I periodically – very infrequently – write Pagan, Heathen, and other Western polytheistic book reviews. Typically, the books I read which inform my writing here are academic in nature, so I do not feel the need to do reviews for them. I must also admit that I am out of touch with the plethora of pan-Pagan publication (say that five times fast), and I rarely purchase the works of my colleagues.

It is for that very same reason that I am writing a review of a near four-year-old book. Why? I absolutely forgot that it existed until this week. It’d been on my list when I first heard about it being published, and then my life went absolutely topsy-turvey. I only recently saw a suggestion for it on my Amazon that a light went back on and I remembered it was a thing.

My apologies to Rev. Thomas.

Without further ado.

Sacred Gifts: Reciprocity and the Gods

Date of Publication: 2015

Publisher: ADF Publishing

Author: Rev. Kirk S. Thomas

Sacred Gifts: Reciprocity and the Gods (2015), by Kirk S. Thomas of Ár nDraíocht Féin, a Druid Fellowship, presents a broad survey across the breadth of pre-Christian, Indo-European religious beliefs and focuses on the act of gift-giving within what is ultimately a divine context. Deriving itself not as a commentary on any other Contemporary Pagan publication but, instead, presenting and synthesizing an academic study into a wide scope Pagan context, Thomas’ book distills both original and secondary source material into what amounts to a functional introduction to what is often a confusing system of reciprocity and relationships between humanity and the divine. Thomas’ utilization of Vedic, Greek, Norse, Roman, and Irish source material throughout the chapters of his book highlights the religious commonalities that these peoples had regarding the act of giving a gift, however distantly they were related.

While ultimately geared towards, and including features which may be more appropriate to, practitioners and initiates of the wider sphere of Ár nDraíocht Féin (Neodruidism, at large), a solid portion of the book contains useful, worthwhile reading material for beginning Pagans who seek to expand their understanding of the gifting cycle as it can be interpreted from the past. It clearly delineates the myriad cultural expressions of the phenomenon of gifting, settling it within a Pagan (not THE Pagan) cosmogonic expression.

This book introduces and covers concepts such as the sacred-profane dichotomy, ideas of gifting as systemic recreation of the universe (cosmogony), the axis-mundi of varying pre-Christian pagan peoples, and other varying types of gifts (votives, foodstuffs, etc.) as well as their acts of offering (libations, burning, drowning, etc.), which are all supported by archaeological, literary, and legal precedents. These precedents are provided in a concise manner, drawing an unmistakable conclusion that this practice was, indeed, pan-Indo-European.

Of particular value in the this discussion is the fallacious concept of gifting being equivalent to what Thomas, among other writers, calls the “Great Vending Machine in the Sky”. This concept, so common among both theistic and atheistic Western thinkers, is a theme which belies the cultural ignorance that has been accepted regarding what was once the fundamental paradigm of reciprocity within religious engagement. That Thomas addresses it speaks to the recognition of these wider forces that practitioners of contemporary polytheistic religions must grapple with. That he directly calls it out is only beneficial for people who may not be able to articulate their concerns, and can only aid in dispelling false notions of polytheistic worship as simple transactions or business-like dealings.

However, for more seasoned researchers within Pagan studies, this book will not offer much in the way of new material for consideration. It is very much an introductory survey, attempting to fit a wide paradigm of pan-Indo-European views into a mere 222 pages (including the index). This fact necessarily leaves much to be desired with the individual cultures mentioned, each requiring their own monograph for further expansion. Its brevity precludes more unique manifestations of the gifting cycle within these religions, which may be more desirable by a specialist or experienced practitioner. Further, the latter section of the book includes rituals which are ADF-specific, which can be discarded at the whim of the reader.

One criticism of this work is the lack of comparison between traditional gifting cycles from its historic context, compared to the attitudes which inform the contemporary societal views that continue to foster a lack of respect for this institution. Thomas details a section of his book titled “The Great Heresy“, where he attempts to explore the nature of “Abrahamic” (really, Christian and Islamic), submission with regards to divinity, versus the competing gifting cycles of the polytheistic religions. It is scant, perhaps by design.

It would have been better to expound on Max Weber’s views of Do Ut Des being that of a “formalistic ethic” and not any true belief [Weber, 1963], or of Pauline theology’s fundamental positioning of this very same view as inferior to the unilateral concept of Christian grace. Approaching the criticisms of the gifting cycle and identifying and deconstructing them can only combat the unease with returning to this traditional mode of worship, and in doing so the groundwork can be laid for a more concerted effort of dismantling these indoctrinated views.

While this book covers the act of gifting in broad strokes, by necessity, it cannot include what is wholly appropriate (or inappropriate) for each particular religion. In this we can think of the particular value of the sacrifice (libation) of wine in various Mediterranean religions, of being one of the most important acts of offering which can be enacted.

Readers must be made aware that this book cannot be a ‘one stop shop’ regarding this topic, and further study depending on the chosen ethno-cultural paradigm will absolutely be required. Thomas’ work presents a rough road map for those individuals curious for a crash course in this style of religious veneration, connecting various dots of disparate religious perspectives which we often group under modern Paganism. This single book cannot be expected to give us an exacting and comprehensive account throughout that will satisfy all readers.

What Sacred Gifts does is lay out a starting point for those curious as to the precedents of the gifting cycle, outside of what might be considered an unnecessarily restrictive “reconstructionist” view. Thomas doesn’t preach from the pulpit about maintaining unerring and constraining historical purity, which may turn some hopeful readers who want an easily accessible, yet rigorously enforced paradigm away. Of the non-Wiccan, non-Wiccanate introductory Pagan books, Sacred Gifts: Reciprocity and the Gods should find a prominent home on any beginner’s bookshelf.

Categories: Book Reviews, Community Thoughts, Generalist Paganism, Polytheism, Theology

Tagged: ADF, Ár nDraíocht Féin, Book Review, Cosmos, Gifting Cycle, Heathen, Heathenry, Pagan, Paganism, Religion

A Case for ‘Syncretism’ in Modern Heathenry

Marc

Posted on February 3, 2019

Author’s Note: Due to the growing length of this piece, it will be subdivided into further posts detailing this topic. Consider this ‘part one’, with more Heathen-specific interests forthcoming.

This entry deals with one of the most contentious topics of religious identity as it is approached by reconstructionist polytheistic paganism, especially Heathendom and reconstructionist Germanic practices – the issue of syncretism. As Contemporary Paganism and the reconstructionist polytheisms establish their own identity, grow, and eventually diversify with regards to internal developments a discussion as to what is and what is not syncretism and whether it is allowable within ‘Heathenry’ will invariably occur with greater frequency. Indeed, questions regarding the role and appropriateness of syncretism in the face of what is considered “traditional” approaches to religiosity and religious identity as it pertains to our collective understanding of Heathenry (and, whether it is proper to engage in syncretic practices and still be considered “Heathen”) are already common.

The discussion of syncretism is necessarily multifaceted as it engages with numerous other debatable topics, each warranting their own dedicated surveys. These are topics like the intersection of cultural and religious appropriation in modern Pagan practice, religious practice and the idea of purity (or ethical authenticity) of those religious traditions, and the very understanding of the definition of ‘religion’ itself as both a useful term and as a human institution. We find that these topics are inextricably tied together and experience the same pitfalls of understanding due to the language which is employed with regards to the religious understandings that Western polytheists are exposed to; these terminological traditions are steeped in Western peculiarities and the discussion of these facets run afoul of inexact definitions which are so often mirrored when non-monotheistic religious traditions are discussed.

As with the definition of ‘religion’, there can be no clear or linear narrative to designating the totality of this concept. This entry will necessarily touch upon and explore the subjects mentioned above, although it does so with a focus on the incidence of “syncretism” and accusations thereof as it applies to Heathenry. A further case will be made that Heathen identity as a religious subculture is naturally indebted to practices of syncretisation which are employed, both intentionally and unintentionally, to establish its sense-of-being beneath a theologically hostile system of perception, belief, and practice. Since its inception, Heathenry has been a naturally syncretized piece and the very historic continuum of rich cultures and beliefs which it draws its inspiration from were likewise.

Such a detailed historic survey is beyond the scope of this writing, but one would show a variety of attributes to the (re)distribution of the meaning of what it is to be and what it is to engage in a syncretic practice. We invariably find that syncretism is intrinsically tied to political positions; positions regarding the maintenance and the role of the religious act, at both the institutional and deeply personal levels. This political position has been the case since the beginning of the concept of ‘syncretism’, and modern authors engage in a ‘typology of phenomena’ which are associated with varying stages and types of syncretic practices, including the phenomena of ‘amalgamation’, ‘symbiosis’, ‘coherence’, ‘identification’, and other such terms [1].

At its most simple definition, syncretism pertains to the melding of ideas. Wiktionary’s definition is clearer, detailing it as “the (attempted) reconciliation or fusion of different systems of beliefs.” [2]. Etymologically, it is derived from Latin’s syncretismus, directly from the Ancient Greek συγκρητισμός (sunkrētismós), and is attested in Plutarch’s On Brotherly Love. This is an important point in the foundation of the concept of syncretism, where Plutarch writes:

“…imitating in this point, at least, the practice of Cretans, who, though they often quarreled with and warred against each other, made up their differences and united when outside enemies attacked; and this it was which they called “syncretism.”” [3]

This is the foundation of the wider concept of syncretism – an understanding between peoples based on the ideas of reconciliation, alignment, and mutual agreement to a common good of the parties involved. From the roots of a strategically beneficial brotherhood between peoples and their belief systems we can see a deeply political act of contact and intercultural exchange emerge [4]. The recognition of this innate importance to humanity is reflected through modern anthropological classifications, placing the importance of syncretism as a fundamental facet of human interaction [5].

Syncretism is a social-scientific term for a thought process rising questions with regards to roots, influences, and contacts, and how these borrowings are to be used and interpreted by a group [6]. It is a question within virtually every culture or religion, as all cultures have changed over time and adopted exogenous elements and ideas.

This is the foundation of the concept of syncretism – an understanding of peoples based on the ideas of reconciliation, alignment, and allegiance to a common good of those parties involved. From these roots of a strategically beneficial brotherhood between peoples and their belief systems we see a deeply political act of contact and reconciliation emerge [7]. Modern anthropologists place the importance of syncretism in religio-cultural exchanges as a fundamental facet of human interaction, being an admixture of ideas which is treated as intrinsic to the cultural condition of humanity [8]. That is as virtually every culture (except in the most extreme cases, as uncontacted Indigenous tribes) or religion is exposed to alternating ideas, it is in the human nature to interact with them, developing and syncretising in doing so. In the end, the result is a changed experience.

Two particular points in Western dialogue transformed the relatively positive (or at least, neutral) connotation of ‘syncretism’ which are rooted in both the problematic interpretations stemming from the period of the Reformation, as well as that of the 19th century. From the time of Plutarch until that of George Calixtus in the 17th century, the term was fairly well regarded. After this period it was used as a theological bludgeon in the promulgation of Protestant theologies, with its detractors claiming that its use amounted to an advance of “purposeful confusion” or religious identity and an injection of religious ideas that clouded the purity of faith and religion [9]. In terms of the studies of Heathenry it should be wholly unsurprising that Protestant rhetoric and residual interpretative infection are to blame with the conflation of syncretism as a problematic endeavor.

A final phase in the development of these negative connotations is relegated to the latter half of the 19th century, where the pejorative meaning of “syncretism” was further expanded. In the case of Classicists at the time (those studying Roman and Hellenistic religions), the search for a “pure” religious example brought about further connotations of “disorder” and even a reduction to a “lowest common denominator” [10]. Plutarch’s solidarity and mutually beneficial relationship is treated as a weapon of assimilation by an enemy power through further treatment as an extension of a Roman imperialist strategy (again, attempting to slice to the core of a fictitious “pure” religion). Peter Schineller wrote that syncretism as a word “cannot be redeemed” [11] .

In effect syncretism has entered into popular and non-specific (non-anthropological) context with the connotations of deviancy through the use of Western Christo-academia, fueled by the perceptions of the execution of power over the beliefs and practices of others. The preference of academics to use Christian theology to distinguish between “good” and “bad” forms of syncretism remains couched in this non-specific discourse (As Robert Schreiter stated in 2011, in “Cosmopolitanism, hybrid identities, and religion”). Some scholars have gone so far as to integrate “syncretism” into their grand evolutionary scheme of religious development, treating it as a point towards monotheism in a biological model of religious growth and evolution, coinciding with the rhetoric of other ‘psychologists of religion’ (Welhausen, Hegel, etc.) [12]. While anthropologists, in a sense, have engaged in the rehabilitation of the term in order to bring it back to a more neutral perspective, other disciplines nevertheless appear to break the mold of the past four centuries of academic and theological opinion on the concept.

“Syncretism” becomes a problem when clerical authoritarianism and hierarchicalism becomes the de facto interpretation of religious truth, where everything running contrary to this notion of truth becomes a deviancy or degeneracy of its original form. Leveraging this mode of thinking can lead towards portrayal of any particular civilization and religion as a pure, sui generis phenomenon, excluding innately important (but nonetheless foreign) facets which aided in their genesis [13]. The dialogue of authors in Heathenry who promote such attempts at revisionist purification appear cut from the same ideological, intellectual cloth as those Classicists attempting to establish a bildung for their chosen culture – as Mueller did in the Introduction to a Science of Mythology (1825), and following in Herder and Fichte’s formulations of the relativism of cultures and national identities which generated an anti-Enlightenment form of nationalism. At the very worst, the stressing of Heathenry’s supposed religious purity and autochthonous nature mimes rather unfortunate racialist social rhetoric for which anything related to Germanic culture needs be wary of.

Bemoaning syncretism as some negative impact on a religio-cultural idea possesses within it a certain blindness and tone-deafness to the issues of power within any singular grouping of identities, and their struggle for extricating themselves from erasure into the wider cultural demographic. Likening syncretic movements wholesale to Cargo cults or millenarian pre-political movements of charismatic leaders (as in E.W. Mühlmann’s Rassen, Ethnien, Kulturen, 1964) casts particularly nativistic aspersions at what is a fundamental religious dialogue in a multi-religious environment; simply, it is patently difficult (if not self-defeatingly impossible) to avoid expressing identity without reference to ideas or rituals that have meaning in other religious groups [14].

If we are to take that culture does not exist, usually, within a vacuum and that culture and religious identities, mores, and practices do not arise totally from nothing (similar, perhaps, to the Buddhist concept of Pratītyasamutpāda, that nothing arises independently of others), then we can begin to see how a strictly anti-syncretist approach to Heathenry will do more harm than good. In further discussion we will engage in concepts of syncretism, of historic appropriations, and the positioning of contemporary Heathen practice and belief through a lens of syncretic understanding so as to develop a living identity that exists beneath the overculture of monotheistic values.

[1] Droogers, Andre, ‘Syncretism: The Problem of Definition, the Definition of the Problem’, in Dialogue and Syncretism: an Interdisciplinary Approach, eds. Gort, Vroom, Fernhout, Wessels, William B. Erdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids, MI, 1989, pg. 14

[2] Wiktionary contributors, “syncretism”, Wiktionary, the Free Dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=syncretism&oldid=49793444 (accessed January 8, 2019).

[3] Plutarch, ‘De Fraterno Amore’, published VI. Loeb 1939, trans. W. C. Helmbold, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/De_fraterno_amore*.html (accessed, January 25, 2019).

[4] Shaw, Rosalind and Charles Stewart, “Introduction: problematizing syncretism” in Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: the Politics of Religious Synthesis, ed. Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw, Routledge: London, 1994, pg. 3.

[5] Shaw, Introduction, pg. 5.

[6] Stewart. Charles, “Syncretism as a dimension of nationalist discourse in modern Greece”, in Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: the Politics of Religious Synthesis, ed. Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw, Routledge: London, 1994, pg. 120.

[7] Shaw, Introduction, pg. 3.

[8] Shaw, Introduction, pg. 5.

[9] Shaw, Introduction, pg. 4.

[10] Shaw, Introduction, pg. 10.

[11] Schineller, Peter, “Inculturation and syncretism: what is the real issue?,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 16, no. 2 (1992).

[12] Fabian, Johannes, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object, Columbia University Press, 1984, pg. 9

[13] Stewart, “Syncretism”, pg. 120

[14] Roxborough, John, “Syncretism and Identity”, uploaded on academia.edu, accessed 01/31/19 http://www.academia.edu/4482341/Syncretism_and_Identity, pg. 1

Categories: ACADEMIC ELITISM!!1+1, Anglo-Saxon, Community Thoughts, Controversy!!1!, Fyrnsidu, Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, History, Northern Tradition, Not-Quite-Northern, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts

Tagged: Academic Heathenry, Heathen, Pagan, Paganism, Religion, Sacred, Syncretism

De Natura Temporis et Rītuum Germānicōrum

Marc

Posted on July 12, 2018

“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one who asketh, I know not.” – Augustine of Hippo, Confessions XI.XIV

“Time” is a phenomenon which is fragmented and multifaceted in scope, consisting of numerous subjective views that range from philosophical discourses to personal perceptions to scientific principles. The theory and philosophy of this phenomenon has always been one of contention, a controversial issue that has spawned debate and argumentation over the centuries of human intellectual history. It is ubiquitous and familiar – the ticking hands of a clock in the classroom, or the memories of things which had previously happened – and it is also esoteric and unknowable; it exists in a state of both total subjectivity and total objectivity. One can perceive its passage and influence in life in an entirely separate way from another observer, yet it is utilized, ordered, and employed as a form of universal, quantum measurement. This is a simple slice of the paradox which surrounds the phenomenon.
Time receives its meaning through individualistic and subjective perceptions which ultimately inform its conceptual reality from the view which is commonly ascribed to its existence. Its origin is rooted in fundamental psychological and philosophical premises, including whichever crucial moral, eschatological, or cosmological ideas that the viewer in question may hold [1]. All the same, the concept of time mutualistically reinforces (or perhaps more appropriately enforces) a certain attitude in relation to one’s own position with regards to the phenomenon; one’s understanding of time supports their own purpose of life, their ideas on how to face death, the concepts of religious practice and theology, the ideas of divinity which they may hold, and other theological/philosophical/metaphysical concerns.
It is a portion of these theological and metaphysical concerns which this paper seeks to address, specifically as “time” exists in the perspective of a modern, Western, Heathen. As a religious culture which is affixed to a pre-Christian cultural identity, there is a marketed difference in the engagement with the ritualistic and subjective realities of time between Heathendom and the Christo-Classical influenced over-culture within which modern practitioners are ensconced. Concepts of “Time” run concurrently with the very basic understanding of Heathen cosmological worldview, intersecting directly with the cosmic forces which form them, as well as extend in importance into the ritualistic engagement with the religious performance of Heathendom.
A thorough treatment of the concept of time is outside the scope of this writing, but it nevertheless behooves us to discuss some of the more superficial and common understandings of this concept, as it impacts modern Heathens.
Time guides humans through their lives without a strict uniformity of occurrence. There is no formalized constancy to the rate of time’s passage, because subjectivities can be reorganized through varying internal and external effects of the viewer (age, states of emotion, life situations, etc.), and it is up to the individual human groups to establish orderings of time for their social coordination and temporal ritual experiences [2]. The perception of time which one possesses is due to the repetition of rhythmic events that combine to order and construct one’s sense of progression, ultimately leading to ritualistic development [3]. In modern culture it is ordered linearly, in what is known as a “progressive” time, from the subjective viewpoint of one who themselves experience progression from point A to B, a common feature in the numerical and structural elements of the tripartite system [4].
Philosophers and scientists have been entranced with the importance of time in human understanding, even if it is paradoxical. Levi-Bruhl’s work argued that linear time was an intrinsic feature of the modern world due largely to the subjective nature of humanity’s microcosmic existence, and it was phenomenologically created by the scale at which human society experienced reality [5].

Emile Durkheim said that:

At the roots of all our judgments there are a certain number of essential ideas which dominate all our intellectual life; they are what philosophers since Aristotle called categories of understanding: ideas of time, space, class, number, cause, substance, personality, etc. They correspond to the most universal properties of things. They are like the solid frame which encloses all thought…they appear to be nearly inseparable from the normal working of the intellect. They are like the framework of intelligence. [6], Emphasis by Author.

This preoccupation with the idea of time has existed from early antiquity and it, as Durkheim writes, is an intrinsic and essential motivator behind many philosophical thoughts. A quick treatment of the vagaries between philosophical schools is as follows: Aristotle’s philosophy positions time not as a kind of change but as something which was ultimately dependent on change. As one’s perceptions and self-awareness are influenced by time, the metaphysical reality of the concept itself was a matter of mutable succession, which lead to the doubt of its actual existence as a force. Contrast to this to Platonic time, in which it was viewed as an image of the totality of the universe, an independent existence which is not necessitated by that which is placed within it [7].
The Stoics were the first Western philosophers to offer an elaborate accounting of time, viewing it as “something” in between being and not-being, but the school failed to work itself out of what exactly this entails. A wider treatment of the Stoic conception of time is given by Robert Heller in “Innovators in Thought: The Stoics on Time Perception”.
Buttressed in the Stoic argument and inculcated throughout the Classical world was a tripartite division of time. Seneca said, “But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.”[8]. This division of time is familiar to all Westerners, creating a linear system of one’s life and its reckoning and divided into these three parts. Theologically, this was represented by the Greek Moriae and the Roman Parcae, the Fates and the personification of this phenomenon that they represented.
This tripartite division was inherited by Christianity, which ultimately inserted its own ontology into the concept through the workings of Origen. Taking the Stoic foundation, it was Christian thought that ultimately innovated something new [9], expanding the notion of the perception of time in order to anchor a counterpoint to the materialist explanation of Stoicism’s time. Where Stoicism viewed that which was real was that which suffered, time could not necessarily be “real” due to its incapability of suffering, time was ultimately positioned secondarily to the concept of Eternity, which was positioned outside subjective time and the nominal flow of it. This was elaborated upon from Origen by Irenaeus of Lyon, Basil, Gregory, and finally treated by Augustine of Hippo:

“Quisnam est, qui dicat mihi non esse tria tempor, sicut pueri didicimus puerosque docuimus, praeteritum, praesens et futurum, sed tantum praesens, quoniam illa duo non sunt?

Who is he that will tell me how there are not three times, as we learned when we were boys, and as we taught other boys, the past, present, and future: but the present only, because the other two are not at all?” [10]

Stoicism’s immaterial perception of the nature of time can perhaps be glimpsed within Augustine’s views, which could potentially give Christianity it’s forward-facing concern and the eagerness for what comes beyond the flow of time. This forward-facing concern is ultimately one of the reasons why Christianity is considered a world-rejecting religion (among others, coined by Max Weber). In the Discovery of Time, Steven Toulmin and Judith Goodfield assert the reinforcement of a fixed origin of creation (necessitating a finite end) reinforces the concept of linear time through the assertion of a 6,000 year period regarding the origin of matter.
Even ignoring these theological paradigms, the concept of a fixed linear timeline has found purchase within Western society: the universe was given form at a point in time and will invariably find its end, in whichever scientific model one chooses. The application of this perception creates a conundrum for modern Westerners who might be approaching the ritual and cosmological endeavors inimical to the Heathen religious and cultural identity. We will endeavor to explore these concepts and how contemporary Heathens can approach the nuanced and subjective phenomenon of time within a Germanic ritual context.

Heathen Time and Ritual

We should now speak of “Heathen time”, a tradition of ritualistic reckoning and cosmological perception towards the phenomenon of time which is anchored squarely within the pre-Christian Germanic understanding of the universe and reality. This includes the ebb and flow of cosmic, metaphysical facets which are inherent to the contemporary Heathen edifice and of paramount importance in understanding Heathen religious identity. The same rigorous issues which suffuse all other aspects of reconstructionist methodology within Heathenry are readily apparent here; a lack of a wide breadth of written information on what was predominately an oral culture makes such an inquest fraught with perils. While the Sagas and Eddas provide a literary foundation for the discovery of such views, it is difficult to ascertain the relative depth of their comparative purity from Christian influence, as the writers of these otherwise oral histories are inculcated in their own Christo-centric worldviews.
Unlike both Classical and Judaeo-Christian perceptions of time, traditional Germanic cosmological approaches to the phenomenon are decidedly not forward facing at the expense of the past, nor of the world around them. Germanic, thus Heathen, time is ultimately oriented behind, towards that which we have considered the past. Time was essential bifurcated, divided into two states identified as the past and not-past [11]. This bifurcation is mirrored through the division of the cosmos, ultimately, into two realms: the Well and the Tree.
Above all, time was actionable, and the truest expression of reality was that which had already occurred. This view is fundamentally tied to the nature of cosmology within the Germanic system: the worlds of creation, all of the worlds, hang in the World Tree which grows invariably from the Well of Wyrd. The Tree draws nourishment from the Well, which perpetuates the reality of the worlds, but the worlds reciprocate this nourishment by depositing the actions which are put into motion through their enactment and eventual execution (or failure!) back down into the Well. These actions are laid down and form reality, and in doing so replenish and nourish the Tree which supports further actions that spring from those in the past. This dichotomy of action vs. inaction possesses a cyclical nature, and represents a spiritual force which is reflected not only in the mythic remnants of Germanic culture, but also in material and literary remains [12].
In consideration to the cyclical nature of cosmology, it would appear at first glance that Germanic time follows roughly what Evans-Pritchard termed “oecological time”, or a reckoning of measurement ultimately rooted in a mimicry of the continual return within the world’s life cycle, understandably inspired by seasonal and celestial changes experienced by the community [13], otherwise known as a circular return to the same point.
Contemporary Paganism typically is assumed to utilize a calendrical system based off of the seasonal cycle of the year, the so-called “Wheel of the Year”, which echos a celestial and oecological fixture of timekeeping as it utilizes these celestial movements in order to arrange both its ritual and temporal understanding. Heathenry, as a de facto “Paganism” largely gets lumped into this same system by those who may be unfamiliar with its particular timekeeping, which is an inaccurate assumption. Germanic time is distinctly cyclical, and not circular, an important consideration.
The actions of the worlds which filter back into the Well of Wyrd ultimately merge with the fabric of reality, integrating with that reality as layers of strata which are laid down after the daily speaking of orlæg (the first law). In this way, the actions of the world become an intrinsic, immutable, and inexorable facet of reality, a past made manifest, which at once is capable of guiding those who are favored (as in Beowulf) and hindering those who have acted poorly enough to become Doomed or otherwise ill of luck (as in The Wanderer). The past becomes significant action, dominated ultimately by what is factual and realized, e.g., that which is enclosed within the Well [14]. In this system, the ‘past’ is the only thing with the strength of reality; indeed, it is the only solid reality, and one which grows as it pulls more events into itself.
Past actions notably do not fade into obscurity as they do in a linear system, relegated to the unreachable past; they cannot. Time does not return to the exact same moment, the return to the past-as-it-occurred as it would do in a circular system. Instead, actions compound on themselves in an ever-growing, ever-reaching, ever more powerful cacophony of existence and force, an up- and outward- reaching movement of past events as they involve and shape the present [15]. The Worlds of the Tree and their not-past (in the case of the Heathen, the world of Man) exist outside the solid reality of the past and while they cannot necessarily perceive the whole of the force or structure of it, they are driven towards the becoming of it [16]. Whoever speaks this original law, this orlæg, which forces the actions of the worlds to lay down as strata in the Well (be they Norns or some other force) is unimportant to this system; it is a universal constant that the past is built upon itself and is a perpetuating, ever-building force behind the propulsion of the universe.
Human activity, then, exists in a way which creates or enters the past which is oriented towards producing a reciprocal reaction within the strata of reality. They exist in a liminal point between the past and non-past, and by extension can experience the solidification of these actions [17]. Whether through mundane or dedicated ritualistic means, this reciprocity of action drives the past onward, and this is the metaphysical seed from which Heathenry should cultivate its understanding of time and ritual.
The intersection with time and attitudes towards the past within Germanic cosmology raises an interesting point of consideration for the application of contemporary Heathen ritual. Much of Heathen ritual theory and wider ritual mechanics are drawn of elements from the works of Mircea Eliade. His work on the positions of ritual in the Sacred-Profane dichotomy, the importance of Mythic Time and its role within the structure of reality itself, and the inevitable cyclical nature of the enactment of ritual play an intrinsic part of an understanding of contemporary Heathen ritualism.
In Eliade’s conception of time the most prominent and most important point within the world of ritual was that of creation, an uncorrupted point when the universe was wrought into existence. In this system the act of ritual is an act of paradigmatic recreation and imitation of this First Time (illo tempore). This ritual creates and returns the space to the conditions of creation and through its ultimate imitation confers the ontic substance upon the activities of humanity, enabling human ritual participants to engage with and enter that which is the Sacred [18].
This is the central concern with what we shall refer to as “Eliadean ritual”: the centrally located point of prominence of Mythic Time within this system and its notable use as an agent for the sanctification of space in order to manifest and experience hierophany. The First Time is undiluted, uncorrupted, and within the context of hierophanic phenomenology, thoroughly pure. Ritual abolishes the polluted and profane time which Eliade identified as “historic time”. This is done through the recreation of the sacrifice of the cosmogony and in doing so the space of the ritual is brought into the same primordial moment as that of creation, bringing about the state of Sacredness required for divine interaction [19].
Sacred time was reversible and recoverable and the mythic present was ultimately regenerated through these ritualistic acts [20]. Both kinds of time, Sacred and Profane, were thus lived in. This cyclical view would at first appear to be compatible with the core of what constitutes Heathen ritual, but ultimately provides an inexact fit (at best) for the purpose of contemporary Heathenry. Despite being oriented towards the past, both of the ritualistic concepts of Heathen and Eliadean ritual derive their force of power and cosmological energy from markedly different approaches to past actions.

Consider Eliade’s own words:

“The abolition of time through the imitation of archetypes and the repetition of paradigmatic gestures, a sacrifice, for example, not only exactly reproduces the initial sacrifice revealed by a god ab origine, at the beginning of time, also takes place that same primordial moment… “ [21]. Emphasis added by Author

There is a significant emphasis to the importance of spatial centers as distinct and separate from sequences of time, and contemporary Heathen ritual has tacitly accepted the Elidean thesis that “religious experience of the non-homogeneity of space is a primordial experience homologizable to a founding of the world” [22]. This is understandable, as a reading of Eliade would appear to be authoritative, although inaccurate, in light of the varying human cultures that intrinsically bind temporal and locational space within greater or lesser degrees within ritual.
“Heathen time” in contrast to “Eliadean time” does not place emphasis on any one point of origin of reality, no primordial Mythic Time that serves as an uncontested, sacred source of ritualistic “power”. The “sacred time” of Heathenry is instead the “profane time” of Elidean theory, the actionable historic time which has already occurred [23]. Only one origin myth survives within the Germanic corpus, that of the Norse cosmogony, and even this can be seen as one indicative of action-inaction than purity-impurity.
Heathen past time is not distant or inaccessible, and it does not deteriorate through the progression of continued events or the accumulation of new, more recent actions. As such it is not intrinsically profane in and of itself. The reality of those actions continue to grow in power and the Heathen past, which acts immediately (if discontinuously), manifests at its most potent and strongest at the point between the past and not-past.
It is thus not reasonable to expect Heathen ritual to seek to abolish historic time (Eliade’s “profane” time) in the same way which Eliade’s ritual mechanics would otherwise attempt to do.
Eliade’s works show that his position of “primordial time” is above all notional and conceptual and not located in any one long-gone historical era of our (known) world, but instead not to be found in the historical past [24]. Eliade’s own words position him as exploring an archaic conception of ontology, how time and conceptions of time were said to be, and not necessarily how these “archaic peoples” were said to have truly viewed time [25]. This focus on primordial time extends from Eliade’s desire to restore the “paradise of animality”, of some innate and archaic desire to possess a simpler and ideal existence [26].
Further, “all sacrifices are performed at the same mythical instant of the beginning; through the paradox of the rite, Profane time and duration are suspended…insofar as an act or object acquires a certain reality through the repetition of certain paradigmatic gestures…there is an implicit abolition of ‘Profane time’, of duration of history.” [27].
This is an intrinsic contrast in the roles and importance of this historic time between the two systems: where Eliade’s work of Myth and Reality claims that the sacralization of history through the migration of historic events into mythology (the mythologization of historiography) merely camouflages or confuses sacred time with that of profane time, Germanic time would put this very same time into a position of preeminence and continual prominence. The actions one may have accomplished are more than renown, they are transmuted into a fundamental, existential, cosmic worthiness.
As theorized, Eliade’s mechanics would see the suspension of profane, historic, time in favor of some sacred ‘other time’, a facet of practice which clashes with the importance placed on the sacred (historic) time of Germanic cosmology. The Well of Wyrd and the past-as-reality form what Rappaport would identify as a “ritual eternity”. The reality of the cosmos, all that which has been laid down in the Well, is a ceaseless and irreversible expression of the eternal; it is not one of an endless repetition in a cyclical system, but possesses a singular fundamental truth that what was, is, and always shall be will be extant and having an impact on the not-past [28]. The inherent power of the past will always be now, supporting the world of humanity (and all the worlds of the Tree) even though it exists out of sight. Thus any repetition of Heathen ritual would engage with the changelessness of Wyrd as it exists and grows in a paradox of continuation.
The speaking of orlæg has a transmutative effect on the incidence of mundane time, making it an irreversible and mythic occurrence which ritual acting can then engage with, the performance of which distinguishes the newly established (or previously established) extraordinary intervallic time from the ordinary and periodic time of the Tree [29]. Thus exists a system where mundane time is unable to escape the duration of the historic movement, but through the transmutation into mythic occurrence and the repetition of ritual becomes a successionless duration which is able to be grasped by the performers.
Orlæg imparts a sacredness to historic time, providing a mechanic that Eliade lacked in his concerns for and fears regarding the mythologization of historicity. It is thus set apart from the lives and histories of the ordinary, and the “statistical history” of Rappaport becomes the structural and mechanical supports of the cosmos, a worlds-spanning absolute existence [30].
The unity of statistical history with that of cosmic history within the Well preserves that which would otherwise be lost, and in this way the preservation of these features, peoples, and entities is transferred from nonexistence to the recurring domain of vitality through orlæg’s speaking and humanity’s ritual engagement. In this way we can see that Cicero’s statement in the Ninth Philippic of “Vita enim mortuorum in memoria est posita vivorum” explained more appropriately in the context of metaphysical mechanics – the life of the dead is placed in the living through paradigmatic recreation of ritual, ritualistic commemoration, and engagement with the unrelenting and ever-flowing past as it exists in the moment. As their actions, inactions, glories, and sins have entered and commingled with reality, they affect the living and, through ritual, can be re-engaged, glimpsed, and honored in their own right.
Should this be taken as the central concern of the mechanics behind Heathen ritual, the engagement between the past and non-past, then we can begin to see how Eliade’s metaphysical mechanics are a somewhat inexact fit, and his concerns about the mythologization of historicity create an incongruity within the nature of such ritual enactments. The idiosyncratic and subjective applications of concepts of time, which we have alluded to within the beginning of this work, creates a tension when utilizing ritual theory – a tension which Eliade himself was keen to attempt to reconcile within the realities of his own life[31].
Sacred traditions of humanity are apprehended as the real by those who engage in their systems and Eliade’s own interpretations are products of his system of exploration. To him, the “religious man lives in two kinds of time, of which the most important, sacred time, appears under the paradoxical aspect of a circular time, reversible and recoverable, a sort of eternal mythical present that is periodically regenerated by means of rites.” [32].

Germanic time is not, however, circular.

[1] Tzamalikos, Panayiotis, “Origen and the Stoic View of Time”, Journal of the history of Ideas, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec., 1991), University of Pennsylvania Press, Pg. 353, Accessed 08-03-2018.

[2] Rappaport, Roy A., Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 1999. pg. 177.

[3] Seligman, Adam B. and Robert P. Weller, Rethinking Pluralism: Ritual, Experience, and Ambiguity, Oxford University Press: New York, 2012, pg. 101

[4] Rappaport, Ritual, pg. 184.

[5] Ricoeur, Paul, The Symbolism of Evil. New York: Harper and Row, 1967, pg. 15

[6] Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Trans. J. Swain. New York: Collier Books, pg 21-22..

[7] Markosian, Ned, “Time”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/time/>, Accessed 01-06-18.

[8] Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, On the Shortness of Life, Trans. Gareth D. Williams. 2014.

[9] Tzamalikos, “Origen”, pg. 561.

[10] Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Trans. Edward B. Pusey, D.D, Christian Classics Ethereal Library: Grand Rapids, MI, 199. Pg. 137

[11] Bauschatz, Paul, The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture, University of Massachusetts Press: Amherst, 1982. Pg. 16

[12] Bauschatz, Well, pg. 122.

[13] Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Theories of Primitive Religion, Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1965. Pg. 65.

[14] Bauschatz, Well, pg. 132.

[15] Bauschatz, Well, pg. 21.

[16] Bauschatz, Well, pg. 140.

[17] Bauschatz, Well, pg. 139.

[18] Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or Cosmos and History, trans. Willard R. Trask, Harper: New York, 1959. Pg. 35.

[19] Eliade, Myth, pg. 35.

[20] Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask, Harcourt, Brace, and World: New York, 1959. Pg. 70.

[21] Eliade, Sacred, pg. 35.

[22] Eliade, Sacred, pg. 21.

[23] Bauschatz, Well, pg. 151.

[24] Eliade, Sacred, pg. 72

[25] Rennie, Bryan S., Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion, State University of New York Press: New York, 1996. Pg. 71.

[26] Eliade, Myth, pg. 91.

[27] Eliade, Sacred, pg. 35.

[28] Rappaport, Ritual, pg. 231.

[29] Rappaport, Ritual, pg. 230.

[30] Rappaport, Ritual, pg. 233.

[31] Rennie, Reconstructing, 78.

[32] Eliade, Sacred, 70.

*Note: Special thanks to Widukinding for helping with the Latin translation for the title.

Categories: Anglo-Saxon, Community Thoughts, Fyrnsidu, Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts

Tagged: Anglo-Saxon, Cosmos, Eliade, Heathen, Heathenry, Hierophany, Pagan, Paganism, Phenomenology, Religion, Sacred, Theophany

The Economy of Sacrifice: Thoughts on the Value of Gifted Goods in Heathenry

Marc

Posted on May 21, 2018

In rekindling and perpetuating their devotion and engaging in the cosmic gift cycle with the multitudinous divine polytheists within Contemporary Paganism (especially those within Heathenry/Heathendom and its ancillary religions) engage in basic ritual acts in a daily or weekly practice. Among these acts are practices which can rightly be considered “sacrificial” in expression. The act of sacrifice, or more precisely the act of offering, is an intrinsic facet to the proper expression of polytheistic piety. In engaging with these practices, popular attitudes towards the ritual components and mechanics of the sacrificial act vary across the spectrum of belief and practice, sometimes rather drastically.

The practice, mechanics, attitudes, and values of the sacrificial ritual are all hotly discussed within contemporary circles of Heathendom and Paganism. The most frequent of these discussions tends to focus on the item given over to the divine in question; there is ultimately a class of ideological viewpoints regarding the perceived or tangible value of the item in question. A prevailing opinion is the belief that [Sacrificial Thing] ought to be something of worth to both practitioner and divine, so that its giving (and thus, loss from the profane to the sacred) can be keenly felt. This ‘worth’ is most often associated with financial impact/burden or, otherwise, an expenditure of relative skill (in the case of crafted items), which gives the offered goods a quantifiable level of associated value.

This is a position that scholars such as Raymond Firth take, believing sacrifice to imply a substantial offering of sometimes limited resources, thus to give it up would be to “give something up at a cost” [1]. In doing so, the sacrificial item is dependent on factors located outside the mechanics of the ritual itself – it is anchored to wider ecological, economical, and social concerns. As scholarship often asserts the value of the commodity in the sacrifice it is understandable that modern practitioners would otherwise overlay such a view upon the traditional understanding of the gifting cycle, ritual efficacy, and relative value in the act. This leads to the aforementioned expectation that something given must be costly.

Ultimately this is what is referred to in this work as ‘the Economy of Sacrifice’ the views of the economic value and perceived commodification of ritual gifting goods within contemporary Western polytheistic rituals. In studying the history of the ritual sacrifice we find that this is not an unusual question. Unsurprisingly, this debate is very ancient. Different theories placed different weights upon the expected worth of offered goods, some of which will be discussed in the following text.

This work holds that emphasizing the perceived value or financial impact of the commodity for ritual is a particularly anachronistic modernism that is influenced by the West’s position within its economic systems, and proves to be more of a hindrance than a benefit to the establishment of a budding resurgence of polytheistic identity. It does this by continuing to internalize materialistic concepts with the expectation that this is desirable to the deity worshiped.

A brief survey of what is meant by “sacrifice” must be undertaken so we can more fully appreciate the discussion as it has raged throughout religious history. As scholars can have sometimes wildly differing views, compounded by colloquial usage of the term, this is beneficial for us.

Etymologically ‘sacrifice’ is derived from the Latin ‘sacer’ (holy, sacred), and ‘faciō’ (make, do). From ‘sacrificium’ we get the usage pertaining to our concerns: to offer something to a deity [2]. There’s long been a question made in what constitutes a sacrificial act, making a distinction between ‘sacrifice’ and ‘offering, treating them as distinct things. In modern parlance, ‘sacrifice’ has connotations of bloodied acts (the ritualistic slaughter of livestock) or otherwise ritual offerings of objects intended for consumption (Van Straten, Gifts for the Gods, pg 65).

Despite these connotations of consumption or bloodied acts, traditional commentaries make use of the terms interchangeably, examples of which include Vedic writings and Roman accounts [3]. This has given rise to scholarship which treats sacrifice as a subclassification of ritualistic offerings, as is the case with Frith’s treatment above or, otherwise, scholarship in the steps of Huebert and Mauss (1898) by hinging the classification of sacrifice on the destruction of the victim or oblation as the essential characteristic differentiating the two.

As we are concerned primarily with the perceived value of the offering in question, we will be treating sacrifice and offering as analogous and interchangeable terms under the broad definition given above.

The purpose of sacrifice in a polytheistic religious system should be well known. In order to enter into and sustain a good personal relationship with the gods, practitioners engage in what is colloquially known as the gifting cycle, in varying ancient cultures this was resorted upon primarily by two distinct means: prayer and sacrificial offering [4]. This cycle of do ut des is intrinsic to traditional Western polytheistic traditions, and forms the basis of many pre-Christian societies around the world (as explored by Marcel Mauss in The Gift, inspired primarily by Seneca’s De Beneficiis).

In studying the history of the polytheistic sacrifice in the West we can discern that the value of appreciated goods is ultimately philosophical, as seen through and understood by the scope of traditions promulgated by philosophical fathers and the schools which followed them. Except in cases of theological concern which required or hinged specific desires and accepted sacrificial practices to a specific deity in question any literary views which survive are informed by the dominant tradition of intellectualism held by the authors in question [5].

Polytheistic identity is mutable to such an extent that it is common that thinkers can be worshiping the same deities with different opinions regarding the value of sacrifice. In this way where we have Pythagoras and Epedocles caution heartily against blood sacrifice as reprehensible to the gods and, thus, valueless no matter how much is spent upon such things, Socrates and Plato advance an attitude of support for the act [6]. Neither view is wrong to this system.

It is thus that Theophrastus, in following the tradition of Pythagoras, values the philosophical kinship of all life within a sacrificial context and did not partake in animal sacrifice. But, more importantly for this discussion, he cautioned against the overburdened expenses of such things:

“The gods like what is cheap and the deity attaches more importance to the disposition of the sacrifice than the quantity of what is sacrificed.” – Peri Eusebeias, Fr. 7, 53-54

Theophrastus’ concern for moderation, ethics and virtue is thus philosophical as it informs his interpretation of proper religious piety. More importantly to him and to other authors is the concern of goodness and propriety reflected in ritual action and offering – the idea of spending mightily on sacrificial goods to buy the favor of the gods was abhorrent. Xenophon would have us believe that it would be “ethically monstrous” were the gods to derive more gratification from large sacrifices than the small ones from the pious [7].

Stoic philosopher Epictetus cautions towards moderation:

“But it is also incumbent on everyone to offer libations and sacrifices and first fruits, conformably to the customs of his country, with purity, and not in a slovenly manner, nor negligently, nor sparingly, nor beyond his ability.” – Enchiridion, 31

However as Van Straten is keen to point out these are opinions of Greeks and not the opinion of the Greeks, or of any other group of people who may commentate on religious matters. It is otherwise difficult to explore the reality of popular views regarding the value of offered goods [8]. Votive representations, religious offerings in their own rights, also sometimes commemorate the sacrifice of goods which would not remain (livestock, and thus a meal), in order so that it is remembered as a memento. In the case of such votives are themes of the poor sacrificer who apologizes to the gods for the exiguity of their gift due to extraneous circumstances, and this theme is not rare; it is often assumed that the large and expensive sacrifice is preferable [9].

A discussion of the value and weight of sacrificial goods in ritual is this intertwined with these concepts: of piety, of religious virtue, of ethics and metaphysics, and the other subsets of theological consideration heavily influenced by (if not truly the purview of) philosophical schools. It is within this sphere of thought which many religions under the umbrella term of contemporary Paganism, especially that of Heathendom, are deficient. When attempts to reconstruct pagan religions moves away from the literate regions of antiquity the paucity of information prevents us from discerning what, if any, motives regarding ethical philosophy existed. Little of the traditional views of the Germanic peoples, for instance, exist in an easily identifiable way, and those views which can be gleaned from the texts tend to be more identifiably societal in nature with little direct correlation to apparent ritual value.

In a culture with a paucity of written information, the overall analysis of such ritualistic practices are beyond difficult. Where creative or poetic literature may use imagery, metaphors and metonyms to convey abstract meaning, grave goods and material remains contain their own ‘symbolic grammar’ which are taken as indicators of information as to the status, social position, and intent of the person buried, but nothing as to the intent of those goods found with them [10]. Ornamental grave goods are no indication as to the disposition towards what can be classified as attitudes of religious offering, either for or against our argument. Even the rare snippet of Germanic literature that speaks to the moderation of goods (Havamal, 145), or of the qualities one should possess can be seen as a perspective and not the perspective.

There is no denying that Germanic polytheism viewed their sacrifices within the same context of the sacrificial act of gift-giving. Norse literature provides us with implications of such sacrifice. The verb gefa is the most common of verbs used for sacrificial purposes, most frequently used within the extant literature. The reciprocal nature is readily apparent, where figures ‘give of’ their sacrifices to their deity, an example being within the Víga Glúms saga, where Thorkell the Tall gave to his patron:

“Frey, you who have long been my patron, and accepted many gifts and repaid them well, now I give (gef) you this ox, so that Glúmr may leave the land of Thverá no less compelled than I leave it now.” [11]

Sacrificial efficacy is ultimately related to the effects or functions which they are phenomenologically believed to bring about [12]. This makes it a matter of ritual necessity and less so the perceived value of goods. Studies into Indo-European sacrificial rituals, especially those of Roman and Vedic concordance, identify certain acts of ritual to have greater importance in social concerns than nritual effect – this is especially the case in Roman animal sacrifice, which performs the function of social stratification and hierarchical creation moreso than providing a greater benefit to ritual offering. Were we to compare the expected values of animal sacrifice – oxen as an example – with the first libations of wine it would be probable that the sacrifice of cattle would appear of far more “value” for a multitude of reasons: rearing, sustenance, dramatics, etc. Yet John Scheid has shown that within a Roman context sacrifices of wine (and of wheat) were of the same ritual importance, if not truly greater in a ritualistic setting [13].

Modern practitioners can in part see the goods-value in the ritualistic context of their sacrifices. The role of the sacrifice in ritual, within the ritual myth, is perhaps viewed as more important than the value itself. The concept of mimesis, conveying the ritual realities of myth, helps to conceptualize the authority of the ritual – so long as society assents to the values contained by the framework of the myth, they will have continued value [14]. Those who hold to the Eliadean framework of ritual will see the value of the ritual in the recreation of the first time of reality, where the first sacrifice will be enacted in every practice in order to bridge profane space with mythic time [15].

Jaan Puhvel has identified hierarchies within the victimal sacrifice of Indo-European religious spectrum which feeds into the accepted role of sacrifice-as-cosmogonic-creation, that each event enacts such a thing [16]. If we are to accept Germanic sacrifice, notably provided through treatments of Old Norse religion, is ensconced within this same religious continuum [17], then we can expect a similar weight placed on such a hierarchy of victims. However, if animal sacrifice does indeed do more to create a social hierarchy of religious participants as Scheid would position, then it behooves modern practitioners to view their actions through a lens of religious activity in which modern Heathendom is found.

We are speaking here to the distinction between secular and religious spaces and the simple logistical fact that many contemporary practitioners do not have the ability to engage in a wider social action of group religious ritual. Traditional polytheistic identity was interwoven in what modern practitioners would consider their secular “day-to-day life” and so many themes of their social and cultural ethics would have been replicated in their daily and civic cultic activities. Modern Heathens, by contrast, invariably treat their religious exercise as something separate from their day-to-day lives, its own specific sphere of concern and influence.

Heathendom finds itself ensconced in contemporary Western society, which remains thoroughly dominated by prevailing themes of ethics and theological influences gifted by Christianity. This is true in societies which are perceived to be the most “secular”. It is understandable as the basic foundation of Western social thought has been laid down through centuries of Christian thinking and rhetoric. While it is argued that the so-called “Protestant Work Ethic” of the West is not as pronounced in its influence on a materialistic drive for wealth and ensuing commodification and exploitation of the world as it first appears it nevertheless has had a strong hand in the internalization of such capitalistic forces.

If we were to place ever-increasing monetary values on gifted goods – that they should be a financial burden, or something that we keenly feel – is contemporary Heathendom not perpetuating the over-excesses of such displays of wealth? And in doing so, in attempting to bedazzle the divine with these gifts solely in exchange for asked favors or attention, can Heathendom be considered different than some manner of prosperity gospel?

More important to this point of discussion is the very nature of the gifting cycle itself and associated understandings of that system. Polytheists give so that the gods might give in return, entering into an ever-deepening and increasing cyclical relationship of obligation that ties the two together. Through our votive remnants we clearly see that individuals petitioned by the holy powers for very specific requests (or otherwise presented such goods as fulfilled oaths for receiving their desired blessings) but it is rare (if ever) that we see such things affixed with a clear sense of value or wealth associated with it. Those that had the means would give within them, and those that did not would do the best that they can.

Affixing a dedicated sense of cost to such a deeply important act pushes these gifts into the realm of an emotionless business transaction. In effect the indoctrination of Heathens into the mindset that a financial burden is a virtue that must be reached in order for it to have meaning does nothing but treat the devotional faith as a religious vending machine. This pay-to-win bastardization of the virtue of gifting goods treats the numinous divine as little more than repositories of the pleasures and desires of their so-called worshipers.

A lack of defined Heathen philosophy is keenly felt in the perception of gift-value. Until such a time as dedicated schools of philosophies arise, Heathen practitioners have to judge for themselves utilizing their personal ethics their perceptions of worth, value, and the circumstances in which gifts are given to their gods. As one provides a fine meal for a cherished guest without intending on purchasing their affection, so too can Heathens provide for their deities, if they have the means to do so. Impiety occurs when one engages in a cycle of rampant consumerism and perpetuates an emphasis on financial strain for the benefit of impressing their gods.

[1] Raymond Firth, “Offering and Sacrifice: Problems of Organization”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 93, pg. 13

[2] “Sacrifice.” Wiktionary, The Free Dictionary. 7 May 2018, 22:39 UTC. 8 May 2018, 10:34 <https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=sacrifice&oldid=49462445>.

[3] Clemens Cavallin, The Efficacy of Sacrifice: Correspondences in the Rigvedic Brahmanas, Goteborg, 2003, pg. 1.

[4] F.T. Van Straten, “Gifts for the Gods” in Faith Hope And Worship: Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World, ed. H.S. Versnel, Leiden, 1981, pg. 63. In reality, Van Straten identifies three means, splitting sacrifice and votive offering into two distinct categories. They have been combined here

[5] Examples are readily available of this, as Ovid accounts in Amores 3.13.13-18, where the “she-goat” is hateful to Iuno Curitis of Falerii.

[6] Van Straten, “Gifts”, pg. 65. Yet nevertheless still couched within their ethical paradigms.

[7] P.A. Meijer, “Philosophers, Intellectuals, and Religion in Hellas” in Faith, Hope and Worship: Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World, ed. H.S. Versnel, Brill, 1981, pg. 247.

[8] Van Straten, “Gifts”, pg. 68.

[9] Van Straten, “Gifts”, pg. 68.

[10] Christina Lee, Feasting the Dead: Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon Burial Rituals, Boydell Press, Suffolk, 2007, pg. 52.

[11] E.O.G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia, Greenwood Press: Westport, CT. 1964. pg. 252.

[12] Cavallin, Efficacy, pg. 2.

[13] John Scheid, “Roman Animal Sacrifice and the System of Being” in Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice: Ancient Victims, Modern Observers, Chr. Faraone, F.S. Naiden eds., Cambridge, 2012, pg. 84. Scheid interestingly puts forward the idea that where animal sacrifice creates social hierarchy, the actual act of libation is the defining feature which separates humanity and divinity.

[14] Kimberly Christine Patton, Religion of the Gods: Ritual, Paradox, and Reflexivity, Oxford University Press: USA, 2009, pg. 179.

[15] See Mircea Eliade’s Myth of the Eternal Return for a thorough treatment of this phenomenon.

[16] Jaan Puhvel, “Victimal Hierarchies in Indo-European Sacrifice”, in The American Journal of Philology, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Vol. 99, No. 3 (Autumn, 1978), pp. 354-362.

[17] As Daniel Bray asserts in “Sacrifice and Sacrificial Ideology in Old Norse Religion”.

Categories: Ancestors, Anglo-Saxon, Community Thoughts, Controversy!!1!, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts

Tagged: Anglo-Saxon, Heathen, Heathenry, Pagan, Paganism, Religion

Mōdru and Mōdraniht

Marc

Posted on December 17, 2017

“Incipiebant autem annum ab octavo Calendarum Januariarum die, ubi nunc natale Domini celebramus. Et ipsam noctem nunc nobis sacrosanctam, tunc gentili vocabulo Modranicht, id est, matrum noctem appellabant: ob causam et suspicamur ceremoniarum, quas in ea pervigiles agebant.” – Bede, De temporum ratione

That is, the Anglo-Saxon pagans,

“… began the year on the 8th calends of January [25 December], when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word Modranecht, that is, “mothers’ night”, because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night”.

Mothers’ Night is one of only three formally attested holidays recorded anywhere near-contemporaneously with traditional Anglo-Saxon polytheistic religion. For practicing Anglo-Saxon Heathens, Modranecht or Mōdraniht, holds a special place within the calendar as one of the holiest nights of the year, due to the confluence of themes, dedications, and representations that it entails. It deals with the sacred dead, the/a beginning of the new year, and the end of the season of Geola and the Wild Hunt.

Historically, Mōdraniht, is positioned between the incidence of the cult of the Matrons and the Matronae, the Gallo-Roman tradition of observing tribal and geographic mother deities, and later Norse observances of Dísablót. This is a connection that Rudolf Simek makes, linking them into a similar occurrence of practice. Such a link, across centuries, provides a firm thread of comparative information which can be used to glean the meaning and practice behind the Anglo-Saxon holiday, despite little more than the mere acknowledgement of its practice survived into the historic record. Given the overlapping timeline of the Gallo-Roman and Anglo-Saxon pagan practices (despite distant geographic variances), it is likely that the observance was closer to that tradition, rather than the Norse, if we approach them as intrinsically related.

Philip Shaw identifies four concentrations of traditions relating to the cult of the Matres and Matronae:

A cluster located in the Rhone valley, consisting of Celtic and Romano-Celtic epithets, from the 1st Century CE on.
A cluster to the east of the Rhone, consisting of a lack of distinguished names. These focus simply on the “matronae” or “iuones” (Junos)
A cluster located on the Rhine, in the lands which were historically inhabited by the Ubii, which consisted of Germanic and Celtic names and epithets.
A secondary cluster located around the legionary outposts on Hadrian’s Wall. Shaw identifies this group as a secondary deposit of the Rhine-type. (Shaw, pg. 42.)

What is revealed in an inquest into these four clusters is that there is a series of sub-cults encompassed within a continuum that is described in the Cult of the Matres and Matronae.

Without going too far afield into linguistic development and dissemination of the two terms throughout the wider Latin-speaking world, a distinction nevertheless must be made in the use of the words matres and matronae. Traditionally, “matres” was viewed as an attachment to tribal or otherwise proper names, whereas “matronae” is more prominently associated as an unnamed collective group of matrons and feminine figures. Each, however, reflects a particular development in the religio-cultural landscape of their peoples.

Elements of cult naming include place-names and hydronyms, ethnic terms, and meaningful words indicating the activities of the figures in question (Shaw, pg. 45). These deities have both broad and narrow groupings, ranging from local kin/family tutelary names to larger tribal and geographic identities as the worshippers were engaging with. In at least one instance there is evidence of a supratribal grouping of matrons. Heathens should readily see the intersection between these divisions and the social and religious divisions of the concept of innanbord and utanbord (innangard, utangeard).

This incidence of geographic epithets and interconnected ethno-national tutelary figures within the cult of the Matres and Matronae show an intrinsic connection with concepts of location, locality, and the importance of space. This is understandable as polytheistic practice in Europe invariably finds its deepest well and expression within spatial foci, of place. The recognition of a geographic element potentially occurred due to tribesmen staying outside their traditional homelands, giving them a connection with the otherwise native religious figures they were distant from.

Through this exceedingly short summation, we can thus see that a loose series of cults personifying the nature of family, familial identity, home, regional identity, and landscape readily emerge, embracing the intersection of tribal, national, and local divine in a singular continuum of religious practice.

Similarly, an Anglo-Saxon and Old English incidence of a cult of the divine mothers, and Mothers’ Night, can be approached. Bosworth-Toller defines ‘mōdor’ as a “woman who has given birth to a child”, “an ancestress”, a personification of a thing, and an exerciser of control or superior of female religious communities (Entry: mōdor). But, in at least one entry, mōdor is directly translated utilizing the Latin matres.

Women in Anglo-Saxon England filled an important position in society, where they provided a key function in the implementation of family strategies, temporal and spiritual (Crick, pg. 401). The prominence in this period, post-conversion and pre-Conquest is known through legal wills and charters, as well as the acceptance of women in the later period of the Anglo-Saxon era. Their prominence extended even to the the Church, as the first Christian female Saints would readily attest, which persisted despite anti-feminine attitudes within homilies and other religious writings. This would suggest the feature is a cultural inclusion into the Christian mindset, and not vice versa, similarly to the impact that Germanic culture had on Christianity as a whole (see; The Germanization of Medieval Christianity).

The role of women in Anglo-Saxon England as a nuanced and integral importance to society should not necessarily be considered a feature solely derived from the post-Conversion period, as other Germanic peoples made similar allowances in their respective traditions, engaging in various protections and rights for the women in their societies and religions. The best known of these are, of course, women in Viking Age Scandinavia and Iceland.

Studies into the cults of the Matres and Matronae are benefited by a series of votive deposits and epigraphic inscriptions which are typical of Gallo-Roman, Romano-Celtic, and Romano-Germanic domestic iconography. These include depictions of up to three female figures, often with fruits and bread and other symbols of plenty, various religious representations of fauna and animals (plants, dogs, snakes ,etc.), coins and wealth, and spinning materials. The connection to the symbolism behind these images is relatively clear especially as, like many non-literate peoples, art persisted as a language in its own right and such material records are a prime way of transferring knowledge among generations (Webster, pg. 16).

Female figures in Anglo-Saxon lore and culture are commonly associated with similar themes: of hospitality (women offering drink, regardless of their social station), magic, prophecy and fate, spinning, representations of wealth, and the maintenance of societal or family order, all of which reflect a cross-cultural continuity across the Celto-Germanic spectrum (Enright, pg. 174).

Anglo-Saxon social tradition and views of the dead held much commonality with other peoples; they extended the view that their communities encompassed their deceased, and that death was simply an event in a prolonged life cycle and an extension of the physical living community as a whole. The association of the community with the ancestors, especially those long past, was deemed crucial in transforming potentially harmful ghosts or revenants into beneficent ancestral figures who sought to assist and protect their descendants (Dunn, pg. 91). A celebration of such figures, of foundational pillars to society, with all their roles and powers, as well as the tutelary representations of the home, family, and geography, would go far in ensuring such beneficence, and helps to forge practical ritualized relationships for those abroad from their traditional regions.

In light of the importance placed on the role of women in its contemporary society, it is clear to see the why of the celebration of these divine mothers and matrons. We could finish here, were Contemporary Heathens not also concerned with the how of such matters as they can apply it in the present day.

The Mōdru, Matres and Matronae, and the Ealdmōdru (Old mothers) are to be honored the night before Geola, in what is effectively an extended ancestor ritual. It was traditional within larger communities to provide a sacramental meal or larger communal sacrifice that would later be shared among participants (See: Lee, Feasting the Dead: Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon Burial Rituals). But the nature of contemporary Heathenry is such that this may not be possible as one would otherwise want. A home-based observance would have deeply personal reflections and vary from home to home.

With such a continuum of practice surrounding local, regional, and supraregional tutelary deities, family figures, and gods, no one layout is going to be able to cover the whole spectrum. One might establish a dinner, similar to a dumb supper, in which the place is made for these figures. Others may sit in contemplation with them, or talk to them as if nothing out of the ordinary were occurring – treating them as a natural extension of one’s community, despite their liminal existence from the mundane.

As an example, Eofores Holt Heorþ traditionally honors the more recently departed maternal dead by providing traditional fare associated with them: coffee, jellies, treats and favored bits of meals and food, scents and favored perfumes, and an assortment of other connections. Prayers are made to the familial dead which may have no name, but the overwhelming purpose of the event is to spend time with those maternal ancestors that have a direct connection with the living. Grandmothers, aunts, and great aunts as named entities, wider familial mothers of the varying family names which give the residents their lineage, these are the figures which are supplicated for beneficence, clarity, and succor.

Mothers’ Night is an observance which gives greater cult to Frīg Heorþmōdor, as fate spinner and seeress, in hopes of a fortuitous coming year and a healthy passage through the winter season, in addition to unnamed mothers associated with the passage and layering of Wyrd in the Well.

In doing so, Eofores Holt Heorþ forges and maintains a lasting connection to the familial dead, regardless of their final burial place, ritualistically bringing the divine mothers into the hearth space and engaging within a reciprocal context.

Julia Crick, “Women, Posthumous Benefaction, and Family Strategy in Pre-Conquest England”, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Oct., 1999), pp. 399-422, Cambridge University Press on behalf of The North American Conference on British Studies.

Marilyn Dunn, The Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons c.597-c.700: Discourses of Life, Death and Afterlife, Continuum UK: London, 2009.

Michael Enright, Lady With a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from La Tene to the Viking Age, Four Courts Press: Dublin, 1996.

Philip A. Shaw, Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World: Eostre, Hreda, and the Cult of the Matrons, Bristol Classics Press: London, 2011.

Leslie Webster, “Encrypted Visions: Style and Sense in the Anglo-Saxon Minor Arts, A.D. 400-900” in Anglo-Saxon Styles, eds. Catherine E. Karkov and George Hardin Brown, State University of New York Press: Albany, 2003.

Categories: Ancestors, Anglo-Saxon, Eofores Holt Heorþ, Fyrnsidu, Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathenry, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Regionalism, Super Fun Holiday Things, Theology, Thoughts

Tagged: Anglo-Saxon, Heathen, Heathenry, Pagan, Paganism, Religion, Ritual

The Sacred and Contemporary Paganism

Marc

Posted on October 24, 2017

Article updated 31/12/2019

A discussion of “the Sacred” within Contemporary Paganism is often mixed, consisting of varying opinions and views that sometimes clash with each other. This is understandable, as it is a topic of multitudinous perspectives concerning the nature of the concept and what – if anything – that ultimately entails. That which is considered Sacred in Paganism consists of any number of things – items, locations, periods of time, etc., creating an object or location that maintains an essential feature of connection with the divine, that which confers or implies this state of sacredness. Popular opinions in Paganism hold, commonly, that “Nature is Sacred”, or “all land is sacred”, or some quality of existence possesses an intrinsic sacred element that is expected to be broadly recognized across a myriad of religious identities.

“Sacred” is thus one of those terms which is used with a fair bit of frequency within our varying religious paradigms. It fills various roles and positions within the religious dialogue of several Contemporary Pagan communities, none of which are exactly the same. However, like much other formative and fundamental concepts within the discussion of the various facets of Paganism, like that of Prayer, that which is “the Sacred” is used ubiquitously throughout dialogue, often to the point of inarticulacy. People know what “the Sacred” is, but they often cannot express it.

The discussion of “the Sacred” within Contemporary Paganism is often mixed and consisting of varying opinions and views. It is a topic of multitudinous perspectives as to the nature of the concept and what, if anything, it ultimately entails. That which is Sacred in Paganism is any number of things: items, locations, periods of time, etc, consisting of an essential feature or connection with the divine which is what confers or implies this state of sacredness. We hear, commonly that “Nature is Sacred”, or “all land is sacred”, or some other quality of existence possesses an intrinsic sacredness which is broadly recognized.

Lately, John Beckett wrote a post detailing the five falsehoods which he views as prevalent within the Pagan community. The broad positions of the post are apt and common, and I agree with several of them – if not all of them – in essence. What Beckett does do is touch upon “the Sacred” in such a manner that I feel it requires a bit of digging through perspectives for consideration. Given the incredibly nuanced understanding of what “the Sacred” entails and consists of, perhaps a discussion could be had to proactively increase the awareness of this concept.

“Sacred” is defined in a multitude of ways, and some of these varying definitions are given below, all taken from Wiktionary. Sacred is thus:

Characterized by solemn religious ceremony or religious use, especially, in a positive sense; consecrated; made holy.
a sacred place; a sacred day; sacred service
Religious; relating to religion, or to the services of religion; not secular
Spiritual; concerned with metaphysics.
Designated or exalted by a divine sanction; possessing the highest title to obedience, honor, reverence, or veneration; entitled to extreme reverence; venerable.
Not to be profaned or violated; inviolable.
(followed by the preposition “to”) Consecrated; dedicated; devote

The various meanings of “the Sacred” is apparent in these definitions. Definitions which, I must stress, are not wrong or incorrect. It is by in large all of these things, and more.

The point of consideration I wish to make with John Beckett’s article is that he appears to address the idea of “the Sacred” in a context of its ultimate manifestation; that which is Sacred is rare, possessing an ultimately identifying uniqueness or essential differentiation between that which is often experienced, and which is less so. At its core, this is an extension of the Sacred-Profane dichotomy, to be sure. But I feel this places a great deal of weight on the external world beyond the human sphere, and our place within it.

Specifically, he writes, “If you want things made of wood (like houses) trees must be cut.”

The implication here being that that which is Nature or Natural possesses a greater inherent sacredness than our “world” of existence.

The Sacred is a feature or inherent quality of a thing, but it should also be stressed that it is a phenomenological experience as well. Individuals and groups alike which engage in this experiential phenomenology receive a contextual understanding of that which is Sacred in question. In this manner, understanding “the Sacred” is as much a branch of cognitive psychology or cognitive anthropology as it is the theological study of religious experience and manifestation.

This is not to say that “the Sacred” is a manifestation of the human psyche – on the contrary, I firmly position that it is not. The Sacred is quite simply above all else a quality of existence which is conferred through the manifestation of the numinous, the divine. This leads to an experiential event for the practitioner, what is largely considered to be a hierophany or hierophanic event. We often consider the entire continuum of that which is divine – the spirits of the place, the divine dead, family, tutelary, and national gods, etc. to be “sacred”. In this case, it is perhaps more appropriate to say that their divinity is what confers the quality of sacredness into our world, utilizing whichever chosen form as a vehicle for their manifestation.

In this way we can see how both a natural sanctuary (e.g., John Beckett’s “Nature”) and the edifice of a civilization-wrought structure can both be “sacred”.

The Sacred is intimately predicated on the manifestation of the numinous. But that manifestation does not necessarily change the object’s essence, or understanding in the wider world. A manifestation of the Sacred has the potential to make any object or location “something else”, entering a liminal existence in which hierophany is more likely. Importantly, it also remains itself. It is a state of intention between independent divinity and the reception or perception of that status by the practitioner.

Eliade wrote: “By manifesting the sacred, any object becomes something else, yet it continues to remain itself, for it continues to participate in the surrounding cosmic milieu. A sacred stone remains a stone; apparently (or more precisely, from the profane point of view), nothing distinguishes it from all other stones. But for those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality.”

Sacrality is thus apprehended by one group in particular, with familiarity with one set of experiences, and not at all by another who may be observing the same phenomenon (or, to them, the lack thereof).

This reception/perception and engagement with the religious cosmological paradigm of the Sacred is key, because it is what ultimately enables interpretation of the Sacred element. A miracle or hierophanic event is straightforward only to those who are prepared for it, regardless of that preparation being training or experience. For these individuals, the event is spiritual and sacred; for everyone else a miracle is invisible and concealed within the profane world and the mundane objects which constitute it. Because religion is an infinitely subjective event, every aspect of that enactment reflects the Sacred – rites, myths, and the very Gods themselves.

The assumption that the Sacred exists purely within the realm of human cognition is categorically untrue. Recognition of the mechanics behind the interpretation, manifestation, and experience of the Sacred does not diminish its existence, nor does it diminish the roles that it may play within human religious behavior. Reductive, scientistic approaches to conflating the “real” or “true” with only that which is empirically verifiable is a narrow philosophical position. Doing so is unacceptable in the earnest, respectful discussion between practitioners.

Employing the Sacred through its symbols, myths, religious rites, locations, etc., encourages alternate variations of the various modalities consisting of what is “real”. This allows us to engage in the manifestation of cosmological reality through varied, interconnected ways. Its meaning resides within the mind. However, in keeping within the paradigm established by Mircea Eliade, from whom the Sacred-Profane dichotomy arises, the Sacred is not a creation of that same mind.

Because the implication of religious symbols, customs, and interactions within a ritualistic context is not a universal constant, we must be wary of pigeonholing such a varied and nuanced concept as encompasses the Sacred in a Pagan context. To directly comment on John Beckett’s quoted sentence, a sacred tree loses its sacredness when it no longer functions as a representative manifestation of the divine numinous, not simply because it was removed from its context.

As an example, a tree which is utilized as a central post in a communal hall functions as an imago mundi, a sacred representation and image of the Center of the Universe, and reflects the very closest point in spatial geography which humanity can be to the divine. It reflects the axis mundi of the cosmological paradigm of the practitioner. Likewise, lumber taken in order to construct a home and hearth is the facilitator of the hearth cult and wider domestic practice, and in that context functions both as an imago mundi as well as providing the location for the intimate and private manifestation of the divine.

The sacredness of the location is not necessarily due to to the quality of existence of the tree, but due to the numinous manifestation of the divine within, in that religion’s context. The perspective provided in Beckett’s article appears to place the intrinsic value of the Sacred on the form it takes to the perceptive practitioner. It could well be that the distillation of such a conversation was outside the scope of his writing, and he was speaking to the implicit assumption within much of Paganism that all land is sacred.

Ritual acts as a transformative, transmutative process by which something can be removed from our Profane space and engaged with in a sacral context. Ritual provides the ability for the creation of the conditions required for the Sacred to be, and for the numinous to manifest. The construction of a home, the ritual of creation mimicking the ritualistic creation of the world, generates the conditions which place it beyond the Profane world, and the maintenance of that Sacred enclosure encourages interaction with divinity, just as much as a natural site claimed by the divine or similarly untouched location in Nature.

I agree with John Beckett that “not all land is sacred”. Locations are not, places get polluted which drive away the numinous, and these regions simply do not find themselves to be conducive to hierophany. But, like the very religions that we find ourselves practicing, there exists a kernel of ordinary in the extraordinary, which has no bearing on the manifestation of divinity.

Sources Cited:

John Beckett, “It Ain’t Necessarily So: Five Falsehoods in the Pagan Community”, Under the Ancient Oaks, October 17, 2017, accessed October 19, 2017, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2017/10/aint-necessarily-five-falsehoods-pagan-community.html

Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask, Harvest, Brace & World, Inc: New York, 1987.

Bryan S. Rennie, “Mircea Eliade and the Perception of the Sacred and Profane: Intention, Reduction, and Cognitive Theory” in The Finnish Society for the Study of Religion, Temenos Vol. 43, No. 1 (2007), 73-98.

Categories: ACADEMIC ELITISM!!1+1, Community Thoughts, Conversational, Generalist Paganism, Hearth Cult, Theology, Thoughts

Tagged: Anglo-Saxon, Heathen, Heathenry, Hierophany, Pagan, Paganism, Phenomenology, Religion, Ritual, Sacred

Frēosceatt Hæþendom and þe Frīfolc

Marc

Posted on September 4, 2017

In the past I have written about my “hearth”, which is both my residence and the spatial focus of the practice of my domestic religion. As my attention turns more to the development of a comprehensive consideration of what domestic religion consists of – what this practice can be in a contemporaneous Heathen context – I have taken stock of the world of Heathenry as it presently exists around me and I have found it regretfully wanting.

This is not to say that I am at all an advocate for the deconstruction of attempts to craft public or communal religion. I am not; I cannot more clearly state this. I believe communal religion to be a natural and important facet of exoteric polytheistic religion. I operate within the Heathen worldview of concentric obligations of duty and reciprocity and I do not, nor could I not, exclude those around me from the importance of this cycle or the fundamental human need of group experience. All these create an intrinsic communal aspect to religious identity.

But it is not one that is performing particularly well, right now.

Nor, I must stress, am I suggesting that Heathens focusing on community otherwise do not have household practice.

Heathenry has many present theological and philosophical deficiencies – whether that is due to the fear of a more concerted effort at contemporary development or an inability to engage in that development is not known to me. Paramount of this, in my view, is that it is lacking in the development and establishment of a cohesive, fundamental, understanding of domestic religion within a Heathen-centric worldview. This sphere of the religion is one that is little talked about, yet regularly questioned by new practitioners.

Within Heathenry, domestic religion is of secondary importance to that of the communal, group, religion. It is most often characterized as a type of “solitary worship”, intrinsically linking it to prejudices associated with individual movements (Wicca, itself steeped in a system of group-based, initiatory-based organizations). “Proper” Heathen practice is predicated by one’s value to the whole of the group, which necessarily takes precedence. In this discussion, it is common to see a “go and do” attitude asserting itself regarding a dearth of local groups, that one should build it (anything) and they (anyone) will come, and all will be right in the world.

When those discussions fail, hearth practice is portrayed as “inviolate”, something which cannot rightly be discussed in the public or advanced upon, because it is portrayed as supremely personalized, or so mutable that it would be ineffectual to even try to discuss it with any real purpose.

The fundamental flaws in this mentality should be readily apparent:

Characterizing domestic religion as “solitary worship” redirects the attentions of neophyte practitioners and interested persons away from the foundational aspects of exoteric polytheistic religion, which are historically predicated on home worship. The communal religions of the Indo-Europeans, broadly, were reflections of the practices in the home.
Pressuring people to feel required to join a group at any cost ultimately leads to disenfranchisement, particularly if economic, practical, or ideological concerns prevent them from taking part.
Pressuring seekers to take a leadership role in the organization of distinct personalities, when they themselves may not have any capability or background to do so, sets up an unfair burden these people.
Positioning hearthcult as “too private” simply removes it from the realm of discussion. It is often explained away as such in order to avoid commentary.

The theological image of contemporary Heathenry has been crafted thus: Heathenry as a religion is communal, and communal intercessors are seemingly required in order to directly deal and entreat with the deities on the behalf of a group, whether it be a “tribe”, or a “kindred”, or any-other Heathen organization so called. “Solitary” practice of any form is that which lacks a group, which Heathenry does not support and, at any rate, private practice is just that – private.

While a casual survey of history will show that there were indeed priests who served the public interest across a variety of cultures, it will also show that they were by and large not a specialized or vocational class of people, but one of appointment for a task. It is likewise true that not everyone served as a priest. But, even if we were to employ Dumezil’s fallacious tripartite hypothesis, which would separate Indo-European culture into three classes of professions, we see that there were often religious roles undertaken by those who would today be called “laymen”.

This is because exoteric polytheistic identity is intrinsically linked and indebted to the identity of the home. Religious developments in Indo-European descended polytheistic societies were generally (although not always) pioneered in that sphere. The home provides a foundation to the practice of the community, used as a template and model, and provides the lifeblood to these aspects of religious enactments.

Contemporary Heathenry’s avoidance of the discussion and development of this facet of practice is tantamount to cutting off one’s legs before running a marathon. And, what is worse, it is treated as business as usual. This is something that I have found to be unacceptable.

Which, ponderously, brings me to the topic of the title of this post.

I firmly believe that the foundation to a healthy polytheistic identity begins, like so many other things, in the home and that the efforts of Heathenry to expand upon communal organizations at the expense of this discussion only does near-irrevocable harm to the health and wellbeing of the religion as a cohesive movement.

If the current trend of Heathenry places an unrealistic weight on being part of a “group” or “community”, there will be a number of disenfranchised proto-/would-be-/Heathens that will simply not pursue the religion. The sense of rightful belonging is an important one for the continued interaction in the community writ large. As someone who has long been out-of-step with concepts like tribalism or group identity, I can sympathise with the desire to simply not be engaged. Especially when the physical community is lacking or disreputable.

Those that remain but struggle through without a framework or guideline towards concepts like proper action (the ultimate foundation of Orthopraxis and Ritualism) can develop improper or dangerous practices which ultimately harm them, lead to improper or impious habits (yes, we have those), and fail to understand foundational works of cosmology, gifting, et al. It takes longer to correct bad habits than it would have been to develop correct ones from the beginning.

In order for Heathenry to thrive and not be splintered through group dissolution or pointless political infighting, a more concerted effort at cultivating household polytheistic practice must be made. It needs to shed the prejudices it has with individuals who cannot (or will not) engage with a wider community, and divest itself of the baggage that it has in regards to these concepts of “solitary” or “eclectic” practices which are a holdover from the split of Asatru with Wicca.

The defenses against independent private practice on the domestic level are flimsy, buttressed by assumptions instead of concrete fact. Assumptions supported largely by a lack of evidence, not an evidence of any kind of identifiable absence. Crafting a practicing religious identity on such a fallacy is remarkably shortsighted.

Nothing is gained in ignoring household practice, or avoiding the development of a system of such things. While there are those who would prefer these developments to naturally and organically happen, without a bit of a push there is nothing to start that genesis. Emphasizing and attempting to do this definition helps establish a baseline orthopraxic religion which serves as a foundation. Orthopraxy does not mean “whatever practice appeals to us”, but instead intimates some kind of understanding of basic religious culture that is accepted.

Having resources available, having discussions that are not shut down, and having examples of proper ritual action in the home and how one can apply their Heathenry in these household/ancestral/divine methods of localized worship translates into less time overall which is spent “reinventing the wheel”, so to speak. Part of my biggest gripe with Heathenry is that we’ve been stuck, consistently, in the “beginning studies” part of it, the “101”-level. We exist with a consistent rehashing of introductory materials, because they are more easily comoodified or (perhaps) they are simply less known because of the paucity of discussion and widespread knowledge of them. In discussing these topics, and the household worship of deities that would otherwise be portrayed as uncaring to that level of society, we can hopefully advance the dialogue of Heathenry.

We can hopefully provide more time to developing, more energy to growth, with less time being spent on being shut down, or ignored, or silenced.

Identifying with Frēosceatt Hæþendom (that is Freehold Heathendom, or Heathenry because -ry/-ery as a suffix isn’t Old English), is my suggestion of rectifying this deficiency in contemporary Heathen practice, the recognition that there is another facet to Heathen practice that exists beneath and around the group dynamic. Independent Heathen households, or otherwise Heathens in groups that are willing to explore and discuss their own household practice for the intelligent consumption by others, in order to have a respectful dialogue about their practices and how they develop in their local environments. I truly believe this will only serve to strengthen communal Heathenry – after all, the tribalistic societies which many groups attempt to emulate are logically consisting of households that share common location, practice, and customs that are drawn together for survival and mutual benefit.

But instead of worrying about a communal structure to Heathenry right out of the gate, oftentimes building it with the assumption that people will come or otherwise spending time lamenting the lack of public edifices of religion, we instead could redirect some attention to developing a concrete, workable, system of belief, practice, and philosophy which literally exists wherever the practitioner happens to reside. A religious practice that not only can be picked up by anyone interested and dedicated, but can survive conflicts of personality, dissolutions of wider group initiatives, transmitted more easily through exposure and example, and which above-all recognizes the sacrality and religious meaning in the ordinary.

I have spent two years playing around with this idea through my writings, in discussion within internet groups groups, working on the Larhus Fyrnsida, and consulting my colleague Wodgar. He and I have seen an explosion of interest in Heathenry by those who would otherwise not be able to take part in communal organization, who are able to engage in their ancestral and household cults in a practical, contemporary way through a Germanic worldview. Instead of telling them to find groups, instead of simply providing a list of books for them to struggle through, we’ve had some success at providing our developments as a springboard for other people to run with.

It is particularly gratifying to know that a number of people have been touched by the concept, and it is a circle which is ever widening.

I am not the first to employ the term “freehold Heathen” to reference myself, and I know this for a fact. But I do believe that the actual effort at establishing an understood household practice is something that hasn’t been tried with a purpose, yet. Published books tend to treat their Heathen practice as an ancillary arm of community structure, fail to discuss concepts like the sacred space of the home or navigating the vagaries of modern households versus different ones, or the intersection of cosmological worldview in the household structure. Instead they, unsurprisingly, favor community-oriented rites (blots, symbels, etc.), thews, and other structures of larger-than-household-concern.

I understand the disillusionment with being treated as a lesser voice because I’m not part of some group, some organization which only meets one or two times a year and draws people from outside a reasonable range of expected assistance in the case of an emergency. I have been called “Solitary” and that I “cannot be Heathen” because of it, because I haven’t found a “group” of strangers that I want to commingle my luck with and engage with. I’ve seen people simply brushed to the side for asking questions, told to find other people, on forums and community sites that are dedicated to discussion. I’ve been called “eclectic” for having a religious practice which is not apparently in-line with what is considered accepted “Heathen practice”, subject to a system of goal-posts which consistently move as benefitting the argument at hand – arguments which always flew counter to the understanding of polytheism as a religious view.

I do not accept that one has to be part of a “group” in order to be Heathen. Nor do I believe that any one Heathen worshiping alone is solitary – for they maintain a line of practice which deals with their ancestral gods as the head of their household. And while I do not have any measure of issue with those Heathens who have found meaning or purpose in the group dynamic, or engaging in the gifting cycle of a wider group, many of us have not. One’s worth as a Heathen isn’t affixed to the perceptions of others outside their circles. That is the narrative of people who would position themselves as a higher authority than they otherwise fundamentally possess.

Exoteric polytheistic religion is just that – exoteric. This naturally positions it opposite the esoteric, the hidden or mysterious. There are values in those practices, to be sure – witchcrafts and mystery cults and other such traditions which derive their power specifically from being aberrant, deviant, or subversive all have their places. But the realm of the practical religion is the day-to-day, the seamless integration of one’s religiosity and their life, this is ultimately what defines exoteric practice.

Associating individual Heathen practice with deprecated concepts like “solitary” worship, or anchoring the value of Heathenry to an external group identity and not the smallest unit of Heathen social order, only provides unnecessary roadblocks to the proliferation of Heathen religious identity.

Part of the reason why I am writing my Hearthcult in Heathenry piece (forthcoming) is to try to do my part to advance this general understanding of in-house practice. And I really believe that if more people were to do so, to ignore the people who would try to belittle them for consequences of geography or living situations and otherwise portray them as being unsuitable to call themselves Heathens. And, as I have said, I am of the opinion it will only make Heathenry as a whole more stable.

I am a Freehold Heathen, and I am a member of þe heathen Frīfolc- those Heathen practitioners who are unbeholden to anyone other than the needs of their homes, family, and ancestral and local deities. And I, and others like me, are no less Heathen because of it.

Categories: Anglo-Saxon, Community Thoughts, Eofores Holt Heorþ, Fyrnsidu, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Larhus, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts

Vita Enim Mortuorum in Memoria est Posita Vivorum

Marc

Posted on August 6, 2017

“The life of the dead is placed in the living.” – The Ninth Oration of M. T. Cicero against Marcus Antonius, Called Also the Ninth Philippic, 10.

As the Northern Hemisphere enters the late Summer and early Fall seasons, ancestors and ancestral holidays are on my mind, greatly. In fact, the majority of my observed holidays have some kind of major ancestral component to them. The “season” of such observances, which are commonly concentrated by many Pagans in the fall and winter is really the majority of the year. While I would not say I am particularly “death obsessed”, there is a significant facet of emphasis on my ancestral dead that forms a major part of my cultic practice.

I generally refer to August 1st as the holiday of Hærfest (or Hlaftid). It officially, and effectively, starts this lengthy season of ancestral worship for me, which will conclude in May. With five dedicated holidays, spanning a total of at least twenty-five days in my liturgical year (excluding namedays or anniversaries of deaths), one can see how it is important to me.

Across the spectrum of Heathenry and Paganism the first harvest of the year (called Hærfest/Hlaftid/Lammas to Anglo-Saxons, or Lughnasadh to Gaelic and Wiccan traditions, or a variety of other names) focuses on the physical harvest. It is employed and celebrated as the first of those holy days where people reap the benefits of the year, give thanks for the fertility of the land, and generally honor that which is made. It is the culmination of a year’s efforts, and traditionally represented a bulwark against the coming Winter.

In Fyrnsidu, we follow folkloric traditions of crafting corn dollies in order to house the spirits of the land and fertility for the Winter, and then return them in order to usher in Spring. Even those of us who have no direct ties to the land, or who do not have ties to the agricultural cycle of the year, nevertheless reap the bounty of that which grows from it and that which the gods have gifted us. So in the honoring of Harfæst even by urbanites we see a celebration just as worthy. I, of course, bring this up because there has in the past been some question whether or not Pagans without ties to the agricultural cycle should venerate the harvest.

But the Harfæst that I celebrate is different. I make an effort to include the ancestors with a greater, more prominent, role in my rites. Alongside Ing and Beowa and the nameless spirits of growth and soil, I offer them beer and bread, sharing the wealth of the earth and underworld with them. I make an effort to give them the due honor that is required because, though my life is my own, their actions were what lead me to that place, where I could reap such rewards.

This is in addition to those weekly rites in which I give my ancestral beings offerings, and honor those ancestors who act as guardians and protectors of my reality. I make observances to them, and feed them on the regular.

I find that many Pagans have issues surrounding the concept of Ancestral worship, and there is a fundamental disconnect of purpose. I have spent numerous hours speaking to people asking the “why” of the practice, especially those from identifiably poor or broken families. In a sense, I tend to sympathize with them, because my relations with some of my living members are not as good as they could otherwise be.

Ancestral cult is often considered a (if not the) defining facet of indigenous polytheistic practice, one which is largely found worldwide. Though it arises in different contexts and invariably takes on different cultural expressions (compare Roman familial cult with Confucian filial piety), the divine nature of the ancestral being(s) is largely recognized in these native systems of practice and worship. Stanley Stowers, in Theorizing the Religion of Ancient Households and Families describes the traditional domestic cult as being anchored in two places of extreme importance: the home and the tomb. Both of these locations represent a spatial, physical, tie of cult and practice, establishing a location of worship and a feeling of connection of the polytheistic system they are found.

In this instance, the anchoring of one’s private cult to the tomb (literal or figurative) encourages a continuation of identity, and blazing a connection between those what have come before with those that are now. Knowing where one comes from enables one to better go forward, and the guidance and examples given by the honored dead, the protection and support which they can provide will ultimately see to that end (By in large, there are exceptions, of course).

My approach to Ancestral worship threads the aforementioned concept of divine reciprocity – do ut des – with that of cosmological reality and the inclusion of the past into the present through the actions and vagaries of Wyrd and the speaking of Orlæg.

Present reality is uncertain and constantly in flux. It is constantly affected by the actions of all things in that reality, people and gods alike, which (in part) contributes to the fluidity and uncertainty of it, and these actions are spoken and laid down in the Well of Wyrd (through the speaking of Orlæg), which gives shape to all things. Westerners perceive reality linearly, in the manner of a past-present-future advance where things that have come before us are done and gone and have little to no effect on the present (big events in history aside), and less on the future. The “past” of Heathens, instead, is all that had been done and completed and accomplished. Everything else, simply, is nonpast.

The important thing to remember in this system is that the past is ever-evolving and ever-changing based on the events which have come and are completed, and this ever-evolving, ever-changing, ever-increasing force which continues to draw into itself can and will intrude into the present time. It effectively creates a series of circular, differentiated, realities as it progresses, an agglomeration of earlier, that provides not a static and unchanging circular repetition but a new revolution which is reminiscent and influenced by what has come before.

Some of the ancestors have completed missions and have truly entered the “past”, where others have not and their actions and obligations exist alongside us in the “nonpast”. The concept of “fulfilling one’s Ancestral Wyrd” is not uncommon among modern Heathens, and the tying of familial luck to the actions of an ancestral being, being exacted and experienced today, is likewise a topic of discussion. This is only one such example of what we believe to be the “past” intruding upon our modern time.

If the past is a living thing, as it is often portrayed in Germanic cosmology, then a role of the people in the nonpast is to remember it, learn from it, and codify it. This is done through ritual and through remembrance. For Heathens, and many other Contemporary Pagans, the passing of one from this world merely represents a transition to another, but it is the obligation of the familial priests and those who are left behind to ensure that the needs of these people are still met throughout this world.

Pagans have a statement, “What is remembered lives”. Similarly, Cicero wrote, “Vita enim mortuorum in memoria est posita vivorum.”

In this system of a past that engages, exerts influence on, and is coterminous with, the ancestors are truly not “gone” from our reality like they are in the tripartite, linear system we are accustomed. By recognizing that, feeding them, nurturing them, or propitiating them in the manners in which we are supposed to, we engage with them to receive their guidance and their protection. They, like the Gods, have a greater perspective in ways which we cannot truly appreciate. Until we join with the fixed past, we are shackled with a limited vision of what reality is.

The maintenance of our relationships with our ancestral dead is of paramount importance in the reconstruction of a viable household polytheistic practice. Forgetfulness is identified as one of the largest threats, traditionally, to this practice.

It is for this reason, and a multitude of smaller ones, that Harfæst takes its place as the beginning of a cycle of holy days revolving around the importance of the dead, and sharing what I have with them. Because they are not gone, and continue to guide and protect me and mine, and are due the reverence and respect expected of that role.

Works Referenced:

Bauschatz, Paul. The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982.

Stowers, Stanley. “Theorizing the Religion of Ancient Households and Families” in Household and Family Religion in Antiquity, ed. John Bodel and Saul Olyan, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.

Categories: Ancestors, Anglo-Saxon, Community Thoughts, Fyrnsidu, Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts

Paganism as a Religion

Marc

Posted on June 18, 2017

From the outset of my time in the public sphere, I have been against a seemingly needless division and splintering of the concept of Contemporary Paganism as a religious grouping or term. As an example, I loathe the term “neopagan” in any of its iterations. If one looks at the history of the word and concept of “paganism” as it has been used inside academia and outside, the term simply does not make any sense. The traditional use of “pagan” has, since the fourth century, meant one who is a non-Christian. This use of the term persisted throughout Christian-dominated discourse, often with strict negative connotations. It has only been comparatively recently that there has been a push to more accurately define traditional “paganism” in the contexts of their cultures, as individual indigenous belief structures and religious enactments.

Neopagan, then, implies a “new not-Christian”. It continues to hold back the development of an identity by dragging the concept of the “Pagan self” back into a Christian-oriented paradigm. It effectively puts the whole of the movement (as it exists) back within the shadow of Christian-dominated ideology. I have found that most people who profess to be Pagans cannot properly articulate what their religious practices are and defining their “religion” without inversely comparing it to Christianity.

Ask someone to describe part of their religion and they may say “We do not believe in Original Sin”, instead of describing their theology.

Is it because they figure that framing their explanation within a Christian context helps to inform whomever they are talking to? Or is it because they do not know how to articulate their theology without doing such? I believe it is more the latter. This is obviously problematic for the creation of a healthy self-image.

So because I have detested the needless division of “Paganism”, I followed a system of treating that word as a proper noun – making a clear distinction between traditional (or “academic”) paganism and Paganism. To further drive home the fact that this religious grouping is very much a new religious movement, I have followed a handful of scholars and writers int he use of “Contemporary Paganism” as a qualifier. It makes a bit more sense than “neopagan”, despite being a bit more clunky to write.

But it’s becoming clear to me – perhaps finally – that this terminological use is insufficient due to the varying philosophies, theologies, and agendas that are often at odds within the public fora of Contemporary Paganism. Of particular note and interest is the shifting and moving definitions (and, in some cases, goalposts) of what constitutes a “religion”. This is often done in order to accommodate some of these philosophical and theological outlooks (and, I find, necessarily edge others out).

So it is perhaps important that we define what “religion” is, and how it should be approached in the discussion of the contemporary iteration of Paganism as a new religious movement. And, above all, whether Paganism qualifies.

We shall be going back to basics, as it were.

Religion, on Wiktionary, is defined as:

(uncountable) The belief in and worship of a supernatural controlling power, especially a personal god or gods.
(countable) A particular system of faith and worship.
(uncountable) The way of life committed to by monks and nuns.
(countable) Any practice to which someone or some group is seriously devoted.
(uncountable, obsolete) Faithfulness to a given principle; conscientiousness. [16th-17th c]

“Religion” in colloquial parlance has evolved from describing a system of belief and worship to anything which one might find a zealous adherence to – sports teams, political affiliation, other ideologies.

So the dictionary definition is particularly unhelpful, if anything can be considered a “religion” if there’s enough conviction. I find that it also helps to look at the various definitions from disciplines that actually study the emergence of religion as a human institution.

The anthropological definition, in some quality, of religion is: a set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices pertaining to a supernatural power.

In sociology, Durkheim described religion as: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”

A further breakdown shows a distinct difference in the function and role of religion in society.

Further, we can see various definitions in some of the descriptions of religions across other multiple disciplines (already featured on this blog but reproduced here):

“Religion is ‘a verbal and nonverbal structure of interactions with superhuman being(s).” – Hans Penner, Impasse and Resolution: A Critique on the Study of Religion.

“[Religion is] a convenient label that we use to put together all the ideas, actions, rules, and objects that have to do with the existence and properties of superhuman agents such as God.” – Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought.

“All religions follow the same structural contours. They invoke supernatural agents to deal with emotionally eruptive existential anxieties, such as loneliness, calamity, and death. They have malevolent and predatory deities, as well as many benevolent and protective ones.” – Scott Atran, “Religion’s Social and Cognitive Landscape”, in Handbook of Cultural Psychology.

It is held, with fair frequency, that the overwhelming definition of a “religion” is a series or grouping of rites, practices, and beliefs which concern themselves with both human society and the “intersection of” or “concern with” a supernatural power.

There will be disputes to any of these definitions, of course. Durkheim also said that religion can appear and change due to the needs of society and the culture in question – which necessarily means that the concept is not as static as some people would otherwise like.

But it also needs to be remembered that “religion” as a term is definitely influenced by our own cultural contexts, with a nuanced history of being informed by Christian and Romanticist concepts as to what constitutes “real” or “valid” religion. This is the case in various scholastic circles predating the mid-20th century. These definitions come in and out of vogue, as with many things in the course of human events and, despite the foundational quality to religion as a feature of society, this creates these shifting opinions as to the essential nature of religion.

All too frequently these attempts to describe “religion” are monothetic when it is perhaps best described as a polythetic practice. That is, the act and description of religion cannot necessarily be reduced down to a single basic idea or principle, often transcending ontological or epistemological concerns.

More simply put: religion cannot be properly described according solely to a checklist of attributes.

Stanley K. Stowers has a lengthy description of what he considers the polythetic aspects of a definition of “religion”, as presented in his paper “Theorizing the Religion of Ancient Households and Families“ and published in Household and Family Religion in Antiquity.

He defines religion on page 11 as “often the linked and combined practices (i.e., doings and saying) of particular human populations (e.g., imagined as cultures, societies, ethnicities, groups, global movements) that involve the imagined participation of gods or other normally non-observable beings in those practices and social formations, and that shade into many kinds of anthropomorphizing interpretations of the world. Religion is the unfolding activity (including thinking and believing) involving those practices that postulate participation with and make reference to gods, normally non-observable beings and anthropomorphizing interpretations of the world.”

One of the characteristic and most inherent flaws in the discussion of religion, either in the discussion within the contemporaneous expression of Paganism or other discussions of historic incidences within the wider academic community, is that any discussion treats these myriad practices as autonomous from the human condition of society and culture.

“Religion is a class of practices that involve a broader, species-wide cognitive propensity.”, Stowers describes.

There are no clear boundaries at the margins for what is or is not “religious”, or what constitutes a “religion”. This is especially true when one speaks to the nature of folk religion, which much of Contemporary Paganism follows. These religious beliefs can splinter off and justifiably be considered within the realms of philosophy, “folk science”, psychology, mythology, etc.

These disciplines all constitute what a religion is, which can’t be reduced down easily (if at all).

This also ties neatly into my partial discussion about how the definition of “secular” space is inherently a triumph of hegemonic monotheism and that those Western polytheists that don’t see a distinction in the spheres of secular and religious.

What is clearest is that we can see there is no working definition of “religion” that is going to satisfy everyone within the conversation. Each individual is going to have their own perceptions based on their practice, traditions, academic backgrounds, and experiences if at all applicable. Any quality of the definition of the word “religion” is going to be, at most, “not bad”. Let alone “good” or “perfect”.

If we approach religion as a polythetic experience, a spectrum of interrelated practices, beliefs, and systems which cannot necessarily be reduced down to a minimum essentialistic nature, then we have to accept that there is never going to be a perfect definition. It is the unicorn of religious studies.

Those definitions which I employ above are based on three or four disciplines of academia, all of which concern themselves with social science (and thus, empiricism). They are not perfect, and they do not cover all facets of religious definition, but if we treat the term “supernatural” (itself problematic) not necessarily as concerning the worship of “gods” but instead concerning with greater-than-human powers, then we see the number of recognized religions which would be edged out by definition are few in number.

Even Jainism, the posterchild example in the West of a “non-theistic religion”, recognizes and engages with a variety of supernatural beings, depending on the philosophical school.

There’s also something to be said about the fetishization by the West of Eastern religions for political purposes or other agendas.

How does this discussion of the definition of religion tie in with the contemporary incidence of Paganism? Paganism is a similarly difficult concept to articulate properly. Its traditional monothetic definition (a “nature-based” fertility religion) has fallen out of favor for a polythetic definition (a spectrum of religious identities which are likewise “not bad” in definition).

Contemporary Paganism consists of both “true” new religious movements (Druidism/Druidry, Wicca/British Traditional Witchcraft, etc.) and traditionalist pagan revivals or restorations (reconstructionist/revivalist polytheistic traditions like Heathenry or the Religio Romana, etc.). On paper, they do not seem to have much in common, yet are nevertheless grouped under the term of Contemporary Paganism.

A closer examination of the traditional understanding of “pagan” (excluding the non-Christian qualifier) religions would show that they are not as dissimilar in nature as they first appear. In his book Pagan Theology, Michael York attempts to describe some of the qualities which these traditional pre-Christian pagan practices included. These are

A number of male and female deities.
Magical practice.
Emphasis on ritual efficacy.
Corpospirituality.
An understanding of gods and humans as codependent and related.

There are others, of course. This list is neither comprehensive, nor wholly indicative. But it is a useful baseline in comparing “Pagan” religions with other world religions. Though Michael York’s writing treats this list as a historic incidence, I find that much of Contemporary Paganism features these. What we see here is that these religious qualities largely persist across both of the spectrums of Contemporary Paganism. That is, they are features in some way in the “New Religions” and the “Revived Religions”. I will attempt to describe.

In the case of these traditions, divinity is directly experienced and intertwined with the visible and material world. This is true of a polytheistic revivalist, a dualistic Wiccan, or a panentheistic druid or a vaguely Emersonian naturalist. The wills of these religions do not seek to transcend the world around them and recognize that we are only a tiny part of a larger whole. Where they differ is in their concern for the recognition of the numinous divine. This is the nature of corpo-spirituality. It does not matter if divinity is a staunch multiplicity, a theological duality, or a distant universality of all (or most things). It is immanent and inherent in the world.

Amusingly, this extends towards a predisposition to classical concepts of “idolatry”, featuring the sacredness of place and thing in a way which inherently makes Christianity uncomfortable.

Paganism is generally said, and commonly argued, to be concerned with orthopraxy over orthodoxy, that there is more emphasis on the proper action instead of proper belief. I would perhaps make the argument that it is a blend of ritualism and orthopraxis instead. Ritual efficacy and the role of custom, in both life and ritual, in the proper enactment of religious expression is seen. What we cannot say is that belief is unimportant to any kind of theism. It is simply that the adjudication of orthodoxy is less of a concern.

One must understand the theory (belief) to put it into action (praxis).

At first glance, York’s inclusion of “magical practice” as a qualifier for pre-Christian pagan religions (and thus, something that Contemporary Paganism is indebted to) might appear to be out of place, particularly with some religious philosophies opposed to the idea of “magic”. Modern concepts of “magic” are conflated with the ceremonial magic of Wicca and British Traditional Witchcraft, inherited from the esotericist orders of the late Victorian era. It is to be remembered, however, that “magical practice” in the context of some of these traditions include various operations of sacrifice, bribery, “low magic” (cunningcraft), and other similar items. Even prayer, with its formulaic and intentional purpose, can be argued as a magical process.

I do find the term “deity” and “gods” to be particularly loaded, and one of my concerns with York’s list of these traditional qualities are the use of these terms. There is an unfortunate baggage which arises from the use of these words, constituting an unnecessary predisposition towards the concept of the “big gods” – that the term “god” must be a figure of renown as Jupiter or Odin. The study of traditional pagan cultures would show that the terms “deity” and “god” can include a plethora of varying divine figures including, but necessarily limited to, deified ancestral figures, nonspecific local spirits, tutelary beings of limited scope, and those traditional divine figures of renown and ethno-cultural importance.

This baggage is paramount in some modern restorations – notably Heathenry – who view these beings through an unnecessary lens of “power” or hierarchy, limiting the fundamental understanding of the importance of the “small gods”. The theological language of modern Paganism is still very much couched within a Christo-centric world, and care should be made in light of that. The theological understanding of these beings in antiquity was nuanced, but few were viewed as “lesser” which the modern hierarchy would like to portray. They simply held different roles and spheres of influence.

York’s biggest distinction in the incidence of Contemporary Paganism with traditional pre-Christian paganism (classified by him as neopagan, geopagan, and recopagan, all terms which I consider problematic) is the lack of emphasis on shrine and temple culture that the latter had promulgated. What I believe he is referencing is more the establishment of a formalized priesthood, because the concept of the sacredness of space and delineation of sacred and profane is largely unchanged across the Paganisms. The age of York’s book is apparent, given his articulation that “contemporary neopagans” do not exhibit a devotional quality before altars.

An inherent issue in hiving off the traditional, Christo-centric definition of “pagan” from the concept of Contemporary Paganism is what exactly the term incompasses. As we’ve seen above, the concept of Paganism as a religion largely holds true throughout the contemporary incidence of it. But so too do many other worldwide cultures. In this way, “paganism” as a concept is very much like the usage of “shamanism”: it unhelpfully describes a collection of attitudes and folk practices, some of which can span the globe.

This, of course, leads to a handful of problems:

It implies that these practices are “the same”, across cultures, which lessens the overall impact each might have in their respective group.
This causes a reduction of agency of the individual religious traditions, and tries to force them into a Christian-themed paradigm.
It encourages a sometimes deleterious concept of “mutual ownership”, leading to negative practices of cultural appropriation.

All three of these issues are problematic in their own way, although one and two are intrinsically linked together. Calling a tradition like African Tribal/Diasporic Religion (ATR/ADR), Shinto, or Hindusim (among others) “pagan” tends to receive negative responses, because of the implication that these cultures are “outsiders” in their own cultural and social context. It diminishes their rich history, their own traditions, and the experiences of their religious developments. Jordan Paper’s book The Deities are Many discusses this a bit, and the (then) growing trend of the recognition of indigenous practices in their own contexts.

The third point is one that is particularly important to me, as someone who identifies as a Contemporary Pagan. The popular expression of Paganism when it became semi-”mainstream” in the 1990s often relied on appropriating concepts from other religions in order to fill gaps in practice or belief, or because it interested the practitioner, or any number of reasons. The closeness at the time between Paganism and the New Age movement encouraged a brand of eclecticism (used here not as a pejorative) and cherry picking which was ultimately harmful to many of the cultures which were being drawn from.

We see this attitude replicated again and again, and one of the most recent and extreme examples I can think of came from the recent struggle at Standing Rock and the actions of some of the “allies” there (Part 1, Part 2). While we’re not sure that these women were “Pagan”, this attitude is all too frequent. The discussion of this practice merits its own entry.

But the value in narrower definitions, as tools to generate a more thorough identity should be shown. A group with a watery and ill-defined identity will not have a firm foundation in order to thrive – as a comparison, the Unitarian Universalist membership and reenrollment have been trending downward every year since 2008.

One of the methods I employ in the definition of “Contemporary Paganism” as a distinct religious grouping is to utilize a firm cultural boundary, and I extend it to the religions which are either largely descended from (revived) or inspired by the folk religions of both the European-Mediterranean and Mesopotamian cultural basins. This positions Contemporary Paganism as a purely Western religious expression, recognizing and advocating for a distinct identity which can be erected, and reasonably encompasses the history of “the West” (Pre-Classical and Classical antiquity), while at the same time including new religious movements that are inspired by that expression.

Of course, not everyone will agree. But I find that the definition, again, is “not bad”. And, what’s more, it’s workable.

By studying these new religious movements and the revived traditionalist religions of Contemporary Paganism, we see that Paganism aligns with the themes and essential concepts of religion. Its emphasis on supernatural/greater-than-human interaction, the definition of a continuum of sacredness and delineation of profanity, and an inherently foundational concept of interrelated and codependent reciprocity all assist in positioning Contemporary Paganism as a religio-spiritual institution. Where these Pagan religions differ are in the emphasis placed upon these facets.

Like Stowers said in the quote previously shared, “religion” is a problematic term, with numerous pitfalls and qualities that are inextricably linked. It ultimately encompasses, not excludes, a diversity of discipline and opinion, which form the totality of its expression within a culture. Paganism, as a contemporary religious grouping, is likewise problematic and encompasses disciplines as theology, philosophy, and folk psychology, which all inform its existence. In comparing modern iterations of Pagan religiosity with traditional concepts of pre-Christian pagan religion, we see that it is a series of orthopraxic and ritualistic lineages within what amounts to a truly multi-faith milieu.

When approaching Contemporary Paganism and contrasting it to traditional concepts of “pagan religiosity”, we’re struck with the growing development that within Contemporary Paganism of two distinct interpretations. The first is to treat Paganism, as I have done here, as a religio-spiritual edifice. The second is to treat Paganism in the vein reminiscent of Loyal Rue and Ursula Goodenough and approach it, instead, as an “attitude”.

Works Referenced

Atran, Scott. “Religion’s Social and Cognitive Landscape: An Evolutionary

Perspective,” in Handbook of Cultural Psychology, edited by Shinobu Kitayama and Dov Cohen, pgs 417-453. New York: Guilford Press, 2007.

Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Goodenough, Ursula. “Religious Naturalism and naturalizing morality”, Zygon no: 38. 2003: 101-109.

Penner, Hans. Impasse and Resolution: A Critique on the Study of Religion. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1983.

Paper, Jordan. The Deities are Many: A Polytheistic Theology. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Rue, Loyal. Nature is Enough. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2011.

Stowers, Stanley K. “Theorizing the Religion of Ancient Households and Families“ in Household and Family Religion in Antiquity, edited by John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan. Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2008.

York, Michael. Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion. New York: New York University Press 2003.

Categories: Community Thoughts, Conversational, Generalist Paganism, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts

On Favorites

Marc

Posted on June 14, 2017

“<X> is my favorite deity!”, an anonymous Pagan scrawls on the internet.

This has always struck me as an odd statement. I understand where it is coming from, in the same vein as “<Name> is my favorite person”. We play favorites as social animals, and it’s been something that’s been criticized for a long time. It’s in the Bible even – well, one of them (The Message). No, seriously. Check out Proverbs 28:21-22. It’s there.

If one were to ask me which one of the pets I have known, or friends I have known, were my absolute favorite, I wouldn’t be able to answer. I’m a person who tries to approach people on their own merits. The people I am friendly with are not better than the other – they have different strengths and weaknesses. To me, reducing them down to “favorites” creates an unnecessary bias towards them, in which one is necessarily diminished compared to the other. The same thing goes with living beings – each one is different. Each one has its own unique personality.

I feel the same way about the deities.

Sure, there are deities which we approach with more familiarity (for lack of a better word). Individual beings which we’ve entered a more intimate gifting cycle with, perhaps a formal relationship of patronage and obligation, or beings which have more interest in us as individuals. We have more in common with some of them, less with others.

But favorite?

I have a favorite color. I have a favorite food. A favorite smell. A favorite place, a favorite time period, a favorite architectural style, a favorite band, and a favorite song. I favor a side, a firearm, a writing or artistic medium, a type of beer, and a hundred other things which inform my tastes.

Like Mary Martin said: these are a few of my favorite things.

This way of treating deities – like treating people – is, to me, like reducing them down to these things. While it isn’t intentional, it feels like they’ve less agency and are somehow reduced to mere qualities that aren’t necessarily experienced in reality. Sometimes it comes across as finding favoritism with the idea of a deity, instead of the deity itself. What they can do for us, or what qualities they have on paper which we find preferable.

I know that the definition of “favor” isn’t negative in its initial definition. But in modernity favoritism has enough of a negative connotation that I’d avoid falling into that mindset. A parent showing a son more favoritism than the other is considered negative. A boss showing favoritism to an employee is considered unethical at best, and illegal in some spheres. Family showing preference to family in a professional or political setting is nepotism and is largely considered undesirable.

Showing favor to someone implies an unequal power dynamic. And I don’t profess to hold that level of influence with the gods. We enter into a mutually sustainable relationship with them, except in very rare circumstances. There are deities that will hold to more unfavorable (ha!) relationships. They are the ones in charge of the dynamic, here after all.

At least as far as I see it.

There are beings that I like, just like there are people who I like. There are some who I am afraid of (the overwhelming majority of greater-than-people, to be honest, but I digress). There are some who I routinely offer to on a week-to-week basis (tutelary deities, ancestral deities, a few big name ones with outstanding obligations), and some I will not unless absolutely necessary. There might even be some that I dislike.

But I’m not sure I could say that I favor any, over another.

However, I just got off an eleven hour shift at the office. So I’m not entirely sure I’m making much sense. But. I’m going to throw it up here, anyway.

Categories: Community Thoughts, Conversational, Fyrnsidu, Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Northern Tradition, Not-Quite-Northern, Polytheism, Roman, Theology, Thoughts

Anglo-Saxon Heathenry and Roman Polytheism

Book Review: Sacred Gifts: Reciprocity and the Gods

Marc

Posted on July 6, 2019

A Case for ‘Syncretism’ in Modern Heathenry

Marc

Posted on February 3, 2019

De Natura Temporis et Rītuum Germānicōrum

Marc

Posted on July 12, 2018

The Economy of Sacrifice: Thoughts on the Value of Gifted Goods in Heathenry

Marc

Posted on May 21, 2018

Mōdru and Mōdraniht

Marc

Posted on December 17, 2017

The Sacred and Contemporary Paganism

Marc

Posted on October 24, 2017

Frēosceatt Hæþendom and þe Frīfolc

Marc

Posted on September 4, 2017

Vita Enim Mortuorum in Memoria est Posita Vivorum

Marc

Posted on August 6, 2017

Paganism as a Religion

Marc

Posted on June 18, 2017

On Favorites

Marc

Posted on June 14, 2017