soc.religion.paganism was a moderated home for the modern Pagan revival on Usenet — a place where Wiccans, Druids, Heathens, Hellenists, and eclectic practitioners from across the English-speaking world gathered to discuss practice, theology, and community. The archived corpus spans 2003 to 2014 and holds over 6,000 posts. At its peak in 2004 and 2005, the group functioned as a genuine community forum: regular book reviews, monthly calendars of religious observances, an actively maintained FAQ, and occasional long-form essays and ritual texts that had no other obvious venue. This is a record of that community — its scholarship, its care for newcomers, its quietly maintained traditions.
The Tradition
Modern Paganism — often called Neopaganism — is an umbrella term for a diverse family of contemporary religious movements that draw on or reconstruct pre-Christian religious traditions. Within this family, Wicca is the largest and most codified current, founded in the mid-twentieth century by Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente and developed by figures such as Raymond and Rosemary Buckland, Starhawk, and Scott Cunningham. Alongside Wicca, the broader Pagan movement includes Druidry (particularly the ADF and OBOD traditions), Asatru and Norse Heathenry, Hellenismos (Greek reconstructionism), Kemetism (Egyptian reconstructionism), Religio Romana, Celtic Reconstructionism, and a wide range of eclectic and syncretic practices.
What unites these currents — and what soc.religion.paganism reflected — is a shared orientation toward the cycles of the natural world, a polytheistic or at least pluralistic relationship with deity, and a commitment to living practice over purely textual or confessional faith. The Wheel of the Year (the eight seasonal sabbats of Wiccan and Druidic tradition), the invocation of specific deities, and the development of personal or group ritual forms are common concerns across traditions.
The Group's Character
The archive spans 6,153 posts across eleven years, with heaviest activity in 2004 (1,599 posts) and 2005 (1,492 posts). soc.religion.paganism was moderated throughout this period, which shaped its tone: flamewars were curtailed, overtly commercial posts were filtered, and the group maintained a relatively welcoming atmosphere for newcomers and for practitioners from multiple traditions.
Mike Gleason was the group's dominant voice in terms of volume, posting hundreds of thorough book reviews of Pagan and occult titles — a valuable public service for a community navigating a rapidly expanding publication market. Baird Stafford served as moderator and contributed to theological discussions. Nick Upson maintained the group's FAQ through regular reposts. Terry McCombs posted a monthly "Goddess of the Month" series alongside calendars of Pagan holy days across traditions, and contributed occasional comparative mythology essays on deities outside the Celtic-Wiccan mainstream. Cerridwyn (Lady Cerridwyn, HPs) posted ritual texts and practice guides. Arondelle and Dirk Bruere at Neopax were long-term contributors who ranged across theology, practice, and community discussion.
The group leaned Wiccan in its center of gravity but was deliberately non-exclusive. Contributors practiced ADF Druidry, Celtic Reconstructionism, Hellenismos, Asatru, and various forms of eclecticism alongside the Wiccan majority. The moderation kept it tolerant of this diversity.
The Group's Practice Tradition
One distinctive feature of soc.religion.paganism was its sustained attention to the practice of religion rather than purely its theology: what to do, how to do it, and why. The FAQ (regularly reposted by Nick Upson from its original authorship) addressed the most common newcomer questions about Wicca and broader Paganism. Terry McCombs's monthly Goddess of the Month posts introduced deities from Slavic, Baltic, Asian, and indigenous traditions that were far outside the usual Wiccan scope. Cerridwyn's posts occasionally included complete ritual liturgies from the ADF Druidic tradition — Ian Corrigan's solitary Yule rite being the most complete example.
The group was also attentive to its own community: the moderation structure, the debates about Llewellyn's influence on popular Wicca, the tension between initiatory and self-initiatory traditions, and the relationship between solitaries and covens were recurring concerns. These were not abstract discussions — they were a community working out the norms and structures of a living tradition.
Context
soc.religion.paganism was active during the transitional decade when modern Paganism moved from its Usenet-era communities toward the blog networks and then the social media ecosystems that succeeded them. The group's peak years, 2004 and 2005, overlap with the emergence of LiveJournal pagan communities, the early Pagan blogosphere, and the final years when Usenet was the primary long-form text discussion space for the tradition.
The tradition it served had itself developed considerably by this point: Gardner's original Wicca had branched into the Alexandrian tradition (Alex Sanders), the Georgian tradition, Dianic Wicca, and dozens of eclectic offshoots. Starhawk's The Spiral Dance (1979) had politicized feminist currents within the tradition. Cunningham's solitary Wicca books had made the tradition accessible outside coven structures. By the 2000s, soc.religion.paganism's community of practice was the mature heir to forty years of development.
Colophon
Introduction written by the New Tianmu Anglican Church Usenet Archive Project, 2026. Source: soc.religion.paganism.20140303.mbox.gz (Internet Archive), containing 6,153 posts, 2003–2014. Archive statistics: peak activity 2004 (1,599 posts), 2005 (1,492 posts). Top contributors: Dirk Bruere at Neopax (~608 posts), Mike Gleason (~450 book reviews), Baird Stafford (~454 posts), Arondelle (~204 posts), Gale (~165 posts), Terry McCombs (regular contributor). The gems preserved from this group represent the practice-oriented and comparative mythology traditions at their most sustained.
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