In this thought-provoking interview, Guillaume Faye explores the philosophical, spiritual, and political dimensions of contemporary Paganism, offering a bold and unfiltered perspective on its resurgence in Europe. Rejecting both dogmatic monotheism and modern nihilism, he envisions a neo-Paganism that is both Promethean and Apollonian, rooted in the eternal rhythms of nature and the will to power.
Faye contrasts Paganism’s organic worldview—a synthesis of cosmic order and Dionysian vitality—with the decline of Christianity and the rise of Islam in Europe, warning of impending cultural and ideological conflicts. He critiques the secularization of Catholicism, the weakness of modern Western societies, and the misguided interpretations of Paganism that mistake cultural dissolution for spiritual revival.
Drawing from Nietzsche, Valéry, and ancient mythology, he argues that Paganism is not a return to the past but a reaffirmation of timeless principles in a world hurtling toward chaos. With striking imagery and provocative insights, he calls for the creation of new gods, the reawakening of Europe’s ancestral memory, and the forging of a post-Christian, post-modern future.
At once radical and poetic, this conversation challenges conventional narratives and invites readers to reconsider the spiritual destiny of Europe in an age of upheaval.
Originally published in Antaios (No. XVI, Spring 2001). Translated from the French at Hache.
Translated by Alexander Raynor
Christopher Gérard: Who are you?
Guillaume Faye: It is impossible for me to define myself. In any case, I am multifaceted, unspecialized, a sort of "polytheist" in my own life. Although I hold a degree from Sciences Po, a bachelor's in history and geography, and a doctorate in political science, I have never taken my diplomas seriously, nor have I ever used them to "succeed" within bourgeois society or the official intelligentsia.
I have sold cars door-to-door, hosted comedy shows on mainstream radio and television, written books and articles on all sorts of topics, from the most "serious" to the lightest. I have worked in advertising and the major press, and so on. Currently, I write books, give lectures all over Europe, and have just launched a socio-economic newsletter, whose success I am pleased with.
My ancestral origins have been strictly limited, for many generations, to the Gallic regions of Poitou-Charentes and Limousin—a happy blend of Celtic and Roman traditions. I was raised in the cult of French nationalism, with a Bonapartist leaning, and the paradoxical result of this was a European patriotism. My social background is that of the Parisian upper bourgeoisie, which I know perfectly well from the inside but whose conformist and materialistic ideals I have never shared, nor envied, because the lifestyle it offered me, at its core, never interested me.
CG: What has been your intellectual journey?
GF: I don’t like the word “intellectual.” Allow me a rather blunt remark: I have always thought that intellectuals are to intelligence what masturbation is to love. The “intellectual” is a narcissistic being, heir to the Byzantine theologians, lost in pure (and 95% false) ideas, wasting his own time and that of others.
Let’s not forget that the term was originally pejorative, coined in the 1890s to describe the class of professors, publicists, and journalists who preferred ideological dogmas over reality. There is nothing less pagan than the word “intellectual”! It enshrines a fatal divide between the intellect (Geist) and the vital soul (Seele).
My first intellectual awakener was Nietzsche, especially The Gay Science and The Antichrist, which were introduced to me by my philosophy teacher while I was studying with the Jesuits in Paris—a religious order that, despite offering only a lukewarm Christian education, was far more interested in Greco-Latin humanism. Paradoxically, then, the two sources of my Paganism—Nietzschean thought and Greco-Latin culture—come from the Jesuits.
I was fortunate to pursue long and eclectic studies: ancient languages, political science, history, geography, philosophy, economics. This allowed me to avoid specialization and remain a "jack-of-all-trades." Likewise, I was influenced by the thought methods of the Marxist school, though I never shared any of its societal choices or utopian visions. My education was highly varied and, in the end, not very French at all.
Descartes, Montaigne, Bergson, and company never inspired me, nor did Maurras, for that matter. I have always been drawn to German and Anglo-Saxon philosophies: Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger, Simmel, Tönnies, Schmitt, Spencer, Lasch, etc. However, I have always been wary of so-called scholars, homines unius libri ("men of one book"), or mere compilers of knowledge. I belong to no theoretical or ideological school; I have always sought to think for myself.
Ultimately, it was not books that influenced me the most—it was simply my life. I am not a "scholar," nor a fan of stringing together quotes or engaging in "intellectual collage," a habit of autodidacts. I do not collect books the way others collect toy soldiers or postage stamps. I prefer to think for myself, constantly creating new concepts based on observed daily reality and my own intuitions—whether sparked by a (highly personal and iconoclastic) reading of an author I then build upon, or by a conversation, an observation, the news, or a history book. I operate through flashes of insight and intuition, but I do not define myself in relation to any "school of thought" or "intellectual movement." I own only 100 essential books; all the rest, I have given away or sold.
I have been influenced by ethologists, sociologists, economists, and German philosophers, including the entire Frankfurt School and Habermas, as well as diverse thinkers like Koestler, Heidegger, Spencer, and Ardrey. Unlike Francophile Americans, I have always believed that the French structuralist school (Lacan, Foucault, and company) lacked clarity. That said, I make notable exceptions for certain French thinkers: Julien Freund, Maffesoli, Lefebvre, Deleuze, and Debord.
For a time, I was involved in the Situationist movement, drawn to its powerful critique of Western society and its emptiness. Paradoxically, this led me, in the 1970s, to take an interest in GRECE and the "New Right," to which I made significant contributions. However, I left this movement in 1986, as I felt that the ideas I was developing were no longer in sync with its leaders' ideological repositioning. That said, I met remarkable individuals there—such as the philosopher Giorgio Locchi, the historian Pierre Vial, Pierre Brader, the political scientist Robert Steuckers, and others—who opened many intellectual doors for me. Like me, they all eventually distanced themselves from that school of thought.
CG: And your spiritual journey?
GF: My Paganism has nothing spiritualist or mystical about it; it is carnal, lived—I would say poetic and entirely personal. My journey is anything but "spiritual"; it is purely sensual. The richness of Paganism, unmatched by any other "religion," lies in its extraordinary plurality of sensibilities: from the Paganism of forests and deep roots to that of unleashed technoscience; from the mists of the moorlands to the solar fire deities; from the Paganism of fountains and nymphs to the muffled roar of battles; from the songs of fairies or the gallop of sprites through the undergrowth to the thunder of jet engines; from the great tutelary Gods to the household spirits (lares).
The genius of Paganism is its ability to gather all human passions—both their miseries and their grandeur—into a single cosmic and organic whole. Paganism is truly the mirror of the living world.
I have never been drawn to esoteric texts, mystical fervor, or symbolic speculation. For me, Paganism is above all poetry, aesthetics, exaltation, and intuition—never theory, dogma, or an instrument of ideology.
I feel closest to Greek and Roman Paganism. It shaped my entire education, all the more so because I studied Greek and Latin for ten years and was once able (though I can no longer do so—sed nihil obstat quibus perseverant) to read Ovid or Xenophon in the original. Of course, I also feel a strong affinity and sympathy for Celtic, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Indian Pagan sensibilities, which are just as rich. I regret my limited knowledge of Hinduism, the most significant living Pagan tradition today, and I would like to fill that gap.
I remember the Oath of Delphi, sworn at the sacred site, in front of the Stoa, in the early 1980s at dawn, by a gathering of young Europeans. It was spoken at the instigation of Pierre Vial and our late Greek friend Jason Hadjidinas. There were Europeans from all the nations of our common House. I will remain faithful to that oath for the rest of my life. It was an intense moment—almost religious. The oath was a commitment to act concretely in the world for Pagan values.
Disembodied "spirituality" has always seemed utterly dull to me, perhaps simply because I do not understand it. From Evola, I only retain the sociological and political passages—his "Evolianism" has always struck me as misplaced, and Guénon’s writings (who, after all, converted to Islam) seem completely abstruse. My Paganism, essentially both Apollonian and Dionysian, is the opposite of a meditative stance—it is intuitive, fascinated by movement, action, and the aesthetics of power (rather than prayer). For me, it is the very essence of vital force, of the will to live.
Life is about effectiveness, about historical production. History remembers res gestae—deeds, actions—not abstract contemplation or dandyish musings on useless theories, which are inevitably swept away by oblivion. Only action has impact, and action alone is the true purpose of thought, just as it is of the soul’s aesthetic movements.
The main danger facing Paganism is the intellectualism of gratuitous thought—thinking idolized for its own sake, dried out and abstract, quasi-academic, disconnected from reality and the urgencies of the moment. Paganism is neither scholarly dissertation nor cold "knowledge"; it is a mindset for action. For me, it is an immersion in life, a practice that transforms the world.
Words and ideas are never what matter most—it is the concrete actions to which they lead. An idea is not valuable simply because it is brilliant in itself, but because it brings about a change in reality, an embodiment in a project. This is the core of Pagan epistemology—opposed to the Judeo-Christian epistemology, where an idea has value in itself, while material contingencies, urgency, and reality are disregarded.
I have always been struck by the fact that Greco-Roman, Germanic, and Celtic Paganisms had nothing meditative or contemplative about them. They were eminently active, political, and warrior-like. Many unconscious Judeo-Christians, thinking in an entirely biblical manner, believe that the will to power is a sin against God, a form of defiance, and that—according to the teachings of the Church Fathers—the only acceptable form of power is an immaterial "inner empire."
This vision assumes a dualistic world: on one side, the "spiritual," the sacred, meditation; on the other, the vulgar profane, trapped in an absurd frenzy of domination, calculations, battles, and strategies. I argue, on the contrary, that materialism and the sense of the sacred are intimately linked in Paganism—where "materialism" is, of course, not to be confused with consumerism.
Another strange thing made me a "pagan" without me realizing it at first—something buried in the mysteries of my early childhood. It was my fascination with wild nature, more precisely with the forest, the sea, and the mountains.
A curious anecdote: as a young teenager, I used to walk through one of the most beautiful forests in Europe, the Coubre Forest in my native land of Saintonge. An immense expanse of pines and oaks, twisted by the wind. The closer one gets to the sea, the louder and more palpable the howling of Aeolus—the formidable southwest wind—and the furious barking of the Atlantic Ocean. Then comes the climb up a dune, where the last pines, gnawed away by salt and gusts, wither. And suddenly, the splendor of Poseidon bursts forth—a wild, threatening majesty, utterly indifferent to human lamentations.
Enormous waves explode with a roar, whirlpools murmur, an endless stretch of white sand unfolds, marked by red warning signs: *"Swimming prohibited."* I have always been captivated by this untamed and menacing side of nature, where pure beauty hides terrible danger—the bite of the Gods.
But in this pagan vision of the world, I am equally drawn to colossal cities and monumental architecture—expressions of affirmation and power, of aesthetics and harmonious strength: Versailles, the Taj Mahal, the cathedrals of Strasbourg and Ulm, the German architectural school of Chicago, the neoclassicism of the 1930s, the brutal beauty of a nuclear submarine or a fighter jet.
It is the ascension of power and order—whether emanating from nature or from man—that shapes my personal Paganism. My approach has never been based on dry reflection or mystical ecstasy, but rather on direct emotion. A Christian friend once "accused" me of indulging in a kind of *"oneiric Paganism."* He was right—without realizing that human dreams may well be the messages of the Gods. After all, the Gods invented the internet long ago…
CG: So, you are a pagan—attentive to signs, a living seismograph. But what does Paganism mean to you today? What is your personal approach?
GF: My Paganism is not reactive but affirmative. I am not anti-Christian; I am pre- and post-Christian. I do not attack what is already in decline, nor do I have old scores to settle. Paganism preceded Christianity, and it will outlive its disappearance from the hearts of Europeans. My quiet conviction is that Paganism is eternal.
As you put it in your book Parcours Païen1, Paganism is structured around three key axes:
Rootedness—a connection to lineage and homeland.
Cosmic immersion—a deep attunement to nature and its eternal cycles.
A quest—which can be an openness to the invisible or an adventurous pursuit (as seen in Pytheas, Alexander, or the Pythagorean school), always unsettled and exploratory.
In this sense, Paganism is the oldest and most natural religion in the world. It has profoundly shaped the European soul. Unlike monotheisms, one could even say it is the most authentic religion, as it truly binds people together within a real, tangible community—whereas Christianity and Islam are codified belief systems, universalist doctrines that address only the individual, seeking to "purchase" salvation from an omnipotent God.
This means that the major characteristics of Paganism are:
- The union of the sacred and the profane.
- A cyclical or spherical conception of time, as opposed to salvation-based or progress-driven eschatologies, where time is linear and moves toward a final, redemptive end of history.
- A rejection of the idea that nature is humanity’s property (as "sons of God"), to be exploited or destroyed at will.
- The alternation between sensuality and asceticism.
- A constant celebration of vital force—the "yes to life" and "Great Health" of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.
- The belief that the world is uncreated, an eternal river of becoming, without beginning or end.
- A tragic sense of life and a rejection of all nihilism.
- The veneration of ancestors, lineage, loyalty to struggles, comrades, and traditions—without falling into museum-like traditionalism.
- A rejection of universal revealed truths, and thus of all forms of fanaticism, fatalism, dogmatism, or coercive proselytism.
- A recurring theme of opposition of contraries within a single harmonious unity—the inclusion of the heterogeneous within the homogeneous.
I would also add that Pagan morality—such as that of Marcus Aurelius—demands standards arguably higher than those of Christianity. The Paganism I refer to, primarily Greco-Roman, requires self-discipline, respect for communal rules, and adherence to the natural order—not out of fear of divine punishment or promise of reward, but as necessary duties that are internally lived and psychologically integrated.
The gods of pagan pantheons are not morally superior to humans; they are simply immortal, übermenschen endowed with magical powers. In Paganism, man is not inferior to the divine, unlike in the monotheistic religions of the Book. This is evident in The Iliad, where the gods take sides in human conflicts, exhibiting the same flaws, virtues, and passions as mortals.
I am shaped by two opposing yet complementary versions of Paganism: a Paganism of nature and a Paganism of power, of artifice, of world-conquest—both equally emotional in essence. My Paganism, I admit, is haunted by and tempted by hubris. Michel Maffesoli once playfully reproached me for this, calling me "Promethean" (after reading my book Archeofuturism)—and therefore, in his view, "modern." Similarly, Alain de Benoist has described my worldview as aligned with that of the Titans, according to Jünger's categories. I do not dispute this analysis, though it comes from an author who, despite once declaring himself "pagan," has in reality remained deeply Judeo-Christian (of an agnostic modernist tendency) in his ideology, sensibility, and intellectual focus.
Europe has never ceased to be troubled by its pagan unconscious—this is evident throughout European poetry and the visual arts. Purely Christian poetry is rarely stirring, and all of Catholic sacred art is imbued with Paganism, if only because of its persistent representation of the divine—something that directly contradicts monotheism’s iconoclastic imperative.
What has always unsettled me about Christianity—especially post-Vatican II Christianity, which has nothing in common with the Christianity of the Crusades—is its systematic preference for the weak, the victim, the defeated. It condemns pride as a sin and suppresses sensuality, even in its most natural and healthy forms, as something contrary to the divine path. It was not only Nietzsche’s writings but also my direct observation of today’s clergy and Christians that convinced me of the sickly and unnatural nature of Christian morality—a morality of the afflicted, a rationalization of frustration.
This idea of redemption through suffering, which has nothing in common with the pagan ideal of a heroic death, amounts to a hatred of life itself. And I could never accept the concept of original sin—the idea that I should bear responsibility for the suffering of Christ.
More than any other religion, Paganism serves as a guardian of social order, of cosmic and natural order, and of the plurality of beliefs and sensibilities. It follows a "each to their own" logic, rather than the chaotic universalist fantasy of forced mixing. Its social model closely intertwines the notions of justice, order, and freedom—freedom being rooted in discipline. It is founded on the principle that humanity is diverse and not meant to be unified, that history is an unpredictable and endless unfolding.
Unlike monotheisms, Paganism envisions humanity as a heterogeneous whole composed of distinct, homogeneous peoples. The essence of politics lies in forging the homogeneity of the Cité, a sacred space blessed by the gods, where identity and sovereignty are inseparable. Organic and holistic, the pagan worldview regards peoples as communities of destiny.
As seen in Greek Paganism, the concept of the Cité—bound together by patriotism and shared identity (reflecting the diversity of both the gods and nature)—is fundamental. Within this framework, tutelary deities were essentially political and deeply rooted in the land they protected.
Beyond an Apollonian-Dionysian Paganism, I lean toward what could be called a “Titanic approach”—with Faustian and Promethean overtones—rooted in the aesthetics and ethics of power, the divinization of the Übermensch. This is not at all “modern” but entirely archaeofuturist, since the myth of Heracles and the epic of the Iliad explicitly and thunderously express this Titanism, where human heroes rise to the level of the gods. Think of Achilles, Priam, Agamemnon, and all those figures from Greek mythology and tragedy who, driven by a form of Übermenschlichkeit, truly sought to attain the divine.
For me—and this approach may surprise or shock some Pagans—Paganism is not only linked to an aesthetics of “threatening nature”, to a vision of the gods as beings imbued with a certain brutality and vengeful wildness (The Wild Hunt, wrapped in an aura of sorcery and imprecations; Machen’s fantastic novel The Great God Pan, where the ancient gods reappear, transfigured and vengeful, in the heart of modern England). It is also linked to the Promethean unleashing of technoscientific hubris—and I do not mean this in a socio-ideological sense. Rather, it has always seemed to me that this drive carries a fundamental aspect of the pagan soul.
Consider Vulcan-Hephaestus, the god of the forge: through “power-technology”—as distinct from “comfort-technology”—European man has always, perhaps unconsciously, sought to rival divine power and make it his own. Judeo-Christian tradition, for its part, has never failed to recognize this: man is commanded by God to suppress his “pride of power”, to stay away from the Tree of Knowledge, to avoid creating artifices that might challenge the immutable and perfect nature crafted by the Creator.
Look at the names of American rockets and space programs back when von Braun was naming them: Thor, Atlas, Titan, Jupiter, Delta, Mercury, Apollo—not Jesus, Peace and Love, or Bible. And this, in a country where Christianity is, in effect, the state religion. Similarly, Europe’s launch vehicle is Ariane; France’s land-based nuclear missiles are Pluton and Hadès; India’s missile is Agni. British warships have traditionally borne names of the same origin: Hermes, Ajax, Hercules… There is, therefore, a clear and undeniable connection—a mental thread—linking the echoes of pagan mythology to this "power-technoscience.”
In sonoramas, radio broadcasts, and later in the comic Avant Guerre, I undertook a true allegorical divinization of technoscience—particularly in the military, space, and biological fields. This approach is a constant theme in science fiction, notably in the works of the American writer Philip K. Dick (who was openly pagan), a towering author far better known in Europe than in his own country.
One can also observe the persistent opposition of Christianomorph mentalities to genetic engineering and biotechnologies (just as they once opposed scientific research and medical interventions). To them, such advancements appear as a profanation of God's work. Let me explain.
For Judeo-Christianity and Islam alike, the universe is divided into the sacred and the profane. The sacred resides solely in God. Nature, as the domain of profane immanence, can only be altered by God—not by man. If man begins modifying himself (through genetic engineering), he commits the greatest sin: the sin of pride, by daring to "improve" what God has created and refusing submission to divine predestination. He also commits a second sin—a sin against anthropocentrism.
Man was created in the image (imperfect, yet still an image) of his Creator, fundamentally separate from the rest of nature—plants and animals, which are seen as mere biological mechanisms for human use. But what happens if man proclaims himself the creator of his own being, the manipulator of his own life? He commits a double transgression:
He equates himself with an animal, renouncing his divine soul and lineage by immersing himself in the biological flow—this is the sin of incarnation.
Worse still, he claims the right to alter his very essence, which belongs to God the Father, and to elevate and enhance himself—this is the sin of assumption.
The rejection of these two sacrileges has been a constant in dualistic monotheisms. From the allegory of the Golem (the artificial and diabolical creature made by man) to the fight against evolutionary theories, they have always denied man the right to become a demiurge. In their view, man was created as a fixed being, immutable and submissive.
For Pagans, this position is incomprehensible. Nature is sacred in itself—it is not a profane creation of some sacred mind dwelling in the heavens. Nature is uncreated, and the divine is everywhere. Man is not static but immersed in the torrent of becoming.
There is no opposition between the natural and human artifice, because everything is natural—even artifice itself. The super-nature created by human science is still part of nature. For a Pagan, the real question is whether a given artifice (especially in biology) is concretely beneficial or harmful—not whether Artifice as a whole should be condemned as a metaphysical principle.
This is why the form of radical environmentalism espoused by some is, at its core, profoundly Judeo-Christian.
In other words, while the monotheistic conscience asks, "Are cloning, incubators, genetically modified organisms, and nuclear technology ethical or not?", the Pagan mind replaces this with a more practical and reality-based question: "Will this intervention on the genome or the structure of matter be harmful or beneficial?" In Pagan thought, ideas are instrumental.
We see, then, that the Pagan mentality avoids metaphysics and remains physical, simply because it is convinced that nothing can ever disenchant nature. As I argued in my essay Archeofuturism, in the coming century, biotechnology—especially when coupled with information technology—will bring about a cataclysm. And the Judeo-Christian and Islamic mindsets will be unable to ethically, theologically, or culturally assimilate this upcoming Titanic-Promethean technoscience. Only the Pagan mentality, in my view, will be able to embrace it.
A telling sign of this is that the three major cultural spheres that were never infused with monotheism—India, Japan, and China—already regard genetic engineering as perfectly natural.
I can only speak here in a cryptic, fragmented, and symbolic manner—offering hints rather than conclusions. For me, there exists a “black sun” of Paganism, an underground and incandescent core—what Heidegger called the deinotatos, "the most perilous," the very essence of the tragic and of defiance hurled at fate. Technoscience linked to the will-to-power, Übermenschlichkeit, the synergy of aesthetics with the call to what we might call "self-affirmation," the attempts to become godlike—all of this belongs to a mental universe that cannot be explicitly named, that must remain in the shadows, in what Ovid called “the propitious shadow.”
Yet this demiurgic dimension is inherently European Paganism’s own; it still courses through it, like embers that never die and that, at any moment, can erupt into a volcano. This force is powerfully expressed in Erle Cox’s novel The Golden Sphere, which left a profound impression on me. These same intuitions were explored in the Avant-Guerre science-fiction radio series, which I created with the late painter Olivier Carré. The texts still exist and will likely be published one day, though they are, for now, too raw to be properly understood.
We called it the return of the transfigured gods. There is a family secret within European Paganism—something all the ancient mythologies, even the Arthurian cycle, evoke without ever revealing its true nature. A secret whose core (the Grail?) is, in my view, the unthinkable—a secret that Heidegger intuited and feared.
In his foundational work Holzwege (translated into French as “Paths That Lead Nowhere”), Heidegger, I believe, knew perfectly well that these paths did lead somewhere. I once articulated this unsettling interpretation in a special issue of Nouvelle École dedicated to the German philosopher. Heidegger was afraid of his own lucidity. He buried his intuitions in silence. And then, he was so thoroughly co-opted, neutralized, disfigured…
Where does this path—this journey of our history—lead? Toward the possible victory of the Titans and of Prometheus.
Zeus, I know, will hold it against me, but I desire this victory. Even if fleeting, it will be an aesthetic explosion, the coronation of the demiurges—the eternal moment Nietzsche spoke of. Nietzsche, who terrified Heidegger—not because Heidegger misunderstood him, but because he understood him too well.
But how can one live this tension, this assault?
In Europe, Paganism—once its ancient and multifaceted religion—remains present in various forms. There is a folkloric Paganism (without any pejorative connotation), mainly Celto-Scandinavian, which is not accompanied by belief in personified gods but instead reflects a traditionalist and ethnically rooted pantheism. Then, with the sharp decline of Catholic worship, we see the return of a diffuse popular Paganism, marked by the increasing celebration of seasonal cycles and solstices, as well as the revival of the Celtic festival of the dead (Halloween). While these traditions, like Christmas, have been commercially repurposed, their resurgence is nonetheless significant.
It is worth recalling that the re-paganization of Christmas—an ongoing struggle for the Church—began in the early 20th century, when the nativity scene was gradually replaced by the Christmas tree. More than 1,500 years after the Christianization of the winter solstice, this spontaneous and popular return to ancestral Paganism was an early and crucial sign of its regeneration.
Pagan currents also persist—often unconsciously—in the arts, literature, philosophy, and even comics. Because Paganism is not a denomination but rather a spontaneous vital attitude, a worldview. Figures like John Boorman, Michel Maffesoli, and many others continue an endless lineage of Pagans who do not necessarily define themselves as such.
In my view, despite an evident kinship in worldview, the great difference between Hindu Paganism and European Paganism is that Hinduism, having never undergone discontinuity or cultural rupture, remains very close to the popular religious sensibilities of ancient Europe—where belief in the divine pantheon is taken at face value. In Europe, such a stance is no longer possible. Our European Paganism exists in fragments, yet it is also subterranean.
And, as if by chance, in this interregnum—a prelude to great confrontations—Paganism resurfaces to fill the void left by an official Church that has capitulated.
Today, in Europe, we must anticipate the birth of a neo-Paganism. Its forms cannot be predicted or dictated.
CG: What does the future hold?
GF: By 2020, Europe will be a chaotic crossroads of beliefs and religions. Christianity is collapsing, decomposing. The struggle will be between Paganism and Islam. A spiritual battle—or a literal one? That remains uncertain.
Paganism is the very opposite of rigid seriousness, and precisely because of this, it is the most serious and enduring. Its strength—its invincibility (and the very reason why Islam fears it most, as seen in The Satanic Verses controversy)—lies in the fact that it aligns with vital forces. It is, therefore, inextirpable, incapable of disappearing, unlike monotheisms, which exist only temporarily in history, since they are based on inherently fleeting dogmatic theories.
However, it is highly unlikely that Europe will return to organized Pagan worship, as in contemporary India or pre-Christian Europe. Current Druidic cults in Brittany, Ireland, and England, for example, are not only ultra-minoritarian but also artificial—more folkloric and spiritualist than genuinely religious in the first-degree, faith-driven sense.
Instead, I foresee the following scenario unfolding over the next twenty years:
Islam will become the most practiced religion due to demographic factors and conversions among the native population—an event that would be catastrophic.
Despite worsening socio-economic conditions and growing existential threats (which usually favor monotheistic salvation-based religiosity), the Catholic Church, trapped in its anti-sacred, secularizing ideological stance, will continue engaging in syndicalism and politics, accelerating its own decline and marginalization. I do not believe in a massive Catholic revival returning to the 19th-century faith, as John Paul II hoped.
A proliferation of sects and "tribes" (to use Michel Maffesoli’s term) inspired by Christianity—traditionalists, charismatics, mystical syncretics, etc.—will emerge. They will remain minorities but thrive outside Vatican recognition.
A slow but steady expansion of Westernized Buddhism will take place—a distorted reflection of the original Asian tradition.
A severe decline in atheism and agnostic indifference is to be expected in the looming iron age, leading to renewed attraction toward unforeseen forms of Paganism.
The proliferation of what I have called wild religions (without any pejorative connotation)—a chaotic mix of the worst and the most interesting—will form the soil from which a true metamorphic regeneration of European Paganism may emerge.
These wild religions already exist, though they remain in a nebulous, groping state—often obscure, even unsettling. But they respond to a need: the need to reconnect with a blurred, half-forgotten memory.
I believe that in the 21st century, we will see the emergence of unforeseen forms of Paganism—something akin to a metamorphosis of the gods. In this chaos, anything is possible, anything conceivable. And from this chaos, an order—an after-chaos—will necessarily arise.
At the same time, we must be wary of those—whether self-proclaimed Pagans or radical Catholic traditionalists—who analyze the current moral decay (Gay Pride, Love Parade, homophilia, anti-natalism, feminism, tolerated drug use, stupefying pornophilia, the abolition of social codes, artistic degeneration…) either to celebrate it or to condemn it as a return to Paganism.
Paganism is the exact opposite of disorder and the dissolution of vital energies that we observe in the contemporary West. On the contrary, it is the ritualization and assumption of the imperatives of vital order. Its cosmic principles (from the Greek kosmein, meaning "to order, to adorn, to organize") integrate, in a union of seemingly opposing forces, the Dionysian elements of sensuality and pleasure with the Apollonian necessities of self-mastery and overarching order.
Anything that undermines the healthy perpetuation of the species and the people, or the organic homogeneity of the Cité or State (in the Roman sense of the word), cannot claim to be “pagan.” A Pagan will never be either a puritan or a sexual obsessive (two extremes that are, in fact, very similar), nor an anarchist or a tyrant (for the latter often arises from the former).
Likewise, Paganism must neither be confused with intolerant dogmatism nor with absolute tolerance. Under the guise of "social polytheism," some superficial Pagans applaud the tribalization of society and communal separatism, unaware that all the great Pagan thinkers of ancient Greece—beginning with Aristotle and his concept of philia ("friendship toward one’s own")—consistently warned against heterogeneous peoples, as they inevitably breed violence and despotism.
It is, in fact, monotheisms that promote the idea of forced mixing, for they seek to rule over masses that are all the more malleable when they are no longer bound by ethno-cultural solidarities. These pseudo-Pagans share with post-conciliar clergy an eagerness to welcome Islam as an "ecumenical enrichment," failing to grasp its inherently monopolistic and totalitarian logic (without any pejorative connotation). Similarly, under the pretense of a falsely "polytheistic" future world structured by networks rather than nations or peoples, they embrace an indiscriminate tolerance toward marginal and deviant "tribes," alongside a reckless cosmopolitanism.
This cosmopolitanism, however, is utterly foreign to the Pagan vision of the Cité and closely resembles an ancient Judeo-Christian—specifically Pauline rather than Hebraic—conception of the political pluriversum.
We must also remember that Greco-Roman Paganism was structured under the hierarchical authority of great tutelary gods, who united the State and the Cité, placing the political order of the people (ethnos) above individual indulgences or the chaotic, centrifugal forces of arbitrary "communities."
On another note, I am wary of a purely negative and reactionary Paganism that is nothing more than passionate anti-Catholicism. Attacking traditional European Catholicism is a waste of time. I myself wrote the preface to a book on the Marian cult—a book that unsettled many Catholics—where I pointed out the obvious: the Virgin Mother and her veneration are deeply rooted in the pre-Christian European mentality, and a Pagan should respect them.
Otherwise, how can one explain the immense and enduring popular devotion to Mary and the saints across the centuries? In fact, isn’t it telling that the post-conciliar Church’s current episcopates have largely downplayed these cults—suspecting them of “polytheism”—which partly explains the loss of interest in their “new Church”?
Regarding the difference between modern Paganism and Christianity, I align with the medievalist P. Vial’s argument in his recent book Une terre, un peuple, which asserts that Paganism is not anti-Christian, but rather a-Christian and post-Christian. As he points out—following Nietzsche—the fundamental emotional break between the Judeo-Christian worldview and the Pagan worldview, which I have always felt and which was a major reason for my embrace of Paganism, is that Christians prefer the *martyr* over the hero. Their dolorism glorifies the redemptive virtue of suffering; they favor masochism, guilt, and repentance over the aesthetics of life and the will to power. They uphold the morality of sin rather than the ethics of honor and shame.
Now, I will take the risk of making a historical prediction—pure intuition, which may be completely wrong or entirely correct: I foresee the 21st century in Europe as the era of Christianity’s radical marginalization and the confrontation between a resurgent, multifaceted Paganism—awakening from ancestral memory—and a conquering Islam. The Catholic minority will split between these two camps.
But as Montherlant foresaw in his prophetic and overlooked book Le Solstice de Juin, in the coming war of the gods—a struggle that has shaped all of human history—"the Great Pan has returned." He will once again be a major force within Europe’s endangered consciousness.
CG: What is your perspective on Judeo-Christianity?
GF: In my view, the reason European Paganisms were overwhelmed by Christianity within the Roman Empire was the ethnic chaos that emerged in the late 2nd century. The one salvific God, a god for all ethnicities, who addressed himself primarily to uprooted and disoriented individuals, replaced the traditional tutelary deities in a world consumed by disorder, division, and war.
My position—which may shock—is this: Christianity and Islam were apocalyptic sects that succeeded by exploiting chaos, supplanting natural religions, and becoming institutionalized cults. Of course, Roman Catholicism and Greek-Slavic Orthodoxy, through a kind of historical compromise, a syncretism with Paganism, deeply broke away from the original Judeo-Christianity—the very thing the Church, since Vatican II, has sought to return to, at the cost (unsurprisingly) of a phenomenal decline in its European following.
I am not a historian, but I propose the hypothesis that the great historical rupture was not so much the split between Judaism (in the strict sense) and Paul of Tarsus’s universalist Christianity, but rather the development of a paganized Judeo-Christianity (Catholicism and Orthodoxy) during the Middle Ages. This paganization was what allowed Christianity to take root in Europe.
The second great rupture, in the opposite direction, came in the 1960s when Catholicism, following the disastrous path of Protestantism, de-paganized and secularized itself. The consequences were immediate: a massive, brutal, and widespread abandonment of the faith. Some claim that Catholicism has "re-Judaized." No! Judaism is a true national and assertive religion, and it has nothing to do with the ritual impoverishment and secular humanitarianism that define today’s Catholic doctrine and discourse. This vague concept of Love, repeated with neurotic insistence, resonates with no one.
I hold no resentment toward Catholicism, which, in reality, has always been disguised Polytheism. But by scuttling itself as a religion with Vatican II—abandoning its sacred language and its rites—Catholicism, in returning to an absolute monotheism, has made itself a mere copy that can no longer compete with the originals: Islam and Judaism.
At its core, Christianity’s fate is tragic. It established itself in Europe by adopting Pagan elements, renouncing key aspects of its own doctrine. Then, in an attempt to return to those principles, it underwent a second syncretism—Vatican II—with the ideas of modernity, the Enlightenment… which, ironically, were themselves secularized extensions of Christian principles!
Thus, through this relentless dialectical process, Christianity has de-sacralized itself precisely by becoming more true to itself, ultimately dissolving in the very process of its self-affirmation.
In today’s Church, the idea of the divine has been reduced to mere incantations about Christ and his Love—to the assertion of a moral doctrine (the vague human rights agenda, abstract and extreme altruism, conventional pacifism), which is nothing more than the secular ideological mainstream in religious disguise.
Christianity has become a mere ideological discourse, devoid of transcendence or grand political vision—as Catholic thinker Thomas Molnar observed.
We are far from the faith that built cathedrals.
In my essay Archeofuturism, I indulged in the dream of a return of Europeans to a form of Medieval Pagano-Catholicism, while the conscious elites would embrace a Neo-Paganism that is both Marcus Aurelius-like and Promethean. Perhaps fate will shape such a solution for us?
At its core, the Pagan mentality, compared to the Christian one, was shaped by the ancient Pagan man’s attitude toward his gods: seeking no consolation from the divine. The gods respect only pride and strength. No pleading. Man can only be happy and whole through himself, through his own inner psychic power and the assertion of his will.
The Pagan man does not bow before his gods; he challenges them. Or he thanks them and seeks to win their favor. Christianity, on the other hand, has developed a theology of castration, in which we are made to feel guilty and inferior. The Pagan seduces his gods or confronts them; the Monotheist begs and humbles himself.
Moreover, Judeo-Christianity, like Islam, has never truly solved one of the most fundamental questions, except by invoking mystery: If God is infinitely good and infinitely powerful, why does he allow suffering? Why not create paradise on Earth for all?
Is God lying? Or is he infinitely good but allows evil because he is not infinitely powerful? Or is he infinitely powerful yet allows evil, meaning he has a cruel side? This is the famous problem of evil.
The monotheistic theologies of salvation religions have never resolved this dilemma, whereas Pagan philosophies—from Greece to India—have done so quite clearly: the gods are neither omnipotent nor infinitely altruistic. Like us, they are immersed in the cosmos, subject to the erratic whims of fatum (the Roman concept of fate) or moira (the Greek equivalent).
This philosophical divergence, in my view, demonstrates that the Pagan mentality, being more rooted in reality, has a much greater future ahead of it than the others.
That being said, I must reiterate that I feel a strong sympathy for traditional Catholicism and Orthodoxy—because a Pagan always reasons concretely and without fanaticism.
CG: In one of your latest essays, you exalt what you call Archeofuturism. What is it exactly?
GF: I won’t dwell too long on my essay Archeofuturism, whose title is a neologism I coined. It is merely a set of ideas meant to provoke thought and action. In it, I develop four main concepts:
After the utopian parenthesis of modernity (a secular extension of Judeo-Christian dreams), the future world will return to the "archaic." This does not mean a return to the past, but rather a revival of the timeless principles of human societies—principles that are the exact opposite of those suicidal ones dominating the contemporary West.
Western civilization, having severed itself from natural order, is heading toward a convergence of catastrophes in every domain. Chaos is inevitable, and within this interregnum, we must prepare for what comes after the chaos.
The current and future achievements of technoscience are fundamentally incompatible with modernity’s ethics (which stem from Christianity). This will inevitably bring about a resurgence of a Promethean ethic—one of risk-taking and unleashed power, akin to the mindset of ancient Paganism. At the same time, it will revive an ethic similar to that of Greek humanism, which recognized no transcendent Law as superior to human will.
This contradiction between natural law and Promethean ambition can only be resolved by surpassing egalitarianism—resulting in a "two-speed" humanity.
For a deeper understanding of these ideas, I refer readers to my writings, as what I have presented here is necessarily condensed.
You have also published a controversial essay on the colonization of Europe by Islam. What can you tell us about it?
The prospect of Islam’s dominance by 2020, due to demographic factors, is far from encouraging. Faced with both Islam and materialist atheism, Christianity’s weakness—once its strength, now reversed in a dialectical shift—is that it is a structured religion of salvation, organized like a state, with a clergy, dogmas, and rigid constitutions.
But any organization is mortal and deteriorates when confronted by a competing structure, whether in the political, economic, or religious realm. This is why Christianity is now rapidly retreating in the face of Islam—both physically and morally.
Catholicism is in an advanced state of anemia. It committed theological suicide with Vatican II by abandoning its universal sacred language, Latin—while Islam, across the entire world, has never abandoned the religious Arabic of the Quran.
Furthermore, Catholicism made a monumental mistake in trying to modernize—both in its rites and sacred texts, as well as in its theological discourse. This aggiornamento will be its downfall.
The strength of Islam lies in its immutability. Paganism, on the other hand, is like the reed in La Fontaine’s fable, bending before the monolithic oak of a revealed religion. It is vital impulse, not a rigid organization cemented around dogma. Its flexibility stems from its skepticism and realism.
Christianity in Europe is retreating before Islam because it is facing a stronger competing brother; Paganism, however, is not involved in these family quarrels. It is something entirely different. That is why, in Islam’s ongoing and long-standing push into Europe, its primary adversary will be the pagan mentality.
I am aware that there are so-called Pagans who are sympathetic to Islam. They are gravely mistaken—either through ignorance of Islam or blindness to what the Quran explicitly says about them, categorizing them as infidels and idolaters. While Jews and Christians may be tolerated as second-class subjects (dhimmis), Pagans will meet the fate of the sacrificial sheep at Aïd-el-Kebir.
One only needs to read Surah 4 of the Quran—taught in every European mosque and madrasa—to understand this reality.
I often provoke outrage among certain Christians when I explain that, as a Pagan, I oppose the conversion of churches into mosques—while their own episcopate accepts it.
To be clear, I feel neither contempt nor hatred toward Islam. I simply reject, as a Pagan, its vision of society and spirituality for my own people. I know it well; I have studied it extensively. Unlike Parisian intellectuals who advocate for communal coexistence, I have actually read the Quran.
I have even been invited by Muslims to speak against Islam. They were surprised by how well I understood their objective—the conquest of Europe and its transformation into Dar al-Islam. They knew that their rhetoric about a secular, integrable Islam was nothing more than a double discourse—an hypocritical strategy, endorsed by the Prophet himself when conquering new lands ("kiss the hand you cannot yet cut off").
These Muslims—Arabs and Pakistanis—did not try to refute me. Instead, they smiled and said, in essence: "Fortunately, few Europeans know us as well as you do."
On the issue of Islam’s danger, I am in full agreement with one of its most insightful analysts today, the prolific young researcher Alexandre del Valle. He comes from traditional Christian circles that have fully understood that, in the face of Islam’s global expansion, an alliance between Pagan forces—from Europe to India—is essential.
Islam is a warrior universalism, the most absolute of all monotheisms of revealed truth. In the long run, it tolerates nothing but itself and its theocratic vision of the world—where faith and law are inseparable. In the strictest etymological sense, it is totalitarian.
Even though Islam often upholds certain sound principles and rightly opposes Western decadence, it remains fundamentally incompatible with our mentality and our traditions.
I have no issue with Islam on its own lands, but its steady expansion in Western Europe—already the second most practiced religion in France and Belgium—concerns me as a Pagan far more than it does secular leftist atheists or Christians.
CG: Which divine figures inspire you the most?
GF: Each deity represents a different facet of human nature, and I would never think of rejecting Venus-Aphrodite, Mercury-Hermes, or the humble household gods (lares), guardians of the family. I fully accept that my Promethean interpretation of Paganism may be criticized by other Pagans.
In reality, there have always been two forms of Paganism, which can, in fact, coexist:
A popular Paganism (hence the term pagani, meaning "peasants"), which exists among all peoples of the Earth—even among Islamized populations. It embraces simple, yet by no means contemptible, superstitious beliefs that are necessary for social order.
A philosophical Paganism, which does not believe in the literal existence of the gods but, within a deep and tragic doubt, recognizes something supernatural and inexplicable. It rejects atheist materialism while respecting all religions as fragments of truth—yet it absolutely denies the idea of revealed truth.
From Indian Brahmins to Celtic Druids, there is a force both telluric and cosmic that completely eludes the religions of revelation and salvation. This force cannot be confined to a dogma or catechism. It must be felt and experienced. It belongs to either a spontaneous popular initiation or an aristocratic discipline.
Paganism is meant for peoples and rooted communities, not for uprooted masses and isolated individuals. It blends popular superstition with mental discipline. It unites magical beliefs in animal and forest deities (the Dionysian and earthbound aspect) with the Apollonian thunders of order and clarity.
All deities inspire me, but above all, Dionysus—a symbol of loyalty and vital endurance. A god who smiles (but with a disturbing smile), he embodies the flow of life, rebellion against rigid orders and dogmas, and the joyous affirmation of existence. He is the god of pleasure, will to live, but also of lineage and the continuity of life.
It is no coincidence that Christians borrowed certain traits and attributes of Dionysus to dress up their Satan. A chthonic force, Dionysus the sensual is the very opposite of the perverse. His principles stand in total opposition to modernity. More than any other Greek god, he is the absolute antithesis of the Judeo-Christian and monotheistic worldview that permeates our civilization.
Nietzsche understood this perfectly, making Dionysus the central divinity of his personal pantheon. Dionysus is the most tragic of all gods: he plays, he laughs, he invites us to revel, but he also prepares mortals for their inevitable end.
Of course, as Pierre Vial has demonstrated, he is the exact counterpart to Apollo, the solar deity (contradictio oppositorum).
I must admit that one of the authors who has most profoundly influenced me is Michel Maffesoli, whose exceptional work L’Ombre de Dionysos revealed to me the unconquered and invincible power of the god of vines and revelry. However, I do not share Maffesoli’s sociological analyses or positions, which proves that I do not absolutize my own views—I remain aware that we are all operating within the realm of doxa rather than episteme.
However, I do not neglect Apollo, the solar god. One text that profoundly moved me is a quatrain—one of the most beautiful in the French language, in my opinion—written by Paul Valéry. In his poem Ève, he magnificently juxtaposes and unites the Dionysian sensuality of a young girl waking in the morning (the renewal of life, fleeting yet eternal) with the sovereign course of the sun.
I have always considered these four lines among the most pagan in all of Francophone poetry:
However, from the high heavens, striking the human hour,
Monster thirsting for Time, sacrificing the future,
The sacrificer Sun rolls and returns,
Day after day upon the Azure altars.
Dionysus renews life’s forms through metamorphosis—one beauty will fade, but another will rise in its place. Meanwhile, Apollo, in his immutable course (labor solis, ergon heliou), protects and ensures this perpetual transformation. Within the Apollo-Dionysus duality, the fleeting and the eternal unite in harmony.
To me, Paganism is fundamentally the worship of reality and life in all their dimensions—biological, astronomical, physical. Unlike salvation religions, it refuses to construct a false meta-reality, a lie, a phantom (the "puppets," ta aggalmata of Plato’s allegory of the cave). Instead, it confronts head-on the beautiful and brutal tragedy of existence.
On that note, returning to Valéry, I recommend reading his musical decasyllabic poem Le Cimetière Marin, which I consider the most powerful Pagan manifesto since Les Amours by Ronsard.
It must also be emphasized that Paganism is fundamentally aesthetic, embodying both Apollonian and Dionysian principles. The art, poetry, and architecture of our time, which regard aesthetic rigor and discipline as oppressive constraints—and often justify sheer ugliness in the name of rationality—are not just a rebellion against the Pagan soul, but a model that cannot endure and will lead to catastrophe.
Paganism is the future of the world—simply because it sees the world as it is and as it could become, not as it should be.
To answer your question definitively, I would say: we must invent new gods. This is a deep-rooted tendency of homo europaeus, an epic-minded being.
"New gods will bloom in our future."
I am fully aware that my answers contain many contradictions. But I do not seek mechanical coherence. I do not take too seriously those entomologist-thinkers who obsess over uncovering contradictions in others.
All creation is the result of contradiction.
All thought vibrates within a nest of vipers.
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Christopher Gérard, Parcours païen, L'Âge d'Homme, 2000.
This felt important, thank you!
Brilliant!