Paganism, American-Style

Editor's note: This is the third column in a series on New Ageand pagan faiths.

Almost every time a witch appears in a movie, pagan journalistJason Pitzl-Waters jokes, he gets a phone call from a journalist,asking for the pagan point of view.

But forget the stereotype of the ancient crone, stirring acauldron. Pagans can be the soccer mom next door - or your familydoctor. Instead of meeting in clearings in the dead of night, theyare more likely to get together at someone's house - and end theirrituals with a potluck. Instead of gathering to "hex" their enemies,they are more likely to participate in ceremonies to harness theenergies of nature, or to heal a friend.

And, as Ursinus College anthropologist and sociologist GinaOboler reminded me more than once during our conversation, not allpagans are Wiccans - many draw on national traditions, orreconstruct ancient ones, that differ from American Wicca's heavilyBritish roots.

In search of what defines the former and current landscape ofAmerican paganism, I spoke at length with Oboler and with Helen A.Berger, a sociologist who has surveyed and chronicled the lives ofAmerican pagans. Currently Visiting Scholar at the Women's StudiesResearch Center at Brandeis University, Berger has written threebooks focused particularly on witches.

They helped me to answer a few basic questions, importantbackground against which to listen to the voices of individuals youwill hear in future commentaries.

Fifteen years ago, when Berger and pagan leader Andras Arthensurveyed approximately 4,000 believers, they found Americanpractitioners were disproportionately female, college-educated andoriented toward computers and the sciences. They also were highlyactive in movements like environmentalism, feminism, Berger said,and they voted in numbers close to 90 percent.

Berger is currently number-crunching the results of a survey thatgot responses from roughly 6,000 American pagans.

She has noted three big changes.

Practitioners now more closely mirror the education levels of theAmerican population.

Where once a majority described their spirituality as "Wiccan," amajority now say that they are "eclectic" (gathering practices fromdifferent traditions, the Internet and other resources).

And where once about 50 percent said that they practiced alone("solitaries"), that number is now closer to 75 percent, Bergersaid.

Estimated numbers of American pagans vary, say Berger and Oboler,from 750,000 to more than a million. But one thing is sure, theyagree - the movement, although tiny when compared to conservativeAmerican Protestantism, is growing here.

The "largest stream of paganism" in the United States is thatwhich originated from the books of 20th-century British authorGerald Gardner, Oboler said. Gardner claimed to have met a group ofwitchcraft practitioners in southern England and been initiated intotheir sect.

"Either he was initiated into an existing movement, on which hehad a disproportionate impact, or he made it up," said Oboler, "butmuch of the liturgy that we associate with Wicca today was mostlymade up by Gardner and his close associates."

In the late 1950s and early 1960s Gardnerian practices arrived onAmerican shores in the person of Raymond Buckland and otherdisciples. To be a classical Gardnerian, you had to be initiated asa priestess or a priest by someone who had traced their initiatorylineage to Gardner, Oboler said.

But United States pagan groups also include Druids, those tryingto reconstruct Greek, Roman, Norse and other traditions, and manyothers, she said.

Pagan practice continued to become more diverse in the 1970s,with new leaders, including Starhawk and her Reclaiming Movement inCalifornia, with its strong environmentalist and feminist roots, andother pagan leaders. From the 1970s through the 1990s, dialogue anddebate flourished among pagans on the pages of Green Egg Magazine,she said.

The American version of Druid practice has its own quirky loreassociated with it in the persons of students at Minnesota CarletonCollege in the early 1960s. To escape the mandatory Christian chapelrequirement, as a joke on the college, they began to meet as the"Reformed Druids of North America" - and some actually becamepracticing Druids.

As it becomes more and more defined by eclectic practitioners,the practice of paganism in America is inevitably more diverse.

"It celebrates, it says yes, yes, yes, you get to choose what youwant in an individual form," Berger said. "You are in control ofyour own spirituality - for pagans, that's a positive thing."

Her question is: How different is pagan practice from that inwhich other Americans celebrate religion - take what you want andleave the rest.

Wiccans believe in the notion that divinity is both masculine andfeminine, that the connection of masculine and feminine is thecentral metaphor for the universe, Oboler said.

"Some Wiccans would tell you that ultimately divinity is one, butthat 'we' venerate it in the persons of the god(s) and goddess(es).This can also be viewed as symbolic of the masculine and feminineenergy in both men and women."

Wiccans also believe that the divine is in the world, and notoutside it, Oboler said.

"The main point is that we can have an impact, we can changeconditions in the natural world to our will."

That might be termed magic. But magic, in the world of Wicca, isvery frequently seen as a natural law humans haven't yet understood.

Eighty-five percent of Wiccans she surveyed when attending groupgatherings around sabbats, or holy days, believed in reincarnation,she said.

And Wiccans also believe in a principle they call the Rede,Oboler said. In its fundamental form, it means that as long as youdon't hurt anyone, you can do what you want.

Paganism in the United States, with its individualism, emphasison nature, and countercultural ethos, also brings some uniquelyAmerican elements to the table. The next commentary will examine howthese play out in the lives of individual practitioners.

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