On a Hello, symposiasts! Today’s episode is the talk that I gave at the Scottish Pagan Conference in Glasgow in 2023. Before we dive in, allow me to remind you to sign up for my newsletter so that you can stay in touch with me. Please consider supporting my work with a one-off PayPal donation by joining my Inner Symposium on Patreon or Ko-Fi, Superthanking me, or checking out my services on my website, drangelapuca.com.

So, welcome everybody to today’s talk on the historical misconceptions of Paganism. And thank you so much to the Scottish Pagan Federation for inviting me here and for the warm welcome. Today, as I mentioned, I will be talking about the historical misconceptions in Paganism. I’m Dr. Angela Puca, a Religious Studies PhD, specifically a Pagan Studies Scholar. In case you were not familiar with my work online, I’m also a digital academic, or public scholar, as you could say, because I have a social media project called Angela’s Symposium, where I disseminate peer-reviewed academic knowledge on topics in esotericism, Paganism, and all the magick-practicing religious traditions, we could say.

So, some of the aspects of the things that I will be talking about in today’s talk will also be found in specific episodes on my YouTube channel, in case you would be interested in deepening the concepts that I will discuss.

So, I will be mentioning five main misconceptions in contemporary Paganism, meaning within the practising community, the Pagan communities.

And the first one that we will discuss is the historicity of Paganism. There is what is very often called the ‘ancient religion hypothesis’ – the idea that Paganism predates Christianity and the understanding that we have today of Paganism is that of a religion that has been dated back to before Christianity in an almost unchanging way. This is often called the ‘Ancient Religion Hypothesis’, and it has been heavily disproven by historians. It’s not like there weren’t Pagan religions in antiquity. Still, it’s more the claim that contemporary Paganism and the way Paganism is understood today dates back to before Christianity and dates back to those religions in an almost continuous lineage. This is a concept that dates back to the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Also, the romanticized ideas of the past and of pre-Christian times, but can be more clearly attributed to the points that are the historical claims on which Wicca and contemporary Paganism, which was in fact born in the 20th century, are based upon.

So, one of the key figures in spreading this kind of historical misconception is Margaret Murray, which probably some of you will be familiar with. Margaret Murray was an Egyptologist, and she was the one who claimed that there was this pre-Christian tradition that dates back from before Christianity and that in an almost continuous line, albeit underground, kept almost secret and survived the advent and spread of Christianity. This claim has been heavily disproven, and to be fair, it was not considered sound, not even in her own time. And this seems to be very much the case with many of the misconceptions we will find. There are certain scholars that, even in their own time, didn’t particularly have the backing of the scholarly community. Still, those claims appeared particularly influential to the point where they were determined and revealed to be very significant in the birth and spread of Paganism. This is one of the historical claims you will still find quite present within Pagan communities, even though it has been largely disproven.

I will be mentioning Professor Ronald Hutton because he has written a lot about these misconceptions, and of course, other scholars have also talked about it. But Ronald Hutton tends to be the most known Pagan Studies scholar, we could say, who has particularly worked on the history of Paganism.

So, another misconception that we find in Pagan communities relates to the Great Witchhunt and what we could call Pagan martyrdom. There is this popular myth that the Burning Times was a time when Christians persecuted Pagans and persecuted witches who were Pagans who would not really convert fully to Christianity or abide by what Christian theology and Christian practice were supposed to be. There are a few misconceptions relating to the witch hunt, some of which have to relate to the numbers because there’s often the number of 9 million witches that were burned at the stake or that were persecuted because of witchcraft. And the numbers are more likely between 40,000 and 60,000, depending on what the scholars and the scholarship say. These are the estimates, and this is what the historical records say.

Another misconception about this is the fact that these were all Pagans. There’s also a significant influence from the 1970s and feminist theology and feminist theory, which associated strictly the idea of the burning times and the witches with feminism, and in a way, the persecution of witches became the persecution of women. And that is also a little bit of a misconception because you also find that men were persecuted as well during the witch hunt. And probably some of you will also be familiar with the fact that it wasn’t just witches. I mean, not only can it not be seen as a Pagan martyrdom because it was not specifically, necessarily Pagans who were being persecuted and banned or condemned to death, but it was much more complicated than that. During the burning times, a lot of political affairs came into place, and in some cases, people were condemned as witches just because they were politically inconvenient. So, in some cases, it had little to do with their religion to begin with.

So, you find that in Pagan communities, at least I have seen, there is this sense of reclamation of being a Pagan and being a witch, almost in opposition to Christianity. And I don’t know if you’ve seen it online or in person, but there was this famous t-shirt that a lot of people would wear, “We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn,” which also became a meme online and on social media. And I think that that really encapsulates very well both the themes that we see in this misconception here: both the idea that it was Pagans and witches specifically that were persecuted during the witch hunts, and the idea that it was primarily, you know, female persecution, persecution of women.

I think that in Italy, in particular, we have very famous cases of persecution and burning at the stake of men, actually. The most famous that I can recall, who comes from the same place that I come from, the Neapolitan area in Italy, is Giordano Bruno, who was persecuted and burned in Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, and he was a man. And there were quite a few persecuted people that were, sometimes, not necessarily Pagan, as I said. They were heretical, or in some other cases, inconvenient for the status quo and the politics of the time.

So, I would say this is another interesting misconception to analyze. And also, it’s important to look, as I mentioned, at the influence of feminist theology, and in particular, at works like ‘Witches, Midwives, and Nurses‘ by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English. So, noticing how things tend to be more nuanced than one can initially imagine is very interesting.

The third misconception that I wanted to talk about is the fact that Christian holidays have Pagan origins. I think that, in the past decade, at least from what I’ve seen in the Pagan communities and online, there has been, even in Italy—I’ve done research in Italy, but then I moved to the UK for my PhD, so I have an understanding of both these countries and in terms of the Pagan communities. So, I’ve noticed that there has been a lot of trying to inform people of the idea, the concept, that Christian holidays actually come from Pagan holidays, and this is definitely a misconception.

And we can find that by looking at different festivals. I’ve recently published a video on my YouTube channel on Samhain, which disappointed a few people and tends to be the case often, especially when discussing history. One of the things that I think some Pagans were probably disappointed about is the fact that I was saying in the video, as a title, that Samhain was not a Celtic fire festival. And by that, I didn’t mean that it wasn’t Irish because some people seem to collate Celtic and Irish, which is probably another misconception, especially in certain areas of the world.

So, with Samhain, for instance, we have an example of how both Christian holidays and Pagan holidays influence each other. Samhain was quite a complicated festival in the past, and the way we understand it now is heavily shaped by Wicca and contemporary Paganism. But if we want to look at how Samhain was practised in the past, we will find a lot of variety. So, in some places, it was not celebrated as a fire festival at all; in other places, it was celebrated as a fire festival, but with one meaning; in other places, with another meaning. Over time, the influence of this folk practice absorbed elements of the Christian holiday, especially the Christian holiday of All Souls. So, the element of death, for instance, is something that was incorporated over time due to Christianity.

So, Samhain is one of those examples where we can see that there were Pagan precursors, and it’s important to distinguish when we talk about history between precursors and something coming directly from another thing. Historically, one thing is to find a direct link between two historical developments, one that comes first and the other that develops as a result. Another thing is to find precursors, which may vary, and we start to question why certain elements have become more influential than others, for instance.

So, when we look at Samhain and the way it is understood now in the Pagan Community, there is a specific selection of certain practices around that time of the year that are not representative of all the Pagan or pre-Christian practices, or non-Christian practices like folk practices that were practised across the British Isles and Ireland. So, a specific selection happened with Gerald Gardner and Wicca that became particularly influential with the Pagan Community, but that’s not representative of what happened in history. It’s more representative of a recent development. And, in any case, even in history, we see that Samhain, or the other celebrations with different names that were celebrated around that time of the year, were extremely varied. So, you cannot really say that Samhain was a Celtic fire festival. It’s also important to acknowledge that the association with the dead and the ancestors comes from the Christian influence of All Soul’s Day.

So, one thing to understand when it comes to holidays, Pagan holidays, and the relation to Christian holidays is the fact that in history, we find very complex syncretism. And this happens not just in historical developments but even nowadays, even in the present time. You will find that you go to one place and to another, and the same festival, even if it is systematized, for instance, according to the Wiccan tradition or another specific type of tradition, you will find variations. And when you don’t even have a systematization, that is even more prevalent.

So, syncretism is something essential to bear in mind. When it comes to the lived practices of people, you see that there’s much more variation than you would imagine that is written on paper. This is true of all religions, even with Christianity, for instance. There are scholars who have talked about the difference between institutional religion and lived religion, and you will find that the way Christians conceptualize their own religion can vary significantly from the dogmatic understanding. This is even more prevalent with religions that don’t have a central dogma, like Paganism. So, it’s important to understand that with the syncretism that happens with everything, and of course, also with religious and spiritual practices, you find that practices don’t just simply come one from the other, but there’s merging, overlap, and also developments over time. So, it’s not as simple as saying this festival comes from this other.

I will give you a couple of examples other than Samhain. There’s also, for instance, the idea of Christmas and the idea that it comes from the winter solstice or other Pagan celebrations around that time of the year. It’s still not particularly clear when it comes to Christmas how it came to be celebrated around on the 25th of December. There are still theories, but for instance, we find the theory by scholars such as Steven Hijmans, where the idea of celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December was related to the idea of Jesus as the ‘Sun of Righteousness.’ And this may or may not link to Sol Invictus, which was the celebration of the Romans. But you cannot really say, in a, it would be really an oversimplification to say, ‘Oh, there were these celebrations found around this time of the year, and then you have the Christian celebration that happens around the same time of the year, so necessarily one comes from the other.’ It is usually much more complicated than that. And even though it is something historical that Christian celebrations have influences from Paganism and pre-Christian Pagan celebrations, it’s also true that contemporary Pagan celebrations often have influences from Christianity. So, as I said, it tends to be that they influence each other. And I’m talking specifically about Christianity because my point of reference for talking about contemporary Paganism is countries that have a strong Christian influence. And so, since religions don’t happen in a vacuum, they happen in a cultural context. If a religion emerges and is practised in a specific cultural context, it will be necessarily and unavoidably influenced by that context.

Another case is Easter, for instance. Easter also represents complexities because it is often linked within the Pagan Community to the Saxon Goddess Eostre due to Jacob Grimm’s speculation of the 19th century. However, this connection is contested, and it is something that you will find in Ronald Hutton’s work, ‘The Stations of the Sun.’ You may know Jacob Grimm because he was one of the famous Grimm Brothers, and they were known for their collection of fairy tales. He was also a philologist and mythologist. In the 19th century, he speculated about the existence of the worship of a pre-Christian deity named Eostre, based on linguistic evidence and the etymology of the name of the Festival of Easter. Grimm’s work sought to find parallels and origins of Germanic folklore and traditions in the pre-Christian beliefs of the Germanic people. So, the book I’m referring to, in which Grimm makes this connection, is ‘Deutsche Mythologie’ or ‘Teutonic Mythology.’ And Grimm here hypothesizes that the Christian Festival of Easter celebrated in the spring, was named after Eostre, whom he proposed was a Germanic Goddess of Dawn and Spring. He made connections between the name Eostre and the direction East, as well as the German word ‘Ostern,’ which is Easter, basically.

So, the link was partially based on the similarities of the name to various Indo-European words for dawn and the spring season. This is a type of speculation you see a lot in the 19th century and 20th century; these speculations are based on Indo-European similarities in words, which is not considered good scholarship nowadays. This connection is, however, highly contested because, in reality, we only have one piece of evidence of Eostre, and it comes from the Venerable Bede and is a very short mention that you will find in the work by Bede. And he claimed that the name for the month of April was ‘Eostre monath’ and was named after a Goddess Eostre. Still, no other contemporary sources corroborate this, and there was also a brief mention of that, so we don’t have much sound historical evidence to suggest the worship of Eostre. So, the concept that we have that you find in contemporary Pagan communities is mostly based on Grimm’s speculation. It’s interesting because you will find that poets and mythologists have influenced.

Paganism quite a lot, which is a nice segue into the fourth misconception about the Triple Goddess.

So, the Triple Goddess, which is understood in contemporary Paganism as the Maiden-Mother-Crone archetype, has been mentioned in contemporary Pagan communities as something very ancient, as something that, if you look at the Goddess from ancient times, you will find that you have lots of triple goddesses and that the Triple Goddess is everywhere. And there’s this concept of the universality of the Triple Goddess as something that you find across history. However, this is not corroborated by historical evidence, and in fact, the idea of the triple Goddess as Maiden, Mother, and Crone comes from Robert Graves and his work ‘The White Goddess,’ which has been incredibly influential in contemporary Paganism, and especially in the concept of the triple Goddess Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Even though you do find Triple goddesses in history, in Pagan history, and in pre-Christian or non-Christian times, they do not align with the concept of Maiden, Mother, and Crone. They are triple in other senses, not in Maiden, Mother, and Crone. This idea of associating the triplicity of the Goddess to the stages of a woman’s life is something that comes from Robert Graves. And Graves never really wanted to be a historian; in fact, if you look at ‘The White Goddess,’ the subtitle, I think, is ‘A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth.’

So, he was not particularly interested in historical facts; he was more interested in mythology, the power of poetry, and the power of myth to shape our reality. And we will talk about that later because, after crushing all these historical misconceptions, we can talk about the connection between history and religious beliefs. So, this concept also comes from Graves, as I said, who is a poet. So, it’s interesting how you have the idea of Eostre coming from Grimm, who was also passionate about fairy tales and mythology, and the concept of the triple goddess coming from Robert Graves.

Then, we also have the idea of the primordial Mother Goddess, the concept of the Mother Goddess as this primordial goddess. And this is also a historical misconception that you find in Paganism. The narrative of a singular prehistoric mother goddess worshipped universally across Europe was most famously advanced by Marija Gimbutas, who interpreted archaeological findings as evidence of a widespread goddess culture. This idea has been further romanticized and adopted within some strands of modern Paganism and feminist spirituality.

However, it has faced considerable criticism for its lack of corroborating evidence. You also have scholars like Bachofen, who initially posited the existence of matriarchal societies in prehistorical times. However, this also has been challenged because there’s no sound historical evidence behind Bachofen’s idea. But Bachofen was also very influential in the theoretical aspect and development of Paganism because this idea that there was a matriarchal society before the patriarchal society corroborated the sense within Pagan communities that going back to the goddess, going back to this primordial goddess, was a way of going back to our roots, which is the theme of the conference. ‘Going Back to Our Roots’ means going back to the ancient past, and what is the most ancient past? According to Bachofen, it was a matriarchal society, which was then linked to the idea of this universal mother goddess. But there is no historical evidence that we had a matriarchal society before the patriarchal ones. There are only very specific cases worldwide, but there is no evidence of a widespread matriarchal society.

There are also other academics, like Jacqueline Hawks, who caution against the projection of contemporary values onto ancient societies. I think that it’s very interesting that, even though the idea of this universal mother goddess was seen as something that corroborated feminist ideals in the beginning and helped the development of Paganism, even in that kind of nuance, it was later challenged by some scholars. I’ve recently read a paper where the very concept of the mother goddess is contested by feminist scholars, saying that very often goddesses are, in a way, simplified and only reduced to being mothers, when in a lot of cases, they were primarily other things. I mean, they were actually doing completely other things, and as one of the many, many, many things that they were known for, there was the idea of motherhood. But for some of the deities that even now we tend to think of as connected to motherhood, that’s really not something that was very prevalent at all. And so, that’s been contested by feminist scholars because it’s seen as actually something a bit more patriarchal, you know, the idea that the woman is only the mother. And so, to have the female archetype, it needs to be connected to motherhood, and to have female goddesses, they need to be mother goddesses. So, this paper also contests the fact that male scholars postulated this idea of the universal mother goddess. I don’t like ad hominem arguments, where you say, ‘Oh, this is not a good argument because it comes from a person who is this gender or this identity.’ That’s a logical fallacy called ad hominem. But I was just presenting you with what the paper said.

Now that I have mentioned the historical misconceptions, I think it’s important to also talk about the relation between history and myth, and something I’ve recently also talked about on my YouTube channel, Angela’s Symposium, the idea of mythopoesis. So, one of the things that I’ve always been fascinated by in Paganism is the fact that it is not as strict and dogmatic as other religions. However, I have found this dogmatism to be fair in some cases. One thing that I always stress is that even though certain things might not be historical, it doesn’t mean that they are not valuable or don’t have spiritual and religious significance for people.

I think that it’s actually very important to distinguish and disentangle the idea of something being historic and something being religiously valuable or spiritually valid. The idea of something being valid is part of the contemporary discourse, especially online, and I don’t think that that necessitates historical backing, to be honest. As long as there is a clear distinction between the two, there are other religions that tend to be more based on the idea that something is historical and that it is a historical fact. I don’t like to use the word ‘truth’ when it comes to history because I think the truth is a metaphysical statement, and two, because even with history, we find that evidence may change over time, and our understanding may change over time. We can have better methods or discover new evidence that may suggest something different from what we understand today. So, what the historical facts suggest now is, generally speaking, what academics do and what we try to understand from a scientific and academic view is a moving target. But my point is that it is important to understand what the history is. Don’t pretend that something is historical when it is not, just to validate a practice and understand that spiritual and religious practices have value. Because if they are transformative for the individual, if they contribute to the process of meaning-making and belief-making, and are, as I said, transformative or effective in any shape or form, I don’t think that they need to have historical backing. And I don’t think people need to pretend they have historical backing to feel like those concepts are valid and valuable. The value is in the transformative experience that the person has via the adoption of that belief. So, for instance, the concept of the triple goddess is not historical; it’s not something that we really find in history, but it’s something that has been incredibly impactful and transformative to so many people. So, does it mean that the fact that it doesn’t hold up to historical scrutiny devalues it?

I would say no. The only thing that I would say, as a Pagan studies scholar and academic, is that it is important to maintain the difference between the two.

Another occurrence where I find this to happen very often is with a concept that you find in different spiritual and religious movements nowadays, including Paganism, which is the idea of perennialism. Perennialism is the idea that there is one underlying truth, one truth that underlies all the different religions and all the different traditions and all the different cultures; that there is one kernel of truth that can be found, and all the cultural specificities are more like an overlay, but the truth underneath it is shared across them all. This is a perennialist view. This perennialist view is found in Paganism when we talk, for instance, in Wicca and other contemporary Pagan traditions, that all gods are one god. All goddesses are one goddess, and the idea of wanting to find parallels between goddesses or gods with different cultural backgrounds and histories and claim that those are the same entity.

Now, I will make a practical example to explain what I mean when I say that it’s important to value religious experiences in themselves and not claim historicity where what is happening is a religious and spiritual experience. So, I’ve explained to you what perennialism is. I can tell you that in academia, perennialism is not a methodology that you can use to study things because a practitioner, as a pagan or a spiritual practitioner, may want to find similarities and unifications. In contrast, academics are very much concerned with specificities. And for an academic, it’s not enough to find similarities and discard the differences, which is something that may happen with the perennialist view: to overlook the differences and the cultural specificities and focus more on the similarities, to say, ‘Oh, there’s Angela, who’s a woman, another woman who has dark hair, they come from Italy, they are the same person.’ It is discarding all the differences between this other woman and me that may have some similarities.

So, academics tend to focus a lot on complexity, nuance, and context, so the context cannot be discarded.

With practitioners, instead, their focus may not be to gather the most accurate knowledge about a specific deity and a specific cult at a specific time. For a practitioner, what might be more important is to have a connection with a specific energy with that goddess. So, what happens if you are a Pagan? You have a spiritual, transformative practice where you have the experience that Artemis and Hecate appear to you in a vision, and they say, ‘I am one goddess. I am your goddess. I’m here to help you.’ What does it mean? Does that mean that Artemis and Hecate are the same deity in history? No. And does it mean that the fact that this is not historically factual does not in any way undermine that spiritual, transformative experience? Also, no. The problem only starts when the person who has the spiritual experience, and rightfully so, gives a lot of importance to it, then starts to cherry-pick history and starts to write books and write blogs and disseminate online or disseminate in person, the concept that actually Hecate and Artemis are the same exact goddess because, look at all these similarities, and just forget about all the differences because – look at the similarities.

So, I guess that with this example, what I’m trying to illustrate is that spiritual and religious practices are extremely important. And as an Anthropologist, of course, I do participant observation. I participate in rituals. I undertake initiations. So, I see how much practices mean to people, and I would never undermine any of that. The only thing that I really want to try to encourage Pagans to do is not to claim historicity when historicity is not there, just for the sake of validation, because your practice is valid in itself. If it is important to you, transformative to you, and has meaning to you, then it is valid. You don’t need to have any historical validation for that. It’s important to maintain the distinction because we need both: we need the historical perspective, and we need the facts, and we also need spiritual experiences the way they come and see them as valid and potent and transformative as they are and as they appear.

So, I think that I can end here, and thank you.

REFERENCES 📚

📚The Ancient Religion Hypothesis

Hutton, Ronald. “The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft.” Oxford University Press, 1999. This work challenges the notion that modern Paganism is a direct continuation of ancient religions by providing an extensive historical study of the origins of contemporary Pagan practices.

Magliocco, Sabina. “Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America.” University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Magliocco discusses the creation and evolution of neo-Pagan traditions and how they differ from ancient practices.

📚The Great Witch Hunt and Pagan Martyrdom

Levack, Brian P. “The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe.” Routledge, 2016.

Levack provides a comprehensive overview of the witch trials, debunking myths about the number of executions and their supposed link to Pagan martyrdom.

Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. “Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers.” Feminist Press at CUNY, 1973.

This book explores the feminist perspective on witch hunts, though it has been critiqued for its historical accuracy.

📚Christian Holidays and Pagan Origins

Hijmans, Steven. “Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas.” Mouseion Series III, Vol. 3, 2003. Hijmans argues against the direct pagan origins of Christmas, suggesting a theological basis for the date.

Hutton, Ronald. “Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain.” Oxford University Press, 1996. Hutton examines the complexities of Easter’s origins and the speculative connection to Eostre.

📚The Universal Triple Goddess

Graves, Robert. “The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth.” Faber & Faber, 1948. Graves’ book is the source of the Universal Triple Goddess concept, which subsequent scholars have critically examined.

Wood, Juliette. “The Concept of the Goddess.” Routledge, 1996. Wood critiques the Triple Goddess concept, discussing its modern construction rather than ancient universality.

📚 The Primordial Mother Goddess Archetype

Gimbutas, Marija. “The Language of the Goddess.” Harper & Row, 1989. Gimbutas’ work on the Goddess hypothesis is seminal but has been challenged by later scholars.

Hawkes, Jacqueline. “Dawn of the Gods.” Chatto & Windus, 1968. Hawkes is critical of projecting modern concepts, such as the Mother Goddess, onto ancient societies.