Life as a heathen : Pagan movements and historical inspiration in contemporary Sweden

This essay presents the result of a quantitative study made among contemporary pagans in Sweden. The study, which is based on an Internet survey, examines which types of pagan practices that are most common and what kind of troubles pagan faith could cause in the practitioners daily life. The study also examines whether the historical tradition and the archaeological facts behind a contemporary pagan movement serves as a pattern or an inspiration for the practitioners way of leading their lives or performing rituals. It also examines the correlation between the participants sex and their pagan tradition. The study shows that a vast majority of the 132 participants claimed to belong to an Old Norse tradition, but also believed in different beings of nature and nature religion. A majority of the participants viewed historical and archaeological facts with a connection to their faith more as an inspiration to their religious practices than actual religious rules