Neopaganism and New Age in Russia

Abstract

Since the 1990s various new pagan organisations have emerged in Russia.Religious phenomena known in Western Europe, such as the emergence of new religious movements, including the New Age, are also taking place in Russia.The article aims to find out whether the pagan movements in today's Russia are related and if so, how they are related according to the comparative perspective explicated by Michael York, Paul Heelas and Wouter Hanegraaff.In The Emerging Network, Michael York (1995) affirms that the main three characteristics of Neopaganism and New Age are the stewardship of the Earth, personal growth, and religious consumerism.I will observe whether these characteristics apply to Neopaganism and New Age in Russia.We will focus on self development, which is one of the key notions in New Age, in order to observe how this notion is presently understood in the specific context of post-communist Russia, as well as the relationship with nature, "strongest overlap between Neopaganism and New Age.Both of these concepts are important in regard to the form that contemporary pagan organisations have assumed: some emphasise nationhood and people, though its members may make references to the western New Age literature, while others try to revive the past and the link with the Earth, which still existed in early 20th century rural communities owing to the "double faith".It appears that the New Age and Neopaganism share the same goals: namely, letting the integral voice of each individual express itself after freeing the self from one's conditioning.In the New Age framework this means to independent thinking, living according to one's own values and personality and not according to what society, culture, parents have imposed on you.It means also discovering one's own creativity.In The Emerging Network, Michael York affirms that the unity of New Agers, despite their contradictory opinions and beliefs, finds itself in the "vision of radical mystical transformation