Zuism

Zuism (Arabic: الزوئية al-Zuiyya; religious symbol: 𒀭), also known as Sumerian-Mesopotamian Neopaganism (Sumerian: 𒀭𒀀𒉣𒈾𒌣 Anunna Umun, "Knowledge of the Heavenly Principles") and Semitic-Canaanite Neopaganism (Ugaritic: 𐎐𐎚𐎁𐎟𐎖𐎄𐎌 Natib Qadish, "Holy Way"), or collectively as Middle Eastern Neopaganism, is a group of Neopagan new religious movements based upon ancient Sumerian-Mesopotamian and Semitic-Canaanite religions. There are Zuist groups across North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Oceania, as well as the Middle East. Early Zuist groups arose in Hungary and among the Hungarian diaspora in the 1960s and 1970s, especially in the wake of the work of the Assyriologist Ferenc Badiny Jós (1909–2007), who founded a Hungarian Zuist Church and was the author of the Magyar Bible of the Sumerian tradition. The publication of the Simon Necronomicon and its related books in the United States since the late 1970s, sparked the spread of the Mesopotamian-based "Gate-Walking" Zuist system of ceremonial magic. Mesopotamian Neopaganism was also cultivated by the American philosopher Joshua Free, who made his doctrines public from 2008 onwards under the denomination of "Mardukite Zuism". In Iceland, a local Zuist organisation, the Zuism trúfélag, officially recognised by the state between 2013 and 2025, was used to bypass the local tax on religious organisations and protest against the bonds between religion and the state.