All Pagans Now?

Mary Wakefield talks with a Druid to find out why Paganism is so attractive these days.

Poor thing, she starts with a bit of a disadvantage – she can't spot Pagans in a crowded pub. (Fellow Pagans always seem to have a particular feel about them, which I can read across the room. I call it "The Lady's Fingerprints".) Finally, her contact, Steve, pulls out his copy of a magazine, The Witchtower. (AAAARGH! What a horrible pun! I wish I'd thought of it!)

One of the things that attracts people to the Neopagan movement is the apparent utter lack of rules (or maybe I should write, the utter lack of Rules.)

So, can a modern pagan just pick any god to worship? I asked. Egyptian? Roman? African? Are there any rules? Steve put his hands self-consciously under the table, ‘No rules,’ he said. ‘Being a pagan is about being free from institutional rules.

And another thing that draws people in:

Pagans, I discovered during our second pint, are also united by their sense of the injustices done them by Christians. The last 2,000 years of history, as explained by Steve, is a heart-wrenching tale of innocent occult revivals squashed by ignorant, scaredy-cat Christians; of forced conversions by English kings desperate for Roman approval; of goddess-worship suppressed by chauvinist orthodoxy and cries of 'Burn the witch!' Eventually, after a tour through the Enlightenment (good), Freemasonry (also good), Constantine (bad) and Dominican monks (Satan spawn), we reached the 20th century, where, said Steve, paganism was once again revived by a man called Gerald Gardner. In 1957, after 20 years of frolicking with a coven of witches, Gardner wrote Witchcraft Today — a mix of folklore, Masonic rituals, nudism, sex and Aleister Crowley-style magic which became a sort of handbook for the modern Wicca witch and inspired the whole postmodern frogspawn of spiritually and sexually liberated pagan sects. 'Paganism today is continually evolving,' said Steve. 'There’s no right or wrong thing to believe, so even if we disagree, it’s impossible for pagans to be schismatic.'

<*ahem*> Tell a group of Pagans you charge a set fee for initiations and tell me what kind of reaction you get. There are other Rules – lines you dare not cross. Pagan tolerance only goes so far.

A huge number of folks who join the Neopagan movement do so because they feel alienated from the religion they were brought up in, or never acquired one to begin with. But religion is one of the things that have brought people together for thousands of years, probably before we developed any other kind of social groups. The religious urge exists in most, if not all people. It seems to be hard-wired in to our brains, and in some people, the need to make contact with something higher simply won't be denied.

Jim Taylor, an Eastern Orthodox theologian has written an article, "A Christian Speaks on the Faith and Path of Wicca", in which he states that Wicca is a path to God that is just as valid as his own. He warns his fellow Christians that the judgement they pass upon serious Pagans will be turned toward them on judgement day.

His take on those who reject their home religions and turn toward Neopaganism? "To those who have been driven away from Jesus by bad experiences, incompetent or vicious clergy, or unfriendly churches, Jesus is perfectly capable of relating through the persona of Apollo, of Isis, of Erzulie, or of any other divine being a person looks toward." As C.S. Lewis stated, through the character of Aslan, "When you keep an oath for the oath's sake, it is to Me you have sworn, not to Tash."

At times I worry that many get in to the Neopagan movement in order to have a social group, and not to have serious contact with the Divine. Most of the time, though, I realize the Divine has a way of making contact with those who truly need it.