Paganism 101: What is Paganism?

A quick note: I use “pagan” and “neo-pagan” interchangeably, but some people use “neo-pagan” to differentiate more New Age focused pagans from modern paganism as a whole.

[Last Updated December 21, 2025]

The best definition of paganism I’ve been able to find has been from Patheos:

Paganism represents a wide variety of traditions that emphasize reverence for nature and a revival of ancient polytheistic and animistic religious practices. […] Paganism is not a traditional religion per se because it does not have any official doctrine, but it does have some common characteristics joining the great variety of traditions. One of the common beliefs is the divine presence in nature and the reverence of the natural order in life. Spiritual growth is related to the cycles of the Earth and great emphasis is placed on ecological concerns.

The definition I gave in a paper I wrote for college was as follows:

While the term “pagan” can be flexible and notoriously hard to precisely define, it typically encompasses nature-based religions that draw from pre-Christian beliefs and Western occultism (e.g. Hermeticism). Grieve lists the “tenets” of neo-paganism as “non-Abrahamism”, polytheism, “reverence of nature”, feminism and valuing practice over belief.

I left out New Age influences in my definition simply because I feel like paganism has moved further away from New Age beliefs in recent decades, but I am mentioning it here for the sake of being thorough.

Paganism can be understood better as a spiritual movement, rather than a cohesive religion. Though, to be clear, it is a religion. As I mentioned, paganism is “notoriously hard to precisely define”. Many pagans, however, avoid the word “religion” like the plague, likely due to its associations with Christianity and other organized religions. Whether or not that’s valid is up to you, I won’t be passing judgment here. Maybe elsewhere.

I would like to explore the "tenets" as laid out by Grieve first.

Non-Abrahamism

There are “Christo-pagans”, but as a general rule pagans are not Christian, Muslim or Jewish, at least religiously. Of course, a vast majority of pagans are culturally Christian and there are culturally Muslim and Jewish pagans out there.

It is important to note that paganism also isn’t Hindu, Shinto, Buddhist, et cetera.

There are pagans who practice multiple religions, Shinto and Buddhism being particularly popular in some circles, but they are kept separate from each other.

Paganism is often embraced as a rejection of “Abrahamic” religion (typically Christianity) and a distaste for Abrahamic religions is pretty pervasive in pagan spaces.

Polytheism

Many pagans are polytheists. Not all are, Wiccans are famously duotheist, but typically pagans believe in many (or all) gods. Pantheism, the belief that god is present in everything, is also popular in some spaces. It should be noted that a pagan who believes that every single god exists would still be called a polytheist.

How this belief manifests varies. Some polytheists view every deity as distinct, while some view deities as archetypes. A pagan who views deities as archetypes would, for example, view Aphrodite as a specific manifestation or aspect of the Goddess.

There also exist atheist and agnostic pagans, but polytheism is the dominant theological position among pagans and the variation mostly comes down to how they conceptualizes their deities.

Reverence of Nature

Pagans have been at the forefront of climate activism for decades. The sacredness of nature is central to many different types of paganism. The way this manifests depends on the tradition and individual pagan.

Many pagans are animists and view everything as containing a spirit. I'll probably discuss animism in depth at a later date.

Feminism

Modern paganism grew out of Wicca and the Goddess movement has been a large part of paganism since around the 1970s. Of course, this does mean that there are factions within modern paganism that are trans-exclusionary (ie Dianic Wicca) and many forms of paganism are woman-dominated (which is not inherently an issue).

There are male-centric forms of paganism that are also fascist (ie Odinism, Folkish Heathenry), but overall, paganism is largely feminist.

Practice Over Belief

Paganism does not involve correct thought, only correct action. What is considered correct action, of course, varies. It does not matter what type of pagan path you follow as long as you practice it with sincerity.

Conclusion?

Paganism is incredibly diverse and has many different traditions and approaches. I will likely add more to this page at a later date.

I will likely never be fully satisfied with this page since it is hard to adequately define paganism and I'm a perfectionist. I also care about the topic a lot and want to do it justice. Hopefully, if this page wasn't enough, the rest of the pages in this section will help fill in the gaps. There will also be no further reading or book recommendations for this section, unfortunately.