The Greening of Paganism: The Place of 'A Pagan Community Statement on the Environment' in the history of contemporary Paganism (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Greening of Paganism (Revisited)
2022
Many Pagans and scholars of Paganism presume that Paganism is and always has been an earth-centered religion. But this claim needs to be interrogated closely by academics and participants alike to determine whether and to what extent Pagan beliefs and practices are actually earth-centered.
PAGAN LITERATURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION
Journal of Higher Education & Resarch Society, 2020
Before the rise of civilization, life amidst nature was a constant struggle for survival. With the passage of time, people learned to survive in harmony with nature, taking only what was essential. Everything in nature was significant and estimable and was exalted by these Pagans in the form of folktales and folk songs. Worshipping forests, grooves, animals and streams not only created a bond between these men and their environment leading to their spiritual evolution, but also resulted in environmental conservation. It was the divine forms of nature which protected their family, farms, livestock and villages from harm and presided over their humble activities.The significance of literature can be traced back ever since Plato banished poets from his imaginary Republic for encouraging effeminacy through their poems. Since literature plays a pivotal role in shaping reality, this paper is an attempt to show how various forms of Pagan Literature contributed in increasing the levels of sensitivity and respect amongst people for their environment. It also examines the rise of Neo-Pagan cults and explores the possibility of a different world, had Paganism been practised as a way of life today by the majority of world population.
Conference: The American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, 2006
Debate continues about how to define Paganism, but it is generally agreed that it is a 'nature religion'. Unsurprisingly, Pagans are widely supposed to be environmentally active, and the Dictionary of Contemporary Religion in the Western World goes so far as to say, "Paganism is an ecological faith tradition, a nature-centric spirituality that seeks to break down hierarchies." (Partridge, (ed.), 2002; 326). However, most ethnographic research shows that in practice, Pagans are not especially ecological, and only a minority of eclectic 'Eco-Pagans' are involved in direct action (Adler, 1986, pp. 399-415). Smith Obler concluded that although Pagans' language and beliefs speak of a love for nature, their behaviour is no more environmental than anyone else's (2004), and Adler found that "quite a few" Pagans were actually against environmental activism (1986; 400). We focus on this apparent paradox at the heart of the movement: If Paganism is a 'nature religion', why are so few practitioners environmentalists? The obvious answer is that belief does not always translate into practice, but we offer a more useful hypothesis based on existing research and recent ethnographic work. We make sense of this apparent inconsistency by tracing the genealogy of Paganism, which reveals diverse currents of influence. While Contemporary Paganism originated from esoteric magical traditions, we trace how an ‘earth-based’ Paganism emerged from folk Romanticism and the Free Festival movement. These currents are not isolated but nevertheless carry distinct ideological characteristics and attract different socio-political groups. Although our argument focuses on UK Paganism, the fundamental cross-cultural influences between the US and the UK mean that our analysis is relevant to both countries.
Earth Day and afterwards: American paganism’s appropriation of ‘nature religion’
Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, 2009
The creation of a new American Paganism in the 1950s and 1960s had its roots in a European literary paganism, in the arrival of new Pagan texts, primarily from Britain, in a longstanding American metaphysical tradition but also, equally importantly, in the American tradition of seeing nature as a source of sacred value (Albanese, 1990, 2007). This root, while connected to the transnational Romantic movement, had developed in the young United States a somewhat nationalistic core that enabled new American Pagans of the mid-twentieth century to feel connected to something older and deeper than themselves. Thus, as American Paganism—particularly Wicca, its largest and most robust segment1—developed a new identity as “nature religion,” it was able to connect to a pre-existing American spiritual current. While it is difficult to say precisely when this connection was made, it appears frequently in Pagan writing shortly after 1970, the year of the first Earth Day celebration.
Raising the Dragon: Folklore and the Development of Contemporary British Eco-Paganism
This article traces how a motif from folklore, that of the marauding dragon, became reinterpreted by UK Pagans and Earth Mystics—for whom it symbolised a mysterious 'dragon energy' circulating harmoniously through the landscape—and by a radically motivated branch of Paganism, namely Eco-Paganism. Eco-Paganism, which emerged during the environmental anti-road protests of the 1990s, advocated a blend of direct and magical action in the form of 'dragon-raising' rituals for the protection of threatened pieces of land. The history of this idea of the dragon is presented, with examples of political and dragon-raising rituals, with particular reference to those performed by the Dragon Environmental Group.
The Wisdom of the Body: Embodied Knowing in Eco-Paganism
Although embodied knowing is fundamental to our experience, no previous study has detailed its role in a specific spiritual group. This thesis offers a new model of embodied situated cognition, and develops an embodied hermeneutics which uses Focusing (Gendlin, 1981) in phenomenological research. I apply these tools to the first detailed ethnography of Eco-Paganism to reveal powerful processes of connection which have considerable significance for religious studies and ecopsychology. Chapters 2 and 3 survey the literature on Eco-Paganism and embodied cognition. Chapter 4 uses the latter to synthesise a model of embodied situated cognition which I call the 'enactive process model', because it draws primarily on enactivism (inter alia, Varela et al., 1991), and Gendlin's process philosophy (Gendlin, 1997a). Current research shows that key aspects of cognition are situated and embodied (inter alia, Varela et al., 1991), such that we often think with place (inter alia, Preston, 2003). This raises epistemological questions which I address in a discussion of embodied philosophy in Chapter 5. I then explain my embodied hermeneutics methodology, and the practical application of the Focusing Interview technique, in Chapter 6. My fieldwork autoethnography, Chapter 7, provides an intuitive, felt understanding of life on a road protest site, and is followed by ethnographies of urban and protest site Eco-Paganism in Chapters 8 and 9. Chapter 10 discusses six processes which create a sense of connection to the organic environment, which include the felt sense (Gendlin, 1981) and the wilderness effect (Greenway, 1995). I conclude that a type of wilderness effect can catalyze the emergence of a complex 'nature based' spirituality amongst site Eco-Pagans, while a less intense form affects urban Eco-Pagans. Eco-Pagans sometimes use these processes of connection to think with a place. The processes of connection and thinking with place are fundamental to embodied situated knowing in Eco-Paganism, and help explain many of its distinctive aspects. By demonstrating the importance of embodied situated knowing in Eco-Paganism, I highlight the potential for further research into processes of connection and the impact of different physical spaces on religious practice in general.
Earth First! Journal, 1988
Paganism re-conceived as political resistance in the context of environmental activism and ecotage
Nature and Ethnicity In East European Paganism: An Environmental Ethic of the Religious Right?
Religion, 2002
Paganism is frequently cast by Anglo-American scholars as a form of “nature religion.” Some have also identified its political leanings as left rather than right. This article tests these preconceptions against the evidence provided by East European, especially Ukrainian, Paganism or “Native Faith.” The author examines Native Faith notions of nature as land, as “blood,” and as “tradition,” and argues that these are underpinned by a concept of “territorialized ethnicity”—the belief that ethnic communities are natural and biological entities rooted in specific geographical territories. The article traces this idea to its precursors in European and Soviet thought, and suggests that it may be more commonly found around the world than Western theorists presume. In light of such a different understanding of nature, the concept of “nature religion” may need to be rethought.