• Agnosticism

    • a theological position that is is impossible to know if a deity or deities exist.
    • more commonly, uncertainty or ambivalence about the existence of a deity or deities.
  • Atheism

    • a lack of belief in the existence of deities.
    • active belief that no deities exists.
  • Atheopaganism

    • Atheopaganism is a modern religious path invented by Mark Green that combines Paganism’s reverence for the Earth with a science-based, non-theistic worldview. Its core tenets include Four Sacred Pillars and Thirteen Principles
  • Deism

    • the philosophical position that rejects revelation as a source of religious knowledge and asserts that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to establish the existence of a Supreme Being or creator of the universe.
  • Druidry

    • a modern spiritual or religious movement that generally promotes harmony, connection, and reverence for the natural world. Many forms of modern Druidry are modern Pagan religions. Originated in Britain during the 18th century.
  • Heathenry

    • a modern Pagan religion, developed in Europe during the early 20th century, modeled it on the pre-Christian religions adhered to by the Germanic peoples of the Iron Age and Early Middle Ages.
  • Materialism

    • the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.
  • Naturalism

    • the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted.
  • Nontheism

    • another term for atheism, sometimes utilized to distinguish from popular conception of atheism as aggressive, ‘angry,’ or hostile towards religion.
  • Occult

    • a category of supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing such phenomena involving otherworldly agency as mysticism, spirituality, and magic.
    • ritual practices that utilize the forms, symbolism, and paradigms of the above without belief in the supernatural (instead utilizing a metaphoric, mythopoetic, or psychological explanation).
  • Occulture

    • a neologism most likely coined by Genesis P. Orrige, used here to refer to practices, people, and groups that are pagan, druidic, heathen, or occult in nature.
  • Paganism

    • a term first used pejoratively in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism.
    • a collective term for new religious movements influenced by or derived from the various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern peoples.
  • Pantheism

    • the belief that reality is identical with divinity, or that all-things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god.
  • Placebo effect

    • a beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment.
    • more widely, the concept that believing an action or process will have an effect can result in that effect occurring (to various degrees).
  • Placebo magick

    • a method of attempting to harness the placebo effect for personal change through a magickal form or paradigm.
  • Psychological model

    • an approach to supernatural, magical, or religious systems in which that which is not explainable via science is taken as metaphor, symbolism, or having a psychological, as opposed to physical or ‘spiritual,’ effect.
  • Religion

    • a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements.
  • Secular

    • the state of being unrelated to religion.
  • Theism

    • belief in the existence of a deity or deities.
  • Witchcraft

    • a complex term that often refers to the practice of utilizing magic or spellcraft. Sometimes a religious practice; sometimes not. Sometimes describes a psychological paradigm of magic in which the practices are seen as having no power beyond that of suggestion, placebo, or metaphor.