[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. [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. [129] Neopagan movements are also present to a lesser degree elsewhere; in Dagestan 2% of the population identified with folk religious movements, while data on neopagans is unavailable for Chechnya and Ingushetia.[126]. It draws inspirations from historical Druids, the priest caste of the ancient pagan Celts. [44] They often follow scholarly debates about the nature of such pre-Christian religions, and some reconstructionists are themselves scholars. [65] Many pagans believe adoption of a polytheistic world-view would be beneficial for western society replacing the dominant monotheism they see as innately repressive. [105], Wicca is the largest form of modern paganism,[41] as well as the best-known[107] and most extensively studied. Four groups come to mind: 1. Wicca has been described as a polytheistic religion. [] This is more than many well known traditions such as Rastafarian, Bah and Zoroastrian groups, but fewer than the big six of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism. Common pagan devotional practices have thus been compared to similar practices in Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodox Christianity, but contrasted with that in Protestantism, Judaism, and Islam. [35], For some pagan groups, ethnicity is central to their religion, and some restrict membership to a single ethnic group. [57], Dennis D. Carpenter noted that the belief in a pantheistic or panentheistic deity has led to the idea of interconnectedness playing a key part in pagans' worldviews. [78], Pagan ritual can take place in both a public and private setting. Prior to the spread of the 20th-century neopagan movements, a notable instance of self-identified paganism was in Sioux writer Zitkala-sa's essay "Why I Am A Pagan". 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. Eco-paganism and Eco-magic, which are offshoots of direct action environmental groups, strongly emphasize fairy imagery and a belief in the possibility of intercession by the fae (fairies, pixies, gnomes, elves, and other spirits of nature and the Otherworlds). [165] (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? In Wicca, male and female deities are typically balanced out in a form of duotheism. Goddess Spirituality revolves around the sacredness of the female form, and of aspects of women's lives that adherents say have been traditionally neglected in Western society, such as menstruation, sexuality, and maternity.[112]. 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. According to the most recent Pew poll, only 71 percent of Europeans still identify as Christian, though 81 percent were raised in the faith. 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. [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. Europe is extremely rich in festivals and holidays, be them Christian, pagan or non-religious. Europe Leaves Christianity for 'Paganism' LONDON and DUBLIN - Martyr's Free Church in Edinburgh is part of the rich history of Christianity in Scotland. Since traditional religion is declining I don't see it not spreading. 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". Hellenic, Roman, Kemetic, Celtic, Germanic, Guanche, Baltic and Slavic reconstructionists aim to preserve and revive the practices and beliefs of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, the Celts, the Germanic peoples, the Guanche people, the Balts and the Slavs, respectively. Pre-World War II neopagan or proto-neopagan groups, growing out of occultism and/or Romanticism (Mediterranean revival, Viking revival, Celtic revival, etc.). Paganism is the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity. Butler, Jenny, "Irish neo-paganism". Interest in the Norse myths revived, as elsewhere, in the late 19th . The PRC has also begun to report on Pagan identity. Eugenius restored the Altar of Victory and funded other pagan projects. [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". A sociological survey conducted in 2004 found that about 15 percent of the population of Mari El consider themselves adherents of the Mari native religion. [19] In this, he compared it to the gay liberation movement's reappropriation of the term "queer", which had formerly been used only as a term of homophobic abuse. Pagan; Paganism: . [85] Among those who believe in it, there are a variety of different views about what magic is. 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 . [19] To avoid causing offense, many scholars in the English-speaking world have begun using the prefixes "modern" or "contemporary" rather than "neo". A proposal to erect a pagan "Amazonian love god" statue near a cathedral in the English city of Wakefield has drawn the ire of residents who claim its placement mocks Christianity. Although animal sacrifice was a common part of pre-Christian ritual in Europe, it is rarely practiced in contemporary paganism. The approach to paganism varied during this period; Friedrich Schiller's 1788 poem "Die Gtter Griechenlandes" presents ancient Greek religion as a powerful alternative to Christianity, whereas others took interest in paganism through the concept of the noble savage, often associated with Jean-Jacques Rousseau.[89]. [63], One view in the pagan community is that these polytheistic deities are not viewed as literal entities, but as Jungian archetypes or other psychological constructs that exist in the human psyche. 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 . On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [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. ", 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. Mari people - Another Uralic group. Most are polytheistic realists, believing that the deities are real entities, while others view them as Jungian archetypes. [60][73] In contrast, some contemporary pagans believe that there are specific spirits that inhabit various features in the natural world, and that these can be actively communicated with. One of the most notable of these is Dianic Wicca. [74], Animism was also a concept common to many pre-Christian European religions, and in adopting it, contemporary pagans are attempting to "reenter the primeval worldview" and participate in a view of cosmology "that is not possible for most Westerners after childhood". Irish paganism is often strongly concerned with issues of place and language. [17] A number of academics, particularly in North America, consider modern paganism a form of nature religion. The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, or CUUPs, encourages its chapters to "use practices familiar to members who attend for worship services but not to follow only one tradition of paganism". [59], Beliefs and practices vary widely among different pagan groups; however, there are a series of core principles common to most, if not all, forms of modern paganism. [90] The publications of studies into European folk customs and culture by scholars like Johann Gottfried Herder and Jacob Grimm resulted in a wider interest in these subjects and a growth in cultural self-consciousness. She furthermore argues that some of those dissatisfied pagans lashed out against academics as a result, particularly on the Internet. [180], Neopaganism has been criticized on a variety of fronts, ranging from pseudohistory to racial issues to institutional issues. While the pagan community has tremendous variety in political views spanning the whole of the political spectrum, environmentalism is often a common feature. [147], Based upon her work in the United States, Adler found that the pagan movement was "very diverse" in its class and ethnic background. Their religious rituals are characterized by harmonious devotion to . [61] This has been interpreted in two distinct ways among the pagan community. 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