What is a Pagan?

The word Pagan originally meant of the countryside and in early Europe was applied to rural people who were slow to accept Christianity, which was imposed by city-folk from Rome. After many centuries, European Paganism was pretty well extinguished, except perhaps to some extent in the Baltic States and Iceland. However, a number of ancient customs survived through association with the new religion's festivals, for instance fertility symbols like eggs and rabbits at Easter and trees and lights at Christmas. Also, folk practices ensured a degree of cultural survival in Christianized Europe and provided a venue for female influence beyond the home.

There were always a few rebels and free-thinkers and weird people, whether ceremonial magicians among the elite or covert practitioners of the old ways in the villages, of whom it might be said that they entertained non-Christian lines of thought and were therefore Pagan (when the term came to mean anyone outside the fold of the church). However, it has only been since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of this one, when conventional religion began to lose its pervasive authority that an upsurge in Paganism and the occult occurred.

When Did Neo-Paganism Begin?

Current neo-Paganism as a popular movement pretty much began in the 1950s in England with Gerald Gardner and his religious movement called Wicca. Since then, other revival/survival religions of old Europe have emerged into public view, notably Asatru (based on the Germanic/Scandinavian gods and practices, whose followers often call themselves Heathens, people of the heaths) and Druids. In addition, occultists of every stripe have come out of the woodwork — not to mention all the varieties of New Age practitioners (but we can take neither the credit nor blame for them!)

What Distinguishes the New Pagans?

Modern Pagans, loosely defined, are people who follow nature-oriented religions or "earth religions" (in contrast to conventional religions that stress the after-life). Pagans tend to be polytheistic, and an important characteristic, particularly in Wicca, is adherence to the Goddess(es) as well as the God(s), and the equal participation, both as members and leaders, of women as well as men. Pagan practice may also involve the occult and the working of magic (see our Information Sheets on these subjects for more detail), or it may be limited to celebratory rituals or simply just a Pagan world-view. All these people may otherwise lead ordinary lives.

To quote from an anthropologist who made a study of the scene:

(Pagans) tolerate a surprising spiritual diversity. Central to the ethos is the notion that any path of a religion is a path to a spiritual reality, and whatever symbols and images one chooses are valid. Groups and their practices are creative, syncretic. . . The only dogma, they say, is that there is no dogma. . . Practitioners think of themselves as, or as inspired by, the witches, wizards, druids, kabbalists and shamans, of mostly European lore, and they perform rituals and create ritual groups in which they invoke ancient deities. . . (Pages 6 and 7, T.M. Luhrmann, Persuasions of the Witch's Craft. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.)

Native Spirituality

We sometimes call what we do “European Native spirituality” after the American Native spirituality, which has won long-delayed respectability in recent times. Ancient Europeans in their native lands were also tribal and tied to the land and felt akin to nature. Many modern people have felt a need to reconnect with nature, and even to re-tribalize with people of like mind. Some people have looked to American Native ways, while others have looked to their own nearly-forgotten European roots.

Celebrate Diversity

This talk of European roots is a matter of culture, incidentally, and not of the color or ethnicity of the people practicing that culture, who come in all kinds these days, particularly in England, the U.S. and Canada. The modern pagan movement is not exclusionary in any way. In fact, in the spirit of the “surprising spiritual diversity” mentioned, neo-Paganism has embraced Native American ideas, East Indian practices, ancient Egyptian and Sumerian deities, Central American shamanism, Jewish Kabbalism, and there is growing rapprochement with Voudun (Voodoo) and Santeria. Our tribe is the world!

We should mention that our diversity and inclusiveness most definitely extend to sexual orientation and practice. The Goddess says, "All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals".

Modern Pagans

Modern Pagans come in a bewildering variety, the best-known being Wiccans (witches), Asatruars (followers of the Norse tradition) and Druids.

We practice Earth Religions. That means we focus on life here-and-now rather than looking towards the after-life, and we stress the inter-relatedness of all beings — the web of life.

Our gods are many rather than One (though we say the many are different aspects of the One) and they are part of Nature and life on Earth like humans are, that is to say, immanent rather than transcendent. For some Pagans, the gods are real; for others they are metaphors or archetypes or the personification of Nature, i.e., Mother Earth and Father Sun. One definite feature of the Pagan view of the divine, however, is that the many gods include the feminine — God the Mother as well as God the Father.

Important characteristics of modern Pagans are their individuality and refusal to accept any religious authority or mediation between themselves and the divine — a democratization of religion.

This attitude results in a lack of large-scale institutions and widely recognized leaders. Although we have a few structured congregations, most Pagans practice their spirituality in small groups, while many others are solitaries.

Pagans have no church buildings, but worship in their living-rooms, back-yards or, occasionally, public parks. In many large cities open services are available for the seeker or the curious.



Pagans’ private, anarchical anti-organizational approach makes for great personal freedom within the Pagan community. However, it also has the potential for problems in dealing with government and other organized bodies which are used to more structured religions with official spokespeople.

The Pagan Federation / Fédération Païenne Canada (with other Pagan associations) is trying to address those problems by means of public education.

We have briefly indicated what Pagans are about. However, due to antiquated ideas (and modern movies), we have to put great emphasis on what Pagans are not. Unfortunately, some of the terms we use give some people an erroneous impression which we wish to correct.

First and foremost, witches are not Satanists! Satanists originated as rebels within Christianity, whereas witches think of themselves as reviving aspects of pre-Christian European religion based on Nature. Modern Pagans are not anti-Christian, merely non-Christian.

We use the problematical term witch because we believe that some of the people tortured and burned in the medieval witch-craze were village herbalists, midwives and keepers of some of the old pre-Christian ways. Their activities were mistakenly labelled as evil by the authorities of the day and confused with devil-worship.

Ritual is the name Pagans use for their religious service. Though the term has been unfortunately coloured by the media, ritual in practice is quite straightforward.

Witches draw an invisible circle on the ground or floor to mark their temporary temple-space. They then address the four quarters, which correspond with the four ancient elements (air, fire, water and earth) and what we think of as the four aspects of human nature, namely intellect, will, emotion and body.

Next the deities are addressed, both as God and Goddess, involving women as priestesses as well as men as priests. Then wine (or juice) and bread are shared.

The rituals of the Asatruars and Druids are similar in form, different in detail.

Chanting has a bad reputation, due to spooky movies. Most Pagan chants are cheerful and lively, consisting of short songs repeated until everyone is in sync.

The pentagram is an ancient symbol that has recently gained a negative reputation from movies and horror novels. It is merely a five-pointed star, a form familiar in many other contexts. For Pagans it represents the human being, with the five points being the four aspects mentioned above — intellect, will, emotions and body — with the fifth point being spirit.

The notorious inverted pentagram (reputedly used by Satanists) for us innocently indicates the usual state of human affairs, whereby mind, will, emotions and body dominate the fifth element of spirit. We strive for the upright position, whereby spirit is uppermost and rules the other aspects.

Pagans are interested in the occult, another scare-word which merely means hidden. For us it involves an internal journey towards enlightenment, using such systems as the Kabbalah. Contemporary psychologists and paranormal investigators are mainstream equivalents of metaphysical occultists.

As popularly believed, we do practice magic - a form of active prayer or affirmation done only for good because we believe in the boomerang principle.

Again, due to the movies, the fact that Pagans often wear robes in their rituals is thought of as vaguely sinister. Their purpose is to equalize everyone (it's not just the priest who wears a robe), and also to remind us that the ritual is in sacred space and time outside of normal life.

Even more alarming to the public is the idea of ritual nudity. Only a small minority of Pagans practice this, but again the purpose is equalizing everyone, and also meeting the gods as they made us.

Some witches use a ritual knife, called an athamé (a-tha-may), which again may look alarming, but it is a symbol of the practitioner's will (or intellect, depending on their tradition) and is never used for actually cutting anything except the air.

Witches celebrate the sabbats, which are the ancient agricultural festivals of pre-Christian Europe. They once were marked by a lot of wild activity, aimed at the fertility of the crops (and giving the toilers in the fields a holiday), but these days are very tame affairs.

Witches also meet under the full moon, celebrating a time of the month that modern people mostly ignore but which once, before modern lighting, was special.

Witches tend to run into the most misconceptions, but Asatruars, who follow the Norse gods, have to constantly fight the notion that they are Aryan racists. In fact all colors and kinds of people follow Asatru — it is no more exclusive to the "Nordic peoples" than Islam is to Arabs or Christianity is to people of the Middle East where it began.

In truth, Pagans are very open-minded and welcoming, consisting of people of all races, ethnic groups and sexual orientation.

Sometimes people think that Paganism is a kind of cult. Not to worry — we're too disorganized for that.

Bottom-line:— We're regular folks. We raise our children, go to our jobs and participate in community life, following our code of Harm None. Our only difference from the mainstream is our religious approach — eccentric perhaps, but harmless.

If you have any questions or concerns about Pagans and their practices, please get in touch. We will give you any information you need or direct you to other sources.

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