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involvement with poetry, art, drama, music, science fiction, and fantasy. At least four Witches in different parts of the country spoke of religion as a human need for beauty.
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    Intellectual Satisfaction. Many told me that reading and collecting odd books had been the prime influence in their religious decision. This came as a surprise to me. In particular, most of the Midwesterners said flatly that the wide dissemination of strange and fascinating books had been the main factor in creating a Neo-Pagan resurgence. And while class and profession vary widely among Neo-Pagans, almost all are avid readers. This does not seem to depend on their educational level; it holds true for high-school dropouts as well as Ph.D.s.
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    Growth. A more predictable answer, this ambiguous word was given frequently. Most Pagans see their lives not as straight roads to specific goals, but as processes—evolution, change, or an increase in understanding. Neo-Pagans often see themselves as pursuing the quests of the mystery traditions: initiations into the workings of life, death, and rebirth.
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    Feminism. For many women, this was the main reason for involvement. Large numbers of women have been seeking a spiritual framework outside the patriarchal religions that have dominated the Western world for the last several thousand years. Many who wanted to find a spiritual side to their feminism entered the Craft because of its emphasis on goddess worship. Neo-Pagan Witchcraft groups range from those with a mixture of female and male deities to those that focus on the monotheistic worship of the Mother Goddess.
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    Environmental Response. Many of those interviewed said that Neo-Paganism was a response to a planet in crisis. Almost all the Pagan traditions emphasize reverence for nature, and many believe that only by understanding the earth as sacred will human beings be able and willing to protect the planet. Some Pagans told me that a revival of animism was needed to counter the forces destroying the natural world. 11
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    Freedom. Another unexpected answer. The Frosts, who run one of the largest Witchcraft correspondence courses in the country, described the Craft as “religion without the middleman.” Many people said that they had become Pagans because they could be themselves and act as they chose, without what they felt were medieval notions of sin and guilt. Others wanted to participate in rituals rather than observe them. The leader of the Georgian tradition told me that freedom was his prime reason for making an independent religious decision.
    This last reason seemed most remarkable. The freedom that is characteristic of the Neo-Pagan resurgence sets the movement far apart from many other religious revivals. Why have these groups refused to succumb to rigid hierarchies and institutionalization? And how is it possible for them to exist in relative harmony, in spite of their different rituals and deities? These groups can exist this way because the Neo-Pagan religious framework is based on a polytheistic outlook—a view that allows differing perspectives and ideas to coexist.

3.
    The Pagan World View
    We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same universe encompasses us. What does it matter what practical system we adopt in our search for the truth? Not by one avenue only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret.
    â€”SYMMACHUS, 384 C.E. 1
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    Monotheism is but imperialism in religion.
    â€”JAMES HENRY BREASTED 2
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    WHILE MOST NEO-PAGANS disagree on almost everything, one of their most important principles is polytheism, and this is generally understood to mean much more than “a theory that Divine reality is numerically multiple, that there are many gods.” 3 Many Pagans will tell you that polytheism is an attitude and a perspective that affect more than what we consider to be religion. They might well say that the constant calls for unity, integration, and homogenization in