Neopaganism

Origin

The Neopagan revival has multiple roots. Romantic-era interest in pre-Christian religion, especially in Germany and Britain, produced a body of nineteenth-century scholarship and literature that prepared the ground. The German volkisch movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced early reconstructions of Germanic religion, some of them later tainted by association with Nazi ideology and consequently rejected by post-war Neopagans. The first organised modern Druid orders, including the Ancient Order of Druids (1781) and the Druid Order (1909), preserved Druidic ceremonialism in a Christianised form.

The first explicitly Neopagan movement was Wicca, founded by Gerald Gardner in England in 1954. Asatru, the reconstruction of Norse religion, was founded in Iceland in 1972 by Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson and recognised as an official religion by the Icelandic government in 1973; parallel movements emerged in the USA (Asatru Folk Assembly, Asatru Free Assembly) and Germany. Hellenism, the reconstruction of ancient Greek religion, has been organised in Greece by the Hellenic Ethnic Religion since 1997. Kemeticism, the reconstruction of Egyptian religion, emerged in the USA in the 1970s. The Pagan Federation, founded in 1971 in Britain, provides an umbrella for many traditions. By 2025, scholarly estimates place global Neopagan numbers at around three to five million.

Teachings and method

Neopagan traditions share certain common features without forming a unified doctrine. Most are polytheistic, recognising many gods and goddesses, although the relationship between deities varies (literal beings, archetypal forces, aspects of a single divinity, ancestral spirits). Most venerate nature and treat the earth, the sun, the moon, the seasons, and specific places as sacred. Most observe a ritual calendar tied to the seasons; the eight-sabbat Wheel of the Year originated in Wicca and has been adopted by many other traditions. Most practise some form of ritual magic, divination, or spiritual technology.

The major traditions differ in their cultural source. Wicca draws on a constructed synthesis of British folklore, ceremonial magic, and creative imagination. Druidism draws on Celtic and especially Welsh and Irish sources, with the modern orders working from medieval Welsh mythological texts such as the Mabinogion. Asatru and Heathenry draw on Norse mythology preserved in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson (around 1220), the sagas, and skaldic poetry. Hellenism draws on Homer, Hesiod, the Orphic hymns, and the Greek Magical Papyri. Each tradition develops its own pantheon, liturgy, calendar, and ethics from its sources.

In practice

Neopagan practice ranges from solitary devotion to public ceremony. A typical home practice includes a shrine or altar with images, candles, offerings, and seasonal decorations; daily or weekly prayer, libation, or ritual; observance of seasonal festivals and personal milestones; study of myth and history; and divination through methods appropriate to the tradition (runes for Heathens, Ogham for Druids, astragalomancy for Hellenists, tarot across traditions). Community practice involves gathering for festivals, public rituals, and study circles.

Public Neopagan events include the British Heathen Hof gatherings, the Glastonbury Goddess Conference, the American Pantheacon (which ran from 1995 to 2020), and dozens of regional festivals across Europe and the Americas. Neopagan environmental activism, particularly within Reclaiming Wicca and various Druid orders, has shaped Pagan engagement with climate, land protection, and sacred site preservation. Combine Neopagan practice with Runes for Norse traditions, with the Druidic ovate path for divinatory work, and with Wicca for the most accessible entry point.

Symbolic depth

Neopaganism's deepest contribution is the recovery of religious imagination in the wake of secular modernity. The pre-Christian religions of Europe and the world were not abolished by abstract argument but by the political and social power of Christianity and, later, of secular modernity. Their traces survived in folklore, place names, festival customs, art, and literature. Neopaganism gathers these traces, supplements them with scholarship and creative reconstruction, and produces living religious forms appropriate to contemporary life. The result is not historical authenticity but a usable religious vocabulary for those who find monotheism, secular materialism, or imported Eastern traditions inadequate.

The historical authenticity of Neopagan reconstructions varies. Asatru and Hellenism, with extensive textual sources, can reconstruct ritual and theology with reasonable confidence. Druidism and Wicca rest on much thinner sources and rely heavily on creative reconstruction. The honest Neopagan position, articulated by Druids such as Philip Carr-Gomm and Heathens such as Diana Paxson, is that modern Neopaganism is a contemporary religion in dialogue with ancient sources, not an unbroken survival. Continue with Wicca, Druidism, Runes, and the oracle hub.

Also known as

• Modern Paganism
• Contemporary Paganism
• Pagan Revival
• Reconstructionist Paganism
• Neo-Paganism