While pseudoarchaeology often presents claims in a scientific register, it favors fantastic or romantic theories of the past over the findings of professionalized archaeology. As archaeologists have attempted to interpret pseudoarchaeology, it has been implied that it often resembles religion more than science, both in terms of its epistemology and the types of worldviews it is deployed to legitimate. This article synthesizes the work of the authors in this special issue of Nova Religio to further articulate these “religious” aspects of pseudoarchaeology.

Marian apparitions, as diverse, global, and dynamic phenomena, offer opportunities for multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural analysis. We are pleased in this special issue to offer seven essays highlighting the increasing internationalization of Marian devotional movements. Our contributors, using both local case studies and a global, comparative view to explore instances of apparitions in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, collectively indicate three major points. First, apparitional movements are globally-connected, complex, and multi-layered. Second, apparitional movements are situated among so many social and political nodes that they are diverse, even internally, and therefore difficult to categorize. Third, apparitions are informed by both grassroots activism and institutional religious structures. These themes challenge categories in the study of religion, including disciplinary categories, and pose questions for further research.

"Real vampires" believe that they must either consume blood or feed on "subtle" energy in order to maintain their physical, mental, and spiritual health. Recent scholarship has analyzed vampirism as a religious movement or as a cluster of "vampire religions." This article argues that vampirism should be viewed foremost as an identity around which social and religious institutions have formed. This model accounts for the mosaic of religious and cultural orientations held by vampires and acknowledges the vampire community's claims that vampirism is not a choice. It also facilitates a functionalist reading of vampire discourse as validating a new category of person.