Spirit Walk Ministry
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
United States
email
“And yet had not a pagan the right to be a pagan?”
Neo-Paganism, is an umbrella term for new religious movements influenced by or derived from the various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern peoples. Although they share similarities, contemporary Pagan religious movements are diverse, and do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts.
Adherents claim to be followers of pre-Christian, traditional folk practices, but they have actually grown out of 19th century Theosophical groups and follow a spirituality that is entirely modern, while claiming prehistoric beliefs, or else they attempt to revive indigenous, ethnic religions of which they are often not a part. They are more likely to center their "rituals" more on interpretations of Arthurian legend and Eastern mysticism than on the traditions of the local wise women and cunning folk of their native land.
These movements attempt to represent a close relationship with the practices of ritual magick and traditional witchcraft, but Neo-Paganism differs from them, however, in mimicing authentic pantheons and rituals of ancient cultures, though often in deliberately eclectic and reconstructionist ways, Neo-Pagans center their dramatic and colourful rituals around the changes of the seasons and the personification of nature as full of divine life, as well as the holy days and motifs of the religions by which their own groups are inspired.
Some Neo-Pagan groups that arose in Europe before World War II were associated with extreme nationalism, as the members of the Vril Society and the Asatru were with the Aryan Nazi movement, but contemporary Neo-Paganism is for the most part a product of the 1960s counter-culture New Age movement and influenced by the works of the psychiatrist Carl Jung and environmentalist Rachel Carson. Today's Neo-Pagans are more interested in archetypal psychology and ecological concerns than in nationalism.
“When a person assumes that his or her revelation is the only true one,
it only says that this person has had very few religious revelations
and hasn't realized how many there are.”
Margot Adler: Drawing Down the Moon
Neo-Paganism
Historical Inspiration & Contemporary Creativity
https://neo-paganism.org/neo-paganism-and-the-new-age/
Neo-Pagans are often lumped together with the New Age movement (such as in national surveys). While the two movements do overlap somewhat, they are distinguishable. Neo-Pagans are typically critical of the New Age movement for its emphasis upon light, mind, spirit, and transcendence, to the detriment of darkness, body, matter, and immanence. Neo-Pagans reject the New Age quest for perfection and mastery, and seek rather an engagement with ambiguity and finitude.
Many New Agers believe there is a cosmic struggle between the forces of Light and Darkness, and human evolution depends on humanity thinking positively, embracing the “light” and spirit, and abandoning the darkness and earth. Neo-Paganism, on the other hand, rejects this gnostic denigration of matter and darkness, and celebrates the world as it is. New Agers seek to escape into an eternal existence of light. For Neo-Pagans, however, darkness is necessary. Life is born in the dark womb. Seeds germinate in the dark soil. It is in the dark night that we dream. And it is the Dark Goddess who is our original Mother. Neo-Pagans celebrate the beauty of nature and do not flinch from the fact that it is “red in tooth and claw.” In the eyes of Neo-Pagans, the dark is seen, not as evil, but a necessary part of our natural world and our spiritual being.
How Neo-Paganism and the New Age movement are similar:Both movements arose out of the Sixties Counterculture movement.
How Neo-Paganism and the New Age movement are different:
“
“There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off.
In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.”
Spirit Walk Ministry
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
United States
email