Anthropological terms for Pagan

Paleo-Paganism: A Pagan culture that has not been disrupted by other civilizations or other cultures. This does not include any known cultures. Indeed, this absolutely, by definition, cannot include any sort of living culture, since all cultures have been "disrupted" by their neighbors to some extent or another.
Meso-Paganism: A group, which is, or has been, influenced by a conquering culture, but has been able to maintain an independence of religious practices. This includes Native Americans and Australian Aborigine Bushmen.
Syncreto-Paganism: A culture, which has been conquered but adopts and merges the conquering culture's religious practices with their own. This includes Haitian Vodou, and Santería.
Neo-Paganism: An attempt to by modern people to reconnect with nature, pre-Christian religions, or other nature-based spiritual paths. This definition includes Asatru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asatru) and Neo-Druidism.

This system of classification completely leaves out any possibility of classifying Hindu religions or Shinto as "paganism". Likewise, it would exclude the state religion of the pre-Christian Roman Empire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v156/Ravenfjord/stone.jpg
"We are and always will be connected to Mother Earth. We are a part of Nature and therefore subject to Natures eternal laws."

Odinist Forum (http://www.odinist.com/forum)

Pagan Identity Movement (http://www.paganidentitymovement.cjb.net)

The Odinic Rite (http://www.odinic-rite.org)

Asatru Folk Assembly (http://runestone.org)

Asatru Alliance (http://asatru.org)

Odin Lives Pagan Radio (http://www.odinlives.org)

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WHITE ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles states the following: "Their leaders were two Brothers, Hengest and Horsa, who were the sons of Wichtgisel, Wichtgisel was the son of Wicht, the son of Wecta, the son of Woden. From that Woden has descended all our Royal Family. (From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.)" They live on in us. The family or clan is above and beyond the limits of time and place.

Yeah except we know very little about paganism, as Richard Fletcher makes clear in his The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity

Yeah except we know very little about paganism, as Richard Fletcher makes clear in his The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity

State your reasoning behind such a statement.

- "State your reasoning behind such a statement."


I think he means that there is little in common between "authentic," original pagans and neo-pagan poseurs who have largely made up their religion out of their own imaginations.


"Much to the chagrin of most Wiccans who are under the impression that their religion was around before religions such as Christianity and that Christianity was plagarized from Wicca the truth of the matter is is that Wicca is actually a creation of Gerald Gardner who put it together in the middle 1900s using blatant ripoffs of Aleister Crowley, Freemasonry, Egyptian ideologies and Celtic lore."

http://www.angelfire.com/wi2/thetruthaboutwicca/geraldgardner.html


Petr

I wonder if Britain has more 'pagans' or more 'jedi knights' among their 'religious' people.

- "State your reasoning behind such a statement."


I think he means that there is little in common between "authentic," original pagans and neo-pagan poseurs who have largely made up their religion out of their own imaginations.


That as well. Fletcher and other historians continually make the point we know little about pre-Christian religions, so we're not even sure what exactly the pagans converted from. Most of what we know about paganism is from Christian sources, since pagans outside the Greeco-Roman tradition were not fond of keeping records(and of course neo-Pagans defend their ill-literacy by trying to claim they "didnt need writing"). And I've already pointed out an interesting example of this in Ireland.

“Paradoxically, it was Christian poetry written in Ireland that celebrated the pagan high places of Ireland. Many of these had ceased to function for centuries before the coming of Christianity. Only the outlines of their earthworks and the great burial mounds containing prehistoric passage graves survived. But the landscape was still charged with their mute presence. The glories of these places were now evoked, as if they had only recently passed away. They provided an epic backdrop for the thriving, pan-tribal sanctuaries of Christian times…”
--Peter Brown The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity AD 200-1000 pg. 330