Naturalistic Paganism
Godless Paganism has been named Book of the Year at Pagan Tama! This recognition is wonderful, especially after a tough year for many of us! Godless Paganism is available on Amazon, here. In case you haven’t read it, in it John Halstead has gathered together the voices of 40 atheistic, humanistic, and naturalistic Pagans, pantheists, Gaians, animists, and other non-theistic Pagans.
Contributors include Stifyn Emrys, Mark Green, Stasa Morgan-Appel, Steven Posch, Allison Ehrman, B. T. Newberg, Tom Swiss, Brendan Myers, Scott Oden, Jon Cleland Host, Áine Órga, Alison Leigh Lilly, DT Strain, M. J. Lee, Glenys Livingstone, Glen Gordon, Nimue Brown, Cat Chapin-Bishop, Eli Effinger Weintraub, Ryan Cronin, NaturalPantheist, Debra Macleod, Anna Walther, Shauna Aura Knight, Irene Hilldale, Thalassa (Michelle Joers), Steven Posch, Lupa (Greenwolf), Sara Amis, Traci Laird, Bart Everson, Kathleen Cole (Crafter Yearly), Peg Aloi, Pat Mosley, Amelia Stachowicz, Wayne Martin Mellinger, Rua Lupa, and more.
There is a quite a variety in the book, of both substance and style. It includes personal essays, poetry, theo/alogies, interviews, and ritual scripts. And I think you will find a surprising diversity of opinion in its pages.
Part 1, “Non-Theistic Pagans: ‘Yes, We Exist!’,” introduces the idea of atheistic and other non-theistic Pagans. Parts 2 and 3, “Analyzing with Apollo” and “Dancing with Dionysus,” explore the fertile intersection of rationality, critical thought, and skepticism, on the one hand, with emotion, passion, and mysticism, on the other. Part 4, “Not Your Fathers’ God” explores the myriad ways in which deity or divinity can be conceived by Pagans other than as reified or personified beings. Parts 5 and 6, “Who Are We Talking To Anyway” and “Just LARPing” discuss the role of theistic language and symbolism in non-theistic Pagan practice. Part 7, “Bringing it Down to Earth,” talks about the intersection of non-theistic Paganism and earth-centered practice. And Parts 8, 9, and 10 explore our Pagan past — individual and collective — and our Pagan future.
I know we are just a small fraction of the already small worldwide Pagan community – but it’s early. Though our roots extend millennia back into the past, this website was only founded in 2011, and the earliest web presence I’m aware of was the Naturalistic Paganism Yahoo group, founded in 2005. Today, with Janus looking over our shoulder, we can celebrate how far we’ve come, celebrate this book, and look to the future.
Happy New Year!
Naturalistic Paganism 
Pingback: Tone Setting? | Steel Kachinas
Reblogged this on PaGaian Cosmology and commented:
“There is a quite a variety in the book, of both substance and style. It includes personal essays, poetry, theo/alogies, interviews, and ritual scripts. And I think you will find a surprising diversity of opinion in its pages.”
and I am honoured to say that there are two contributions from me in this book: an essay “A PaGaian Perspective” and an interview “A Poetry of Place”.