PAGANISM

Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller, rustic") is a term which, from a Western perspective, has come to connote a broad set of spiritual or cultic practices or beliefs of any folk religion, and of historical and contemporary polytheistic religions in particular. The term can be defined broadly, to encompass the faith traditions outside the Abrahamic monotheistic group of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The group so defined includes many of the Eastern religions, Native American religions and mythologies and as well as non-Abrahamic ethnic religions in general. More narrow definitions will not include any of the world religions and restrict the term to local or rural currents not organized as civil religions. The term "pagan" is a Christian adaptation of the "gentile" of Judaism, and as such has an inherent Christian or Abrahamic bias, and pejorative connotations among Westerners, comparable to heathen, and infidel, mushrik and kafir in Islam. For this reason, ethnologists avoid the term "paganism," with its uncertain and varied meanings, in referring to traditional or historic faiths, preferring more precise categories such as polytheism, shamanism, pantheism, or animism. Since the later 20th century, "Pagan" or "Paganism" has become widely used as a self-designation by adherents of Neopaganism.

The term pagan is from Latin paganus, an adjective originally meaning "rural", "rustic" or "of the country." As a noun, paganus was used to mean "country dweller, villager." The semantic development of post-classical Latin paganus in the sense "non-Christian, heathen" is unclear. The dating of this sense is controversial, but the 4th century seems most plausible. An earlier example has been suggested in Tertullian De Corona Militis xi, "Apud hunc [sc. Christum] tam miles est paganus fidelis quam paganus est miles infidelis," but here the word paganus may be interpreted in the sense "civilian" rather than "heathen". There are three main explanations of the development:

The Pagan Book of Days: A Guide to the Festivals, Traditions, and Sacred Days of the Year

Heathen is from Old English. Historically, the term was probably influenced by Gothic haiži "dwelling on the heath", appearing as haižno in Ulfilas' bible as "gentile woman," (translating the "Hellene" in Mark 7:26). This translation probably influenced by Latin paganus, "country dweller", or it was chosen because of its similarity to the Greek ethne, "gentile". It has even been suggested that Gothic haiži is not related to "heath" at all, but rather a loan from Armenian hethanos, itself loaned from Greek ethnos

Both "pagan" and "heathen" have historically been used as a pejorative by adherents of monotheistic religions (such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam) to indicate a disbeliever in their religion. "Paganism" frequently refers to the religions of classical antiquity, most notably Greek mythology or Roman religion, and can be used neutrally or admiringly by those who refer to those complexes of belief. However, until the rise of Romanticism and the general acceptance of freedom of religion in Western civilization, "Paganism" was almost always used disparagingly of heterodox beliefs falling outside the established political framework of the Christian Church. The word was usually used in this worldly and stereotypical sense, particularly among those who were drawing attention to what they perceived as being the limitations of paganism. Christianity itself has been perceived at times as a form of paganism by followers of the other Abrahamic religions because of, for example, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the celebration of pagan feast days, and other practices through a process described as "baptising" or "christianization". Even between Christians there have been similar charges of paganism levelled, especially by Protestants towards the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches for their veneration of the saints and images.

"Heathen" (Old English hęšen) is a translation of paganus. The Germanic tribes were distributed over Eastern and Central Europe by the 5th century, and their dialects ceased to be mutually intelligible from around that time. Christianization of the Germanic peoples took place from the 4th (Goths) to the 6th (Anglo-Saxons, Alamanni) or 8th (Saxons) centuries on the continent, and from the 9th to 12th centuries in Iceland and Scandinavia.

Paleopaganism: A retronym coined to contrast with "Neopaganism", denoting a Pagan culture that has not been disrupted by other cultures. The term applies to Hinduism, Shinto, pre-Migration period Germanic paganism as described by Tacitus, Celtic polytheism as described by Julius Caesar, and the Greek and Roman religion.
Mesopaganism: A group, which is, or has been, significantly influenced by monotheistic, dualistic, or nontheistic worldviews, but has been able to maintain an independence of religious practices. This group includes aboriginal Americans as well as Australian aboriginals, Viking Age Norse paganism. Influences include: Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Spiritualism, and the many Afro-Diasporic faiths like Haitian Vodou, and Santerķa. Bonewits includes British Traditional Wicca in this subdivision.
Neopaganism: A movement by modern people to revive nature-worshipping, pre-Christian religions, or other nature-based spiritual paths. This definition may include anything on a sliding scale from Reconstructionist at one end to New Age and non-reconstructionist groups such as Neo-druidism and Wicca at the other.


Pagan Spirituality: A Guide to Personal Transformation

There are many surviving traditions of ethnic religion. Organized ethnic religions that achieved the status of a civil religion are Shinto, tied to Japanese identity, and Judaism, tied to Jewish identity. In nationalist definitions, Hinduism may be tied to Indian identity. Uninstitutionalized folk religion is found mainly in rural and sparsely populated areas. These include Animism, ancestor worship and Shamanism of Asia, Africa, the Americas, as well as New Guinea and other Pacific islands. Chinese folk religion is an umbrella term for uninstitutionalized folk traditions under a secular regime. All world religions, however, also include folk religious aspects, as opposed to their theological or philosophical aspects, or local institutions of revealed religions may become strongly tied to ethnic identity, e.g. Yazdānism (Kurdish faiths descending from Zoroastrianism), Tibetan Buddhism, or various Christian national churches such as the Armenian Apostolic Church, the various Syriac churches, and the various branches of the Orthodox Church, e.g., Anglican Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and other non-Roman churches.

During the expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate in West Africa, Islamic Fulbe (Fula) labelled their non-Muslim neighbours, such as this Kapsiki diviner, Kirdi, or "pagans".

Eurasian ethnic religions became largely extinct in the course of the Middle Ages, first with Christianization in the West and the spread of Buddhism in the East, and then with the Islamic conquests of Persia, Central and South Asia. A notable survival of pre-Islamic traditions are the people of Kafirstan, now shrunk to the Kalasha people, inhabiting three valleys in the NWFP, Pakistan.

Mayan paganism is alive and well in Guatemala, and is experiencing a resurgence of interest among young Mayans.

Neopaganism includes reconstructed religions such as Hellenic, Celtic or Germanic reconstructionism as well as modern eclectic traditions such as Discordianism, or Wicca and its many offshoots. Many of the "revivals", Wicca and Neo-druidism in particular, have their roots in 19th century Romanticism and retain noticeable elements of occultism or theosophy that were current then, setting them apart from historical rural (paganus) folk religion. Neopaganism in the United States accounts for roughly a third of all neopagans worldwide.

Many current pagans in industrial societies base their beliefs and practices on a connection to Nature, and a divinity within all living things, but this may not hold true for all forms of Paganism, past or present. Some believe that there are many deities, which is known as pantheon or polytheism. By contrast, pantheism is the belief that the combined subconscious spirit of all living things forms the universal deity. Panentheism takes this one step further, incorporating the idea that the Universal Deity is both in everything (in the universe) but also extends beyond the known physical universe. Ancient Greek paganism, which tended in many cases to be a deification of the local deity, as Athena in Athens, saw each local emanation as an aspect of an Olympian deity during the Classical period and then after Alexander to syncretize the deity with the political process, with "state divinities" increasingly assigned to various localities, as Roma personified Rome. Many ancient regimes would claim to be the representative on earth of these gods, and would depend on more or less elaborate bureaucracies of state-supported priests and scribes to lend public support to their claims. In one well-established sense, paganism is the belief in any non-monotheistic religion, which would mean that the Pythagoreans of ancient Greece would not be considered Pagan in that sense, since they were monotheist, but not in the Abrahamic tradition.



Paralumun New Age Village