Contemporary paganism is among the more arcane and
misunderstood of modern religious phenomena, but this loose collection
of spiritual traditions dates back thousands of years and continues to
grow in popularity and influence. Perhaps the most pervasive
misconception regarding paganism is that it is an organized faith, yet
the very basis of modern pagan beliefs is their repudiation of
institutionalized spirituality, a fact that has often placed paganism in
direct conflict with the more conventional faiths of the Western world.
The term pagan is derived from the Latin word paganus,
meaning "country dweller," and it came into use to describe religiously
conservative residents of rural Roman territories following the
conversion of the emperor
Constantine I to
Christianity in the 4th century A.D. While urban
Romans were quick to embrace the faith imposed on them by their emperor, rural communities maintained their
polytheistic traditions, which included the worship of Roman
mythological deities that represented various aspects of nature and
human society. Thus these "pagans" were immediately associated with
three enduring aspects of modern paganism: a rejection of prevailing
organized faiths, polytheism, and an explicit deification of nature.
The word paganism, therefore, can and has
been used to describe classical Roman polytheism as well as a host of
revived or reinterpreted polytheistic or nature-worship traditions,
including those practiced by
Druids,
Wiccans, and the Asatru, who worship the ancient
Norse gods. While these faiths are not institutionally or
organizationally connected, they all share common themes and origins
within the modern pagan revival movement.
This revival began perhaps as early as the
Renaissance, when European fascination with ancient Greco-Roman
culture began to flower and a tacit reinstatement of Greco-Roman
religious ideas took root in certain corners of the scholarly community.
However, the most obvious and public reestablishment of pagan
traditions took place in the late 18th and the early 19th century, at
the height of European
colonialism.
Westerners observed active polytheistic and nature-worship practices among the native peoples of Africa, the Americas, Australia, and the Caribbean and themselves became interested in the European counterparts to these religious traditions. The role of Christian missionary institutions in oppressing many of these same native peoples also fostered dissatisfaction with conventional Western traditions, including religion, and spurred many Europeans to return to their own "innocent" pagan faiths. The most famous examples of these colonial pagan revivals were the Druid societies formed by the Londoners John Toland and Edward Williams during the 1700s.
A much later, but in some ways similar, popularization of paganism occurred in the 1960s, when
counterculture movements in Europe and the United States sought
alternative religious concepts to the prevailing cultural institutions
of the day. General public interest in--and, in many cases, outrage
over--paganism subsequently skyrocketed. Many if not most of the active
contemporary pagan traditions are indirect products of 1960s youth
movements. This has in turn led to the association of paganism with both
youthful rebellion and modern
environmentalism, which also was popularized in the 1960s.
Today so-called alternative religions are arguably
more popular than ever, a cultural phenomenon attributed by some
observers to the increasing use of the Internet. With more information
about nontraditional spiritual faiths available for public consumption,
these willfully noninstitutional faiths are poised to thrive as never
before. Thus paganism has come full circle, with ancient ideas and
practices reinvigorated by the most modern technologies and a formerly
traditional practice becoming instead a rebellion against cultural
conservatism. It is ironic, given that many pagan faiths espouse
reincarnation, that paganism itself has in many ways been reborn.
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