7 Influential Pagans l Leaders of the Occult l Influential Pagan Teachers

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Pagan comes from the Latin word "paganus," meaning villager or civilian and they have a polytheistic approach to life. Modern forms of paganism are rooted in the 19th century C.E. European nationalism, while some maintain that they are rooted in the 1960s. American pagans practice a variety of forms of traditions, but the most popular are Celtic, Greco-Roman, Native American and Norse. Native American may practice Shamanism. This is where a shaman progresses to the spirit realm to gain information regarding supernatural healing and information from the beyond that can be taken back to the community. Druids are part of the judicial class of the ancient Celts and offer another variety of paganism. "The diversity of pagan traditions has made a comprehensive census nearly impossible. Practitioners also point out that social discrimination against paganism has kept many from practicing openly," patheos.com reported. Over the years leaders stepped up to help pagans have a bigger voice over many sects. Here are 7 of the most influential leaders of paganism.

Starhawk

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“Beware of organizations that proclaim their devotion to the light without embracing, bowing to the dark; for when they idealize half the world they must devalue the rest," said Starhawk who is considered the most respected voices in modern earth-based spirituality. She is the author of The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, long considered the essential text for the Neo-Pagan movement. It is also a resource and a how-to on Wicca, witchcraft, spiritual feminism and also the Goddess movement, which has inspired British witchcraft to turn into paganism. Starhawk also writes on activism and calls for an intersectionality of fighting oppression that includes spirituality, eco-consciousness and sexual and gender liberation.

Philip Heselton

Historian Philip Heselton is an expert and author on earth mysteries and Wicca. He is the father of contemporary witchcraft. He was commissioned by the Center for Pagan Studies (CFPS) in association with the Doreen Valiente Foundation (DVF) to write the biography of Doreen Valiente, one of Gerald Gardner's early High Priestesses and perhaps the main inspiration for the continued growth of the Gardnerian Tradition. Heselton is considered one of the world's leading authorities on the roots of Wicca, witchcraft and neo-paganism. "I always feel grateful to that library for having books on a variety of subjects in which I have remained interested. I felt excited by Witchcraft Today, not just by what it said but by the atmosphere which it had. I was able to read between the lines to the echoes of something very deep. That has always remained with me. I thereafter read any book on witchcraft which I could get my hands on! It was, however, much, much later before I met any real live pagans." he said.

Margaret Murray

Margaret Murray wrote God of the Witches and it became part of the modern pagan revival because of it. She also published The Witch-Cult in Western Europe and this proposed that the resistance to pagans was an attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate an antagonist. She believed that "Fairies were an actual subculture of full-sized if slightly stunted by their diet human beings who lived secretively in the British Isles, persecuted along with the witches." She said that fairies were the survival of a neolithic culture. Murray redeemed and legitimized the word “witch.” "Her history of the horned god in the god of the witches is everything you want a pagan archetype to be," Mankey noted.