Paganism

Contemporary Paganism is a general term for a variety of related religious movements which began in the United States in the 1960′s, with literary roots going back to the mid-19th century Europe, as attempts to revive what their founders thought were the best aspects of ancient pagan ways, blended with modern humanistic, pluralistic, and inclusionary ideals, while consciously striving to eliminate certain elements of traditional Western monotheism, including dualistic thinking and puritanism. Some of the distinguishing characteristics of contemporary Paganism include reverence for and a sense of kinship with nature, a positive morality which emphasizes individual responsibility, and a divine which takes the form of a plurality of both male and female deities.

Many people find that philosophical naturalism, while intellectually compelling, is emotionally or psychologically unfulfilling, because it lacks the symbolic resources of theistic religions. Paganism is well-suited to fill that void. But, on the other hand, much of contemporary Paganism is prone to irrationalism and superstition. Naturalism, with its commitment to the scientific method, can counter this tendency and help sift the wheat from the chaff of contemporary Paganism. Together, naturalism and Paganism can balance each other. Naturalism can keep Paganism true to the empirical world around us, while Paganism can enrich naturalism with symbolism and myth.

Humanism, naturalism, and paganism* have a shared history, spanning centuries. Both humanism and naturalistic science flowered in Classical Greece, for example. While they declined throughout the Christian Middle Ages, they enjoyed a resurgence during the Renaissance, which also saw a renewal of Pagan imagery and symbolism. Today, the religious or spiritual practices of Naturalistic Pagans are inspired by the religions of ancient pagans, but blended with modern and post-modern values and knowledge.

Ancient paganism shared many of the values important to contemporary humanists, like inclusivity and cultural relativism. In contrast to monotheists, ancient pagans worshipped multiple deities of both genders and all sexual orientations. Because of this, it has been argued that polytheism is inherently more tolerant of other perspectives and lifestyles than monotheism. In addition, many ancient pagans adopted allegorical interpretations of their (often conflicting) myths, in contrast to the monotheists’ more literal attitude toward religious texts. It has also been argued that ancient paganisms were more respectful of the natural world than the monotheistic religions. While this can be debated, many of the ancient pagan gods of nature do lend themselves to contemporary understandings of ecology.

Naturalistic Pagans do not seek to reconstruct the ways of ancient pagans, but instead draw inspiration from their myths and their rituals to create a religion that is both intellectually and emotionally satisfying to modern people. While Naturalistic Pagans are not convinced by the metaphysical claims made by other Pagans for the existence of deities or the efficacy of magic, we do find evidence for the capacity of myth and ritual to affect psychology. Myth and ritual have the power to shape human minds, and thereby to effect change through human hands. While some contemporary Pagans may think this attitude is disrespectful of ancient pagans, in fact, many ancient pagans embraced naturalistic or allegorical interpretations of the gods and myths, as has been shown by B. T. Newberg in his Naturalistic Traditions series, Luc Brisson’s How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical Interpretation and Classical Mythology, and Anne Bates Hersman’s Studies in Greek Allegorical Interpretation.

* A Note on Capitalization: “Pagan” is capitalized herein where it refers to the contemporary Pagan religious communities and practices. The word should be capitalized when used as a noun or adjective in the same way that “Christian”, “Catholic”, “Mormon”, “Hindu”, “Buddhist”, and so on, are capitalized. Where “pagan” is not capitalized herein, it refers to ancient pagans predating the modern era, like the ancient Celts, Egyptians, and Norse.

5 Comments on “Paganism

  1. Pingback: “Why Pagan?” A response to a response of a response. | Son of Hel

  2. I found this definition of paganism interesting but don’t agree with saying it began in the United States an argument could be made that it was simultaneous on both sides of the Atlantic but it is well established that it began in England and very quickly spread to the us

      • Wicca was pretty much the beginning of Neo-paganism as we understand it, unless you really want to get into gatekeeping and hairsplitting elitism. Wicca is a form of Neo-paganism as much as what you are promoting on this website

        Also if you wish to ignore pre 20th century modern pagan movements in europe go ahead and throw away your history books and anything that inspired American hippies to start their own religious movements.

        Typical Americans want to claim they started everything

        • That’s the story BTWs tell, but several academics have distinguished esoteric Wicca from exoteric Neo-Paganism.  In 1987, Robert Ellwood and Harry Partin, in reviewing the Neo-Pagan scene, observed a distinction between the British-influenced esoteric groups and the more nature-oriented forms of Neo-Paganism:

          “The Neo-Pagan movement breaks down into two broad categories: the magical groups, deeply influenced by the model of the Order of the Golden Dawn, the O.T.O., and Crowley; and the nature oriented groups. The former are the more antiquarian; they love to discuss editions of old grimoires, and the complicated histories of groups an lineages. They delight in precise and fussy ritualism, though the object is the evocation of intense emotional power […]

          “The pagan nature-oriented groups are more purely romantic; they prefer woodsy setting to incense and they dance and plant trees. They are deeply influenced by Robert Graves, especially his White Goddess. They are less concerned with evocation than celebration of the goddesses they know are already there. The mood is spontaneous rather than precise, though the rite may be as beautiful and complex as a country dance. ….

          “Wicca itself is in the middle between magic and nature-oriented groups.”

          — Robert Ellwood and Harry Partin, Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America

          Elsewhere, Ellwood distinguished “occult groups”, which “offer initiation into expanded consciousness through a highly structured production of internal experiences and impartation of knowledge”, from “neopagan groups”, “which promote a new vision of man’s relation to nature, the archetypes of the unconscious, and the passions”

          Similarly, in New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, Wouter Hanegraaff observed “that Wicca is a neopagan development of traditional occultist ritual magic, but that the later movement is not itself pagan.”  In fact, Hanegraaff states that he might not have even included Wicca in his survey of Neo-Paganism if it had remained a “relatively self-contained England-based occultist religion”.  Likewise, in Wicca and the Christian Heritage, Jo Pearson questions whether Wicca can even be considered a form of Neo-Paganism.  She writes: “In many ways initiatory Wicca can be regarded as existing on the margins of Paganism.”

          Sarah Pike, in New Age and Neopagan Religions in America (2004), dates the origins of Neopaganism to 1967. In that year, Fred Adams founded Feraferia, a wilderness mystery religion, Aidan Kelly and others formed the New Re­formed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn (NROOGD), and Oberon Zell filed for incorporation of the Church of All Worlds. Official status was granted in 1968, making it the first state-recog­nized Neo-Pagan “church.” The Church of All Worlds also began publishing the Green Egg newsletter that year, which be­came the most important public forum for Neo-Pagans for many years and was instrumental in the formation of an emerging iden­tity around the name, “Neo-Pagan.”

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