How a Neo-Pagan movement was built on a New Age community from the late 70s in Communist Hungary.
What is it about?
This paper is about survival strategies in the Hungarian Communist Regime, analyzing a New Age group established in 1979, that was shifted towards Neo-Paganism in the 80s. It included e.g. detecting the secret police activity, constructing an ideology-conform façade and some members’ activity in the Socialist Party. They lived in parallel realities, activating one or another in different situations.
Why is it important?
Research of New Age and Neo-Pagan groups during Communist Era in Hungary is a very rarely studied field. This case study recognizes a cognitive survival strategy within a "communist society": creating and living in parallel realities, and acting in appropriate frames in different situations. Another survival technique was the joining the Communist Regime's only party, the Socialist Party, but there were several other strategies to be kept out of the "system", and creating micro-freedom in a dictatorship. The paper lists these strategies of a Hungarian religious group in the 80s, which age strongly effects Hungarian society's current mentality even in the 21st century. Nowadays - in spite of Soviet Forces - EU policy (and bureaucracy) can be considered as the Forcing Authority by a growing number of the participants.