The Guardian: by Liz Williams.
The majority of pagans these days do not dwell in the country, but a yearning towards nature is marked
According to the recent census, there are around 80,000 people who call themselves pagans in England and Wales today. Although they are insignificant numerically, they haunt the imagination, earn public fascination and derision in equal measure, and have featured heavily in the recent press – an article on Hellenic paganism at the BBC, one on Anglican attempts to recruit pagans in the Telegraph, and on the future of Stonehenge everywhere. As I write this, the Association of Catholic Priests is bemoaning the apparent fact that Ireland is now a “pagan” country, which might come as a bit of a shock to their parishioners. To quote the Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
So what does “pagan” mean now? Who are we? What do we believe? And how can we possibly believe it?
