According to this view, human society was formerly a matriarchy, with communities being egalitarian, pacifistic, and focused on the worship of the Mother goddess,[117] which was subsequently overthrown by violent and warlike patriarchal hordes - usually Indo-European pastoralists who worshipped male sky-gods,[117] and continued to rule through the form of Abrahamic religions, specifically Christianity in the West. The Goddess movement draws some of its inspiration from the work of archaeologists such as Marija Gimbutas,[113][114][115][116] whose interpretation of artifacts excavated from "Old Europe" points to societies of Neolithic Europe that were matristic or goddess-centered worshipping a female deity of three primary aspects,[117] which has inspired some neopagan worshippers of the Triple Goddess. There is "considerable disagreement as to the precise definition and proper usage" of the term modern paganism. [99] By the time of the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, freedom of religion was legally established across Russia and a number of other newly independent states, allowing for the growth in both Christian and non-Christian religions. Its statistics service only collects limited religious information each decade. The Mari people are an indigenous group, recognized as the last surviving Pagans of Europe. In 1964 Ross Nichols established the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. Its literal meaning is 'rural', 'from the countryside (pagus)' . [55] Contemporary paganism as practiced in the United States in the 1990s has been described as "a synthesis of historical inspiration and present-day creativity". In the United States, the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA) was established in 1912,[119] the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) in 1963, and r nDraocht Fin (ADF) in 1983 by Isaac Bonewits. The 2011 census however made it possible to describe oneself as pagan-Wiccan, pagan-Druid and so on. Some academics who study the phenomenon treat it as a movement that is divided into different religions while others characterize it as a single religion of which different pagan faiths are denominations. Who were the last pagans in Europe? [137], According to Helen A. Berger's 1995 survey "The Pagan Census", most American pagans are middle-class, educated, and live in urban/suburban areas on the East and West coasts. According to the most recent Pew poll, only 71 percent of Europeans still identify as Christian, though 81 percent were raised in the faith. The Moravian revival in 1727 had a deep impact on John Wesley, who led the 18th-century revival in the Church of England that gave birth to Methodism. The last pagan revival was under the Western Emperor Eugenius, who was a puppet of the Pagan magister millitum Arbogast. Pagan religions commonly exhibit a metaphysical concept of an underlying order that pervades the universe, such as the concept of harmonia embraced by Hellenists and that of Wyrd found in Heathenry. [15] The various pagan religions have been academically classified as new religious movements,[16] with the anthropologist Kathryn Rountree describing paganism as a whole as a "new religious phenomenon". The largest subgroup was Wicca, with 11,766 adherents. Here is an article about the pagan revival: Unlike in western Europe, paganism among the Mari constitutes an unbroken tradition rather than a New Age construction. George Watson MacGregor Reid founded the Druid Order in its current form in 1909. It was organised by two British religious studies scholars, Graham Harvey and Charlotte Hardman. In Wicca, male and female deities are typically balanced out in a form of duotheism. [50] While Wicca is identified as an eclectic form of paganism,[51] Strmiska also notes that some Wiccans have moved in a more reconstructionist direction by focusing on a particular ethnic and cultural link, thus developing such variants as Norse Wicca and Celtic Wicca. [175], In areas such as the US Bible Belt, where conservative Christian dominance is strong, pagans have faced continued religious persecution. He claimed to have been initiated by the New Forest coven in 1939, and that the religion he discovered was a survival of the pagan witch-cult described in Murray's theory. "Neopagan" redirects here. A total of 22,497 people stated Other Religion in the 2006 census; and a rough estimate is that there were 2,0003,000 practicing pagans in Ireland in 2009. The population of Europe was growing, but in the 12th century the nun's orders on the whole were not opening new convents. Choose from Same Day Delivery, Drive Up or Order Pickup. 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. Asatru is the name of a 20th-century revival of Norse paganism. [3] Scholars of religion may characterise these traditions as new religious movements. At one end is reconstructionism, which seeks to revive historical pagan religions; examples are Heathenry (Germanic), Rodnovery (Slavic), and Hellenism (Greek). [60][61] Having suffered years of oppression through Soviet secularism and facing an ongoing threat from the current government, the Mari people are unique and strong. The PRC has also begun to report on Pagan identity. View. [160], "Neopagan practices highlight the centrality of the relationship between humans and nature and reinvent religions of the past, while New Agers are more interested in transforming individual consciousness and shaping the future. 1 January : New Year's Day Paganism is the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity. Inside Iceland's pagan revival. It was the outlook of the European religions of classical antiquity - Persia . The modern popularisation of the terms pagan and neopagan as they are currently understood is largely traced to Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, co-founder of the 1st Neo-Pagan Church of All Worlds who, beginning in 1967 with the early issues of Green Egg, used both terms for the growing movement. Europe is extremely rich in festivals and holidays, be them Christian, pagan or non-religious. 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. Hutton estimated that there are 250,000 neopagan adherents in the United Kingdom, roughly equivalent to the national Hindu community. [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. [84] Nevertheless, common to almost all pagan religions is an emphasis on an agricultural cycle and respect for the dead. [145], Many pagans in North America encounter the movement through their involvement in other hobbies; particularly popular with US pagans are "golden age"-type pastimes such as the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), Star Trek fandom, Doctor Who fandom and comic book fandom. $17.85 - $52.94 32 Used from $3.00 12 New from $44.68 1 Collectible from $37.00. In the Islamic World, pagans are not considered people of the book, so they do not have the same status as Abrahamic religions in Islamic religious law for example, Muslim men cannot marry pagan women while they are allowed to marry among people of the book; and Muslims can eat meat of halal animals that are slaughtered by people of the book, but not that slaughtered by methods of other religions. [108], Historian Ronald Hutton identified a wide variety of different sources that influenced Wicca's development, including ceremonial magic, folk magic, Romanticist literature, Freemasonry, and the witch-cult theory of English archaeologist Margaret Murray. Description. 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. [85], Among those who practice magic are Wiccans, those who identify as neopagan witches, and practitioners of some forms of revivalist neo-Druidism, the rituals of which are at least partially based upon those of ceremonial magic and freemasonry. In Soviet Russia, all religion was banned. The ECER has made efforts to establish mutual support with Hindu groups, as has the Lithuanian Romuva movement. [124] In the US, there are estimated to be between 1 and 1.5 million practitioners.[125]. [49] [33] He further suggests that the term gained appeal through its depiction in romanticist and 19th-century European nationalist literature, where it had been imbued with "a certain mystery and allure",[34] and that by embracing the word "pagan" modern pagans defy past religious intolerance to honor the pre-Christian peoples of Europe and emphasize those societies' cultural and artistic achievements. Author Richard Rudgley discusses similar themes in his book The Return of Odin: The Modern Renaissance of Pagan Imagination, where he looks at this notion of a pagan revival primarily through the workings of Carl Jung's idea of an "Odinic archetype." In essence, the holdovers from ancient evolutionary ideas deep within the human mind (or . 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". [169], In India, a prominent figure who made similar efforts was the Hindu revivalist Ram Swarup, who pointed out parallels between Hinduism and European and Arabic paganism. [lower-Greek 3] Based on the most recent survey by the Pew Forum on religion, there are over one million pagans in the United States. Conflict naturally arises, however, as some neopagan belief systems and sect ideologies stem from fundamental beliefs in the male-female gender binary, heterosexual pairing, resulting heterosexual reproduction, and/or gender essentialism. Renaissance: Influence and Interpretations. I lived in Europe from 1992-2000, but was not pagan at the time. 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. With the growth and spread of large, pagan gatherings and festivals in the 1980s, public varieties of Wicca continued to further diversify into additional, eclectic sub-denominations, often heavily influenced by the New Age and counter-culture movements. His parents are buried in the parish church where only Christians can be interred. [86] English esotericist Gerald Gardner was at the forefront of the burgeoning Wiccan movement. Butler, Jenny, "Irish neo-paganism". Some modern forms of Paganism have their roots in 19th century C.E. [1] Strmiska described paganism as a movement "dedicated to reviving the polytheistic, nature-worshipping pagan religions of pre-Christian Europe and adapting them for the use of people in modern societies. Across Europe, different cultures are attempting to revive their pre-Christian religious heritage. In discussing Asatro a form of Heathenry based in Denmark Matthew Amster notes that it did not fit clearly within such a framework, because while seeking a reconstructionist form of historical accuracy, Asatro nevertheless retains a strong christian influence; with a modern construction of dogma, practices, religious titles, literature & an over emphasis on acknowledging & the worship of only the sir gods; as well as strongly eschewing the emphasis on ethnicity that is common to other reconstructionist groups. [140] Respondents were given the option to select one or more religious affiliations. [15] On the eclectic side has been placed Wicca, Thelema, Adonism, Druidry, the Goddess Movement, Discordianism and the Radical Faeries. The first account of the gods of Irish myth to take in the whole sweep of Irish literature in both the nation's languages, the book describes how Ireland's pagan divinities were transformed into literary characters in the medieval Christian era--and how they were recast again during the Celtic Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth . He then discusses the future prospects of Paganism, examining various social and cultural factors that work in its favour and others that work against it. [57] Most pagans adopt an ethos of "unity in diversity" regarding their religious beliefs. [104] Their main god is Tura, a deity comparable to the Estonian Taara, the Germanic Thunraz and the pan-Turkic Tengri. Professor Hutton argues that the Druid and Wiccan practices of today are valid forms of pagan religion even though they are based on self-conscious revivals (in the 18th and 20th century. The Celtic revival in Ireland is an example of a: a. revivalistic movement. 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]. They are modern people with a great reverence for the spirituality of the past, making a new religion a modern Paganism from the remnants of the past, which they interpret, adapt, and modify according to modern ways of thinking. [144] They have also been supported by Pagan studies scholar Graham Harvey. In the 1970s, Wicca was notably influenced by feminism, leading to the creation of an eclectic, Goddess-worshipping movement known as Dianic Wicca. [44] Eclectic pagans, conversely, seek general inspiration from the pre-Christian past, and do not attempt to recreate past rites or traditions with specific attention to detail. While the pagan community has tremendous variety in political views spanning the whole of the political spectrum, environmentalism is often a common feature. For the last several centuries, Europe and America have become increasingly secular as pre-Christian ideas and traditions have gained acceptance. 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. [82], The belief in magical rituals and spells is held by a "significant number" of contemporary pagans. Various forms of Wicca have since evolved or been adapted from Gardner's British Traditional Wicca or Gardnerian Wicca, such as Alexandrian Wicca. [39] Such ethnic paganisms have variously been seen as responses to concerns about foreign ideologies, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and anxieties about cultural erosion. [172] Some pagans have claimed that Christian authorities have never apologized for the religious displacement of Europe's pre-Christian belief systems, particularly following the Roman Catholic Church's apology for past anti-semitism in its A Reflection on the Shoah. Europe Leaves Christianity for 'Paganism' LONDON and DUBLIN - Martyr's Free Church in Edinburgh is part of the rich history of Christianity in Scotland. Today, we'll discuss a fascinating phenomenon that stretches back thousands of years, What if the Catholic World. [123] Nevertheless, there is a slow growing body of data on the subject. "[165] 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. 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