Wicca

Wicca

Gerald Brosseau Gardner © Wicca is a Pagan Witchcraft tradition. Today, the name Wicca is frequently applied to the entire system of beliefs and practices that make up the spectrum of contemporary Pagan Witchcraft. However, although Wicca and Witchcraft are often used interchangeably, it is important to note that there are also Pagan Witchcraft traditions that are not Wiccan.
Wicca was used originally to distinguish the initiatory tradition of Witchcraft practised as a religion, but American popular television series have adopted the word to include what would once have been called natural magic or white witchcraft. When people in Britain describe themselves as Wiccan though, they generally mean that they are practising a form of religious Witchcraft. Media images often show Wiccans as teenage women, but in fact it is practised by males and females of all ages.

Origins of Wicca

Religious Witchcraft is not merely a system of magic, but is a Pagan mystery religion worshipping Goddess and God and venerating the Divine in nature. Its origins lie in pre-Christian religious traditions, folklore, folk witchcraft and ritual magic, but most Witches draw their inspiration from the 'Book of Shadows', a book of rituals and spells compiled by of one of Wicca's major figures Gerald Brosseau Gardner (1884-1964).
Gerald Gardner claimed to have been initiated in 1939 into a coven of Witches who met in the New Forest in Hampshire and his two most well known books Witchcraft Today (1954) and The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959) produced a huge surge of interest, inspiring a movement that has spread around the world.

Gods

Wicca honours the Divine in the forms of the Triple Goddess, whose aspects of Virgin, Mother, and Wise Woman or Crone are associated with the waxing, full and waning phases of the Moon, and as the Horned God.
The principal names by which the God is known are Cernunnos or Herne, both of which mean 'Horned One'. The emphasis placed on Goddess and God differs between groups, traditions and localities, but most Wiccans believe that for wholeness the image of the Divine must be both female and male.

Structure

There are no central authorities in Wicca. Some Witches are solo Witches. Others belong to covens – groups of like-minded people who meet together to worship the Gods and to do magic. Some covens are part of initiatory traditions in which more experienced people act as teachers to newcomers. Others are formed by groups of friends who want to meet and learn together. The classic number of people in a coven is thirteen, but many covens are smaller. Some are mixed sex groups; others cater for Witches who prefer single sex covens.

Rites and celebrations

Wiccan priestess and priest © The major festivals of Wicca are known as sabbats. These are held eight times throughout the year and mark changes in the seasons. The festivals are Winter Solstice or Yule on December 20/21, the shortest day, Summer Solstice or Midsummer on June 21/22, the longest day, and the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes (March 20/21 and September 20/21) when the hours of darkness and light are equal. The other four festivals are Imbolc, February 1/2; Beltane or May Eve on April 30/May 1; Lughnasadh also known by its Anglo-Saxon name of Lammas or Loaf Mass, August 1/2, and Samhain, also known as All Hallow's Eve, October 31/November 1. Witches also honour their deities at monthly rites known as esbats, which are held on the full Moon, when the mind is thought to be more magically powerful.
Sabbats begin at sunset and end at sunset the next day and most rites are held at night, lit evocatively by candles if indoors or by the moon, bonfires and lanterns if outside. For indoor rituals, some Witches have rooms set aside as temples in their houses, which they use for rites. Others use their ordinary living space.
Rites take place in a consecrated space, the circle, and even if there is a temple, the circle space is created anew for each rite. The space is first swept with a broomstick or besom to purify it and then blessed with the four elements – air, fire, water and earth. The circle is then symbolically sealed by drawing a circle around it in the air with a wooden wand or a black-handled knife known as an athame. The four directions – east, south, west and north – are then honoured. Within the sacred space, the Goddess and God are invoked and magic performed. Rituals usually end with blessing a chalice of wine and cakes that are shared among the participants.

Magic and ethics

A pentagram used for a spell casting © Like many Pagan religions, Wicca practices magic. Witches believe that the human mind has the power to effect change in ways that are not yet understood by science. In their rituals, as well as honouring their deities, Witches also perform spells for healing and to help people with general life problems. Magic is practised according to an ethical code that teaches that magic may only be performed to help people when it does not harm others.
Witches believe that the energies that we create influence what happens to us: negative magic rebounds on the perpetuator but magnified. This process is often known as 'Threefold Law'. Other important ethical teachings are that people should strive to live in harmony with others and with themselves, and with the planet as a whole. Environmental issues are important to Wiccans.

After death

Wicca teaches reincarnation. After death, the spirit is reborn and will meet again those with whom it had close personal ties in previous lives. The aim of reincarnation is not to escape life on Earth, but to enjoy experiencing it again and again until everything that can be learned has been absorbed. When the spirit ceases to reincarnate, it remains in a blissful realm known as 'The Land of Youth' or the 'Summerland'.

Wicca and other contemporary Pagan spiritualities

Wiccan ideas and rites have been taken up by the Goddess spirituality movement. They appeal to both women and men who have rejected male-dominated religions and who prefer to venerate the Divine in female form as Goddess.
There are many similarities between Wicca and Druidry. Both emphasize the importance of developing close links with Nature and their rites frequently take place out of doors. Both also stress the importance of guardianship of the Earth and environmentalism. Some distinctions are that Druidry is more purely Celtic than Wicca, there is less emphasis on magic in Druidry, and Druidry more actively encourages the development of music and poetry as paths to spiritual growth.

Heathenry

Heathenry

Heathenry is a term used to describe the religious practices of two main groups of people, one historical and one modern.
The original Heathens were the pre-Christian North European peoples who lived a thousand and more years ago in the lands around what is now called the North Sea. These included the peoples of Anglo-Saxon England, Scandinavia, Germany and Frisia (Friesland).
Scandinavian landscape © Modern Heathen groups around the world are reviving these old practices and call their religion by various names including Asatru, The Northern Tradition, Odinism, Forn Sed, Germanic Pagan Reconstructionism or, simply, Heathenry. In Iceland, which did not convert to Christianity until the 11th Century, Heathenry has once again become an official (nationally recognised) religion.
Heathens work to build healthy relationships with gods and goddesses, ancestors, spirits of the land, and others in their communities, both through holy rites and through their day to day actions.

Sources

There are literary sources that tell us how Heathenry was practised before the advent of Christianity. The main such sources include medieval Icelandic Eddas and Sagas, Anglo-Saxon poetry, the works of the 8th century English monk Saint Bede, and the Germania by the Roman historian Tacitus.
Although most of these were written in Christian times, they record the religious beliefs and practices of a culture that existed before Christianity came to Northern Europe. Archaeological evidence continues to be discovered which supports this picture of Heathen religion obtained from such classical and medieval literature.
Alongside these historical sources, modern Heathens experience their own, personal, understanding of their religion as lived today, and their own relationship with their gods.

Gods and other beings

Heathenry, like all ancient European pagan religions, is polytheistic and recognises a large number of gods and other spiritual entities. Although the Heathen gods are best known from Norse Mythology (and often called by Anglicised versions of their Old Norse names) they were honoured by many peoples outside of Scandinavia. For example, the god known to early Germanic tribes as Wodhanaz became Odhinn in Old Norse, Woden in Anglo-Saxon and Old Saxon, and Wuotan in Old High German. Some of the most well known Heathen gods are enshrined in our English days of the week. Tuesday is named after Tiw (Tyr), Wednesday after Woden (Odin), Thursday after Thunor (Thor) and Friday after the goddess Frige (Frigg).
In addition to the better known 'major gods', the names of several dozen local or tribal gods are known through medieval literature, runic inscriptions, and votive stones. Most Heathens choose to actively honour a subset of gods with whom they have developed personal relationships, although offerings are also often made 'to all the gods and goddesses'. Heathens relate to their gods as complex personalities who each have many different attributes and talents. For example, whereas Thor is popularly known outside Heathen circles as the mighty hammer-wielding God of Thunder, in Eddic poetry he is called by names such as Deep Thinker, Man's Well-Wisher, and Consecrator Thor, revealing a gentler side to his nature.
In addition to gods, Heathens recognise and relate to a wide variety of spiritual beings or 'wights'. These include the Norns - who are three female entities who weave the web of wyrd - and the Disir - who are female ancestral spirits attached to a tribe, family, or individual. Heathens also work with 'hidden folk' such as elves, brownies, dwarves and etins (giants and other not so pleasant folk). They interact with the housewights who live in their homes and the landwights who occupy features of the landscape such as streams, mountains, forests or fields. Having a relationship with landwights is an important feature of Heathen religion and outdoor Heathen rituals will not proceed until the permission of landwights is sought and obtained.
Another characteristic of Heathen religion is the respect given to ancestors in general. These may be a person's literal forebears, or may be people now dead who have inspired them in some way.

The Norse gods in history

Carolyne Larrington, Tutor in Medieval English at St John's College, Oxford; Heather O'Donoghue, Vigfusson Rausing, Reader in Ancient Icelandic Literature in the Department of English at Oxford University and John Hines, Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff University discuss the role of theology and the gods in the Vikings' daily lives.

Structure

There are no central authorities in Heathenry and no single organisation to which all Heathens belong, though there are national and international organisations created to facilitate networking between Heathens. There is no widely recognised priesthood, although sometimes individuals may be recognised as godhis and gydhjas (priests and priestesses) within their own communities.
Many Heathens belong to small groups made up of Heathen friends and family members. These groups are sometimes called 'hearths' or 'kindreds' and meet for religious rituals in members' homes or in outdoor spaces. Some hearths and kindreds have recognised leaders. Others are entirely egalitarian.

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Rites, festivals and practices

Rites and celebrations

The main rites celebrated in Heathenry are called blot (pronounced 'bloat') and symbel (pronounced 'sumble'). Heathen groups and individuals hold feasts and celebrations based around blot and symbel at rites of passage (such as weddings or baby-namings), seasonal holidays, oath-takings, rites in honour of a particular god or gods, and rites of need (in which gods are asked for help).
A blot was originally the ritual sacrifice of an animal to one or more gods, elves or ancestors. A feast followed afterwards at which the meat was shared amongst the participants. Blots were held to honour the gods or to gain their favour for specific purposes such as peace, victory, or good sailing weather.
A modern blot centres around the offering of food or drink (often mead) to the gods and tends to be followed by a feast. It may be a simple rite or a more elaborate one depending on the purpose of the blot and the number of participants. In an indoor blot where food is offered, it is common to lay a place for the god, ancestor or elf at the table. In an outdoor blot offerings are often thrown onto a fire.
Symbel is a ritual drinking ceremony in which one or more drinking horns or other vessels are filled with mead (or another appropriate drink) and used for toasting or boasting. It is common for modern Heathens to pass the horn(s) around all those participating after liquid is blessed. The first round of toasts may be to the gods, the second round to wights or ancestors, and the third round may be to whatever else the assembled Heathens wish to toast. There may be many more rounds, or the symbel may stop after a designated number. A separate libation (drink offering) may be given to the gods, landwights or housewights, or some of the contents of the horn may be poured out as an offering to them.
As well as major offerings to the gods or elves, Heathens like to leave gifts for their domestic hidden folk: the wights who live in their garden and house. For this purpose, many Heathens keep a special bowl to leave offerings in the house of cakes and ale, or may leave food or drink on or near a small garden altar.

Festivals

Different Heathen communities and individuals celebrate different cycles of seasonal holidays based on their cultural affiliations, local traditions, and relationships with particular gods. There is no fixed calendar of Heathen festival dates. The three Heathen festivals most commonly celebrated in the UK are Winter Nights - usually celebrated in October or November, Yule - a twelve day festival that begins around the time of the winter solstice, and a festival for the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre in the spring.

Magic and seership

Rune stones © Magic and seership were practised by some individuals within ancient Heathen cultures, and this is also the case with today's Heathen community.
Some Northern European magical practices being revived by Heathens include the carving of runes onto talismans and the chanting of charms called galdor. Some Heathens are also rediscovering Northern European shamanistic practices known as seidh (pronounced 'sayth'). In a ritual called 'oracular seidh' a seer or seeress answers questions or gives advice to participants. Many modern Heathens also practice runic divination.
Although magic was part of ancient Heathen culture, it did not play a part in the religious rituals of blot and symbel. Therefore, it is not seen as an intrinsic part of the religion. Although all Heathens share a belief in the ability of the gods to enact change in the world, they do not all believe in the ability of magicians to do so.

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Ethics, beliefs and other paths

Wyrd and ethics

One of the central concepts in Heathenry is wyrd, the force that connects everything in the universe throughout space and time. Heathens believe that all of their actions can have far reaching consequences through the web of wyrd. They understand that who they are, where they are, and what they are doing today is dependent on actions they and others have taken in the past, and that every choice they make in the present builds upon choices they have previously made.
With an understanding of wyrd comes a great responsibility. If we know that every action we take (or fail to take) will have implications for our own future choices and for the future choices of others, we have an ethical obligation to think carefully about the possible consequences of everything we do. Thus one of the principal ethics of Heathenry is that of taking responsibility for one's own actions.
Another Heathen value is fridh (pronounced frith), the maintenance of peace and friendship within a social group. Obligations towards friends, kin and community are taken seriously by Heathens. Like many peoples living far apart in a harsh climate, pre-Christian Heathens put great stress on hospitality, and this is still valued by modern Heathens. A related concept is the giving of gifts, though both gift-giving and hospitality are bounded by reciprocity, a principle that Heathens consider important.
Plain speaking, honesty and forthrightness are also important to Heathens. This may be seen as part of a value system based upon personal honour, which eschews deceit and dishonesty towards members of the social group. Thus Heathens place great value on the giving of their word, and any form of oath-taking is taken extremely seriously. This often means that Heathens will not sign their name to something unless they can assent to it in both letter and spirit.

After death

Heathenry is focused on right living in the here and now and does not place as great an emphasis on the afterlife as do some other religions. Whereas Valhalla - Odhin's hall - is popularly seen as the Norse equivalent of heaven, this is a misconception. According to the mythology as recorded in the Eddas, Valhalla is only for warriors who die in battle. Moreover, half of these battle-slain warriors go to Freyja's hall and half to Odhin's hall. Those who drown at sea go to the goddess Ran's hall. People who die of natural causes go to the hall of the goddess Hel. Most of today's Heathens see Hel as a neutral place where they will be reunited with their ancestors.
Sources do not enable a complete reconstruction of the pre-Christian Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon views of the soul. One concept, however, which is still retained in folk stories, is that of the fetch or fylgia. The fetch was held to be a part of the person which might be contacted during life, but which would not be physically seen until just before death. The sight of one's fetch was, indeed, a signal of the ending of one's life.
There are a few passages in the sources which are interpreted by some as indicating an ancient Heathen belief in reincarnation, but they are far from compelling. Some modern Heathens believe in the continuation of part of a person through reincarnation, while others do not.

Heathenry and other contemporary Pagan spiritualities

Heathenry is a living religion based on literary and archaeological sources for the religious practices of a particular pre-Christian culture and extended by the relationships of modern Heathens with their gods. It differs from Wicca and other modern day non-reconstructionist* Pagan paths in a number of ways. Perhaps the primary difference is that Heathens are 'hard polytheists': they honour a large number of individual gods, goddesses and other spiritual beings whom they see as existing independently from humans. And in common with many indigenous religions world-wide, they also honour their ancestors.
Heathens differ from Wiccans and many of the other modern day non-reconstructionist Pagans in many other ways. They reject the concept that all goddesses are aspects of 'The Goddess' and that all gods are aspects of her consort. They also reject the Jungian concept of Gods and Goddesses as archetypes in the unconscious mind. Heathen festivals do not follow the 'Eight Fold Wheel of the Year' based on solstices and equinoxes. Their rituals do not involve 'casting circles' or 'calling quarters'. Magic is not an essential or central part of Heathenry, and the majority of Heathens do not consider themselves 'witches'. There are no 'degrees of initiation' within Heathen religion and no 'high priests' or 'high priestesses'.
Despite these theological differences, many Heathens are involved in the wider pagan community for social and political reasons.

Pagan worship-Pagan weddings-Pagan paths

Pagan worship

As Paganism is a very diverse religion with many distinct though related traditions, the forms of Pagan worship vary widely. It may be collective or solitary. It may consist of informal prayer or meditation, or of formal, structured rituals through which the participants affirm their deep spiritual connection with nature, honour their Gods and Goddesses, and celebrate the seasonal festivals of the turning year and the rites of passage of human life.
Pagan ritual, with Emma Restall Orr, Chief Druid, The British Druid Order As Pagans have no public buildings specifically set aside for worship, and most believe that religious ceremonies are best conducted out of doors, rituals often take place in woods or caves, on hilltops, or along the seashore. To Pagans the finest places of worship are those not built by human hands - as well as at stone circles, in parks, and private homes and gardens. Women and men almost always worship together and Paganism generally emphasises equality of the sexes. In certain paths, however, women may take the leading role as representative of the pre-eminence of the female principle.
Ceremonies usually begin with the marking out of a ritual circle, a symbol of sacred space which has neither beginning nor end, and within which all stand as equals. At the quarter-points, the four directions and the corresponding elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water will be acknowledged and bid welcome.
There may follow, according to the purpose of the rite, any or all of meditation, chanting, music, prayer, dance, the pouring of libations, recitations of poetry and/or the performance of sacred drama, and the sharing of food and drink. Lastly the circle will be formally unmade, the directions, elements, and all the forms of divinity that have been called upon thanked, as the rite ends.
Ritual wine © Pagans do not believe that they are set above, or apart from, the rest of nature. They understand divinity to be immanent, woven through every aspect of the living earth. Thus, Pagan worship is mainly concerned with connection to, and the honouring of, immanent divinity. The rituals are akin to a symbolic language of communication between the human and the divine: one which speaks not to the intellect alone but also to the body, the emotions, and the depths of the unconscious mind, allowing Pagans to experience the sacred as whole people within the act of worship. The approach is primarily mythopoeic, recognising that spiritual truths are better understood by means of allusion and symbol rather than through doctrine.

Pagan weddings

A Pagan wedding © Pagan wedding ceremonies are called handfastings and mark the coming together of two people in a formal, loving and equal sexual partnership.
Pagans take the swearing of oaths very seriously indeed and believe it important that they articulate the sincere, considered intentions of the individuals concerned rather than merely repeating a standard formula.
Accordingly, the vows a couple will swear to each other before their Gods and Goddesses during a handfasting will be carefully discussed and decided upon by them beforehand, in consultation with the Priestess and/or Priest who will officiate at the ceremony.
While all couples will vow to love, honour, respect and protect both each other and their children, the responsibility for the form of the committed relationship they are undertaking ultimately lies with them.
A couple may choose to handfast for the traditional period of a year and a day, and it is not uncommon for Pagans in long-term relationships to renew their vows after each year and a day has passed so that neither comes to take the other for granted. Others vow to handfast for life while a few, in accordance with Pagan beliefs in reincarnation, do so for all their future lives as well.
Druids officiate at a Pagan wedding As with all other Pagan ceremonies, there is considerable variation in the precise form an individual handfasting rite will take, but some parts are all but universal.
The ceremony will be held out of doors if at all possible, and will begin with the marking out of sacred space (usually in the form of a circle), the honouring of the Four Elements, and a welcome for all who are present.
The Gods and Goddesses will be called upon to bless the future life of the couple. The couples' right hands will be bound together (hence 'handfasting'), they will swear the oaths that will henceforth define their relationship, and their hands will then be unbound in token that they remain together of their own free will.
Rings will be exchanged and the ceremony will conclude with 'jumping the broomstick' - the couple leaping hand in hand over a broom held horizontally before them, thus crossing the symbolic boundary between their old lives and their new, shared, one. As with most Pagan rituals, a handfasting will be followed by feasting and celebration by the company.

Pagan paths

Pagan paths

Paganism has absorbed influences from around the world and some Pagans choose to specialise in one of these traditions, or paths as they are often known.
Some groups take influences from a particular part of the world. The Heathen path follows ancient Scandinavian, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon belief systems. Other traditions are defined by elements of their practice. For instance, Wiccans use magical techniques in worship, Druids emphasise arts and philosophy, and Shamans employ spirit-journeying for healing.
In recent years teenage Witches have attracted a great deal of attention. This group of youths has shunned the common trend towards secularism and become a Pagan group in their own right.
These descriptions are very flexible and a Pagan is free to change how they describe themselves. A Pagan may also combine a number of these different elements, in fact this is very common. Magic, philosophy, art and healing may all be practised by the same person.

Samhain-Lammas/Lughnasadh-Beltane-Imbolc

Samhain

Find the date for Samhain 2012 in the multifaith calendar
Samhain (pronounced 'sow'inn') is a very important date in the Pagan calendar for it marks the Feast of the Dead. Many Pagans also celebrate it as the old Celtic New Year (although some mark this at Imbolc). It is also celebrated by non-Pagans who call this festival Halloween.
Samhain has been celebrated in Britain for centuries and has its origin in Pagan Celtic traditions. It was the time of year when the veils between this world and the Otherworld were believed to be at their thinnest: when the spirits of the dead could most readily mingle with the living once again. Later, when the festival was adopted by Christians, they celebrated it as All Hallows' Eve, followed by All Saints Day, though it still retained elements of remembering and honouring the dead.
To most modern Pagans, while death is still the central theme of the festival this does not mean it is a morbid event. For Pagans, death is not a thing to be feared. Old age is valued for its wisdom and dying is accepted as a part of life as necessary and welcome as birth. While Pagans, like people of other faiths, always honour and show respect for their dead, this is particularly marked at Samhain. Loved ones who have recently died are remembered and their spirits often invited to join the living in the celebratory feast. It is also a time at which those born during the past year are formally welcomed into the community. As well as feasting, Pagans often celebrate Samahin with traditional games such as apple-dooking.
Death also symbolises endings and Samhain is therefore not only a time for reflecting on mortality, but also on the passing of relationships, jobs and other significant changes in life. A time for taking stock of the past and coming to terms with it, in order to move on and look forward to the future.

Ancient Celtic celebrations

Not only did the Celts believe the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead dissolved on this night, they thought that the presence of the spirits helped their priests to make predictions about the future.
To celebrate Samhain the Druids built huge sacred bonfires. People brought harvest food and sacrificed animals to share a communal dinner in celebration of the festival.
During the celebration the Celts wore costumes - usually animal heads and skins. They would also try and tell each other's fortunes.
After the festival they re-lit the fires in their homes from the sacred bonfire to help protect them, as well as keep them warm during the winter months.

Lammas (also called Lughnasadh)

Find the date for Lammas 2012 in the multifaith calendar

Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland!
Traditional Scottish poem

Lammas, also called Lughnasadh (pronouced loo'nass'ah), comes at the beginning of August. It is one of the Pagan festivals of Celtic origin which split the year into four.
Celts held the festival of the Irish god Lugh at this time and later, the Anglo-Saxons marked the festival of hlaefmass - loaf mass or Lammas - at this time.
For these agricultural communities this was the first day of the harvest, when the fields would be glowing with corn and reaping would begin. The harvest period would continue until Samhain when the last stores for the winter months would be put away.
Although farming is not an important part of modern life, Lughnasadh is still seen as a harvest festival by Pagans and symbols connected with the reaping of corn predominate in its rites.

Beltane

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Beltane is a Celtic word which means 'fires of Bel' (Bel was a Celtic deity). It is a fire festival that celebrates of the coming of summer and the fertility of the coming year.
Celtic festivals often tied in with the needs of the community. In spring time, at the beginning of the farming calendar, everybody would be hoping for a fruitful year for their families and fields.
Beltane rituals would often include courting: for example, young men and women collecting blossoms in the woods and lighting fires in the evening. These rituals would often lead to matches and marriages, either immediately in the coming summer or autumn.
Other festivities involved fire which was thought to cleanse, purify and increase fertility. Cattle were often passed between two fires and the properties of the flame and the smoke were seen to ensure the fertility of the herd.
Today Pagans believe that at Beltane the God (to whom the Goddess gave birth at the Winter Solstice) achieves the strength and maturity to court and become lover to the Goddess. So although what happens in the fields has lost its significance for most Pagans today, the creation of fertility is still an important issue.
Emma Restall Orr, a modern day Druid, speaks of the 'fertility of our personal creativity'. (Spirits of the Sacred Grove, pub. Thorsons, 1998, pg.110). She is referring to the need for active and creative lives. We need fertile minds for our work, our families and our interests.
Fire is still the most important element of most Beltane celebrations and there are many traditions associated with it. It is seen to have purifying qualities which cleanse and revitalise. People leap over the Beltane fire to bring good fortune, fertility (of mind, body and spirit) and happiness through the coming year.
Although Beltane is the most overtly sexual festival, Pagans rarely use sex in their rituals although rituals often imply sex and fertility. The tradition of dancing round the maypole contains sexual imagary and is still very popular with modern Pagans.
The largest Beltane celebrations in the UK are held in Edinburgh. Fires are lit at night and festivities carry on until dawn. All around the UK fires are lit and private celebrations are held amongst covens and groves (groups of Pagans) to mark the start of the summer.

Imbolc

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As the light lengthens, so the cold strengthens
Traditional saying

Imbolc (pronounced 'im'olk' also known as Oimelc) comes from an Irish word that was originally thought to mean 'in the belly' although many people translate it as 'ewe's milk' (oi-melc).
Imbolc was one of the cornerstones of the Celtic calendar. For them the success of the new farming season was of great importance. As winter stores of food were getting low Imbolc rituals were performed to harness divine energy that would ensure a steady supply of food until the harvest six months later.
Like many Celtic festivals, the Imbolc celebrations centred around the lighting of fires. Fire was perhaps more important for this festival than others as it was also the holy day of Brigid (also known as Bride, Brigit, Brid), the Goddess of fire, healing and fertility. The lighting of fires celebrated the increasing power of the Sun over the coming months. For the Christian calendar, this holiday was reformed and renamed 'Candlemas' when candles are lit to remember the purification of the Virgin Mary.
Imbolc is still a special time for Pagans. As people who are deeply aware of what is going on in the natural world they recognise that there is strength in cold as well as heat, death as well as life. The Horned God reigns over the Autumn and Winter and although the light and warmth of the world may be weak, he is still in his power.
Many feel that human actions are best when they reflect the actions of nature, so as the world slowly springs back into action it is time for the small tasks that are neglected through the busy year. Rituals and activities might include the making of candles, planting spring flowers, reading poetry and telling stories.

Wheel of the Year-Spring Equinox-Summer Solstice-Autumn Equinox-Winter Solstice-

Wheel of the Year

The Pagan seasonal cycle is often called the Wheel of the Year. Almost all Pagans celebrate a cycle of eight festivals, which are spaced every six or seven weeks through the year and divide the wheel into eight segments.
Four of the festivals have Celtic origins and are known by their Celtic names, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain.
The other four are points in the solar calendar. These are Spring and Autumn Equinox (when the length of the day is exactly equal to the night), Summer and Winter Solstice (longest and shortest days of the year). Neolithic sites such as Stonehenge act as gigantic solar calendars which marked the solstices and equinoxes and show that solar festivals have been significant dates for hundreds of thousands of years.
(The seasonal differences between the hemispheres mean solar festivals are celebrated opposite different dates in the southern hemisphere.)

Spring Equinox

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Spring Equinox celebrates the renewed life of the Earth that comes with the Spring. It is a solar festival, celebrated when the length of the day and the night are equal (this happens twice a year, at Spring and Autumn Equinox).
This turn in the seasons has been celebrated by cultures throughout history who held festivals for their gods and goddesses at this time of year. Aphrodite from Cyprus, Hathor from Egypt and Ostara of Scandinavia. The Celts continued the tradition with festivities at this time of year.
Today, Pagans continue to celebrate the coming of Spring. They attribute the changes that are going on in the world to an increase in the powers of their God and Goddess (the personifications of the great force that is at work in the world). At the time of Spring Equinox the God and the Goddess are ofter portrayed as The Green Man and Mother Earth. The Green Man is said to be born of Mother Earth in the depths of winter and to live through the rest of the year until he dies at Samhain.
To celebrate Spring Equinox some Pagans carry out particular rituals. For instance a woman and a man are chosen to act out the roles of Spring God and Goddess, playing out courtship and symbolically planting seeds. Egg races, egg hunts, egg eating and egg painting are also traditional activities at this time of year.

Summer Solstice

Find the date for Summer Solstice 2012 in the multifaith calendar
Solstice, or Litha means a stopping or standing still of the sun. It is the longest day of the year and the time when the sun is at its maximum elevation.

As the sun spirals its longest dance,
Cleanse us
As nature shows bounty and fertility
Bless us
Let all things live with loving intent
And to fulfill their truest destiny
Wiccan blessing for Summer

This date has had spiritual significance for thousands of years as humans have been amazed by the great power of the sun. The Celts celebrated with bonfires that would add to the sun's energy, Christians placed the feast of St John the Baptist towards the end of June and it is also the festival of Li, the Chinese Goddess of light.
Like other religious groups, Pagans are in awe of the incredible strength of the sun and the divine powers that create life. For Pagans this spoke in the Wheel of the Year is a significant point. The Goddess took over the earth from the horned God at the beginning of spring and she is now at the height of her power and fertility. For some Pagans the Summer Solstice marks the marriage of the God and Goddess and see their union as the force that creates the harvest's fruits.
This is a time to celebrate growth and life but for Pagans, who see balance in the world and are deeply aware of the ongoing shifting of the seasons it is also time to acknowledge that the sun will now begin to decline once more towards winter.

Summer Solstice rituals

When celebrating midsummer, Pagans draw on diverse traditions. In England thousands of Pagans and non-Pagans go to places of ancient religious sites such as Stonehenge and Avebury to see the sun rising on the first morning of summer.

Summer Solstice at Stonehenge

Revellers typically gather at Stonehenge, the ancient stone circle in Wiltshire, to see the sun rise. The Heel Stone and Slaughter Stone, set outside the main circle, align with the rising sun.

Local Summer Solstice celebrations

In addition to the large events at major sites such as Stonehenge, many more Pagans hold small ceremonies in open spaces, everywhere from gardens to woodlands.
In this clip the Sunday Programme follows the Oak and Feather Grove, a Druid group whose members come from across Lancashire, as they visit a stone circle at Turton Heights near Bolton to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

Midsummer day

Midsummer day is marked around the time of the summer solstice but should not be confused with it. European celebrations of Midsummer take place on a day between 21st June and 24th June, depending on regional traditions. In the United Kingdom Midsummer day takes place on 24th June, the feast of St John the Baptist.

Autumn Equinox

Find this year's date in the multifaith calendar
Autumn Equinox (also known as Mabon or Harvest Home) is celebrated when day and night are of equal duration before the descent into increasing darkness and is the final festival of the season of harvest.
In nature, the activity of the summer months slows down to the hibernation for the winter. For many Pagans, now is time to reflect on the past season.
It is also a time to recoginse that the balance of the year has changed, the wheel has turned and summer is now over.
Astrologers will recognise this as the date the sun enters the sign of Libra - the Scales of Balance.

Winter Solstice

Find this year's date in the multifaith calendar
The Pagan celebration of Winter Solstice (also known as Yule) is one of the oldest winter celebrations in the world.
Ancient people were hunters and spent most of their time outdoors. The seasons and weather played a very important part in their lives. Because of this many ancient people had a great reverence for, and even worshipped the sun. The Norsemen of Northern Europe saw the sun as a wheel that changed the seasons. It was from the word for this wheel, houl, that the word yule is thought to have come. At mid-winter the Norsemen lit bonfires, told stories and drank sweet ale.
The ancient Romans also held a festival to celebrate the rebirth of the year. Saturnalia ran for seven days from the 17th of December. It was a time when the ordinary rules were turned upside down. Men dressed as women and masters dressed as servants. The festival also involved decorating houses with greenery, lighting candles, holding processions and giving presents.
The Winter Solstice falls on the shortest day of the year (21st December) and was celebrated in Britain long before the arrival of Christianity. The Druids (Celtic priests) would cut the mistletoe that grew on the oak tree and give it as a blessing. Oaks were seen as sacred and the winter fruit of the mistletoe was a symbol of life in the dark winter months.
It was also the Druids who began the tradition of the yule log. The Celts thought that the sun stood still for twelve days in the middle of winter and during this time a log was lit to conquer the darkness, banish evil spirits and bring luck for the coming year.
Many of these customs are still followed today. They have been incorporated into the Christian and secular celebrations of Christmas.

History of modern Paganism

Renaissance and revival

History of modern Paganism

Contemporary Paganism is the restoration of indigenous religion, especially that of ancient Europe. Paganism has grown in popularity greatly during the last hundred years. The growth coincides with a decline in Christianity in Europe, and the increase in knowledge of past and distant cultures.

Renaissance, Reformation and Rationalism

Statue of Neptune, Italy © People in Europe became more aware of the art and philosophy of the ancient world during the Renaissance period around 1500 (the word 'Renaissance' means 'rebirth'). Documents rescued after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 introduced people to ideas from before the Middle ages. And although Europe remained Christian the Pagan gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece jostled with the patron saints of Christianity on public monument, and classical philosophy began to change the way people thought about ethics and morality.
In Britain the Reformation of the 1600s transformed England from a Catholic country to a Protestant one. The religious conflict that went along with this change led to the persecution of those who didn't fit the desired religious profile. Religious hysteria (disguised as spiritual cleansing) led to some individuals being described as 'witches'. But these people were not part of any religious movement, merely victims of local feuds and quarrels. A few of them were practitioners of herbal medicine but most were ordinary, conventional citizens.
After the enormous political and intellectual upheavals of the 1600s died away, it became possible to explore ways of thought outside Christianity without fear of instant damnation, and the study of Greek and Roman classics became part of every schoolboy's education.
The name 'Europe' (herself a character in Greek myth) replaced 'Christendom' in the mid-18th century. Influenced by the expansion of trade and colonies an awareness and interest in other cultures and spiritualities grew. This new age of reason during the 17th and 18th Centuries became known as the Enlightenment.

The revival of traditional cultures and ancient traditions

The first Pagan tradition to be restored was that of the Druids in Britain. In the mid-1600s stone circles and other monuments built four and a half thousand years previously began to interest scholars. Some thought that the original Druids (pre-historic tribal people of Europe) had built them. In 1717 one of these scholars, the Irish theologian John Toland, became the first Chosen Chief of the Ancient Druid Order, which became known as the British Circle of the Universal Bond.
By the 19th Century a new outlook was evident as people searched for the fundamental principles of religion by looking at the faiths of different places and times.
Mme Helena Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. Its teachings were based on Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, Neo-Platonic thought, and ancient Egyptian religion. Pagan philosophies, which venerated Nature and were polytheistic, began to be seen as sophisticated contributions to contemporary spirituality.
Runic letter © Across Europe people were rediscovering their indigenous cultures. In northern Europe there was a growing interest in Saxon and Norse traditions. In England, William Morris translated the Icelandic sagas and Cecil Sharp collected village dances and songs.
In Germany Schlegel and Schelling in particular were attracted to the nature religion which they saw behind traditional folk customs, and at the beginning of the 20th century Guido von Liszt pioneered the study of the runes.
In north-east Europe, particularly Lithuania, nationalist movements spread and indigenous languages were reclaimed, traditional tales recorded and the old festivals celebrated. Folk music was part of this reassertion of local identity, preserving traditions which otherwise would have been forgotten.

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Witchcraft, New Age and modern

The Witchcraft movement

Witches raise hailstorms (15th century woodcut) © An interest in witchcraft developed in the 19th century. By 1828 one historian proposed that the supposed witches of the 16th-17th centuries were in fact underground practitioners of Pagan religion. And in 1899 an American journalist, Charles Godfrey Leland, claimed he had discovered modern day witches in Italy.
It was not until 1951 that the first practitioners of modern day witchcraft became known. It was at this time that the United Kingdom followed the rest of Europe in repealing the last of its anti-witchcraft laws. No laws were thought necessary in this rationalistic age. But amazingly, a retired tea planter and amateur archaeologist, Gerald Brousseau Gardner, appeared in print claiming he spoke for one of several covens of English witches who practised a Pagan religion dating from the Stone Age. Gardner claimed that his witches were practitioners of a fertility religion called Wicca.

The hippy trail and beyond

The 1960s and 1970s were times of radical social change. Hinduism and Taoism helped shape contemporary Paganism as the hippy trail led people to become interested in Eastern religions and philosophies. Other traditions were also revived and incorporated into Pagan practices.
North Americans rediscovered Native American traditions and the Afro-American traditions of Santeria, Candomble and Vodoun.
European traditions reconstructed local holy sites and resurrected traditional ceremonies.
Paganism found an ally in the ecological and feminist movements of the 1960s. Pagan philosophies appealed to many eco-activists, who also saw Nature as sacred and recognised the Great Goddess as Mother Nature. The image of the witch was taken up by feminists as a role-model of the independent powerful woman, and the single Great Goddess as the archetype of women's inner strength and dignity.
Witchcraft continued to develop and from the 1960s onwards, witches from outside Gardner's tradition appeared. Some were practitioners of traditional practical healing and magic, with no particular Pagan religious structure. Others followed a different version of Pagan magical religion.
In the 1990s many British traditional witches began to use the name hedge witches. (A hedge witch is a solitary practitioner who isn't aligned to a coven and who practices herbal healing and spells.) These were experts in traditional practical craft.
Modern Pagans at a gathering ©

Paganism today

Nowadays there are many Pagan organisations worldwide, most catering for specific traditions such as Druidry or Asatru, but a few, such as the Pagan Federation (f. 1971, UK) or the Pan-Pacific Pagan Alliance (f. 1991, Australia), representing the entire tradition.
Pagan hospital visitors and prison ministers are a recognised part of modern life, and public Pagan ceremonies such as Druid rituals and Pagan marriages (handfastings) or funerals take place as a matter of routine.

Britain's spiritual history

Britain's spiritual history

Pagan wedding at Avebury, attended by Emma Restall Orr, Chief Druid of the British Druid Order This section explores the spirituality of Britain, from pre-Christian Paganism to the present day and its flourishing alternative spiritualities.
How has the idea of God has changed in the face of political upheaval, intellectual and scientific discovery, immigration and more intangible shifts in human sentiment?
On the following pages you will find audio and scripts from different series, organised into different historical periods.
Choose a period to begin your exploration or browse the sections in order.

The presenters

The story of Britain's religious heritage is told through two series of audio programmes.
William Dalrymple presents The Long Search, charting some of the key historical moments which have shaped the religious and spiritual outlook of Britain.
The series covers events from the execution of Charles I to the Anglo-Saxon invasion, the abolition of slavery to the rise of 14th-century woman mystics.
Christopher Eccleston presents Sacred Nation, written by poet Michael Symmons Roberts. Sacred Nation tells the story of religious belief in the British Isles.
From long barrows to stone circles, from Druids to Romans, and through holy wars, reformations and revivals, Britain has always been a pluralistic society.

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Pre-Christian times

Pre-Christian times

Ancestor worship and nature

Ancient faith was influenced by the natural world and the threat posed by the elements. The inhabitants of Britain originally worshipped their ancestors, burying them in long barrows and performing rituals to influence the weather and the harvest. But when Britain's climate changed radically around 3,000 BC, the ancestor cult came to an end and Britons looked to nature itself to influence their fortune.

Prehistoric Wessex

Wiliam Dalrymple in Wiltshire William Dalrymple looks at the religious systems which came and went in Britain in the centuries leading up to the Christian era. Why and how do these traditions still matter to us? And what do we make of them today?
Fathoming how our earliest ancestors understood the world is something we can only guess at very tentatively using the clues of archaeology. In Wiltshire, a unique collection of ceremonial monuments and burial mounds span several periods of pre-history. The earliest of them tell us that kinship and the support of a clan's ancestors seems to have lain at the centre of the conception of spirituality in prehistoric Wessex.

Roman Britain and the arrival of Christianity

With the coming of the Romans and their gods, Britain became more multi-faith. The Romans are instinctively tolerant of other religions, but a problem occurs when a new religion comes along telling people there's only one god. Christianity is on a collision course with the mighty Roman empire.
The Anglo-Saxon gods gave us our days of the week. We visit Sutton Hoo, burial ground of the Anglo-Saxon kings of East Anglia. By the 8th century Islamic influences had travelled as far as Britain, just 150 years after the death of the Prophet and before the coming of the Vikings in the 9th century. Viking Paganism also gradually gave way to Christianity.

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Celts and Anglo-Saxons

Celts and Anglo-Saxons

Celtic Christianity

The rise of what has come to be known as 'Celtic Christianity' has been one of the religious phenomena of recent times: go into any of the shops on Holy Island and you will find whole stacks of merchandise, all covered with little Celtic crosses and the old uncial script.
However, the extent to which there was any very distinct type of Christianity in the Celtic areas of Britain has become a matter of heated debate. William Dalrymple finds out about the Christianity brought by the early Irish monks, and what resemblance it bears to the modern practice of 'Celtic Christians' - and to ask the intriguing question of whether St. Aidan would recognise the strange goings-on on modern Holy Island.

Anglo-Saxon influences

Viking burial mask (Arne Koehler) © William Dalrymple looks at how early English Christianity and its understanding of the Divine was forged through its relationship with the Pagan beliefs of the Anglo-Saxons. It's something we learn about from archaeology, epic poems like Beowulf, the ecclesiastical history of the Venerable Bede, and the superby interlaced relief-sculpture produced by the Anglo-Saxons - unique in Europe, and their great contribution to Christian art.
The Anglo-Saxon tribes from North West Europe arrived in Britain throughout the fifth century, expelling the Celtic farmers who had lived on the land since time immemorial and renaming the landscape, towns and rivers in their own tongue. The Anglo-Saxons were sea-faring peoples with a great composite pantheon of gods. Some of those gods remain with us in the place names of the countryside - Thurstable and Thundridge in Kent are echoes of the thunder god Thor; Wandsyke - or Wodensdyke - in Wessex.

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Norman Britain

Norman Britain

Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire

Benedictine revival

When the Normans arrived in England, there were no monasteries at all north of The Wash - not one single one was left or had been restored in the Anglo-Saxon revival in the 10th century. And very quickly, once the Normans had got the North more or less quiet, there was a big Benedictine revival. Benedictines in Durham, Benedictines in York, Benedictines in Whitby.
A number of groups of monks left their old established rather comfortable, rich Benedictine monasteries, in the 11th century, and decided to lead a much more austere life, much further away from centres of population. Much the most successful was the Cistercian enterprise, which began with an Englishman and a Frenchman in Burgundy. It might have failed but for the most extraordinary man of the 12th century - St Bernard.

Pagans in the cathedral

Christopher Eccleston continues his journey through the spiritual history of Britain and finds a landscape full of Norman castles and cathedrals. He reveals the Pagan images woven into the fabric of the Christian church.

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Mediaeval Britain

Mediaeval Britain

Julian of Norwich

Woman mystics

Julian of Norwich is perhaps the best-known of the mediaeval English mystics: her most famous saying - "all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well" - was taken up by T.S Eliot in The Four Quartets, and hence has passed into popular speech. But Julian was not a loner: she was part of an often-forgotten British phenomenon of mediaval mystics.
In all cultures, mystics have been remarkable for their freedom of expression; in 14th Century England, mysticism gave voice to a section of mediaeval society that was effectively silenced by the Church - women. William Dalrymple finds out how it became the vehicle of self-expression for mediaeval English women, what use they made of it, and how their legacy still inspires people in their search for the divine today.

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The Reformation

The Reformation

Catherine of Aragon ©

Destruction of the sacred

Reaching the 14th century, we begin the bumpy ride through the Reformation. It threatened the whole structure of the church both theologically and artistically.

We've sanitised the Reformation. We've made it sound as though it was a marital tiff between Henry the VIII and Katherine of Aragon... And so he changes the church, and then we go 'Ho, ho, ho - isn't that funny? Y'know the Church of England is founded on adultery,' which is to some degree true.
What we forget is that what it unleashed over the next 30 years was the most... astonishing destruction of the sacred in its visible form you've ever seen.
Martin Palmer, historian

The Reformation and British identity

Perhaps more than at any other moment in the country's religious history since Christianity arrived in these islands, the Reformation marked an irrevocable break with the past. In many ways, the modern age started here. For although still far from the largely secular world of today, a process of detachment - even disenchantment - with traditional religion was set in train, whose results form the world in which we still live.
William Dalrymple explores the effect the Reformation had on popular conceptions of the Divine, on our place in the world and in making us the people we are. He asks whether the Reformation is still central to our national identity, or whether its effects are now being finally unravelled.

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Civil War and Restoration

Civil War and Restoration

Regicide and turmoil

The execution of Charles I was one of the most traumatic episodes in English history, an act that was seen as religious by those who supported the Regicide as well as those who opposed it. William Dalrymple visits the scene of the execution at London's Banqueting House.
The director of English Heritage, Simon Thurley, explains how the concept of the divine right of kings, expressed in the building's painted ceiling, is shattered by Charles' death. Social and spiritual anarchy follows - the abolition of the Church of England makes way for a proliferation of bizarre religious sects and dissenting churches who see in the chaos the signs of the end of the world or the possibility of building the Kingdom of God on earth.

Puritans and pluralism

We have arrived at the Civil War and a puritanical state under a Calvanist dictator - but despite the prevalent Christian fundamentalism it was the beginning of a new phase of pluralism.

...what the Puritans did was to introduce pluralism into every single part of Britain, because they said you don't have to go to just the one parish church to worship – there must be a choice ... I think that it's that tradition... which is quintessentially British. Which is why when Judaism returned in the 17th century and when Islam first started coming here in the 18th century, and when Hinduism and Buddhism first arrived here in the 19th century – nobody batted an eyelid.
Martin Palmer

One person in ten is killed in the Civil War, which leaves deep scars and provides a fertile soil for new religious groups springing up in the chaos of the mid-1600s.
Boyle's air pump

Restoration spirituality

The Restoration period brings with it a flourishing of the New Science. These are the early years of Royal Society, of Robert Hooke's microscopic drawings and Isaac Newton's famous work, the Principia. In this episode William Dalrymple gets to grips with one of the earliest pieces of experimental equipment - Robert Boyle's air pump - and learns about the theological controversy it caused.
While we tend to think of Newton and Boyle as the founders of modern science, they were also deeply religious men who saw their search for the natural laws of science as a spiritual quest. In pursuing their discoveries they were also asking some of the most profound questions of their age - about the existence of spirits and fairies, the meaning of the philosopher's stone, and about how God intervenes in the world.

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Revolutions and Empire

Revolutions and Empire

Blake's 'woman clothed with the sun' ©

Messianic visions

Throughout history and particularly at times of political and social upheaval, people have looked to a deliverer - or Messiah - to right the world's wrongs and inaugurate an era of peace and justice. The violence and bloodshed of the French Revolution was interpreted by many observers on this side of the Channel as a sign that the new messianic age was at hand.
In this programme William Dalrymple encounters two very different eighteenth century visionaries - the artist and poet William Blake and the Devonshire prophetess Joanna Southcott. Both drew on the apocalyptic image of the woman clothed with the sun and on the millennial longings of their age to articulate their vision for a new Jerusalem in England.
For William Blake, the Messiah is collective humanity, who - given the commitment and mental fight - can build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land. For Joanna, the Messiah is the long-awaited Shiloh to whom she will give birth, notwithstanding the fact that she is sixty four years old and a virgin.

Emancipation

For many evangelical missionaries in the nineteenth century God was British, and the Empire provided a divine opportunity for them to convert its colonial subjects to Christianity.
In this programme, William Dalrymple looks at how the evangelical campaign to win freedom for slaves led in turn to a campaign that seems rather more suspect to modern eyes - the mission to free the so-called "heathen natives" from the superstitious chains of their native religions. The belief in this God-given mission is reflected in many of the most famous hymns of the era, sung to William by Noel Tredennick, organist at All Soul's church, Langham place - From Greenland's icy mountains, Thy kingdom come, oh God and God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year.

Immigration

By the beginning of the 19th century, the impact of the two revolutions - one in France, one in industry - had turned Britain into a more modern, educated, technologically advanced, urban society where the old social, political and religious certainties were questioned.
After Catholic emancipation in 1829 and the influx of Irish Catholics into Britain after the Famine of the 1840s, the nature of English Catholicism changes from a Patrician clique to a proletarian mass movement - so how does the Church adapt?
A similar trend arises in the Jewish community when the comfortable lives of the Anglicised 'Brotherhood' of British Jews are thrown into disarray by an influx of poor, dispossessed Jews fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe.
The expansion of Empire brings Muslim, Hindu and Sikh influences from India, Yemen and the Far East to British shores.
The 20th century sees two World Wars, the dismantling of Empire and decolonisation - all of which impact on the religious landscape of Britain, ushering in an era of secularisation and a breakdown of traditional religious authority. But this era also brings larger communities of Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Black Christians from far-flung parts of the Empire to help with the post-war reconstruction of Britain.
Today, our Sacred Nation incorporates a huge number of belief systems carrying on side by side in apparent harmony and is more like Roman Britain than at any other time in history.

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Victorians to modern Britain

Victorians to modern Britain

Huxley caricatured in Vanity Fair ©

Evolution and spiritualism

Generations of Sunday school children have sung Mrs Alexander's famous hymn, "All things bright and beautiful." For all its cheerful innocence, it was written at a time of deep anxiety, when the edifice of Christianity was under threat from evolutionary theory and biblical scholarship. One of the central questions for the Victorian period concerned the nature of humankind; are we material or spiritual beings? To the Victorians, who aspired to be angels, the idea that they had apes for ancestors was horrifyingly crude. Their response to the challenge of evolutionary theory was to turn to the mystical séance to "prove" the existence of a soul that survives beyond the grave.
In this programme William Dalrymple visits Oxford's natural history museum, scene of the notorious "monkey" debate between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Scientist Thomas Huxley. And in London's Science Museum, historian Richard Noakes shows him the instruments developed by the Victorians to detect spirits.

Superstition, spirituality and eclecticism

The folklorist Edward Lovatt crammed his house full of the amulets and charms he collected from Londoners in the early part of the twentieth century. Now housed in Southwark's Cuming museum, they reflect the diversity of folk beliefs and rituals which gave meaning to the lives of local traders. The same people who wore charms to protect themselves against the evil eye would also marry in church and attend watchnight services without seeing any contradiction in these practices.
Today, in spite of the supposedly secular age in which we live, people continue to select those beliefs and practices which nourish them spiritually. The standard story told of the twentieth century has been one of a gradual decline of religious faith and practice. Certainly there has been a dramatic drop in churchgoing. But all the surveys show that the majority of people still believe in God, and Britain has evolved into a multi-cultural and multi-faith society.

What do Pagans believe in?

What do Pagans believe in?

Pagans respect nature as divine © Although Paganism covers a wide spectrum of ideas, these elements sum up the beliefs of the majority.

Nature

The recognition of the divine in nature is at the heart of Pagan belief. Pagans are deeply aware of the natural world and see the power of the divine in the ongoing cycle of life and death. Most Pagans are eco-friendly, seeking to live in a way that minimises harm to the natural environment.

Concepts of the divine

Pagans worship the divine in many different forms, through feminine as well as masculine imagery and also as without gender. The most important and widely recognised of these are the God and Goddess (or pantheons of God and Goddesses) whose annual cycle of procreation, giving birth and dying defines the Pagan year. Paganism strongly emphasises equality of the sexes. Women play a prominent role in the modern Pagan movement, and Goddess worship features in most Pagan ceremonies.

Pagan theology

Paganism is not based on doctrine or liturgy. Many pagans believe 'if it harms none, do what you will'. Following this code, Pagan theology is based primarily on experience, with the aim of Pagan ritual being to make contact with the divine in the world that surrounds them.

Introduction to Paganism

Introduction to Paganism

Pagans may be trained in particular traditions or they may follow their own inspiration. Paganism is not dogmatic. Pagans pursue their own vision of the Divine as a direct and personal experience.
The Pagan Federation recognizes the rich diversity of traditions that form the body of modern Paganism. In a brief introductory booklet, it is not possible to describe each and every one. Rather than attempt this, the pages in this section - links are on the left hand side of this page contain an introduction to six examples of major Pagan traditions.
This is not an exhaustive list, but these six traditions provide a good overview of modern Pagan practice. A suggested reading list is also available.
Some authors see the emergence of Paganism in the twentieth century as a revival of an older Pagan religion and describe all the above traditions as Neo-Pagan.
This term is also used to describe all those who are recognisably Pagan, but who do not adhere to any of the above traditions per se.

A definition of a Pagan: A follower of a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion. A definition of Paganism: A polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.

What Paganism Is

Paganism is the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity. This ancient religious outlook remains active throughout much of the world today, both in complex civilisations such as Japan and India, and in less complex tribal societies world-wide. It was the outlook of the European religions of classical antiquity - Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome - as well as of their "barbarian" neighbours on the northern fringes, and its European form is re-emerging into explicit awareness in the modern West as the articulation of urgent contemporary religious priorities.
The Pagan outlook can be seen as threefold. Its adherents venerate Nature and worship many deities, both goddesses and gods.

Nature - Veneration

The spirit of place is recognised in Pagan religion, whether as a personified natural feature such as a mountain, lake or spring, or as a fully articulated guardian divinity such as, for example, Athena, the goddess of Athens. The cycle of the natural year, with the different emphasis brought by its different seasons, is seen by most Pagans as a model of spiritual growth and renewal, and as a sequence marked by festivals which offer access to different divinities according to their affinity with different times of year. Many Pagans see the Earth itself as sacred: in ancient Greece the Earth was always offered the first libation of wine, although She had no priesthood and no temple.

Polytheism: Pluralism and Diversity

The many deities of Paganism are a recognition of the diversity of Nature. Some Pagans see the goddesses and gods as a community of individuals much like the diverse human community in this world. Others, such as followers of Isis and Osiris from ancient times onwards, and Wiccan-based Pagans in the modern world, see all the goddesses as one Great Goddess, and all the gods as one Great God, whose harmonious interaction is the secret of the universe. Yet others think there is a supreme divine principle, that "both wants and does not want to be called Zeus", as Heraclitus wrote in the fifth century BCE, or which is the Great Goddess Mother of All Things, as Isis was to the first century CE novelist Apuleius and the Great Goddess is to many Western Pagans nowadays. Yet others, such as the Emperor Julian, the great restorer of Paganism in Christian antiquity, and many Hindu mystics nowadays, believe in an abstract Supreme Principle, the origin and source of all things. But even these last Pagans recognise that other spiritual beings, although perhaps one in essence with a greater being, are themselves divine, and are not false or partial divinities. Pagans who worship the One are described as henotheists, believers in a supreme divine principle, rather than monotheists, believers in one true deity beside which all other deities are false.

The Goddess

Pagan religions all recognise the feminine face of divinity. A religion without goddesses can hardly be classified as Pagan. Some Pagan paths, such as the cult of Odin or of Mithras, offer exclusive allegiance to one male god. But they do not deny the reality of other gods and goddesses, as monotheists do. (The word 'cult' has always meant the specialised veneration of one particular deity or pantheon, and has only recently been extended to mean the worship of a deified or semi-divine human leader.) By contrast, non-Pagan religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, often abhor the very idea of female divinity. The (then) Anglican Bishop of London even said a few years ago that religions with goddesses were 'degenerate'!

Other Characteristics

The many divinities of Pagan religion often include ancestral deities. The Anglo-Saxon royal houses of England traced their ancestry back to a god, usually Woden, and the Celtic kings of Cumbria traced their descent from the god Beli and the goddess Anna. Local and national heroes and heroines may be deified, as was Julius Caesar, and in all Pagan societies the deities of the household are venerated. These may include revered ancestors and, for a while, the newly dead, who may of may not choose to leave the world of the living for good. They may include local spirits of place, either as personified individuals such as the spirit of a spring or the house's guardian toad or snake, or as group spirits such as Elves in England, the Little People in Ireland, Kobolds in Germany, Barstuccae in Lithuania, Lares and Penates in ancient Rome, and so on. A household shrine focuses the cult of these deities, and there is usually an annual ritual to honour them. The spirit of the hearth is often venerated, sometimes with a daily offering of food and drink, sometimes with an annual ritual of extinguishing and relighting the fire. Through ancestral and domestic ritual a spirit of continuity is preserved, and by the transmission of characteristics and purposes from the past, the future is assured of meaning.
So, not all Pagan religion is public religion; much is domestic. And not all Pagan deities are humanoid super-persons; many are elemental or collective. We are looking at a religion which pervades the whole of everyday life.
One consequence of the veneration of Nature, the outlook which sees Nature as a manifestation of divinity rather than as a neutral or inanimate object, is that divination and magic are accepted parts of life. Augury, divination by interpreting the flight of birds, was widespread in the ancient world and is in modern Pagan societies, as is extispicy, divination by reading the entrails of the sacrificed animal, itself a larger scale version of divination by reading the tea-leaves left in a teacup. As well as reading the signs already given by deities, diviners may also actively ask the universe to send a sign, e.g., by casting stones to read the geomantic patterns into which they fall, by casting runes or the yarrow stalks of the I Ching. Pagans usually believe that the divine world will answer a genuine request for information. Trance seership and mediumship are also used to communicate with the Otherworld.
Magic, the deliberate production of results in this world by Otherworld means, is generally accepted as a feasible activity in Pagan societies, since the two worlds are thought to be in constant communication. In ancient Rome a new bride would ceremonially anoint the doorposts of her new home with wolf's fat to keep famine from the household, and her new-born child would be given a consecrated amulet to wear as a protection against harmful spirits. The Norse warriors of the Viking age would cast the magical 'war fetter' upon their enemies to paralyse them, and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts record spells to bring healing and fertility. Specialist magical technologists such as horse-whisperers and healers are common throughout Pagan societies, but often the practice of magic for unfair personal gain or for harm to another is forbidden, exactly as physical extortion and assault are forbidden everywhere.

Modern Paganism

With its respect for plurality, the refusal to judge other ways of life as wrong simply because they are different from one's own, with its veneration of a natural (and supernatural) world from which Westerners in the age of technology have become increasingly isolated, and with its respect for women and the feminine principle as embodied in the many goddesses of the various pantheons, Paganism has much to offer people of European background today. Hence it is being taken up by them in droves. When they realise that it is in fact their ancestral heritage, its attraction grows. Democracy, for example, was pioneered by the ancient Athenians and much later reinvented by the Pagan colonisers of Iceland, home of Europe's oldest parliament. Our modern love of the arts was fostered in Pagan antiquity, with its pageants and its temples, but had no place in iconoclastic Christianity and Islam. The development of science as we know it began in the desire of the Greeks and Babylonians to understand the hidden patterns of Nature, and the cultivation of humane urbanity, the ideal of the well-rounded, cultured personality, was imported by Renaissance thinkers from the writings of Cicero. In the Pagan cities of the Mediterranean lands the countryside was never far from people's awareness, with parks, gardens and even zoos, all re-introduced into modern Europe, not by the religions of the Book, and not by utilitarian atheists, but by the Classically-inspired planners of the Enlightenment.
In the present day, the Pagan tradition manifests both as communities reclaiming their ancient sites and ceremonies (especially in Eastern Europe), to put humankind back in harmony with the Earth, and as individuals pursuing a personal spiritual path alone or in a small group (especially in Western Europe and the European-settled countries abroad), under the tutelage of one of the Pagan divinities. To most modern Pgans in the West, the whole of life is to be affirmed joyfully and without shame, as long as other people are not harmed by one's own tastes. Modern Pagans tend to be relaxed and at ease with themselves and others, and women in particular have a dignity which is not always found outside Pagan circles.
Modern Pagans, not tied down either by the customs of an established religion or by the dogmas of a revealed one, are often creative, playful and individualistic, affirming the importance of the individual psyche as it interfaces with a greater power. There is a respect for all of life and usually a desire to participate with rather than to dominate other beings. What playwright Eugene O'Neil called "the creative Pagan acceptance of life" is at the forefront of the modern movement. This is bringing something new to religious life and to social behaviour, a way of pluralism without fragmentation, of creativity without anarchy. Here is an age-old current surfacing in a new form suited to the needs of the present day.