History of Neo-Pagan Druidism, Requirement 8

Discuss the influence of the Internet, and how it has changed Paganism in the 1990s (minimum 100 words)

If it is difficult for a Pagan my age to imagine a world without Pagan festivals, it is impossible to imagine Paganism without the internet. The free information exchange provided by the internet since the early days of bulletin boards, MUDs and email lists is simply amazing, and while we have seen the proliferation of bad information as well as the good, the good generally outweighs the bad, and the gap is growing all the time. The complete texts of various mythological works can be found online, with better and better translations continually appearing, reducing the dependency on physical bookstores and opening the world of Paganism to an ever younger segment of the population. Whereas before the advent of the internet, Neo-Pagans had spent the majority of their lives seeking others, the inverse levels of competence and age on the internet (from young internet professionals to those college students who were among the first to obtain access to the internet) have meant that there are more and more young Pagans finding ways to connect with their elders (who are also younger than they were twenty years ago).

The internet has not only changed how we exchange ideas, but the demographics that are exchanging them. And in the spirit of there being no such thing as bad publicity, it has been nothing but good for Neo-Paganism.

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