Chas S. Clifton (born 1951) is an American academic, author and historian who specialises in the fields ofEnglish studies andPagan studies. Clifton currently holds a teaching position in English atColorado State University-Pueblo, prior to which he taught atPueblo Community College.

A practicingPagan since the early 1970s, Clifton has written widely on the subject, in both a practical and an academic capacity, with a particular emphasis on the Pagan religion ofWicca. He has become a prominent figure in the field of Pagan studies, editing both thepeer-reviewedacademic journalThe Pomegranate,^[1] and the Pagan Studies Series of academic books published byAltaMira Press.^[2] He also serves as co-chair of theAmerican Academy of Religion's Pagan Studies Group.^[3]

Clifton was born in 1951,^[4] and raised in theAnglican denomination ofChristianity.^[5] Undertaking his undergraduate studies in English atReed College inPortland,Oregon, during a summer vacation in 1972 he aided a teacher in the construction of anadobe house nearTaos,New Mexico. Here, he read a copy ofRobert Graves'The White Goddess; believing that it represented a "religion for poets", it sparked his interest in Paganism.^[5][6] Returning to Reed for his final year, he read more of Graves' work, producing his thesis – a book of poems entitledQueen Famine – under his influence.^[5] He self-initiated himself into Paganism through a rite found inHans Holzer's bookThe New Pagans before moving toColorado and joining a group ofceremonial magicians influenced by the Pagan religion ofThelema.^[5][7] The following year he joined a Witches' coven with "loose ties" to the1734 Tradition alongside his partner Mary, and several years later they underwent a Pagan marriage ceremony.^[5][6]

Starting his own magazine,Iron Mountain: A Journal of Magical Religion in the mid-1980s, he also started a graduate degree inreligious studies at theUniversity of Colorado, moving fromManitou Springs toBoulder.^[5] Circa 1986, he became contributing editor forGnosis: The Journal of Western Inner Traditions, through which he began corresponding withEvan John Jones andFelicitas Goodman, and began writing a syndicated column titled "Letter from Hardscrabble Creek".^[5]

Clifton began teaching in the English department at theUniversity of Southern Colorado in 1992.^[6] With Jones, he co-wrote a book titledSacred Mask, Sacred Dance (1997), after which they had planned a sequel,The Castle and the Cave: Further Steps in Traditional Witchcraft,^[6] but it never saw completion.

A member of theAmerican Academy of Religion (AAR), he was involved in a 1997 meeting to discuss the possibility of setting up a specific AAR group to discuss Paganism; the AAR governing committee turned them down, believing that their work could be fitted into the New Religious Movements discussion group, but they successfully reapplied in 2004. Clifton and Jone Salomonsen became co-chairs.^[5]

In 2001, Clifton became editor ofThe Pomegranate, a scholarly journal devoted to Pagan studies then based in North America. Taking over the position from Fritz Muntean, who had co-founded the journal in 1996, together they searched for a new publisher, that year signing an agreement with Janet Joyce of the London-based companyEquinox Publishing. Clifton proceeded to oversee a series of changes to the journal, transforming its subtitle fromA New Journal of Neopagan Thought toThe International Journal of Pagan Studies and implementing apeer review system for judging the papers submitted to it for publication.^[5][8]

In 2004, he publishedHer Hidden Children, making use of the mass of materials he had assembled over the years.^[5] It appeared as the first in the "Pagan Studies Series" published byAltaMira Press; first devised by an editor in the late 1990s, the series came to fruition under the co-editorship of Clifton and Wendy Griffin.^[5]Clifton took an early retirement when his departmental head left, believing that the future would not be conducive to his research.^[5]

• 'The Significance of Aradia.' InAradia, or the Gospel of the Witches: A New Translation, edited by Mario Pazzaglini and Dina Pazzaglini, 59-80. Phoenix Publishing, 1998.ISBN 0-919345-34-4.
• 'Smokey and the Sacred: Nature Religion, Civil Religion, and American Paganism,'^{[permanent dead link]}Ecotheology: The Journal of Religion, Nature and the Environment, 8(1) (August 2003): 50-60.

• Clifton, Chas S. (July 1999)."TWPT Talks with Chas S. Clifton".The Wiccan/Pagan Times. Archived fromthe original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved11 January 2013.
• Clifton, Chas S.; Doyle White, Ethan (27 December 2012)."An Interview with Chas S. Clifton".Albion Calling. Archived fromthe original on 31 December 2012. Retrieved11 January 2013.

• Official website
• Profile in Morganna Davies and Aradia Lynch,Keepers of the Flame, (2001) Olympian PressISBN 978-0-9709013-0-9
• Sean McCloud,Book review ofHer Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in AmericaH-Net American Studies, September 2006.
• W. Michael Ashcraft.Book review ofHer Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America.Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft, 2 (1) (Summer 2007): 82-84.
• W. Michael Ashcraft.Book review ofThe Paganism Reader.Nova Religio 11(1) (August 2007): 133-135.
• Jon P. Bloch.Book review ofHer Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America.Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47 (1) (March 2008):171–173
• Murph Pizza.book review ofHer Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America.Archived 2008-07-04 at theWayback MachineThe Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies 9(2) (2007): 200-201.
• Cliff Landis.Book review ofHer Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America.Archived 2008-02-06 at theWayback Machine.Cliff Landis Net, 10 January 2008.