20 MORE religions and faith practices 404

The Search for Peace in Times of Chaos—Volume rediscovering ancient cultures There was a growing curiosity in Norse traditions, old village dances, and folk music In Germany, people were attracted to the nature religion, which they saw behind traditional folk customs And at the beginning of the twentieth century, the study of the runes began There was a strong desire to renew and preserve traditions, which otherwise would have been forgotten.7 In 1921, an English historian Margaret Murray published a book Š‡‹–…Š—Ž–‹‡•–‡”—”‘’‡ in which she maintained that witchcraft had been a religion In 1951, the United Kingdom followed the rest of Europe in repealing the last of its anti-witchcraft laws, and modern-day witchcraft came into practice It was at this time that Gerald Gardner (who dabbled in anthropology and archeology as a hobby) supposedly revived witchcraft and called it ‹……ƒ He appeared in print claiming he spoke for one of several covens of English witches who practiced a Pagan religion dating from the Stone Age He claimed that, after returning to England on his retirement from a career spent in Asia, he encountered a coven of witches located in the New Forest in southern England and was initiated into it In line with the popular Witch-cult hypothesis, he claimed that the religion practised by the coven was a survival of a Pagan religion of prehistoric Europe, known as Witchcraft to its adherents Subsequently fearing that the religion would die out, he published details of its beliefs and practices in a series of books: his novel ‹‰Š ƒ‰‹…ǯ• ‹† (1949) and his non-fiction works ‹–…Š…”ƒˆ– ‘†ƒ› (1954) and Š‡ ‡ƒ‹‰ ‘ˆ‹–…Š…”ƒˆ– (1959) These books helped to attract many new initiates to a coven that he formed Gardner claimed that his witches were practitioners of a fertility religion called Wicca The revival of Western Paganism is mainly due to the creation of Wicca, the “nice” modern name for Witchcraft However Paganism ‹•‘– always Wicca; Wicca is just ‘‡of the forms of Paganism When the feminist movement came into flower in the 1960s, many found themselves drawn to Paganism due to the philosophies that nature is sacred and the great goddess or Mother Nature was a woman, symbolizing women’s inner strength and dignity The 1960s and 1970s were times of radical social change The eastern religions as well