Modern Paganism in the context of "Prehistoric religion"

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⭐ Core Definition: Modern Paganism

Modern paganism, also known as neopaganism and contemporary paganism, is a range of new religious movements variously influenced by the beliefs of pre-modern peoples across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Despite some common similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, sharing no single set of beliefs, practices, or religious texts. Scholars of religion may study the phenomenon as a movement divided into different religions, while others study neopaganism as a decentralized religion with an array of denominations.

Adherents rely on pre-Christian, folkloric, and ethnographic sources to a variety of degrees; many of them follow a spirituality that they accept as entirely modern, while others claim to adhere to prehistoric beliefs, or else, they attempt to revive indigenous religions as accurately as possible. Modern pagan movements are frequently described on a spectrum ranging from reconstructive, which seeks to revive historical pagan religions; to eclectic movements, which blend elements from various religions and philosophies with historical paganism. Polytheism, animism, and pantheism are common features across pagan theology. Modern pagans can also include atheists, upholding virtues and principles associated with paganism while maintaining a secular worldview. Humanistic, naturalistic, or secular pagans may recognize deities as archetypes or useful metaphors for different cycles of life, or reframe magic as a purely psychological practice.

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Modern Paganism in the context of Christianity in Slovakia

Religion in Slovakia is predominantly Christianity, adhered to by about 68.8% of the population in 2021.

The Catholic Church is the major Christian tradition in the country, followed in 2021 by 59.8% of the population, a majority of whom (55.8%) were of the Latin Church and a minority of whom (4%) were of the Slovak Greek Catholic Church. About 9% of the population were mostly followers of Protestantism, and a minority of Eastern Orthodox Church and other Christian denominations; the major groupings are the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia (5.3%), the Reformed Christian Church in Slovakia (1.6%), the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia (0.9%), the Jehovah's Witnesses (0.3%), and other smaller Christian denominations (0.9%). In 2021, about 23.8% of the population declared themselves not religious, an increase from 13.4% in 2011. An additional 1.2% of the population were followers of other religions or beliefs; small religious minorities in Slovakia include Buddhism, modern Paganism, Islam, Judaism, Jediism, Hinduism

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Modern Paganism in the context of Hungarian Native Faith

Hungarian Neopaganism, or the Hungarian Native Faith (Hungarian: Ősmagyar vallás), is a modern Pagan new religious movement aimed at representing an ethnic religion of the Hungarians, inspired by taltosism (Hungarian shamanism), ancient mythology and later folklore. The Hungarian Neopaganism movement has roots in 18th- and 19th-century Enlightenment and Romantic elaborations, and early-20th-century ethnology. The construction of a national Hungarian religion was endorsed in interwar Turanist circles (1930s–1940s), and, eventually, Hungarian Neopagan movements blossomed in Hungary after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The boundaries between Hungarian Neopagan groups often relate to differing beliefs relating to the ethnogenesis of the Hungarians, generally believed to have originated on the Asian Steppe. Some Hungarian Neopaganistic groups sought to reconstruct their native faith based upon contemporary ideas about Scythian, Persian, and Sumerian religions and cultivate Turanist links with Turkic cultures.

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Modern Paganism in the context of Hetanism

The Armenian Native Faith, also termed Armenian Neopaganism or Hetanism (Armenian: Հեթանոսութիւն Hetanosutiwn; a cognate word of "Heathenism"), is a modern Pagan new religious movement that harkens back to the historical, pre-Christian belief systems and ethnic religions of the Armenians. The followers of the movement call themselves "Hetans" (Armenian: հեթանոս Hetanos, which means "Heathen", thus "ethnic", both of them being loanwords from the Greek ἔθνος, ethnos) or Arordi, meaning the "Children of Ari", also rendered as "Arordiners" in some scholarly publications.

The Arordiner movement has antecedents in the early 20th century, with the doctrine of Tseghakron (Ցեղակրոն, literally "national religion") of the nationalist political theorist Garegin Nzhdeh. It took an institutional form in 1991, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union in a climate of national reawakening, when the Armenologist Slak Kakosyan founded the "Order of the Children of Ari" (Arordineri Ukht). Neopaganism expert Victor Schnirelmann estimated the following of Armenian neopaganism to be "no more than a few hundred people".

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Modern Paganism in the context of Nature religion

A nature religion is a religious movement that believes nature and the natural world is an embodiment of divinity, sacredness or spiritual power. Nature religions include indigenous religions practiced in various parts of the world by cultures who consider the environment to be imbued with spirits and other sacred entities. It also includes modern Pagan faiths, which are primarily concentrated in Europe and North America.

The term "nature religion" was first coined by the American religious studies scholar Catherine Albanese, who used it in her work Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age (1991), and she later went on to use it in other studies. After Albanese developed the term, it has been used by other academics working in the discipline.

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Modern Paganism in the context of Non-denominational

A non-denominational person or organization is one that does not follow (or is not restricted to) any particular or specific religious denomination.

The term has been used in the context of various faiths, including Jainism, Baháʼí Faith, Zoroastrianism, Unitarian Universalism, Neo-Paganism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Wicca. It stands in contrast with a religious denomination. Religious people of a non-denominational persuasion tend to be more open-minded in their views on various religious matters and rulings. Some converts towards non-denominational strains of thought have been influenced by disputes over traditional teachings in the previous institutions they attended. Nondenominationalism has also been used as a tool for introducing neutrality into a public square when the local populace is derived from a wide-ranging set of religious beliefs.

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Modern Paganism in the context of Dievturi

Dievturība is a contemporary continuation of the ethnic religion of the Latvians from what it was before Christianization in the 13th century. Adherents call themselves Dievturi (singular: Dievturis), literally "Dievs' keepers", "people who live in harmony with Dievs". Dievturība is mainly rooted in Latvian folklore, folk songs and Latvian mythology.

Dievturība was systematized in 1925 by Ernests Brastiņš and Kārlis Bregžis. It was forcibly suppressed by Soviets in 1940, but lived on in émigré communities and was re-registered in Latvia in 1990. In 2016, a social media survey found that 20% of Latvians identified their religious affiliation as "Latvian religion." Of those 20%, 81% declared themselves “dievturis”, 1% “Dievs, Laima, Māra – folk religion”, 9% “latviskā dzīvesziņa (‘Latvian worldview’)”, 6% “a Latvian”, 2% “Latvian ancient belief”, 1% “officially Lutheran but heart-wise Dievturis”.

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Modern Paganism in the context of Goddess movement

The Goddess movement is a revivalistic Neopagan religious movement which includes spiritual beliefs and practices that emerged primarily in the United States in the late 1960s and predominantly in the Western world during the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction both against patriarchal Abrahamic religions, which refer to God to using masculine grammatical articles and pronouns, and secularism. It revolves around Goddess worship and the veneration for the divine feminine, and may include a focus on women or on one or more understandings of gender or femininity.

The Goddess movement is a widespread non-centralized trend in modern Paganism, and it therefore has no centralized tenets of belief. Beliefs and practices vary widely among Goddess worshippers, from the name and the number of goddesses worshipped to the specific rituals and rites that are used. Some, such as Dianic Wicca, exclusively worship female deities, but others do not. Belief systems range from monotheistic to polytheistic to pantheistic, and encompass a range of theological variety similar to that in the broader Neopagan community. Common pluralistic belief means that a self-identified Goddess worshipper could theoretically worship any number of different female deities from various cultures and religions all over the world.

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