Pagan Family Values

An intriguing, important, and often entertaining look at an under-studied aspect of new religions. Highly recommended. ~Douglas E. Cowan,author of Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet

Kermanis superb interweaving of survey-data, interviews, and observations of Spiral Scout meetings and festivals offers readers a rare glimpse into religious practice from the perspectives of multiple generations. She expertly explores how children and parents co-create their tradition, working together to build a shared history that is as much about remembering a mythic past as it is about forgetting parents struggles with institutional religion. Analyzing the daily practices of pagan familieswho value childlike wonder and playful behavior in adults and preternatural wisdom in childrenKermani demonstrates the often-theorized interdependence of the definitions of 'child' and 'adult' with a clarity that will cause future scholars to rethink their assumptions about the fixed nature of these categories. This excellent volume is a must read for anyone interested in the creation and maintenance of religious practices, American Paganism, and childhood studies. ~Susan Ridgely,University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh

This is one of the best and most nuanced ethnographic studies of contemporary Paganism to come along. Kermani takes us into the deeply conflicted religious lives of Pagan families, yet as she so deftly reveals, Pagans are not unique in their ambivalent desires for their children. While paying careful attention to how and why adults refashion their own lost childhoods to create religious traditions for their families, Kermani also attends to the often-uncomfortable ways real children experience these ritual practices and ethical guidelines. In so doing, she highlights a central dilemma in contemporary American cultural and religious life. This sensitively written book offers a powerful model for researching childrens religious worlds, the ways these worlds are constructed by adults and inhabited, resisted, and reshaped by children. ~Sarah M. Pike,author of Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves

This study of the contemporary Pagan construction of childhood by Kermani (Youngstown State Univ.) is an important addition to academic collections, primarily because it covers an area of inquiry not addressed in the literature until now. Representing about 3 percent of the US population, Pagans are under-studied. This ethnography, drawing on both extensive fieldwork and survey research, provides good thick description and analysis. ~G.J. Reece, Choice

Kermani has provided a valuable window not only onto a & new religious movement but onto the very problem of & religion in America. ~Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database

In this excellent book, Kermani explores contemporary Paganism by considering how children and childhood are taken up as conceptual categories within thiseclectic new religious field...Kermani does an extraordinary job balancing the portrayals of her subjects as both modern, average people, and as imaginative and sometimes fantastic individuals defined by their self-assumed alterity...Kermani brilliantly weaves the first-person narratives of her subjects into her rich academic analysis. ~Nova Religio

The author is at her strongest when discussing how four different foundation myths of religion result in different and sometimes conflicting views of how children should be integrated into the religion. She gives a very thorough description of the strengths and weaknesses of parents attempts to integrate their children in their world, while at the same time providing them with avenues to question that participation and choose another path.Pagan Family Valuescontributes to the growing literature on childhood within new religions that formed and grew in the 1960s and 1970s. As the first book-length exploration of childhood within Paganism, it makes an important contribution to the field. ~Sociology of Religion