Nigromancy, meaning black magic together with six associated practices of black divination, has traditionally referred to the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes, specifically the seven magical arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456.
In 1597, King James VI and I published a treatise, Daemonologie,
a philosophical dissertation describing contemporary nigromancy and the
historical relationships between the various methods of divination used
in black magic. This book is believed to be one of the main sources
used by William Shakespeare in the production of Macbeth.
The links and interaction between black magic and religion are many and varied. Beyond black magic's historical persecution by Christianity and its inquisitions, there are links between religious and black magic rituals. For example, 17th-century priest Étienne Guibourg is said to have performed a series of Black Mass rituals with alleged witch Catherine Monvoisin for Madame de Montespan. During his period of scholarship, A. E. Waite provided a comprehensive account of black magic practices, rituals and traditions in The Book of Ceremonial Magic (1911).
The influence of popular culture has allowed other practices to
be drawn in under the broad banner of black magic, including the concept
of Satanism.
While the invocation of demons or spirits is an accepted part of black
magic, this practice is distinct from the worship or deification of
such spiritual beings. The two are usually combined in medieval beliefs about witchcraft.
The lowest depths of black mysticism are well-nigh as difficult to plumb as it is arduous to scale the heights of sanctity. The Grand Masters of the witch covens are men of genius – a foul genius, crooked, distorted, disturbed, and diseased.
Like its counterpart white magic, the origins of black magic can be traced to the primitive, ritualistic worship of spirits as outlined in Robert M. Place's 2009 book, Magic and Alchemy. Unlike white magic, in which Place sees parallels with primitive shamanistic efforts to achieve closeness with spiritual beings, the rituals that developed into modern black magic were designed to evoke
those same spirits to produce beneficial outcomes for the practitioner.
Place also provides a broad modern definition of both black and white
magic, preferring instead to refer to them as "high magic" (white) and "low magic"
(black) based primarily on intentions of the practitioner employing
them. He acknowledges, though, that this broader definition (of "high"
and "low") suffers from prejudices because good-intentioned folk magic may be considered "low" while ceremonial magic involving expensive or exclusive components may be considered by some as "high magic", regardless of intent.
During the Renaissance, many magical practices and rituals were considered evil or irreligious and by extension, black magic in the broad sense. Witchcraft and non-mainstream esoteric study were prohibited and targeted by the Inquisition. As a result, natural magic developed as a way for thinkers and intellectuals, like Marsilio Ficino, abbot Johannes Trithemius and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, to advance esoteric and ritualistic study (though still often in secret) without significant persecution.
While "natural magic" became popular among the educated and upper classes of the 16th and 17th century, ritualistic magic and folk magic remained subject to persecution. Twentieth-century writer Montague Summers
generally rejects the definitions of "white" and "black" magic as
"contradictory", though he highlights the extent to which magic in
general, regardless of intent, was considered "black" and cites William Perkins posthumous 1608 instructions in that regard:
All witches "convicted by the
Magistrate" should be executed. He allows no exception and under this
condemnation fall "all Diviners, Charmers, Jugglers, all Wizards,
commonly called wise men or wise women". All those purported "good
Witches which do not hurt but good, which do not spoil and destroy, but
save and deliver" should come under the extreme sentence.
In particular, though, the term was most commonly reserved for those accused of invoking demons and other evil spirits, those hexing or cursing their neighbours, those using magic to destroy crops, and those capable of leaving their earthly bodies and travelling great distances in spirit (to which the Malleus Maleficarum
"devotes one long and important chapter"), usually to engage in
devil-worship. Summers also highlights the etymological development of
the term nigromancer, in common use from 1200 to approximately 1500, (Latin: niger, black; Greek: μαντεία, divination), broadly "one skilled in the black arts".
In a modern context, the line between white magic and black magic
is somewhat clearer and most modern definitions focus on intent rather
than practice. There is also an extent to which many modern Wicca and witchcraft
practitioners have sought to distance themselves from those intent on
practising black magic. Those who seek to do harm or evil are less
likely to be accepted into mainstream Wiccan circles or covens in an era where benevolent magic is increasingly associated with new-age beliefs and practices, and self-help spiritualism.
The seven artes prohibitae or artes magicae, arts prohibited by canon law as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456, their sevenfold partition reflecting that of the artes liberales and artes mechanicae, were:
The division between the four elemental
disciplines (viz., geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy) is
somewhat contrived. Chiromancy is the divination from a subject's palms
as practiced by the Romani
(at the time recently arrived in Europe), and scapulimancy is the
divination from animal bones, in particular shoulder blades, as
practiced in peasant superstition. Nigromancy is distinguished from scholarly high magic derived from High Medieval grimoires such as the Picatrix, Liber Juratus Honorii, and Liber Razielis Archangeli.
Nigromancy
While the term "nigromancy" broadly construed includes the six
associated divinatory practices, it more specifically refers to the demonic magic of the Late Middle Ages. Demonic magic was performed in groups surrounding a leader in possession of a grimoire.
Practitioners were typically members of the educated elite, as most
grimoires were written in Latin. One such case in 1444, Inquisitor
Gaspare Sighicelli took action against a group active in Bologna. Marco
Mattei of Gesso and friar Jacopo of Viterbo confessed to taking part in
magical practices. Nigromancy may include, but is not a synonym for, necromancy ("death magic").
Geomancy
The art of geomancy
was one of the more popular forms of divination practiced during the
Renaissance. It is a form of divination in which any question may be
answered by casting sand, stone, or dirt on the ground and reading the
shapes, using tables of geomantic figures for interpretation.
Hydromancy
Hydromancy, a form of divination using water, is typically used with scrying.
Water is used as a medium for scrying to allow the practitioner to see
illusionary pictures within it. Hydromancy originated from Babylonia and
was popular during Byzantine times whereas in medieval Europe, it was
associated with witchcraft.
Aeromancy
Aeromancy
divination consisted in tossing sand, dirt, or seeds into the air and
studying and interpreting the patterns of the dust cloud or the settling
of the seeds. This also includes divination coming from thunder, comets, falling stars, and the shape of clouds.
Pyromancy
Pyromancy
is the art of divination which consisted of signs and patterns from
flames. There are many variations of pyromancy depending on the material
thrown into a fire and it is thought to be used for sacrifices to the
gods and that the deity is present within the flames with priests
interpreting the omens conveyed.
Chiromancy
Chiromancy
is a form of divination based on reading palms and based on intuitions
and symbolism with some symbols tying into astrology. A line from a
person's hand that resembles a square is considered a bad omen whereas a
triangle would be a good omen. This idea comes from the trine and
square aspect in the astrological aspects.
Scapulimancy
Scapulimancy
was a form of divination using an animal's scapula. The scapula would
be broken and based on how it was broken, it could be used to read the
future. It was generally broken by heating it with hot coals until it
broke.
Voodoo has been associated with modern black magic; drawn together in
popular culture and fiction. However, while hexing or cursing may be
accepted black magic practices, Voodoo has its own distinct history and
traditions.
Voodoo tradition makes its own distinction between black and white magic, with sorcerers like the Bokor known for using magic and rituals of both. But practitioners' penchant for magic associated with curses, poisons and zombies means they, and Voodoo in general, are regularly associated with black magic.
In popular culture
Concepts related to black magic or described as black magic are a
regular feature of books, films and other popular culture. Examples
include:
Rosemary's Baby (1968) – a horror novel in which black magic is a central theme.
The Craft (1996) – a horror film featuring four friends who become involved in white witchcraft but turn to black magic rituals for personal gain.
Harry Potter book series (1997–2007) – black magic spells and curses are referred to as "the dark arts" against which students are taught to defend themselves. Made into a film series (2001–2011).
Sherlock Holmes (2009) – the first of the three Sherlock Holmes films directed by Guy Ritchie includes elements of black magic although they are later discovered to be false.
In the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian state media accused Ukraine of using black magic to fend off the Russian military, specifically accusing Oleksiy Arestovych of enlisting sorcerers and witches as well as Ukrainian soldiers of consecrating "weapons with blood magick".
SIS electromagnetic therapy; used at a hospital in Budapest, Hungary
Electrotherapy is the use of electrical energy as a medical treatment. In medicine, the term electrotherapy can apply to a variety of treatments, including the use of electrical devices such as deep brain stimulators
for neurological disease. The term has also been applied specifically
to the use of electric current to speed wound healing. Additionally, the
term "electrotherapy" or "electromagnetic therapy" has also been
applied to a range of alternative medical devices and treatments.
Medical uses
Electrotherapy is primarily used in physical therapy for:
Some of the treatment effectiveness mechanisms are little understood,
with effectiveness and best practices for their use still anecdotal.
Musculoskeletal conditions
In general, there is little evidence that electrotherapy is effective in the management of musculoskeletal conditions.
In particular, there is no evidence that electrotherapy is effective in the relief of pain arising from osteoarthritis,
and little to no evidence available to support electrotherapy for the management of fibromyalgia.
Neck and back pain
A 2016 review found that, "in evidence of no effectiveness," clinicians should not offer electrotherapy for the treatment of neck pain or associated disorders.
Earlier reviews found that no conclusions could be drawn about the effectiveness of electrotherapy for neck pain,
and that electrotherapy has limited effect on neck pain as measured by clinical results.
A 2015 review found that the evidence for electrotherapy in pregnancy-related lower back pain is "very limited".
Shoulder disorders
A 2014 Cochrane review found insufficient evidence to determine whether electrotherapy was better than exercise at treating adhesive capsulitis.
As of 2004, there is insufficient evidence to draw conclusions about any intervention for rotator cuff pathology, including electrotherapy;
furthermore, methodological problems precluded drawing conclusions about the efficacy of any rehabilitation method for impingement syndrome.
Other musculoskeletal disorders
There is limited, low quality evidence for a slight benefit of noxious-level electrotherapy in the treatment of epicondylitis.
A 2012 review found that "Small, single studies showed that some
electrotherapy modalities may be beneficial" in rehabilitating ankle bone fractures. However, a 2008 review found it to be ineffective in healing long-bone fractures.
A 2012 review found that evidence that electrotherapy contributes to recovery from knee conditions is of "limited quality".
Chronic pain
A 2004 Cochrane review found "weaker evidence" that pulsating electromagnetic fields could be effective in treating recurrent headaches. A 2016 Cochrane review found that supporting evidence for electrotherapy as a treatment for complex regional pain syndrome is "absent or unclear."
Chronic wounds
A 2015 review found that the evidence supporting the use of electrotherapy in healing pressure ulcers was of low quality,
and a 2015 Cochrane review found that no evidence that electromagnetic
therapy, a subset of electrotherapy, was effective in healing pressure
ulcers.
Earlier reviews found that, because of low-quality evidence, it was
unclear whether electrotherapy increases healing rates of pressure
ulcers. By 2014 the evidence supported electrotherapy's efficacy for ulcer healing.
Another 2015 Cochrane review found no evidence supporting the user of electrotherapy for venous stasis ulcers.
Mental health and mood disorders
Since the 1950s, over 150 published articles have found a positive outcome in using cranial electrostimulation (CES) to treat depression, anxiety, and insomnia.
Contraindications
Electrotherapy is contraindicated for people with:
Electric shock treatment with an Oudin coilUse of electrical apparatus. Interrupted galvanism used in regeneration of deltoid muscle. First half of the twentieth century.
The first recorded treatment of a patient by electricity was by Johann Gottlob Krüger in 1743. John Wesley promoted electrical treatment as a universal panacea in 1747 but was rejected by mainstream medicine. Giovanni Aldini treated insanity with static electricity 1823–1824.
The first recorded medical treatments with electricity in London were in 1767 at Middlesex Hospital in London using a special apparatus. The same apparatus was purchased for St. Bartholomew's Hospital ten years later. Guy's Hospital has a published list of cases from the early 19th century. Golding Bird at Guy's brought electrotherapy into the mainstream in the mid-19th century.
In the second half of the 19th century the emphasis moved from
delivering large shocks to the whole body to more measured doses, the minimum effective.
Apparatus
An early 20th century electrotherapy apparatus
Electrotherapy equipment has historically included:
In 1856 Guillaume Duchenne announced that alternating was superior to direct current for electrotherapeutic triggering of muscle contractions.
What he called the 'warming effect' of direct currents irritated the
skin, since, at voltage strengths needed for muscle contractions, they
cause the skin to blister (at the anode) and pit (at the cathode).
Furthermore, with DC each contraction required the current to be
stopped and restarted. Moreover, alternating current could produce
strong muscle contractions regardless of the condition of the muscle,
whereas DC-induced contractions were strong if the muscle was strong,
and weak if the muscle was weak.
Since that time almost all rehabilitation involving muscle
contraction has been done with a symmetrical rectangular biphasic
waveform. During the 1940s, however, the U.S. War Department,
investigating the application of electrical stimulation not just to
retard and prevent atrophy but to restore muscle mass and strength,
employed what was termed galvanic exercise on the atrophied hands of patients who had an ulnar nerve lesion from surgery upon a wound. These galvanic exercises employed a monophasic (single-pulse) direct current waveform.
A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a
certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the
survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included
in the calculations. The original and most widely used system, developed
by the United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) as a rough guide for landscaping and gardening, defines 13 zones
by long-term average annual extreme minimum temperatures. It has been
adapted by and to other countries (such as Canada) in various forms.
Unless otherwise specified, in American contexts "hardiness zone"
or simply "zone" usually refers to the USDA scale. For example, a plant
may be described as "hardy to zone 10": this means that the plant can
withstand a minimum temperature of 30 °F (−1.1 °C) to 40 °F (4.4 °C).
Other hardiness rating schemes have been developed as well, such as the UK Royal Horticultural Society and US Sunset Western Garden Book systems. A heat zone (see below) is instead defined by annual high temperatures; the American Horticultural Society (AHS) heat zones use the average number of days per year when the temperature exceeds 30 °C (86 °F).
United States hardiness zones (USDA scale)
Temperature
scale used to define USDA hardiness zones. These are annual extreme
minima (an area is assigned to a zone by taking the lowest temperature
recorded there in a given year). As shown, the USDA uses a GIS dataset
averaged over 1976 to 2005 for its United States maps.Global Plant Hardiness Zones (approximate)
The USDA system was originally developed to aid gardeners and landscapers in the United States.
State-by-state maps, along with an electronic system that allows
finding the zone for a particular zip code, can be found at the USDA
Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) website.
In the United States, most of the warmer zones (zones 9, 10, and
11) are located in the deep southern half of the country and on the
southern coastal margins. Higher zones can be found in Hawaii (up to 12) and Puerto Rico
(up to 13). The southern middle portion of the mainland and central
coastal areas are in the middle zones (zones 8, 7, and 6). The far
northern portion on the central interior of the mainland have some of
the coldest zones (zones 5, 4, and small area of zone 3) and often have
much less consistent range of temperatures in winter due to being more
continental, especially further west with higher diurnal temperature
variations, and thus the zone map has its limitations in these areas.
Lower zones can be found in Alaska (down to 1). The low latitude and often stable weather in Florida, the Gulf Coast, and southern Arizona and California, are responsible for the rarity of episodes of severe cold relative to normal in those areas. The warmest zone in the 48 contiguous states is the Florida Keys (11b) and the coldest is in north-central Minnesota
(2b). A couple of locations on the northern coast of Puerto Rico have
the warmest hardiness zone in the United States at 13b. Conversely,
isolated inland areas of Alaska have the coldest hardiness zone in the
United States at 1a.
Definitions
2012 update of the Hardiness Zone Map
Zone
From
To
0
a
< −65 °F (−53.9 °C)
b
−65 °F (−53.9 °C)
−60 °F (−51.1 °C)
1
a
−60 °F (−51.1 °C)
−55 °F (−48.3 °C)
b
−55 °F (−48.3 °C)
−50 °F (−45.6 °C)
2
a
−50 °F (−45.6 °C)
−45 °F (−42.8 °C)
b
−45 °F (−42.8 °C)
−40 °F (−40 °C)
3
a
−40 °F (−40 °C)
−35 °F (−37.2 °C)
b
−35 °F (−37.2 °C)
−30 °F (−34.4 °C)
4
a
−30 °F (−34.4 °C)
−25 °F (−31.7 °C)
b
−25 °F (−31.7 °C)
−20 °F (−28.9 °C)
5
a
−20 °F (−28.9 °C)
−15 °F (−26.1 °C)
b
−15 °F (−26.1 °C)
−10 °F (−23.3 °C)
6
a
−10 °F (−23.3 °C)
−5 °F (−20.6 °C)
b
−5 °F (−20.6 °C)
0 °F (−17.8 °C)
7
a
0 °F (−17.8 °C)
5 °F (−15 °C)
b
5 °F (−15 °C)
10 °F (−12.2 °C)
8
a
10 °F (−12.2 °C)
15 °F (−9.4 °C)
b
15 °F (−9.4 °C)
20 °F (−6.7 °C)
9
a
20 °F (−6.7 °C)
25 °F (−3.9 °C)
b
25 °F (−3.9 °C)
30 °F (−1.1 °C)
10
a
30 °F (−1.1 °C)
+35 °F (1.7 °C)
b
+35 °F (1.7 °C)
+40 °F (4.4 °C)
11
a
+40 °F (4.4 °C)
+45 °F (7.2 °C)
b
+45 °F (7.2 °C)
+50 °F (10 °C)
12
a
+50 °F (10 °C)
+55 °F (12.8 °C)
b
+55 °F (12.8 °C)
60 °F (15.6 °C)
13
a
60 °F (15.6 °C)
65 °F (18.3 °C)
b
> 65 °F (18.3 °C)
History
The first attempts to create a geographical hardiness zone system were undertaken by two researchers at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston; the first was published in 1927 by Alfred Rehder, and the second by Donald Wyman in 1938. The Arnold map was subsequently updated in 1951, 1967, and finally 1971, but eventually fell out of use completely.
The modern USDA system began at the US National Arboretum in Washington.
The first map was issued in 1960, and revised in 1965. It used uniform
10-degree Fahrenheit ranges, and gradually became widespread among
American gardeners.
The USDA map was revised and reissued in 1990 with freshly
available climate data, this time with five-degree distinctions dividing
each zone into new "a" and "b" subdivisions.
In 2003, the American Horticultural Society
(AHS) produced a draft revised map, using temperature data collected
from July 1986 to March 2002. The 2003 map placed many areas
approximately a half-zone higher (warmer) than the USDA's 1990 map.
Reviewers noted the map zones appeared to be closer to the original USDA
1960 map in its overall zone delineations. Their map purported to show
finer detail, for example, reflecting urban heat islands by showing the downtown areas of several cities (e.g., Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, D.C., and Atlantic City, New Jersey)
as a full zone warmer than outlying areas. The map excluded the
detailed a/b half-zones introduced in the USDA's 1990 map, an omission
widely criticized by horticulturists and gardeners due to the coarseness
of the resulting map. The USDA rejected the AHS 2003 draft map and
created its own map in an interactive computer format, which the
American Horticultural Society now uses.
In 2006, the Arbor Day Foundation
released an update of U.S. hardiness zones, using mostly the same data
as the AHS. It revised hardiness zones, reflecting generally warmer
recent temperatures in many parts of the country, and appeared similar
to the AHS 2003 draft. The Foundation also did away with the more
detailed a/b half-zone delineations.
In 2012 the USDA updated their plant hardiness map based on
1976–2005 weather data, using a longer period of data to smooth out
year-to-year weather fluctuations.
Two new zones (12 and 13) were added to better define and improve
information sharing on tropical and semitropical plants, they also
appear on the maps of Hawaii and Puerto Rico. There is a very small spot
east of San Juan, Puerto Rico, that includes the airport in coastal Carolina,
where the mean minimum is 67 degrees F (19 C), which is classified as
hardiness Zone 13b, the highest category, with temperatures rarely below
65 °F (18 °C). The map has a higher resolution than previous editions,
and is able to show local variations due to factors such as elevation or
large bodies of water. Many zone boundaries were changed as a result of
the more recent data, as well as new mapping methods and additional
information gathered. Many areas were a half-zone warmer than the
previous 1990 map. The 2012 map was created digitally for the internet, and includes a ZIP Code zone finder and an interactive map.
In 2015, the Arbor Day Foundation revised another map, also with
no a and b subdivisions, showing many areas having zones even warmer,
with the most notable changes in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast, showing
cities like Philadelphia, New York City and Washington D.C. in zone 8,
due to their urban heat islands.
Selected U.S. cities
Limitations
As
the USDA system is based entirely on average annual extreme minimum
temperature in an area, it is limited in its ability to describe the
climatic conditions a gardener may have to account for in a particular
area: there are many other factors that determine whether or not a given
plant can survive in a given zone.
Zone information alone is often not adequate for predicting
winter survival, since factors such as frost dates and frequency of snow
cover can vary widely between regions. Even the extreme minimum itself
may not be useful when comparing regions in widely different climate zones. As an extreme example, due to the Gulf stream
most of the United Kingdom is in zones 8–9, while in the US, zones 8–9
include regions such as the subtropical coastal areas of the southeastern US and Mojave and Chihuahuan
inland deserts, thus an American gardener in such an area may only have
to plan for several nights of cold temperatures per year, while their
British counterpart may have to plan for several months.
In addition, the zones do not incorporate any information about
duration of cold temperatures, summer temperatures, or sun intensity insolation;
thus sites which may have the same mean winter minima on the few
coldest nights and be in the same garden zone, but have markedly
different climates. For example, zone 8 covers coastal, high latitude,
cool summer locations like Seattle and London, as well as lower latitude, subtropical hot summer climates like Charleston and Madrid.
Farmers, gardeners, and landscapers in the former two must plan for
entirely different growing conditions from those in the latter, in terms
of length of hot weather and sun intensity. Coastal Ireland and central
Florida are both Zone 10, but have radically different climates 99% of
the year .
The hardiness scales do not take into account the reliability of
snow cover in the colder zones. Snow acts as an insulator against
extreme cold, protecting the root system of hibernating plants. If the
snow cover is reliable, the actual temperature to which the roots are
exposed will not be as low as the hardiness zone number would indicate.
As an example, Quebec City
in Canada is located in zone 4, but can rely on a significant snow
cover every year, making it possible to cultivate plants normally rated
for zones 5 or 6. But, in Montreal,
located to the southwest in zone 5, it is sometimes difficult to
cultivate plants adapted to the zone because of the unreliable snow
cover.
Many plants may survive in a locality but will not flower if the day length is insufficient or if they require vernalization (a particular duration of low temperature).
There are many other climate parameters that a farmer, gardener,
or landscaper may need to take into account as well, such as humidity,
precipitation, storms, rainy-dry cycles or monsoons, and site
considerations such as soil type, soil drainage and water retention,
water table, tilt towards or away from the sun, natural or manmade
protection from excessive sun, snow, frost, and wind, etc. The annual
extreme minimum temperature is a useful indicator, but ultimately only
one factor among many for plant growth and survival.
Alternatives
An
alternative means of describing plant hardiness is to use "indicator
plants". In this method, common plants with known limits to their range
are used.
Sunset
publishes a series that breaks up climate zones more finely than the
USDA zones, identifying 45 distinct zones in the US, incorporating
ranges of temperatures in all seasons, precipitation, wind patterns,
elevation, and length and structure of the growing season.
In addition, the Köppen climate classification system
can be used as a more general guide to growing conditions when
considering large areas of the Earth's surface or attempting to make
comparisons between different continents. The Trewartha climate classification is often a good "real world" concept of climates and their relation to plants and their average growing conditions.
Australian hardiness zones
The Australian National Botanic Gardens
have devised another system keeping with Australian conditions. The
zones are defined by steps of 5 degrees Celsius, from −15–−10 °C for
zone 1 to 15–20 °C for zone 7.
They are numerically about 6 lower than the USDA system. For example,
Australian zone 3 is roughly equivalent to USDA zone 9. The higher
Australian zone numbers had no US equivalents prior to the 2012 addition
by USDA of zones 12 and 13.
The spread of weather stations may be insufficient and too many
places with different climates are lumped together. Only 738 Australian
stations have records of more than ten years (one station per 98,491
hectares or 243,380 acres), though more populated areas have relatively
fewer hectares per station. Mount Isa
has three climatic stations with more than a ten-year record. One is in
zone 4a, one in zone 4b, and the other is in zone 5a. Sydney residents
are split between zones 3a and 4b. Different locations in the same city
are suitable for different plants.
Canadian hardiness zones
Climate
variables that reflect the capacity and detriments to plant growth are
used to develop an index that is mapped to Canada's Plant Hardiness
Zones. This index comes from a formula originally developed by Ouellet and Sherk in the mid-1960s.
The formula used is: Y = -67.62 + 1.734X1 + 0.1868X2 + 69.77X3 + 1.256X4+ 0.006119X5 + 22.37X6 - 0.01832X7
where:
Y = estimated index of suitability
X1 = monthly mean of the daily minimum temperatures (°C) of the coldest month
X2 = mean frost free period above 0 °C in days
X3 = amount of rainfall (R) from June to November,
inclusive, in terms of R/(R+a) where a=25.4 if R is in millimeters and
a=1 if R is in inches
X4 = monthly mean of the daily maximum temperatures (°C) of the warmest month
X5 = winter factor expressed in terms of (0 °C – X1)Rjan where Rjan represents the rainfall in January expressed in mm
X6 = mean maximum snow depth in terms of S/(S+a) where a=25.4 if S is in millimeters and a=1 if S is in inches
For practical purposes, Canada has adopted the American hardiness
zone classification system. The 1990 version of the USDA Plant Hardiness
Zone Map included Canada and Mexico, but they were removed with the
2012 update to focus on the United States and Puerto Rico. The Canadian government publishes both Canadian and USDA-style zone maps.
European hardiness zones
Unless specifically noted, all zones in this section are USDA zones.
Selected European cities
Britain and Ireland
USDA zones do not work particularly well in the UK as they are designed for continental climates and subtropical climates.
The high latitude, weaker solar intensity, and cooler UK summers must
be considered when comparing to US equivalent. New growth may be
insufficient or fail to harden off affecting winter survival in the shorter and much cooler UK summers.
Britain and Ireland's hardiness zones, USDA scale, 2006
Owing to the moderating effect of the North Atlantic Current on the Irish and British temperatemaritime climate,
Britain, and Ireland even more so, have milder winters than their
northerly position would otherwise afford. This means that the USDA
hardiness zones relevant to Britain and Ireland are quite high, from 7
to 10, as shown below.
Most of England, Wales and Scotland, parts of central Ireland, and Snaefell on the Isle of Man.
Most
of western and southern England and Wales, western Scotland, also a
very narrow coastal fringe on the east coast of Scotland and northeast
England (within 5 km (3.1 mi) of the North Sea), London, the West Midlands Urban Area, most of Ireland, and most of the Isle of Man.
Very low-lying coastal areas of the southwest of Ireland and the Isles of Scilly.
In 2012 the United Kingdom's Royal Horticultural Society introduced
new hardiness ratings for plants, not places. These run from H7, the
hardiest (tolerant of temperatures below −20 °C (−4 °F)) to H1a (needing
temperatures above 15 °C (59 °F)).
The RHS hardiness ratings are based on absolute minimum winter
temperatures (in °C) rather than the long-term average annual extreme
minimum temperatures that define USDA zones.
Scandinavia and Baltic Sea Region
Scandinavia lies at the same latitude as Alaska or Greenland, but the effect of the warm North Atlantic Current is even more pronounced here than it is in Britain and Ireland. Save for a very small spot near Karasjok, Norway, which is in zone 2, nowhere in the Arctic part of Scandinavia gets below zone 3. The Faroe Islands, at 62–63°N are in zone 8, as are the outer Lofoten Islands at 68°N. Tromsø, a coastal city in Norway at 70°N, is in zone 7, and even Longyearbyen,
the northernmost true city in the world at 78°N, is still in zone 4.
All these coastal locations have one thing in common, though, which are
cool, damp summers, with temperatures rarely exceeding 20 °C (68 °F), or
15 °C (59 °F) in Longyearbyen. This shows the importance of taking heat
zones into account for better understanding of what may or may not
grow.
In Sweden and Finland generally, at sea level to 500 metres
(1,600 ft), zone 3 is north of the Arctic Circle, including cities like Karesuando and Pajala. Kiruna is the major exception here, which being located on a hill above frost traps, is in zone 5. Zone 4 lies between the Arctic Circle and about 64–66°N, with cities such as Oulu, Rovaniemi and Jokkmokk, zone 5 (south to 61–62°N) contains cities such as Tampere, Umeå, and Östersund. Zone 6 covers the south of mainland Finland, Sweden north of 60°N, and the high plateau of Småland further south. Here one will find cities such as Gävle, Örebro, Sundsvall, and Helsinki. Åland, as well as coastal southern Sweden, and the Stockholm area are in zone 7. The west coast of Sweden (Gothenburg
and southwards) enjoys particularly mild winters and lies in zone 7,
therefore being friendly to some hardy exotic species (found, for
example, in the Gothenburg Botanical Garden), the southeast coast of Sweden has a colder winter due to the absence of the Gulf Stream.
Denmark is in zones 9a, 8b, and 8a.
Estonia is divided to warmer West and North coast (Tallinn
6b, Haapsalu 7b, Kärdla 7a, Kuressaare 7a, Paide 6a, Rakvere 6a, Narva
6a, Viljandi 6b) and colder inland (Tartu 5a, Valga 5a, Võru 5a).
Latvia's capital Riga is in zone 6b. The country is in zones 5a, 5b, 6a, 6b, 7a and 7b.
Lithuania's capital Vilnius is in zone 5b. The country is in zones 5b, 6a, 6b and 7a.
Central Europe
Central Europe hardiness zones.
Central Europe is a good example of a transition from an oceanic climate to a continental climate,
which reflects in the tendency of the hardiness zones to decrease
mainly eastwards instead of northwards. Also, the plateaus and low
mountain ranges in this region have a significant impact on how cold it
might get during winter. Generally speaking, the hardiness zones are
high considering the latitude of the region, although not as high as
Northern Europe with the Shetland Islands
where zone 9 extends to over 60°N. In Central Europe, the relevant
zones decrease from zone 8 on the Belgian, Dutch, and German North Sea coast, with the exception of some of the Frisian Islands (notably Vlieland and Terschelling), the island of Helgoland, and some of the islands in the Rhine-Scheldt estuary, which are in zone 9, to zone 5 around Suwałki, Podlachia on the far eastern border between Poland and Lithuania. Some isolated, high elevation areas of the Alps and Carpathians may even go down to zone 3 or 4. An extreme example of a cold sink is Funtensee, Bavaria which is at least in zone 3. Another notable example is Waksmund, a small village in the PolishCarpathians, which regularly reaches −35 °C (−31 °F) during winter on calm nights when cold and heavy airmasses from the surrounding Gorce and Tatra Mountains descend down the slopes to this low-lying valley, creating extremes which can be up to 10 °C (18 °F) colder than nearby Nowy Targ or Białka Tatrzańska, which are both higher up in elevation. Waksmund is in zone 3b while nearby Kraków,
only 80 km (50 mi) to the north and 300 m (980 ft) lower is in zone 6a.
These examples prove that local topography can have a pronounced effect
on temperature and thus on what is possible to grow in a specific
region.
Southern Europe
The southern European marker plant for climate as well as cultural indicator is the olive tree, which cannot withstand long periods below freezing so its cultivation area matches the cool winter zone. The Mediterranean Sea
acts as a temperature regulator, so this area is generally warmer than
other parts of the continent; except in mountainous areas where the sea
effect lowers, it belongs in zones 8–10; however, southern Balkans
(mountainous Western and Eastern Serbia, continental Croatia, and Bulgaria) are colder in winter and are in zones 6–7. The Croatian (Dalmatian) coast, Albania, and northern Greece are in zones 8–9, as are central-northern Italy (hills and some spots in Po Valley are however colder) and southern France; Central Iberia is 8–9 (some highland areas are slightly colder). The Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic coast, much of Andalusia and Murcia, coastal and slightly inland southern Valencian Community, a part of coastal Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, southwestern Sardinia, most of Sicily, coastal southern Italy, some areas around Albania,
coastal Cyprus and southwestern Greece are in zone 10. In Europe, the
zone 11a is limited only to a few spots. In the Iberian Peninsula, it
can be found on the southern coast, namely in populated Spanish areas such as the cities of Almería, Adra, Nerja, Málaga, Marbella and in a strip of coastal land between Tarifa and Punta Carnero in the province of Cádiz. In Portugal, zone 11a can be found in the Southwest on a few unpopulated sites around the municipalities of Lagos and Vila do Bispo. In Greece, zone 11a can be found in areas of Crete, Karpathos and Antiparos islands. The Mediterranean islands of Malta, Lampedusa and Linosa belong to zone 11a as well as a few areas on the southernmost coast of Cyprus.
The Balkan area is also more prone to cold snaps and episodes of
unseasonable warmth. For instance, despite having similar daily means
and temperature amplitudes to Nantucket, Massachusetts, for each month, Sarajevo has recorded below-freezing temperatures in every month of the year.
Macaronesia
Macaronesia consists of four archipelagos: The Azores, the Canary Islands, Cape Verde and Madeira. At lower altitudes and coastal areas, the Portuguese
Azores and Madeira belong to zones 10b/11b and 11a/11b respectively.
The Azores range from 9a to 11b and Madeira ranges from 9b to 12a, 9a
and 9b found inland on the highest altitudes such as the Mount Pico in the Azores or Pico Ruivo in Madeira. The SpanishCanary Islands
hardiness zones range from 8a to 12b depending on the location and the
altitude. The islands are generally part of zones 11b/12a in lower
altitudes and coastal areas, reaching up to 12b in the southernmost
coasts or populated coastal parts such as the city of Las Palmas. The lowest hardiness areas are found in Teide National Park being at 8a/8b for its very high altitude. The Teide peak is the highest peak of Macaronesia.
The Cape Verde islands, located much further south inside the Tropics, have hardiness zones that range from 12 to 13 in the coastal areas, while the lowest hardiness zone is found in the island of Fogo, in the country's highest peak Pico do Fogo.
The criterion is the average number of days per year when the
temperature exceeds 30 °C (86 °F). The AHS Heat Zone Map for the US is
available on the American Horticultural Society website.
Zone
From
To
1
< 1
2
1
7
3
8
14
4
15
30
5
31
45
6
46
60
7
61
90
8
91
120
9
121
150
10
151
180
11
181
210
12
>210
South Africa
South Africa has five horticultural or climatic zones. The zones are defined by minimum temperature.
Effects of climate change
The
USDA map published in 2012 shows that most of the US has become a half
zone (2.8 °C or 5 °F) hotter in winter compared to the 1990 release. Research in 2016 suggests that USDA plant hardiness zones will shift even further northward under climate change.
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or a family of religions which is influenced by the various historical pre-Christian
beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North
Africa and the Near East. Although they share similarities, contemporary
pagan movements are diverse and as a result, they do not share a single
set of beliefs, practices, or texts. Scholars of religion often characterise these traditions as new religious movements.
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.
Adherents rely on pre-Christian,
folkloric, and ethnographic sources to a variety of degrees; many of
them follow a spirituality that they accept as entirely modern, while
others claim to adhere to prehistoric beliefs, or else, they attempt to revive indigenous religions as accurately as possible. Modern pagan movements can be placed on a spectrum. At one end is reconstructionism, which seeks to revive historical pagan religions; examples are Baltic paganism, Heathenry (Germanic), Rodnovery (Slavic), and Hellenism (Greek). At the other end are eclectic movements, which blend elements of historical paganism with other religions and philosophies; examples are Wicca, Druidry, and the Goddess movement. Polytheism, animism, and pantheism are common features of pagan theology. Some modern pagans are also atheist. Described as secular paganism
or humanistic paganism, this is an outlook which upholds virtues and
principles associated with paganism while maintaining a secular
worldview. Secular pagans may recognize goddesses/gods as archetypes or useful metaphors for different cycles of life, or reframe magic as a purely psychological practice.
Contemporary paganism has sometimes been associated with the New Age movement, with scholars highlighting their similarities as well as their differences. The academic field of pagan studies began to coalesce in the 1990s, emerging from disparate scholarship in the preceding two decades.
Terminology
Definition
There is "considerable disagreement as to the precise definition and the proper usage" of the term modern paganism. Even within the academic field of pagan studies, there is no consensus about how contemporary paganism can best be defined. Most scholars describe modern paganism as a broad array of different religions, not a single one. The category of modern paganism could be compared to the categories of Abrahamic religions and Indian religions in its structure. A second, less common definition found within pagan studies—promoted by the religious studies scholars Michael F. Strmiska and Graham Harvey—characterises modern paganism as a single religion, of which groups like Wicca, Druidry, and Heathenry are denominations.
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.
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."
Thus it has been said that although it is "a highly diverse
phenomenon", "an identifiable common element" nevertheless runs through
the pagan movement.
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." The religious studies scholar Wouter Hanegraaff
characterised paganism as encompassing "all those modern movements
which are, first, based on the conviction that what Christianity has
traditionally denounced as idolatry and superstition
actually represents/represented a profound and meaningful religious
worldview and, secondly, that a religious practice based on this
worldview can and should be revitalized in our modern world."
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".
But there has been much "cross-fertilization" between these different
faiths: many groups have influenced, and been influenced by, other pagan
religions, making clear-cut distinctions among them more difficult for
scholars to make. The various pagan religions have been academically classified as new religious movements, with the anthropologist Kathryn Rountree describing paganism as a whole as a "new religious phenomenon". A number of academics, particularly in North America, consider modern paganism a form of nature religion.
Some practitioners completely eschew the use of the term pagan, preferring to use more specific names for their religion, such as "Heathen" or "Wiccan". This is because the term pagan originates in Christian terminology, which individuals who object to the term wish to avoid. 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. Within linguistically Slavic areas of Europe, the term "Native Faith" is often favored as a synonym for paganism, rendered as Ridnovirstvo in Ukrainian, Rodnoverie in Russian, and Rodzimowierstwo in Polish.
Alternately, many practitioners in these regions view "Native Faith" as
a category within modern paganism that does not encompass all pagan
religions.
Other terms some pagans favor include "traditional religion",
"indigenous religion", "nativist religion", and "reconstructionism".
Various pagans who are active in pagan studies, such as Michael York and Prudence Jones, have argued that, due to the similarities of their worldviews, the modern pagan movement can be treated as part of the same global phenomenon as pre-Christian Ancient religions, living Indigenous religions, and world religions like Hinduism, Shinto, and Afro-American religions. They have also suggested that these could all be included under the rubric of "paganism". This approach has been received critically by many specialists in religious studies.
Critics have pointed out that such claims would cause problems for
analytic scholarship by lumping together belief systems with very
significant differences, and that the term would serve modern pagan
interests by making the movement appear far larger on the world stage. 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". 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".
Reappropriation of "paganism"
Many
scholars have favored the use of "neopaganism" to describe this
phenomenon, with the prefix "neo-" serving to distinguish the modern
religions from their ancient, pre-Christian forerunners.
Some pagan practitioners also prefer "neopaganism", believing that the
prefix conveys the reformed nature of the religion, such as its
rejection of practices such as animal sacrifice. Conversely, most pagans do not use the word neopagan,
with some expressing disapproval of it, arguing that the term "neo"
offensively disconnects them from what they perceive as their
pre-Christian forebears.
To avoid causing offense, many scholars in the English-speaking world
have begun using the prefixes "modern" or "contemporary" rather than
"neo". Several pagan studies scholars, such as Ronald Hutton and Sabina Magliocco,
have emphasized the use of the upper-case "Paganism" to distinguish the
modern movement from the lower-case "paganism", a term commonly used
for pre-Christian belief systems. In 2015, Rountree opined that this lower case/upper case division was "now [the] convention" in pagan studies.
Among the critics of the upper-case P are York and Andras
Corban-Arthen, president of the ECER. Capitalizing the word, they argue,
makes "Paganism" appear as the name of a cohesive religion rather than a
generic religious category, and comes off as naive, dishonest or as an
unwelcome attempt to disrupt the spontaneity and vernacular quality of
the movement.
The Parthenon, an ancient pre-Christian temple in Athens dedicated to the goddess Athena.
Strmiska believed that modern pagans in part reappropriate the term
"pagan" to honor the cultural achievements of Europe's pre-Christian
societies.
The term "neo-pagan" was coined in the 19th century in reference to Renaissance and RomanticistHellenophile classical revivalism. By the mid-1930s "neopagan" was being applied to new religious movements like Jakob Wilhelm Hauer's German Faith Movement and Jan Stachniuk's Polish Zadruga, usually by outsiders and often pejoratively. Pagan as a self-designation appeared in 1964 and 1965, in the publications of the Witchcraft Research Association; at that time, the term was in use by Wiccans in the United States and the United Kingdom, but unconnected to the broader, counterculture
pagan movement. 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. This usage has been common since the pagan revival in the 1970s.
According to Strmiska, the reappropriation
of the term "pagan" by modern pagans served as "a deliberate act of
defiance" against "traditional, Christian-dominated society", allowing
them to use it as a source of "pride and power". 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.
He suggests that part of the term's appeal lay in the fact that a large
proportion of pagan converts were raised in Christian families, and
that by embracing the term "pagan", a word long used for what was
"rejected and reviled by Christian authorities", a convert summarizes
"in a single word his or her definitive break" from Christianity. 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",
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.
For some pagan groups, ethnicity is central to their religion, and some restrict membership to a single ethnic group. Some critics have described this approach as a form of racism.
Other pagan groups allow people of any ethnicity, on the view that the
gods and goddesses of a particular region can call anyone to their form
of worship.
Some such groups feel a particular affinity for the pre-Christian
belief systems of a particular region with which they have no ethnic
link because they see themselves as reincarnations of people from that society.
There is greater focus on ethnicity within the pagan movements in
continental Europe than within the pagan movements in North America and
the British Isles. Such ethnic paganisms have variously been seen as responses to concerns about foreign ideologies, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and anxieties about cultural erosion.
Although they acknowledged that it was "a highly simplified
model", Aitamurto and Simpson wrote that there was "some truth" to the
claim that leftist-oriented forms of paganism were prevalent in North America and the British Isles while rightist-oriented forms of paganism were prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe.
They noted that in these latter regions, pagan groups placed an
emphasis on "the centrality of the nation, the ethnic group, or the
tribe".
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.
Eclecticism and reconstructionism
"We might say that Reconstructionist Pagans romanticize the past,
while eclectic pagans idealize the future. 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."
— Religious studies scholar Michael Strmiska
Another division within modern paganism rests on differing attitudes
to the source material surrounding pre-Christian belief systems.
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." Strmiska argues that these two poles could be termed reconstructionism and eclecticism, respectively.
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.
They often follow scholarly debates about the nature of such
pre-Christian religions, and some reconstructionists are themselves
scholars. 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.
On the reconstructionist side can be placed those movements which often favour the designation "Native Faith", including Romuva, Heathenry, and Hellenism. On the eclectic side has been placed Wicca, Thelema, Adonism, Druidry, the Goddess Movement, Discordianism and the Radical Faeries.
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.
Strmiska nevertheless notes that this reconstructionist-eclectic
division is "neither as absolute nor as straightforward as it might
appear". He cites the example of Dievturība, a form of reconstructionist paganism that seeks to revive the pre-Christian religion of the Latvian people, by noting that it exhibits eclectic tendencies by adopting a monotheistic focus and ceremonial structure from Lutheranism. Similarly, while examining neo-shamanism among the Sami people
of Northern Scandinavia, Siv Ellen Kraft highlights that despite the
religion being reconstructionist in intent, it is highly eclectic in the
manner in which it has adopted elements from shamanic traditions in other parts of the world.
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 Æsir gods; as well as strongly eschewing the emphasis on ethnicity that is common to other reconstructionist groups. While Wicca is identified as an eclectic form of paganism,
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.
Concern has also been expressed regarding the utility of the term
"reconstructionism" when dealing with paganisms in Central and Eastern
Europe, because in many of the languages of these regions, equivalents
of the term "reconstructionism" – such as the Czech Historická rekonstrukce and Lithuanian Istorinė rekonstrukcija – are already used to define the secular hobby of historical re-enactment.
"Modern Pagans are reviving, reconstructing, and reimagining
religious traditions of the past that were suppressed for a very long
time, even to the point of being almost totally obliterated... Thus,
with only a few possible exceptions, today's Pagans cannot claim to be
continuing religious traditions handed down in an unbroken line from
ancient times to the present. 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."
— Religious studies scholar Michael Strmiska
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.
Strmiska stresses that modern paganism is a "new", "modern" religious
movement, even if some of its content derives from ancient sources.
Contemporary paganism as practiced in the United States in the 1990s
has been described as "a synthesis of historical inspiration and
present-day creativity".
Eclectic paganism takes an undogmatic religious stance
and therefore potentially sees no one as having authority to deem a
source apocryphal. Contemporary paganism has therefore been prone to fakelore,
especially in recent years as information and misinformation alike have
been spread on the Internet and in print media. A number of Wiccan,
pagan and even some Traditionalist or Tribalist groups have a history
of Grandmother Stories – typically involving initiation by a
Grandmother, Grandfather, or other elderly relative who is said to have
instructed them in the secret, millennia-old traditions of their
ancestors. As this secret wisdom can almost always be traced to recent
sources, tellers of these stories have often later admitted they made
them up.
Strmiska asserts that contemporary paganism could be viewed as a part
of the "much larger phenomenon" of efforts to revive "traditional,
indigenous, or native religions" that were occurring across the globe.
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. The English academic Graham Harvey noted that pagans "rarely indulge in theology".
Polytheism
Private Kemetic altar, with an offering of flowers to Ra, featuring imagery of Unut, Ra, Nu and Seker
One principle of the pagan movement is polytheism, the belief in and veneration of multiple gods or goddesses.
Within the pagan movement, there can be found many deities, both male
and female, who have various associations and embody forces of nature,
aspects of culture, and facets of human psychology. These deities are typically depicted in human form, and are viewed as having human faults. They are therefore not seen as perfect, but rather are venerated as being wise and powerful. Pagans feel that this understanding of the gods reflected the dynamics of life on Earth, allowing for the expression of humour.
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. Others adopt the belief that the deities have both a psychological and external existence. Many pagans believe adoption of a polytheistic world-view would be beneficial for western society – replacing the dominant monotheism they see as innately repressive. In fact, many American modern pagans
first came to their adopted faiths because it allowed a greater
freedom, diversity, and tolerance of worship among the community. This pluralistic perspective has helped the varied factions of modern paganism exist in relative harmony. Most pagans adopt an ethos of "unity in diversity" regarding their religious beliefs.
It is its inclusion of female deity which distinguishes pagan religions from their Abrahamic counterparts.
In Wicca, male and female deities are typically balanced out in a form of duotheism.
Among many pagans, there is a strong desire to incorporate the female
aspects of the divine in their worship and within their lives, which can
partially explain the attitude which sometimes manifests as the veneration of women.
There are exceptions to polytheism in paganism, 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. As noted above, pagans with naturalistic worldviews may not believe in or work with deities at all.
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.
A key part of most pagan worldviews is the holistic concept of a universe that is interconnected. This is connected with a belief in either pantheism or panentheism. In both beliefs, divinity and the material or spiritual universe are one. For pagans, pantheism means that "divinity is inseparable from nature and that deity is immanent in nature".
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. The prominent Reclaiming priestess Starhawk
related that a core part of goddess-centred pagan witchcraft was "the
understanding that all being is interrelated, that we are all linked
with the cosmos as parts of one living organism. What affects one of us
affects us all."
Another pivotal belief in the contemporary pagan movement is that of animism.
This has been interpreted in two distinct ways among the pagan
community. First, it can refer to a belief that everything in the
universe is imbued with a life force or spiritual energy.
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. Some pagans have reported
experiencing communication with spirits dwelling in rocks, plants, trees
and animals, as well as power animals or animal spirits who can act as spiritual helpers or guides.
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".
All pagan movements place great emphasis on the divinity of nature as a primary source of divine will, and on humanity's membership of the natural world, bound in kinship to all life and the Earth itself. The animistic aspects of pagan theology assert that all things have a soul - not just humans or organic life
- so this bond is held with mountains and rivers as well as trees and
wild animals. As a result, pagans believe the essence of their
spirituality is both ancient and timeless, regardless of the age of
specific religious movements. Places of natural beauty are therefore
treated as sacred and ideal for ritual, like the nemetons of the ancient Celts.
Many pagans hold that different lands and/or cultures have their own natural religion, with many legitimate interpretations of divinity, and therefore reject religious exclusivism.
A Wiccan altar belonging to Doreen Valiente, displaying the Wiccan view of sexual duality in divinity
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.
Pagan ritual can take place in both a public and private setting.
Contemporary pagan ritual is typically geared towards "facilitating altered states of awareness or shifting mind-sets".
In order to induce such altered states of consciousness, pagans utilize
such elements as drumming, visualization, chanting, singing, dancing,
and meditation. 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".
Sociologist Margot Adler highlighted how several pagan groups, like the Reformed Druids of North America and the Erisian movement incorporate a great deal of play
in their rituals rather than having them be completely serious and
somber. She noted that there are those who would argue that "the Pagan
community is one of the only spiritual communities that is exploring
humor, joy, abandonment, even silliness and outrageousness as valid
parts of spiritual experience".
Domestic worship typically takes place in the home and is carried out by either an individual or family group.
It typically involves offerings – including bread, cake, flowers,
fruit, milk, beer, or wine – being given to images of deities, often
accompanied with prayers and songs and the lighting of candles and incense.
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.
Although animal sacrifice was a common part of pre-Christian ritual in Europe, it is rarely practiced in contemporary paganism.
A painted Wheel of the Year at the Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle, Cornwall, England, displaying all eight of the Sabbats
Paganism's public rituals are generally calendrical, although the pre-Christian festivals that pagans use as a basis varied across Europe. Nevertheless, common to almost all pagan religions is an emphasis on an agricultural cycle and respect for the dead. Common pagan festivals include those marking the summer solstice and winter solstice as well as the start of spring and the harvest. In Wicca and Druidry, a Wheel of the Year has been developed which typically involves eight seasonal festivals.
Magic
The belief in magical rituals and spells is held by a "significant number" of contemporary pagans.
Among those who believe in it, there are a variety of different views
about what magic is. Many modern pagans adhere to the definition of
magic provided by Aleister Crowley, the founder of Thelema:
"the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with
Will". Also accepted by many is the related definition purportedly
provided by the ceremonial magicianDion Fortune: "magic is the art and science of changing consciousness according to the Will".
Discussions
about prevailing, returning or new forms of paganism have existed
throughout the modern period. Before the 20th century, Christian
institutions regularly used paganism as a term for everything outside of
Christianity, Judaism and—from the 18th century—Islam. They frequently
associated paganism with idolatry, magic and a general concept of "false
religion", which for example has made Catholics and Protestants accuse
each other of being pagans. Various folk beliefs have periodically been labeled as pagan and churches have demanded that they should be purged.
The Western attitude to paganism gradually changed during the early
modern period. One reason was increased contacts with areas outside of
Europe, which happened through trade, Christian mission
and colonization. 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. Another reason for change was the circulation of ancient writings such as those attributed to Hermes Trismegistus;
this made paganism an intellectual position some Europeans began to
self-identify with, starting at the latest in the 15th century with
people like Gemistus Pletho, who wanted to establish a new form of Greco-Roman polytheism.
Positive identification with paganism became more common in the 18th
and 19th centuries, when it tied in with criticism of Christianity and
organized religion, rooted in the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism. The approach to paganism varied during this period; Friedrich Schiller's 1788 poem "Die Götter 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.
19th and early 20th centuries
Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
One of the origins of modern pagan movements lies in the romanticist
and national liberation movements that developed in Europe during the
18th and 19th centuries. 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. At the time, it was commonly believed that almost all such folk customs were survivals from the pre-Christian period. These attitudes would also be exported to North America by European immigrants in these centuries.
"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. To
say it another way, modern Paganism is one of the happy stepchildren of
modern multiculturalism and social pluralism."
— Religious studies scholar Michael Strmiska
The rise of modern paganism was aided by the decline in Christianity throughout many parts of Europe and North America, as well as by the concomitant decline in enforced religious conformity and greater freedom of religion
that developed, allowing people to explore a wider range of spiritual
options and form religious organisations that could operate free from
legal persecution.
Historian Ronald Hutton has argued that many of the motifs of
20th century neo-paganism may be traced back to the utopian, mystical counter-cultures of the late-Victorian and Edwardian
periods (also extending in some instances into the 1920s), via the
works of amateur folklorists, popular authors, poets, political radicals
and alternative lifestylers.
Prior to the spread of the 20th-century modern pagan movements, a
notable instance of self-identified paganism was in Sioux writer
Zitkala-sa's essay "Why I Am A Pagan". Published in the Atlantic Monthly
in 1902, the Native American activist and writer outlined her rejection
of Christianity (referred to as "the new superstition") in favor of a
harmony with nature embodied by the Great Spirit. She further recounted
her mother's abandonment of Sioux religion and the unsuccessful attempts
of a "native preacher" to get her to attend the village church.
The 1960s and 1970s saw a resurgence in neo-Druidism as well as the rise of modern Germanic paganism in the United States and in Iceland. In the 1970s, Wicca was notably influenced by feminism, leading to the creation of an eclectic, Goddess-worshipping movement known as Dianic Wicca. The 1979 publication of Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon and Starhawk's The Spiral Dance opened a new chapter in public awareness of paganism.
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. These open, unstructured or loosely structured traditions contrast with British Traditional Wicca, which emphasizes secrecy and initiatory lineage.
The 1980s and 1990s also saw an increasing interest in serious academic research and reconstructionist pagan traditions. The establishment and growth of the Internet in the 1990s brought rapid growth to these, and other pagan movements. 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.
A Heathen altar for household worship in Gothenburg, Sweden
Heathenism, also known as Germanic neopaganism, refers to a series of
contemporary pagan traditions based on the historical religions,
culture and literature of Germanic-speaking Europe. Heathenry is spread
out across northwestern Europe, North America and Australasia, where the
descendants of historic Germanic-speaking people now live.
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.
Heathens believe in multiple polytheistic deities adopted from
historical Germanic mythologies. Most are polytheistic realists,
believing that the deities are real entities, while others view them as Jungian archetypes.
Beit Asherah (the house of the Goddess Asherah)
was one of the first modern pagan synagogues, founded in the early
1990s by Stephanie Fox, Steven Posch, and Magenta Griffiths (Lady
Magenta). Magenta Griffiths is High Priestess of the Beit Asherah coven,
and a former board member of the Covenant of the Goddess.
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. While potentially considered a peculiar form of Tengrism, a related revivalist movement of Central Asian traditional religion, Vattisen Yaly (Chuvash: Ваттисен йӑли, Tradition of the Old) differs significantly: the Chuvash being a heavily Fennicised and Slavified ethnicity and having had exchanges also with other Indo-European ethnicities,
their religion shows many similarities with Finnic and Slavic
paganisms; moreover, the revival of Vattisen Yaly in recent decades has
occurred following modern pagan patterns. Today the followers of the Chuvash Traditional Religion are called "the true Chuvash". Their main god is Tura, a deity comparable to the EstonianTaara, the GermanicThunraz and the pan-Turkic Tengri.
Mabon–fall
equinox 2015 altar by the Salt Lake Pagan Society of Salt Lake City,
Utah. Displayed are seasonal decorations, altar tools, elemental
candles, flowers, deity statues, cookies and juice offerings, and a nude
Gods painting of Thor, the Green Man, and Cernunnos dancing around a
Mabon Fire.
Wicca is the largest form of modern paganism, as well as the best-known and most extensively studied.
Religious studies scholar Graham Harvey noted that the poem "Charge of the Goddess" remains central to the liturgy of most Wiccan groups. 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".
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. English esotericist Gerald Gardner was at the forefront of the burgeoning Wiccan movement. 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. Various forms of Wicca
have since evolved or been adapted from Gardner's British Traditional
Wicca or Gardnerian Wicca, such as Alexandrian Wicca. Other forms loosely based on Gardner's teachings are Faery Wicca, Kemetic Wicca, Judeo-paganism or jewitchery, and Dianic Wicca or feminist Wicca, which emphasizes the divine feminine, often creating women-only or lesbian-only groups. In the academic community Wicca has also been interpreted as having close affinities with process philosophy.
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.
Goddess spirituality, which is also known as the Goddess movement,
is a pagan religion in which a singular, monotheistic Goddess is given
predominance. 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.
The Goddess movement draws some of its inspiration from the work of archaeologists such as Marija Gimbutas, 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, which has inspired some modern pagan worshippers of the Triple Goddess.
Adherents of the Goddess Spirituality movement typically envision
a history of the world that is different from traditional narratives
about the past, emphasising the role of women rather than that of men.
According to this view, human society was formerly a matriarchy, with communities being egalitarian, pacifistic, and focused on the worship of the Mother goddess, which was subsequently overthrown by violent and warlike patriarchal hordes - usually Indo-Europeanpastoralists who worshipped male sky-gods, and continued to rule through the form of Abrahamic religions,
specifically Christianity in the West. Adherents look for elements of
this human history in "theological, anthropological, archaeological,
historical, folkloric and hagiographic writings".
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).
Some Unitarian Universalists are eclectic pagans. Unitarian Universalists look for spiritual inspiration in a wide variety of religious beliefs. 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".
Occultism and ethnic mysticism
In 1925, the Czech esotericist Franz Sättler founded the pagan religion Adonism, devoted to the ancient Greek god Adonis,
whom Sättler equated with the Christian Satan, and which purported that
the end of the world would come in 2000. Adonism largely died out in
the 1930s, but remained an influence on the German occult scene.
Demographics
Establishing precise figures on paganism is difficult. Due to the secrecy and fear of persecution
still prevalent among pagans, limited numbers are willing to openly be
counted. The decentralised nature of paganism and sheer number of solitary practitioners further complicates matters. Nevertheless, there is a slow growing body of data on the subject. In the US, there are estimated to be between 1 and 1.5 million practitioners.
Modern pagan and other folk religion movements have gained a significant following on the eastern fringes of Europe, especially in the Caucasus and the Volga region.
Caucasus region
Among Circassians, the Adyghe Habze
faith has been revived after the fall of the Soviet Union, and
followers of modern pagan faiths were found to constitute 12% in Karachay-Cherkessia and 3% in Kabardino-Balkaria (both republics are multiethnic and also have many non-Circassians, especially Russians and Turkic peoples) In Abkhazia,
the Abkhaz native faith has also been revived, and in the 2003 census,
8% of residents identified with it (note again that there are many
non-Abkhaz in the state including Georgians, Russians and Armenians); on 3 August 2012 the Council of Priests of Abkhazia was formally constituted in Sukhumi. In North Ossetia, the Uatsdin faith was revived, and in 2012, 29% of the population identified with it (North Ossetia is about 2/3 Ossetian and 1/3 Russian).
Modern pagan movements are also present to a lesser degree elsewhere;
in Dagestan 2% of the population identified with folk religious
movements, while data on modern pagans is unavailable for Chechnya and
Ingushetia.
Volga region
The Mari native religion
in fact has a continuous existence, but has co-existed with Orthodox
Christianity for centuries, and experienced a renewal after the fall of
the Soviet Union. 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. Since Mari make up just 45
percent of the republic's population of 700,000, this figure means that
probably more than a third claim to follow the old religion.
The percentage of pagans among the Mari of Bashkortostan and the
eastern part of Tatarstan is even higher (up to 69% among women). Mari
fled here from forced Christianization in the 17th to 19th centuries. A similar number was claimed by Victor Schnirelmann, for whom between a quarter and a half of the Mari either worship the pagan gods or are members of modern pagan groups.
Mari intellectuals maintain that Mari ethnic believers should be
classified in groups with varying degrees of Russian Orthodox influence,
including syncretic followers who might even go to church at times,
followers of the Mari native religion who are baptized, and nonbaptized
Mari.
A modern pagan movement drawing from various syncretic practices
that had survived among the Christianised Mari people was initiated in
1990, and was estimated in 2004 to have won the adherence of 2% of the Mordvin people.
Western Europe
A study by Ronald Hutton
compared a number of different sources (including membership lists of
major UK organizations, attendance at major events, subscriptions to
magazines, etc.) and used standard models for extrapolating likely
numbers. This estimate accounted for multiple membership overlaps as
well as the number of adherents represented by each attendee of a pagan
gathering. Hutton estimated that there are 250,000 modern pagans in the United Kingdom, roughly equivalent to the national Hindu community.
A smaller number is suggested by the results of the 2001 Census,
in which a question about religious affiliation was asked for the first
time. Respondents were able to write in an affiliation not covered by
the checklist of common religions, and a total of 42,262 people from
England, Scotland and Wales declared themselves to be pagans by this
method. These figures were not released as a matter of course by the Office for National Statistics, but were released after an application by the Pagan Federation of Scotland. This is more than many well known traditions such as Rastafarian, Baháʼí and Zoroastrian groups, but fewer than the big six of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism. It is also fewer than the adherents of Jediism, whose campaign made them the fourth largest religion after Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.
Modern Hellen ritual in Greece
The 2001 UK Census figures did not allow an accurate breakdown of
traditions within the pagan heading, as a campaign by the Pagan
Federation before the census encouraged Wiccans, Heathens, Druids and
others all to use the same write-in term 'pagan' in order to maximise
the numbers reported. The 2011 census
however made it possible to describe oneself as pagan-Wiccan,
pagan-Druid and so on. The figures for England and Wales showed 80,153
describing themselves as pagan (or some subgroup thereof.) The largest
subgroup was Wicca, with 11,766 adherents.
The overall numbers of people self-reporting as pagan rose between 2001
and 2011. 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.
Census figures in Ireland do not provide a breakdown of religions
outside of the major Christian denominations and other major world
religions. A total of 22,497 people stated Other Religion in the 2006
census; and a rough estimate is that there were 2,000–3,000 practicing
pagans in Ireland in 2009. Numerous pagan groups – primarily Wiccan and
Druidic – exist in Ireland though none is officially recognised by the
Government. Irish paganism is often strongly concerned with issues of
place and language.
Canada does not provide extremely detailed records of religious adherence. Its statistics service only collects limited religious information each decade. At the 2001 census, there were a recorded 21080 pagans in Canada.
The United States government does not directly collect religious
information. As a result such information is provided by religious
institutions and other third-party statistical organisations. Based on the most recent survey by the Pew Forum on religion, there are over one million pagans in the United States. Up to 0.4% of respondents answered "pagan" or "Wiccan" when polled.
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.
In the 2011 Australian census, 32083 respondents identified as pagan. Out of 21507717 recorded Australians, they compose approximately 0.15% of the population. The Australian Bureau of Statistics classifies paganism as an affiliation under which several sub-classifications may optionally be specified. This includes animism, nature religion, Druidism, pantheism, and Wicca/Witchcraft. As a result, fairly detailed breakdowns of pagan respondents are available.
In 2006, there were at least 6804 (0.164%) pagans among New Zealand's population of approximately 4 million. Respondents were given the option to select one or more religious affiliations.
Paganism in society
Propagation
Based upon her study of the pagan community in the United States, the sociologist Margot Adler noted that it is rare for pagan groups to proselytize
in order to gain new converts to their faiths. 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". She went on to put forward the idea that
this typically confirmed "some original, private experience, so that the
most common experience of those who have named themselves pagan is
something like 'I finally found a group that has the same religious
perceptions I always had'".
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. When
she eventually came across the Wiccan religion many years later, she
then found that it confirmed her earlier childhood experiences, and that
"I never converted in the accepted sense. I simply accepted,
reaffirmed, and extended a very old experience."
A simple pagan altar
Folklorist Sabina Magliocco
supported this idea, noting that a great many of those Californian
pagans whom she interviewed claimed that they had been greatly
interested in mythology and folklore
as children, imagining a world of "enchanted nature and magical
transformations, filled with lords and ladies, witches and wizards, and
humble but often wise peasants". Magliocco noted that it was this world
that pagans "strive to re-create in some measure". Further support for Adler's idea came from American Wiccan priestess Judy Harrow, who noted that among her comrades, there was a feeling that "you don't become pagan, you discover that you always were". They have also been supported by Pagan studies scholar Graham Harvey.
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. 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.
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.
Class, gender and ethnicity
Based
upon her work in the United States, Adler found that the pagan movement
was "very diverse" in its class and ethnic background.
She went on to remark that she had encountered pagans in jobs that
ranged from "fireman to PhD chemist" but that the one thing that she
thought made them into an "elite" was as avid readers, something that
she found to be very common within the pagan community despite the fact
that avid readers constituted less than 20% of the general population of
the United States at the time.
Magliocco came to a somewhat different conclusion based upon her
ethnographic research of pagans in California, remarking that the
majority were "white, middle-class, well-educated urbanites" but that
they were united in finding "artistic inspiration" within "folk and
indigenous spiritual traditions".
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.
Racism and nationalism
Generally, modern pagan currents in Western countries do not advocate nationalist or far-rightideologies. Instead, they advocate individual self-improvement and liberal values of personal freedom, gender equality, and environmental protection. The nationalist sentiments expressed by modern pagans in Western countries are marginal, so the ideas of cosmopolitanism are prevalent. Faith and dogmas give way to active practices, including psychotechnics, which was extensively influenced by neo-Hinduism.
In contrast, many areas of post-Soviet modern paganism, including
Russian, are occupied not so much with individual self-improvement as
they are occupied with social problems, and they also create nationalist
ideologies based on the "invented past".
Modern paganism is one of the directions in the development of romantic nationalism
with its components such as the idealization of a particular people's
historical or mythological past, dissatisfaction with modernity, and the
ease of transition to a radical stage with the postulation of national
superiority.
The "volksgeist", which is given great attention within the framework of ethnic nationalism,
is often identified with religion, so there is a desire to create or
revive one's religion or nationalize one of the world's religions. Heinrich Heine linked nationalism with paganism. The philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev,
who shared Heine's opinion, noted the regularity of the tendency of the
transition of German antisemitism into anti-Christianity.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the spiritual crisis in
Russia led to a fascination with paganism, at first ancient and then
Slavic "native gods", which was especially true for the symbolists.
The publicist Daniil Pasmanik (1923) wrote that consistent antisemitism
should reject Judaism and Christianity. He noted that this trend had
already led Germany to worship Odin and, in the future, in his opinion, would inevitably lead Russia to worship Perun.
German occultism and modern paganism arose in the early 20th century, and they became influential through teachings such as Ariosophy, gaining adherents within the far-rightVölkisch movement, which eventually culminated in Nazism. The development of such ideas after World War II gave rise to Wotanism, a white nationalist modern pagan movement at the end of the 20th century.
Heathen organization "Germanic Faith Community" (Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft, GGG), founded by the artist and poet Ludwig Fahrenkrog, a representative of the Völkisch movement. Brochure, circa 1920.
In Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Völkisch movement, characterized by a racistantisemitic ideology of radical ethnic nationalism of the dominant population, spread. The central elements of the worldview were racism and elitism. The movement included a religious modern pagan component. The ideology developed out of German nationalist romanticism. Nazism is considered one of the movements within the völkisch or as strongly influenced by the völkisch.
Völkisch consisted of many religiopolitical groups whose leaders and
followers were closely associated with each other and the developing Nazi Party. This ideology significantly impacted various aspects of German culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Liberalism and rationalism, which demystified the time-honored
order that accepted authorities and prejudices, also caused an adverse
reaction from supporters of the völkisch movement. A negative attitude
towards modernity characterizes the writings of German nationalist
"prophets" such as Paul Delagardie, Julius Lang, and Arthur Moeller van den Bruck. The movement combined a sentimental patriotic interest in German folklore and local history with anti-urban back-to-the-earth populism.
To overcome what they considered the ailment of scientific and
rationalistic modernity, the authors of völkisch found a spiritual
solution in the essence of the "people", perceived as genuine,
intuitive, even "primitive", in the sense of the location of the
"people" on the level with the original (primordial) cosmic order.
Völkisch thinkers tended to idealize the myth of the "original
nation", which they believed could still be found in rural Germany, a
form of "primitive democracy freely subject to its natural elite". The idea of the "people" (German: Volk)
was subsequently transformed into the idea of "racial essence", and
Völkisch thinkers understood this term as a life-giving and
quasi-eternal essence and not as a sociological category, in the same
way as they considered "Nature".
Modern pagan ideas were present in Ariosophy, an esoteric teaching created by the Austrian occultists Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels in Austria between 1890 and 1930. The term "ariosophy" can also be used generically to describe the "Aryan"/esoteric teachings of the völkisch subset. The doctrine of Ariosophy was based on pseudoscientific ideas about "Aryan" purity and the mystical unity of spirit and body. It was influenced by the German nationalist völkisch movement, the theosophy of Helena Blavatsky, the Austrian pan-German movement, and social Darwinism and its racist conclusions. Ariosophy influenced the ideology of Nazism.
The works of the Ariosophists describe the prehistoric "Aryan"
golden age when the wise keepers of knowledge learned and taught occult
racial teachings and ruled over a "racially pure" society. It is alleged
that there is an evil conspiracy of anti-German forces, including all
"non-Aryan" races, Jews, and the Christian church, seeking to destroy
the ideal "Aryan" German world by freeing the "non-Aryan" mob to
establish a false equality of the illegitimate (representatives of
"non-Aryan" races). History, including wars, economic crises, political
uncertainty, and the weakening of the power of the German principle, is
seen as the result of racial mixing.
The doctrine had followers in Austria and Germany. Occultism in
the doctrines of the Ariosophists was of great importance as a sacral
justification for an extreme political position and a fundamental
rejection of reality, including socio-economic progress. The
Ariosophists sought to predict and justify the "coming era" of the
German world order. To counter the modern world, "corrupted" by racial
mixing, the Ariosophists created many small circles and secret religious
societies to revive the "lost" esoteric knowledge and racial virtues of
the ancient Germans to create a new pan-German empire.
To recreate the religion of the ancient Germans,
List used the Scandinavian epic and the work of contemporary
theosophists, in particular Max Ferdinand Sebaldt von Werth, who
described the eugenic practices of the "Aryans", as well as The Secret Doctrine by Helena Blavatsky and The Lost Lemuria by William Scott-Elliot.
Influenced by these works, List used the terms "Ario-Germans" and
"race" instead of "Germans" and "people", perhaps to emphasize the
overlap with the fifth root race in Blavatsky's scheme. List and Lanz developed ideas about the struggle between the "Aryan race of masters" and the "race of slaves" and about the ancestral home of the "Aryans" on the sunken polar island of Arctogea.
In Nazi Germany, Germanic pagan folklore, as a source of
primordial moral standards, was revered higher than Christianity
associated with Judaism. Many Nazis saw anti-Christianity as a deeper
form of antisemitism. Heinrich Himmler spoke of the need to create a "neo-Germanic religion" capable of replacing Christianity.
The Old Testament was especially repugnant to the Nazis. Adolf Hitler
called it "Satan's Bible". Rosenberg demanded that it be banned as a
"vehicle of Jewish influence" and replaced by the Nordic sagas.
The Nazi ideology combined the veneration of the "pagan heritage of the
ancestors" with puritanical, Christian sexual morality, which the
"Nordic" Apollo was supposed to personify.
White supremacist ideologies and neo-Nazism, including ideas of racism, antisemitism, and anti-LGBTQ, have infiltrated or assimilated many Germanic modern pagan movements such as Odinism and some Ásatrú groups, including the Asatru Folk Assembly. These groups believe that the Germanic beliefs they hold constitute the true Caucasoid ethnic religion.
The issue of race is a major source of contention among modern pagans, especially in the United States. In the modern pagan community, one view is that race is entirely a matter of biological heredity, while the opposite position is that race is a social construct
rooted in cultural heritage. In US modern pagan discourse, these views
are described as völkische and universalist positions, respectively. The two factions, which Jeffrey Kaplan has called the "racist" and "non-racist"
camps, often clash, with Kaplan claiming that there is a "virtual civil
war" between them within the American modern pagan community. The division into universalists and völkisch also spread to other countries, but had less impact on the more ethnically homogeneous Iceland. A 2015 survey showed that more modern pagans adhere to universalist ideas than völkisch.
Going beyond this binary classification, religious scholar Mattias Gardell divides modern paganism in the United States into three factions according to their racial stance:
the "anti-racist" faction, which denounces any connection between religion and racial identity
the "radical-racist" faction, which believes that members of other
racial groups should not follow their religion because racial identity
is the natural religion of the "Aryan race"
an "ethnic" faction seeking to forge a middle path by recognizing
their religion's roots in Northern Europe and its connection to people
of Northern European origin
Religious scholar Stephanie von Schnurbein
accepted Gardell's tripartite division, and referred to these groups as
the "aracist", "racial-religious", and "ethnic" factions, respectively.
Supporters of the universalist and anti-racist approach believe
that the deities of Germanic Europe can call anyone to worship them,
regardless of ethnic origin.
This group rejects the völkisch focus on race, believing that even
unintentionally, such an approach can lead to racist attitudes towards
people of non-Northern European origin. Practicing universalists such as Stephan Grundy emphasize that ancient northern Europeans married and had children with members of other ethnic groups, and in Norse mythology, the Æsir did the same with the Vanir, jötnar, and humans, so these modern pagans criticize racist views.
Universalists favorably accept practitioners of modern paganism who are not of Northern European origin; for example, The Troth, based in the United States, has Jewish and African American members, and many of its white members have spouses who belong to different racial groups.
While some pagans continue to believe that Germanic paganism is an
innate religion, universalists have sometimes argued that this paganism
is an innate religion for the lands of Northern Europe and not for a
particular race. Universalists often complain that some journalists
portray modern paganism as an inherently racist movement, so they use the Internet to highlight their opposition to far-right politics.
In Heathenry, the terms "völkisch", "neo-völkisch", or the
Anglicised "folkish" are used both as endonyms and exonyms for groups
who believe that the religion is closely related to the claimed
biological race. Völkisch practitioners consider paganism to be an indigenous religion of a biologically distinct race that is conceptualized as "White", "Nordic",
"Aryan", "Northern European", or "English". Völkisch modern pagans
generally regard these classifications as self-evident, despite the
academic consensus that race is a cultural construct.
Völkisch groups often use ethnonationalist language and claim
that only members of these racial groups are entitled to practice a
given religion, taking the pseudoscientific view that "gods and
goddesses are encoded in the DNA" of the members of a race. Some practitioners explain the idea of linking their race and religion by saying that religion is inextricably linked to the collective unconscious of that race. The American modern pagan Stephen McNallen developed these ideas into a concept he called "metagenetics".
McNallen and many other members of the modern pagan "ethnic" faction
explicitly state that they are not racist, although Gardell has noted
that their views may be considered racist under specific definitions of
the term. Gardell considered many "ethnic" modern pagans to be ethnic nationalists.
Many völkisch practitioners disapprove of multiculturalism and racial mixing in modern Europe, advocating racial separatism.
In online media, modern pagan völkische often express a belief in the
threat of racial miscegenation, which they blame on the social and
political establishment, sometimes claiming that their ideas of racial
exclusivity are the result of the threat that other ethnic groups pose
to "white" people. While these groups generally claim to be aiming to revive Germanic paganism, their race-centric views have their origins in 19th-century culture, not antiquity. This group's discourse contains the concepts of "ancestors" and "homeland", which are understood very vaguely. Researcher Ethan Doyle White characterizes the position of the Odinic Rite and the Odin Brotherhood as "far right".
Ethnocentric modern pagans are highly critical of their
universalist counterparts, often claiming that the latter have been
misled by New Age literature and political correctness.
Members of the universalist and ethnocentric factions criticize those
who adopt an "ethnic" stance. The former view "ethnic" modern paganism
as a cover for racism, while the latter view its adherents as race traitors for their refusal to fully accept the superiority of the "white race".
Some modern pagans of the völkisch movement are white supremacists and outright racists representing a "radical racist" faction that uses the names Odinism, Wotanism, and Wodenism. According to Kaplan, these adepts occupy the "most remote corners" of modern paganism. The lines between this form of modern paganism and Nazism are "extremely thin" because its adherents praise Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, claim that the "white race" is threatened with extinction by the efforts of a Jewish world conspiracy, and dismiss Christianity as a work of the Jews.
Many in the inner circle of the terrorist organization The Order, a white supremacist militia operating in the US in the 1980s, called themselves Odinists. Various racist modern pagans supported the Fourteen Words slogan, which was developed by The Order member David Lane. Some racist organizations, such as the Order of Nine Angles and the Black Order, combine elements of modern paganism with Satanism, while other racist modern pagans, such as Wotanist Ron McVan, reject the syncretism of the two religions.
American neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce, the founder of the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance, whose ideas stimulated neo-Nazi terrorism,
also created the Cosmotheistic Community Church in 1978. He considered
the teaching he created within the framework of this church to be pantheism
and leaned towards the "Panaryan" Nordic cults. These cults emphasized
the idea of a unique closeness of "white people" with nature and the
natural "spiritual essence", which was influenced by the ideas of Savitri Devi.
According to the doctrine, each race has its predestined role: "whites"
are predisposed to strive for God, blacks strive for laziness, and Jews
strive for corruption.
In 1985, Pierce purchased a large piece of land at Mill Point in
West Virginia, fenced it in with barbed wire, and began selling books on
Western culture and Western "pagan traditions" there. He aimed to save
the "white race" away from the federal government. In part, he also drew
on British Israelism and the racist religion of Identity Christianity.
The "National Alliance" met regularly to discuss the ideas of
"cosmotheism". Pierce dismissed Christianity as "one of the chief mental
illnesses of our people" through which "Jewish influence" spreads.
Pierce saw the proposed government after the "racial revolution" as
religious, which would be "more like a holy order." He considered the
future religion of the "white race" the "Aryan religion" - the
"cosmotheism" that he created.
Sociologist Marlène Laruelle
notes the activation of "Aryan" modern paganism in the West and Russia.
For example, social movements are thus developing that appeal to the
Celtic past and call for a return to the "druidic religions" of pre-Christian Europe. For the most part, the French and German Nouvelle Droite
share the common idea of a pan-European unity based on an "Aryan"
identity and the desire to part with Christianity, the period of
domination of which is seen as two thousand years of "wandering in
darkness."
Slavic neopaganism (Rodnoverie) has a close connection with Nazism, reproducing its main ideas: the "Aryan" idea, including the idea of the northern ancestral home
(in Rodnoverie, it is in the Russian North, the Northern Urals, or
beyond the Arctic Circle); the connection of their people with the
"Aryans" or complete identification with them (in Rodnovery,
"Slavic-Aryans"); the antiquity of one's people and its racial or
cultural superiority over others; their people (or the ancient "Aryans"
identified with them) are regarded as cultural tregers, distributors of
high culture, founders of great civilizations of antiquity, (in
Rodnoverie, Slavic or "Slavic-Aryan" "Vedic" technological
pracivilization, "taught" all other peoples), and creators of ancient
writing (in Rodnoverie, Slavic runes);
"Aryan" proto-language (in Rodnoverie, "Slavic-Aryan" or Old Slavic),
from which all or many other languages of the world originated; reliance
on esotericism;
orientation to the faith of ancestors (hence paganism);
anti-Christianity (the idea that Christians seek to enslave the people)
and antisemitism (Jews as "racial enemies"); "Aryan" socialism (an
integral part of the ideology of Nazism)
as the most natural for its people (in Rodnoverie, the "original tribal
system" of the Slavs, which is thought of as a kind of "Aryan"
socialism); symbols and gestures close to or derived from Nazism, etc.
One of the main starting points for the formation of Slavic
neopaganism was the search for a rationale for the national idea. Hence
follows an increased interest in the origins of national
self-consciousness and the national type of religiosity.
In the post-Soviet period, in the conditions of the loss of the great
"empire" (USSR), land, and influence and in search of internal and
external enemies, neopaganism became widespread among nationalist
ideologues, just like in Germany in the 1930s. In Rodnoverie, the unity
of the Russian people was undergoing a new re-mythologization with an
appeal for support to the ideas of the "golden age", the primordial untainted tradition, and the native land.
Historian Dmitry Shlapentokh wrote that, as in Europe,
neopaganism in Russia pushes some of its adherents to antisemitism. This
antisemitism is closely related to negative attitudes towards Asians,
and this emphasis on racial factors can lead neopagans to neo-Nazism.
The tendency of neopagans to antisemitism is a logical development of
the ideas of neopaganism and imitation of the Nazis and is also a
consequence of some specific conditions of modern Russian politics.
Unlike previous regimes, the current Russian political regime and
the ideology of the middle class combine support for Orthodoxy with philosemitism
and a positive attitude towards Muslims. These features of the regime
contributed to the formation of specific views of neo-Nazi neopagans,
which are represented to a large extent among the socially unprotected
and marginalized Russian youth. In their opinion, power in Russia was
usurped by a cabal of conspirators, including hierarchs of the Orthodox
Church, Jews, and Muslims. Contrary to external differences, these
forces are believed to have united in their desire to maintain power
over the Russian "Aryans".
The historian and ethnologist Victor Schnirelmann considers Russian neopaganism as a direction of Russian nationalism that denies Russian Orthodoxy
as an enduring national value and distinguishes two cardinal tasks that
Russian neopaganism sets for itself: the salvation of Russian national
culture from the leveling influence of modernization and the protection
of the natural environment from the impact of modern civilization. According to Schnirelmann, "Russian neopaganism is a radical variety of conservative ideology, which is distinguished by frank anti-intellectualism and populism."
Religious scholar Alexei Gaidukov
considers it wrong to reduce the diversity of native faith groups to
nationalism only - he views the ecological direction of Rodnovery as no
less significant.
Historian and religious scholar Roman Shizhensky believes Rodnovery
poses little danger and law enforcement agencies should deal with
radical groups.
The Austrian occultist Guido von List, who created the doctrine of Ariosophy,
argued that an ancient developed "Ario-Germanic" culture reached its
dawn several millennia before Roman colonization and Christianity.
According to him, before Charlemagne's
forced introduction of Christianity, Wotanism was practiced in what is
now the Danubian territory of Germany. List considered Charlemagne the
killer of the Saxons in memory of the bloody baptism of the pagans of
Northern Germany by him. List considered the entire Christian period as
an era of cultural decline, oblivion of the true faith, and unnatural
racial mixing, when the "Aryan" ruling caste of priest-kings was forced
to hide, secretly saving their sacred knowledge, which now became
available to List as a full-fledged aristocratic descendant of this
caste.
In Slavic neopaganism, there is the idea of an ancient
multi-thousand-year-old and developed civilization of the
"Slavs-Aryans", while the entire Christian period seems to be an era of
regression and decline,
the enslavement of the "Aryans" by foreign missionaries who imposed on
them a "slave" (Christian) ideology. Rodnovers often regard these
missionaries as Jews, "Judeo-Masons", or their accomplices. At the same time, the Slavic "Aryan" volkhvs or priests had to hide in secret places, preserving the knowledge that was now passed onto their direct descendants, Rodnovers.
The idea of the Jewish-Khazar origin of Prince Vladimir the Great is popular, explaining why he introduced Christianity,
an instrument for the enslavement of the "Aryans" by Jews, and staged
the genocide of the pagan Slavs. Roman Shizhensky singles out the
neopagan myth about Vladimir and characterizes it as one of the most
"odious" neopagan historical myths and one of the leading Russian neopagan myths in terms of worldview significance.
The author of this myth is Valery Yemelyanov, one of the founders of Russian neopaganism, who expounded it in his book Dezionization
(1970s). Shizhensky notes that the neopagan myth about Vladimir
contradicts scientific work on the issue and the totality of historical
sources.
Concerning the trend of convergence of neopagan associations from
different countries, Andrey Beskov notes that neopagan nationalism is
not an obstacle to "neopagan internationalism", and anti-globalism, one of the manifestations of which was the popularity of ethnic religions, itself acquires a global character.
In response, groups and sects inclusive of or specific to LGBT
people have developed. Theologian Jone Salomonsen noted in the 1980s and
1990s that the reclaiming movement of San Francisco featured an unusually high number of LGBT people, particularly bisexuals. 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.
When Adler asked one gay male pagan what the pagan community offered
members of the LGBT community, he replied, "A place to belong.
Community. Acceptance. And a way to connect with all kinds of
people—gay, bi, straight, celibate, transgender—in a way that is hard to
do in the greater society."
Trans exclusion can also be found in Alexandrian Wicca, whose founder views trans individuals as melancholy people who should seek other beliefs due to the Alexandrian focus on heterosexual reproduction and duality.
"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."
— Religious studies scholar Sarah Pike.
Since the 1960s and 1970s, contemporary paganism, or neo-paganism, and the then emergent counterculture, New Age, and hippie movements experienced a degree of cross-pollination.
An issue of academic debate has been regarding the connection between
these movements. Religious studies scholar Sarah Pike asserted that in
the United States, there was a "significant overlap" between modern paganism and New Age, while Aidan A. Kelly
stated that paganism "parallels the New Age movement in some ways,
differs sharply from it in others, and overlaps it in some minor ways".
Ethan Doyle White stated that while the pagan and New Age movements "do
share commonalities and overlap", they were nevertheless "largely
distinct phenomena."
Hanegraaff suggested that whereas various forms of contemporary paganism
were not part of the New Age movement – particularly those who
pre-dated the movement – other pagan religions and practices could be
identified as New Age.
Various differences between the two movements have been highlighted;
the New Age movement focuses on an improved future, whereas the focus of
Paganism is on the pre-Christian past.
Similarly, the New Age movement typically propounds a universalist
message which sees all religions as fundamentally the same, whereas
paganism stresses the difference between monotheistic religions and
those embracing a polytheistic or animistic theology. Further, the New Age movement shows little interest in magic and witchcraft, which are conversely core interests of pagan religions such as Wicca.
Many pagans have sought to distance themselves from the New Age
movement, even using "New Age" as an insult within their community,
while conversely many involved in the New Age have expressed criticism
of paganism for emphasizing the material world over the spiritual.
Many pagans have expressed criticism of the high fees charged by New Age
teachers, something not typically present in the pagan movement.
Relationship with Hinduism
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. Some modern pagan literature prominently features comparative religion
involving European and Indian traditions. The ECER has made efforts to
establish mutual support with Hindu groups, as has the Lithuanian Romuva
movement.
In India, a prominent figure who made similar efforts was the Hindu revivalistRam Swarup,
who pointed out parallels between Hinduism and European and Arabic
paganism. Swarup reached out to modern pagans in the West and also had
an influence on Western converts to Hinduism or pro-Hindu activists,
notably David Frawley and Koenraad Elst, who both have described Hinduism as a form of paganism. The modern pagan writer Christopher Gérard has drawn much inspiration from Hinduism and visited Swarup in India. Reviewing Gérard's book Parcours païen in 2001, the historian of religionJean-François Mayer described Gérard's activities as part of the development of a "Western-Hindu 'pagan axis'".
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.
Regarding European paganism, In Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives
Michael F. Strmiska writes that "in pagan magazines, websites, and
Internet discussion venues, Christianity is frequently denounced as an
antinatural, antifemale, sexually and culturally repressive,
guilt-ridden, and authoritarian religion that has fostered intolerance,
hypocrisy, and persecution throughout the world." Further, there is a common belief in the pagan community that Christianity and paganism are opposing belief systems.
This animosity is flamed by historical conflicts between Christian and
pre-Christian religions, as well as the perceived ongoing Christian
disdain from Christians.
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 antisemitism in its A Reflection on the Shoah.
They also express disapproval of Christianity's continued missionary
efforts around the globe at the expense of indigenous and other
polytheistic faiths.
Some Christian authors have published books criticizing modern paganism, while other Christian critics have equated paganism with Satanism, which is often portrayed as such in mainstream entertainment industry.
In areas such as the US Bible Belt, where conservative Christian dominance is strong, pagans have faced continued religious persecution.
For instance, Strmiska highlighted instances in both the US and UK in
which school teachers were fired when their employers discovered that
they were pagan. Thus, many pagans keep their religion private to avoid discrimination and ostracism.
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.
Increasing academic interest in paganism has been attributed to the new
religious movement's increasing public visibility, as it began
interacting with the interfaith movement and holding large public celebrations at sites like Stonehenge.
The first international academic conference on the subject of pagan studies was held at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, North-East England in 1993. It was organised by two British religious studies scholars, Graham Harvey and Charlotte Hardman. In April 1996 a larger conference dealing with contemporary paganism took place at Ambleside in the Lake District. Organised by the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Lancaster,
North-West England, it was entitled "Nature Religion Today: Western
Paganism, Shamanism and Esotericism in the 1990s", and led to the
publication of an academic anthology, entitled Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World. In 2004, the first peer-reviewed, academic journal devoted to pagan studies began publication. The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies was edited by Clifton, while the academic publishers AltaMira Press began release of the Pagan Studies Series.
From 2008 onward, conferences have been held bringing together scholars
specialising in the study of paganism in Central and Eastern Europe.
The relationship between pagan studies scholars and some
practising pagans has at times been strained. The Australian academic
and practising pagan Caroline Jane Tully argues that many pagans can
react negatively to new scholarship regarding historical pre-Christian
societies, believing that it is a threat to the structure of their
beliefs and to their "sense of identity". She furthermore argues that
some of those dissatisfied pagans lashed out against academics as a
result, particularly on the Internet.
Neopaganism has been criticized on a variety of fronts, ranging from
pseudohistory to racial issues to institutional issues. As neopaganism
is not a unified religion, it means that the criticisms of certain
groups often do not apply to other groups. Criticisms of specific
neopagan groups range from criticisms of their belief in gender essentialism to criticisms of their belief in nationalism to criticisms of the worldly focuses of pagan organizations.
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