Pagans Clarify Misconceptions About Non-Traditional Belief Systems Throughout History

Pagans have long had a bad reputation.

Ethan Doyle Whites Pagans: The Visual Culture of Pagan Myths, Legends + Rituals corrects misconceptions and explains their complex belief systems and rich histories, some dating back to the dawn of civilization.

Illustrated history covers ancient and modern pagans. Photos, paintings, talismans, shrines and pictures depict pagans through the centuries.

As White has explained from the start, for followers of Abrahamic religions who fear falling into idolatry, the material world has long been a source of concern. In contrast, there are other religions throughout the world that Christians call pagan that have wholeheartedly embraced the material universe as something that can possess divinity, value, and meaning.

Modern paganism is practiced worldwide and includes wiccans, druids, pagans, neo-shamans, and members of the goddess movement.

There is great diversity among these modern pagans, both in their practices and their beliefs, but there is also an underlying commonality, White adds. They all seek to resurrect something from the lost pre-Christian religions of Europe, North Africa and West Asia, adapting them to today’s world.

Although the book defines all non-Abrahamic religions as pagan, including modern and mainstream religions such as Hinduism and Shintoism, it emphasizes the belief systems of extinct cultures, such as ancient Egypt or the pre-Christian Ireland.

The word pagan originated as an insult. From the Latin, paganus, it means belonging to the country. If you were among the pagans, you were considered unsophisticated, uneducated, and plagued with foolish superstitions.

But now, like some other minorities, modern pagans have taken up the word and proudly reversed its meaning.

The use of paganism in this context is a reappropriation, says White, taking a term with a long history of negative connotations and defiantly claiming it as a self-defining statement. What was once an insult has become a badge of honor.

Some of the most intriguing books focus on practices that are almost extinct today.

For example, few people worship the goddess Isis today. But she and other Egyptian deities were once central to a powerful belief system. And they live in the multitude of statues, objects and works of art left behind by their devotees.

At the peak of ancient Egyptian civilization, more than 1,000 deities were worshipped, their role being to maintain maat, the cosmic order. With so many gods and goddesses competing for attention, pious Egyptians usually focused their worship on a few, depending on their needs.

They might, for example, venerate Osiris, who had power over fertility (and whose legendary death and resurrection was a central Egyptian myth). Or they could pray to Horus, the falcon-headed sky god, or Set, who ruled war, storms and the desert. Sick Egyptians turned to Sekhmet, the Leonine Goddess whose many responsibilities included healing; if Sekhmet failed, then dog-faced Anubis was waiting to lead them to the afterlife.

A deity may be chosen because they are very popular or even a patron figure in a particular place, writes White. Sometimes worshipers make deals with a deity, agreeing to provide them with offerings in turn for a service rendered. Ultimately, gods and goddesses are generally seen as powerful allies in dealing with the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

The faith of ancient Rome itself adopted and adapted from Greek beliefs was also full of gods and goddesses, and many festivals were dedicated to celebrating them.

There was a celebration for every season and more. The Saturnalia, a tribute to the god Saturn, marked by parties and gifts, took place in December. Lupercalia, a celebration of fertility, came in February. Cerealia, held in the spring, honored the goddess of grain; in June, Vestalia honored Vesta, the goddess of the hearth.

At the end of the 4th century, Emperor Theodosius, a Christian, banned pagan celebrations, although some traditions continued under different names. You may still see hints of Saturnalia on Christmas, perhaps a touch of Lupercalia on Valentine’s Day.

The ancient religions of pre-Christian England and Ireland had their festivals, although details like many facts about these cultures are lost.

The mid-winter celebration, Yule, was later given its name by the Christmas season, along with its tradition of burning a huge Yule log. Samhain, an autumn festival marking the time when the living and the dead were closest, has been reinvented as Halloween. Beltane, a spring festival, survived, somewhat modified, like May Day. The oldest holiday tradition of driving cattle between two bonfires has, unsurprisingly, faded away.

Anything specifically celebrated at Europe’s most famous pagan structure, Stonehenge, is also lost to history. Dating to around 2500 BCE, it likely had a ritual purpose for its prehistoric builders, writes White. Its massive stones are arranged to mark both the sunset of the winter solstice and the sunrise of the summer one. Modern excavations have unearthed bones, suggesting that it also served as a cemetery.

But who built it and why remains unknown, although in the 20th century it once again became a site of religious significance, White notes. Modern Druids still hold ceremonies there.

That Stonehenge predates the Druidic religion by thousands of years does not particularly bother current followers of the religion. With so much pagan history forgotten or, at times, forbidden, worshipers today have had to create their own religions. They mix myth and folklore. They interpret and, say critics, misinterpret history.

Wicca, for example, while evoking ancient ideas, is rather a modern invention, writes White, and he dates it to the early 1950s. Early adherents claimed (a link to) the ancient religion of the Horned God, although that they generally maintain that they also worshiped a goddess, he writes. What is more likely is that Wicca was created by occultists who were interested in the work of writers such as Margaret Murray and who used a range of sources.

Wiccans were not, they insisted, satanists or practitioners of black magic. Wiccan rituals, therefore, often focused on constructive ends, such as healing or helping people find employment, White writes. During the ceremonies, some participants wear special robes. At others, worshipers go sky-clad or naked. It is a way of avoiding the differentiation of socio-economic status that clothing can denote.

Politically progressive, Wicca has also embraced various causes, with writers promoting environmentalism, feminism, and LGBTQI+ concerns. Some of these texts were aimed at younger readers, leading to teenage witch trends emerging in the late 1990s and again in the late 2010s, White writes. In doing so, Wicca established itself as the largest modern pagan religion in the world, with hundreds of thousands of followers.

This is probably alarming to many monotheistic fundamentalists, who still see the word pagan as an insult. But for much of the modern world, that’s now merely descriptive, as a trip to one of America’s most traditional places, a military cemetery, will prove.

At one time, only three religious symbols were allowed to be engraved on tombstones: a Christian cross, a Jewish Star of David or an Islamic crescent. They have since been joined by pagan symbols, including a pentagram for Wiccans and, for pagan followers of ancient Norse myths, Thor’s hammer.

Even in death, the old gods live.