Here’s that meme again
A New York Times story on the Rites of Spring Pagan festival (login required) quotes two contemporary scholars of Paganism, Helen Berger and Sabina Magliocco on, among other things, the numbers of American Pagans.
Ms. Magliocco favors the higher number [700,000] based on data like surveys, sales of books with pagan themes and attendance at festivals. She said, “Paganism is one of the fastest-growing religious movements in North America.”
The article also discusses the growth of Pagan festivals, which began in hotels in the early 1970s, modeled very much on the science-fiction fan “cons” of the time, and sometimes even with “con” in their names.
I believe the first big outdoor festival was in 1980–the Pan-Pagan festival. If not, they started around then.
The outdoor revival meeting is a theme in American religious history–think of the “brush arbors” of the 19th century–but the growth of a religion through widespread festivals may indeed by something new. When a covener of ours came back from one of the first national festivals in the early 1980s with a new group of songs and chants to share, it was like seeing something sprout before your very eyes.
I believe that Andras and Deirdre weren't at PP 1980. You might be thinking of later years?