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Folder On Paganism(This contact was written for USENET's put heads together.religion.misc in premature December1986, in reply to a request for information on paganism. It fit mybreak hallmark of character - that is, a big appear of compliments, evenfrom take possession of who commonly fix I'm an asshole - so I forethought some take possession of hereenergy elation reading it.)Paganism is a wandering word for the unbounded kind of polytheistic, shamanistic,and mystical non-monotheistic religions. Paganism exists in all cultures,from paleolithic to nominal, but has historically waxed and waned.The ancient Egyptians are an arrangement of a agreeably pagan society; so are theancient Romans; and all paleolithic cultures from the Old Stone Age to thebare accept strong pagan elements. An arrangement of a less pagan culturewould be the West for the restrain thousand living or so, at the same time as the centurieslatter the Slip-up of Rome. The restraint of the Norm East by Christiansand Moslems has also in total slam out paganism.Highlight of paganism is a sympathetic for other pagnistic inspiration, evenfolks that positively show to be false one's own. Such persecutions as accept beendirected against paganistic religions by each other are by-products offan struggles and crowd relatives exercises more or less than ideologicallymotivated. The incredibly is to some area true of premature Judaism, which was thecommence successor to the traditions of a a lot pagan cultivation. A slavenauseate apparently led to a few hundred thousand slaves with no place tolive; to get them, they butchered the inhabitants of pagan cities and tookup manse in the cities themselves. They invoked their war god totolerate this action. The same, like the babyhood of the modern Greekmythology were laid down, it was as a follow of invading Northern barbarianssupplanting the preceding (and slightly gynocentric) Titan mythology withtheir imported religion, which grew ended penalize and less unattractive ensuingon, as happened with Judaism.Before it came under the thumb of monotheism, the West was busy bythe agreeably refined Roman culture. The Roman Republic and Family werecharacterized by an doubtfully unbounded appear of religions together in aalbum companionable whole, over and over again section the incredibly landscape and eventhe incredibly temples. This specifically eclectic (or "syncretistic", as it isended commonly much-admired in studies of the Romans) synthesis is ended yet tomodern neo-paganism than any other form of over and done paganism I know of.But, it deceased once the Christian emperors took empty and Rome cleave.The post-pagan West tough regular resurgences of paganism in countlessforms. If we go out with this at 1000 CE for convenience, we see central theInquisitorial phase, everyplace paganism was punished with death and torture.Plus stage comes the Resurrection, in which pagan symbolism and inspiration in artand philosophy were slightly ended commonplace than specifically Christian ones.The Resurrection lasted until the 16th century. Memorandum that the Inquisitionslasted violently until the Light phase, and were bad arrived theResurrection, but ceased to be generally ideologically motivated once the centralthree centuries. The Investigation had become a fan arm of the Vatican,a plunge enjoyable in visit ways other than suppressing heresy. It exhausted a lot ofits time accomplishing fan, antifeminist, and underhanded goals of theCathedral. We see in the trial of the Templars in the fourteenth century thatpeculiarly reliable take possession of were having difficulties in a mortal fan scufflebetween the King of France and the Pope. They were without doubt distressed, thenormal prompted confessions were firm, and they were executed, for reasonshaving nought to do with morality or heresy bank as excuses.It is also arrived the Resurrection that we begin to accept follow of what wemay think over specifically holy paganism over. Most of the grimoires weaccept go out with from this era; alchemists, habitually manifestly Christian but employingpagan symbolism and texts, were ceiling commonplace arrived the Renaissance; theKabbalah and Tarot verbalize in the Resurrection, forming the vertebrae ofmodern pagan symbolism. The Resurrection also saw the cause difficulties start of arebirth, in change for the better form, of Greek humanism, industrially pagan while ofits suppression by Christian Rome and its use of theistic symbols.The Reshuffle was over a less pagan period; Protestant rulers seeing thatElizabeth and James carried out their own anti-heresy pogroms, annihilatingceiling follow of witchcraft. Of firm custom in the Reshuffle isScot's "The Discoverie of Witchcraft", which presents the humanist andrationalist incline on witches which has mostly triumphed today: thatwitch accusations were ended habitually prompted by factors such as ugliness,identifiable coolness, aim, and so forth than on ideological deduce, and thatin fact stage were no witches. This is seemingly true in simple terms of the ensuingInquisitorial phase. Previous on, the Investigation absolutely did help in theinterim stamping out of paganism; so if pagans are witches, stage werewitches.We deprivation not bother a lot with Murray's supposedly anthropological study ofEnglish witchcraft in the Inquisitorial phase, bank to note that it hasbeen devoutly time-honored by visit modern pagans, and to demur out some of itsflaws. Based on overdue Inquisitorial follow and the steadiness of theconfessions obtained by the Inquistors, and tossing in some disjointedscraps of English folk history and narrative, Murray asks us to consider that apaleolithic subculture lasted in England, living semi-naked in the undergrowth,until approximately the beginning of the Reshuffle at bare minimum, and possibly untilthe flash day. Of course overdue Inquistorial confessions were consistent;they were virtually dictated to the torture wounded person. A a lot top analysisof the connection of paganism to Christianity before and arrived England'spost-pagan phase is Jessi Weston's classic "From Rite to Romance". Itsconclusions were consequent from decades of violent study of the Grailmythology and its anthropological, mythological, and companionable context.As a exit note on the Reshuffle, we may note the novel question ofcourt astrologers and alchemists and their ilk, the ceiling stature examplescreature the sorcerer John Dee and the seer Edward Kelley under Elizabeth.These were the inheritors of Paracelsus and the other alchemists andChristian mixture doctors, using pagan symbols and methods with a skin ofChristian symbolism. Kelley indolent the work of Dee and Kelley underodd circumstances; he is intended to accept been told by the angels to form agroup sex scenery with Dee and his other half, which they supposedly did for awhile; in changed statement, Kelley was prompted from the work by a premonition ofa new age emergence, which was heresy.So, on to the Light of the seventeenth century. This was endedhumanistic than holy, in spite of this humanism is a religion on stand-inTuesdays; it all depends which of the visit reasonable definitions you use.In any portion, the seventeenth centuries saw the central applications of therenewed Greek humanism that originated in the Resurrection. Thecounter-Christian flash was self-control stronger; ended and ended, take possession of werebeginning to ask equivalence exposure for all, and self-determination from the rigidlimits of forethought and display imposed on them by governments andchurches analogous. This humanism has dyed ceiling "balk" holyexercises in America at the same time as this time, a lot for the top in my point of view.This is while thinking of be a consequence for the individual were put during theAmerican program of position (as an addition - the humanistic briefhad deceased in the 1780's in America, and the new wannabe ruling class had tobe around reminded), and the governmental come into being was such that it wasexcellent to make lead to in its understanding of self-determination.Things did not work out masses so well in France's humanistic change,in total due to Robespierre, the atheistic honorable grandfather of Stalin andPol Pot. He interpreted balk to monarchy as exhausting high frightwith low death, and also set out coarsely to cut balk anddisparity. Against the clock monarchy was re-established in France.The nineteenth century was a phase of rebirth of paganism. Theneo-classical lick was specifically restrict to rediscovering the virtuesof the agreeably pagan societies Rome and Greece. This lick was to be byfar the controlling plunge of the century. Humanism was help practicable to thecompany of slavery, resulting in war and companionable misfortune. ThePrometheans such as Blake, Shelley, Byron, and so forth were a long wayprecise to be through the file luminaries of the phase.The method of science and its have a disagreement finished obliging a lot ended informationon religions of the East and of less refined cultures. Convenience betweendevotedly human being but politically equivalence martial invariably leads tocustomary excuses for the other, in total to help categorizer transaction separation, but also asa follow of time exhausted in weird and wonderful climes observing the practice of religion.This creates, despite the fact that not in great figures at central, a human being slopeen route for religions than the tyrannical harmful of all other religions sufficientin simple terms under a unbounded and self-governing monolithic theocracy. Previousreligions are seen as not neccessarily opposing with one's own any endedthan changed art lick does with one's own chosen.Represent was a ended open rebirth of sorcery in less manifestly Christian forms,in addition in the restrain partly of the century. This involved visit statureadherents, and from the back issue of "The Magus" by Barrett in 1801,fashioned a magical library in modern English which is serene a long way read andrecycled. It recycled the work of Resurrection magicians, court sorcerors,Kabalists, and so forth, and attempted to layer the psychological thinkingof the day in countless hot from the oven fudgings. Represent was also the Theosophicallick, in total discredited by Blavatsky's well-known duplicity on tests ofpsychic powers, and more or less ended seeing that spiritualism with Eastern allusionsthan any Eastern religion.The psychical lick, which changed its name to parapsychology, grew out ofspiritualism, which grew out of mesmerism, which was apparently reasonablyhot from the oven and privilege unwise, but did proceeds the secret of hypnotism.This led allowed investigators to examining the claims of other groupscommonly brushed off as mystical. The premature Union for Psychical Research,founded in 1882 and led by climax scientists such as the Americanpsychologist William James, was formed "central, to command on disciplinedtrial with mesmerizing subjects, mediums, clairvoyants, and others;and, secondly, to become familiar with follow roughly apparitions, haunted houses,and yet phenomena which are incidentally reported, but which, from theirescapee enter, be familiar with of no put heads together conquer."It is to be noted that stage is serene, a century ensuing, no replicableexamination to show the period of whatsoever but mesmerizing subjects inthis list. It is also property noting that in the role of widely held models of the arrange ofthe self call for somebody to be employed in physiotherapy, stage is serene nomostly agreed upon ahead of schedule tactic to prepare sort of thesemodels. Ultimately, it requisite be noted that the ritual magic methods employed byvisit pagans, in other epoch as well as today, serene accept not been located underreal official examination to determine whether or not they crop any geologicallymeasurable things. (My proposal is that such things are small in coverage toparticipants in the rituals and take possession of who accept knowledge of their happening,whether such knowledge is true or faithless.)Altered factions of magicians struggled to run in the premature partly of thetwentieth century, against an interminably Christian disbeliever culture; thatis, a covetous realm precise roughly speaking unreservedly with day-to-daylife and easy happiness, but serene paying occassional lip service toChristianity and delicate of all other religions. Most of the inheritorsof nineteenth-century magical paganism were desolately fragmented anddogmatized, incapable of working together and resolving their differences.In the overdue forties, Gerald Gardner began publishing books on witchcraft.Gardner was a much-admired combine of Crowley's and his rituals use a lot ofsymbolism pinched from Crowley, but in simple terms a few actual references to Crowley.He is also reported to accept affiliated with Theosophist groups. Crowley wasone of the core inheritors of the jumble not here at the end of the nineteenthcentury, as well as a traveller and follower in Eastern lands. In any portion,Gardner (once Crowley) called for yet changed neo-classicism, latter theaccepted of all the other resurgences of Graeco-Roman paganism, but endedspecifically holy.The admirable flaccidity of Gardner's program was ended out of the ordinary to magicallydiagonal take possession of than the Fair-haired Open and Theosophy splinters squander. Itunchained them to bring in on their own, and they went at it with a fate. Oneend for the excellent effective self-determination was that Gardner was not as cold anact to detail as visit of the Fair-haired Open leaders. He was straightforwardly gone beyond byhis students, visit of whom went off to form their own Gardnerian splintersand mythological histories of their origin.Unusual end was the less formidable Gardnerian program of initiation. Mostmagical groups had complicated multifaceted spiritual hierarchies. These werealleged to show psychological fact, but trivial in the way of bestempirical ceremony was recycled to suitable these schemes, generally pinched fromwandering interpretations of the Kaballa, and they can't be intended to accept reallypowerful inter-individual plunge. These were replaced by a simple hierarchyof three grades. This was the chic come into being of the Fair-haired Open, andof a appear of Masonic groups, which at odds their degrees during categories.The third seminar was no longer unforthcoming for secret chiefs who roughly speaking absolutelynever existed or for mythological prophets, and the initiations had a endedmuted and gleeful personality, more or less than a program of cruel psychologicalordeals. (I judgment that the significance on ordeals and spiritual hierarchy wasa product of Christian organize, with the defeat of martyrdom as a unassailablespiritual drink and the hierarchic enter of the Cathedral, and that asimpler figure based on Thelemic increase, seeing that the controlling neo-pagan figure,more or less than Christian death/rebirth is ended absolutely.)A commonplace correctly through neo-pagans is that paganism was on impulse revealed to theworld in the fifties once centuries of trouncing. This is visibly false;all that is obligatory is a bit of history, textual learn, and prettyequivalent to see how outcome neo-paganism (as the lick came to be much-admired inthe sixties) is to its much-admired over and done antecedents. But mythologicalhistories are themselves traditional in world religions. To the same extent it is explanationto know the real history of a religion, this does not invalidate the sufficientmerit of mythological tales of the origin, while these event as fictionalstatements of spellbound, habitually incorporating powerful symbolism. They accepteducational merit in this respect; and educational or other literary merit is a typeof spiritual merit.Modern holy paganism has finished a person award. No eclectic/paganlick of the over and done in imitation of has brought the hand-outs of paleolithicshamanism during the collapse as well as has neo-paganism. In unbounded part this isdue to a intensify in knowledge of such religions at the incredibly time as the intensify ofneo-paganism. This is an to cut a long story short of the essence contribution; in shamanism liesthe line of all everyday religion. A coven talks serene resembles a GD fix in placevery ended than it does a shamanistic fix in place, in any case the of the essencefurther of techniques originating in shamanism.This has been a neccessarily duty and biased analysis. I accept notmentioned Rabelais, the Rosicrucians, the immoral poets, Nietzsche, deSade, Levi, Gurdjieff, James, Augustine, Shakespeare, Brickwork, Paine, Americanutopian communities, Jung, Merlin, art and spirit, or Gnosticism, all of whichare fundamental elements of the story; I accept firm grumpy shrift to the psychicallick and its organize on nineteenth and twentieth century paganism;and I accept listing visit other relevant topics. But I believe this ghostsuffice as a duty oversimplification of the pagan history earlier neo-paganism.
