Anglo-Saxon Paganism - Contemporary Paganism

Contemporary Paganism

In the 1930s Alexander Rud Mills established in Australia "The Anglecyn Church of Odin", a thoroughly pagan religion but with rituals influenced by the literary style of Anglicanism. The Anglecyn Church went underground as a result of political persecution in 1942, but was revived in 1972 in Melbourne, Australia.

A later reconstructed form of Anglo-Saxon paganism arose in the 1970s as a subset of Germanic neopaganism, in the form of Theodism. It was founded by Garman Lord, who had originally been a Wiccan in the Gardnerian tradition. In 1971, Lord formed a Wiccan coven that emphasized the iconography of Anglo-Saxon paganism, named The Coven Witan of Anglo-Saxon Wicca. However, Lord later abandoned any use of Wiccan teachings, instead focusing entirely upon the resurrection of the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon religion in 1976 after supposedly having a vision of the deities Woden and Frige.

Similarly, the Wiccan who introduced the Gardnerian tradition to the United States, Raymond Buckland, later wrote a book in 1973 entitled The Tree in which he outlined the creation of a tradition known as Seax-Wica, which uses the symbolism and iconography of Anglo-Saxon paganism, but in a "traditional" Wiccan framework.

There are modern proponents of Anglo Saxon paganism actively practicing the religion, such as White Marsh Theod in the United States. Within the UK the Pagan Federation contains amongst its members groups that practice Heathenry, a modern variant of paganism that includes Anglo Saxon beliefs.