A new definition of paganism or Why I am pagan

Originally I posted this essay about half a year ago. A lot of things have happened to me in the meantime, I had to take many steps which would have been unthinkable for me only six months ago. One of the more important of those steps was the fact that I finally distanced myself from the neo-pagan movement with which I always had a kind of ambivalent relationship. Why I still call myself a pagan - not in the neo-pagan sense but in the spirit of spiritual anarchism - I would like to outline below.

Right from the beginning of my spiritual journey I have always tended to refer to myself as “pagan” when asked about my religion. I did so regardless of what exactly my religious views had been at a given time, simply because I did not identify with the Christian mainstream and liked the rebellious overtones of using this word as a self-reference. Nor did I know at that time that there was an actual religious movement in the west whose members made use of the term “pagan” as a self-reference and proudly called “paganism” their own religion of choice.

As soon as I heard about this neo-pagan movement with its numerous streams and undercurrents such as Wicca, Reconstructionism, Druidism etc. I to set out on a journey to explore the beliefs and practices involved in modern “paganism” in order to decide for myself if what those self-proclaimed “pagans” did and believed had anything in common with what I personally meant when I called myself a practicioner of “paganism”.

This journey has lasted more than three years now and has taken me to many a strange place. It has led me to study books on witchcraft, Asatru and nature worship, to attend pagan moots and gatherings, to meet Wiccans, followers of the Goddess and people who still pray to Odin or sacrifice to the gods of ancient Greece. It even made me briefly join an eclectic pagan group myself which was composed of individuals with the mutual aim to gather first-hand experience and share whatever knowledge of paganism they already had.

However, up to this day my journey has not led me to a point at which I could wholeheartedly identify with the contemporary neo-pagan movement - neither with one of its particular streams and traditions nor with the movement as a whole. In fact, it has left me quite doubtful as to whether I will ever be able to call myself a pagan in the strict sense of “member of the actual neo-pagan religion” (and especially doubtful as to whether I even want to do so).

Since I do not feel inclined in the slightest to withdraw from my use of the term “pagan” only because a bunch of neo-pagan guys - with whom I do not fully identify - believe they had a monopoly on this label (and its definition for the rest of the world) I just decided to take a look at the origins of the word “pagan” in order to make clear where it comes from and why I take the liberty to use it as a religious self-reference.

Historically, the term „pagan“, (which is derived from lt. „paganus“ – „country-dweller“), has had a wide array of meanings and was first used by members of the Roman military for non-soldiers, in pretty much the same way we are using the term „civilian“ nowadays.
Other more distinctly religious meanings of this term span from its application by city-dwelling christianized Romans to refer to their polytheistic rural cousins, to its widespread use by medieval Christians to describe monotheistic muslims, monistic neo-platonists, the followers of classical Graeco-Roman religion etc. In fact, it can be seen very clearly that „pagan“ (as well as the related germanic term „heathen“) could mean pretty much everything which was not explicitly Christian or Jewish - including the orthodox, scriptural, monotheistic, abrahamic religion of Islam.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that the narrow use of the term „pagan“ in the modern neo-pagan sense – i.e. denoting some sort of non-Christian nature worship with polytheistic/pantheistic/animistic undertones - would mirror its actual historical meaning. To the contrary, it is indeed realistic to assume that this very specific definition of „paganism“ did not exist prior to 18th century romanticism with its obsession for natural landscapes and classical mythology.

Since I am neither an 18th century romanticist nor a member of any particular stream of modern neopaganism - but simply a regular 21st century European guy with a strong interest in alternative spirituality who calls himself a pagan for very personal reasons - I do not feel bound by this narrowed-down definition of “paganism” in any way.

When I have a closer look at the diversity of meanings and connotations the term „pagan“ could have historically I can indeed identify only one semantically correct definition of this term which covers the whole array of its possible applications: namely that of an „outsider“, one who is not a member of the prevailing religious and cultural mainstream which characterizes society at a given time. In other words, the „pagans“ have always been „the others“, in a sense of „those who do not belong to us“, completely regardless of what exactly those individuals believed or what their customs and traditions were composed of.

It is not possible to define the term „pagan“ in any more detail, at least not on historical or linguistic grounds!

Thus, consequently, using the word “pagan” in order to refer to your own religious attitude cannot be anything else but a self-ironic acknowledgement of the fact that one does not share the views of the prevailing religious mainstream - similar to the way a practicing Christian with deviating view points might jokingly refer to himself as a “heretic”. If those “non-mainstream” views comprise actual polytheism, Wicca, or simply some sort of modern new-age belief is completely irrelevant in this context.

And this now is exactly the way in which I am using the term “pagan” when I call myself one: it is an acknowledgement of my own religious non-conformism, of my refusal to be part of the predominant cultural and religious mainstream which characterizes Western society today (and which is quite evenly split into “organized Christianity” and “secular Agnosticism”). It is not a term which is necessarily related to nature worship, polytheism, pantheism or any specific religious movement, it is a term that, if used as a self-reference, should denote a general attitude towards religion rather than a particular theological agenda.

I do not need any contemporary neopagan individual or organization to define the term “paganism” for me, let alone to decide who may correctly call himself/herself a pagan and who not. In fact, after studying the modern pagan movement for several years I have more than enough reasons to be skeptical about this particular stream of contemporary spirituality.