After World War 2, traditional organised religions progressively lost ground in Western Europe (including the UK). Some people had even argued that, with increasing material security and healthcare progress, humankind would steer away from religion altogether. To a certain extent, that is more and more true as, in Western Europe, less and less people go to church and more and more look up to the likes of Dawkins.
There is another very interesting
overlapping phenomenon occurring at the same time though. Lots of different and
alternative spiritual beliefs have surfaced or re-surfaced lately, taking lots
of different forms. Some take their roots in other cultural traditions such
as the Native American or Tibetan ones, tweaked with a Western approach. Some
are cult like and very normative, others are loose and flexible with no
organisation, dogma or leader. Some are quite straight forward, some are
mysterious like Wiccans. Despite their disparity, most of them can be qualified
under an umbrella name: new Age or Neo-Paganism.
Pagan comes from a Latin word.
Originally and etymologically, it was a pejorative term used by Romans to
design the peasants and by the first Christians to define all non-Christians: it
qualified all polytheist and pantheist religions as well as all local worshipping
traditions and rites, which could have involved natural elements.
In its newer form, paganism
usually refers to a new-found closeness to Nature seen as sacred. The stones,
the winds, the trees, the sea, are meant to hold a special healing energy. This
reverence of nature can take different forms and can include worshipping or
not, magical incantations or not. Interestingly, these movements have emerged
at the same time as wildlife defence and environmental lobbies as well as
natural, self-sufficient and holistic lifestyles have.
People attracted to these new
spiritual and religious movements may feel that the pursuit of never-ending
growth and economic development is harming our planet as well as our souls. Contemporary
societies over-value material success and social status. Consumer society
expects you to ‘shop till you drop’, if not because you like it, to help your
country’s economy! Celebrity culture puts an overbearing pressure on the way
people see their (always not-perfect-enough) body and their (always-so-dull)
life. Pace of life seems to be never fast enough with social media devices
constantly bombarding us with new information whilst making us feeling empty
and lonely.
At the same time, post-modern
citizens, who have come to cherish their individuality and their freedom of
thoughts and lifestyle, may feel restricted by conventional religious organisations.
Neo-paganism seems the perfect answer for those in search of a more personal and open spirituality as well as a closeness to nature.
Will the 21st
century be the age of these ‘post-faith’ beliefs?
