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Paper short abstract

This proposal is based on long-term ethnographic research with contemporary pagans in Portugal. Taking an ontological and transreligious approach, it will analyse their extraordinary experiences, particularly with deities and the more-than-human, beyond polarity.

Paper long abstract

Contemporary Paganism promotes a magical and spiritual connection with ancestors, deities, nature, and the wider more-than-human world. The lived experiences of contemporary Pagans are therefore characterised by relationships with the invisible and extraordinary, mapped by magical approaches which play a central role in their ontological approach to the world they inhabit and desire for the future. Based on long-term ethnographic research with contemporary pagan women in Portugal, this paper aims to discuss how these relationships are formed and how central they are in the everyday lives of contemporary pagans, from rituals and decision-making to value assertions, therapeutic practices and identity formation. Drawing from the transreligious approach (both analytical and methodological), it will contribute to a reflection on how to look beyond the dualistic oppositions of ordinary/extraordinary, spiritual/material and individual/collective, and consider the creativity and fluidity of frontiers within the lived experience of contemporary religion and spirituality, as well as its contribution to the anthropological analysis of these processes.