Return to Information Return HomeThe word Pagan originally meant of the countryside and in early Europe was applied to rural people who were slow to accept Christianity, which was imposed by city-folk from Rome. After many centuries, European Paganism was pretty well extinguished, except perhaps to some extent in the Baltic States and Iceland. However, a number of ancient customs survived through association with the new religion's festivals, for instance fertility symbols like eggs and rabbits at Easter and trees and lights at Christmas. Also, folk practices ensured a degree of cultural survival in Christianized Europe and provided a venue for female influence beyond the home.
There were always a few rebels and free-thinkers and weird people, whether ceremonial magicians among the elite or covert practitioners of the old ways in the villages, of whom it might be said that they entertained non-Christian lines of thought and were therefore Pagan (when the term came to mean anyone outside the fold of the church). However, it has only been since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of this one, when conventional religion began to lose its pervasive authority, that an upsurge in Paganism and the occult occurred.
Current neo-Paganism as a popular movement pretty much began in the 1950s in England with Gerald Gardner and his religious movement called Wicca. Since then, other revival/survival religions of old Europe have emerged into public view, notably Asatru (based on the Germanic/Scandinavian gods and practices, whose followers often call themselves Heathens, people of the heaths) and Druids. In addition, occultists of every stripe have come out of the woodwork — not to mention all the varieties of New Age practitioners (but we can take neither the credit nor blame for them!)
Modern Pagans, loosely defined, are people who follow nature-oriented religions or "earth religions" (in contrast to conventional religions that stress the after-life). Pagans tend to be polytheistic, and an important characteristic, particulary in Wicca, is adherence to the Goddess(es) as well as the God(s), and the equal participation, both as members and leaders, of women as well as men. Pagan practice may also involve the occult and the working of magic (see our Information Sheets on these subjects for more detail), or it may be limited to celebratory rituals or simply just a Pagan world-view. All these people may otherwise lead ordinary lives.
To quote from an anthropologist who made a study of the scene:
(Pagans) tolerate a surprising spiritual diversity. Central to the ethos is the notion that any path of a religion is a path to a spiritual reality, and whatever symbols and images one chooses are valid. Groups and their practices are creative, syncretic. . . The only dogma, they say, is that there is no dogma. . . Practitioners think of themselves as, or as inspired by, the witches, wizards, druids, kabbalists and shamans, of mostly European lore, and they perform rituals and create ritual groups in which they invoke ancient deities. . .
(Pages 6 and 7, T.M. Luhrmann, Persuasions of the Witch's Craft. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.)
We sometimes call what we do “European Native spirituality” after the American Native spirituality, which has won long-delayed respectability in recent times. Ancient Europeans in their native lands were also tribal and tied to the land and felt akin to nature. Many modern people have felt a need to reconnect with nature, and even to retribalize with people of like mind. Some people have looked to American Native ways, while others have looked to their own nearly-forgotten European roots.
This talk of European roots is a matter of culture, incidentally, and not of the color nor ethnicity of the people practicing that culture, who come in all kinds these days, particularly in England, the U.S. and Canada. The modern pagan movement is not exclusionary in any way. In fact, in the spirit of the “surprising spiritual diversity” mentioned, neo-Paganism has embraced Native American ideas, East Indian practices, ancient Egyptian and Sumerian deities, Central American shamanism, Jewish Kabbalism, and there is growing rapprochement with Voudun (Voodoo) and Santeria. Our tribe is the world!
We should mention that our diversity and inclusiveness most definitely extend to sexual orientation and practice. The Goddess says, All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
For more specific details about some of the more common kinds of Paganism, see our Information Pages on Wicca, Asatru, Shamanism and Druidism. Also, the bookstores are overflowing with books on every flavor of neo-Paganism, the occult and New Age. However, for an excellent introduction to and overview of the Pagan scene, see Contemporary Paganism, by Graham Harvey (who lectures in religion at an English university). It was published in 1997 by the New York University Press (ISBN 0-8147-3549-5). Another excellent survey, with historial background, is Drawing Down the Moon, by Margot Adler (Beacon Press, 1987; ISBN0-8070-3250-0).