Editor's note: This is the second column in a series on New Age and pagan faiths. Click here to see the first column in the series.

A small denomination, or even a diverse group of religious practitioners, can exercise a mighty influence, with beliefs that tap deep into the cultural soil of our nation.

Look at the Episcopalians, my own denomination. Although they have lost their grip on American political life over the decades, they were long overly represented among the political and social classes that ran this country for decades, if not for centuries.

Such is the case with New Age thought and practices. Although the movement has declined and the term has become a pejorative term to many, its heritage is deeply enmeshed in American culture.

Paganism is a still-vital spirituality, one whose influence is difficult to calibrate. Modern paganism, a relative newcomer on the American scene, is an umbrella term for several distinct religions, pagan journalist Jason Pitzl-Waters said in a telephone interview.

"While surveys suggest roughly a million pagan practitioners in America," he said, "if you count people who have unorthodox religious views, then there are many millions of people."

As we continue to examine these strains of faith and their contribution to our cultural and religious life, it's important to see what they shared, and where their paths diverged.

This column focuses on New Age spirituality and how it became an inviting entrance point for pagan practice when it arrived in the United States.

"New Age influence is still felt in society, but very few people would identify as a 'New Ager,'" Philip Charles Lucas, professor of religious studies at Florida's Stetson University, said in a phone interview.

Lucas, who has written extensively on the topic, characterizes the New Age movement as a "discourse community" rather than one characterized by institutions and hierarchy.  

In an article to be published this fall in the Oxford Handbook of Millennialism, Lucas writes that although the New Age "movement" may be over, it has left its mark in such areas as "Green" politics, activism for human rights, individualist spiritualities, the growth of alternative medicines and a growing sense of "transnational awareness."

In his article, Lucas writes that New Age spirituality has roots that go back to the Western Esoteric traditions of the ancient Greeks and other cultures of late antiquity. 

In America, these traditions expressed themselves in such faith traditions as Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism, Spiritualism, Theosophy and New Thought, he writes. In secular, post-Enlightenment terms, that meant there were laws that ruled the universe — and could be discovered.

New Age faithful didn't gather in a church, or belong to an institutional hierarchy. In fact, Lucas said, they were "anti-institution," yet they spoke the same language, networked together, and used the same "buzz" words to understand the world.

Adherents shared four main beliefs, Lucas said in the phone interview.

They believed that humanity was about to undergo a fundamental spiritual transformation, with a new awareness of the oneness of all life. Many envisioned a time of prosperity, environmental healing and peace.

They believed that an "ethic of self-empowerment" would precede this shift in human awareness.

They embraced and synthesized spirituality and science, trying to bridge the gap between these two.

They subscribed to religious tolerance, harmonizing and adopting various bits and pieces of different religion traditions for their own practice.

For some, New Age thought also had a more pessimistic, catastrophic  element. When many faithful confronted the environmental and global challenges of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, even some of the optimists defected, abandoning their faith in human progress.

But, for a while, New Age spirituality offered a convenient home for pagans who wanted to find a berth in American religious thought.

When pagan thought was imported from Great Britain in the 1960s, in large part thanks to the work of British writer and Wiccan Gerald Gardner, it found a temporary home  in the New Age arena, Pitzl-Waters said.

"There was enough overlap between our spirituality that when modern paganism appeared on the scene, it found a safe haven," he said.

But paganism has features that distinguish it from New Age spiritualities, Pitzl-Waters said. One example: "Paganism is very much a here-and-now theology," he said.

By contrast, New Age beliefs are in many ways very future-oriented.

"For a while, the New Age movement was where we found safety while at a young stage," Pitzl-Waters said. As time has passed, Pagan Studies also has become a discipline of its own, he said, with its own body of academic literature, published by reputable publishers.

While New Age spirituality embraces nature-themed religions among its eclectic philosophies, pagans are more concerned to make the differences clear, Lucas said.

Although still tiny in terms of numbers, pagan practices are a vibrant part of the American conversation. In the decades that have followed the transmission of Gardner's work, and the importing and development of pagan practices over here, American pagan denominations have come into their own.

And it is to these pagan practices, with their British roots and uniquely American cast, that we will turn in our next commentary.

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