Editing Modern paganism (section)

==Historicity==

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote="Modern Pagans are reviving, reconstructing, and reimagining religious traditions of the past that were suppressed for a very long time, even to the point of being almost totally obliterated... Thus, with only a few possible exceptions, today's Pagans cannot claim to be continuing religious traditions handed down in an unbroken line from ancient times to the present. They are modern people with a great reverence for the spirituality of the past, making a new religion – a modern Paganism – from the remnants of the past, which they interpret, adapt, and modify according to modern ways of thinking."|source=— Religious studies scholar Michael Strmiska{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=10}} }}

Although inspired by the pre-Christian belief systems of the past, modern paganism is not the same phenomenon as these lost traditions and in many respects differs from them considerably.{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=10}} Strmiska stresses that modern paganism is a "new", "modern" religious movement, even if some of its content derives from ancient sources.{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=10}} Contemporary paganism as practiced in the United States in the 1990s has been described as "a synthesis of historical inspiration and present-day creativity".{{efn|[[#Car96|Carpenter 1996]]. p. 47. Paganism, as I use the term, refers broadly to an emerging spiritual movement {{sic|comprised |hide=y|of}} overlapping forms of spirituality referred to by many names (e.g. 'neo-paganism,' 'paganism,' 'neo-pagan witchcraft,' 'witchcraft,' 'the craft,' 'Wiccan spirituality,' 'Wicca,' 'Wicce,' 'Wiccan religion,' 'the old religion,' 'Goddess spirituality,' 'nature spirituality,' 'nature religion,'  'earth-based spirituality,' 'earth religion,' 'ecofeminist spirituality,' and 'Euro-American shamanism'}}

[[Eclectic paganism]] takes an undogmatic religious stance{{Sfn|Adler|2006|p=23}} and therefore potentially sees no one as having authority to deem a source apocryphal. Contemporary paganism has therefore been prone to [[fakelore]], especially in recent years as information and misinformation alike have been spread on the Internet and in print media. A number of [[Wicca]]n, pagan and even some Traditionalist or Tribalist groups have a history of Grandmother Stories – typically involving initiation by a Grandmother, Grandfather, or other elderly relative who is said to have instructed them in the secret, millennia-old traditions of their ancestors. As this secret wisdom can almost always be traced to recent sources, tellers of these stories have often later admitted they made them up.{{Sfn|Adler|2006|pp=94–5 (Sanders), 78 (Anderson), 83 (Gardner), 87 (Fitch), 90 (Pendderwen)}} Strmiska asserts that contemporary paganism could be viewed as a part of the "much larger phenomenon" of efforts to revive "traditional, indigenous, or native religions" that were occurring across the globe.{{sfn|Strmiska|2005|p=2}}