A Non-Pagan’s Guide to Understanding Modern Paganism
So I’m a pagan.
Yes, you read that right. No, it’s not devil worship.
Pagan is a very loaded term. And its definition has change a lot over time. It comes from the Latin paganus, which means something like ‘villager’ or ‘rural person.’ Then the term was used by the Church to distinguish people in the countryside of what we call Europe who still practiced non-Christian forms of religion. Then — with colonialism — any non-Abrahamic religious practice was seen as ‘pagan’ or ‘not Christian.’ In more recent times, it came to mean someone who was essentially a hick.
In the last hundred years or so, this definition has evolved again. And today there are very different types of paganism. You could consider forms of worship like Orisha worship or Voodoo or Hinduism or Native American practices or Shinto ‘loosely’ pagan — and I mean ‘loosely.’ The term was, after all, applied to native groups by colonizers. But they also certainly aren’t Christian practices in origin. Furthermore, these groups are often living traditions that go back centuries. I give a nod to these global paganisms from living traditions for their endurance and individual forms of practice. However, I don’t group them with modern paganism, as such.
Modern paganism is a very new spiritual and religious movement.When I say “modern” or “neo” paganism, I generally mean people who have revived a ‘dead tradition,’ necessarily adding some level of modern values and thought to that tradition. This also means it is overwhelmingly Euro-centric. The last non-Christians in Europe were probably the Vikings around 1000AD. In all that time, Hinduism is still going strong. While I would like to find an appropriate term that encompasses all non-Abrahamic forms of religious practice, that is not the purpose of this article.
So then, if we are up to speed, this article is about Neo-paganism practices, that is: non-Christian forms of worship generally stemming from ancient European paganisms. I like to explain these groups, or maybe ‘denominations,’ in terms of a spectrum.
The revival of European paganisms is generally attributed to Gerald Gardner of the UK in the 1940s. He founded what is broadly known as Wicca. This practice was not so much based on our knowledge of how ancient people practiced, as much as it was based on occultism. It was very much tied to witchcraft, i.e. ritualized spells. It also centered around a Goddess deity, and sometimes included a God as well. And once Wicca moved to the US, it became entangled with the green and women’s rights movements.
In the 1970s, the first Reconstructionists came around. These were neo-pagans who felt compelled to look at the historical and archeological record in order to deepen their religious practice. Essentially, they ‘reconstruct’ — as much as possible — what ancient pagans actually did in their worship of many gods.
These are the two ends of the spectrum. One is tied into many other New Age ideas and the other is extremely historically based. While there are a countless number of neo-pagan organizations, as well as loosely defined groups who hold more similar beliefs, they all fall somewhere on that line between New Age and Recon.
Et volia! That’s the basis for what you need to know. Let’s try out some examples. Let’s say you’re talking to a self-described pagan about what is often called “their path.”
Example 1: They say they are Wiccan, and perhaps they specify that they are also a Kitchen Witch. You know Wicca is on the New Age side of the spectrum. You know witchcraft has something to do with spells, so much of their path is done in the kitchen or with common kitchen items. Because they are Wiccan, you also know that they might believe in the Goddess and the God. And you know Wicca generally incorporates feminism and environmentalism. That’s a good start to continue your conversation.
Example 2: They say that are Alexandarian Wicca. You have no idea who the heck that is, but you don’t really have to. Again, like the last example, you know it is more New Age, there is probably one to two deities, and there is some form of ritual spellwork. There is one important thing to know: any Wicca with a name means its from a single person’s tradition, or their take, on Wicca. The two most common forms are Gardnerian Wicca and Alexandarian Wicca. These are less about feminism and environmentalism and more about the occult. These traditionalist Wiccan groups are less to the New Age side of things than their other Wiccan counterparts.
Example 3: They say they are a Druid or a Heathen and that they are polytheist. Since modern paganism is culturally Euro-centric, you at least know these terms related to somewhere in Europe. Druidry generally has to do with the Celtic culture. And Heathen is generally focused on Germanic cultures. And you know they are polytheist, or believe in many gods. So this is somewhat closer to Reconstructionists on the spectrum. However, a group like this might talk a lot more about ‘Personal Gnosis,’ or a personal relationship with multiple gods, than a Recon might.
Example 4: They say they are a Celtic (or Baltic or Grecian) Reconstructionist. You know Recon: that means trying to revive a dead tradition as much as possible. They might throw a bunch of old books and historical names at you in your conversation. Don’t get muddled by the specifics, just try to understand what from those historical sources motivates or influences them. And Reconstructionists’ paths can be very different depending on the culture they work in. Think about the show Vikings and compare that to what you know about the Romans from your high school history.
Example 5: They say they are a member of a UU Church (a Universalist Unitarian Church) and believe nature, perhaps they called it Gaia, is sacred. This is a little tricky because you have to know what UU is. Essentially UU’s believe in some form of Higher Power, and that, really, all religions are a way to that Higher Power. It’s a very open-minded community that is based more on good values than a specific belief system. The second thing was that nature was sacred. This could mean that the Higher Power, for this pagan, is nature. They are describing a fairly New Age perspective on both nature and religion. After all, the UU Church was established in the 1900s, and its view of religion is fairly modern.
Hopefully you feel better now about how to think about modern paganism and some of the definitions and differences between modern pagan religions or paths. There are a lot of terms out there, and you can’t know them all. So I suggest you be as polite as you can and ask as many questions as you can think of. If you keep in mind the New Age to Recon spectrum, it will help you find where this specific pagan is, and the types of things they might believe.
