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.

Some scholars claim that Neopaganism is the fastest growing religious movement in the US.^{[1] [2][3]}

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).^[4]

According to the ARIS survey in 2001, Wicca was the fastest growing religious movement in the US growing from 8.000 (in 1990) to 134.000 (in 2001) for a growth of 1575%.^[5]

Latest 2007 surveys estimate 1 million Wiccans ^{[6] [7] [4][8]}, a fast growth compared to the 100.000/200.000 estimated in late 1990s and early 2000s.^[6]

According to David Waldron (2005)^[9], there were roughly 10 million Neopagans in the US in 2000 (4% of the total population), up from 4.5 million in 1990 (1.8% of the population of that time).

Wiccan leader Phyllis Curott, member of the Assembly of World Religious Leaders, estimates a larger amount of 3 to 5 million Wiccans^[10] out of a total 10 million Neopagans (4% of the total population).^[2]

Contents 1 History 2 Organizations 3 Festivals 4 Demographics 5 Wicca 6 Discrimination charges 7 Neopagans and politics 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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;^[11]
  • Pagan Way, Chicago^[12]
  • 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

[edit] Festivals

Further information: List of Neo-Pagan festivals and events

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

[edit] Demographics

According to David Waldron (2005)^[13], in there were roughly 10 million Neopagans in the US in 2000 (4% of the total population), up from 4.5 million in 1990 (1.8% of the population of that time).

However, estimates vary widely. Most of the 1990s studies put the number of US Neopagans between 200,000 and 1 million (0.1% to 0.5%).^[4] Wiccan priestess and activist Phyllis Curott provides a number of 3 to 5 million followers of the Wiccan system in the country in 1999.^[10]

Neopaganism is said to be the fastest growing religious movement in the US as in all other postchristian and Western countries.^[14][2][15]

The ARIS 2001 study based on a poll conducted by The Graduate Center at The City University of New York in 2001 found that an estimated 140,000 people self-identified as Pagans; 134,000 self-identified as Wiccans; and 33,000 self-identified as Druids. This would bring the total of groups largely accepted under the modern popular western definition of Neopagan to 307,000. This number is of the same order of magnitude as, for example, adherents of the Church of the Brethren or the Dutch Reformed Church.

The Covenant of the Goddess conducted a poll of U.S. and Canadian Neopagans in 1999 that estimated the population in those countries at 768,400. This would seem to support the view that there are at least one million adherents, worldwide. This poll was not scientific and represents a self selected subset of all Neopagans.

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).

[edit] Wicca

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.^[16] 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.^[17][18][19]

[edit] 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."^[20]

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.

[edit] 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).

[edit] See also

Religion in the United States

[edit] Notes

[edit] 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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