Neo-Paganism, Animism, and Kinship with Nature

'Love for and kinship with nature' is the first principle of the Pagan Federation and putatively provides the foundation for contemporary Western Pagans' relationships with the natural environment and other-than-human beings. This article explores the meanings of kinship with nature and animism for neo-Pagans and asks whether expressions of such a worldview are more than metaphorical, rhetorical or simply wishful. The meanings for some indigenous animist peoples are discussed and compared with neo-Pagan understandings. The article concludes that kinship with nature is meaningful for most neo-Pagans largely within the domains of religious belief, ritual, and recreational activity; it does not usually determine the rules of everyday life in the ways it does, or traditionally did, for indigenous animist peoples. This is not to say that it is not a relevant or useful proposition in the modern or postmodern world. A neo-Pagan worldview provides a model of social relations among 'people' of all kinds, along with an ideological and motivational charter for human action which has urgent, contemporary ecological relevance.