Neopaganism in the United States
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Neopaganism in the United States is represented by widely different movements and organisations. The largest Neopagan religion is Wicca, followed by Neodruidism. Both of these religions were introduced during the 1950s from Great Britain. Germanic Neopaganism and Kemetism appeared in the US in the early 1970s. Hellenic Neopaganism appeared in the 1990s.

History

The spread of Neopaganism in the United States started in the 1950s with the introduction of Neodruidism and Wicca from Great Britain. Germanic Neopaganism (or Heathenism) entered during the 1970s, developing into new denominations proper to the US, notably Theodism. In the same period the first Kemetic groups were formed, with the tradition itself originating in the US.

Wicca, introduced by Raymond Buckland in 1964, is the most known of the Neopagan movements. The 1980s and 1990s saw the emergence of a number of reconstructionistic and other ethnic traditions. Hellenic Neopaganism (Dodekatheism), for example, has flourished since the 1990s, along with parallel developments in Greece.

Organizations

Further information: List of Neopagan movements

Notable US Neopagan organizations:

• Wicca/Goddess/eclectic:
  • Feri Tradition (from ca. 1960)
  • Feraferia (Hellenic-inspired goddess worship, established 1967 in southern California by Frederick M. Adams, as a continuation of his Fellowship of Hesperides founded 1957), based in Nevada City
  • Church of All Worlds, formed 1962, the largest of all the pagan movements, which centres on worship of the earth-mother goddess;^[1]
  • Pagan Way, Chicago^[2]
  • Circle Sanctuary, based in Wisconsin, the largest Neo-Pagan organization in the U.S. Its newsletter, Circle Network News, has some 15,000 subscribers (as of 1992).[2]
  • Council of Magickal Arts, Texas
  • Mid-Atlantic Pagan Alliance (since 1999)
  • Cherry Hill Seminary, Vermont (since 2001)
• Hellenic Neopaganism
  • Hellenion
• Neodruidism:
  • Reformed Druids of North America (since 1963)
  • Ár nDraíocht Féin (since 1983)
• Germanic neopaganism:
  • Ásatrú Folk Assembly (AFA, Nevada based, since 1994, re-activation of Stephen McNallen's 1974-1986 Asatru Free Assembly, formerly Viking Brotherhood, 1971-1974 [3])
  • The Troth (since 1987 [4])
  • Ásatrú Alliance (AA, since 1988, Arizona based [5])
  • Odinic Rite (ORV, "Vinland Regional Office", since 1997 Wisconsin based [6])
  • Odin Brotherhood (unknown)
• Kemetism
  • Church of the Eternal Source, since 1970
  • Ausar Auset Society, since 1973
  • Kemetic Orthodoxy, since 1988

Festivals

Further information: List of Neo-Pagan festivals and events

• Pagan Spirit Gathering (since 1980)
• Starwood Festival (since 1981)

Demographics

Wiccan churches and other Neopagan institutions are becoming more common in the US. However, estimates of their numbers vary widely. Most of the 1990s studies put the number of US Neopagans between 200,000 and 1 million (0.1% to 0.5% of the total population).^[3]

According to David Waldron (2005)^[4], roughly 10 million Wiccan-related books were sold in 2000 (up from 4.5 million in 1990), as reported by the American Booksellers Association. However this gives only a rough guide to the size of the Wiccan-related economy and he comments that the added complexity of determining the boundary between Wiccan or neo-Pagan products and New Age products makes determining the size of the movement from this rather problematic.

Skeptical authors suspect that such numbers are exaggerations. Daniel Cohen (Cults 1994) posits that

For a while the movement seemed to flourish with an estimated 40 to 50 thousand practicing witches in the U.S. alone, though the number is quite impossible to verify. [...] By the 1990s, however, the popularity of modern witchcraft seemed to be fading. Since it was never possible to determine how many people were actually committed to witchcraft, it is of course impossible to know how far their numbers have fallen. But there has certainly been a sharp drop in publicity... Religious groups that have stepped up their denunciations of all occult groups... have once again begun to energetically denounce witchcraft — but there now is very little left to denounce. Witchcraft seems to have been absorbed into that large and amorphous body of beliefs and practices known as New Age Religion.

Reasonable estimates of the number of US Wiccans in the 1990s range around 150,000 to 300,000. Helen Berger and Craig Hawkins in Exploring the World of Wicca estimate 150,000 to 200,000. Melton, J. Gordon, Jerome Clark and Aidan A. Kelly in New Age Almanac (1991, p. 340) estimate a total of about 300,000 people associated with the "overall movement" of Wicca, with "tens of thousands" of members active in between 1,000 and 5,000 covens. Conservative estimates arrive at about 50,000 Wiccans in the US (Religious Requirements & Practices of Certain Selected Groups: A Handbook for Chaplains, 1993) while Wiccan high estimates claim several million (Phyllis Curott, The Book of Shadows: A Modern Woman's Journey Into the Wisdom of Witchcraft and the Magic of the Goddess). The largest estimates posit 1 million Wiccans^{[5] [6] [3][7]}, a fast growth compared to the 100.000/200.000 estimated in late 1990s and early 2000s.^[5]

Wicca

"Emblem of Belief" #37

Wicca was introduced to North America in 1964 by Raymond Buckland, an expatriate Briton who visited Gardner's Isle of Man coven to gain initiation. Interest in the USA spread quickly, and while many were initiated, many more non-initiates compiled their own rituals based on published sources or their own fancy.^[8] Another significant development was the creation by feminists in the late 1960s to 1970s of an eclectic movement known as Dianic Wicca, or feminist Dianic Witchcraft.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs in an out-of-court settlement of 23 April 2007 with the family of Patrick Stewart allowed the pentacle as an "emblem of belief" on tombstones in military cemeteries.^[9][10][11]

Discrimination charges

Further information: Religious discrimination against Neopagans

According to feminist pagan Starhawk "religious discrimination against Pagans and Wiccans and indigenous religions is omnipresent in the U.S."^[12]

Controversies mostly surround religious rights in US prisons and the US military. Prison inmates' right to practice minority religions was asserted in 2004 by the Supreme Court in Cutter v. Wilkinson.

Neopagans and politics

Main articles: Neopaganism and politics, Neo-völkisch movements, Nouvelle Droite, and Wotanism

Neopaganism have emerged as one of the most prominent movements within the religious left of US politics. The vast majority of US Neopagans are leftists, and tend to support environmentalist, feminist and pluralist worldviews and causes.

In the US society, extreme right ideologies (particularly neo-fascism, white supremacy and racism) are traditionally associated with Christianity (see Christian Identity, the Neo-Nazi Aryan Nation and the Ku Klux Klan). The religious right is today primarily represented by evangelicalism.

However, Matthias Gardell (2001) notes that there is a younger generation of white supremacists who have rejected Christianity in favour of Odinism, because they view both Christianity and the United States government as responsible for what they see as the evils of a liberal society.

Kaplan (1997) also notes the growing interest in forms of Heathenism among members of the radical racist right-wing movements. This aggregation of both racist and nonracist groups under the heading of Odinist has confused the discussion about Neo-Nazi Heathens and has led to discrimination charges (Berger 2005, p. 45).

See also

Religion in the United States

Notes

References

• Berger, Helen A. (2005) Witchcraft and Magic: Contemporary North America. University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN 081223877X, ISBN 978-0812238778
• Helen A. Berger, Evan A. Leach, Leigh S. Shaffer, Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States, Studies in Comparative Religion (2003), ISBN 978-1570034886.
• Berger, Helen A. (1998) A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States. University of South Carolina Press ISBN 1570032467, ISBN 978-1570032462
• Adler, Margot, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today, Beacon Press, 1979; revised and updated 1987.
• Ellwood, Robert, Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America, 1973.
• Gottlieb, Annie, Do You Believe in Magic? The Second Coming of the Sixties Generation, Times Books, 1987.
• Robert S. Ellwood, Notes on a Neopagan Religious Group in America, History of Religions (1971).
• J. G. Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions, 7th ed., Detroit (2002), ISBN 978-0787663841.
• G. Melton and I. Poggi, Magic, Witchcraft, and Paganism in America (1992).
• Pike, Sarah M. (2004) New Age and Neopagan Religions in America. Columbia University Press ISBN 0231124023, ISBN 978-0231124027

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