I am a historian and writer based in London.

I write on the history of minority religious traditions and their relationship with the hegemonic majority. I am particularly interested in the history of revived paganism and the history of esoteric and occult movements.

I have a PhD and other postgraduate degrees from the University of Cambridge. I have many years’ experience of teaching and public speaking, and I am available for talks and lectures.

My academic CV may be seen below. I have also been published in various non-academic outlets.

You can email me here.

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Academic CV

Credentials

•  Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in History, University of Cambridge
•  Master of Letters (MLitt) in Classics (specialism of ancient religious history), University of Cambridge
•  Master of Arts (MA), University of Cambridge
•  Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Classics (specialism of ancient history), University of Cambridge
•  Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Classics (double first-class honours), University of Cambridge

Publications

Books

•  Paganism Persisting (2024), Exeter University Press (co-written with Francis Young)

•  The Pagan Revival: The Roots of Modern Pagan Paganism, 1700-1950 (forthcoming 2026), Equinox Publishing

Articles – History of religions

•  “Charles Maurice Davies and the Victorian spiritual supermarket”, forthcoming in Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture

•  “Early Anti-Mormonism in Great Britain, 1837–1842”, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 76 (2025), 371-400

•  “The spirits meet the sceptics: The London Dialectical Society’s inquiry into Spiritualism”, Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism (2025), 1-26

•  “The anti-Jewish riots of 1911”, Welsh History Review 32 (2024), 340-367

•  “A Case of Clerical Magic involving Treasure Hunting from 1880”, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 19 (2024), 94-106

•  “Fear and Fantasy in the Nineteenth Century”, Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism 7 (2024), 1-12

•  “Where are Jews at home?” in Responses to 7 October, Rosa Freedman and David Hirsh (eds.), vol. 1 (London: Routledge, 2024), 37-43

•  “The Eucharist of the Latter-day Saints”, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 61 (2024), 271-294

•  “Towards a Reception History of the Chaldaean Oracles”, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 28 (2021), 261-84

•  “A Masonic Hymn to the Sun”, Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft 15.1 (2020), 92-123

•  “A Microcosm of the Esoteric Revival: The Histories of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram”, Correspondences 8.2 (2020), 1-40

•  “John Fransham, the Norwich Polytheist”, Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture 6.1 (2020), 20-49

•  “‘Do What Thou Wilt’: The History of a Precept”, Religio 27.1 (2019), 17-41

•  “The Finding of Hidden Texts in Esoteric and Other Religious Traditions”, Correspondences 7.2 (2019), 339-66

•  “Apuleius and the Esoteric Revival”, Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies 2.2 (2019), 260–76

•  “An Esbat among the Quads: An Episode of Witchcraft at Oxford University in the 1920s”, The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies 20.2 (2018), 157-78

•  “John Henry Newman and the Uses of Antiquity”, British Catholic History 34.1 (2018), 129-54

•  “Discourses of Paganism in the British and Irish Press During the Early Pagan Revival”, The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies 19.1 (2017), 5-24

•  “Witches, Odin, and the English State: The Legal Reception of a Counter-Cultural Minority Religious Movement”, Journal of Law and Religion 32.3 (2017), 449-69

Articles – Classics

•  “Battlefield Epiphanies in Ancient Greece: A Survey”, Digressus 4 (2004), 1-14

•  “Gender and Transgression in Sophocles’ ‘Electra’”, Classical Quarterly 53 (2003), 377-388

•  “‘Sing, Muse…’: The Introit from Homer to Apollonius”, Classical Quarterly 52 (2002), 33-49

Articles: Law

•  “Referendums That Time Forgot”, U.K. Const. L. Blog (17th Feb 2017)

•  “Royal Assent in the British Constitution”, Law Quarterly Review 132 (2016), 495-505

•  “The British Overseas Territories and ‘Direct Rule’”, U.K. Const. L. Blog (12th Apr 2016)

•  “When Should the Lords Reject Secondary Legislation?”, U.K. Const. L. Blog (7th Dec 2015)

•  “Socially Responsible Investment”, IPEBLA Journal 69 (2010)

Note: Some of the above articles are published under the name of Graham John Wheeler

Awards

2019 – Annual essay prize, British Association of Decadence Studies

2010 – Tony Thurman Award, International Pension and Employee Benefits Law Association

2009 – Annual essay prize, Association of Pension Lawyers in Ireland

2005 – British Gas Cup, Leicester De Montfort Law School

1997-2004 – Series of prizes and scholarships from University of Cambridge and Girton College, including Chancellor’s Medal for Classical Learning