more educated, have an over-representation of gay men and a younger age profile.
Encountering the Goddess
Although participants encountered different goddesses from numerous pantheons – Egyptian, Celtic and Romano-Greek goddesses were most commonly venerated − there seemed to be no discernible pattern in such affiliations. Simultaneous affiliations to a variety of goddesses in different pantheons were common to a majority of respondents. Despite this, one can discern a pattern in the religious careers of respondents. A significant majority discussed childhood encounters with a female spiritual being which appeared to lead to a state of cognitive dissonance[1] in practitioners. On the one hand, it was an empowering experience which was said to catalyse later practice. On the other, many felt both marked out as different and thus isolated and alienated by these experiences. Typically, it was only later in life, most often as young adults when respondents became aware of Contemporary Paganisms, that these dissonant cognitions diminished. Many came to Paganisms through finding books on the subject in local libraries or bookshops. Notices in mind-body-spirit or health shops lead to involvement in local Pagan groups or to magazine subscriptions which eventually led to committed Pagan practice.
Discovering the Pagan community of practice was often liked by respondents to a sense of ‘coming home’ or ‘coming out’. Indeed many of the gay respondents made striking parallels between the two processes: ‘I came out twice ... first as a gay man, then as a witch.’ ‘All of the things that the gay community offered me ... refuge, meaning and identity ... Paganism gave me the same thing.’ These processes within Paganisms correspond with similar processes of identity politics within Shane Phelan’s work on lesbian communities.[2] Phelan argues that although the lesbian community, like the Pagan community, is diverse, it participates in four major processes which give it the internal consistency of a community:
First, it provides a place that lesbians can be insulated from hostility to their sexual orientation. Second, it furnishes an escape for lesbians from invisibility in the larger community. Third, it supplies models for creating a
