Il Matto / The Fool
The Spider Dance - Tradition, Time and Healing in Southern Italy - Giovanna Parmigiani
Giovanna Parmigiani [+]
Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University
Giovanna Parmigiani is a Lecturer on Religion and Cultural Anthropology at Harvard Divinity
School and a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard
University. Her focus of interest are the relationships between religion, politics, and gender.
She writes on magic, contemporary Paganisms, alternative spiritualities, and conspiracy
theories, with The Spider Dance forthcoming from Equinox.
Description
This chapter presents the fieldwork, informants, and the research methods used through the description of a particular ethnographic moment that proved to be central in the fieldwork experience: the author's first Tarot reading. It describes many of the most common beliefs and practices of Pagan, Wiccan, and New Age spiritualities that trhe author encountered during the fieldwork, representing a sort of “introduction” to New Age and Neopagan spiritualities.