The word pagan originates from the Latin
paganus meaning roughly peasant or villager, derived from
pagus meaning roughly country district or village. The word was adopted by Christians to apply to civilians, literally those who were not soldiers in the army of Christ, and equated with heathenism around the 14th century coming to be defined as "worshipper of false gods". It's also interesting to note that the word heathen dates back to a Christianized German adjective meaning "inhabiting open country" making the terms nearly identical.
In this day and age we have expanded the definitions of both pagan and heathen to mean anyone who doesn't follow a major religion.
Google said:
Pagan: a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions.
Heathen: a person who does not belong to a widely held religion (especially one who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim) as regarded by those who do.
Ironically enough, Paganism itself has become a religion, even to the point that it is now officially recognized by the US military.
You have to make a distinction between paganism/neo-paganism as the umbrella term for a large and diverse movement of groups loosely affiliated by a foundational belief in nature worship, which encompasses all earth-based traditions; and paganism as witchcraft, as it is practised by those who actually call themselves pagans. The latter is generally what you will think of when you hear pagan: naked rituals in the moonlight, invoking the magickal forces of nature, and calling the names of the olde gods. Even in the specialized witchcrafting definition of paganism you have extensive divisions: Ceremonial Magickians and Wiccans, Gardnerians and Alexandrians, Eclecticists and Traditionalists, on and on...
I think psychedelics do catalyse something of a new found respect for nature, if not a slightly more animistic outlook, at least a deeper sense of the interconnected nature of our universe. In that sense I do think that psychedelics tend to at least make their users moar sympathetic to pagan values. Psychedelics also represent a strong threat to the orthodoxy and power structures of major religions, and in that way I'd also suggest psychedelic users are probably going to end more sympathetic to pagan values, if not full converts to "religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions."
I guess it all depends on how you define it, but realistically the path of working with the plants is tapping a direct gnosis that pre-dates all these silly religious ideas and associations and I think that is exactly the state of conciousness the neo-pagan movement has been looking to revive all along.
www.paganfederation.org
, I was not criticizing paganism if you think I was, just factual describing paganism in what I know of it.
