What does pagan / Neopagan mean?

Pagan is a term that was used in Ancient Rome to describe people whose cultural practices were local practices rather than the newly formed state-religion of Christianity. It has a meaning similar to the English word “folk”. Its usage simply implies “not Christian” and “non-urban”.

It is generally accepted by historians that paganism died a death. While some folk practices survive to the modern day, the religious beliefs mostly faded out in preference of Christianity around 800AD at least in England. Around the mid-1800s in the UK, the modern “pagan” movement seemed to re-emerge with the greatest force. Modern “pagan” practices are then more accurately considered to be a reconstruction of past religions. Many people try to maintain that they are a continuation of them and they have never stopped, but there is little evidence to support this. Besides, the modern practitioners have very different mindsets that distinguish them significantly from the paganism of the Roman Empire. Therefore the term Neopagan or Neo-pagan is more accurate to refer to modern “pagan” practices that occur today. It means “new pagan”.

Some people claim that paganism survived and there are definitely beliefs of the old religions, which survived as folklore. Unfortunately, the respect that authors showed for those tales and their willingness to change the stories substantially, all indicate that there was no more credence put in them than in modern novels or films. Look at how when we remake a movie we are happy to change some parts of it or the gender of certain characters. We do that because we do not believe the film to be an accurate portrayal of facts, we treat it like a story. Ancient and Medieval authors did the same thing showing that they were making a story for entertainment. Under Christian rule, the beliefs of old religions were simply a source of inspiration and entertainment, not religious belief. Paganism as a religion had sadly died, but it was reborn and reconstructed as Neopaganism.

Many Neopagans believe in things such as nature conservation, vegetarianism, high welfare for animals, acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people, anti-capitalism, and racial diversity, all of which would be unusual beliefs to find in ancient pagan peoples of the Roman empire. We often romanticize the culture of ancient pagans with some of our modern beliefs, but there’s mostly evidence to the contrary.

Neopagan simply refers to beliefs and cultural identity, whereas many other words here refer to practices. One could be a non-practicing Neopagan, but in order to be a witch, for example, you would have to practice witchcraft.

Pagan was simply an adjective, which meant folk, so should not be capitalized. Neopagan is a very specific religious practice, which takes influence from Wicca and the recreation of non-Christian religious practices, so it acts like a proper noun and is capitalised like Christian or Buddhist. I will forget this in future articles in this blog, please forgive me.

This is quite a difficult path to get into. You have to be drawn to a particular deity or philosophy. There is a community and well they tend to blend all sorts of different pagan practices with modern moralities. If this path interests you then I would start heading to a local meeting (often called a “Moot”).

See also: other types of Magic Practitioner