Olav Hammer

Who is Olav Hammer?

Olav Hammer, is a Swedish professor at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense working in the field of history of religion. He has written four books in Swedish and one monograph Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age in English. This volume which was also Hammer's doctoral dissertation investigates the rhetorical strategies of legitimization of a number of related new religious movements. He is also editor of several books, including Polemical Encounters, The Invention of Sacred Tradition, Alternative Christs and Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements. Since January 2009, he is also the editor of the journal Numen.

In 2002 the title of årets folkbildare in Sweden was bestowed on Hammer, by the society Föreningen Vetenskap och Folkbildning "for his balanced and pedagogical books about the history of new religions and the causes behind people's beliefs in pseudoscience."