Pagan Religions in Five Minutes - Suzanne Owen
66. How do Pagans Use Fiction and Film?
Pagan Religions in Five Minutes - Suzanne Owen
Carole M. Cusack [+]
University of Sydney
Carole M. Cusack is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia as well as Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School. She trained as a medievalist and her doctorate was published as Conversion Among the Germanic Peoples (Cassell, 1998). She now researches primarily in contemporary religious trends and Western esotericism. Her books include Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith (Ashgate, 2010) and (with Katharine Buljan)
Anime, Religion and Spirituality: Profane and Sacred Worlds in Contemporary Japan (Equinox, 2015). She edited (with Pavol Kosnáč), Fiction, Invention and Hyper-reality: From Popular Culture to Religion (Routledge, 2017).
Description
Modern Pagans creatively blend imaginative sources to construct their religious practices, often drawing inspiration from fiction and films. Prominent examples are Discordianism and the Church of All Worlds, which were inspired by fictional works and are now part of Paganism. This underscores Paganism's adaptive and innovative nature in embracing various cultural influences to craft its diverse religious expressions.