Home›Modern Pagan›Parent TraditionBrowse ByParent TraditionThis page groups religions by the older tradition they broke away from or grew out of. Wikipedia describes the Druze faith as having "developed out of Isma'ilism" before it "eventually separated from both Isma'ilism and Islam altogether." Browsing by parent tradition lets a visitor trace a religion's lineage back to the faith it once belonged to.FactsLearn MoreParent TraditionSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsOverviewWhat Defines This GroupingWell-attestedTwentieth- and twenty-first-century traditions that revive, reconstruct or reimagine pre-Christian religion, typically honouring many deities and marking a seasonal calendar. Some work from the historical record and say so; others are openly modern creations. 2StatusStanding as a Comparative CategoryWell-attestedA standard category in the study of new religions. Pagan here is a self-designation the movements adopted for themselves, not the ancient usage, in which it was a word for other people. 3DirectoryCategoryWell-attestedReligions 1Learn MoreModern Pagan religions This group holds modern Pagan religions: contemporary movements, mostly of the twentieth century onward, that revive, reconstruct or reimagine pre-Christian and nature-centred spirituality. They are new religious movements, though many draw sincerely on older imagery and lore. The browser will find traditions such as Wicca and the broader contemporary Pagan and nature-religion movements. The atlas presents these as modern religions, marking clearly where a practice is a recent creation and where it claims older roots.Parent TraditionFilter Results1 entryBasis of the Membership FigureAllNational Census (1)Current StatusAllA live and growing family of new religious movements rather than a single organized body. Several national censuses now record a self-identified Pagan category, though the counts vary by survey design and the boundary of who belongs is debated among both practitioners and scholars, since some traditions gathered under the umbrella, and some individual practitioners, decline the Pagan label entirely. (1)Membership Figure As OfAll2011-01-01 (1)2021-01-01 (1)Membership Over TimeAllBy the 2021 census, "Pagan" write-ins had risen to 73,737, a real rise over the decade, running the opposite direction from the Druid write-in figure counted within the same two censuses. (1)The 2011 England and Wales census recorded 56,620 people writing in "Pagan" as their religion (53,172 in England, 3,448 in Wales), the umbrella write-in category covering Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry and unspecified Pagan identification together. (1)Origin AccountAllOrganized modern Paganism traces its public beginnings to mid twentieth century Britain, where Gerald Gardner's public presentation of Wicca from the 1950s prompted the first sustained scholarly attention to a self-consciously new nature religion. Later decades saw the category diversify: ethnic reconstructionist traditions such as Heathenry and Rodnovery developed around Germanic and Slavic source material respectively, Druidry drew on eighteenth century antiquarian and Romantic images of the ancient Celts, and eclectic and solitary practice, especially in North America from the 1960s and 1970s onward, blended sources freely rather than reconstructing one single ancestral religion. (1)Origin PeriodAllThe umbrella category takes shape across the twentieth century, from Wicca's public emergence in 1950s Britain through the later spread and diversification of reconstructionist and eclectic traditions into the present day. (1)Origin Period Start YearAll1954 (1)TheologyAllAnimist: persons and powers in land, water and living things (1)Duotheistic: a divine pair (1)Polytheistic: many gods (1)Modern PaganismParent Tradition2 entriesSources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Treetier 12. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcrafttier 1Ronald Hutton, Oxford University Press, 1999View the Source3. Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectivestier 1Michael F. Strmiska (ed.), ABC-CLIO, 2005Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.