Hello,

Another question that I have, that is not a research project question, is the promotion being conducted by U.S. paganism, stating that paganism includes American Native Indian Shamanism. This promotion has been very strong in the U.S. in the last two years, however, I've yet to meet or know of an American Native Indian Shaman actually a part of the pagan movement? And the Indians that I do know have never heard of Wicca or Paganism

My non-research question is to ask, do UK pagans also claim that American Native Indian Shamans and Shamanism are part of the pagan world on your Island?

Thank you,

Odin d'Avalon

pagan is just a word for anyone not part opf the mainstream religions (dont ask me to list them) therfore anyone who has a faith or belief is something other than the mainstream religions is therefore pagan, its a word, that seperates them from us. pagan is a word given to that group, then certain people have their own path, its very easy if you think about it. do they see themselves as pagans, i very much doupt it, but they may not have a word for snow either. its just a word.
helllo is this thing on.
and ps, wicca is a form of paganism, is not a serperate thing, its part of that little whole.

Does that mean that if the paganism were to grow until the number of people calling themselves pagan were roughly equal with the number of people in mainstream religions it would cease to be paganism because it had gone mainstream?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by promotion of a specific spiritual path.

As for people not referring to themselves as pagans I suspect that for people who have been following a lifelong shamanic path, paganism is something of a privative i.e. something which does not exist unless the opposite has been defined, for example mainstream monothesist faiths. There is also the connotation that paganism means paths that anyone may follow, which I would doubt would be the case for aborigional (sp) paths, especially shamanistic paths.

Jess