Modern Pagans: An Investigation of Contemporary Pagan Practices

by V. Vale, John Sulak

This is the most uncensored, comprehensive guide to Pagans around the world today. Dozens of interviews cover a wide range of Pagan practices, from witchcraft, Northern tradition, santeria, shamanism, Druids, Goddess worshippers and more. The book covers important topics such as child raising, living arrangements, sexuality (lots of that), music, and bereavement (death), as well as the more spiritual side of Paganism. The political engagement here is widespread, embracing anti-capitalist and anti-globalist activism, environmental action, and the like. The emphasis is on taking personal responsibility for one's life—essentially, anarchism boiled down to its roots. Many empowering and uplifting stories about non-ordinary people: Starhawk, Genesis P-Orridge, Diane di Prima, and others are featured, as well as comprehensive bibliographies and filmographies that allow the reader to delve deeper into the subject.

Genres: Nonfiction, Paganism, Religion

212 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

Japanese-American writer and publisher. He also played keyboards for the later famous power trio Blue Cheer.

In 1977 he started to publish the punk fanzine "Search and destroy" In 1980, he began publication of RE/Search, a tabloid format zine focusing on various counterculture and underground topics.

RE/Search later became always a format for books, of which Vale is a regular contributor.

Reviews

[Jaina Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Endless layers of treasure to dig through here.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A MAGNIFICENT AND DIVERSE COLLECTION OF ESSAYS

Co-editor V. Vale wrote in the introductory section of this 2001 book, "Paganism is the perfect religion for anarchists. It also suits feminists, environmentalists, futurists, artists, surrealists---all of whom dream of social change, live for creativity not the profit motive, and hate dogma and authoritarianism. In Paganism, humor is sacred; diversithy welcomed; hierarchy deprecated; activism encouraged, and body honored, and Mother Earth and every living entity revered. `Power shared' rather than `Power over' is the ruling paradigm...

"In this book, fifty individuals fell why Paganism is the anti-hierarchical philosophy and religion of the future, offering wonder, joy, and celebration of all that makes us both human and divine." (Pg. 4) Articles are included by writers such as Starhawk [The Spiral Dance], Margot Adler [Drawing Down the Moon], Isaac Bonewits, Pete Jennings [Pagan Paths], Matthew Fox [The Coming of the Cosmic Christ], etc.

Starhawk notes in her essay, "Many of the religions in which we were raised did not actually provide what we needed spiritually. They had become focused on form, money, and their own internal bureaucracies. There is a great hunger for a spirituality that values the earth. Certainly, valuing women was important---that probably the core reason I became a Pagan." (Pg. 6)

An essayist notes, "The main problem Pagans and Wiccans have to deal with is a commonly held assumption, `Oh, aren't you all Satanists?' Pagans have to patiently explain, `No, Satanism is actually a CHRISTIAN heresy, and Wiccans do not believe in Satan, much less worship him." (Pg. 24) A later essayist adds, "the devil is a Christian god and a Christian invention---I wish they would get that! The devil is NOT a Pagan entity, but a member of the Christian pantheon. The devil is NOT Pagan." (Pg.. 157)

Another essayist observes, "Asatru has an uneasy relationship with Wicca, stemming from misunderstandings on both sides. Some people practice `Wiccatru,' using Norse deities in a Wiccan format. This makes some Asatru unhappy, but I don't think the gods care! Most of the Norse Kindreds (Asatru groups are called kindreds) meet once a month. Asatru ritual seems to have attracted more people from ceremonial traditions such as Catholicism and Judaism. Asatru is very concerned with morality and ethical principles, and although Wicca is ethical, it doesn't worry about this as much. Wicca has the three-fold law and `Do what you will, but harm none.' That's about all the general agreement you can get across the traditions." (Pg. 25)

Margot Adler notes in her essays, "You do not need to BELIEVE anything to be a Pagan, because it is a non-creed-based spirituality. If you think about Native American or Australian Aboriginal spirituality, even though there are many beliefs and deities, most of those religions are based on what people DO, not what people believe. So rituals are set up in such a way as to say, `What do we do to celebrate our connection with the earth?' It's not based on what you `believe.'" (Pg. 27)

Isaac Bonewits acknowledges in his essay, "Ronald Hutton's 'The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft' gives the absolute, final pounding of the nail into the coffin of fantasies about Wicca being a survival or revival of an underground faith from pre-Christian Britain. Hutton is a professional historian who spends 500 pages going through all the cultural, academic, and historical SOURCES of all the different ideas that [Gerald] Gardner blended together to create Wicca. He traces it back to the Romantic movement, the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, and nostalgia for the countryside---all these social currents that were happening in the 1700s and 1800s, that created an intellectual milieu. And Hutton shows how these different strands of culture got woven together by Gardner. This is one book that apologists for the antiquity of the Craft are going to have the most trouble with." (Pg. 71)

Another essayist admits, "The figure of `nine million Witches/women burned' is obviously absurd. The `nine million' figure can be traced to a single source, Matilda Jocelyn Gage's Woman, Church and State, an early feminist work. She produced this number out of thin air, and it got picked up by Mary Daly in her 'Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism,' and then got repeated everywhere. But there's no substance to it at all. Yes, there was a `Burning Times,' i.e., a period in which being a Witch was a capital offense. Many people, both men and women, were tortured and killed under horrible circumstances. But they were not all `Witches'---the net was cast far wider than that." (Pg. 100)

This is a broad, diverse, opinionated collection, that will be of immense interest to anyone studying such modern religious/spiritual traditions and practices.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative read, and a hard to find book as well! As someone who grew up with a superstitious Christian mother, it is nice to just finally read a book like this.

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had great hopes for this book. No dogma, no grocery lists of spell components and magical correspondences; just real Pagans talking freely about what they believe and how they practice. I knew going in that I would disagree with a lot of the statements, but at least they would be honest statements. I hadn't considered how far afield interviewer bias can push an interview. These interviewers, especially Vale, were far more interested in talking about how Paganism is opposed to Christianity than in what their interview subjects were actually doing in their Paganism. Interviewees who were eager to talk about this got the most column inches; those who refused to be defined by what they are not were relegated to half-page "Pagan profiles" at book's end. So that ultimately, the book was far less a book about Paganism than it was a book about "those meanie Christians and how they oppress us." Which was not the book I was interested in reading.

[Happydog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting overview of paganism, circa early 2000's or so. Interviews with everyone, including aggravating posers, complete airheads, and thoughtful scholarly types - and all points in between. In a sense it makes a good companion text to Margot Adler's "Drawing Down the Moon," although both are now a bit outdated. Still, the authors of "Modern Pagans" made a good try and got commentary and insight from many major pagans - some that were at the time and some that became so later. The basic focus of the book shows that paganism has if anything become even more diverse and iridescent than it was before. A good overview of an unusual and interesting religious movement, and a good source of information for those already involved.