Re-membering the Goddess: The Avalon Sacred Path in Italy Between Tradition and Innovation

Abstract

Starting out from the results of the ethnographic research conducted in Italy among the main group of practice belonging to Goddess Spirituality, the Circle of Avalon and Diana, the chapter examines the features which make this form of religiosity an exemplary case of “inventive tradition” (Palmisano and Pannofino 2016). Notably, the aim of the present chapter is to show how this specific manifestation of religiosity may be better understood—as examples of sacred creativity—when interpreted as “inventive tradition”, rather than “invented tradition” (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). Indeed, the historiographical category of the invention of tradition turns out to be inadequate for investigating the creative ability of the sacred, especially when applied to some manifestations of “contemporary alternative religiosity”, which are based upon those dynamics typical of contemporary “re-enchantment”, that is to say, the reclamation or revival of ancient religious traditions. The analysis of the shared narrative which makes up the group’s interpretative framework, in particular, will highlight the creative mechanisms at play in the process of reclamation and re-actualisation of the sacred feminine paths upon which Goddess Spirituality is based; mechanisms which may be traced back to a specific shared rhetoric, that of “re-membering”. In light of its peculiar creative ability in relating to the sacred and of the ways in which the past is “re-membered” and given new significance—as a means for cultural, social and spiritual innovation in contemporary society—Goddess spirituality invites further reflection on the thin line dividing tradition from innovation.