Nature and the environment in American Wicca

This thesis is a historical sketch and overview of aspects of contemporary American Paganism and Wicca as 'Nature religions’. Wicca's historical roots in Britain are explored as is the cultural milieux surrounding the American environmentalist movement, and its fundamental influences on the development of American Wicca and contemporary Paganism. Themes of nature will be surveyed with respect to their increasing importance within Wicca since its arrival in America in the early 1960s, as well as the rapidly growing segments of these Pagan communities that are explicitly concerned with environmental and ecological issues