Whois & Analysis for enchantedjewelry.com

Anne Stokes is a fantasy artist whose early work has appeared in role-playing games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons.

The New Age is a term applied to a range of spiritual or religious beliefs and practices that developed in Western nations during the 1970s.

Precise scholarly definitions of the New Age differ in their emphasis, largely as a result of its highly eclectic structure.

Although analytically often considered to be religious, those involved in it typically prefer the designation of "spiritual" and rarely use the term "New Age" themselves.

Many scholars of the subject refer to it as the New Age movement, although others contest this term and suggest that it is better seen as a milieu or zeitgeist.

The occult (from the Latin word occultus "clandestine, hidden, secret") is "knowledge of the hidden." In common English usage, occult refers to "knowledge of the paranormal," as opposed to "knowledge of the measurable," usually referred to as science.

The term is sometimes taken to mean knowledge that "is meant only for certain people" or that "must be kept hidden", but for most practicing occultists it is simply the study of a deeper spiritual reality that extends beyond pure reason and the physical sciences.

The terms esoteric and arcane can also be used to describe the occult, in addition to their meanings unrelated to the supernatural.

Divination (from Latin divinare "to foresee, to be inspired by a god", related to divinus, divine) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual.

Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency.

Paganism is a term that derives from Latin word pagan, which means "nonparticipant, one excluded from a more distinguished, professional group".

The term was used in the 4th century, by early Christian community, in reference to populations of the Roman world who worshipped many deities.

The term competed with "polytheism" already in use in Judaism, by Philo in the 1st century.

Pagans and paganism was a pejorative for the same polytheistic group, implying "inferiority".

Paganism has broadly connoted "religion of the peasantry", and for much of its history a derogatory term.

Alternate terms in Christian texts for the same group was "hellene" and "gentile".

In and after the Middle Ages, paganism was a pejorative that was applied to any non-Abrahamic or unfamiliar religion, and the term presumed a belief in false god(s).