Paganism (contemporary) - Historicity

Historicity

"A movement that consciously looks to the past and claims to revive the ancient religious practices of pre-Christian Europe, modern Paganism has always been dependent upon academic scholarship – particularly history, archaeology, and anthropology – in its project of self-fashioning."

Pagan studies scholar Caroline Jane Tully, 2011.

Many pagans and pagan traditions attempt to incorporate elements of historical religions, cultures and mythologies into their beliefs and practices, often emphasizing the age of their sources. Thus, Wicca in particular is sometimes referred to by its proponents as "The Old Religion", a term popularised by Margaret Murray in the 1920s, while Germanic neopaganism is referred to in some of its varieties as Forn Sed ("Old Custom"). Such emphasis on the antiquity of religious tradition is not exclusive to modern paganism, and is found in many other religions. For example the terms Purana, Sanatana Dharma, and the emphasis on the antiquity of the Ancient Egyptian sources of the Hellenistic Mystery religions.

Some claims of continuity between contemporary paganism and older forms of paganism have been shown to be spurious, or outright false, as in the case of Iolo Morganwg's Druid's Prayer. Wiccan beliefs of an ancient monotheistic Goddess were inspired by Marija Gimbutas's description of Neolithic Europe. The factual historical validity of her theories has been disputed by many scholars, including historian Ronald Hutton.

While most pagans draw from old religious traditions, they also adapt them. The mythologies of the ancient traditions are not generally considered to be literally factual by pagans, in the sense that the Bible and other Abrahamic texts are often thought of by their followers. Eclectic pagans in particular are resistant to the concept of scripture or excessive structure, considering personal freedom to be one of the primary goals of their spirituality. In contrast, some Reconstructionist movements, like those who practise Theodism, take a stricter religious approach, and only recognize certain historical texts and sources as being relevant to their belief system, intentionally focusing on one culture to the exclusion of others, and having a general disdain for the eclectic mentality.

The mythological sources of the various pagan traditions are similarly varied, including Celtic, Norse, Greek, Roman, Sumerian, Egyptian and others. Some groups focus solely on one cultural tradition, while others draw from several. For example, Doreen Valiente's text The Charge of the Goddess used materials from The Gospel of Aradia by Charles G. Leland (1899), as well as material from Aleister Crowley's writings.

Some pagans also draw inspiration from modern traditions, including Christianity, Buddhism and others, creating syncretisms like "Christian Witchcraft" or "Buddheo-Paganism". Since many pagan beliefs do not require exclusivity, some pagans practise other faiths in parallel.

Eclectic pagans take an undogmatic religious stance, and therefore potentially see no one as having authority to deem a source "apocryphal". Contemporary paganism has therefore been prone to fakelore, especially in recent years as information and misinformation alike have been spread on the Internet and in print media. A number of Wiccan, pagan and even some "Traditionalist" or "Tribalist" groups have a history of "Grandmother Stories" – typically involving initiation by a Grandmother, Grandfather, or other elderly relative who is said to have instructed them in the secret, millennia-old traditions of their ancestors. As this "secret wisdom" can almost always be traced to recent sources, tellers of these stories have often later admitted they made them up.

It is the belief of modern Pagans that the religious beliefs of pre-Christian Europe "possess continuing value for us in our own time, even after centuries of suppression and neglect." Strmiska asserted that contemporary Paganism could be viewed as a part of the "much larger phenomenon" of efforts to revive "traditional, indigenous, or native religions" that were occurring across the globe.