[a humble lich]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In the early Christian era in many European countries, I agree that there were plenty of pre-Christian beliefs that were persecuted as heresy or witchcraft. However, how long these beliefs endured and to what extent witch hunts in later eras represented the same social factors as lead to modern Satanic panics or false allegations of child abuse, are questions that have bedeviled many researchers.

Suffice it to say that I regard any theories of the survival of any kind of organised witchcraft in Europe from pre-Christian times until the founding of Gardnerian Wicca as a religious belief without convincing evidence. Anthropologists proposing it are generally not practicing a science or doing scholarly research, they are expounding a personal belief and cherry-picking examples in an unscientific manner to support it.

I am in no way claiming any sort of organized belief surviving through the middle ages, but rather the lines between things seen at witchcraft compared to religion, superstition, and folk traditions can be blurry, and elements of pre-Christian religions can survive as folk traditions.

Do the former volunteer remain tight-knit for many years after their stints?

Are you active in any formal or informal way with the Peace Corps or with groups of people who have reunions or other social events, now that it's a decade since you volunteered?

Are many other people?

I'm looking for how much people stay in touch and remain close to other Peace Corps volunteers once they've finished their volunteer service and started a life where they probably have careers and families that may not connect to their experiences with the Peace Corps.

If there are some form of alumni social groups and networks, proposing that former Peace Corps volunteers can be classed as a cohesive, if informal, group of occult-aware people becomes much more plausible.

Otherwise, former Peace Corps volunteers who've seen something that convinced them of the reality of the paranormal might be equally or more likely to turn to family, friends, their local priest, mental health professionals or any of the sources of support and advice that an ordinary person who experienced the same thing (albeit possibly at home, rather than abroad) might speak with about it.

Yes. I have stayed close with many Peace Corps friends, and if I used Facebook more I'd probably be in touch with even more. The group of volunteers near me has had three reunions in the last decade, and we are planning another one soon. And I don't think this is unusual, and people whom I'm not in contact with I'll still hear about from people who are still in contact with them.

There also exists a national returned Peace Corps volunteer organization and many places have a local organization as well. My local group organizes volunteer activities, occasional light political action, a Christmas party, sells calendars, etc. I've also worked with Peace Corps itself a couple times to talk to school groups.

In the real world, there is significant culture shock when returning back to the US, and many people have problems reintegrating into the US. Returned volunteers often turn to each other for support. If there are also issues of dealing with seeing hostile supernatural forces that nobody else believes, then I would think there would be even stronger forces pushing groups returned volunteers together for support.