[85] Among those who believe in it, there are a variety of different views about what magic is. Oh, and there's nothing Pagan in "Harry Potter." The only religion even implied in any of the HP books is Christianity. We all need to heed these prophetic and timely warningsand avoid being drawn into this pagan revival! [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. Vote 1 1 comment sorted by Best "[13], Discussing the relationship between the different pagan religions, religious studies scholars Kaarina Aitamurto and Scott Simpson wrote that they were "like siblings who have taken different paths in life but still retain many visible similarities". There are exceptions to polytheism in paganism,[69] as seen for instance in the form of Ukrainian paganism promoted by Lev Sylenko, which is devoted to a monotheistic veneration of the god Dazhbog. [63] Pagans feel that this understanding of the gods reflected the dynamics of life on Earth, allowing for the expression of humour. [121], In 1925, the Czech esotericist Franz Sttler founded the pagan religion Adonism, devoted to the ancient Greek god Adonis, whom Sttler equated with the Christian Satan, and which purported that the end of the world would come in 2000. "[155][156], Transgender existence and acceptability is especially controversial in many neopagan sects. The figures for England and Wales showed 80,153 describing themselves as pagan (or some subgroup thereof.) European. Well, it's home to one of the most dynamic revival preachers in Europe, Jean-Luc Trachsel, whose ministry in Oron is growing steadily and regularly sees conversions in the hundreds. [39] Such ethnic paganisms have variously been seen as responses to concerns about foreign ideologies, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and anxieties about cultural erosion. 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. Here is a short list encompassing all European countries. Most of what is considered Christian Europe is actually pagan Europe . ", "Minoan Brotherhood | Transcendence Directory | Western Esotericism Community", "Why won't pagans accept trans women? [123] Nevertheless, there is a slow growing body of data on the subject. These open, unstructured or loosely structured traditions contrast with British Traditional Wicca, which emphasizes secrecy and initiatory lineage. . As a result, pagans believe the essence of their spirituality is both ancient and timeless, regardless of the age of specific religious movements. [130] The percentage of pagans among the Mari of Bashkortostan and the eastern part of Tatarstan is even higher (up to 69% among women). In the first case, there is a deeply felt need to connect with the past as a source of spiritual strength and wisdom; in the second case, there is the idealistic hope that a spirituality of nature can be gleaned from ancient sources and shared with all humanity. This movement of God also crossed the ocean . [1] Similarly, Strmiska stresses that modern paganism should not be conflated with the belief systems of the world's Indigenous peoples because the latter lived under colonialism and its legacy, and that while some pagan worldviews bear similarities to those of indigenous communities, they stem from "different cultural, linguistic, and historical backgrounds". [23] This approach has been received critically by many specialists in religious studies. In the 1970s, Wicca was notably influenced by feminism, leading to the creation of an eclectic, Goddess-worshipping movement known as Dianic Wicca. 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. [168], Because of their common links to the Proto-Indo-European culture, many adherents of modern paganism have come to regard Hinduism as a spiritual relative. One such. [60][61] [154] Margot Adler noted groups whose practices focused on male homosexuality, such as Eddie Buczynski's Minoan Brotherhood, a Wiccan sect that combines the iconography from ancient Minoan religion with a Wiccan theology and an emphasis on men who love men, and the eclectic pagan group known as the Radical Faeries. [64] Others adopt the belief that the deities have both a psychological and external existence. [103], The Chuvash people, a Turkic ethnic group native to an area stretching from the Volga Region to Siberia, have experienced a pagan revival since the fall of the Soviet Union. Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, 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. [35], For some pagan groups, ethnicity is central to their religion, and some restrict membership to a single ethnic group. This estimate accounted for multiple membership overlaps as well as the number of adherents represented by each attendee of a pagan gathering. In the early medieval ages, these religions were influential, and, in some cases, they were even the official . Some modern pagan literature prominently features comparative religion involving European and Indian traditions. . [78], Pagan ritual can take place in both a public and private setting. [150], The sociologist Regina Oboler examined the role of gender in the US pagan community, arguing that although the movement had been constant in its support for the equality of men and women ever since its foundation, there was still an essentialist view of gender engrained within it, with female deities being accorded traditional western feminine traits and male deities being similarly accorded what western society saw as masculine traits. [38] Strmiska notes that pagan groups can be "divided along a continuum: at one end are those that aim to reconstruct the ancient religious traditions of a particular ethnic group or a linguistic or geographic area to the highest degree possible; at the other end are those that freely blend traditions of different areas, peoples, and time periods. [25] Doyle White writes that modern religions that draw upon the pre-Christian belief systems of other parts of the world, such as Sub-Saharan Africa or the Americas, cannot be seen as part of the contemporary pagan movement, which is "fundamentally Eurocentric". Increased knowledge of other cultures led to questions of whether their practices even fit into the definitions of religion, and paganism was incorporated in the idea of progress, where it was ranked as a low, undeveloped form of religion. [100], In contrast to the eclectic traditions, Polytheistic Reconstructionists practice culturally specific ethnic traditions based on folklore, songs and prayers, as well as reconstructions from the historical record. [105], Wicca is the largest form of modern paganism,[41] as well as the best-known[107] and most extensively studied. [144] They have also been supported by Pagan studies scholar Graham Harvey. [146], Adler went on to note that from those she interviewed and surveyed in the US, she could identify a number of common factors that led to people getting involved in paganism: the beauty, vision and imagination that was found within their beliefs and rituals, a sense of intellectual satisfaction and personal growth that they imparted, their support for environmentalism or feminism, and a sense of freedom. [4] Among the critics of the upper-case P are York and Andras Corban-Arthen, president of the ECER. [11] This perspective has been critiqued, given the lack of core commonalities in issues such as theology, cosmology, ethics, afterlife, holy days, or ritual practices within the pagan movement. [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. Asatru is the name of a 20th-century revival of Norse paganism. [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. Its statistics service only collects limited religious information each decade. [176], The earliest academic studies of contemporary paganism were published in the late 1970s and 1980s by scholars like Margot Adler, Marcello Truzzi and Tanya Luhrmann, although it would not be until the 1990s that the actual multidisciplinary academic field of pagan studies properly developed, pioneered by academics such as Graham Harvey and Chas S. Clifton. Historians now reject Murray's theory, as she based it partially upon the similarities of the accounts given by those accused of witchcraft; such similarity is now thought to actually derive from there having been a standard set of questions laid out in the witch-hunting manuals used by interrogators. From its beginning, thanks to Christensen, this revival had a National Socialist component, but Gardell gives attention to others who helped create what he dubs "Aryan revolutionary paganism," including Wyatt Kaldenberg, "Jost" Turner, and Wotansvolk, created in 1995 by David and Katja Lane and Ron McVan. It draws inspirations from historical Druids, the priest caste of the ancient pagan Celts. 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". [109], In the 1990s, Wiccan beliefs and practices were used as a partial basis for a number of US films and television series, such as The Craft, Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, leading to a surge in teenagers' and young adults' interest and involvement in the religion. From the serpent goddesses of ancient Crete to modern nature-worship and . Mari anthropologist Nikandr Popov points out that pagan prayer meetings were permitted by decree during the Second World War - with collections being made for the front - and . They have also suggested that these could all be included under the rubric of "paganism". Mari fled here from forced Christianization in the 17th to 19th centuries. 12 October 2016. Today it's "Frankenstein," a bar that describes itself as a family-friendly venue but also a place for stag parties, bar top dancers and monsters. 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. Although animal sacrifice was a common part of pre-Christian ritual in Europe, it is rarely practiced in contemporary paganism. Other manners in which many North American pagans have got involved with the movement are through political or ecological activism, such as "vegetarian groups, health food stores" or feminist university courses. 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]. The Pre-Druidic Period. [178] In April 1996 a larger conference dealing with contemporary paganism took place at Ambleside in the Lake District. [70] In Wicca, a Wheel of the Year has been developed which typically involves eight seasonal festivals. Originally written by Wiccan High Priestess Doreen Valiente in the mid-1950s, the poem allows Wiccans to gain wisdom and experience deity in "the ordinary things in life". Their religious rituals are characterized by harmonious devotion to . Faith, ethics and loyalty . [4] Some favor the term "ethnic religion"; the World Pagan Congress, founded in 1998, soon renamed itself the European Congress of Ethnic Religions (ECER), enjoying that term's association with the Greek ethnos and the academic field of ethnology. Contemporary pagan ritual is typically geared towards "facilitating altered states of awareness or shifting mind-sets". The current revival of paganism is significant, because it is symptomatic of an end-time condition that will bring punishment from God before it is brought to an end at the return of Jesus Christ. [45] Reconstructionists do not altogether reject innovation in their interpretation and adaptation of the source material, however they do believe that the source material conveys greater authenticity and thus should be emphasized. Because of these different approaches there is disagreement on when or if the term pagan should be capitalized, though specialists in the field of pagan studies tend towards capitalisation.[4]. It was the outlook of the European religions of classical antiquity - Persia . Among the young, the situation is worse. [92], "The rise of modern Paganism is both a result and a measure of increased religious liberty and rising tolerance for religious diversity in modern societies, a liberty and tolerance made possible by the curbing of the sometimes oppressive power wielded by Christian authorities to compel obedience and participation in centuries past. Pagan Definition. [21] Alternately, many practitioners in these regions view "Native Faith" as a category within modern paganism that does not encompass all pagan religions. Among modern Pagans, there are two approaches to reviving pagan practices. Inside Iceland's pagan revival. Free standard shipping with $35 orders. [79] American folklorist Sabina Magliocco came to the conclusion, based upon her ethnographic fieldwork in California that certain pagan beliefs "arise from what they experience during religious ecstasy". 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. One is eclecticism or syncretism, in which elements of historical ethnic religions such as the ancient Norse religion are combined with modern movements such as Wicca, Theosophy or other New Age philosophies. [44] They often follow scholarly debates about the nature of such pre-Christian religions, and some reconstructionists are themselves scholars. 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. 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