Chris Jackson cjackson@utopianempire.com Areas of Interest: Contemporary Neo-Paganism Wicca in the United States New Religious Movements in the United States Nature Religion in the United States History of Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft Invented Traditions Magic and Magical Thinking Identity and Reclamation

Academic Highlights:

M.A. The University of Colorado at Boulder (2007-2010)
    Thesis: "All of Them Witches: Methods of Scholarship in the Study of Neo-Paganism" (2010)
                Lynn Ross-Briant, advisor.  Lynn Ross-Briant, Ira Chernus, Sam D. Gill, committee.


B.A. Kalamazoo College (2001-2005)
    SIP (Undergraduate Thesis): "Dogma and Dread: How Religion Becomes Reality" (2004)
                Carol Anderson, advisor. 


Selected Papers:

Pagans Own the Press:  Neo-Paganism and Counter-Culture in the 1960s: 
Identifying counter-cultural rhetoric (from Marcuse, Rand, etc) influencing religious thought  as used by the Church of All-Worlds, based on publications from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.

The Soft Revolution:  The Roots and Shoots of Feraferia: 
Finding the ideological roots of 1960s group Feraferia in Ascona and the Wandervögel movement, and showing how those combined with 1960s counter-cultural rhetoric and ecological awareness to create Feraferia's philosophy and social goal of “Hesperian Living.”

The Most Sacred Mystery:  Feminist Witchcraft and Understanding the Body: 
Starhawk and Z. Budapest as examples of feminist witchcraft, analyzing their descriptions and depictions of the male and female bodies and the implications buried within.

Do What Thou Wilt: The Construction of Aleister Crowley's Gnostic Mass: 
A text analysis of the Gnostic Mass (known among Crowleyans as “Liber XV”), unraveling the symbolism and probable roots thereof. 

Ecology, Egotism, or Egalitarianism?  Pagan Ethics in the 20th Century: 
Attempting to find ethical “common ground” between several Neo-Pagan traditions, and the conclusions one can tentatively draw about Neo-Pagan constructions of morality and “mindfulness.”