Neo-Paganism - Endnotes

1. Acts 17.
2. The term neopagan is technically correct, but we can use the shorthand term pagan, as neopagans themselves do.
3. Pagan was also used derogatorily to mean a country hick.
4. Similarly, heathen is a Nordic word meaning `one of the hearth’ who worships the gods of the land.
5. Paganism does not include eastern religions or philosophies. Recently, however, eastern religions and psycho-technologies are becoming more prominent, but Satanism is shunned by neopagans.
6. Graham St John is referring to an Australia gathering called ConFest.
7. Figures gathered from ConFest.
8. Part of the Wiccan tradition is the ‘renaming’. Adoption of a new name allows people to write without fear of being identified. Some witches and neopagans have lost jobs and been harassed by those who don’t understand the nature of the religion.
9. Kemp notes that this is the origin of the word ‘panic’.
10. Science fiction has become as much a part of the pagan way as the old myths.
11. Worshipping the goddess and her male consort, the horned god.
12. New Agers focus on the transcendent, neopagans on the immanent.
13. Many pagans shun the media, some even refusing to own a television set.
14. Most pagans believe in reincarnation, which does not have its roots in ancient western religion but has been imported from the East.
15. Celtic ritual shafts, also known as `offering pits’, have been discovered in Ireland. Perceived as openings to the underworld, they date from as early as 2000 BC. Two hundred feet deep, many have a wooden stake at the bottom!
16. Wiccans spell magic in this way to differentiate between Wiccan ritual magick and ‘Disneyland’ fantasy, a distinction made, it appears, in the last ten years. Adler does not use this spelling. Other newly coined words are Theaology and Wytch.
17. Most pagans reject drugs and sexual activity as valid mediums, even though the ancients often used them.
18. An esbat is ritual done at full moon.
19. Many modernists cannot understand how neopaganism, with its lack of missionary zeal, structure, money and formal organisation, can be spreading so fast. Postmodernism will hopefully help the church return to its core: worship and ritual.
20. The emphases of the Earth Bible mirror much of pagan ecology. Many pagans subscribe to the Gaia theory that the earth is a living entity.
21. Keynote address at `Magic Happens’ Witchcraft Festival, Melbourne, December 2001.
22. `Frequently Asked Questions about Paganism’, Temple of the Dark Moon, Adelaide.
23. `Wicca - Bringing the Ancient Teaching into the New Age’, Temple of the Dark Moon.
24. Johnson notes that some leading Christians have not hesitated to refer to the motherhood of God. `Such figures include John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Venerable Bede, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen and Anselm [and] even the Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther’.
25. Gerald Gardner first came up with the figure of nine million.

Neo-Paganism - Conclusion
Neo-Paganism - References

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