Neopaganism

Neopaganism or Neo-Paganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by historical pre-Christian European "pagan" religions.

Neo-Pagan religious movements are extremely diverse, with beliefs that range widely from polytheism to animism, to pantheism and other paradigms. Many Neopagans practice a spirituality that is entirely modern in origin, while others attempt to accurately reconstruct or revive indigenous, ethnic religions as found in historical and folkloric sources.



Neopaganism is particularly strong in the United States, Britain, Latvia, Greece, Lithuania, Iceland, Scandinavia, Ukraine and Russia. The largest Neopagan movement is Wicca.

The word "pagan" comes from the Latin paganus, originally meaning "rustic" or "from the country", and later also used for "civilian". The pejorative meaning, "uneducated non-Christian", emerges in Vulgar Latin from the 4th century. Since Christianity first spread to the cities, the rural Europeans were the last to convert to Christianty. The term neo-pagan was coined in the 19th century in reference to Renaissance and Romanticist Hellenophile classical revivalism.

"Pagan" and "Neopagan", when capitalized, refer to religions, or members of a Pagan or Neopagan religion, "in the same way as one would describe a 'Christian' or a 'Jew'." This usage has been common since the Neopagan revival in the 1970s, and is now used by academics and adherents alike to identify new religious movements that emphasize pantheism or nature-worship, or that revive or reconstruct aspects of historical polytheism.

The term "Neopagan" provides a means of distinguishing between historical Pagans of ancient cultures and the adherents of modern religious movements. The category of religions known as "Neopagan" includes syncretic or eclectic approaches like Wicca or witchcraft , Neo-druidism, and Neoshamanism at one end of the spectrum, as well as culturally specific traditions, such as the many varieties of polytheistic reconstructionism, at the other. Some Reconstructionists reject the term "Neopagan" because they wish to set their historically oriented approach apart from generic "Neopagan" eclecticism.

"Pagan" as a self-designation of Neopagans appeared in 1964 and 1965, in the publications of the Witchcraft Research Association; at that time, the term was in use by "revivalist Witches" in the United States and the United Kingdom, but unconnected to the broader, counter-culture Neopagan movement. The modern popularization 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.

Increasingly, however, scholarly writers prefer the term "contemporary Paganism" to cover all new polytheistic religious movements, a usage favored by The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, the leading peer-reviewed journal in the field.

"Heathen", "Heathenism" or "Heathenry" as a self-designation of adherents of Germanic neopaganism (Theodism in particular) appeared in the late 1990s.

Most Neopagan traditions are polytheistic, but interpretations of the nature of a deity may vary widely. In principle, there is the distinction of hard vs. soft (also, "strong" vs. "weak" or "radical" vs. "moderate") polytheism. Hard polytheism is the notion of the existence of gods and goddesses independent from the human mind and from one another, or as distinct entities but however part of a greater unity, such as The One of Neoplatonism and Panentheism. The mythology of antiquity reflects this kind of understanding of the gods' natures. Soft polytheism considers the plurality of gods as "aspects" of other notions of the divine, including Monism, Pantheism, Panentheism or Deism, Psychologism (Jungianism).





Historically polytheistic religious traditions in the west were not solely concerned with religious belief in gods, but focussed on ritual, tradition (ethos) and notions of virtue (arete, pietas). As Christianity became a rising force, Pagan thinkers such as Celsus and the Roman Emperor Julian wrote arguments against Christian ideas and in defense of the traditional religions, which give us insight into their contrasting beliefs.[citation needed] Hutton states that the historical Pagans did not see "All Goddesses as one Goddess; all Gods as one God", but some types of modern Neopagans believe that there is but a single divinity or life force of the universe, which is immanent in the world. The various manifestations and archetypes of this divinity are not viewed as wholly separate, but as different aspects of the divine which are ineffable.

In Wicca, (especially Dianic Wicca) the concept of an Earth or Mother Goddess similar to the Greek Gaia is emphasized. Male counterparts are usually also evoked, such as the Green Man and the Horned God (who is loosely based on the Celtic Cernunnos.) These Duotheistic philosophies tend to emphasize the God and Goddess' (or Lord and Lady's) genders as being analogous to a concept similar to that of yin and yang in ancient Chinese philosophy; ie, two complementary opposites. Many Oriental philosophies equate weakness with femininity and strength with masculinity; this is not the prevailing attitude in Neopaganism and Wicca. Among many Neopagans, 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. Other Neopagans reject the concept of binary gender roles.