A term covering a wide range of religious phenomena that have interested folklorists,
anthropologists, and other scholars. Folklorist Don Yoder, who has done a great deal of
research in the area of religion, provided the definition other folklorists turn to most
often: “Folk religion is the totality of all those views and practices of religion that exist
among the people apart from and alongside the stricdy theological and liturgical forms of
the official religion” (Yoder 1974:14). The study of folk religion often overlaps with the
study of folk medicine and folk beliefs.
Folklorists and others have approached the study of folk religion in North America in
many ways; this entry describes seven of the most prevalent and important approaches. In
many instances, there can be significant overlap among these heuristic categories.
The seven categories are: (1) religion of the “folk society”; (2) religious practices of
“the folk”; (3) religion of dissenters from orthodoxy; (4) religion as lived and
experienced; (5) syncretistic religious practices and beliefs; (6) religious folklore; and (7)
religious practices of the group to which the folklorist belongs or once belonged