Articles
The temple at Hatra in Iraq, destroyed last year, featured a carved figure with an acanthus-leaf beard, a possible prototype of the Green Man. On corbels and ceiling bosses and misericords closer to home, the Green Man appears as either a human torment…
Existing alongside Egyptian and Greek paganism, pre-Christian Slavic deities remain among the most mysterious ancient beliefs in history. Passed down for generations before the first written documentation, these creatures of folklore evolved completely…
The mysterious Kalash people practice an ancient form of Indo-European paganism in an unbroken tradition having survived against all odds in a remote mountain region of northern Pakistan. The isolated Chitral Valley is home to Dardic people who speak a…
In recent years, allegations of sexual misconduct in Pagan and polytheist communities have become increasingly visible. The arrest and conviction of Kenny Klein resulted in a range of public allegations of abuse levied against the musician, along with …
Encompassing over 470,000 square miles and boasting close to 1,750 miles of coastline on two oceans, South Africa is the 25th largest nation by area, also 24th largest by population. The expression “Pagan” was unknown there before 1994, at which time t…
The wicker man is purported to be among the ways in which the ancient druids made human sacrifices. According to a range of classical writers, the druids partook in human sacrifice, although these writers usually didn't define how these sacrif…
The new TV series Britannia, that has won plaudits as heralding a new generation of
A new temple dedicated to the Norse god Odin and other gods has opened in Denmark.
Is it the first Odin’s temple since the Christianization of Scandinavia, which took place between the 8th and the 12th centuries. The year 1188 AD marks the trium…
Asatru and Heathen have their place in the religious preference list of the US Army. It was a result of a five year campaign directed by the Open Halls Project. The Army has become the second br…
The Pagan Vikings had a number of gods and goddesses they worshipped. However, unlike other ancient civilizations the Vikings had neither an organized priesthood nor hierarchy of religious leaders. Temples or other religious buildings were also never u…
As Christianity spread across Europe, the Gods of native faiths were disregarded by the Church or absorbed into folklore. Some were demoted to demons in the new Christian lore. Others were changed into heroes of a mythical past where they conti…
Despite having popular appeal on the Internet, the idea that the resurrection story of Jesus was borrowed from pagan mythology has been abandoned by the vast majority of critical scholars today.1 In fact, one noted resurrection expert named Gary Haberm…
No - this article is not about UFOs or Fox Mulder! It is instead about the recent article written by Ronald Hutton in the latest issue of “The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies.” That article is entitled “Writing the History of Wi…
Recently there has been some questions posed by individuals both outside and inside the Strega tradition about the new family that has arrived to the U.S. from Italy, which calls itself the del Bosco Sacro of the Benevento. Since I personally know the …
In modern society, we’re totally past burning people at the stake, or dunking women in the town lake because our crops died. The tendrils of witchcraft have found their way into contemporary fashion, zine culture and sharp-tongued 90s rom-coms. Not tha…
Separation of church in state is good in theory, but often doesn’t manifest as such in the real world. The 12-Step model of recovery that is often mandated by the courts claims to allow everyone to chose their own conception of a higher power, yet at t…
The following are some things that help explain who Asatru are as people, and what they believe in.
The Nine Noble Virtues (Courage, Truth, Honor, Loyalty, Self-Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self Reliance, and Steadfastness). We beli…
In the first few pages of this book, we learn that the "traditional" Scots kilt was invented by an Englishman in the 1730s, the first "ancient" clan tartans by two English brothers in 1822, and that the Welsh female national costume was invented by an …
For some time now, a debate has been rolling about the status of “pagan studies” as a field of academic research. It’s not that there’s been any doubt about the importance of studying contemporary paganisms; on the contrary, academic as well as mainstr…
Although crows and ravens are part of the same family (Corvus), they’re not exactly the same bird. Typically, ravens are quite a bit bigger than crows, and they tend to be a bit shaggier looking. The raven actually has more in common with hawks and oth…
Many people still think Witchcraft doesn’t go much beyond old hags flying on broomsticks. Maybe such a view suffices when reading fairy tales to children, but in daily life it most certainly does not. Witchcraft – or Wicca as it is nowadays known – is …
The following is essentially a personal narrative of my spiritual quest leading to my involvement with Odin on a variety of levels and of various aspects. It is therefore highly subjective and perhaps biased in places. A version of this article has bee…
Thou Art God/dess
Neopagans believe that divinity is both immanent (internal) and transcendent (external), with immanence being far more important for people to pay attention to right now. This principle of immanence is fre…
In the Celtic religion, the modern words Druidry or Druidism denote the practices of the ancient druids, the priestly class in ancient Celtic societies through much of Western Europe north of the Alps and in the British Isles. Druidic practices were pa…