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Since then, Margaret Murray's theory of an organised pan-European witch-cult has been discredited, and doubts raised about the age of Wicca; many Wiccans no longer claim this historical lineage. However, it is still common for Wiccans to feel solidarity with the victims of the witch trials and, being witches, to consider the witch-craze to have ...
Later in the 20th Century, as Wicca spread to North America, it incorporated countercultural, second-wave feminist, and LGBTQ elements. The essentialist rigidity fluctuated under the influence of Carl Jung's notions of anima and animus and non-heterosexual orientations became more acceptable.
In 1645, Springfield, Massachusetts, experienced America's first accusations of witchcraft when husband and wife Hugh and Mary Parsons accused each other of witchcraft. At America's first witch trial, Hugh was found innocent, while Mary was acquitted of witchcraft but sentenced to be hanged for the death of her child. She died in prison.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Religious Identification Survey, between 2001 and 2008, the number of Wiccans increased from 134,000 to 342,000, while the number of pagans increased ...
The 2014 Pew Research Center's Religious Landscapes Survey included a subset of the New Age Spiritual Movement called "Pagan or Wiccan," reflecting that 3/4 of individuals identifying as New Age also identified as Pagan or Wiccan and placing Wiccans and Pagans at 0.3% of the total U.S. population or approximately 956,000 people of just over ...
Some North American witchcraft beliefs were influenced by beliefs about witchcraft in Latin America, and by African witchcraft beliefs through the slave trade. [139] [140] [134] Native American cultures adopted the term for their own witchcraft beliefs. [141] Neopagan witchcraft practices such as Wicca then emerged in the mid-20th century. [133 ...
A number of academics, particularly in North America, consider modern paganism a form of nature religion. [17] A Heathen shrine to the god Freyr, Sweden, 2010. Some practitioners completely eschew the use of the term pagan, preferring to use more specific names for their religion, such as "Heathen" or "Wiccan". [18]
Berger argued that whilst the beliefs and practices of Wiccans were "in part determined by social factors, such as class, race and gender", at the same time these Wiccans exerted a level of control and self-determination over their lives "both by the very act of becoming a Witch and through the self-conscious use of rituals to create a persona."