The status and increased following of Nature Religions in Australia

Nature religions are the fastest-growing group of religions in Australia. Between the 1991 and 1996 Censuses the number of people following nature religions, as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, rose 130 per cent. In 2001 the growth in nature religions showed a 140 per cent rise - 24,156 people, or 0.13 per cent of the population - since 1996. This means that nature religions have attracted an additional 20,000 people in the decade.

The term "nature religion" is somewhat loose. It includes Druidism, Paganism, Pantheism, and Wicca or Witchcraft. Generally, groups that have developed in the West are included in this category but so is animism, which is found in many ancient cultures and which refers to the recognition of spirits in natural objects. Australian traditional Indigenous religions have not been included.

The 2001 Census reported that of all nature religions Paganism (see below) was the largest, comprising 44 per cent of the category, and Wicca or Witchcraft (see below) the second largest (36 per cent).

Sixty-four per cent of those identifying with one or other of the nature religions lived in Australian capitals. Generally agricultural communities are more likely to identify with mainline Christian denominations.

Melbourne had the largest number of people aligned with nature religions (4155), and 74 per cent of Victoria's total lived there. Sydney had the next largest number (3903) but this represented a smaller proportion of the state total (56 per cent) than for Victoria. Brisbane had the third greatest number (2457) but was very similar to the proportion living in the rest of Queensland (2406). Perth had about 2000 followers, Adelaide had slightly fewer, Northern Territory and Tasmania fewer again.

Characteristics of nature religion followers

More females were aligned with nature religions as a whole - 63 per cent compared to 37 per cent males. Over three-quarters of those affiliated with Wicca or Witchcraft, and almost two-thirds affiliated with Paganism, were women. The other nature religions were male dominated. Two-thirds of men said they followed Druidism, and 57 per cent said they followed Pantheism. Although not included in the nature-religion category, Satanism was also male dominated (79 per cent).

Nature religions had a younger age profile than all major religious groups in the 2001 Census. Seventy-four per cent of people who followed a nature religion were under 40 years of age, though only 45 per cent of the total population was under 40. Fifteen-to-29-year-olds alone accounted for almost half those belonging to nature religions (47 per cent), though 15-to-29 year-olds constituted slightly over one-quarter of the total population (26 per cent). People over 50 accounted for only ten per cent of the group, while people over 50 made up 36 per cent of the total population.

More people born in Australia identified with nature religions than people born elsewhere; slightly more than one-fifth were married; and one-fifth had attended university (a number of major religious groups had higher rates of university attendance).

Nature religions had more employed people (59 per cent) than the total population (56 per cent) but more unemployed people (12.5 per cent) than any major religious group, and more than the population as a whole (4.5 per cent). Of the employed nature-religion followers, more earned less than $600 per week (73 per cent) than the general population (64 per cent).

Nevertheless, nature religion followers held various jobs and were over-represented in areas such as professional and associate professional employment, and in the clerical, sales and service fields, as well as the community service, health and education industries, and the recreation, hospitality, personal and other services industries.

Paganism

Between 1996 and 2001 the number of people affiliated with Paganism rose considerably from 4353 in 1996, to 10,632 in 2001 - a rise of 144 per cent.

While Pagans date their origins to early-Christian times, Paganism as we know it today (sometimes known as Neo-paganism), is very much a Western, 20th-century invention, an eclectic spirituality that draws on a range of resources to create meaning. Sometimes it is promulgated as an alternative or in opposition to institutionalised religions, particularly Christianity.

A variety of traditions have contributed to Paganism. It claims to draw on the worship patterns of pre-Christian religions, and particularly those of Nordic and Celtic mythology. However, recent patterns have been influenced more by the occult, as developed by people such as Aleister Crowley and Gerald Gardner. These people drew on some of the secret societies of 19th and early 20th century Europe, such as the Rosicrucians and the Ordo Templi Orientis.

The latest emergence of Paganism developed from Wicca in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, and did not really form a distinct group until 1970, the year the Pagan Front (later, the Pagan Federation) was formed in London. However, it continued to see itself as "speaking for mainstream Wicca", and saw itself as spearheading the re-emergence of nature religion.

Paganism has been described as revolving around three basic principles, although there has been some disagreement regarding the second of these:

1. Love for and kinship with nature: reverence for the life force and its ever-renewing cycles of life and death
2. "An it harm none, do what thou wilt" (known as the Pagan ethic)
3. Honouring the totality of Divine Reality, which transcends gender, without suppressing either the female or male aspect of Deity.

However, Paganism has developed separately from Wicca, particularly in the United Kingdom; it is not formally structured, Pagans do not have to be initiated into a specific group, and they have few "secret" rites. Wicca, on the other hand, tends to act as a "mystery tradition", operating in small, closed groups which can only be entered through initiation rites involving oaths of secrecy.

The Rise of Witchcraft

Between 1991 and 2001 the number of people, most of whom were women, describing themselves as witches or involved in the Wiccan movement, rose considerably; from 1367 in 1991 to 1849 in 1996 (a 35.3 per cent rise) to 8755 in 2001 (a 373.5 per cent rise).

Despite claims of a long history reaching back to the Middle Ages and earlier times, most historians see the Wiccan movement as originating in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, under the influence of Alexander Saunders and primarily Gerald Gardner. Gerald Gardner had a long history of involvement in secret and occult societies, most of which had arisen in the 19th century. Gardner developed some of their beliefs and rituals and created some of his own.

More recently, some feminists have adopted the Wiccan tradition, and in many places have combined it with beliefs in "the Goddess" as representative of divinity. This stream has generally maintained a non-hierarchical organisation and has been more politically active. It has also has sought to re-write, from a feminist perspective, the stories of the witch burnings of the medieval period, and has found inspiration in those stories and their antagonism to institutionalised and patriarchal forms of Christianity. This feminist stream of the Wiccan movement has placed an emphasis on rediscovering feminine power, divinity and consciousness raising.

Inherent in most forms of Wicca is the idea of a struggle for freedom against the powerful, institutional forces of society, and particularly patriarchal forms of religion. Wicca has promoted the image of witches as women who have been persecuted by patriarchy and derided as evil because of their sexuality and their attempts to be independent and in control of their own lives. The idea of a link with Satan or with evil powers has been eschewed. Contemporary Wiccans will argue that Satan is an invention of Christianity and has nothing to do with the gods of pre-Christian times, or their own worship of the "God" or "Goddess" of the natural world. Rather, the Wiccan source of power is seen as being in nature.

The rituals of Wicca, and several other nature religions, are based on the "Wheel of the Year" and its eight festivals. Through these rituals, the idea of the ever-changing cycle of life, of death and re-birth, is celebrated and the lives of individuals are linked to the changes of the natural seasons.

For many, Wicca involves a protest against the material world, against powerlessness, against the oppression of women, and against repressive attitudes to sexuality. For some, Wicca becomes a protest also against Christianity, which is seen as having failed women in particular.

Followers of all nature religions have various reasons for their affiliations. For some followers, no doubt, these religions are an interesting diversion, while for others it dominates their lives; for some it may be largely an occasional protest, for others a way of finding a new self.