Somebody, *pages* back in the “Atheist Bus” thread, suggested that we move the Pagan v. Christian discussion to a different thread. So I’m starting this one. I stopped responding to Rus there because I realized I was not living by one of my tenets: “Never argue with a person whose opinion you do not respect.” It’s pretty clear that Rus does not respect my religion, and would respect my opinion of *his* religion only if I agreed with him. That realization caused me to lose the respect I had for him. So what’s the point of continuing to argue?
However, I realized I had some information about the subject of the discussion that I would like to share with folks here who do still respect my religion. Hence the new thread. And let’s make it clear at the outset that Pagans don’t recruit. This is totally in the spirit of clarification and adding some facts to the discussion. As they say in recovery circles, “take what you need and leave the rest.”
Rus has stated that he would read pagan writings from between 300 CE and 1800 CE – knowing full well that almost nothing exists. He also turned up his nose at Magliocco’s book “Witching Culture” as <sniff> not being original material. Interestingly, Magliocco’s whole first chapter is about the historical antecedents of Neo-Paganism. As some of you have noted, non-Christian mystery traditions have existed all around the world since approximately the dawn of time. Magliocco starts with the Classical period – Greece and Rome – which we all know about. She then moves on to Neoplatonism, developed by a group of late Classical authors who further developed Plato’s ideas about the fundamental oneness of the universe, and the ability to draw down the power of that oneness in a process called theurgy (hey, an SRD word!
). Neoplatonism experienced a resurgence during the Renaissance, Magliocco says, “when Italian magus and scholar Marsilio Ficino translated a number of Neoplatonic works, including the Corpus Hermeticum, attributed to Hermes Trismegistos, whom Renaissance magi erroneously believed to be a historical person living in ancient Egypt, around the time of Moses.” (p. 29)
She goes on to say that the Corpus Hermeticum, Chaldean Oracles, and teachings of the Neoplatonists were preserved during the Middle Ages by Byzantine and Islamic scholars, and re-entered Europe via the Crusades. “However,” she writes,
the concept of an ordered, regulated, and magical universe was common to many worldviews at the time, including the one prevalent in Europe before the Crusades. Bits of earlier lore were preserved in folk magical practices and beliefs, which acquired a veneer of Christianity as the new religion gained cultural and political dominance. Many magical cures which had previously called upon pagan deities now called instead upon Christian saints: for example, in Italy, the goddess Diana’s powers to heal epilepsy were gradually transferred during the Middle Ages to St. Valentine or St. Donato. (p. 30)
The years between 1100 CE and 1400 CE saw periodic resurgences of bits of this magical knowledge, mainly among the literati, since they were the only ones who could read the texts. Thanks to the Christian idea of good/evil dualism that infused the European worldview at that time, Medieval magicians were concerned about the danger of accidentally calling on demons; hence, Magliocco writes, the magicians developed complex rituals that had to be followed to the letter, which they wrote down in books called grimoires. Some things, however, such as love amulets and the like, didn’t require literacy to understand; they are what scholars now consider “folk” magic.
Magical traditions resurfaced again during the Renaissance. Ficino, whom I mentioned above as translator of the Corpus Hermeticum, actually translated these and other works for his patron, Cosimo de’ Medici. Ficino’s disciple Pico della Mirandola added elements of the Hebrew Kabbalah. “Magic,” she writes, “became a path to enlightenment, a way to develop human potential, a reflection of the emerging Renaissance emphasis on humanism.” (p. 31)
Magliocco says numerous magical works were written and published during the Reformation, among them “De occulta philosophia” by Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim in 1533. And here’s a factoid for ya: Queen Elizabeth I had a court astrologer named John Dee.
Of course, the new Protestant churches also clamped down on stuff like idolatry and popular entertainment. She says the “old religion” that Cromwell railed against was Catholicism, not paganism – but the church reformers attacked pagans, as well. She writes: “A connection, however ill-conceived, was formed in European, and especially British, thought between the practice of folk rituals and customs and ‘paganism.’” (p. 32) And of course that ascetic worldview migrated to America.Magic reared its head again during the Enlightenment, in new forms, with the creation of brotherhoods such as Freemasonry. George Washington and Ben Franklin, she writes, were Freemasons as well as Deists. (In fact, there is a Freemason Memorial in Alexandria, VA, which the girls and I have toured. It’s kind of kitschy but a lot of fun. And they have a pretty good-sized collection of George Washington memorabilia.) Also in the 1700s, we have the creation of the Welsh Gorsedd, or Assembly of Druids, an outgrowth of an earlier English secret society. The Gorsedd romanticized the Druids as protectors of the native Welsh from the Roman invasion, and attributed the construction of Stonehenge to them (erroneously, as it later turned out). But this organization can be considered an early precursor to Neopaganism.
In the Romantic period, philosophers including Jean Jacques Rousseau idealized European peasants, and the natives of conquered lands like America, as noble savages, living a purer, more authentic life. The German philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder took that idea and ran with it – and his work encouraged Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm to collect and codify their famous collection of fairy tales. The Neopagan belief that folktales can be mined for pre-Christian religious belief grows directly from this.
And now we’re up to the 1800s and Sir James Frazier, who wrote “The Golden Bough”. Which is way too late in history to pass Rus’s sniff test. But I’m not as interested in producing a book list of original sources for Rus as I am in explaining that it is, in fact, possible to trace the roots of Neopaganism through history. Paganism didn’t just disappear in 300 CE; it was preserved in Byzantium and Islamic lands; it fused with Neoplatonism and the Kabbalah in the Middle Ages; it turned up among the literati in the Renaissance; it got smacked down alongside Catholicism during the Reformation; it played a part in creating that notoriously pagan nation, the USA
; and it encouraged the Grimm brothers to collect fairy tales. It’s not only *not* dead, it’s been there all along.Thanks to those who have read this far. I appreciate your indulgence. I feel better now.
Wow. OK, I love being pagan, and even though I don't particularly enjoy being preached at (I *think* that was what he was trying to do there, not sure though... and though the comments weren't directed at me I still take slight umbridge at them) I still respect other faiths. I don't think the amount of years particularly matters, faithwise. Faith is a personal matter, so numbers don't mean much either. As far as I understand, it's the strength of faith that really means something. All the pagans I know - the real ones, not the sad TacoBell kids - seem to have pretty strong faith. Now, the Christians, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Jewmormons (there's only three, but still), and various other self-proclaimed holy rollers... well, really, how can you be truly devout if you use Mass as a time to balance your checkbook? If you go to church solely for the purpose of social standing, to rub elbows and be someone people know, to have your name mentioned in praise and thanks to the congregation? If you only want to use the symbol on your trebuchet? (...Jewmormons take AP physics, and they pass it with honors) I know there are a lot of devout people. But there are more hypocrites. Christianity is easy. Catholocism and Judaism... a little tougher. Jewmormons, aside from that one physics class, have it easy. I think it takes a bit more effort to be pagan, really. Look at it: we have nearly as many holidays as the Japanese nation - which has over 600, multiple holidays on the same day! We have weekly and monthly meetings if we're in a coven. We go out into nature whenever it tickles our fancy, and our fancy gets tickled pretty often. (That looks dirty. 
Ok, now time for us to rest, eh? 
It's like someone coming over to the pile of food I've mushed together with cornbread and various legumes and planting their little flag there and saying "Ooh, mine now!" and taking credit for the fact that I still want to eat that. 
Hmm, hungry posting is about the same as going into WalMart hungry... definitely a bad idea... 
Definitely I'm a solitary, tho as I said, I'm part of a Pagan study group and sometimes we do rituals together. Usually just at Samhain and Yule, tho. I know what you're saying about some covens, too. I once tried to explain to a friend that there are Wiccans who are looking for the positive-self-talk, New-Agey, support-group stuff (these are sometimes called "fluffy bunnies"), and then there are Wiccans who view it as a religion -- and that I was in the latter category while a mutual friend fell into the former.