History of Neo-Paganism

Gerald Gardner, At the Castletown Museum

During Christianization, Christianity became itself suffused by pagan elements, but it was not until the High Middle Ages that interest of the scholastic in the culture and religion of Classical Antiquity began to revive. Thomas Aquinas attempted to fuse concepts of Graeco-Roman philosophy and cosmology with Christianity. With the Renaissance, Graeco-Roman mythology became omnipresent in Europe, but it was still clad in a Christian interpretation. Neo-paganism proper begins only with 18th century Romanticism, and the surge of interest in Germanic paganism with the Viking revival in Britain and Scandinavia. Neo-Druidism was established in Britain by Iolo Morganwg from 1792, and may qualify as the first Neopagan proper.

These trends of pagan revival reached Germany with the late 19th century Völkisch movement, which was to become one of the main roots of 20th century Neo-paganism. The late 19th century also saw a renewal of interest in various forms of Western occultism, particularly in England. During this period several occultist societies were formed such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis. Several prominent writers and artists were involved in these organizations, including William Butler Yeats, Maud Gonne, Arthur Edward Waite, and Aleister Crowley. Along with these occult organizations, there were other social phenomena such as the interest in mediumship, which suggest that interest in magic and other supernatural beliefs were at an all time high in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Some evidence suggests that returning colonials and missionaries brought ideas from native traditions home to Britain. In particular the anthropologist Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1900) was influential.

The term “Neo pagan” first appears in an essay by F. Hugh O’Donnell, Irish MP in the British House of Commons, written in 1904. O’Donnell, writing about the theater of W. B. Yeats and Maud Gonne, criticized their work as an attempt to “marry Madame Blavatsky with Cuchulainn.” Yeats and Gonne, he claimed, openly worked to create a reconstructionist Celtic religion which incorporated Gaelic legend with magic.

It might be well to consider the words of G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right (1821): “It is one thing to be a pagan, quite another to believe in a pagan religion.”

In the 1920s Margaret Murray theorized that a witchcraft religion existed underground and in secret, and had survived through the religious persecutions and Inquisitions of the medieval Church. Most historians reject Murray’s theory, as it is based on a similarity between the accounts given by accused witches; this similarity actually derives from the standard set of questions that were used in the interrogation. Murray’s theories generated interest reflected in novels by Mitchison (“The Corn King and the Spring Queen”) and covens were created along Murrayite lines.

In the 1940s Gerald Gardner claimed to have been initiated into a New Forest coven led by Dorothy Clutterbuck, an ex-colonial woman returned from India. Gardner had already written about Malay native customs and now wrote books about witchcraft. His term Wicca is still used to refer to the traditions of Neo-paganism that adhere closely to Gardner’s teachings, or direct offshoots, differentiating Gardnerian Wicca and Alexandrian Wicca, but the distinction is being submerged in a wave of modern offshoots, much of it from the United States.

The 1960s and 1970s saw the rise of Germanic Neo-paganism, Ásatrú in Iceland and Odinism in the USA, in parts not entirely uninfluenced by Nazi mysticism.

Historical sources

Many Neopagans and Neopagan traditions attempt to incorporate historical religions and mythologies into their beliefs and practices, often emphasizing the hoary age of their sources; thus, Wicca in particular is sometimes referred to by its proponents as the “Old Religion,” a term popularised by Margaret Murray in the 1920s, while Germanic Neo-paganism is referred to as Forn Sed, “the Old Way.” Such emphasis on the antiquity of religious tradition is not particular to Neo-paganism, and is found in many other religions, compare for example the terms Purana, Sanatana Dharma, and the emphasis on the antiquity of the Ancient Egyptian sources of the Hellenistic Mystery religions. Antiquity of source suggests authenticity and authority to many believers, be they Christian, Mormon, or any faith.

Some claims of continuity between Neo-paganism and older forms of Paganism have been shown to be spurious, or outright forgery, as in the case of Iolo Morganwg’s Druid’s Prayer. Wiccan beliefs of a ancient monotheistic Goddess were inspired by Marija Gimbutas’s description of Neolithic Europe; factual historical validity is disputed by many scholars, including historian Ronald Hutton. Most neo-pagans now more cautiously cite as precedents local folk healers/small groups, and a plurality of ancient “Goddess traditions,” among others.

However, while Neopagans draw from old religious traditions, they also adapt them. The mythologies of the ancient civilizations are not generally considered to be literally factual or historical in the sense that the Bible is claimed historical by fundamentalists Christians; nor are they considered to be scripture, as most Neopagans are resistant to the concept.

The mythological sources of Neo-paganism are many, including Celtic, Norse, Greek, Roman, Sumerian, Egyptian and others. Some groups focus on one tradition; others draw from several or many — for example, Doreen Valiente’s text “The Charge of the Goddess” used materials from The Gospel of Aradia by Charles Leland (1901), and Aleister Crowley’s writings.

Some Neopagans also draw inspiration from living traditions, including Christianity, Buddhism and others. Since most Neo-paganism does not demand exclusivity, Neopagans can and do sometimes practice other faiths in parallel.

As there is no Neopagan dogma, nor any authority to deem a source apocryphal, Neo-paganism has been notably prone to fakelore, especially in recent years, as information and misinformation alike have been spread on the Internet and in published material.