This book offers you the combined widom of Pagans who have been around for decades. The authors' backgrounds and experiences encompass various Pagan traditions including Witchcraft, Druidry, Norse paths, Shamanism, and more.
Exploring the Pagan Path is the product of selfless work for the benefit of the greater pagan community. Each author has donated the proceeds from this book directly to Ardantane College, a non-profit Pagan educational organization based in New Mexico.
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once read a story about a young man who was given a series of gifts. First was a stone. “With this,” he was told, “you shall learn to love the earth.” Next he received a seashell. “With this, you shall learn to love the water.” Then a lovely moth was placed in his cupped hands, and immediately the moth flew away. “With this, you shall learn to love the air.” Lastly, he received a small wooden box. “Never, ever open this,” he was told. “With this, you shall learn to love mystery.”
Two thousand years ago, Pagan initiates at Eleusis swore to die rather than reveal the nature of their mystical experiences. This same, sacred unknowable mystery sustains the heart of NeoPaganism today. We seek to revive the essence of the mystery traditions of ancient Greeks, Celts, Egyptians, Siberian Shamans, and myriad other ancestral and indigenous spiritualities. In doing so, we aspire to recapture that inscrutable, mysterious, primal force that inspired our ancestors to evolve and adapt to our unique position as spiritually conscious beings living in the physical world.
Any attempt to define a true mystery contradicts its inexplicable character. Definition by nature excludes possibilities and imposes limits. Just so, Paganism as a concept defies both definition and limitation, exemplifying the mysteries it sustains. What is NeoPaganism really? Is it a movement, a religion, or a catchall phrase? Is there some one thing a person must be or cannot be in order to be Pagan? A broad and diverse spiritual tradition links the Western cultures. Its ways are like the intricate branches of a giant tree, and its roots complex and intertwined. NeoPagans comprise a new branch grafted onto the ancient central trunk of this tree. Yet each individual NeoPagan, while connected to this network, must come to her or his own sense of what this means, as the true inner mystery gradually unfolds.
NeoPaganism, the modern revival of Paganism (the term “Pagan” may refer to any follower of Pagan philosophy—ancient, historical, or modern), is a movement in the sense that it represents a current of living, changing force. It challenges the dominant Western culture's approach to life, seeking the unmasked inspiration that fuels personal spiritual desire. The NeoPagan worldview questions many of the beliefs society hands us—that religion has an objective, one-size-fits-all Truth; that there are rules that can determine right and wrong in every situation; that we require intercessors in the form of teachers, saviors, or priests in order to know God/Goddess intimately.
Internal questioning or extraordinary encounters might spur you towards NeoPaganism. You might have felt that Nature, or a part of Nature, was alive. Or that you could communicate directly with a non-physical consciousness outside yourself. You may feel as if you remember or sense a different lifestyle or culture, built on values other than those of the predominant world around you. Possibly you have felt yourself shift consciousness while involved in a creative process. Perhaps you feel uncomfortable with the concepts of sin, or the beliefs that define our culture's morality. Some hear these calls as strongly as a siren's song. Others simply awaken to find themselves already participating in the ongoing redefinition of personal spirituality that NeoPaganism generates and demands. However you are called, through whatever provocations, you will find yourself among others who bring life to the pursuit of their own intrinsic connections to the Mysteries.
Who Are NeoPagans?
The word “pagan” comes from the Latin “paganus,” meaning country-dweller or villager. In medieval Europe, “pagan” referred to nonurban folk who retained their local customs as Christianity gained converts first among the upper classes. The derogatory terms “heathen” (literally “heath-dweller”) and “pagan,” similar to our “country hick,” sometimes inferred that these people had no religion. The common usage of “Pagan” and “Heathen” evolved to identify those outside the dominant monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, often referring to practitioners of any indigenous earth-based spirituality. Today, “Pagan” technically encompasses all polytheistic religions and spiritualities, those that worship multiple goddesses and gods, and that tend to honor the living forces of Nature.
Monotheistic religions generally focus on written or dogmatic teachings, while Paganism more often derives from oral and practical traditions. NeoPaganism, a phenomenon of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, combines ancestral and indigenous spiritualities with individualistic philosophies and ethnic traditions. Like all Pagans, NeoPagans typically honor many deities, both female and male. We worship within the cycles and forces of the natural world, emphasizing personal experience and individual interpretation rather than specified codes of behavior or belief.
One might say that all our ancestors started out as Pagans—polytheistic worshippers. Monotheism initially took root some 3,500 years ago among early Hebrews and briefly in Egypt. The Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, in the 14th century B.C., temporarily supplanted the many gods of ancient Egypt with his single chosen favorite deity, Aten, or Atun. Persian Zoroastrianism and Mithraism, with emphasis on polarized power and duality, likely influenced the development of monotheism as it grew into Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Egyptians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Gauls, Scandinavians, Akkadians, Teutons, Scythians, and Etruscans, among others, each worshipped pantheons of many gods and goddesses. Feminist scholars point to a multitude of prehistoric goddess artifacts and artwork as evidence of even earlier worship of the fertile Mother, indicating that adoration of the personified Earth and natural forces may be a primal human urge. Ancient cultures held their pantheons sacred for millennia, with Shamanic and animistic rites that ultimately evolved into elaborate mystery traditions, such as the Eleusinian, Samothracian, Dionysian, Druidic, and Egyptian.
During the Dark Ages, Pagans, Witches, Druids, mystery cults, women, homosexuals, Jews, and Shamanic peoples suffered great persecution throughout Europe. The Inquisition brought death to those who resisted or challenged the new monotheism, touted by the proponents of the Roman Church. Pagan traditions survived in secrecy among remote, rural people. What remained of the once great esoteric mystery traditions lived on in the Middle East and in the various occult traditions of alchemists, Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Knights Templar, Hermetics, Gnostics, and other symbolic societies. Thus survived a long lineage of Western esoteric wisdom that, along with European and Mediterranean Shamanic practices, influenced many branches of modern mysteries, including contemporary Wicca, NeoPaganism, occultism, and Ceremonial Magick.
During these repressive ages, the devil came to life as a Christian personification, composed of an amalgam of pre-Christian Nature deities. The political church, like conquering religions of all ages, demonized the indigenous gods as part of their propaganda regime. Bearing the horns, tails, and other traits of such gods as Lucifer (the light-bearer), Pan (the goat-foot muse), and Cernunnos (the Celtic god of the hunt), this new devil-image identified worship of the old gods with worship of evil. Thus was born the misconstrued myth of devil-worship among Pagans and Heathens. (Today's practitioners of Scandinavian, Norse, Teutonic, and other Northern European Pagan traditions often prefer to refer to themselves as Heathens.)
Elsewhere in the world, original gods and goddesses thrived. In Africa, Eurasia, North and South America, and the Pacific, indigenous spiritual practices continued until later times. In Asia, the many goddesses and gods of religions such as Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Shinto received constant adorations. Today's NeoPagans often look to such traditional people for inspiration, to help re-create what was lost and destroyed of our own ancestral faiths.
In 1952, England repealed the last law against Witchcraft. In the United States, the Constitution provided a climate for true religious freedom. The 1960s brought a sweeping spiritual, cultural, and consciousness revolution, catalyzing advances in civil rights, feminism, and environmentalism. During these decades, Paganism slowly reemerged as an active practice, as the numbers of NeoPagans rapidly multiplied throughout the United States and in Europe, Australia, and many other predominately monotheistic Western countries. Some say perhaps up to 300,000 now identify themselves as NeoPagan in the United States alone, but the true number is difficult to calculate. We cannot even estimate the numbers who do not publicly proclaim their Paganism.
Wiccans or Witches, Goddess worshippers, Druids, Asatru, Strega, Magickians, and numerous diverse followers of revived Greek, African, Italian, Mayan, Neo-Shamanic, and other heritages comprise the many-faceted face of NeoPaganism today. The largest majority follows some variety of Wicca or Witchcraft, although the NeoPagan family ranges widely in types and styles, from eclectic independents to very traditional initiatory schools. The broad “NeoPagan” label includes Unitarian Universalist Pagans, Discordians (who honor the Goddess Discordia or the Goddess Eris—rulers of all that might, and probably will, go wrong), Techno-Pagans, EcoPagans, and groups that identify as Roman, Lithuanian, Orthodox Egyptian, Neo-Tribal, and Elven. Others, eschewing labels, create eclectic groups that mix formal and free formats, or simply gather for spontaneous drumming or family circles.
Some NeoPagans join highly structured groups, covens, or groves, a few of which remain secretive. Others strike independent or solitary paths. Still others create unique individualized blends, in some cases inventing “traditions” whole cloth, inspired by anything from personal visions to science fiction books. Throughout this great diversity, the essential mystery reemerges in myriad expressions. A smorgasbord of choices awaits today's NeoPagan seeker, who may choose to taste or immerse herself in one or many flavors, weaving a personally relevant path that is intellectually stimulating, creatively spirited, sensuously satisfying, or ultimately simple.
If you are just beginning to explore these NeoPagan pathways, take heart. While the diversity may overwhelm you at first, follow your own inner compass and be aware that you will ultimately arrive at a place that feels right. This book will help introduce you to many of your options, but always remember that if one path feels uncomfortable, a wealth of roads all lead to the place where your own mystical doorways swing open.
What Do NeoPagans Believe?
Like all true spiritual paths, this one is a journey of growth, change, and evolution. Finding the course of your own path can mean trying on many hats and many definitions, recognizing that what works now may not be what always works. The spiritual practice requires that you look within, explore, define, and redefine what being Pagan means to you. An ongoing inner dialogue deepens the connection between inner selves, and between self and the Divine. The mystery lies within or, as the “Charge of the Goddess” states: “If that which you seek you find not within, you will never find it without.” (The “Charge of the Goddess” is a liturgical poem used and adapted in many NeoPagan contexts and is originally attributed to Doreen Valiente.)
NeoPagans do not proselytize. We do not assume ours is either the only true path or the best path for any individual. A well-known British Wiccan Priestess reputedly asked prospective initiates why they chose this path. According to the story, she accepted only those students who answered, “I don't know.” That inner calling toward the invisible realms behind the outer senses often draws seekers toward NeoPagan spiritualities. Few come to NeoPaganism through conversion. Most speak of finally discovering a place that feels like home, where they “fit in” among others of like mind. Newcomers to NeoPaganism rarely look to others for their ideals, but rather search for paradigms and communities that fit with their own innate tendencies. Some attribute these internal drives to past lives, karma, or dissatisfaction with traditional religions, although many feel no need to analyze exactly what compels them.
Choosing to take on the label “NeoPagan” means consciously aligning yourself with a movement that represents change, that is itself a change in the greater consciousness. This choice says to the world that you stand as a self-identified rebel, willing to walk the road-less-traveled, and willing to combat centuries of misunderstandings and misconceptions. Calling yourself “Pagan,” “NeoPagan,” or “Heathen” means taking a stand for personal and independent beliefs, yet identifies you with a group. As you become one of that group, you assume responsibilities. NeoPagans understand that words and names have great magical power. By accepting the label “NeoPagan,” you become a representative of NeoPaganism's composite image. You become a collaborator and, hopefully, a supporter of this movement's many joys and growing pains.
Many NeoPagans consider themselves spiritual rather than religious. However, as in all other philosophical matters, NeoPagans disagree on the specific definitions of spirituality versus religion. We resist the idea of “organized” or “dogmatic” religion, and particularly bristle at the idea of hierarchy. Wiccans proudly assert that their path is a religion and deserves due recognition...
