Author’s Note: This is the second part of a four part entry for “The Problem of Apples”.

Part I can be found here.

Previously, we have been introduced to the idea that Heathenry, as a modern polytheistic religious restoration, contains within itself an inherent deficiency in regards to polytheistic theology. In this section we will approach concepts of divine functionality and approach a number of influences that impact what is considered the “function” of a god within its context.

Divine concepts are often and commonly related to functional spheres of control “possessed” by the divinity in question. This is one of the key characteristics of polytheistic and animistic religious identity, and in this Heathenry is no different. Recognition of these functional and spatial foci was of the utmost importance and constituted a defining feature of the polytheistic religious system. These were not static, but fluid: a deity which was associated with “wine” might, on specific days, be associated with the “vintage” or other, broader, agricultural concerns in conjunction with “wine” [4]. In this way the deity “of wine” is truly not focused just on “wine”.

It needs to be remembered that these people, however, understood their gods within the contexts of their polytheistic environs. Western civilization has largely been supported by a religiously exclusivist position: that of hegemonic monotheistic Christianity and the idea of divine functional exclusivity. The fluidity of polytheistic identity, as it was understood in its own context, enabled the transmission of multiple deities despite having similar or dissimilar foci and selectiveness. A deity could travel from Egypt to Greece to Rome and never truly be an outsider to any system because it was inherently anchored in polytheistic identity as a concept, although the cults might emphasize different qualities. They had no need to be changed to fit the system, so long as they could be anchored into the system they were being moved to through the use of functional (cultural role) and spatial (cultic locations) foci.

The West, mired in a tradition focused around the nameless, formless, and above all hegemonic concept of the Judaeo-Christian ‘god’ has lost the implicit understandings of the polytheistic system and the ability to conceive of these gods, their functional foci, and how to approach the re-engagement with a polytheistic identity. Their emphasis on the function of the deity is sanitized, much in the same way that the concept of do ut des was reduced through the application of Pauline theology to a mere business exchange between worshiper and divinity [5].

This lessening of polytheistic identity under this hegemonic force has lead to a simplistic understanding of the divinity, and Heathenry is in particular no exception. These functional foci which form a core aspect of that religious identity have been placed to the side in favor of well ordered lists that offer one dimensional “god of..” functions, with the invariable result of being subsumed into the facets of other deities with the loss of these foci and theological understandings. To identify them strictly by their function reduces deities to mere actions, and ignores important facets to the understanding of their perfection and essence [6].

We see this mirrored in various social scientific disciplines, including the study of Classical history. Notably driven by the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of the 20th century, the idea that Mediterranean religion (particularly in this instance the study of Roman religion) was “sanitized” was common. It was presented as a joyless, soulless religious expression, being portrayed as an emotionless transaction not unlike a client and patron. What is lost in this strict concern with the sanitized, contextless function is the character of piety. This, of course, informed the later approach to these “primitive” non-Christian religions.

Though it existed and pervaded scholarship prior to the publication of his works, Georges Dumézil popularized a particularly structuralist and culturally functionalist approach to Proto-Indo-European culture, which investigated the spread of concepts regarding culture and divine. His interpretation of this theory was most elaborately published in his work L’idéologie tripartite des Indo-Européens, which was published in 1959 and had been built off of his earlier works Flames-Brahman and Mitra-Varuna, published in both 1929 and 1940 respectively.

Conceptually, the theory devoted itself originally to the functions of Proto-Indo-European cultural development and expression, but was later expanded to include those representative divinities associated with those social and cultural groups. In essence, each social group had a representative god or group of god-families which matched it in functional role (eg. groups of deities concerned with the priestly, warrior, and common social classes). Dumézil and those bearing the torch of his tripartite hypothesis sought to apply this theory in a contemporaneous sense throughout the breadth of the studies concerning the Indo-European cultural spectrum.

What is found is that religion and culture are indelibly more nuanced than Dumézil would otherwise portray.

While popular, this functionalist approach nevertheless fails within the parameters of its own methodological concerns; most important to remember is that linguistic affinity does not necessarily lead to the existence of an expected conceptual affinity. If we approach Dumézil’s theory heuristically, the lack of these concepts in action and, more specifically, the lack of any known mutual tripartite cultural structures cast significant doubts on the validity of this popular flagship theory [7]. It quite simply exists as a theory and has not been found to be replicated in cultural reality.

Despite this, the limited idea of the function of divinity, the role of the divine within a culture as it pertains to the reflection of society, remains well-entrenched within both secular academic scholarship and contemporary polytheistic research. Often, deities are reduced down to their basic components within the culture in which they are found, for ease of interpretation or dissemination or for a plethora of other reasons. In other religious fields, the functionalist approach to exploring the divine has been slowly replaced by other – more sociological – approaches.

Specifically important in this instance is the academic approach of Émile Durkheim in viewing the religion from the perspective of the society, rather than viewing society from a series of postulated theoretical categories and attempting to fit the religion into that theory [8]. We find that the true understanding of the role of the “function” of a god is not just in the “of..” qualities or the associated sphere, but in the effects of social and religious forces. The sphere of a deity’s true foci is impacted and informed by qualities of tradition, social adjustments, etymology, and other developments between analogous deities, which confer importance in many cases into both the private and public spheres [9]. This approach has only been employed by the late 20th century, and largely only within an academic sense. It is rare to find its mirror within the largely academically-adjacent polytheist reconstructionist communities.

In terms of Heathen polytheistic approach towards the reconstruction of religiosity there is still a great deal of concern maintained around the apparent function of the divine, and the resultant role that the deities had in society. This is ultimately exacerbated by the comparatively small population of known deities in the Germanic world. The lack of divinities, as compared with the other larger and more established polytheistic traditions of Eurasia means that a reconstructionist understanding will ultimately suffer in its execution.

Engaging in reconstructionist methodology is ultimately an exercise in empiricism, built upon a continuum of linguistic, historic, and extra-historical academic disciplines in order to inform the practical foundations of the revival that is Heathenry. In most cases it begins with approaching any literary sources which remain known to scholarship. In a Heathen context, this research results in an unfortunately limited scope of information, necessitating the inquest of researchers in other directions. The secondary and tertiary stops for Heathen reconstructionism are generally etymological and material remains, in either order. These inquiries are nevertheless of supreme importance to the piecing together of religious practice, let alone concepts of divinity, from the fragmented sources which have survived the passage of time.

In the case of the erroneous comparison of Ēastre with Iðunn even a cursory glance of either aspect will show that there is little to no association between the two deities which exist other than the most superficial and circumstantially reductive ways. That is what will be approached in the next section.

Endnotes, Part II:

[4] Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach, (Boston: Leiden, 2009) p. 67.

[5] Lipka, Roman Gods, p. 4.

[6] James R. Harrison, Paul’s Language of Grace in Its Graeco-Roman Context, (C.B. Mohr, 2003), p. 284. This discussion on perfection as it concerns a divine unity (and thus a mischaracterization as reductionist monotheistic tendencies) is in part explored from a particularly Platonic perspective in Edward Butler, “Polycentric Polytheism and the Philosophy of Religion,” in Essays on a Polytheistic Philosophy of Religion, (New York City: Phaidra Editions, 2012), p. 74.

[7] Lipka, Roman Gods, p. 4.

[8] Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Trans. Carol Cosman (London: Oxford, 2001) pgs. 154, 318. This approach was particularly championed by Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu.

[9] Lipka, Roman Gods, p. 69.

Part III can be found here.

Categories: ACADEMIC ELITISM!!1+1, Community Thoughts, Germanic, Heathen Theology, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Theology

The Problem of Apples

Marc

Posted on June 3, 2017

Author’s Note: The length of this article got too big for a comfortable readership on the format of this blog, and so I have broken it up into four parts which will be released consecutively. Endnotes will be released along with each part, but will maintain a running total throughout all four parts consecutively. If there is demand, I will format it properly into a .pdf for future use.

Heathenry’s approach to conceptions of divinity is unnecessarily limited and self-curtailing, despite being a reconstructed polytheistic revivalist religion. Evidence most often used within Heathen reconstruction generally consists of literary, material, toponymic, or folkloric elements and despite the value of these disciplines, the material with which Heathens have to reconstruct the knowledge of their religious fundamentals is limited. This is especially true when compared to the restoration of other polytheistic traditions. The paucity of this information appears to reinforce a an unwillingness in exploring new theological perspectives outside of a few specialized corners. The end result is a narrow, stunted, and misinformed interpretation of divinity that is transmitted into the general Heathen population.

When the idea of “Heathenry” is brought up in discussion, it is often done so in terms of a singular religious monolith. This is excusable perhaps from the position of viewing it as a new religious movement and one that is still getting its religious identity and basic foundation built underneath it. In this regard, a singular religious identity is often easier to work with, especially concerning the development of comprehensive ideas and their eventual transmission.

Religiously, of course, Heathen practice and belief are both descended from a continuum of common religious ancestry that of the related Germanic cultures. These cultures themselves are indebted to both Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European antecedents and share some similarities. As a result common themes exist across the spectrum of Heathen religious identity, in some cases a mirror of common cultural themes shared between the Germanic peoples of the pre-Christian era. This similarity of expression is what ultimately provides for a mutually intelligible religious dialogue between practitioners, regardless of the historic cultural expression of choice.

Yet the cultural expressions which form a core component to any individual Heathen religious practice nevertheless have an understated impact on that resulting practice. Composed of linguistic considerations, geographic influences, or cultural and historic divergences, these factors are just as inherently important in the identification of a unique religious tradition and often help to separate the identity of one practice from another. It is ultimately what marks a difference between a Heathen with an emphasis on Anglo-Saxon practices and a Heathen who focuses on Norse practices.

It is an unfortunate fact that these unique expressions and developments are often placed to the wayside in the discussion of the religion. They are most often ignored, either in favor of advancing the religious understanding of the whole of the religion, or due to some other consideration.

These cultural mores and historic interpretations are, at best, treated as extraneous hangers-on in the discussion of Heathenry in a communal space. They exist as a cultural ‘skin’, draped around the common skeleton of identifiable “Heathen” practice and belief, but are ultimately viewed as an aesthetic with no true formative distinctions. Despite an ever-increasing willingness within modern Heathenry to embrace the uniqueness of regional variations of Heathen identity, this tendency remains unfortunately common in the public sphere.

At worst, and all the more frequently, these cultural differences are ignored or simply subsumed under the most dominant cultural paradigm in Heathenry, eg. Eddic or Nordic Heathenry. Worse yet, some of these cultural differences are cherry picked or negatively appropriated into the larger, creating an untenable and unstable pan-Germanic morass. The end result limits and diminishes the even-more minority expressions in favor of the wider dissemination of information for appeal and consumption in public.

In some cases this practice is innocuous and ultimately harmless: instead of referring to urðr it is commonly known by the Old English wyrd. The two terms and two interpretations are close enough that referring to it as either does neither harm, although their expressions may differ somewhat within their cultures of origin.

In other cases it is a more deleterious force in regards to the traditional understanding of individual group identity. This is often the case with the Anglo-Saxon deity Ēastre (Ēostre), who is perhaps the most well known of the native pre-Christian deities of Anglo-Saxon England who does not have an identified mirror elsewhere. Due to the association of her name with the Christian observance of Easter (Pascha), she has become a popular entree into general Heathen consciousness, having been lifted out of her native Anglo-Saxon context and embraced by Heathens regardless of their own cultural orientations. This is done despite having little in the way of external identifiable reflection in much of the wider Germanic linguistic and etymological corpus.

Ultimately, Ēastre is an enigmatic and putative figure. She exists only in a Christian recording of contemporary month names, and is generally associated with the coming dawn, and contemporaneously with the Spring and fertility [1].

The veracity of these accounts or the existence of this figure is not the focus of this piece and will not be discussed here, despite there being some debate to this end in both Heathen and academic circles. Suffice to say, Philip A. Shaw’s work Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World provides a compelling argument for the figure’s historic existence – albeit in a far more limited scope and minor divine role than commonly portrayed in Heathen religion. It is that perspective which is used here.

This enigmatic nature has both benefited and hindered the development of Ēastre’s cult and, more importantly, has encouraged her appropriation into extra-Anglo-Saxon cultural enactments.

As an Anglo-Saxon deity – or, rather, a deity arising strictly within a native Anglo-Saxon cultural Context – Ēastre is contextually very much a suitable representation of the conditions of early pre-Christian England as well as of the people who venerated her. She fits into the Anglo-Saxon worldview through her positions as a near-tutelary goddess and representative divinity of her group of people [2]. In comparison, she is markedly out of place within the wider community of pan-cultural Heathens, given their focus on Norse and Icelandic cultural lore, or the even smaller Germanic cultural groups drawing their traditions from the Continent. In order to fit, her figure has taken on roles which it did not originally have.

Those changes are similarly not up for discussion.

Regardless of her adoption outside Anglo-Saxon circles, Ēastre is nevertheless wedged into a pan-Germanic Heathen identity. This is most often done in a reductive association with the Norse deities of Frigg, Sif, or even Iðunn [3]. All of these conflations are problematic and inexact in their interpretation and etymologically false, providing no baseline for the association between the figures. For the purposes of this discussion, the conflation of Ēastre with Iðunn will be the focus of the piece. In this way we will see how an incorrect equivalency will not only harm the understanding of the cults of the deities in question, but also perpetuate poor history and effectively whitewash a minority perspective within a larger, dominating culture.

Endnotes, Part I:

[1] Bede, De Temporum Ratione. “Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.”

[2] Philip A. Shaw, Pagan Goddess in the Early Germanic World: Eostre, Hreda and the Cult of the Matrons, (London: Bristol Classic Press, 2011) p. 70.

[3] “Edmund”, r/Pagan Discord message to the author, February 8, 2017.

Part II can be found here.

Categories: Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Regionalism, Theology

The Realization of Polytheism

Marc

Posted on June 1, 2017

“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.

“Persons who spent whole days in prayer and sacrifice to ensure that their children should outlive them were termed ‘superstitious’ (from superstes, a survivor), and the word later acquired a wider application. Those on the other hand who carefully reviewed and so to speak retraced all the lore of ritual were called ‘religious’ from relegere (to retrace or re‑read), like ‘elegant’ from eligere (to select), ‘diligent’ from diligere (to care for), ‘intelligent’ from intellegere (to understand); for all these words contain the same sense of ‘picking out’ (legere) that is present in ‘religious.’” – Cicero, De Natura Deorum II.72.

On the surface, despite many numerous differences, definitions of religion are predicated on – or otherwise revolve around – the concept of an identified object of extra-human and “supernatural” quality. Something which necessarily sets itself apart from nature or is otherwise added to the natural world. Of course, as a trained anthropologist, as well as a historian who has dealt with religious history quite frequently, religion as a definition genuinely transcends the notion of a mere supernatural qualifier. Pascal Boyer’s quote, above, is largely comparable to my own internalization and use of the definition of the phenomenon of “human religion”.

This year – 2017 – marks the twentieth year as identifying as a Pagan in the contemporary religious sense. While I’m not hardly in the running for that being any length of time, I am particularly seasoned. And as that anniversary draws closer I will do my best to commemorate it. But, to me, it has always been the pull to the “supernatural”, to the imminency of this religious quality, that gets ascribed to the definition of religion by academics. I do not feel that the term “supernatural” is wholly appropriate as a description of the quality of the divine, as I view it as pervasive within the natural world. The description of the gods, the spirits, and other holy powers is diminished through the use of this word, implying that they exist beyond nature – a transcendent quality which informs the greater understanding of “religion”. It, in some way, simply does not apply.

I am an empiricist. I have training in two social sciences and rely on qualitative observations and the collection of identified facts in order to orient my deductions and assumptions. Two of the primary philosophical schools which I ascribe, and which inform my worldview, are Empiricism and Scepticism as they’re understood in the humanistic understanding of the Renaissance, prior to the period of the Enlightenment. I trust in the scientific method. I am excited by new discoveries that rewrite our understanding of our place in the cosmos, of evolution, and of the geologic timescale.

As a result of this very logical framework to my training and my approach to life I do not particularly favor coincidence, repetition, and other probable qualities as indication of some greater-than-human force within the world.

And yet, I am an ardent polytheist and animist. This is because of my experiences in this world, many of which do not have a logical answer.

I suffer from a very mild form of depression, which is being treated. Who from the millennial generation doesn’t? That is the extent of any “aberration” to my mental health. I do not have a history of greater mental health problems in my family. I do not “crack” under stress. I am considered healthy and active. Other than a bout of unemployment, I’m productive. I’ve never done drugs, other than drinking a ton of coffee and socially drinking alcohol. I’m generally pretty boring.

Why is this laundry list important? Because they are generally the first qualities which skeptics and atheists look for in the overtly religious, in order to denigrate our intelligence or our actions. That there’s something wrong with us. That our intelligence is up to question. Or we’re inherently inferior. I find that polytheism receives the brunt of this, because we don’t believe in just one “imaginary friend”, but many.

But, because of this, I am forced to accept that there is more to the world than what I know and conceivably articulate or explain. To me, and to my experience, that translates to a multiplicity and plurality of divinity, and an intersection with a world of spirits that I share the space with. I never “lost” the worldview of my youth, was fortunate that it was never stamped out by over-zealous parents. I was raised in a fairly a-religious household, with a mother and grandmother who were interested in other religions.

So being a polytheistic Pagan is very much just a natural progression of my life.

But what I learned early on was that being a polytheist – and by that I mean one who doesn’t reduce down the deities into a mere two (or less) beings, or view them as facets and manifestations of the human condition – was very atypical. I came to Paganism during the heyday of the Llewellyn craze, after the SRA panic settled and Wicca and Paganism were commodified. After The Craft. One year before Charmed.

Paganism, Wicca, and “the supernatural” were suddenly trendy. Marketable.

Polytheism, however, was not. At least, not in the same way. Our gods were “petty and cruel”, according to the lead-in of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. They were really aliens, either little grey men or parasitical worm that enslaved worlds, as in Stargate. Fast forward into the Aughts, and Supernatural, and Loki was really Gabriel and the Gods were all demons. Or whatever, that show is trash. While Wicca and Paganism were being rehabilitated (regardless of their accuracy), polytheism languished as a cheap television trope. Something either blatantly wrong, or the hallmark of primitivism. (We’ll see if American Gods changes that, but I’m hardly expecting it to).

And, it seemed, that these common themes were repeated in the wider Pagan community in attitudes and reception. I ventured into the world of online Paganism shortly after I embraced it and what I found was reductionism and reactionary baggage and toxic “free spirited” counterculture.

The Gods are all facets of One God, the Goddesses are all facets of One Goddess. There were no gods, but a universal divinity towards Nature. Worship was what Christians did. The Gods are myths and stories and do not exist. Spells, spells, spells. These thoughts, and others, were the common zeitgeist of the collective discussion Paganism. Discussion was on spells and self-realization and either ego/self-centric or nature-centric practice. If you believed in [Divinity] you were a Wiccan or a Druid, but always in a reductionist way. Deity reduced to a Duality or Nature. Or nothing at all.

If you believed in multiple and independent deities, well, you were wrong. You were corrected. The gods were all facets of one universal source, not independent entities. The same people who said that belief didn’t matter, and that Paganism was focused on action, were the first to cast aspersions were you to go beyond the pale of indoctrinated theology and believe – truly believe – in multiple gods.

And it’s funny because in my twenty years, that really hasn’t changed.

It’s more accepted now, but polytheism in a Western context is still looked at as aberrant. It is still openly derided and mocked by those who would claim a part of the community, and expect respect and toleration for their blatantly intolerant views. It’s been beaten into the Western mind that the Gods are fables, myths, stories, demons, or sheer delusions. They’re tropes, archetypes, figments of personality, or mental projections.

The great writers of the past who earnestly believed in these beings, who took part in their cults, and who lived these lives, are looked at as relics with little religious value. The words of Marcus Aurelius in Meditations are viewed as an example of “someone who really didn’t believe” in a polytheistic divinity (Secret: He did), and the modern Stoic Revival distances itself from the religious implications of his words. In exchange, modern Pagan and Wiccan writers that look at the gods as metaphors are excused, accepted, and lauded.

Can we really argue against an anti-polytheist indoctrination within Contemporary Paganism, even if it is unintentional? I’m not even sure that it truly can be that unintentional.

Contemporary Paganism is full of people with agendas, like any other human institution. And it’s not a new feature. Margot Adler had a very specific view of what she felt should be promoted in the Paganism she wrote about in Drawing Down the Moon. She was not above reporting false information (Claimed Ray Buckland’s Seax-Wica/Saxon Witchcraft tradition was founded as a “joke” and refused to recant). It is as full with petty drama as any other community, both in the online and in the offline spheres. Witch wars were, and still are, a thing – often driven by ego.

And that’s not even getting into the politics. Woo, boy.

Is the growth of polytheism within Contemporary Paganism an effort to enforce an orthodoxy, a correct belief in the multiplicity of the divine? The sinister attempts of a cabal to enforce a rigidity designed to trample expression and belief? Of a rising fundamentalism of religion? There are many who would portray it that way and who believe it to be that way.

Or is it due to forces that have only really taken hold since the early 2000s? The growth of online communities connecting people in far-flung areas, to discuss their ideas of worth, value, religion, and belief? And the realization that there are many more than the dominant culture would otherwise have expected? A burst of new interests, new changes, new developments, and a maturing community?

The pressure against polytheism within the Contemporary Pagan community bears the hallmarks of a majority population feeling threatened by a vocal minority who are agitating for representation within the demographic. Accusations that any one space are overrun with the perspective and paradigm, false portrayals and misrepresentative accounts of the group in order to discredit the whole. Accounts are diminished in ways that would rile people up if it was done to the indigenous folk religions of other peoples.

Since 2012-2013, we’ve largely seen some of that representation. The Wild Hunt now refers to “the polytheism community” (itself a problematic term, but that’s another story). Initiatives like Polytheist.Com were launched, although apparently now deceased. Devotional and theological anthologies treating the deities with due reverence, honor, and respect are published frequently, taking advantage of more affordable small-scale publishing and print on demand services (although Neos Alexandria as an organization predates this by several years). There were talks of the establishment of polytheistic Pagan conventions. We first had the Polytheist Leadership Conference, from which spun out Many Gods West.

(Still hoping on a Many Gods East, or comparable meetup.)

The theological beauty of polytheism is that it is inherently pluralistic. It can coexist with a variety of other theological perspectives because it is a non-exclusivist position. It makes only one universal claim: that the gods exist and those gods number more than two. The iterations of them are up to the individual religion and context.

It clashes with the assertion of a transcendent deity. It has problems when people tell us that there are no deities and that we are backwards people believing in a fiction. It denies our agency and the claims of our legitimacy of practice, and represents an all-too-ethnocentric viewpoint. The expectation that we are broken, or that we should meekly kowtow to the popular will of an overly reductionistic society, rankles. The implication that we are only “new” since the turn of the millennium is simply incorrect.

The belief in immanent spirits and deities is an “anthropological universal”, and is one of those features that is widely regarded as consistent across all human cultures. It has been since the beginning of humanity, and is thought to be represented in our closest hominid relatives. Our belief is not “new”, even if our contemporary practice is.

If polytheism has one universal quality that it asserts, it is that the gods and spirits exist. They simply are. They don’t need to have their detractors believe in them. Their worshipers need to not have people try to silence them.

Categories: Community Thoughts, Controversy!!1!, Conversational, Generalist Paganism, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts

To Those Erecting Fallacious Political Strawmen in Response to My Last Post

Marc

Posted on May 29, 2017

Categories: ACADEMIC ELITISM!!1+1, Blog Business, Community Thoughts, Controversy!!1!, Generalist Paganism, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts, Uncategorized

The Marginalization of Polytheists in the Public Sphere of Paganism

Marc

Posted on May 28, 2017

Of late, there’s been some question as to the position of varying theological Pagan-types within the public (largely Online) sphere of Contemporary Paganism, and the definition of core defining characteristics of Paganism as a contemporary religious umbrella term. And, what happened to begin with the question about definitions has warped into a general attack on polytheistic theology. With this, I am putting my hat in the ring and adding my perspective, even though those I’ll be criticizing have already succeeded at getting out numerous tracts since Sunday.

This has been most notably found within discussions (beginning in early April) of the question about whether or not Paganism was both an “earth-centric” religion (as denoted here: “On “Earth-Based Religions””) or, if Paganism was “dying” as an institution (as denoted here: “Paganism Isn’t Dying; It’s (Finally) Maturing”). It’s your general, frivolous Pagan drama in its reception. Both topics are somewhat nuanced, and, I think reflect on the changing demographics and cultural shift of Pagan practitioners.

The death of pan-Pagan institutions, and the changing demographics are absolutely something that needs to be discussed. And people should absolutely have reasoned debate about it.

However this debate has one notable point that consistently comes to the fore: the reactions of some of the people in the comments section of the second post (“Paganism isn’t Dying”), who have made appearances in other spaces of the public Pagan fora. These people are those who inherently talk down about polytheistic belief in the public sphere. People who are, for all intents and purposes, acting like anti-polytheists. I encourage people to read those comments, to see this in action.

I feel that most people who are getting their dander up about this whole situation, which Hrafnblod of Grennung Hund Hearth has quite willingly provoked, do so because they lack a fundamental ability to critically read the situation of which is being spoken. That, or they elect to raise purposefully misleading strawman arguments in an attempt to control dialogue and mischaracterize the discussion. We’ll see a bit of this later.

It should be said that in my experience, most (because I obviously cannot speak for everyone in this matter) polytheists aren’t trying to tell nature-worshipers, deep pantheists, non-specific Druidic practitioners, or whomever else that, by in large, their nature-based practice and interpretation of Paganism is wrong. They’re trying to expand and move the dialogue of Pagan definition beyond archaic and Romanticized variants of back-to-nature Western philosophy that the 19th Century and the Victorian Era both inculcated within the popular discourse.

Now, I’m of the mind that non-specific nature-based spirituality is a type of Contemporary Paganism. I’m talking about things like the Hindu-like, Emersonian post-Christian nature spirituality types of Robert Corrington. Even if they’re influenced by liberal Protestant theology. But I adamantly do not believe that definition of Paganism as a fundamentally “nature-based religion” is at all applicable as a broadly defining characteristic any more. That doesn’t mean that it is invalid for all Pagans, though.

And I’m certainly not kicking them out from the table. I’m certainly not trying to define their religion for them. I am trying to see that Paganism, as a non-specific descriptor of varying religions, expand accordingly.

I’m trying to establish space for polytheism. I am not going to go over the timescale of this last debate or discussion, because the roots of this go back further than just these past two months. I had largely thought it had blown over after the bigger names had said their piece, and certainly seemed to quiet down. Last Sunday night, however, defecation hit the proverbial rotating oscillator.

I have made my position abundantly clear over the years, but I think perhaps it is best to recount this for some people who may be drawn into this space:

I am a Pagan. No, really. I am. For twenty years this year, even! But, that’s obvious, right? Isn’t that why we are all here. I have a vested interest in the comings and goings of this community. And despite not being as prolific as others, that nevertheless gives me the right to share in the space.
I am a reconstructionist. Like, a lot. Like, a lot-a lot. But I’m not one who thinks everyone should be a reconstructionist. It’s a methodology for those who are inclined to do so. However, I do recognize that a lot of reconstructionist work is used by avowed non-reconstructionists, while reconstructionists themselves are looked down upon. And I think that this should be rectified.
I am an American, specifically a Northeasterner. I was born in the 80s. I am part of the 21st century. I don’t pretend to be anything else. I have never said that any bit of my religious expression was anything but a contemporary interpretation of a historic one, modified to the present world. Very few people in historic or reconstructionist polytheisms will say that what they’re doing is 100% accurate to the past, or believe they can totally revivify what is there.
I am focused on humanity and our intersection with the divine. After all, we experience divinity, even if it exists without us or our impact. I don’t classify my Paganism as nature-based at all, no more than Rome would be considered a “nature based” civilization because they were subsistence agriculturalists. And I am not alone – Urbanites, or Cosmopolitan Pagans routinely question their place in Contemporary Paganism with its seeming emphasis on “nature worship” as a descriptor. And this is something that isn’t going to change any time soon, with the expected 15 million to 20 million new urban dwellers by 2050. We’re seeing a shift in demographics away from suburbia back towards urban centers. Let alone the fact that many millennials aren’t looking at being able to afford a house, or land, or whatnot. All of these need to be considered in the definition of Pagan identity.
I am an unrepentant polytheist and animist. That should go without saying, if you know anything about me. I believe in the multiplicity of the divine and the pluralism of the religious spheres through a polytheistic and animistic religious system. And, as such, I have been targeted by specific rhetoric implying I am religiously and ideologically contaminated.

So let’s talk about the incidence of polytheist marginalization. Along with other polytheistic faiths (Hinduism, Shinto, etc.), polytheistic Pagans face comparatively more discrimination from the overarching society because of this fundamental disagreement with what is considered an “acceptable” religious orientation. First we’ll take a look at ways in which society approaches polytheism, especially in regards to the more ‘legitimate’ polytheistic faiths. Then, we’ll take a look at some of the ways polytheistic experience in Contemporary Paganism is marginalized, and how a certain few attempt to control the narrative in order to diminish what is already an arguably minority population.

I was going to publish a more formal piece from a more academic view point, so I’ll be drawing a bit of information from this unpublished paper.

As a religious theory, polytheism is inherently aberrant to modern Western society, with its predominantly Christian cultural foundation. It has been constantly and externally defined, as is the case of the origination of the term “polytheist” by Philo of Alexandria, to routinely disparaged as primitivist, as by Jesuit missionaries. In those Western countries which are thoroughly Protestant, I contend that the perception of the aberrance of polytheism is magnified immensely. I’ll be speaking to this largely from the perspective of an American Pagan although I have personally had discussions with Northern European Pagans that would intimate a commonality of reception to polytheistic practices.

One of the notable ways in which polytheism is marginalized within society can be seen in the discussion of public “secular” space and how this space is inherently used to reinforce a singular religious paradigm, e.g. Protestantism. And this is not some claim of self-victimization, but discussed at length in a variety of scholastic works. Notably, this is spoken about in The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, where it is highlighted how the public space is “encoded”, and supporting of various Protestant monotheistic traditions.

This is done by establishing a perspective of what is considered religiously normalized with an eye to internal consistency. Everything that falls outside of this popularly perceived “norm” is pushed into the private sphere as they are not palatable or appropriate for group consumption. Americans are quite familiar with the concept of the separation of Church and State, and use it both as a weapon and defense against religious encroachment. But it should be remembered that this accomplishment and by extension the whole of what is considered the “public sphere” in regards to religious discourse is largely a Protestant (and overwhelmingly monotheist) accomplishment. In short, this public sphere presupposes and blatantly reaffirms the dominant religious tradition as what is effectively considered secular, while purporting tolerance.

What we find in the public is the lack of a pluralistic understanding of religion, which takes into account the differences in cultural expressions and religious concerns not at all. It masquerades certain religious tolerance – more appropriately in some cases as mere toleration – only if it evacuates public life. The demarcation between “secular” and “religious” space is inherently untenable for theists who take an immanent view of divinity. Divinity – and by extent the enactment of the religion – pervades facets of everyday life which necessarily includes accountings in public space. This defined separation is unnatural and ultimately disenfranchising.

What we find is that, essentially, a “separation of Church and State” ultimately fails in its task of being a multi-religious, pluralistic model within our “Secular Democracy”. The result is that secular public space does inherently assume and favor a church (or a series of confessional/congregational populations), at least as it exists in North America. Compared to the multireligious pluralistic state of India, the United States (and the United Kingdom) effectively engages in state-sponsored religious coercion in which their definition of “religion” inherently privileges Christianity.

The failing of popular society to distantly tolerate – let alone anything socially outrageous like embrace – concepts of pluralistic polytheism are apparent. C.S. Lewis’ work Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life quite clearly indicated a form of “chronological snobbery” (his term) where the hegemonic forces of Christianity are felt; the intellectual and cultural capacities of an earlier time positioned as inherently inferior to that of the present modern time, simply by view of the present being experienced and dominated by Lewis’ own ‘ethical monotheism’.

Predating and complementary to Lewis, the followers of the “Psychologists of Religion”, inspired by Wellhausen, Hegel, Boyer, and others, position the theisms of animism and polytheism as an archaic religious “primitivism”, something that will naturally and ultimately give way to more “advanced” expressions of religious thought until something akin to Lewis’ ethical monotheism is obtained. Atheistic writers and philosophers push this synthesis of biological evolution and cultural progress further, aiming for an ultimate goal of a mature society existing in a state of post-monotheistic secularism.

These views, along with lingering colonial attitudes towards identifiably non-European peoples, pervades the reception of polytheistic theology, even in the nominally “modern” and “tolerant” West. We find these notions of modernity and enlightened tolerance to be hollow claims.

We see this biological argument even in the sphere of Paganism, with the discussion of the “evolving trajectory” of religion. We see in these words the same intellectual rhetoric of C.S. Lewis, only consisting of the idea of a non-specific post-Christianity instead of his ethical monotheism. We see the same assumption of chronological snobbery, that the modern period is better than the pre-modern. That looking to the past is unrealistic and applying anything from it is anachronistic.

As a collection of new religious movements, contemporary Pagan polytheisms are often suspect in regards to the their claims of religious legitimacy to practice or concerns regarding their theism as being accepted. In a religious and social culture that expects identified figureheads, these people are often without an overarching authority or representative body. This is to say nothing about how the recognized polytheistic religions have had to adapt to these hegemonic monotheistic cultural forces.

Even the “legitimate” polytheism of Hinduism, when in the diaspora of the United States, was forced to contend with and eventually adapt to these hegemonic forces. Prema Kurien’s Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism offers an engaging and fascinating account of the pressures of American Hindus in adapting their religious image to one of a “model minority”, both in regards to religion and ethnicity. These pressures ultimately lead to the assimilation to Western culture in both the colonial and the immigrant contexts through a constructed, organized Hinduism based in both text and history, and heavily reminiscent of the monotheism of the colonizing or immigrant culture.

Within the Protestant, monotheist West, we see significant cultural pressures against polytheistic traditions. Consider that one of the world’s oldest, and largest, polytheistic religions finds itself at the mercy of these prevailing hegemonic forces. What is a minority religion with a lack of resources like polytheistic Paganism to do?

It is absolutely true that most Pagans do not face the same associated racism and ethnic prejudices that the polytheistic cultures of South and Southeast Asia experience. I am identifiably white, and I make no such claims that my discrimination is anywhere near the same. But, the same distrust, disgust, and diminishment of religious experience remains. Contemporary Pagans are, of course, well versed in the struggles of being a religious minority – doubly so in parts of the West at the mercy of evangelical monotheisms in social and political power. In these places there exists an even greater pressure in regards to engaging in an identifiably polytheistic religion, resulting in the expectation of religious privatization for economic or safety concerns.

So how can we say that Paganism engages in this same type of marginalization?

Regardless of the location in which it originated, Contemporary Paganism was reared within a Protestant and Protestantized monotheist culture. If Gerald Gardner’s foundation of British Traditional Witchcraft is held as the “beginning” point of Contemporary Paganism, that is a product of his Protestant culture. If we’re speaking specifically to the American exegesis and the varying developments primarily driven by American Pagans, these likewise were birthed under a Protestant monotheist overculture. If the “proto-Paganisms” of the Romantic and Victorian eras are counted as the first stirrings of Contemporary Pagan thought they are undeniably of Protestant origin.

All Westerners are exposed to these Christianized, monotheistic, and ultimately hegemonic forces. They’re externally and internally used as a metric which all other things – morals, ethics, actions, beliefs – are inherently measured. In seeing how minority religions like Hinduism acclimate to these forces in their own diaspora, we can perhaps see the types of hegemonic forces that are exerted on us without our awareness.

Everyone and anyone – even people who were never raised within a religious household or were not raised within a monotheistic religious system (a-religious, atheistic, etc.) is raised this way. No one is raised in a vacuum, not even Contemporary Pagans. As a product of this culture, Paganism sees these same prejudices and the same biases which have to be addressed by everyone in some capacity. I have, in the past, written about some of these biases in the form of baggage and reactionary definitions which serve to warp our conception of Paganism into a shadow or an inversion of the overarching culture. This problem is far less easy to approach than identifying baggage because it deals with a fundamental understanding of our society which we are all collectively raised with.

When polytheism enters the public sphere it is subject to this same type of baggage by other Pagans. And invariably they are attacked not for the theological substance of their claims but for strawmen that are erected which are quite clearly not the focus of discussion. These misrepresented arguments are masked behind the claims of their detractors, like Mark Green’s “not being in competition with theism” in “Atheopaganism and the Future” (linked above), or in John Halstead’s willful misrepresentation of claims of supporting polytheism and polytheistic Pagans. But, when pressed, they always revert back to disparaging, insulting, and painfully public comments. What is lacking is a fundamental understanding of the basic qualities of (particularly Western) polytheistic practice, with no apparent attempts to learn.

This is the culture that preaches tolerance (remember: toleration) of polytheism within Contemporary Paganism – these logical thinkers, empiricists, and humanists who would value the “human experience” within Paganism so much that they would denigrate theistic belief as inferior and morally primitive. The same attitudes that we see repeated in anti-Hindu, anti-indigenous, and overwhelmingly monotheist tracts.

Their “sympathy” masks their moral positioning and supposed intellectual superiority. Even when they admit that we are not remotely the same thing, at all, on a basic cosmological level. And in the same breath state that because polytheists might have issues with being marginalized, our faith is weak.

What we see with commentary like Halstead’s and Green’s is a concerted and well admitted attempt to simultaneously control the polytheist narrative and to diminish polytheistic theological experience within the nominally and ostensibly public sphere. These even go so far as to directly insult the fundamental basis of polytheist belief through repeated efforts to portray polytheists as backwards and conservative ignorants who worship “fictional” characters or “imaginary friends”. It follows the footsteps of the majority of the monotheistic West in viewing polytheism as something fundamentally flawed and erroneous in belief, to be pitied and not defended.

Halstead and company imply that our “disenchantment” with the world is a result of our failure to view the interconnectedness of all things in life and to enjoy our place within this reality as it is. In fact, our “disenchantment” is due to the colonization of aberrant hegemonic monotheistic forces that continually warp and assault polytheistic beliefs, practices, and idols. Polytheists aren’t “re-enchanting” their religious life. They’re recognizing it for what it is, and embracing this ancient and widespread theological paradigm, and honoring these timeless beings anew.

The marginalization of Western polytheists persists with an abundantly glaring, disheartening frequency. The attempts to portray the gods as thoughtforms, archetypes, or imaginary friends simply takes its theological place as adjacent to Protestant monotheism. It has become normalized, with constant attempts to diminish the oddities of multiple-god worship. Following Hindu attempts to make their polytheistic values palatable to Westerners, Contemporary Pagans have engaged in reductionist efforts to make their many gods as close to monotheistic as possible.

What is done in the name of “tolerance” is reaffirm these hegemonic practices in the public space. Halstead, Green, and those who would cast aspersions on polytheistic theology are perpetuating this. These actions diminish pluralist thought in favor of privatization of “aberrant” philosophical and theological outlooks. It is an irony of this entire argument that both sides are claiming marginalization and victimization, a gulf created by people who consistently fall back on questioning the “realness” and existence of the other’s focus of worship.

However, what religious and social history both show is that only one of these two theisms has consistently been marginalized since before even the time of Lactantius, establishing a culture of bigotry, marginalization, and ridicule. And this rhetoric only promotes it.

Works Referenced:

Butler, Judith, Jürgen Habemas, Charles Taylor, Cornel West, The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, ed. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.

duBois, Page, A Million and One Gods: The Persistence of Polytheism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.

Green, Mark, “Atheopaganism and the Future”, Atheopaganism: An Earth Honoring Religion Rooted in Science, May 5, 2017, Accessed May 28, 2017. https://atheopaganism.wordpress.com/2017/05/05/atheopaganism-and-the-future/

Green, Mark, “What About Those Who Insist Their Gods are Real: A Policy Statement”, Atheopaganism: An Earth Honoring Religion Rooted in Science, May 25, 2017, Accessed May 28, 2017. https://atheopaganism.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/what-about-those-who-insist-their-gods-are-real-a-policy-statement/

Halstead, John, “Literal Gods are for the Literal Minded: Re-Enchanting Polytheism”, Humanistic Paganism, May 25, 2017, Accessed May 28, 2017. https://humanisticpaganism.com/2017/05/25/literal-gods-are-for-the-literal-minded/

Halstead, John, “I Got Played By A Troll”, Patheos Pagan, The Allergic Pagan, November 3, 2016, Accessed May 28, 2017 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/allergicpagan/2015/11/03/i-got-played-by-a-troll/

Hrafnblod, “On Earth Based Religions”, Grennunghund Hearth, April 5, 2017, Accessed May 27, 2017. https://grennunghund.blog/2017/04/05/on-earth-based-religions/

Hrafnblod, “Paganism Isn’t Dying, It’s (Finally) Maturing”, Grennunghund Hearth, May 21, 2017, Accessed May 27, 2017. https://grennunghund.blog/2017/05/21/paganism-isnt-dying-its-finally-maturing/

Kurien, Prema, Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007.

Levi-Bruhl, Lucien, Primitives and the Supernatural, New York: E.P Dutton & Co., Inc, 1935.

Lewis, C. S., Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1955.

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

*Note: I make no apologies for my caustic commentary on Hrafnblod’s blog. I stand by those words, although I recognize that I could have been a little bit less acerbic.

Categories: ACADEMIC ELITISM!!1+1, Anglo-Saxon, Community Thoughts, Controversy!!1!, Generalist Paganism, Polytheism, SHITFEST20XX, Theology, Thoughts

On Human Wrought Boundaries

Marc

Posted on April 12, 2017

The State boundary marker between New York and Massachusetts from the New York side.

There is some inherent, unique quality to man-made boundaries, a quality which I feel often gets overlooked in conversations about Paganism. The demarcations of space which cut across the landscape in sometimes glaringly artificial lines, which nevertheless draw our eyes to them. We follow them and trace them, experiencing them as both tangible and intangible forces. A ditch or culvert, roads and dirt tracks, an old moss-covered stone wall, and even post markers of property or former lines which no longer exist are all representative of the division of human space in this world.

These structures contain something more, something that exists both within and alongside the power from the natural realm that many Pagans emphasize. At times, it can be near-palpable and noticeable: crossing a threshold or stepping through an opened gateway, or crossing from one side of a seemingly mundane border to the other can elicit a feeling of change and otherness. These spaces can be as liminal as the twilight and the dawn, or as much as stepping onto a mound. They simply exist in different and sometimes imperceptible ways.

And people have long known this. Intuitively or by design, the power of the boundary was understood by numerous traditions. Boundaries have long been used by priests to demarcate sacred space. It was understood by witches and cunningfolk, in their use of intersections and existing structures. In a way, it just makes sense that there’s more to the division of the world. Humans are creatures of space as much as anything else. And as such creatures, they are adept at engaging with the forces which also inhabit that space, and are even able to construct it on their own with little initial assistance from the divine.

I often see Pagans approach their religions by being enamored with the glamour of the natural. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, ever. The sanctity and engagement of the divine in the wild and in the natural world, of the gods of the land and earth and those ancient powers that predate humanity’s ascendancy are just as important now as they were in the yesteryear. If not more so. Please do not misconstrue what I am saying in this regard.

But so many Pagans seem to ignore the importance and reject the power inherent in the constructed. Commonly, I have seen it viewed as an eyesore, or a physical reminder of the destruction that our species has caused – the creation of an unnatural edifice that contrasts directly with any real sense of the natural. Some go so far to view it as a blight on their quest for a true Nature religion, something that is at best tolerated but often lamented.

Yet there is power in these boundaries. The Romans knew of Terminus, He of the boundary post and the demarcation of what would today be considered the “secular space” of fields, and pastures, and workable property. He, who was honored by a position of such importance that He was placed next to Jupiter Himself. As traditional polytheistic religion pervades every facet of one’s engagement in this world it is understandable that these sites would be treated as importantly as those of nature. What’s more, the priests understood the importance of the sacred, but nevertheless artificial, boundary in the establishment of the pomerium.

Artificial construction bears relevance and importance in a cosmic sense, much more than some would think. The intersection of two walls creates an inherent axis mundi, a physical representation of the sacred cosmogony. The entire edifice becomes an image of the cosmos. Whether through natural happenstance, simply by existence of a familiar sacred geometry, or through some measure of ritual efficacy, the animation and sanctification of space through sacrifice and rite, these sites become attractants to all measure of spirits and deities. These boundaries are as important as the sacred trees that represent the connection between earth and sky, and they in the same way connect our presence space with that of the cosmic other.

There is sacredness in the enclosure. Walls and barriers so erected protect and, further, preserve the sacred from the profane contamination of the material and mundane. In their many forms they enshrine conduits directly to the numinous – rocks piled just so, a string or rope surreptitiously placed, borders and boundaries that ties reality together in an intimate way. The dichotomy of sacred and not is protected by powerful monuments wrought of human hand, be they ditch or bank that surrounds a sanctuary, or a wall which encloses one’s yard.

Crisscrossing the landscape there are networks of roads which both follow and cut across the contours of the land. These lines of hot asphalt and dusty gravel or dirt enable us to function as a society. They’re necessary and used daily without a second thought. But these very same roads, the arteries of present civilization that act as boundaries in their own right, cross. They become gathering places where dead things can gather during those thin nights of the year, and where Trivia reigns over liminal places. Cunningfolk seek to use them and work their spells with the inherent power of these boundaries. The mundane becomes a source of the esoteric.

Would these very same sites have achieved such relevance if not for the intersection of humanity and the numinous? I could not say, but perhaps not.

Interacting with these human boundaries gives me a sense of the other that pervades our material existence. The walls and roads cut across mundane reality in ways which assist me in contextualizing my place in geography and being. There is a noticeable shift in my perception at times when I walk across such a line, even when I don’t expect it. Even something as innocuous or unremarkable as the political border of two states found in the woods can have a more profound meaning. There is something there. Those that would reject it for being artificial are missing out, I feel.

My religious and esoteric practices take place within the realm of human experience, within the human landscape. I do not seek to maneuver outside the anthropocentric world. I come back to this place when I return from the wilds, across the henge or the road. I am always reminded of how the human environment interacts with the spiritual on a fundamental level, and how the most mundane features can reflect the cosmos.

Categories: Conversational, Fyrnsidu, Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Heathenry, Theology, Thoughts

From the Tool Shed – Transitions

Marc

Posted on March 24, 2017

Spring has officially sprung. Ēastre is on Her way, complete with flowers, and green things, and warm weather.

Or so they say. You’d never know it, looking out the window.

A late winter snowstorm that hit the Northeast dumped over twenty inches of snow in my area of the Hudson River Valley. Though there were harder hit regions, it was still an inconvenience. Those few warmer days, having reduced the snow pack’s size, have once again given way to bitter cold and sub-zero windchills. In typical New York fashion, we’ve gone from near sixty-degree days to bitter cold, often within hours.

And now those selfsame snow packs are hard, and compacted, and near-solid enough for me to walk on without breaking the outer layer. But they still make the trails impassible. The bitter chill still stabs at your lungs if you try to go outside and do anything.

Layers are still needed. My hands are still ice. Just today our forecast is sleet, freezing rain, and snow showers.

But it’s a mixed blessing, really. For as much as this dreary, turbulent Winter has been hanging on, it competes with the knowledge that we need the water for the coming season. See, what they don’t really tell you about living in Upstate New York is that we have a fire season. It may not be as widespread, nor as devastating as other regions, but it exists. There’s a month or so between mid-April and mid-May where the foliage hasn’t grown up enough to provide a buffer against the spread of wildfires, and state-wide burning bans are common.

So the late snow has been a welcome sign, even if it’s made this transitional period between seasons difficult. Even if it perpetuates that kind of melancholic self-reflection that the stark bitterness of the Winter season creates: the white ground, gray skies, and the dour and dark, leafless trees all adding to it.

This transitory, liminal period of time has caused me to think about this space, Heathenry and Paganism, and my place within the circles of wider community. It’s been no secret that I’ve been dealing with a lot in my personal life – more, in fact, than I’ve really spoken about here – and things have gotten even more topsy-turvey for me (especially) in the past two months. Hard hits, let downs, things of that nature. Ultimately passing, yet nevertheless distracting.

It’s stopped me from being able to pay as much attention to this blog as I would otherwise like to.

My inspiration for writing has been low, lately. You can tell by how infrequently my posts have been since October. I attribute part of that to the level of writing I do. I err towards high-quality, in depth research, because that lets me keep my skills up. The downside is it takes a bit of time to produce something that I’m personally happy with.

And, I think, focusing heavily on that style of writing makes reading my work a bit inaccessible for some people. Consequently, I often feel that this space is a little too impersonal and sanitized. Oh, I periodically have written bits of creative exercises. But even my community critiques tend to be somewhat distanced, and I view them all as teachable moments. And while this blog was never intended to be a “slice of life” blog, maybe personalizing it a bit more would be beneficial.

I had an impressive year last year, in terms of reach and readership – for me, at least. I want to capitalize on that and do better than I did last year, reach more people, and engage with them more. Grow more. I think part of that is reaching out and humanizing Of Axe and Plough. At the very least it gives me opportunities to expand my reach and my writing, and I want to engage more in not only academic works, but in thoughtful projects and contemplations that I feel I often otherwise lack.

Recently, I have made the decision to pare down a lot of my extraneous engagements and limiting myself to a handful of Pagan projects. Most of it deals with leaving the drama of social media, save for a very few groups which I find value in. My focus is almost entirely on this blog, and my work with the Larhus Fyrnsida, and verbalizing my explorations of hearth cult, and other such interests that I’m exploring.

I don’t have much of a plan, and maybe this is my failing. A redesign maybe? An expansion to other social media sites? Who knows.

I’d like to hear thoughts from my readers. Am I wildly off base? Am I not? Inquiring minds want to know!

Categories: Blog Business, Community Thoughts, Generalist Paganism, It me, Thoughts

Blōstmfrēols: A Distinct Fyrnsidu Holiday

Marc

Posted on March 17, 2017

In developing a more comprehensive character to one’s religious identity, inspiration for practice can come readily from scraps of information or otherwise from the barest of inspiration. As a reconstructionist religion, Fyrnsidu is distinctly benefited from the use of various comparative methodologies in order to flesh itself out so that it does not remain in a static or otherwise stunted form. Incidents of holidays and a religious calendar are one such facet which are underrepresented in the historic record and must be worked around in order to craft a proper identity. The following is presented for practitioners of Fyrnsidu and the followers of the Larhus Fyrnsida to consider.

Bosworth-Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary includes a definition:

blōstm-frēols es; m.

A floral festival

Blōstmfrēols >>floralia<<.[1]

This definition is an Old English gloss for the Roman festival Floralia. This may hint at an early-Spring festival that was associated with that more ancient observance, and was thus suitable for a proper Old English gloss for the Latin term. It is known from the Anecdota Oxoniensia, the Old English Glosses, edited by Arthur S. Napier.

It is not unusual for an Old English gloss to exist for a corresponding Latin concept without proof of an existing practice. Questions necessarily surround the extent of such a commonality of practice between these two terms. But in this instance it may be reasonable to assume, with the prevalence of regional Spring festivals across the whole of Northern Europe that some measure of festival occurred within the Anglo-Saxon period that the scribes best associated with Floralia.

European folk traditions that take place in late-April and early-May are commonly known. Of these, to modern practitioner, “May Day” celebrations are perhaps the best known of these Spring festivals. It is common for contemporary Pagans to treat “May Day” as the archetypal spring festival honoring fertility, abundance and growth, given over to modern practice from a culturally syncretic Wiccan religious apparatus that combined Gaelic Beltane and traditional English folk practices.

Blōstmfrēols is of interest in the quest of establishing a unique holiday practice to enrich the practice of Fyrnsidu as distinctly Old English practices for Heathens are largely nonexistent. Blōstmfrēols, as a gloss of Floralia, gives us an insight into the nature of the period, and the position of that Roman holiday provides the foundations for a future construction of worship.

We are not alone in making these comparisons with Floralia, nor is this found only in Bosworth-Toller. Such a comparison had been previously made in the monograph Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning Lincolnshire, by Eliza Gutch and Mabel Peacock. Published in 1908, it was one of several printed volumes of collected folklore remnants at the time. Floralia is intimately associated with the practice of “going a’Maying”, an old custom observed by children on the 1st of May. Particularly, garlands of flowers were constructed that were adorned with dolls, explained by Gutch and Peacock as the chief doll “being representative of the goddess Flora, in the festival of the Roman Floralia” [2].

While it is untenable to assume that the survival of pre-Saxon Roman practices into modern memory, the comparison nevertheless lays an important groundwork for the exploration of what could constitute a development of a particularly Old English Heathen practice. Independent of Gaelicized-Wiccan observances, this practice can be explored through comparative study with the Floralia, in order to give more substance to what the writers of these glosses were describing.

Behind Blōstmfrēols: Floralia

As a festival celebrating the fertility and fecundity of the Spring, Floralia is the Roman festival for the goddess Flora and consisted of a festival post-dating the expansion of the original Flora cult in 238 BCE [3]. In the veneration of Flora, it consisted of hares and goats being released within the Circus Maximus and various seeds and beans scattered among the attending people gathered taking place on the 28th of April through the 3rd of May. Given the emphasis on fertility and the bloom of the Spring and dealing with the fructification of the earth and humanity both, it was functionally and undeniably a festival for the common folk [4].

Flora is an old Italic deity who is associated with both Ceres, as the agricultural goddess of fertility, and with Venus, as the goddess of love and fecundity [5]. She is nevertheless set apart from these two deities. She is not simply an “agrarian” deity in the same nature of Ceres, but deals specifically with the celebration of the Spring bloom of flowers. Historically, the temples of Ceres and Flora were established separately, and their respective holidays were likewise kept apart. Despite the apparent links between this holiday and the Cerealia, the celebration of Floralia-as-fertility festival was independent of celebration of agricultural cultivation

Floralia is representative of the fertility of the land through nonviolent means. The release of the hares and goats, themselves herbivorous animals, were not sacrificed. This positions Floralia against a bloodletting festival which would otherwise ensure the fertility of the land. It takes place at the end of April when the flowers and fields are beginning to bloom for much of the northern hemisphere. Much like Ēastre and Beltane, it would fall in the transitional period between April and May.

The festival of Floralia has been classified as a ‘propitiatory sacrifice’, or a piacula. This denotes a ritual action reserved for sacrifices that are designed specifically in order to ensure the continuation of or otherwise protect against some specific outcome. As much of a celebration of flowers and the Spring, it appears to have been a ritualistic safeguard to continue the natural order of spring growth.

Blōstmfrēols in Contemporary Practice

The literal definition of Blōstmfrēols as a “floral festival” in Bosworth-Toller places flowers, flowering plants, and fructification as the highest concern in this holiday. It celebrates the growth of those vibrant attractants and their importance within agriculture. What does this include? Flowers. Bees. Pollination. Life. It is more than a Spring festival, but one that actively worships the vibrant attractants which inevitably help produce the fruits and vegetables we as a society depend on, as well as the creatures that make that happen.

The question remains: How can one appreciate and celebrate this holiday if they so wish? What are ways that practitioners of Fyrnsidu and their hearths can potentially approach such a holiday? What would the requirements of ritual be?

It would perhaps be best to determine when the festivity should be. Floralia is positioned late in the month of April, sometime between April 28th and May 3rd. A similar positioning for Blōstmfrēols is absolutely appropriate, although individuals in different growing seasons are more than welcome to move it further ahead or behind, depending. For instance, late April is a good time for those in what is considered “hardiness zone 5”, when things are entering their bloom. Those that are in warmer climates further south may decide that close to Ēastre may be preferable.

It is a festival of both levity and solemnity, one that both celebrates flowers and new growth as well as seeks to ensure that the coming Spring and growing season are fruitful and prosperous. Given its roots in the non-violent Floralia, it is unsuitable to celebrate Blōstmfrēols with offerings of meat or game products, relying instead on wines, honey, oils, and other products of agricultural practices which are benefited by the proliferation of flowers and pollinators. Suitable sacrifices are poured out in libation or are otherwise “gifted back”, and coupled with votives (hares and goats in particular) and other offerings as deemed appropriate.

Though we do not have a comparative figure associated with Flora in Old English folklore, Ēastre provides a suitable focus for worship. She is honored from the full moon of Ēastremōnaþ to the end of Blōstmfrēols, and celebrated as the bringer of the Spring and the flowers. In this manner She is approached as the Goddess of flowers (Ēastre Blōstmbǣrende), of bees (Ēastre Bēomōder) and honey (Ēastre Hunigflōwende)[6].

Blōstmfrēols could then be seen as the end of the “Ēastre season”, the finished culmination of the honoring of the equinox, and the hope for the growth it should bring.

Compliments of the Sierra Club, such packets only help bee populations.

We can utilize later-period Lincolnshire folklore as an example for suitable actions, as well. The creation of flower garlands[7], especially utilizing native flowers to the area and grown at the appropriate time and adorned with ribbons and other festive decorations, is appropriate. Votive representations of either the hares or the goats, or of a divine figure placed within those garlands, can hang prominently throughout the period of the observance, only to be deposited on a body of water or buried in the soil at the end of the festival, as hearth practice entails.

Given the dire state of the bee population in the West, especially the United States where they suffer from Colony Collapse Disorder, the celebration and protection of pollinators is of paramount importance for our continued survival as a society. Seeding local types of wildflowers or maintaining a space conducive for their growth will only aid in the proliferation of the bounty which Blōstmfrēols ultimately seeks to ensure.

In Summary

It is highly unlikely that the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon tribes maintained a festival that was undeniably drawn from Roman practices, as a simple reading of the gloss would otherwise intimate. No matter the thoughts of folklorists and gloss scribes, it is simply unlikely to have happened.

It is, likewise, undeniable that Blōstmfrēols is a contemporary holiday that is built upon very ancient practices. There are no claims to antiquity in the present practice of the observance. Instead it takes the tradition of established Spring festivities and brings them to the fore for Fyrnsidu practice, incorporating a perspective of our world and employing it in a fundamentally unique way. This is vital in the performance and continuation of a modern religious identity, for if those holes which we have are not filled, we will remain in the mire of intellectualism and academic debate and not a living religious identity.

[1] Bosworth, Joseph, ed. Thomas Northcote Toller and Others, Comp. Sean Christ and Ondřej Tichý “An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online.” Blóstm-freóls. (Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, 21 Mar. 2010), Accessed: Web. 29 July 2016. http://www.bosworthtoller.com/040634. There is also another word given for Blōstmfrēols in Bosworth-Toller, “Blōstmgeld” which serves as an alternative. This word also is translated as “floralia”.

[2] Eliza Gutch and Mabel Peacock, County Folk-lore Vol. V., Printed Extracts No. VII: Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning Lincolnshire (London: Long Acre, 1908), pg. 200.

[3] W. Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic: An Introduction to the Study of the Religion of the Romans, (London: Macmillan and Co. LTD.), 1899, pg 91.

[4] Fowler, Roman Festivals, pg. 95.

[5] Fowler, Roman Festivals, pg. 92.

[6] This would syncretize Her with Flora, Chloris and Mellona, respectively, providing additional clues for an appropriate practice of the holiday period.

[7] Gutch and Peacock, Printed Folk-Lore, pg. 200. Traditional descriptions of these garlands include an “oval shape”, and were otherwise composed of cowslips, wood anemones, crab-blossom, wall-flowers, primroses, and daisies. Given the geographic conditions of modern Fyrnsidere, it is advised that one uses locally procured flowers.

Categories: Anglo-Saxon, Community Thoughts, Fyrnsidu, Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathenry, Larhus, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Regionalism, Super Fun Holiday Things, Theology, Thoughts

Eofores Holt Heorþ

Marc

Posted on January 31, 2017

The individual Heathen identity is often subsumed under group and communal identity. This is understandable, given the nature of human society, and how we collectively buld social bonds. If we are to take someone like Ken Dowden at his word in his book European Paganism: The Realities of Cult From Antiquity to the Middle Ages, as heathens our polytheistic practice by its very nature is unconsciously designed to encourage the growth of a form of greater-than-personal identity [1].

While I heartily disagree with this assessment of the native spirituality of these pre-Christian peoples, there is truth in the idea of the coalescing of identity within a larger group. As we as a society (especially American) progress from one of hyper individuality and a disillusionment with a pan-national idea, we’re engaging with and encouraged by the growth of tribal identity. In our society, we coalesce around hobbies, interests, and orientations which we derive our understanding of the world. Religion is, ultimately, tribal and concerned only with its constituent members. Pan-cultural universalist religion was a relatively late, relatively unique, development in the human idea of religion.

Other Heathens have written about the relative lack of individuality and individualism within Heathenry, that the worldview is inimical to the concept of the sole individual. Heathen religion is a communal religion, so they say. Larger traditions within Heathenry believe that divinity deals with the whole, and not the individual, and that the individual should nevertheless avoid attempting to engage with some facets of higher divinity. Others are content to ignore the personal for the communal, which has ultimately lead to a deficiency in home-based religious orientation.

They are, of course, free to do this and to prioritize their religion as they see fit. But it has never been something which I’ve approached as tenable to my understanding of self, my interaction with the wider community, and how I engage in my personal practice. And I identify that as one of the fundamental deficiencies of Heathenry as a religious movement.

We hear often that there is no such thing as “Solitary” practice within Heathenry, as a result of the pressures to engage in a wider group. “Go and do” is often uttered to interested neophytes and curious onlookers – go and find a kindred or tribal Heathen entity and see what they’re about. If you cannot, try to build one, no matter the relative experience (or lack thereof) that one may have. In some cases, this works well, and vibrant groups are founded that meet several times a year for ritual and rite, and otherwise make an effort in their locality.

In others, it fails abysmally. The location is not good, or the surrounding community are filled with people whom do not align with one’s politics, worldview, or what have you. These are all major considerations for the interpersonal relationships that are founded between people and while diversity of opinion is valued, some differences are insurmountable to a healthy working relationship. There are reasons why people stick to themselves. With concepts of intermingling luck, worth, and more importantly wyrd, it is particularly egregious to ask anyone to engage in a ritual relationship with relative strangers simply for the sake of “communal religion”.

With the discussion naturally focusing on the wider group, an individual tends to be glossed over. Ignoring the universally abhorrent quality of most published 101 level works, which might have some information about home-based worship, there is no true initiative in the maintenance of a home cult. Which is odd, considering the inverse importance that many Heathens place on their ancestors and local tutelary spirits over the higher gods. Some people even believe that there is such a thing as “too much gifting”, and that only a handful of times a year is suitable for their veneration and devotion.

While there are historic arguments for the development of individualism within the Western conscience (my Old English professor was aghast at the theory that some academics had that argued the idea of the “individual” did not occur until the Romance literature of the Medieval period), there is no argument that the individual household holds preeminence within archaic society. While the nations were supported by the tribes, the tribes were supported by the community, and most importantly, the community was established by a collection of households.

Our very understanding of the innangeard originates on the household first. This is the fundamental unit within Heathenry, and one that is vastly overlooked, to the detriment of the foundation of the whole religious outlook.

This brings us to the topic of this post: Eofores Holt Heorþ

I eschew the titles “Solitary” or “Unaffiliated” Heathen. I do not believe that community is the sole determining factor of “Heathen-ness”, and I have often found myself the pariah of various communities which I engage that espouse this view of Heathenry. By characterizing my practice consistently around my association with others, I lose myself, my family, and my gods, in the process. This is unacceptable to me.

Instead, I choose to embrace a term employed by the Larhus Fyrnsida (as of yet unpublished, so here’s a sneak peek): Frēosceatt Hæþen [2], or “Freehold Heathen”. My hearth is independent from a larger tribal body. I am an independent entity holding to Heathen ideals and practices. As the smallest unit of the innangeard is on the hearth, so is mine a unit, and I encourage individuals to look at it in this way.

In the honored tradition of the sacra privata of the Indo-European peoples, I am the familial priest of my hearth, and take the title: Þingere, or “intercessor”. As the sole polytheistic member of both my families, I keep my ancestors, and handle my gods on the behalf of them, any residing members of my family in my house, and tend the sacred space of my hearth and whichever tutelary deity is there.

To that end, to help assist the Larhus Fyrnsida (as member of the Larwitan) in the development, proliferation, and visibility of a hearth-centric Heathen practice, I take this time to formally announce the naming of my hearth, Eofores Holt Heorþ – Boar’s Wood Hearth. I officially join the ranks of other free hearths like Sundorwīc, Þunresfolc Heorþ, Weiß Alb Hearth, Eber-Blut Hearth, and many others.

The nature of my hearth will blend my domestic cultus into my worldview as established by Heathenry and Fyrnsidu. As hearth cult is mutable, it is a guide to be inspired by, not necessarily one to be followed in toto, and will naturally differ from even those who I am in close correspondence with.

Consider this a statement of intent, a peek of what is to come, and an apology for not having much to update since October. It’s been rough.

[1] Ken Dowden, European Paganism: The Realities of Cult From Antiquity to the Middle Ages, (London: Routledge, 2000), 291.

[2] The Larhus will be elaborating more on this in an official capacity.

Categories: Anglo-Saxon, Eofores Holt Heorþ, Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathenry, It me, Theology, Thoughts

Bīnaman: A Distinctly Fyrnsidere Approach to Divinity

Marc

Posted on October 12, 2016

I wrote a piece on Larhusian Fyrnsidu, and a unique perspective that we take towards Heathenry. While I traditionally share the pieces here first (see: Prayer in a Heathen Context), I opted not to for this page. But I am sharing it, and I hope that people enjoy it!

Lārhūs Fyrnsida

Author’s Note: This piece partially builds off of “Prayer in a Heathen Context” and “Prayer in a Fyrnsidu Context”, as a natural continuation of those practices within Fyrnsidu.

For practitioners of Fyrnsidu, or other Anglo-Saxon Heathen traditions, there exists a fundamental impasse in the understanding of divinity within strictly “Anglo-Saxon” religious perspectives. The problem is quite simple: the identifiable “pantheon” of Anglo-Saxon deities is beyond poorly represented in surviving literary works and materials. Outside of place-name analysis, the linguistic lineages such as the days of the week, and a few inclusions in authored works that survive – like Bede’s De Temporum Ratione – the actual identifiable names of deities are few and far between.

On the surface, this would not seem like much of a problem, until one thinks about the plethora of divinity that other tribal peoples would have access to. Instead, it generates the…

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Categories: Uncategorized

Anglo-Saxon Heathenry and Roman Polytheism

The Problem of Apples, Pt. II: Function

Marc

Posted on June 5, 2017

The Problem of Apples

Marc

Posted on June 3, 2017

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Marc

Posted on June 1, 2017

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Marc

Posted on May 29, 2017

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Marc

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Posted on April 12, 2017

From the Tool Shed – Transitions

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Posted on March 24, 2017

Blōstmfrēols: A Distinct Fyrnsidu Holiday

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Posted on March 17, 2017

Eofores Holt Heorþ

Marc

Posted on January 31, 2017

Bīnaman: A Distinctly Fyrnsidere Approach to Divinity

Marc

Posted on October 12, 2016