64 Journal for the Study of Religious Experience ‘Gods, Wights1 and Ancestors’: The Varieties of Pagan Religious Experience at Ancient Sacred Sites Jennifer Uzzell Department of Theology and Religion, University of Durham
[email protected] This article explores anomalous experiences reported by people identifying as Pagan whilst visiting places of ancient religious significance in the UK and the US. The article seeks to establish the extent to which these experiences conform to William James’ (2016, pp. 380–381) descriptors of mystical experience as ineffable, noetic, transient and passive, and suggests that while some of the experiences described do conform to the traditional categories, others describe a different sort of experience, possibly arising from a very different world view, which is neither monotheistic nor monist and as such is not concerned with concepts such as transcendence in the way that James used these terms. The article suggests that an alternative definition of ‘transcendence’ is required to accommodate these accounts. Experiences such as those described here are real and meaningful to those who have them but have, to date, been under-represented in research into religious experience. The article concludes that more research is needed into religious experiences within the context of the ‘new animism’ (Harvey, 2006). Keywords: Paganism; animism; ancient sites; religious experience; transcendence Introduction This article arose out of a wider piece of research into funerary and memorial practices among contemporary British Druids. One interesting aspect of this research concerned the construction in recent years of a number of long and round barrows, similar in outward appearance to Neolithic and Bronze Age constructions, but designed as a repository for modern cremated remains.