Modern Paganism

Modern Paganism, also known as Contemporary Paganism and Neopaganism, is a group of new religious movements influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe. Although they do share similarities, contemporary Pagan religious movements are diverse and no single set of beliefs, practices, or texts are shared by them all. Most academics studying the phenomenon have treated it as a movement of different religions, whereas a minority instead characterise it as a single religion into which different Pagan faiths fit as denominations. Not all members of faiths or beliefs regarded as Neopagan self-identify as "Pagan".

Adherents rely on pre-Christian, folkloric and ethnographic sources to a variety of degrees; many follow a spirituality which they accept as being entirely modern, while others attempt to reconstruct or revive indigenous, ethnic religions as found in historical and folkloric sources as accurately as possible. Academic research has placed the Pagan movement along a spectrum, with Eclecticism on one end and Polytheistic Reconstructionism on the other. Polytheism, animism, and pantheism are common features in Pagan theology. Rituals take place in both public and in private domestic settings.