Tag Archives: Paganism

Does the Pagan Resurgence Start with Folklore?

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“Politics is downstream from culture,” people like to say online — which is just a re-statement of something that I have long believed, that “Life imitates Art.”

Maybe I am just reflecting my online environment and the podcasts that I listen to, but folklore is suddenly big. My feed has a lot of British contributors in it; some have MA’s in folklore, which won’t get you a teaching job but maybe will give you the skills to write, make videos, and so forth.

So there is a plethora of podcasts, such as the Modern Fairy Sightings podcast, hosted by Jo Hickey-Hall, one of Ronald Hutton’s former graduate students. Zines like I haven’t seen them since pre-Internet days. One of my favorites is Hellebore, edited by Maria Pérez Cuervo, also a former grad student (fill in the blank).

So this is also niche stuff, but you have to add it up.

The Epigram, Bristol University’s independent student newspaper, just this week published an article “The Old Gods- The Resurgence of Paganism and Folklore,“

These traditions may seem to belong to another time – yet interest in paganism and folklore is growing across the globe. Shamanism, although not an organised faith, is the fastest growing religion in England and Wales, according to the 2011 and 2022 censuses. In the US, the number of Wicca adherents is now over 1.5 million. Wicca, founded in the early half of the 20th century by Gerald Gardner, is one of the most influential and popular branches of the modern neopagan movement, with a complex variety of branches, denominations and traditions across the world.

I am not sure where those numbers come from, so just consider them to be “hand-waving.” Counting Pagans is a real difficult problem.

North America’s Pagan resurgence, should one occur, is going to look different. But there are cross-overs. Just today I stopped at the nearest small-town grocery store. This guy was stocking the shelves (not one of the employees that I recognized, so maybe new), and he was wearing a big ol’ Mjölnir amulet around his neck, maybe a reproduction of the one at the linked page.

Lithuanian Pagans Gain More Official Recognition, But What Does that Really Mean?

A Romuva celebration (Euronews).

After repeated tries, the Lithuanian Pagan group Romuva, which was formally organized in the early 20th century, has received a higher level official recognition

Romuva has been granted official recognition following the Constitution and the Law on Religious Communities and Associations, as well as the Justice Ministry’s conclusion that it meets legal requirements. The ministry noted that Romuva has been active in Lithuania for 25 years [see below for why that matters] while its teachings and rites do not contradict Lithuanian laws and generally accepted moral norms. Romuva applied for official recognition on 17 May 2017, but at the time parliament rejected the move.

In 2019, [and again in 2023] the organisation appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ruled in 2021 that by refusing official recognition parliament violated the European Convention on Human Rights

Lithuania’s rulers abandoned Paganism in the 1200s (for political reasons at least partly), and the country became majority Roman Catholic. But if any European country did have a hidden “Pagan survival,” it was Lithuania. Or the nearest thing to it.

Once free of the USSR in 1990, Lithuania set up a hierarchy of “registered” religions — a hierarchy that might be on its way out. Right now, it looks like this, says Scott Simpson, lecturerer at Jagiellonian University in Poland and co-editor of Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe.

The media understandably struggle to explain the complex Romuva situation in simple and interesting terms to the average reader. They sometimes err on the side of making it sound like this is the first time that Romuva is counted as a religion at all, and sometimes err on the side of making it sound like they jumped straight to ‘established church’ (TASS has good example of that).

What has happened is that the religious organisation of Romuva, in keeping with Lithuanian law in spite of some hard-to-forgive discriminatory delay, has moved from being in the first tier (a ‘registered’ religious organisation) to being in the second tier (a ‘state-recognised’ religious organisation).  This will give them some more abilities, such as their religious marriages can automatically be counted as state marriages without the need for a separate trip to the registry office.

The change in status for the religious organisation isn’t, in theory, a change in status for the religion.  Citizens of Lithuania have freedom of religion and conscience, and can practice their religions without registration if they wish to do so. (You could call that ‘level 0’ of registration.) But what those citizens get by registering as a religious organisation is the ability to act as a legal corporate entity, for example to collect funds in an organisation-owned bank account. Of course, there is also an intangible psychological and social element of seeming like a legitimate religion when one has an official registration. (You could call this ‘level 1’ of registration.)

One of the most important metrics for making the jump upwards is to have been registered as an organisation at level 1 for at least 25 years.  Therefore, over time, there should be a small surge in requests to the Seimas for movement from ‘registered’ to ‘state-recognised’. Romuva reached that criterion long ago and yet was refused (twice!) the change in status by the Seimas.  This was a democratic vote, and yet the lack of solid objections to Romuva (that is, they were not credibly accused of crimes against the state or any other saliant wrongdoing that could make them undesirable to the Lithuanian state) means that this decision was discriminatory.  That’s not just my opinion, it was also the opinion of the European Court of Human Rights.  At least one other religious organisation has been refused in a similar way: the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  But a new government has come into power in Lithuania with a different composition of MPs and they voted this week to move Romuva to the position that they have qualified for.  (We will see if the Jehovah’s Witnesses also get another chance in the coming weeks.  Blood transfusions might be considered more an issue there.)

Presumably, although Romuva must be pleased to have been moved one rung up, they will someday want to try to move to the next rung, ‘traditional religion’. (We can call this one ‘level 3’.) It is much less clear what the procedure would be for doing that, or whether it is possible at all. The 1995 law says: ‘The State shall recognise nine traditional religious communities and associations existing in Lithuania, which comprise a part of Lithuania’s historical, spiritual and social heritage: Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, Evangelical Reformed, Russian Orthodox, Old Believer, Judaist, Sunni Muslim, and Karaite.’  One possible interpretation is that you only get on that list by being named on the list in the 1995 law.  And therefore, no-one else will ever be added unless the Seimas decides to pass a new law that supersedes that one.  Romuva will want to claim that they are ‘part of Lithuania’s historical, spiritual and social heritage’ and therefore should be added.

But if Romuva make a play for level 3, they will face a much murkier set of criteria with a lot more difficulty in proving incontestably to all stakeholders that they qualify. Romuva firmly believe that they should be recognised as continuing the ancient tradition which survived nearly intact from times centuries before those other ‘traditional’ religion’s arrival in Lithuania. (Note that current scholars of ancient Lithuanian religion are not in unanimous agreement with Romuva’s conviction in more than one way.) And they believe that their religion remained hidden in Lithuanian folk culture throughout the centuries means that they represent ‘spiritual and social heritage’ par excellence. To them, it is a gross injustice that they were not on the short list to start with.  

But, because the current Romuva started their project in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and their current organisation was only registered in 1992, they will have to fight to be recognised as legally representing the same religion as existed in the 15th century. Technically, the precedence of Sunni Islam in Lithuania (where fragmentation of organisations does not mean that they lose ‘traditional’ status as a religion) means that they don’t actually need to show that this contemporary organisation is the same as that ancient organisation.

So far, so good. But they do need to show that this contemporary religion is the same as that ancient religion. (Cue discussion of the Ship of Theseus, etc.) As much as the adherents of Romuva believe in their hearts that these two things are essentially identical, their critics will have no great difficulty in finding academic experts who will call that into question and call them related, but essentially different. Academic fashions change, and different paradigms circulate today than circulated back in the 1970s. And without a very clear consensus from a strong majority of experts who are consulted on this, the Seimas has no great motivation to initiate the messy and controversial process of drafting and passing a new law specially for them.  Especially knowing that it is likely to get bogged down in an abstruse discussion of nit-picky historical and archaeological details right from the start.

I suspect that the clock is ticking on these kinds of laws, anyhow.  They are out of touch with the rest of EU law and they regularly run afoul of the European Court of Human Rights. I would bet that Lithuania tosses out the whole ladder system long before Romuva manages to climb to the highest rung.

‘Small Gods’ Is a Zine about Animism

Small Gods issue 1, 2024

Edited by Dver, a.k.a. Sarah Kate Istra Winter, Small Gods: An Anthology of Everyday Animism is projected to be an annual zine “featuring art, poetry, and essays describing our relationship with, and giving praise to, the smallest of gods — those spiritual entities who are closely bound to distinct physical forms or locations (whether natural or constructed). thereby limiting their interaction with humans.”

I have an essay in this first issue, “‘Don’t Get Cocky, Kid,’ A Little Lesson from the Locals in the Mushroom Woods.” Other contributors besides Dver include Nimue Brown, P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, Rebecca Scott, Sister Patience, Suzanne Thackston, Lannon, and Elizabeth Starling.

I am especially grateful to Dver for creating Small Gods and look forward to more issues. You can purchase this one at her Etsy shop, Goblinesquerie.

Some of her writings are available on Amazon too. I really liked The City is a Labyrinth: A Walking Guide for Urban Animists, and learned some things from it even though I don’t live in a city. It’s kind of like Randonauting without an internet connection — and more meaningful.

The city is alive with spirits—from those found in remaining natural areas to those who are unique to the realm of concrete and steel. But how can we connect with these spirits, and build a powerful, meaningful localized practice in an urban environment? Polytheist, animist, and spirit-worker Sarah Kate Istra Winter suggests a radically simple approach: walking. Inspired by the field of psychogeography and informed by her many years as a spiritually-minded pedestrian, she examines the ways in which walking can be a devotional and magical act.

20 Years of British Paganism: Free Zoom Lecture with Glastonbury-based Writer Liz Williams

UPDATE: This event has been postponed. I do not know why — I just got the email from “The Zoom Team.” I will post when it is re-scheduled. Sad.

Liz Williams is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Glastonbury, England, where she is co-director of a witchcraft supply business. She has been published by Bantam Spectra (US) and Tor Macmillan (UK), also Night Shade Press and appears regularly in Asimov’s and other magazines. She has been involved with the Milford SF Writers’ Workshop for over 25 years, and also teaches creative writing at a local college for Further Education. Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism (2020 Reaktionbooks) is based in scholarly literature but written for an audience of anyone. Many will also have read Williams’ occasional columns at The Wild Hunt. Join us as she talks about life in Glastonbury as a Pagan and also the development and direction of UK Paganism over the last 20 years. 

Free of charge and open to all.

ZOOM REGISTRATION AND LINK HERE.

Celebrate June 5th – Plant a Tree

June 5th is the feast day of Boniface, an English monk who went missionary-ing among the German Heathens, who put an end to his career in 754. But they did not write the history books. Planting a tree would be an appropriate way to celebrate.

New Issue of The Pomegranate

Links to articles from the newest issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, (vol. 24, no. 2). These articles are paywalled — but you know a librarian, don’t you? If you don’t, you should.

“Patrick, Pagans and Party Animals”

A screenshot from Patrick, Pagans and Party Animals, a video about the saint and the explosion of the secular holiday of St. Patrick’s Day.

Jenny Butler, a Pagan-studies scholar from University College Cork, appears at 3:00 and elsewhere to speak up for the “Pagan” dimension of the story.

Requires free Vimeo account.

The Creeping Menace of ‘Paganism’

Dear god! Nature religion! (Illustration by Katie Martin, Getty Images).

Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple and (visiting at) Harvard Divinity School is like someone who steps in dog shit, comes back indoors, and keeps wondering where the smell is coming from.

“We are all children of the same God,” he announces in a essay in The Atlantic  (link goes to archived version).

And “we” are opposed to [small-p] “paganism,” which is about power, nature-worship, and wealth-worship. “Hug a tree or a dollar bill, and the pagan in you shines through.”((For Wolpe the exemplar of this “paganism” is, of course, Donald Trump, that notorious tree-hugger. But it’s an election year.))

The rabbi’s essay was not the first to make that point — as I will point out — but it hit at the right time and place, and suddenly contemporary Pagans were asking, “What’ s that smell?”

In  her letter to The Atlantic, anthropologist and Pagan studies scholar Sabina Magliocco, “long-time reader of and subscriber to The Atlantic,” lambasted the piece as “misinformed and distorts both historical and contemporary understandings of paganisms in ways that are profoundly damaging to both Indigenous and revived religions.”

Pagan blogger John Halstead observes correctly that the rabbi is not talking about actual people, today’s Pagans, but about this bogeyman lurking in the shadows, one described in 1937 by the historial Arnold Toynbee as “the new paganism.”

Wolpe equates nature with the most violent and base behavior. His fear, like that of so many other monotheists, is that, in the absence of a transcendental ideal of Goodness, we will all turn into savages raping and eating each other.

Halstead’s blog links to other responses to Wolpe’s article. I will mention just two more. The Wild Hunt has also covered this issue, as linked above.

At Harvard’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality, Dan McKanan and Giovanna Parmigiani posted an open letter to David Wolpe, siscussing how his approach illustrates how hard it is to discuss religion when “many religions define themselves in opposition to other religions.”

One way to do this is to frame the critiques in the most culturally specific manner possible. Judaism did not emerge in response to “paganism” writ large; it emerged in response to the specific religious and political practices of immediately adjacent cultures. But again and again, Wolpe misses the chance to be specific in his critique. Instead, he identifies Donald Trump, Elon Musk, communism, fascism, Friedrich Nietzsche, the QAnon Shaman, and Peter Singer as diverse manifestations of a single phenomenon that he calls “pagan.” This universalizing gesture is especially problematic given the inherent diversity of Paganism.

Later, Dr Parmigiani noted on Facebook that “We heard back from David Wolpe and he appears to be willing to have a conversation with us and the Pagan community at HDS, once the semester starts.”

Holli Emore, executive director of Cherry Hill Seminary, had less luck, telling The Wild Hunt that she had invited Wolpe “to join me one day soon, perhaps on a Zoom call, to chat about how we can better understand each other.”

The rabbi responded, “I have been deluged with advocacies, requests for dialogue and so forth. The article did not and does not address the current pagan [sic] communities nor was it intended to.”

That makes me feel so much better. As she put it, “While his message to me was cordial, it is clear that he has no intention of revisiting his lack of research or redressing the feelings of the many he has slighted.”

The problem is defining Paganism. We have a long history of small-p paganism meaning “outside any [monotheistic] religion.”  This is the straw man pummeled by Wolpe and others, such as the British journalist Louise Perry, whose article “We Are Repaganizing” appeared only two months earlier in the interdenominational Christian magazine First Things.((The story about the babies’ bones sounds like the old anti-Catholic folklore that there are babies buried under every convent.))

Her borrowed definition of “paganism” ias not “an interest in entrails or in praying to Jupiter. Rather, [but]  a fundamentally different outlook on the world, and on the sacred.”

But Christianity takes a perverse attitude toward status and puts that perversity at the heart of the theology. “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” is a baffling and alarming claim to anyone from a society untouched by the strangeness of the Jesus movement.

And that led to converting Pagans by the sword, but we won’t go there. Look over here at the cathedral! And furthermore, as the legalization of abortion proves, “the Western world has arguably always remained more pagan than Christian. In some ways Christianity has been more of a veneer than a substantial reality.”((She quotes from Steven Smith’s Pagans and Christians in the City.))

The Christian writer Rod Dreher, with two bestsellers to his name (The Benedict Option and Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents), is also promoting the view that there was no morality in the ancient world (outside, perhaps, the imperial province of Judea) until Christianity arrived.((Sorry, Confucius. Sorry, Socrates.))

The book I finished last night, Pagan America, will be out from Regnery in March. The author, John Daniel Davidson, is not really talking about Wiccans and suchlike (though they do get significant mention), as much as he is talking about how the kinds of evils that permeated Greco-Roman culture, and that were eliminated by the triumph of Christianity, are coming roaring back now that Christianity has gone into abeyance in the West

Where does that leave today’s capital-P Pagans? You cannot accept Wolpe’s sidestepping of the issue because there are other singers in the choir, like John Daniel Davidson, who are apparently are happy to mix the two, jumping from “pagan = irreligious” to “Your gods are demons.”

(Davidson apparently wants to junk this silly “freedom of religion” idea and put the government firmly on the side of Christianity — his book’s subtitle is “The Decline of Christianity and the Coming Dark Age.”)

So we cannot get away with offering a pagan/Pagan (polytheist-animist) distinction. The cultural tides are moving. The secular talkers of both the right and left have moved from “Pagans don’t exist” to “they are bunch of silly New Agers” to the point of  “viewing with concern.” Pagan readers, don’t be surprised to be asked for your position on sacrificing babies.

The Pagans, the Unicorns, and the Serial Killer

I have complained before about the relative lack of good American Pagan biography and autobiography. John Sulak’s biography of Oberon Zell (b. 1942) and his partner Morning Glory (1948–2014), The Wizard and the Witch was one of the exceptions.((Yes, Morning Glory either invented or co-invented the term “polyamory,” and she was aware of creating a Greek-Latin hybrid.)) While it was first published in 2014, Sulak and Oberon subsequently revised and enlarged it, splitting it into two volumes.  The link goes to volume 1.

It’s also a history of the American Pagan movement in the 1970s-1990s particularly, with a West Coast emphasis. In the early 1980s, the Zells lived at Greenfield Ranch, a ranch in the Coast Range near Ukiah, Calif., that had been divided into acreages for back-to-the-landers and, yes, cannabis-growers, which meant the level of paranoia was fairly high. The ranch was raided by drug agents at least once, as I recall.

My friend the Pagan songwriter Gwydion Pendderwen lived there, and M. and I visited several times between 1978 and his passing in 1982. I have not been back since. Obviously much has changed.

In the late 1970s the Zells got an opportunity to live at Greenfield Ranch as caretakers for an absenteee Pagan parcel-owner, and there they practiced a documented but neglected ancient technique for turning new-born Angora billy goats into true unicorns. These went on the Rennaissance Faire circuit—later under the big top.

As Oberon would say, they were hoping to influence “kids who saw the Unicorn and would recognize it for what it was—not a fantasy creature made of moonbeams, just a small white animal with its own kind of beauty and heart and horn . . . . Those kids would make the connections and see that Magkick was possible and then go on to create their own contribution to that unique world-view [and] make their live whatever they want it to be.”1

But something darker was afoot. Another Greenfield Ranch resident helped out with showing the unicorns at Renn Faires, etc., so much so that he was sometimes called “Unicorn Man.”

Morning Glory and Angora goat “unicorns.”

His name was Leonard Lake, and he was a serial killer, although he had not really started on his murderous path at that time but apparently was planning it. There is plenty about him online, but my introduction to his story came through Episode 1 of the Trace of the Devastation podcast, a true-crime series about serial killers of the 1980s-90s in the California Gold Rush country.

In that episode, “The Unicorn Man,” you will hear Oberon Zell give his own honest self-appraisal of how he and others were fooled by Lake, whom they took to be just another back-to-the-lander, albeit with a more ex-military outlook.

Anyone can be fooled some of the time. Consider this a footnote to Sulak and Zell’s books.

  1. John G. Sulak, The Wizard and the Witch: An Oral History of Oberon Zell and Morning Glory (Woodbury, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 2014) 180–81. [↩]