Paper short abstract:

The relationship with nature is central for practitioners of Contemporary Paganism. This paper will discuss how practitioners of this religious and spiritual movement engage with nature and combine environmental awareness and activism in their lived religious and spiritual experience.

Paper long abstract:

Contemporary Paganism is an “umbrella term” used to designate several religious and spiritual polytheistic traditions, which has as its main beliefs nature as sacred, polytheism and pantheism, and gender equality. The celebration of the natural world and the emphasis put on the sense of belonging to a world community is central for their religious and spiritual lives.

Since these groups are influenced by environmentalism, their discourses and practices align with the discourses of activists that call the attention to the impact of capitalism and neo-liberal policies on the environment, and how this transformed the connection and relationship between humans and nature. Thus, contemporary pagan groups and individuals combine both the practice of magic and ritual and the participation in environmental actions - like demonstrations and initiatives - as a form of connecting with nature and negotiate their presence in the public space and the world. Through this, they challenge the perceived distinctions between private/individual/religious and public/collective/political participation, creating and negotiating new meanings to these dimensions.

This presentation, based on preliminary findings from my PhD research in Anthropology on Contemporary Paganism and Witchcraft in Portugal and the United Kingdom, will use specific Ethnographic cases to expose the ways in which these groups engage with nature and combine environmental awareness and activism in their lived religious and spiritual experience. Through the combination of several beliefs and practices, they contribute and offer creative approaches and new meanings to the contemporary debates on the environmental crisis.