In his book Wild religion: Tracking the sacred in South Africa (2012), the internationally acknowledged South African scholar of religion, David Chidester, analyses religion in South Africa from the advent of democracy in 1994 until the football World Cup in 2010. Working with a broad definition of religion, Chidester focuses in his analysis on unconventional, or what he calls ‘wild’ or ‘untamed’ forms of religion. His analysis not only expands Durkheim’s definition of the sacred, but also adapts it by engaging from his post-colonial and post-apartheid location with critical theories of class, gender, and race within changing political and economic contexts. Amongst the cases that he analyses are dreamscapes of black and white neo-shamans in global circulations, and indigenous appropriations of theosophy in relation to traditional theocracy-cum-monarchy and modern democracy. The purpose of this paper will be to reflect on and assess Chidester’s contribution to anthropological knowledge in light of his theoretical lenses and their application to these examples of neo-traditionalism.