New Antiquities

Just as we speak of “dead” languages, we say that religions “die out.” Yet sometimes, people try to revive them, today more than ever. New Antiquities addresses this phenomenon through critical examination of how individuals and groups appeal to, reconceptualize, and reinvent the religious world of the ancient Mediterranean as they attempt to legitimize developments in contemporary religious culture and associated activity. Drawing from the disciplines of religious studies, archaeology, history, philology, and anthropology, New Antiquities explores a diversity of cultic and geographic milieus, ranging from Goddess Spirituality to Neo-Gnosticism, from rural Oregon to the former Yugoslavia. As a survey of the reception of ancient religious works, figures, and ideas in later twentieth-century and contemporary alternative religious practice, New Antiquities will interest classicists, Egyptologists, and historians of religion of many stripes, particularly those focused on modern Theosophy, Gnosticism, Neopaganism, New Religious Movements, Magick, and Occulture. The book is written in a lively and engaging style that will appeal to professional scholars and advanced undergraduates as well as lay scholars.

Just as we speak of “dead” languages, we say that religions “die out.” Yet sometimes, people try to revive them, today more than ever. New Antiquities addresses this phenomenon through critical examination of how individuals and groups appeal to, reconceptualize, and reinvent the religious world of the ancient Mediterranean as they attempt to legitimize developments in contemporary religious culture and associated activity. Drawing from the disciplines of religious studies, archaeology, history, philology, and anthropology, New Antiquities explores a diversity of cultic and geographic milieus, ranging from Goddess Spirituality to Neo-Gnosticism, from rural Oregon to the former Yugoslavia. As a survey of the reception of ancient religious works, figures, and ideas in later twentieth-century and contemporary alternative religious practice, New Antiquities will interest classicists, Egyptologists, and historians of religion of many stripes, particularly those focused on modern Theosophy, Gnosticism, Neopaganism, New Religious Movements, Magick, and Occulture. The book is written in a lively and engaging style that will appeal to professional scholars and advanced undergraduates as well as lay scholars.

Introduction What are New Antiquities? Dylan Michael Burns, Almut-Barbara Renger Chapter 1 'From Aphrodite to Kuan Yin' - 'The Tao of Venus' and its Modern Genealogy: Invoking Ancient Goddesses in Cos(met)ic Acupuncture Almut-Barbara Renger Chapter 2 Ancient Goddesses for Modern Times or New Goddesses from Ancient Times? Meret Fehlmann Chapter 3 The Artifice of Daidalos: Modern Minoica as Religious Focus in Contemporary Paganism Caroline Jane Tully Chapter 4 Transforming Deities: Modern Pagan Projects of Revival and Reinvention Kathryn Rountree Chapter 5 Archaeology, Historicity and Homosexuality in the New Cultus of Antinous: Perceptions of the Past in a Contemporary Pagan Religion Ethan Doyle White Chapter 6 Reading History with the Essenes of Elmira Anne Kreps Chapter 7 The Jungian Gnosticism of the Ecclesia Gnostica Olav Hammer Chapter 8 The Impact of Scholarship on Contemporary "Gnosticism(s)": A Case Study on the Apostolic Johannite Church and Jeremy Puma Matthew Dillon Chapter 9 Studying the "Gnostic Bible": Samael Aun Weor and the Pistis Sophia Franz Winter Chapter 10 Binding Images: The Contemporary Legacy and Efficacy of Late Antique Ritual Sigils, Spirit-Beings and Design Elements Jay Johnston Chapter 11 (Neo-)Bogomil Legends: The Gnosticizing Bogomils of the Twentieth-Century Balkans Dylan Michael Burns, Nemanja Radulovic

• Edited by Dylan M. Burns
• Edited by Almut-Barbara Renger

"This lively and informative collection of essays offers readers instructive examples to explain the continuing appeal of ancient religious traditions, but only when transformed to align with modern sensibilities. The collection does more than this, however: it presents a compelling case for understanding all modern forms of spirituality as new antiquities, and this includes the many varieties of contemporary Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on." --Coudert, Allison P., University of California at Davis
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