Contemporary Paganism
Contemporary Paganism, also referred to as Neo-Paganism, is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by, or claiming to be derived from, the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe. Several of these contemporary Pagan religions draw specifically on the original mediaeval religious beliefs and practices of Anglo-Saxon England as sources of inspiration, adopting such Anglo-Saxon deities as their own.
'Seidr' is interpreted differently by different groups and practitioners, but usually taken to indicate altered consciousness or even total loss of physical control. Diana Paxson and her group, 'Hrafnar', have attempted reconstructions of seid (particularly the oracular form) from historical material. Jan Fries regards seid as a form of 'shamanic trembling' which he relates to 'seething', used as a shamanic technique, the idea being his own and developed through experimentation.
According to Blain, seidr is an intrinsic part of spiritual practice connecting practitioners to the wider cosmology in British Heathenry.
Read more about this topic: Seidkona
Famous quotes containing the words contemporary and/or paganism:
“Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
““If she belongs to any besides the present, it is to the next world which artists want to see, when paganism will come again and we can give a divinity to every waterfall.””
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)