Dr Robin Douglas

A secularist church Alongside the history of organised religion runs the history of organised irreligion. In Britain, this history mostly began in the 1790s, when radical ideas of different kinds were circulating in the wake of the French Revolution. This was the era of Tom Paine and Charles James Fox. The Tory government was attempting…

The following text, from 1934, claims to reveal a pagan society of man-hating women which was operating in an unidentified place located roughly to the west of London. If the report were true, it would be describing one of the first organised, explicitly pagan groups in Britain – earlier than Gerald Gardner’s Wicca, although later…

Below I have reproduced a piece which talks about the occult scene in Liverpool in 1857. (Source: Liverpool Mercury, 27 April 1857, p3; I have made some light edits for presentational reasons.) The piece is a rationalist polemic. The writer is unhappy that occultism is being practised at the present day in the “enlightened town…

The Society of St Pius X versus modernity Also posted on my Substack If you are reading this article, you are probably aware that the Catholic priestly society known as the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) is planning to consecrate four new bishops on 1 July against the wishes of Pope Leo XIV. Why…

The idea that Christianity is an “Aryan” religion rather than a “Semitic” one is usually associated with the wilder fringes of 1930s Nazi theology. But the idea goes back further than that. It was found in Victorian England. Below is a report of an address which the Rev. Dunbar I. Heath gave to the Anthropological…

A vignette of Victorian Anglicanism In Victorian times, the Church of England was riven by battles between its different factions. One notable skirmish in this conflict was the appointment of a liberal cleric, Dean Arthur Stanley, as one of the Select Preachers of Oxford University in December 1872. While almost entirely forgotten today, the controversy…

A Victorian inquiry into Spiritualism In this piece, we will look at an interesting but little-studied episode in the Victorian occult revival – a formal inquiry into Spiritualism which was undertaken by a group of London-based intellectuals in 1869-71. This was the first inquiry of its kind in Britain: the first attempt to mount an…

The final post in my series republishing The Folklore of Herbs (1946), a book by Katherine Oldmeadow, who was a significant figure in the British pagan revival. CHAPTER XII. THE HARVEST OF THE GARDEN. How important is the harvest of the garden and with what delight the skilled herbalist surveys it. The practical herbalist of modern days…

I have a new article on the Orphic Hymns out in Antigone magazine.

What Jesus did between Good Friday and Easter Sunday Christians believe that Jesus Christ died on Good Friday and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. What did he do in the time in between? This question has proved tempting to speculate on. The Bible doesn’t provide much relevant information. The Gospel of Luke is…