Editing Modern paganism (section)

===Ritual===

Pagan ritual can take place in both a public and private setting.{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=38}}
Contemporary pagan ritual is typically geared towards "facilitating altered states of awareness or shifting mind-sets".{{sfn|Carpenter|1996|p=66}} To induce such altered states of consciousness, pagans use such elements as drumming, visualization, chanting, singing, dancing, and meditation.{{sfn|Carpenter|1996|p=66}} American folklorist [[Sabina Magliocco]] came to the conclusion, based upon her ethnographic fieldwork in California that certain pagan beliefs "arise from what they experience during religious ecstasy".{{sfn|Magliocco|2004|p=9}}

Sociologist [[Margot Adler]] highlighted how several pagan groups, like the [[Reformed Druids of North America]] and the [[Discordianism|Erisian movement]] incorporate a great deal of [[play (activity)|play]] in their rituals rather than having them be completely serious and somber. She noted that there are those who would argue that "the Pagan community is one of the only spiritual communities that is exploring humor, joy, abandonment, even silliness and outrageousness as valid parts of spiritual experience".{{sfn|Adler|2006|pp=335–354}}

Domestic worship typically takes place in the home and is carried out by either an individual or family group.{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=40}} It typically involves offerings – including bread, cake, flowers, fruit, milk, beer, or wine – being given to images of deities, often accompanied with prayers and songs and the lighting of candles and incense.{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=40}}
Common pagan devotional practices have thus been compared to similar practices in Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodox Christianity, but contrasted with that in Protestantism, Judaism, and Islam.{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=41}}
Although [[animal sacrifice]] was a common part of pre-Christian ritual in Europe, it is rarely practiced in contemporary paganism.{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=40}}