1977. 14. Recognizing the prime significance of local deities for the villagers or people at large, Bloomfield (1983:40) finds that these “include spirits which inhabited any natural feature of the land which people felt to have a special possessing spirit, such as unusually shaped rocks and boulders or very ancient trees, as well as fields, streams and roads.” See further Werner 1922/1984. 15. Michael Saso in Hinnells 1984:349–55. 16. There are many reference materials on Chinese geomancy (feng-shui “wind-water’). For a representational overview, suggested works include Birdsall 1997; Morris 1985; Skinner 1989; and Walters 1995. See further Feuchtwang 1974 and Wu 1964. 170 | Notes to...