Reviewing Grard's book Parcours paen in 2001, the historian of religion Jean-Franois Mayer described Grard's activities as part of the development of a "Western-Hindu 'pagan axis'".[171]. In fact, while the Nazis initially tried to coopt Christianity, their goal was to. [79] In order to induce such altered states of consciousness, pagans utilize such elements as drumming, visualization, chanting, singing, dancing, and meditation. These open, unstructured or loosely structured traditions contrast with British Traditional Wicca, which emphasizes secrecy and initiatory lineage. Golden Dawn ended up winning 18 seats, making it the third-largest party in parliament. [99], The 1980s and 1990s also saw an increasing interest in serious academic research and reconstructionist pagan traditions. [15] The last pagan revival was under the Western Emperor Eugenius, who was a puppet of the Pagan magister millitum Arbogast. Historian Ronald Hutton has argued that many of the motifs of 20th century neo-paganism may be traced back to the utopian, mystical counter-cultures of the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods (also extending in some instances into the 1920s), via the works of amateur folklorists, popular authors, poets, political radicals and alternative lifestylers. Pagan comes from the Latin word "paganus," meaning villager or civilian and they have a polytheistic approach to life. And a way to connect with all kinds of peoplegay, bi, straight, celibate, transgenderin a way that is hard to do in the greater society. [149] Magliocco came to a somewhat different conclusion based upon her ethnographic research of pagans in California, remarking that the majority were "white, middle-class, well-educated urbanites" but that they were united in finding "artistic inspiration" within "folk and indigenous spiritual traditions". [110][111], Goddess spirituality, which is also known as the Goddess movement, is a pagan religion in which a singular, monotheistic Goddess is given predominance. At least three residents of the city have formally complained over the plan to place the sculpture, one of five pieces of art funded by the government with a . You might argue that the most successful pagan revival movement in the 20th century was National Socialism. Germanische Glaubens . Download Free . In 1964 Ross Nichols established the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. ", Letcher (2001) "The Scouring of the Shire: Fairies, Trolls and Pixies in Eco-Protest Culture", Arena - Atlas of Religions and Nationalities in Russia, Europe's Last Pagans Worship in Mari-El Grove, "Christians! Many of them have not been Christianized until the 18th century. The Mari native religion in fact has a continuous existence, but has co-existed with Orthodox Christianity for centuries, and experienced a renewal after the fall of the Soviet Union. [32], According to Strmiska, the reappropriation of the term "pagan" by modern pagans served as "a deliberate act of defiance" against "traditional, Christian-dominated society", allowing them to use it as a source of "pride and power". Strmiska also suggests that this division could be seen as being based on "discourses of identity", with reconstructionists emphasizing a deep-rooted sense of place and people, and eclectics embracing a universality and openness toward humanity and the Earth. The PRC has also begun to report on Pagan identity. [42], "We might say that Reconstructionist Pagans romanticize the past, while eclectic pagans idealize the future. When she eventually came across the Wiccan religion many years later, she then found that it confirmed her earlier childhood experiences, and that "I never converted in the accepted sense. [88] The Western attitude to paganism gradually changed during the early modern period. [44] Eclectic pagans, conversely, seek general inspiration from the pre-Christian past, and do not attempt to recreate past rites or traditions with specific attention to detail. [1] Strmiska described paganism as a movement "dedicated to reviving the polytheistic, nature-worshipping pagan religions of pre-Christian Europe and adapting them for the use of people in modern societies. Within the pagan movement, there can be found many deities, both male and female, who have various associations and embody forces of nature, aspects of culture, and facets of human psychology. Instead, she argued that "in most cases", converts first become interested in the movement through "word of mouth, a discussion between friends, a lecture, a book, an article or a Web site". ", Religious studies scholar Michael Strmiska[43], Another division within modern paganism rests on differing attitudes to the source material surrounding pre-Christian belief systems. From the high Medieval period (950-1350) her story takes the reader through to the renaissance and the reformation, the great witch hunts (1480-1650), the age of reason and science to the principle romantic revival movements of the 19th century; the Druidic revival at Primrose Hill in London in 1792, the romantic notions of Edward Carpenter . [166] Various differences between the two movements have been highlighted; the New Age movement focuses on an improved future, whereas the focus of Paganism is on the pre-Christian past. [141] A practicing Wiccan herself, Adler used her own conversion to paganism as a case study, remarking that as a child she had taken a great interest in the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, and had performed her own devised rituals in dedication to them. Named after the Norse pagan gods called the sir - which includes a pantheon of popular Norse gods such as Odin, Thor, Frigg, and Baldur - the spirits and entities that the folklore represents are also taken into consideration.This contemporary version of the original pagan . Neopaganism (sometimes Neo-Paganism) describes a heterogeneous group of new religious movements which attempt to revive ancient, mainly pre-Christian and often pre-Judaic Indo-European religions. EU-wide celebrations are indicated in bold. [], Canada does not provide extremely detailed records of religious adherence. [123] Nevertheless, there is a slow growing body of data on the subject. [19] This is because the term pagan originates in Christian terminology, which individuals who object to the term wish to avoid. If Europeans are unable to follow a logical monotheistic belief system like Christianity what makes you think they'll believe in pagan fairytales like the tsunamis being caused by a giant serpent, . He claimed to have been initiated by the New Forest coven in 1939, and that the religion he discovered was a survival of the pagan witch-cult described in Murray's theory. Asatru is the name of a 20th-century revival of Norse paganism. First, it can refer to a belief that everything in the universe is imbued with a life force or spiritual energy. [27] Conversely, most pagans do not use the word neopagan,[4] with some expressing disapproval of it, arguing that the term "neo" offensively disconnects them from what they perceive as their pre-Christian forebears. [77], Such views have also led many pagans to revere the planet Earth as Mother Earth, who is often referred to as Gaia after the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth. The word " Asatru " combines the words "Asa," which refers to Norse gods, and "tru," meaning "faith.". [179], The relationship between pagan studies scholars and some practising pagans has at times been strained. Published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1902, the Native American activist and writer outlined her rejection of Christianity (referred to as "the new superstition") in favor of a harmony with nature embodied by the Great Spirit. ", Religious studies scholar Sarah Pike. The 19th century saw a surge of interest in Germanic paganism with the Viking revival in Victorian Britain[] and Scandinavia, and the Vlkisch movement in Germany. [135], In the 2011 Australian census, 32083 respondents identified as pagan. The 2001 UK Census figures did not allow an accurate breakdown of traditions within the pagan heading, as a campaign by the Pagan Federation before the census encouraged Wiccans, Heathens, Druids and others all to use the same write-in term 'pagan' in order to maximise the numbers reported. [11], Contemporary paganism has been defined as "a collection of modern religious, spiritual, and magical traditions that are self-consciously inspired by the pre-Judaic, pre-Christian, and pre-Islamic belief systems of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Great God! Founded by Stephen McNallen in Northern California, the AFA reached 24 U.S.-based chapters, or kindreds, in 2021 with numerous other chapters around the world.Members of the AFA subscribe to a belief that pre-Christian Norse and Germanic religions can only be practiced by individuals with ancestral roots in those Northern European regions - or more specifically, white people. [] By the mid-1930s "neopagan" was being applied to new religious movements like Jakob Wilhelm Hauer's German Faith Movement and Jan Stachniuk's Polish Zadruga, usually by outsiders and often pejoratively. [102], Beit Asherah (the house of the Goddess Asherah) was one of the first neopagan synagogues, founded in the early 1990s by Stephanie Fox, Steven Posch, and Magenta Griffiths (Lady Magenta). 2. Its statistics service only collects limited religious information each decade. Arts+Culture Feature. With the growth and spread of large, pagan gatherings and festivals in the 1980s, public varieties of Wicca continued to further diversify into additional, eclectic sub-denominations, often heavily influenced by the New Age and counter-culture movements. In Wicca, male and female deities are typically balanced out in a form of duotheism. [82], Paganism's public rituals are generally calendrical,[70] although the pre-Christian festivals that pagans use as a basis varied across Europe. ", Religious studies scholar Michael Strmiska[55], Although inspired by the pre-Christian belief systems of the past, modern paganism is not the same phenomenon as these lost traditions and in many respects differs from them considerably. The animistic aspects of pagan theology assert that all things have a soul - not just humans or organic life - so this bond is held with mountains and rivers as well as trees and wild animals. [91] These attitudes would also be exported to North America by European immigrants in these centuries. "[165] Pay Less. Part of the reason Theodosius declared his son Western Emperor while Eugenius was still on the throne was because he was distressed by this pagan revival. The primary forms of Paganism in Europe were Hellenistic religions, including the Roman Imperial cult, mystery religions, local ethnic religions, especially among Anglo-Saxons and the Germanic tribes, Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism. Pagan religions commonly exhibit a metaphysical concept of an underlying order that pervades the universe, such as the concept of harmonia embraced by Hellenists and that of Wyrd found in Heathenry. [95], In the 1920s Margaret Murray theorized that a secret pagan religion had survived the witchcraft persecutions enacted by the ecclesiastical and secular courts. "[142], Folklorist Sabina Magliocco supported this idea, noting that a great many of those Californian pagans whom she interviewed claimed that they had been greatly interested in mythology and folklore as children, imagining a world of "enchanted nature and magical transformations, filled with lords and ladies, witches and wizards, and humble but often wise peasants". Hutton estimated that there are 250,000 neopagan adherents in the United Kingdom, roughly equivalent to the national Hindu community. Faith, ethics and loyalty . [50] While Wicca is identified as an eclectic form of paganism,[51] Strmiska also notes that some Wiccans have moved in a more reconstructionist direction by focusing on a particular ethnic and cultural link, thus developing such variants as Norse Wicca and Celtic Wicca. [70] In Wicca, a Wheel of the Year has been developed which typically involves eight seasonal festivals. [101], Many Heathen groups adopt variants of Norse mythology as a basis for their beliefs, conceiving of the Earth as on the great world tree Yggdrasil. [5] Modern pagan movements can be placed on a spectrum. In both beliefs, divinity and the material or spiritual universe are one. She went on to put forward the idea that this typically confirmed "some original, private experience, so that the most common experience of those who have named themselves pagan is something like 'I finally found a group that has the same religious perceptions I always had'". The decentralised nature of paganism and sheer number of solitary practitioners further complicates matters. Neo-Druidry is the second-largest pagan path after Wicca,[citation needed] and shows similar heterogeneity. [148] She went on to remark that she had encountered pagans in jobs that ranged from "fireman to PhD chemist" but that the one thing that she thought made them into an "elite" was as avid readers, something that she found to be very common within the pagan community despite the fact that avid readers constituted less than 20% of the general population of the United States at the time. Cities such as New Orleans, Edinburgh, and Drogheda, Ireland, have commercialized their pagan festivals, but there are still places where one can find ancient celebrations held outside of modernity; where traditions have remained locally-kept secrets passed down for generations. Europe is extremely rich in festivals and holidays, be them Christian, pagan or non-religious. [37] Some such groups feel a particular affinity for the pre-Christian belief systems of a particular region with which they have no ethnic link because they see themselves as reincarnations of people from that society. [64] Others adopt the belief that the deities have both a psychological and external existence. [55] Contemporary paganism as practiced in the United States in the 1990s has been described as "a synthesis of historical inspiration and present-day creativity". (eds), Learn how and when to remove this template message, secret pagan religion had survived the witchcraft persecutions, Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities, Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, other expressions of gender and sexuality, Religious discrimination against neopagans, The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, Religion data from the 2001 Canadian census, "University of Victoria chaplain marks solstice with pagan rituals", "Invented Culture/Invented Religion: The Fictional Origins of Contemporary Paganism", 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198722250.003.0016, "Old Europe: Sacred Matriarchy or Complementary Opposition? Aby Warburgbibliophile, scholar, library founderhas become known as one of the most original and brilliant art historians of the twentieth century. ", Religious studies scholar Michael Strmiska[93], The rise of modern paganism was aided by the decline in Christianity throughout many parts of Europe and North America,[91] as well as by the concomitant decline in enforced religious conformity and greater freedom of religion that developed, allowing people to explore a wider range of spiritual options and form religious organisations that could operate free from legal persecution.[94]. and used standard models for extrapolating likely numbers. [15] On the eclectic side has been placed Wicca, Thelema, Adonism, Druidry, the Goddess Movement, Discordianism and the Radical Faeries. The Pre-Druidic Period. [7] Even within the academic field of pagan studies, there is no consensus about how contemporary paganism can best be defined. The Australian Bureau of Statistics classifies paganism as an affiliation under which several sub-classifications may optionally be specified. [61] This has been interpreted in two distinct ways among the pagan community. [20] Within linguistically Slavic areas of Europe, the term "Native Faith" is often favored as a synonym for paganism, rendered as Ridnovirstvo in Ukrainian, Rodnoverie in Russian, and Rodzimowierstwo in Polish. [180], Neopaganism has been criticized on a variety of fronts, ranging from pseudohistory to racial issues to institutional issues. For the last several centuries, Europe and America have become increasingly secular as pre-Christian ideas and traditions have gained acceptance. Pagan; Paganism: . [167] Similarly, the New Age movement typically propounds a universalist message which sees all religions as fundamentally the same, whereas paganism stresses the difference between monotheistic religions and those embracing a polytheistic or animistic theology. Mari people - Another Uralic group. I lived in Europe from 1992-2000, but was not pagan at the time. [44] They often follow scholarly debates about the nature of such pre-Christian religions, and some reconstructionists are themselves scholars. Some modern forms of Paganism have their roots in 19th century C.E. [60] The English academic Graham Harvey noted that pagans "rarely indulge in theology". To say it another way, modern Paganism is one of the happy stepchildren of modern multiculturalism and social pluralism. Many neopagans adhere to the definition of magic provided by Aleister Crowley, the founder of Thelema: "the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will". [145], Many pagans in North America encounter the movement through their involvement in other hobbies; particularly popular with US pagans are "golden age"-type pastimes such as the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), Star Trek fandom, Doctor Who fandom and comic book fandom. Criticisms of specific neopagan groups range from criticisms of their belief in gender essentialism[181] to criticisms of their belief in Nationalism[182] to criticisms of the worldly focuses of pagan organizations.[165]. [78], Pagan ritual can take place in both a public and private setting. [4] Among the critics of the upper-case P are York and Andras Corban-Arthen, president of the ECER. [10] A second, less common definition found within pagan studiespromoted by the religious studies scholars Michael F. Strmiska and Graham Harveycharacterises modern paganism as a single religion, of which groups like Wicca, Druidry, and Heathenry are denominations. [122], Establishing precise figures on paganism is difficult. Heathenry is a term used to describe the religious practices of two main groups of people, one historical and one modern. I am somewhat under the impression that paganism, as practiced in Europe, tends to often have a more ethnocentric bend to it because in Europe various pagan sects could be seen as "indigenous" religions. [14] But there has been much "cross-fertilization" between these different faiths: many groups have influenced, and been influenced by, other pagan religions, making clear-cut distinctions among them more difficult for scholars to make. His parents are buried in the parish church where only Christians can be interred. Among Circassians, the Adyghe Habze faith has been revived after the fall of the Soviet Union, and followers of neopagan faiths were found to constitute 12% in Karachay-Cherkessia and 3% in Kabardino-Balkaria (both republics are multiethnic and also have many non-Circassians, especially Russians and Turkic peoples)[126] In Abkhazia, the Abkhaz native faith has also been revived, and in the 2003 census, 8% of residents identified with it (note again that there are many non-Abkhaz in the state including Georgians, Russians and Armenians);[127] on 3 August 2012 the Council of Priests of Abkhazia was formally constituted in Sukhumi. It is, in fact, unique among Pagan paths. [104] Their main god is Tura, a deity comparable to the Estonian Taara, the Germanic Thunraz and the pan-Turkic Tengri. [59], Religious studies scholar Graham Harvey noted that the poem "Charge of the Goddess" remains central to the liturgy of most Wiccan groups. [17] A number of academics, particularly in North America, consider modern paganism a form of nature religion. Smi people - an Uralic group native to northern Scandinavia and neighboring parts of Finland and Russia. [3] Scholars of religion may characterise these traditions as new religious movements. [19] To avoid causing offense, many scholars in the English-speaking world have begun using the prefixes "modern" or "contemporary" rather than "neo". Eastern European area, 2011 Census, Key Statistics for Local Authorities in England and Wales, "2011 Census QuickStats: All people usual residents", Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, "QuickStats About New Zealand's Population and Dwellings", Castro culture/Proto Gallaecian-Lusitanian, INFORM (Information Network Focus on Religious Movements), Academic study of new religious movements, Religious discrimination against Neopagans, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Modern_paganism&oldid=1141001863, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing cleanup from November 2022, Cleanup tagged articles with a reason field from November 2022, Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from November 2022, Articles containing Chuvash-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2020, Articles lacking reliable references from March 2013, Articles with incomplete citations from December 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Claimed to have completed some college or less, This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 21:30. "[172] Further, there is a common belief in the pagan community that Christianity and paganism are opposing belief systems. In Melbourne, Jonas and I offered a presentation together, entitled "The Revival of the European Indigenous Pagan Religions," which was meant to address some of the various key elements in the survival of Indigenous European spirituality. Also accepted by many is the related definition purportedly provided by the ceremonial magician Dion Fortune: "magic is the art and science of changing consciousness according to the Will". Since Mari make up just 45 percent of the republic's population of 700,000, this figure means that probably more than a third claim to follow the old religion. [60][61] [19] He suggests that part of the term's appeal lay in the fact that a large proportion of pagan converts were raised in Christian families, and that by embracing the term "pagan", a word long used for what was "rejected and reviled by Christian authorities", a convert summarizes "in a single word his or her definitive break" from Christianity. The evidence of the religious activities of the prehistoric inhabitants of western Europe is remarkable: on the Gower Peninsula, near Swansea in Wales, the Paviland caves have revealed one of the earliest magico-religious sites in the world, where around 26,000 years ago a group of humans carefully interred a skeleton, wrapping the body in red cloth or rubbing it with . [66] In fact, many American neopagans first came to their adopted faiths because it allowed a greater freedom, diversity, and tolerance of worship among the community. T hey don't look very Christianthose strange faces made of leaves, and those women displaying cartoonishly enlarged genitals on the walls of medieval churches. These figures were not released as a matter of course by the Office for National Statistics, but were released after an application by the Pagan Federation of Scotland. [132] Mari intellectuals maintain that Mari ethnic believers should be classified in groups with varying degrees of Russian Orthodox influence, including syncretic followers who might even go to church at times, followers of the Mari native religion who are baptized, and nonbaptized Mari. Free standard shipping with $35 orders. [14] Rountree wrote that it was wrong to assume that "expressions of Paganism can be categorized straight-forwardly according to region", but acknowledged that some regional trends were visible, such as the impact of Catholicism on paganism in Southern Europe. [70] Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism[1] and neopaganism,[2] is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Africa and the Near East. [58] Strmiska asserts that contemporary paganism could be viewed as a part of the "much larger phenomenon" of efforts to revive "traditional, indigenous, or native religions" that were occurring across the globe. It is also fewer than the adherents of Jediism, whose campaign made them the fourth largest religion after Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.[]. Hanegraaff suggested that whereas various forms of contemporary paganism were not part of the New Age movement particularly those who pre-dated the movement other pagan religions and practices could be identified as New Age. [48] He cites the example of Dievturba, a form of reconstructionist paganism that seeks to revive the pre-Christian religion of the Latvian people, by noting that it exhibits eclectic tendencies by adopting a monotheistic focus and ceremonial structure from Lutheranism. In 2001 about seven people per 10,000 UK respondents were pagan; in 2011 the number (based on the England and Wales population) was 14.3 people per 10,000 respondents. [90] At the time, it was commonly believed that almost all such folk customs were survivals from the pre-Christian period. Writing in the 1430s, Matteo Palmieri of Florence celebrated "this new age, so full of hope and promise" with a greater collection of "nobly-gifted souls" than the world had seen in a thousand years.Like others of his day, Palmieri believed he was living in a special time, a period of tremendous intellectual and artistic creativity inspired by the . 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