End-of-pandemic hopes rise, just in time for pagan holiday Osta

Buzz on social media is forecasting a more robust celebration this year for Ostara, the pagan holiday adapted as Easter by Christian

Photo by Arno Smit/Unsplash/Creative Commons
March 19, 2021
By


(RNS) — For many of Laurie Cabot’s neighbors in Salem, Massachusetts, the vernal equinox, the first day of spring, is a sign of hope that warmer weather will soon bring relief from a long pandemic winter spent mostly apart. For Cabot, the official witch of Salem, the day known in pagan communities as the festival of Ostara will have a more profound meaning.

Cabot is one of the trailblazers who brought the practice of witchcraft “out of the broom closet” nearly 50 years ago, in part by publishing several books, including, “Celebrate the Earth: A Year of Holidays in the Pagan Tradition,” that demystified earth-based practices.

As the founder in 2010 of the Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple — the “first federally recognized Temple of Witchcraft in the history of Salem, Massachusetts,” according to its website, Cabot has also presided over decades of Ostara rituals. But this year’s festivities will be different.

RELATED: Natural by nature, pagans expect some digital rituals to survive the pandemic

The Wheel of the Year, with eight sabbats. Image via the Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple

Ostara is one of eight sabbats, or holidays, in the Wheel of the Year, the pagan spiritual calendar. It is a time of balance — with equal hours of light and dark — and renewal. As vaccination numbers climb and pandemic restrictions are eased, this year’s celebrations will look forward to a collective re-emergence from lockdowns and quarantines. The suffocating nature of too-close quarters, loneliness and days spent staring out of windows are coming to an end.

“Ostara is a time to spring into action and sow the seeds for the rewards of the months to come,” Cabot said. “The world can see the relevance as we step forward into rebirth and a reinvention of what was. The balance comes in stepping forward with compassion, kindness, and bringing forth all of the other aspects of consciousness that give us strength and bring us closer together.”

Chas Clifton, author of “Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America” and a pagan practitioner for more than 40 years, expects this year’s Ostara to be celebrated with more feeling. “Largely through pagan social media, I have seen indications that this year’s Ostara will carry some extra power,” said Clifton, who is also editor of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. “Emergence from what has felt like a year of shadow life, combined with the fact that Ostara falls on a weekend this year, may make for a more robust celebration of this normally low-key festival.”

Although Christians adapted several Easter symbols from Ostara — such as bunnies and decorated eggs — it is normally one of the lesser-known pagan holidays.

Image by Rebekka D/Pixalbay/Creative Commons

“The name is a variation of “Eostre,” Clifton explained, “which, according to the English monastic chronicler Bede, was the name of a Germanic goddess who was celebrated by the pagan Anglo-Saxon people in the spring during ‘Easturmonath’ and associated with springtime and the dawn.”

Historians think that Bede may have mistaken a Germanic dawn goddess related to the Greek “Eos” for a seasonal goddess, noted Clifton. He explained that while other Christian cultures took the name for Easter from the Hebrew “Pesach,” or Passover, Germanic and English cultures employed a form of Easter.

Ostara rituals differ greatly among practitioners. While some adherents prefer solitary activities like meditation and springtime planting, others choose to celebrate in larger groups or covens.

The Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple is celebrating its own cyclical rebirth of a sort. Having lost access to the venue where its seasonal rituals had been held in the past few years, the temple is returning to the historic Hawthorne Hotel in downtown Salem (where a memorable episode of the ’60s sitcom “Betwitched” was filmed) for its Ostara celebration. The hotel is where Laurie Cabot taught some of her original classes in the 1970s.

“The few staff members who have remained at the Hawthorne all these years, as well as some new wonderful people, accepted us with open arms,” she said. “Out of something dark came something uplifting and wonderful.”


Laurie Cabot. Courtesy photo

The ritual, which will take place at the hotel on Saturday (March 20), will be streamed on Facebook Live. Penny Cabot, reverend and green minister high priestess of the temple, said the ritual will honor the goddess Rhiannon, a Welsh goddess of sovereignty, transformation and fertility, and her son, Pryderi.

A lifelong practicing witch, Penny believes that all people can derive meaning from Ostara’s traditions. “There is much that we can do, witch or non-witch, to share in sending out positive energy into the world on Ostara,” she said.

Central to all pagan practice is a deep reverence for nature. It is from the natural energy of the cosmos — the moon and sun, the four elements — that practitioners draw power and spiritual nourishment. On Ostara, that power is found through honoring the rites of spring.

Many Ostara rituals, accordingly, involve seeds and flowers. Penny Cabot suggested gathering fresh flowers, faerie cakes (or muffins), dried cranberries (to represent winter), wildflower seeds and faerie wine (a mixture of milk, cinnamon and honey).

RELATED: In lockdown, our longing for the world could be the antidote to our spiritual anorexia

“Step into your comfortable place, either outdoors or in the sunshine,” she instructed. “Bring all of your items and place them in front of you on a table or on the ground. Raise your right hand to the sky and walk, counterclockwise, in a circular motion. Say these words: ‘I bring harmony to this place.’”

After dividing the offerings into four parts, she pours four bits of faerie milk onto the ground. (If indoors, she recommends putting the parts in four small cups.) She then says, “I bring prosperity and abundance into my world. I send balance and compassion into the universe for the good of all. So it is done.”

Clifton pointed to a similar ritual from the Druid tradition composed by pagan author and priest John Beckett, which “begins with offerings of bread and water to one’s ‘ancestors of blood and spirit,’ to the land spirits, and to the Celtic mother goddess Danu.”

At the heart of the ritual is the planting of seeds. The petitioner pledges to “join in your great work creating and nurturing life and love.”

Pagan sues Panera Bread Company alleging religious discrimination

A former baker for the chain said she was told that she 'needed to find God,' according to a court filing.

A former employee of the Panera Bread in Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania, is suing the company on grounds of religious discrimination. Screenshot from Google Maps

March 27, 2021
By Heather Greene

(RNS) — A Pennsylvania woman filed a lawsuit Wednesday (March 24) against Panera Bread Company, alleging that she was discriminated against and fired due to her pagan beliefs.

Tammy McCoy, of Clairton, Pennsylvania, was hired as a baker at the Panera location in nearby Pleasant Hills, a Pittsburgh suburb, in October 2019. According to the filing, she “never discussed her religion or religious beliefs at work” because she felt the subject was private.

Paganism is an umbrella term used for a number of different growing religious and spiritual practices centered on nature and magic.

According to the lawsuit, the subject of McCoy’s religion came up in late May of 2020, when McCoy was on break with the store’s assistant manager, Lori Dubs, and the manager, Kerri Ann Show. Show asked McCoy what her religion was, and Tammy responded, “I am Pagan.”

Show reportedly responded by telling McCoy that she was going to hell, and Dubs “vigorously nodded her head in agreement.”

The lawsuit then goes on to describe a series of other discriminatory actions. Among the complaints are that McCoy’s hours were cut, and when she asked why, she was told that she “needed to find God” before returning to her “previous schedule.” She was reportedly docked pay for breaks that she did not take.

McCoy alleged that she asked to be transferred to a different store, to which the district manager reportedly said, “No,” and, “We’re probably going to get rid of you anyways.”

A call to Panera’s corporate human resources went unanswered.

According to the lawsuit, the threats continued and turned violent at times, allegedly creating a “hostile work environment.”

On July 27, McCoy said she was told to give notice that she was leaving her job. Both she and her husband, who also worked at Panera and was not otherwise mentioned in the case, were fired, according to the suit.

The lawsuit, which was filed in a Pennsylvania federal court, states that McCoy’s civil rights were violated under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

McCoy declined an interview. Panera did not answer a request for comment.

The Rev. Selena Fox, executive director of the pagan civil rights organization Lady Liberty League and senior minister of Circle Sanctuary, has reached out to both McCoy and Panera Bread Company.

“Pagans are continuing the quest for full equality, liberty and justice in the U.S.A. and other parts of the world,” Fox said.

“Although there have been a variety of pagan rights legal victories, unfortunately, anti-pagan prejudice, harassment, discrimination and defamation still happen.”

Lady Liberty League (LLL) was founded in 1985 during the “Satanic Panic,” when pagans were regularly confronted with similar situations at work and in their communities. “It is essential to stand up to anti-pagan hate and attacks whenever and wherever they occur,” Fox said.

Most typically, Lady Liberty League fields complaints related to “child custody, business, zoning, housing and job discrimination.”

Fox added that there has been a noticeable uptick in discrimination over the past four years.

The LLL team is “in the early stages of looking into the case,” she said, and they are concerned for McCoy and for the greater community. “Discrimination against pagans not only harms the individuals directly impacted in a case, but pagan people and society as a whole,” Fox said.

As of Friday, the organization has not spoken to McCoy or received a response from Panera’s corporate headquarters.

LLL is chiefly interested in speaking with the company’s diversity officers, said Fox, who added that she “understands an unwillingness for a company to discuss particulars of a lawsuit that is in process.

“It is our hope to be able to have direct dialogue with Panera Bread at the corporate level about the importance of stopping and preventing discrimination against pagan workers. We have had positive experiences with such conversations with other corporations and institutions we have contacted over the years.”

McCoy’s lawsuit claims that she was fully qualified to do her job and that the harassment and firing were solely due to her Pagan religious beliefs.

The series of actions taken by the store’s managers, and later by the district manager, as stated in the filing, were “committed with intentional and reckless disregard for (McCoy’s) protected rights.”

McCoy’s lawyer, Michael J. Bruzzese, is asking the federal court for a jury trial.

As the pioneers of modern paganism die, fears grow that their wisdom will be lost

THANK THE GODS THEY ALL WROTE BOOKS

Today’s young Wiccans and witches tune in to social media for community.

(Image from Pixabay/Creative Commons)

August 1, 2024
By Heather Greene



(RNS) — The contemporary pagan community, unlike many traditional religions, has had direct access to its living founders for decades. Now many of those pioneers, born in the 1940s, are “crossing the veil,” a common pagan phrase. And their stories may be going with them as interest in their legacy wanes among younger generations in a changing world.

“Each death of old friends and contemporaries feels like another bit of my soul is being ripped away,” said Oberon Zell in an email interview with Religion News Service.

Zell, who now resides in North Carolina, co-founded the pagan Church of All Worlds in 1962. He is a well-known author and a long-respected figure in the pagan movement since its inception.

“We felt like pioneers, venturing into unknown territory of our imaginations,” Zell said. “We’d grown up as bright kids, often bullied.”

He believes that this “peer disdain” bred their creativity and courage to be “fearless.”

Zell’s group eventually mingled with the emerging Wiccan community, occultists and other magical practitioners. Their mission, he said, was “to make the world safe for people like us, and I believe we succeeded.”


Oberon Zell. (Courtesy photo)

Today, those young pioneers are now elders in their 70s and 80s, and every year sees the loss of a few more.

Wiccan priestess Mary Elizabeth Witt, known as Lady Pythia, died in June near the summer solstice, a widely celebrated pagan seasonal holiday honoring the longest day. “Trust her to wait for the brightest light to see her off on her journey,” her sister said.

While not as nationally known as Zell, Pythia was a key player in a largely decentralized, growing religious movement. She was co-founder of the Ohio-based Coven of the Floating Spring and became a trusted voice and leader within the Covenant of the Goddess, a national organization for Wiccans and witches.

RELATED: Rabbi David Wolpe’s pagans aren’t the ones I know

This year also saw the loss of author and Wiccan high priest Ed Fitch, who became a national figure in those early years. Among his many achievements, Fitch spoke publicly in support of witchcraft and was editor of one of the first U.S. witchcraft magazines.

Derrick Land had the “rare opportunity” to meet Fitch near the end of the author’s life. “It is different to have a (live) conversation with such a person” than just reading their books or seeing them on television.

Derrick Land. (Courtesy photo)

Land is the high priest of Shadow Wolf Coven, a Wiccan group in Austin, Texas. He is also the co-founder of Austin Witchfest, a popular pagan event held every April.

Being able to “tap the shoulder of an elder is priceless,” Land said.

Those trailblazers, as he calls them, were not only birthing a new religion, but were also activists, and Land urges his own students to never “lose sight” of that legacy.

“We are able to practice safely because of them,” he said. “It wasn’t that long ago.”

Land, who considers himself a xennial — a person born at the cusp between Generation X and millennials — acknowledged that today’s young pagans are far less impressed with those trailblazers than he, and he is not alone in that observation.

Paganism has evolved since Land began his pagan journey in the 1990s. There is a greater diversity of practice and less dependency on in-person training. More pagans are solitary, or practicing entirely by themselves. A decentralized movement has become even more so.

One main factor, according to our interviewees: social media.

Beckie-Ann Galentine, a millennial in Virginia who first found a witchcraft community through Tumblr, grew up in a rural community in Pennsylvania with no access to in-person groups. She read “anything she could find,” with no guidance on what was authentic.

When she discovered Tumblr’s magical community, she was hooked, describing its members as “breathing their authentic self.”

But there were pitfalls, Galentine said.

Beckie-Ann Galentine. (Courtesy photo)

“I had no conception of misinformation,” she explained, and the digital community eventually proved to be largely “driven by vanity.” The witch aesthetic was more important than spiritual practice. That was 2006.

“It was a crash course,” Galentine said, “on getting exposed to people, rather than having a deliberate goal.”

She believes that her early learning experience, from books to Tumblr, is a “perfect example” of what happens when you don’t have guidance from elders.

“Social media influencers are not a substitute for an elder or mentor,” Galentine said, recognizing the irony. Galentine has since become a popular social media influencer, known as My Bloody Galentine.

In the 2000s, she didn’t know the early pioneers existed. Very few elders were active online and, if they were, their voices were often drowned out by the “loudest social media voices.”

When you “only look at the beacons” on social media, Galentine warned, you miss the deeply personal connections that form from in-person connections.

“I don’t want to say it’s not possible,” she added, but without having guidance or a personal community connection, “it makes (learning) way messier than it needs to be.” She points to her own experience.

Galentine, however, stressed the need for discernment in choosing whom to follow. Some teachings are “deeply problematic,” she said, while others are simply no longer current in a changing pagan world.

Galentine, now a leader herself, typically directs young pagans to relatively new authors who connect well to the younger generation, but she still recommends the classic “Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft” — first published in 1986 and often referred to as “Buckland’s Big Blue” — as “a point of perspective,” she said.

“It may not make sense. But start there,” Galentine advises.

The author, Raymond Buckland, originally from London, is one of the most well-known pagan trailblazers and was instrumental in bringing Wicca to American shores. He died in 2017.

Discernment, as Galentine described, has since become central to the social media engagement of paganism’s youngest representatives, according to Luma Notti, a digital media professional and Gen Z witch in Minnesota.

RELATED: As witchcraft becomes a multibillion-dollar business, practitioners’ connection to the natural world is changing

Luma Notti. (Photo by Lilly St. Laurent)

She believes that this critical skill is fueling, in part, the waning interest in the pioneers. “Many Gen Z folks look critically into witchcraft, New Age beliefs, politics and consumerism,” Notti said.

They are having “real conversations about spiritual psychosis and toxic spirituality,” she explained. “More than half of them are cautious about brand authenticity.” Just being a famous pagan doesn’t impress them much.

For Gen Z, she added, “consumerism, colonization and appropriation are intertwined.” And many of these concerns, along with others, are absent from early pagan teachings.

The digital media experience of Gen Z pagans, overall, is vastly different from that of millennials like Galentine. Gen Z members understand the concept of misinformation and other pitfalls because they grew up with it, Notti said.

“There is a lot of research on the loss of identity and subcultures of Gen Z because of being raised in the digital era and experiencing coming of age during lockdown,” she added. “Many Gen Zers are just trying to survive.”

Pushing back against stereotypes, Notti said: “Millennial and Gen X witches have asserted their presence (online) and already have a particular perception of Gen Z witches and spiritual practitioners.”

It isn’t all aesthetics, she insisted. Notti used the phrase “low key” to describe the trend in Gen Z pagan practices.

“We don’t want to make our practice our entire personality,” she explained. They are unconcerned with labeling how they practice, Notti added. But they still do seek community and often online.

But not always. Land said he has never had a problem finding new students for his Wiccan group and always sees young people enjoying Austin Witchfest.

Buckland’s “Big Blue” decades later still remains an educational staple.

So what does Zell think of all of this, decades after the movement began?

He sees no problem with any of it. “The diffusion at the periphery (of the pagan community) is the main indication” of the pioneers’ success, he said, proudly.

“It’s exactly as I envisioned and hoped it would be,” he said. “We have gone from a scary, paranoid, isolated and persecuted minority to an interesting mainstream phenomenon.”

All these decades later, Zell is still invited to speak at festivals, conferences and other events.

“It’s like having Grandpa at Thanksgiving dinner,” he said. “I’m delighted to see new generations of pagans coming in to take the place of those who are passing away.”

A modern witch celebrates the cycle of life and death at the confluence of cultures

This time of year, a bruja, or witch, practices central Mexican Indigenous rituals and modern pagan ones, both honoring the Earth and “us as individuals as part of nature.” But the holidays of the Day of the Dead and Samhain are not the same.

The Rev. Laura Gonzalez poses after teaching about Day of the Dead at a bookstore in Chicago in 2019. Courtesy photo

October 28, 2022

By 

Heather Greene

(RNS) — As Americans of all faiths prepare for Halloween with costumes and candy or the Day of the Dead with food and flowers, the pagan community is also preparing for its holiday celebrating death and rebirth.

Samhain is the third and final harvest festival of the pagan Wheel of the Year, as the holiday calendar is known in many Earth-based religions.

“(Modern) Pagans have incorporated the seasonal concern with the dead in a holy day that celebrates the cyclicity of life, death, and rebirth,” writes folklorist and pagan scholar Sabina Magliocco in her book “Witching Culture.” 

Not unlike the Day of the Dead and Halloween, Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “Sow-en”) includes feasting and honoring one’s ancestors, though those celebrating Samhain are likely to add some divination. Based largely on Irish folk religion, it is a time when the divide between the physical and spiritual worlds are believed to be thin.

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The Rev. Laura González, who is a practicing witch and a pagan educator and podcaster in Chicago, celebrates all three. “(My practice) is a hodgepodge,” she laughs.

The Rev. Laura Gonzalez celebrating Tlaxochimaco 2022 in Little Village, Chicago. Courtesy photo

González merges modern paganism with Mexican traditions, including practices indigenous to central Mexico, where she is from. “At their core, modern paganism and these indigenous practices both honor the Earth,” she said. Nature reverence is essential, she said, to her spiritual path.

“Let me describe to you what happens in my life,” González said in a phone interview. On Oct. 1, the decorations go up for Halloween, a purely secular holiday for her. Then, around Oct. 27, she sets up a Day of the Dead altar to honor deceased relatives, as most Mexicans do about this time, she said. “My mother died on Oct. 27, 2011. I believe it was her last wink to me,” said González.

Since then, González has been honoring her mother with bread and coffee but has also made it her mission to teach others about the Day of the Dead and its origins. She teaches those traditions as well as modern paganism both locally and over the internet at the pagan distance-learning Fraternidad de la Diosa in Chihuahua, Mexico.

On Samhain, González always hosts a small ritual for her Pagan students and participates in Samhain celebrations, either as an attendee or organizer. Some years she travels to Wisconsin to be with fellow members of the Wiccan church Circle Sanctuary.

Samhain is traditionally honored on Oct. 31, but some pagans celebrate it Nov. 6 or 7, an astrologically calculated date. Regardless, group celebrations must often yield to modern schedules, and González said she will celebrate an early Samhain this year.

“My (Samhain) celebration is for the ancestors and for the Earth going into slumber — the Goddess goes to sleep,” González said. She likes to focus her ritual on modern pagan trailblazers, often referred to as “the mighty dead,” rather than on her relatives, which she honors on the Day of the Dead.

González’s central Mexican indigenous practice and her modern pagan practice, rooted in  northern Mexico and the United States, “are very similar,” she added, both honoring the Earth and “us as individuals as part of nature,” something she believes has been lost in modern Day of the Dead traditions. However, she quickly added, “Indigenous practices are not pagan.”

Growing up in Mexico City, González was surrounded by mainstream Mexican culture, with Day of the Dead festivals and altars. As she was exposed to the Indigenous traditions that are still woven through Mexican culture, she explained, she began to study folk magic and traditions, as well as “Native philosophies.”

The Day of the Dead, she said, “is the ultimate syncretic holiday,” a merger of the European-based Catholic traditions with Indigenous beliefs and celebrations. “The practices brought to Mexico by the Catholic colonizers were filled with pagan DNA,” she said. All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day contain remnants of traditional Samhain and other older beliefs, she noted.

“These colonizers came to a land filled — filled — with skulls and its imagery,” she said, which must have been frightening and somewhat of a culture shock, she added.

An altar during Tlaxochimaco 2022 commemorations in Chicago. Courtesy photo

González is now actively participating in the revival of the Indigenous traditions as a teacher and celebrant. The Indigenous holiday, she said, is a 40-day celebration. The first 20 days is called Tlaxochimaco, or the birth of flowers, and the second is Xoco Huetzi, or the fall of the fruit.

“We all are flowers,” she explained. We grow, flower, bloom and then become fruit. Eventually falling and becoming seed, and the cycle continues. The Aztecs “used this mythology to describe life and life cycles,” she said.

“But there are people who do not make it to fruit. They die young,” González explained. These people are honored during Tlaxochimaco.

During Xoco Huetzi, celebrations are held to honor those who have made it to old age before passing. Both festivals traditionally involve dancing, she said, which is considered an offering to the dead. 

The 40-day celebration was eventually condensed into two days aligning with the colonizers’ Catholic traditions, she said, becoming the modern Day of the Dead celebration, a holiday that is quickly becoming as popular north of the Mexican border as Halloween is.

While González is not offended by purely secular Halloween celebrations, even with its classic depiction of witches, she struggles with the growing commercialization of the Day of the Dead. “I know what I am, and I know what I celebrate,” she said, speaking of Halloween. “I find it funny that the wise woman has been made into something scary.”

What does offend her is people dressed as sugar skulls. “It’s a double-edged sword,” González said. “It’s a source of pride knowing the world loves our culture,” she said. However, she added, “You love our culture, you love our music, you love our food, you love our traditions, you love our aesthetics, you love our parties and holidays, you love all of that, but you don’t love us.”

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An example of a Samhain altar. Photo by Heather Greene

This is the definition of cultural appropriation, she added.

“The world is filled with racism, discrimination, colorism, classism,” she continued. “There is a disconnection between the thing and the people who made the thing.” She likened this to a second wave of colonization.

Her recommendation: “If you like Day of the Dead stuff,” she said, “shake a tree and a Mexican artisan will fall from it. Buy Mexican. You will benefit the very people who have created the aesthetic,” she said. “The big box stores don’t need your money,” she said, but Mexican and Mexican American families do.

Many pagans, especially in the growing Latino pagan community, do honor multiple traditions like González, particularly around the time when the holidays align.

“I think it’s important to recognize where we come from and how we survive whatever challenges our ancestors had,” said González. Samhain, Day of the Dead and the Aztec traditions “are, after all, a celebration of life and their lives.”

Secret Belief Means Wagner’s Most Dangerous Men Won’t Back Down

Will McCurdy

The Daily Beast
Mon, September 4, 2023

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Reuters

All eyes are on the Russian mercenary group Wagner in the aftermath of a mysterious plane crash that presumably killed the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, last week. Angry over what many suspect was an assassination plot ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, many factions within the infamous mercenary group are now emerging with shadowy threats of vengeance and violence.

The “Rusich” Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group, a Wagner-linked unit of fighters that have received additional sanctions for “special cruelty" in battles in the Kharkiv region in Ukraine, has recently taken to Telegram to post one such ominous warning. “Let this be a lesson to all. Always go all the way,” the group said in a statement after the plane crash.

There’s good reason for Vladimir Putin to take threats from Rusich, and other like-minded Wagner fighters, seriously.

That’s because behind the headlines, many of the Wagner units most known for their violence—including the Rusich battalion, and even the now-deceased commander Dmitry Utkin—are fighting what they believe is a spiritual battle, taking religious and ideological inspiration from sources far removed from the Russian mainstream.


These soldiers are shunning Jesus, Mary, and the Russian Orthodox patriarchs, and instead booking to Gods such as Perun— the ancient Slavic god of thunder and lightning—for protection and inspiration.

Members of the far right Russian paramilitary unit Rusich take a walk in the Kremlin square during a break in their participation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
STR/NurPhoto/Getty

The “Rusich” battalion is formed almost entirely of adherents of a variant of Slavic neopaganism known as “Rodnovery,” according to former unit commander Alexei Milchakov’s interviews with local Russian media. Marat Gabidullin, who served in the Wagner group from 2015 to 2019 and rose to the rank of commander in Syria, also confirmed these reports to The Daily Beast.

Members of the Rusich group, which has been active in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Africa, and Syria since 2014, have often adorned their badges, tanks, and banners with images of what’s known as the ‘kolovrat’. This spinning wheel—one of the critical symbols of the pagan revivalist belief system—could be easily mistaken for a swastika by the untrained eye. Pagan symbols such as the ‘Valknut’ and ‘Black Sun’ have also frequently appeared on the groups’ uniforms and banners.

These pagan symbols have prompted disgust and confusion in several news outlets, in both Ukraine and Africa, due to the symbols bearing a distinct similarity to the SS imagery of Nazi Germany. Outside of the Rusich unit, these pagan beliefs are common among members of the Wagner Group, and the Russian military more widely, according to several sources who spoke to The Daily Beast.

‘Rodnovers’ practice polytheism, the belief in multiple gods, roughly seven, all said to be manifestations of the one true god Rod. These ideas began to take root in the ’90s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and state atheism led to a revival of religious faiths of all kinds, including Christianity.

Men are hugely overrepresented in Rodnovery, particularly those involved in martial arts clubs and the heavy metal community, where its imagery often crops up. A core text of Rodnovery, “The Book of Veles” places the Slavs as a type of chosen people, with a unique destiny. Though texts like the above have proven likely to be 19th-century forgeries and much of the faith represents guesswork based on incomplete records from Medieval scholars, that hasn’t stopped these beliefs from slowly rising in popularity.

There are estimated to be between several 100,000 to several million Pagans in Russia, divided between different sects with quite diverse beliefs. The deity that receives the bulk of the attention, at least among male devotees, is Perun, a deity who in the Book of Veles engages in constant war against the forces of evil, not unlike the popular Norse god Thor. The belief in reincarnation is also common among believers.

Gabidullin, the ex-Wagner soldier, told The Daily Beast the practice of Rodoverny within the group as merely a type of “fashion hobby” for a marginalized community of soldiers.

The ex-mercenary says the popularity of these beliefs stems from the “laziness to study the scientific school of history” and the desire to find a justification “for self-aggrandizement in the past.” He terms the vision of the history of Rodverners in Wagner as an: “invented version with great ancestors and achievements.”

Expressing sympathy with Rodnovery may even get you promoted within the Wagner Group. A group of anonymous informants, who served in the Wagner group in Syria, told a Ukrainian publication Radio Liberty in 2018 “it is desirable to be a Rodnover” to progress in the Wagner group.

Hundreds of Wagner Men Vanish From Putin’s Designated Exile

Gabidullin, in a previous interview with a Russian language publication, has alleged that Dimitry Utkin, the group’s recently deceased commander, has Pagan beliefs of his own, alleging the general has multiple Rodnovery-inspired tattoos.

Portraits of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin are seen at a makeshift memorial in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia August 27, 2023.
Anastasia Makarycheva/Reuters

The insider also alleged that there was “an ideological department within the Wagner PMC (private mercenary company),” formed back in 2019 that is promoting the movement, which he derides as merely a “disguised form of Nazi ideology.”

Denys Brylov, a Ukrainian scholar focused on religion in the Slavic world, believes that the actual specific religious practices of the Rodnovers serving in Wagner may come secondary to the wider ideological component it can provide for soldiers.

Brylov believes that for Wagnerites neo-paganism is attractive due to its ability to provide a spiritual justification for the “cult of force”. In these types of fringe, hardline interpretations of pagan beliefs, the very act of battle or the shedding of blood can be “considered as an act of sacrifice to the pagan patron deities of warriors and war.”

That said, Brylov feels that in many cases persons “inclined to cruelty” may simply gravitate to neo-pagan ideology to justify these instincts, rather than the beliefs themselves being inherently warlike.

Rusich commander Alexei Milchakov, for instance, went viral on VK—effectively Russia’s Facebook—for beheading and eating a puppy, while barely out of his teenage years, and well before he joined the army. He would later joke he respected canines' rights to be “1-tasty, 2-fried, 3-not have a lot of veins and bones.”

Neopaganism in the West, which started to first grow in the 1960s, has yet to shake lingering associations with flower power and the hippie movement, though this hasn’t always been the case. Norse Neopaganism, the revival of old Viking and Northern European religious traditions, has often been co-opted by the far right, both in Scandinavia and in the U.S. Popular heavy metal musicians such as the Norwegian Varg Vikernes, who has served a 15-year jail sentence for murder, employ long-winded, fairly academic descriptions of Nordic paganism as a justification for antisemitism and a protest of what they view as the corrupting influence of Anglo-American liberalism. In the U.S., Norse revivalist ideas have become popular in Neo-nazi or skinhead groups, and there are even seen Asatrú ministries—a type of revivalist Norse paganism—popping up in jails across the country.

Western neo-pagans, at least between the 1960s and early 1980s, generally but by no means always, leaned left, anti-war, and pro-environment, and were seeking a more earth-centric religious philosophy. Now, western neo-pagan movements have shifted to include large numbers of individuals from across the left and right of the political spectrum.

Still, there is a definite bent towards libertarianism, according to Adrian Ivakhiv, a professor at the University of Vermont who has conducted research into Ukrainian pagan revivalism, which includes 'Ridnoviry,’ among other overlapping traditions.

Rodnovery, in contrast, tends to be marginally more socially right-wing than Western forms of neo-paganism and may portray Western liberalism and consumerism as a corrupting influence.

Rodnovers, according to Ivakhiv, ‘definitely’ often have a streak of Western anti-liberalism, because they see liberalism as a secularizing force that threatens traditional social institutions such as families and communities.

Ivakhiv feels that Rodnovery, in some but certainly not all manifestations, can play into the vaguely esoteric, right-wing sort of spirituality you can find the world over, uniting the Steve Bannon wing of the American right with the “Alexander Dugin wing” of Russian conservative politics that is intensely anti-secular.

Alexander Dugin, a Russian far-right political philosopher, is primarily known for conspiratorial rhetoric. He promotes neo-imperialist viewpoints known as ‘Eurasianism’ and characterizes Western liberalism as a spiritual evil. His popular book, The Foundations of Geopolitics, has been attributed by some sources as having some influence on Russian foreign policy and Vladamir Putin, even being called “Putin’s Brain,” although these claims are heavily disputed.

According to Ivakhiv, you would find certain strains of this anti-western thinking in both Ukrainian and Russian pagans. Ivakhiv believes this is more common among Russian pagans than in Ukraine, and many Ukrainians still see Russians as fellow slavs and blame Putin’s regime, not Russians in general, for the war.

Ivakhiv admits it is difficult to generalize, but that Ukrainian Rodnovers will tend to see as much commonality with Polish, Czech, Slovak, and South Slavic pagans as with Russian or Belarusians.

No area better demonstrates the appeal of Rodnovery among young Russian males than combat sports. In fact, these beliefs are held by some of the most successful Russian athletes. Heavyweight boxer Alexander Povetkin, who at one time held the WBA belt and had a high-profile title bout against Vladamir Klitschko in 2014, is a self-admitted pagan. He regularly wears a necklace of the Axe of Perun on his chest and on his left shoulder, and he has a tattoo of the star of Rus, another popular symbol in Rodnovery.

Povetkin has expressed some of the nationalist views that are so often parceled up with Russian interpretations of Rodnovery, telling a Russian sports publication: “I am a person who loves his homeland and his people. Therefore, consider myself a nationalist.” Though he shoots down the idea that nationalism necessarily means fascism or Nazism.

Denis Aleksandrovich Lebedev, who was also a WBA champion and was ranked as the best cruiserweight in the world at one point in 2016, has also come out as a believer, though he may have pivoted back to the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years, at least in public. Alexander Pavlovich Shlemenko, who has successfully competed in the middleweight division of UFC-competitor Bellator, has expressed pagan sympathies to local sports media.

In a collection of photos posted on the Russian social network VK, we can see members of the popular Moscow MMA club “R.O.D.b.,” potentially named after the supreme deity Rod, celebrating the key pagan festival the ‘Day of Perun.’ The aforementioned world-famous boxers are pictured wearing Rodnover garments.

Though it may be an overstatement to call combat sports clubs a recruitment pipeline for the military, there is certainly a connection there. These clubs are popular targets for Russian military advertising due to their core demographics of young males. It’s also not uncommon for the coaches and founders to have served in the Russian military, as is the case with the founder of the ROD MMA club.

Ivakhiv feels that young men involved in fields such as boxing, MMA, and military service all might be attracted to Rodnovery in part because of its traditional representations of masculinity, such as the god Perun, because it can provide a source of inspiration for hard training, a type of intense motivation that seems rooted in traditional ‘martial arts.’

Magda, a practicing Slavic pagan from Poland, who is attempting to reconstruct pagan traditions as part of the Witia Project, has her own theories about why Rodnovery might be popular with young men.

“I think that men are really lost in modern times. I think that masculinity, nobody really knows what it is anymore. Men are just looking for something that will tell them how to be.”

Magda also believes that Rodnovery may also appeal to young men because, at least in comparison to the Russian Orthodox church, it is pro-sex and physicality.

“In Slavic Native Faith, there's absolutely no question that physical stuff is part of it.”

“During Kupała, the Slavic pagan celebration of summer solstice, you are supposed to be in couples. You have the whole tradition of going off into the forest, which is where the couples were intimate. Men likely find this appealing.”

Russian language message boards dedicated to paganism, blocked to Western IP addresses, generally contain conservative viewpoints on most social issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and women’s place in society. There is also a clearly anti-establishment bent, with a number of posts critical of the Russian military's abuses of power as well as government censorship of the populace.

“A part of the searching for their own identity was basically just making up stuff,” Magda said. “You have all these crazy people nowadays, mostly men, and they get it in their head that they are the sons of Perun. Whether they are these fighters or these warriors, they have to gain fame or honor on the battlefield.

“It is just crazy,” she added.

Though many within the movement may use Rodnovery as a way to justify Russian nationalist ideals, so do many followers of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are likely more Muslims serving in the Russian army than Pagans, and yet many more Christians or Atheists. The Orthodox Church has arguably provided just as much backing for Russian Nationalism as Rodovery ever has, with Patriarch Kirill even personally blessing the invasion of Ukraine.

Still, it’s not surprising that a faith based so much on guesswork surrounding a long forgotten way of life, and with no central hierarchy, can attract devotees of questionable morals. For those who go into with a pre-existing tendency to be violent, bigoted, or nefarious, it’s a blank slate that offers a justification to do what they please.

And considering the current instability within Wagner and the Russian military more widely—that spiritual justification could spell trouble ahead.

The Daily Beast.

Christian groups step up harassment of pagan festivals

American pagans and witches depend heavily on assemblies with names like Pagan Pride and Between the Worlds to share information and camaraderie.

People attend WitchsFest USA 2022 in New York's Astor Place on July 16, 2022. Video screen grab

August 22, 2022

By 

Heather Greene

(RNS) — As widespread immunity and milder COVID-19 strains have spread across the U.S., pagans and witches, like their neighbors, have begun to gather more freely this summer at  annual community events after two years of relative isolation. So have some unwelcome guests.

Street preachers and Christian protesters have long been a fixture of earth-based religions’ gatherings as they try to distract and deter people from enjoying what are typically outdoor festivals and ritual gatherings. But this year, some attendees say, these opponents of witchcraft and paganism have become more aggressive and even dangerous.

“There were about 30 (evangelists) this year” said Starr RavenHawk, an elder and priestess of the New York City Wiccan Family Temple and organizer of WitchsFest USA, a street fair held in the city’s West Village in mid-July.

Over the past seven years, barely half a dozen of these disruptors would show up, RavenHawk said. But the groups who have appeared this year “aren’t just protesting,” she added. “They are collectively at war with us. They made that clear.”

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RELATED: What is Wicca? An expert on modern witchcraft explains.

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Starr RavenHawk. Photo via Facebook

RavenHawk said the evangelists and street preachers walked through WitchsFest, holding up signs and preaching through amplifiers. By the day’s end, their presence had caused class cancellations and vendor closings.

Without formal networks of houses of worship and often living far from fellow practitioners, American pagans and witches depend heavily on assemblies with names like Pagan Pride and Between the Worlds to share information and camaraderie. While some are held inside conference centers or in hotel ballrooms, summer events tend to be visible and hard to secure.

In 2016, Nashville Pagan Pride Day was visited by street preachers Quentin Deckard, Marvin Heiman and Tim Baptist, who marched through the event with signs, Bibles and a bullhorn. In 2017, The Keys of David Church protested Philadelphia Pagan Pride Day. In 2018, a Christian men’s group encircled a modest crowd at Auburn Pagan Pride Day in Alabama in an attempt to intimidate them.

Indoor events aren’t entirely immune. In 2018 and 2019, members of TFP Student Action, a division of American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, were joined by Catholics in New Orleans to protest HexFest, held annually at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel. Religious flyers placed under hotel doors informed attendees they were surrounded. “Your only hope is to accept defeat and surrender your life to One who created you,” read one flyer.

On the same weekend as WitchsFest USA, attendees at the Mystic South conference in Atlanta found Christian pamphlets in the lobby and on car windows outside the hotel where it was taking place. In Texas, pastor Kevin Hendrix has encouraged Christians to take a stand against the Polk County Pagan Market, held in October.

Many Pagan events are not held in public spaces for this reason, although that has been changing over the past 10 years as occult practices have found more acceptance in the public eye.

Held in busy Astor Place, a tourist crossroads, the daylong WitchsFest USA is one of the most visible pagan festivals and, therefore, one of the most vulnerable. 

“RavenHawk creates this marvelous event every year in the heart of New York City as a public celebration where everyone is welcome as long as they maintain an atmosphere of respect towards others,” said Elhoim Leafar, who was scheduled to lead a workshop at WitchsFest USA and has attended for years.

The Christian group took up a prominent position on one street corner as the festival began at 10 a.m. and began talking to attendees and preaching into amplification devices. Among them, RavenHawk said she recognized members of the NYC chapter of Christian Forgiveness Ministries, a Toronto organization that had sent visitors before.

Crowds attend WitchsFest USA 2016 in New York’s Astor Place. Photo courtesy of WitchsFest USA

After her security team asked the preachers to leave, RavenHawk called the police as she has done in past years. But, for the first time, the cops did nothing, she said.

“The Christians say nobody is being bothered,” RavenHawk was reportedly told by the officers. In past years, officers would relocate the preachers to the far side of Astor Place, where they would continue without the use of speakers, which require a permit.

This year, the Christian groups were allowed to remain at the festival with their sound amplification. According to RavenHawk, the officers called the preaching “freedom of speech.” It is unclear whether the groups had permits. 

One attendee, Soror Da Glorium Deo, said, “When the police had the opportunity to downgrade things by possibly escorting the troublemakers off the area, they chose not to de-escalate.”

The New York Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.

“(The officers) treated us as if we were invading the Christians’ space, as if they had more rights than we do” RavenHawk said. “(The preachers) were loud, and they were carrying on. Of course it was disruptive.” 

When organizers moved the workshop tent away from the corner near the preachers, the Christian groups followed. “At a certain point, the protesters were not only in the surroundings and corners of the event with microphones and banners, but inside it,” said Leafar, whose class was cancelled due to the preachers.

“We are not publicly protesting at their churches on a Sunday,” he said.

“It is not correct, moral or ethical to harass any individual in public or in private based on their individual or family beliefs,” Leafar said. He believes that this behavior comes from ignorance and a “contempt for our individual values.”

By the middle of that day, two vendors left, said RavenHawk, telling her that “they didn’t feel safe.”

RavenHawk said she is tired of “turning the other cheek.” She has called New York’s Street Activity Permits Office, the Community Board and the 9th Precinct (NYPD). “I want a paper trail,” she said. “I want to know exactly what my rights are.”

RavenHawk also called Lady Liberty League, a pagan civil rights organization based in Wisconsin, for legal advice and support.

“The United States is founded on religious freedom for all,” said Lady Liberty League co-founder the Rev. Selena Fox in a statement to RNS. “Safe gathering and the right to practice our faith is as much our right as it is anyone else’s,” she said.

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RELATED: Pagan ‘metaphysical’ shops navigate threats from Christian critics

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Some attendees have suggested that RavenHawk move the event to a less public location, such as a park or hotel.

“We shouldn’t have to move,” she said. “We fought for this location for eight years.” It took that long, according to RavenHawk, for the community board to designate “WitchsFest USA” an “annual” event. Until then she was required to reapply every year, she said, enduring questions such as, “Are you going to burn babies?”

Leafar agrees that it is important to not back down. “If we remain silent in the face of these protesters, those people who are new to our community are going to feel that they do not have the right to express themselves and pursue their individual faith openly.” 

This story has been updated.

 

Militant Neo-Pagans Neither Forgive nor Forget

Why Neo-Pagans Should be Anti-Christian and Anti-Capitalist

by Bruce Lerro / April 6th, 2025

LONG READ

Orientation

Christianity’s sinister past against Paganism
The very first commandment in the Bible says “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before me”. These Pagan Gods are claimed to be either unreal or false. Pagan statues were therefore fair game to be destroyed or desecrated. The story of the Christian destruction of the Greco-Roman Pagan world has been told by Robin Lane Fox in Pagans and Christians; Jonathan Kirsch, God Against the Gods; Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of The Classical World and Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History. There is no secret about the horrible Inquisition of the Catholic Church against heretics such as Bruno and Galileo. Lastly, feminists have made us very aware of the burning of the witches, both in Europe and in the United States in Salem Massachusetts although there is controversy over how many women were killed.

The variety of ways Pagans react to Christianity’s sinister past
How do Neo-Pagans react to these historical events? As we might expect there is a full spectrum of reactions. The more militant feminists see all the monotheist “Religions of the Book” as their enemy, not just Christianity. The whole of “patriarchy” is the problem. Z Budapest and Monica Sjöö are examples of the more militant type. These heavy hitters do not want to make nice with Christianity and mix Paganism with any monotheistic beliefs or rituals. At the other extreme there are those Neo-Pagans who want to fight for Paganism to be included as a world religion and join the Parliament of the World’s Religions. Michael York’s book Pagan Theology is an example of this. In the middle there are Neo-Pagans who are basically Pagans but want to eclectically draw selectively from aspects of monotheist religion of the liberal type. River and Joyce Higginbotham in their book Pagan Spirituality are examples of this.

Where are we going?
Part of this article is a defense of militant Neo-Paganism against the more compromising positions. I say Pagans should be anti-Christian. Neo-Paganism will be compared to Christianity across thirty categories. The second part of this piece is about why Neo-Pagans should also be anti-capitalists. I will compare Neo-Paganism to capitalism across the same thirty categories. I will close this article by showing the close relationship between monotheism and capitalism across thirteen categories.

The Fundamental Opposition Between Neo-Paganism and Christianity
Patriarchal foundations of Christianity
Suppose we give the more compromising Neo-Pagans the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument and let’s say we should forget the monstrous history of Christianity and try to work out a relationship with Christianity in the present. What this doesn’t consider is that Christianity is diametrically opposed to Paganism on ontological and epistemological grounds. For one thing, Paganism has had long historical periods in which it was centered in societies which were matrifocal though not matriarchal. It’s true that Poly-Theism existed in patriarchal societies as well, but there has never been a monotheistic society in which there was a matrifocal organization of descent or residency. Monotheism has been fundamentally opposed to gender equality.

Transcendental Nature of God
Secondly, the Pagan tradition has a history of the gods and goddesses as immanent in the world. Nature creates and recreates herself from within, without any extra-cosmic “butt-inskies” intervening. Nature is sacred. Christianity, on the other hand is foundationally a transcendental religion. Its God is above and beyond other worldly beings and sucks the sacredness out of the world. God shoots his wad before time and creates the world in a single act over seven days. But this leads to contradictions since God has to intervene periodically into history to fix what he botched.

Nature is imperfect and passive
God creates nature, nature does not create God. Nature is fallen and passive and receives its marching orders directly from God. Humanity is given the job of having dominion over nature. Nature is marginalized, a distraction at best, a temptress at worst.

God demands worship and obedience
Whether in animism or polytheism in all Paganism, reciprocity between humanity and the earth spirits, totems, ancestors, goddesses and gods, reciprocity is the name of the game. The gods and goddesses are not all-powerful and all-knowing and are somewhat dependent on humanity. This is the basis of magic. They are hardly in a position to demand obedience. For Christianity, God is worshipped. To worship is a one-way relationship going from humanity to God. God does not want nor need reciprocity. God acts arbitrarily in the case of the Jews and the Protestants. He causes suffering yet has to answer to no one.

Christian understands opposites as dualistic, mutually exclusive
For Pagans, all the spirits, totems, ancestors, gods and goddesses have strengths and weakness. There are no beings that are all good or all bad. For Pagans opposites are polar, they can turn into each other, creating new emergent synthesis.  Christianity, on the other hand, creates absolute opposites of an all-good God who is all powerful, knowing and loving. But Christianity creates another being which is absolutely evil – Satan. Because of this Christianity has a difficult time providing guidance for human life which is too complex to be put into absolutist blocks.

God of Christianity is a warring, jealous, intolerant god
It is certainly true that there have been wars in animistic and polytheist societies, but these societies never went to war over religion. Neither were these sacred sources intolerant of each other. In general, when Pagan societies encountered other spiritual beings, they either tried to see the commonalties with their beings or simply added them to the pantheon. Their philosophy was kind of “the more the merrier”. The entire history of Christianity, on the contrary has been marred by religious wars between monotheist religions, intolerance of heretics, persecutions and fanaticism of witches that has no parallel in Paganism.

Christianity understands humanity has fallen and is in need of faith
There is no such thing as original sin in Paganism. People certainly have failings but as individuals. However, there was no mark of failure that condemned the entire species. In addition, Paganism was an experiential religion. People practiced magic and sometimes it seemed to work and sometimes it didn’t but no faith in the sacred powers was required. The goddesses and gods had to be persuaded or lured but the reciprocity made faith meaningless and irrelevant. For Christianity we have the Adam and Eve tale of original sin. Humanity was cursed and was lucky to be alive. God could do whatever He wanted and humanity was expected to have faith that in the end God would show some mercy.

Most Christianity must hollow out intermediate beings

Pagan loyalties are both close at hand and far away. Furthermore, there is rarely a hierarchical relationship among sacred beings. There are earth-spirits, totems, ancestor spirits, culture heroes, goddesses and gods and each covers an expanding range of responsibility. However, gods and goddesses don’t tell earth-spirits or ancestors what to do. They each exist in an expanding plurality. In the case of Christianity, not only is there a hierarchical relationship between God and humanity, but God must wipe out all Pagan intermediaries in the extreme case of the Protestants and the Jews. For them it is the human individual, God and the Bible. Catholicism does allow intermediaries such as angels or saints, provided they are subordinate to God.

Christianity aspires to spiritual imperialism
Pagan societies at the tribal level have always been local and decentralized. Polytheistic state civilizations have been centralized politically but there is not a single centralized Pagan tradition in those societies. Usually, the peasants practiced their own kind of “earth magic” while those in the cities practiced a more urban polytheism. But even the rulers of polytheistic state civilizations did not proselytize their religion or send out missionaries. If they conquered other societies, they simply expected the subjugated population to respect their gods and goddesses while pretty much leaving subordinated groups alone to practice their own traditions. It is Christianity that began to proselytize once it gained state power, sending out missionaries in the hopes of converting everyone worthy of becoming Christian. Just as for Christians, God is imagined to be everywhere in the spiritual universe, so Christianity on earth must also be everywhere conquering the entire globe.

Table 1 contains a more exhaustive list of contracts between Paganism and Christianity. I have drawn this list from Jordan Paper’s book The Deities are Many.

Christianity as a slave religion of sick weaklings filled with resentment

At least among philosophers, I can’t think of a stronger critic of Christianity than Fredrich Nietzsche. He famously announced that “God is dead”. Unfortunately, some have interpreted this as meaning Nietzsche was some kind of atheist. Given Nietzsche’s love of the Greeks and what he imagined as early German Pagan culture, he should have said, “God is dead. Long live the gods!”. Nietzsche rightly criticized Christianity as a slave religion, a religion of a “domesticated animals, herd animals, a sick animal”. When we look at the history of Christianity it has been a history of followers, and a religion that justified oppression for the overwhelming period of its history. What did he mean by a calling Christians sick animals? Many things. For one it is a religion of passivity, a religion that gets its followers used to meekly following orders rather than seeking out spiritual experience, as he said, dancing on the slopes of Vesuvius. Christianity attempts to get people used to pining for pie in the sky waiting for them when they die.

It is also sick because it is a religion which makes a virtue out of being weak. Nietzsche says somewhere I love to see those without any claws making a virtue out of being clawless while condemning health and strength as a vice and something to be stamped out. Nietzsche said that Christian parasites in power make an ideal out of whatever contradicts self-preservation, pleasure, joy and most everything we Neo-Pagans stand for.

Nietzsche discussed resentment as the psychology of Christians. The psychology of resentment makes a virtue of wishing ill on other people while envying what they have. Nietzsche had no patience with Buddhism’s attempting to starve out desire or meditating it away. He thinks it is far braver to have like a Centaur’s desire without the desires having us. We supersede our desires; we don’t transcend them. To transcend means to be above and superior to our desires, being beyond and fundamentally unlike them.  On the other hand, to supersede desires is to fully indulge them yet wanting more, and having wings to ride them into a higher dimension. Nietzsche saw Christianity as a war of the botched against the fit. A war of slander against the here and now. Any creature who would need faith and prayer is corrupted by the virus of Christianity.

I hope I have convinced you Neo-Pagans that I have made a good case that we need not wander into Christianity imagining they have something we lack. Both historically, ontologically and epistemologically it is against everything we stand for. I will now take on objections from Neo-Pagans who want to take a softer line.

What can Christianity Possibly Offer Neo-Pagans to Make Us Think Twice? 

An identification with western esoteric vs exoteric spirituality

Some Neo-Pagans might say that militant Neo-Pagans are too extreme. For one thing, there are liberal Christians who would themselves criticize the history of Christianity and be sympathetic to Neo-Pagans. New Age spirituality makes a distinction between esoteric and exoteric spirituality. They contend that at their best, all world religions are good and all the world religions take different paths to the same end. This commonality across religions is known to only the few, and this comparative understanding of religion is called the perennial philosophy or esoteric spirituality.  Transpersonal psychologist and comparative religion scholar Ken Wilber in his books Up from Eden and Sex, Ecology, Evolutionexemplify this esoteric vs exoteric spirituality. The Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and the Anthroposophy of Rudolph Steiner are more historical examples.

On the other hand, exoteric religion is the religion of the masses. It is the leaders of exoteric religions who are responsible for all the religious wars between the religions of the book as well as Catholic and Protestant attacks on Paganism. So esoteric New Age spiritualists hold out the olive leaf to Neo-Pagans, welcoming us in. Why not take the leaf? For one thing the perennial philosophy is a synthesis of universalistic religions which include Eastern religions/philosophies like Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and Confucianism. They are all patriarchal religions and as I have tried to show the Pagan world view is diametrically opposed to them.

Furthermore, those who support the perennial philosophy are people from upper middle-class backgrounds. This is only about 10% of the population. In the United States 14% do not identity with any religious heritage. The overwhelming majority of middle-class and especially working-class people – 75% of the population – identify with either the moderate or fundamental spectrum of monotheism. So, the characteristics of monotheistic Christianity on the right side of Table I are accurate for most Christians.

Pragmatic considerations of a lack of stable public space
In addition, we militant Neo-Pagans have to admit that we do not have any public space for regular practices. At least in Yankeedom, there are no Pagan temples in which we can hold rituals and ceremonies. The Unitarian Universalists now offer Neo-Pagans a free space to use in the church and be part of it. It is tempting, yet for militant Neo-Pagans there are class issues. The Unitarians are among the wealthiest of the Protestant churches in the United States. For militant Neo-Pagans who are socialists – whether anarchist or Marxists – mixing with the upper classes raises contradictions. The problem of lack of stable public space means that for those who are not solitary Pagans, at the local level covens will continue to be held in private homes. At a regional level, while conferences and seasonal festivals have been very successful in state parks and private campsites, we still have no place to call home.

Legal protection
In the United States, Neo-Paganism has flourished from the late 1970s to today. For the most part we have been left alone by the Catholic, Protestant and Zionist authorities. However, all these religions have seen a decline in their numbers. At least one of the reasons for this is people, especially women, have left it for Neo-Paganism. Especially in the era of Trump 2.0, Neo-Pagans have good reason to fear a new kind of persecution from Catholic and Protestant fundamentalists. This is why some Neo-Pagan groups want to apply for legal status to protect themselves from harassment. But militant Neo-Pagans are concerned that preoccupation with legal standing will conservatize the movement and drain its radical, in-your-face edge way of life. In addition, living in a steeply declining civilization such as the United States, economic and political insecurity can make life much harder for Neo-Pagans that it has already been.

Civil disobedience
A more militant approach is to organize now to prepare for an attack rather than waiting until it happens and then operating in reactive mode. The more radical wing of Paganism such as Starhawk’s Reclaiming group has lots of experience with organizing Pagans into political protests using the methods of civil disobedience. These strategies and tactics could be transferred to standing-ready groups in dealing with Christian nationalists. Neo-Pagans would do well to make alliances with atheists and secularist groups such as Freedom from Religion. This group is very well organized and consists of lawyers and lay folk who defend the Constitution against Christian nationalists who try to cross the line in the separation of Church and state. They have a monthly newspaper and hold conferences once or twice a year.

Armed conflict

As citizens of the United States, we are allowed to bear arms. Most of the time people think of this as something individuals do. But there is nothing to help Pagan groups protect themselves against Christians collectively if they are attacked. Usually, liberal Pagans get nervous with talks about group arming. Also, people think that this kind of thing is inherently a right-wing activity that might be associated with the Nordic Paganism, some of whom have a racist orientation. However, there is another left-wing organization called Redneck Revolt which is anti-racist and appeals to working-class whites who are Socialists. They believe in protecting working-class people collectively. Read here for more information about them. There is certainly a lot to learn from them in applying their organizational skills to Neo-Pagan circumstances.

What I have said so far is that Neo-Pagans should keep their distance from Christianity for theoretical reasons and practical reasons. But suppose you continue to object. Ok, I will make one concession

A twelve-step program for Christians to join the Neo-Pagan community 

In my opinion some Neo-Pagans are far too accommodating of former Christians who want to jump on the Neo-Pagan bandwagon. They should be required to go through the equivalent of a 12-step program in order to have a chance at being part of a Neo-Pagan community. They should be required to read at least two books about the history of what Christianity has done to Pagans, one for the ancient world and one on Christian attacks on witchcraft. As part of their initiation, they should be required to respond a list of questions. The third process they should enact is to write down the history of any harm they might have done to Neo-Pagans in the past including any high-school encounters. The fourth is to, as much as possible, track those people down who have been harmed and make amends. Next, as part a public ritual they should make a public apology to the entire Neo-Pagan community. Finally, they should be given some volunteer work within the Neo-Pagan community to do such as making phone calls, mailing newsletters or driving equipment around to Pagan events. This would relieve the burden from committed Neo-Pagan leaders who are probably overworked and underpaid for the time they put into their organization.

Table 1 Paganism vs Monotheism (Christianity)

Paganism	Category of comparison	Monotheism (Christianity)
Matrifocal cultures developed polytheism	Matriarchy vs patriarchy	No matrifocal cultures ever developed monotheism No record of a monotheistic Goddess theology until contemporary feminism
Never celebrated celibacy	Place of celibacy	Catholic and Buddhist priests are celibate
Many truths	Tolerance	Single truth can produce intolerance. No grey areas
No heresies. Experiential	Heresies	Based on creeds – heresies prevalent
Generally, the gods and goddesses are not jealous of each other	Jealousy	Yahweh is jealous
No	Persecution	Yes. Ex-communication Christianity went from a persecuting minority to a persecuting majority
No	Fanaticism	Yes. Destroying the Alexandrian library, smashing of idols (Protestants)
No wars over beliefs	Wars	Religious wars over beliefs
Cyclic	Time orientation	Linear time
Sacred	Earth and nature	Marginalized – desacralized
Ongoing creativity in time and space	How frequently is creativity used	Creative in a single act before time
Many directions: horizontal	Directions	Single vertical direction Heaven above, Hell below
No original sin other than human selfishness	Original sin	Yes. Inheritor of Adam and Eve’s sin
Opposites are polar and change into each other	The Nature of opposites	Dualistically separated and going in opposite directions
No. All gods and goddesses have their pros and cons	Distribution of virtues and vices	God absolute god Satan absolute evil
Reciprocity, respect, reverence	How is the sacred engaged	Worship, obedience
Looked down upon Wealth is land based – foragers, horticulturalists, agriculturalists	Place or misplace of commerce	Made room for it Originated among Greece, Phoenicians. Herders
		Christianity spread in port cities In Turkey
		Islam spread along the caravan routes of Central Asia
		Catholics in Venice
No proselyting, no missionaries	Outreach	Proselytizing, missionaries
Decentralized – Paleo-Pagan Centralized – Meso-Pagan Decentralized – Neo-Pagan	Coordinated effort	Centralization once they had power
Local, regional at most	Spatial reach	Global, everywhere
Ancestors are very important among horticulturalists (reverence)	Place of the ancestors	Not very important
Social situations when the family was embarrassed	Shame vs guilt	Guilt was not group focused Individual God Guilt is continuous and unending
Gods are not all-powerful or all-knowing	Degree of power	God is all powerful God knows all
Meaningless and irrelevant	Faith	Meaningful, necessary and relevant
Mediums are ongoing and a way of life – women About past, present and future	Intermediaries	Only under extraordinary events Prophesy – men About the past
No origin. World is eternal cyclic, steady state	Origin of universe	World has origin Big bang
Myths change over time	Stability of myths	Myths are fixed and unchanging over time
Tricksters, playful and prevalent	Place of trickers	These stories exist in West they are not numinous. They can be associated with evil as with horror — or cartoon characters Deities that are numinous – are serious about sobriety

Neo-Paganism vs Capitalism
Merchants and artisans are not capitalists
In this section I will give many reasons why Neo-Paganism should want nothing to do with capitalism. But does this mean Neo-Pagans should be socialists? Yes, but I will not make the case in this article. Many Neo-Pagans are justifiably cautious about socialism if they think socialists want the state to be in charge of all economic exchanges. They fear socialists will deprive them of their livelihood. After all, many Neo-Pagans have found their new identity from inhabiting Neo-Pagan bookstores. The owners of these bookstores and occult magic stores are merchants. Furthermore, a solid core of Neo-Pagans are artisans who make jewelry, craft calendars and make sculptures of gods and goddesses.

From our point of view merchants, artisans and craftsmen are not capitalists. Markets and artisans existed all the way back to simple horticulture societies long before capitalism existed. Industrial capitalism is the private ownership of natural resources, methods of harnessing energy, tools and power settings (politics) where decisions are made about what to produce and how to produce it. These forms of capitalism include agricultural capitalism (slavery), industrial capitalism, finance capitalism and military capitalism. It is these that Neo-Pagans should be against. But how is capitalism the deadly enemy of Neo-Paganism?

No reciprocity and infinite exploitation
The heart of Neo-Paganism is that the relationship with the sacred powers is reciprocation. It is the basis of sympathetic magic. Our relationship is based on respect and reverence between us and our totems, ancestors, gods and goddesses. The gods and goddesses do not take and take and take. That would lead to breakdown. But under capitalism there are no lawful expectations that capitalists must give back. They are free to exploit as much as they can get away with. It is true eventually capitalism cannot go on this way and the results are either economic depressions or revolutions. So, workers are in the long run sometimes compensated.  But this happens socially, unconsciously. It is not something that is built into the system of capitalism by capitalists. Workers may be reciprocated but in spite of capitalists.

Capitalist idolatry
In spite of Christian propaganda, Pagans do not idolize our gods and goddesses. Sacred powers are generally understood as fluid, moving and changing. We don’t treat these sacred powers in a Platonic way where spirits are essences, Platonic ideals which are frozen and changeless. In Neo-Paganism there is little in the way of reification, in which gods take on a life of their own, where the tools or objects used are reified. It is true that some of the more superficial tendencies in Paganism might reify magical tools and treat them as ends in themselves. But this is true of any common superstition, not unique to Paganism.

However, the entire capitalist system is based on idolatry of commodities and money. In the first volume of Capital, Marx talks about the idolatrous relationship between workers and the commodities we make. Instead of commodities being used as means to consume and improve life, we reify commodities until they become ends in themselves. We become enslaved to our commodities and live through the possession of them. As Marx says, things are in the saddle. Commerce is unhinged and everything is for sale.

Secondly, money becomes a fetish instead of a means to gain commodities. In the merchant phase of capitalism, money is used as a medium to facilitate the exchange of commodities. But under the industrial phase of capitalism money changes from a means to an end to an end in itself. Money is invested in commodities, not to use the commodities but as a means to make more money. Money becomes fetishized as capital. These reifications can be tracked in our language as when we hear phrases like “money talks’ or “let your money grow” as if money were a part of organic life. Lastly, under finance capital, capital is used to make more capital and becomes completely unhinged from social life. Derivatives and stock options are reified monsters who dictate social life. The stock markets are the houses of idolatry where the traders pay homage to Mammon.

Capitalism is imprisoned in dualistic opposites
As I said in the section on monotheism opposites, Neo-Paganism understands opposites as polar, as turning into each other and as mutually co-creative. Under capitalism opposites are understood as mutually exclusive opposites:

• Workers vs capitalists
• Capitalists vs communists
• Hardworking, thrifty, shrewd capitalists vs lazy, ignorant workers

But more importantly, capitalists do not understand the contradictory nature of their system. They image their system can go on forever. Capitalists image that their significant problems about every seven years are “businesses cycles” which are self-correcting. They deny that capitalism has accumulating contradictions, which past a certain point will either degenerate into a lower order or be transformed into a higher system, a qualitative leap. As Rosa Luxemburg once said, “it’s either socialism or barbarism”. Marxist crisis theorists present various ways in which the system will end. David Harvey in his book The Seventeen Contradictions of Capitalism lays this out beautifully.

Capitalists Must Destroy Intermediaries
As I said earlier in our discussion of spiritual intermediaries, for Pagan intermediaries are welcome and they expand seemingly without limit and without a hierarchical relationship between them. At the origin of capitalism, merchants had to compete with feudal economic exchanges which cut across political intermediaries such as kingdoms, provinces, principalities and city states. Over the last 500 years capitalist used nation-states to hollow out or eliminate these political intermediaries. They used the nation-state to climb under, around and through kingdoms and provinces so that capitalist exchanges through coined money was the only game in town. Then under global capitalism the organization of societies into nation-states becomes hollowed out so that whole continents (the European Union) began to undermine nation-states.

Capitalist have overreach in spatial scale
As I said earlier, Paganism’s spatial reach is decentralized and local. Capitalists, however know no spatial limits. It first expands into nation-states but when it runs into problems in making a profit within its home nation-state it expands beyond it. There are problems within nation-states either because there is competition between capitalists in other nation-states or because its domestic workers are getting more organized to fight exploitation through unions or revolutions. They keep expanding across the globe, subjugating societies as they grow toward imperialism.

Exploitation of Nature
Just as capitalists know no limit in the exploitation of other societies, so in the biophysical world it exploits nature without limits. The result of ecological pollution is extreme weather, desertification of lands, species growing extinct, feedback systems in nature that run amuck. Instead of replenishing and repairing, we hear capitalists treating the consequences of their attack on biophysical nature as “externalities” which they see as separate from economic exchange.

Please see Table two for a full comparison between Neo-Paganism and Capitalism at the end of this article.

Table 2 Neo-Paganism vs Capitalism

Neo-Paganism	Category of comparison	Capitalism
Matrifocal cultures developed polytheism	Matriarchy vs patriarchy	Continues patriarchy with some presence of feminism
Never celebrated celibacy	Place of celibacy	Doesn’t supply celibacy No money to be made from it
Many truths	Tolerance	Cannot tolerate any socialism in the world system
No heresies. Experiential	Heresies	Yes. Heterodox economists who are isolated are rarely department heads
Generally, the gods and goddesses are not jealous of each other	Jealousy	Capitalists jealous of competing economic systems
No	Persecution	Yes. Of its own working class and the oppressed workers’ and peasants’ western imperialism
No	Fanaticism	Ideology of private enterprise Ideology of capitalism
No wars over beliefs	Wars	Wars against non-western countries and against socialism
Cyclic	Time orientation	Linear, especially after the industrial revolution. Time clocks, 14-hour days
Sacred	Earth and nature	Exploitation of nature. Pollution treated as “externality”
Ongoing creativity in time and space	How frequently is creativity used	Ongoing but unconscious collective creativity of workers
Many directions – horizontal	Directions	Vertical – class struggle between capitalists and working class
No original sin other than human selfishness	Original sin	None
Opposites are polar and change into each other	The nature of opposites	Dualistic: Mechanistic materialism vs idealist subjectivism
No. All gods and goddesses have their pros and cons	Distribution of virtues and vices	Capitalism has virtues – hardworking, thrifty, shrewd Socialist have vices Lazy, want something for nothing
Reciprocity, respect, reverence	How is the sacred engaged?	No reciprocity – infinite exploitation
Looked down upon Wealth is land based – foragers, horticulturalists, agriculturalists	Place or misplace of commerce	Unhinged commerce everywhere
Not a virtue	Suffering	No value in suffering Strive for hedonism
No. Earth spirits, rivers, gods and goddesses are moving	Idolatry	Yes. Commodity fetishism Stock market – money talks
No proselyting, no missionaries	Outreach	Capitalist imperialism covers the globe
Decentralized – paleo-Pagan Centralized – MesoPagan Decentralized—Neo-Pagan	Coordinated effort	Both decentralized competition Monopolistic corporate centralization
Local, regional at most	Spatial reach	Global, everywhere
Ancestors are very important among horticulturalists (reverence)	Place of the ancestors	Elderly not respected No ongoing homage Youth culture
Social situations when the family was embarrassed	Shame vs guilt	Guilt for working class for not becoming wealthy
Gods are not all powerful nor all knowing	Degree of power	Capitalists do have absolute power of monotheism, but they have oligarchic power
Meaningless and irrelevant	Faith	Faith in “business cycles” and market corrections that the system will never crash
Mediums are ongoing and way of life – women are primary – About past, present and future	Intermediaries	Prophets intervene with market corrections and Federal Reserve interest fluctuations
No origin. World is eternal Cyclic, steady state	Origin of universe	Steady state capitalism imagined to go on forever Capitalism at the beginning Adam Smith “truck and barter”
Myths change over time	Stability of myths	Myths do not change – American dream possible for everyone
Trickers, playful and prevalent	Place of trickers	Yes. Market is unpredictable and not subject to law
Inner – immanence	Source is inner or outer	Transcendence – Fictitious finance capital, otherworldly with no investment in real goods or infrastructure

Commonalities Between Christianity and Capitalism

• Both are patriarchal but capitalist systems had to deal with waves of feminism in the last 200 years.
• Each are intolerant– Christians of Pagans; capitalists of socialism
• Each have heresies – Christianity has religious heretics, witches; under capitalism, heterodox economists who are opposed to mainstream economics
• Both Christianity and capitalism have wars — religious wars between Christians and Muslims and capitalist wars against other capitalism nations; imperialist wars against their colonies; economic wars against socialism
• Both Christians and capitalists see nature as subordinate – Christianity says humans have dominion over nature whereas capitalists exploit nature
• Both Christians and capitalists hollow out intermediaries. Christians want to eliminate earth spirits, totems, ancestor spirit, goddesses and gods. Capitalists marginalize intermediate decentralized political bodies such as provinces, principalities, kingdoms and city states in favor of nation-states
• Spatial reach is global – proselytizing missionaries are all over the globe

Capitalist imperialism is spreading everywhere. Just as God is everywhere, capitalism is everywhere

• Both have a linear sense of time. Under capitalism with the invention of clocks, wrist watches, and time cards during the industrial revolution
• Both have a dualistic sense of mutually exclusive opposites
• Christianity or capitalism depreciates and marginalize the ancestors. Under capitalism there is youth culture to replace respect for the elders
• Both require faith. Christianity in an arbitrary and unpredictable god; capitalism in “business cycles’ and “market corrections” which explain away capitalist crises
• Divine intervention – unpredictable appearances of prophets in the case of Judeo-Christianity; Federal Reserve for capitalist interventions
• Value of transcendence – for monotheism a god who is above, before and beyond the world. For capitalism, finance capital – money made on money without any involvement in the production of goods and services

Conclusion

The purpose of this article is to persuade Neo-Pagans to take a more militant stance against both Christianity and capitalism. I began with a brief discussion of how Christianity persecuted Pagans both at the end of the Roman empire as well as in early modern Europe with both the Catholic Inquisition and the witch hunts in Europe and in Salem Massachusetts in the US. I identified eleven ways in which Christianity and Paganism are diametrically opposed to each other in irreconcilable ways. I then presented three objections more compromising Neo-Pagans might make in arguing I am being too hard on Christianity. I rebutted them but gave them the benefit of the doubt in claiming that any ex-Christians who want to join Neo-Pagan circles should have to undergo a kind of 12-step program before they are allowed in.

In the second half of my article, I turned my attention to the relationship between Neo-Paganism and capitalism. I began by addressing the concerns Neo-Pagans may have in my opposing capitalism.  I point out that being against capitalism does not mean I am opposed to Neo-Pagan bookstores, occult supply stores or artisans selling their work. These are market transactions. Markets have existed throughout much of history long before capitalism. Capitalism is a much more all-encompassing and controlling economic system that is way beyond exchange between merchants. I then named six ways in which capitalism is fundamentally opposed to Neo-Pagan ways of life.

In the last part of my article, I briefly identify thirteen ways which Christianity and capitalism share in common. What is unstated is what is the relationship between Neo-Paganism and socialism? For that I direct the reader to my book The Magickal Enchantment of Materialism: Why Marxists Need Neo-Paganism.

You can also find some of my articles in the “Perspective” section of our website Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism.

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Bruce Lerro has taught for 25 years as an adjunct college professor of psychology at Golden Gate University, Dominican University and Diablo Valley College in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has applied a Vygotskian socio-historical perspective to his three books found on Amazon. He is a co-founder, organizer and writer for Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism. Read other articles by Bruce, or visit Bruce's website.