The Emerging Pagan Movement in America

Abstract

Throughout the world during most of recorded time, religion and ideas about the sacred have permeated social life. Ancient artifacts and myths indicate that our distant ancestors’ concept of the sacred affected public, as well as private, life. Human societies have, to a greater or lesser extent, been regulated with an eye to whether the actions of both individuals and social institutions are consistent with whatever is considered sacred by the dominant religion’s theology. Something as basic as the prevailing perception of the nature of the deity (or deities) can profoundly affect public policy making, as well as individual conduct (Berger, 1985; Gimbutas, 1982; Goodrich, 1990).