NEO-PAGAN MOVEMENT The Neo-Pagan movement in America consists almost without exception of white, middle-class Americans who have adopted a very new, almost wholly fictitious religion and then pride themselves on (a) being the most persecuted minority around, because hey, 9 million of "us" were burned during the witch persecutions, and (b) being the oldest religion around, because hey, "we" go back further than any of these monotheistic cults, including Judaism. Neo-Paganism IS a loosely associated and quarrelsome bundle of "traditions" all of which *without exception* are "revivals", reconstructions, idealizations or pure imaginings of (or based very loosely on) pre-Christian religions of various sorts in Europe, the Mediterranean region and (last and least) the Middle-East. "Wicca" itself is only a part of the Neo-Pagan movement. It first became widely known with the publication of Gerald B. Gardner's books in the mid-1950's. At the time, Gardner himself claimed that Witchcraft, or the Craft, was an actual survival (if tenuously) from Paleolithic religious traditions in Europe, which he happened to have stumbled across. This myth continued to be a foundation of Wiccan thought and was further promoted by other writers. However, Gardner's entire argument came to be questioned, most seriously by Aidan Kelly in his *Crafting the Art of Magic*. Doreen Valiente (one of Gardner's original initiates and the author of much of the Gardnerian liturgy, or Book of Shadows) succeeded in tracking down and verifying the existence of "Old Dorothy" Clutterbuck, the woman who Gardner said initiated him, thereby showing that there was, at least, *some* evidence for a coven that pre-existed Gardner's. Hard-liners now hold that Gerald Gardner made up EVERYTHING that is now thought of as modern Wicca from his own imagination and anthropological studies. More moderate scholars (and I mean Neo-Pagan scholars, not hostile outsiders) tend to the view that Gardner was initiated into a pre-existing group, but that he vastly rewrote and enriched its liturgy from his extensive knowledge, and then turned around and used what he'd added to demonstrate that "Witchcraft" is the original religion of early man worldwide. When I was doing some research for a course in Afro-Atlantic Religions, I had a minor epiphany that led me to suspect that Gardner added a LOT more details from African religions than anyone has been willing to look at up to now. Gardner visited West Africa twice doing research and was also very interested in Voudoun, and there are some striking parallels between Gardnerianism and West-African derived religions that are not found in European traditions. The Romantics in the 19th century rejected Christianity and found transcendent ecstasy in the grandeur of Nature. Some of these went further and revived, or spoke of reviving, archaic Pagan religions. Some of the occult lodges that flourished in the second half of the 19th century also had Pagan elements (Egyptian, Hinduism) as well as incorporating Eastern religions. The moderate point-of-view of Neo-Pagan history grants that "Old Dorothy's" coven may have had its origins with the late 19th century Romantics and occultists. They have Gardner to thank that they ever made it to a second generation; he describes the coven as elderly and languishing. But *there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever* for ANY survival of Paganism as a cohesive religious system in ANY way going back 2000 years or 12000 years or whatever the nonsense is. Although there is some claim made by "fam-trads" for magical/ritual practices privately passed down for generations and performed in the privacy of the home, these are never *religion*. Household practices that would be more accurately called pre-scientific (and I don't mean that negatively) than pre-Christian were preserved and passed down everywhere in Europe. It's a truism that Christianity adopted numerous Pagan holidays and festivals along with some of their observances (the non-sexual ones, anyway). Trouble is, there have been many "purges" of all of these "survivals", over the centuries, not only by the Church but also by scientific rationalism. I know at least one "fam-trad" writer who has traced his family background and is honest enough to admit that his family traditions probably originated with a colorful 19th century ancestor who participated in the Romantic revivals of Paganism and magic. Rhiannon Ryall's *West Country Wicca* is largely considered a hoax. The use of the term "Wicca" at all derives from a misreading or misunderstanding of an Anglo-Saxon root word that may or may not have anything whatsoever to do with the English word "witch". The original myth, of course, was that "wicca" came from a root meaning "wise" and so "witchcraft" meant "the craft of the wise". That one got thrown out the window some years back. The next version to come up was the interpretation of the Anglo-Saxon root as meaning something like "bend or twist" as in "wicker", and so Witches were people who could bemd or twist reality magically. That etymology was popular among those who theorized that European Witchcraft represented a survival of European shamanism. But that interpretation, too, is contested. And all along, writers like Isaac Bonewits and Aidan Kelly have been loudly objecting to the whole attempt to justify the word Witch, or its euphemism Wicca, as being benign terms that only evil Christians made derogatory. According to them, there is no historical record that "Witch" and any true etymological origin of the word EVER had a wholly positive meaning. It's now uncertain that the word "witch" ever derived from any root meaning wise, bend, or twist, has any relationship to the word "wicker" or the root "wicca", or was EVER used positively by anybody prior to Gerald Gardner. Neo-Pagans, however, adopted the word "Wicca" (along with a lot of quarreling about how to pronounce it, what it should refer to, whether to use an article -- "the Wicca" -- or not with it, etc ad nauseum) as a viable euphemism for the much, much more controversial "W word" -- Witch. The debates about whether to "reclaim" words like Witch and Pagan or avoid them as being too hard to explain, too easily misunderstood and too incendiary still rage. In practice, what people choose to call themselves has a LOT more to do with where they live, how "out" they are and who they're talking to than any considered philosophy. The word "Pagan" to describe Europeans who had not yet converted to Christianity (that is *always* what it has meant, sorry! Without that context it would never have been invented at all -- "pagan" and its Latin root "paganus" are NOT the same thing) was always, always *always* derogatory. Always. It didn't mean "country bumpkin" so much as "barbarian". Pagans, while conversion in Europe was still underway, were seen as fierce, violent, brutal, bloodthirsty, ignorant and dangerous. Paganism was banned in Rome in 391, which ended persecution of Christians and made Christianity compulsory in what remained of the crumbling Roman Empire. But the Paganism of Greece and Rome was an *urban* phenomenon, so it wasn't until the urban centers around the Mediterranean and Middle-East converted completely that "paganus", country-dweller, could take on a religious distinction. And by then, those "country dwellers" were not harmless, unenlightened "country bumpkins" but the waves of tribal invaders who were sweeping over Europe. No one would have worried about Forrest Gump! No, "paganism" was associated with ignorance, bloodthirsty-ness and devilish (literally) brutality. Eventually, the word "pagan" in English came to mean "lacking any religion", not believing in God, and indulging in the brutish, animalistic pleasures of violence and amoral sex. The *reclaiming* of the word Pagan, and Neo-Pagan, in the 1960's derives from the 19th century rejection of Christianity among Romantics and their nostalgic invocations of pre-Christian Golden Ages in archaic, classical societies. But modern Neo-Paganism (as opposed to the rise of Witchcraft and occultism) is strongly linked to the social movements of the 1960's, and so classical Paganism has always been seen as "patriarchal", as too close to the Christianity that grew in part from its taproot. It was Celtic Paganism that most gripped the imagination of Neo-Pagan reconstructionists. The wonderful thing about Celtic paganism, of course, is that we know so little about it that Celtic-trad Neo-Pagans can pretty much make up whatever they want, and they do. Celtic-trad Neo-Paganism is based largely on the Irish sagas and other Medieval materials, none of which pre-date complete Christianization and were all recorded by monks. This is padded out by creative imagining, wishful thinking and... channeling. Honest. Of what we CAN verify archeologically about Celtic religious practices, almost none is used by Neo-Pagans claiming to practice Celtic religion. I don't know any Neo-Pagans who dig shafts and throw votive offerings down them, or fill up springs and lakes with offerings, or have a Cult Of The Head (unless that was what Jeffrey Dahmer was doing! :-p ). Yet the archeological record shows that more than anything, Celtic religion was heavily sacrificial, what's called a "votive religion" (not necessarily blood sacrifice although that was a factor). Nor are any Neo-Pagans quite so ready to kill themselves for honor, thrill or sport as the ancient Celtic warriors appear to have been! No, Neo-Pagans tend to deftly extract those few elements from ancient Pagan religions that appeal to their thoroughly modern, humanistic, post-Christian, post-scientism, post-psychology culture and outlook. They adopt and heavily adapt a great deal more and leave the rest of what constituted *real* ancient Paganism blissfully untouched. Tney then fill out the whole package with their own political ideologies (feminist, environmental, gay, multi-cultural, racial purity... whatever), poetry, creative imaginings and ideals. Now, there's nothing actually WRONG with that. We're not the first generation to do this; it's happened for millenia. Ancient Paganism was intensely syncretistic; the "eclectic" modern Neo-Pagan really IS in the true spirit of the ancients. But there are a couple of problems inherent in not *recognizing* or admitting that this is what we're doing. First and foremost is Christian bashing. Yes, Neo-Pagans Christian-bash -- relentlessly, intensely, and fervently. I've gotten to where I just want to haul off and belt the next person I hear blabbering about "The Burning Times" and poor little persecuted us! The vast majority of Neo-Pagans adopt their religion as a reaction to their own upbringing. The amount of ridicule, sneering, and outright hatred directed at Christians and Christianity by Neo-Pagans is really awful -- and the worst part is, it's entirely a sham. Neo-Pagans read a couple of books, go to a couple of open circles, decide they're "really" Pagan and have been all their life, and suddenly they're a Persecuted Minority that's been beaten up on for 2000 years. What a heady feeling for white middle-class Americans who are used to being told that *they're* the Oppressors and nothing but an imperialistic bunch of worthless slime making life hell for "people of color" just by existing. No, no, now they're Neo-Pagans and it's those patriarchal *Christians* who are the *real* oppressors, look what they've been doing to "us"! There's got to be better reasons for being Neo-Pagan than just an excuse to usurp the moral high ground and suddenly be able to claim to be More Persecuted Than Thou. Second is whitewashing their own tradition. Individual Neo-Pagans and Wiccans DO believe in evil (just not Satan). They DO look at things in stark black and white terms -- Dylan, haven't you heard of "polarity"???? Some of the most dogmatic and rigid people I've ever met have been Neo-Pagans and Witches. Try crossing a Dianic on the subject of men sometime! Very few Neo-Pagans have been able to get past Protestant Christian morality where sex is concerned. Very few Neo-Pagans have true Pagan attitudes toward the body, sexuality, children, or for that matter blood sacrifice. Some of these attitudes we wouldn't WANT to have (we're not going back to exposing childen as a form of population control, which only stopped with Christianity -- and then not for moral reasons but because Christianity made the family paramount and wanted to increase its numbers as fast as possible), but in many other cases, I've been waiting 20 years for Neo-Pagans to lighten up and they're getting more conservative, if anything. So really, when I hear people describe "wicca" or Paganism in these smug, self-congratulatory terms, I really get impatient. Neo-Pagans need to be honest with themselves and think about how they're going to make their religious movement permanent, or it will always be an idle amusement for dilettantes. And third is sloppy scholarship -- fudging facts, ignoring history, applying ideological propaganda to the past, making things up, idealizing (or demonizing) ancient cultures, creating fake straw men out of offensive subjects (like Christianity or the witch persecutions) to shoot down with polemic, using invented etymologies for catch-words, dismissing serious research because of the scholar's religion, politics, ethnicity or gender, and so on. Neo-Pagans are often reluctant to admit that it is *impossible* to recreate or practice an ancient religion outside of its cultural context, and that we need to rejoice in the fact that we're doing something NEW, a product of OUR fin-de-siecle, the 1990's. Ancient cultures had plenty of disadvantages, and there was NEVER a time when women had it so good as they do right now, nor were magick-workers EVER regarded with other than suspicion and mistrust. We really need to resist the temptation to create mythical Golden Ages. Re: the "animism" question and just what religions are really "oldest". It's worth noting that the evolutionary or developmental concept of human religious beliefs has been entirely debunked by scholars. This originated in the 19th century and is represented best by James Frazer and *The Golden Bough*. The notion that there is a natural progression of religion from "primitive" (magical thinking, animism) through sophisticated (Christian, not to beat around the bush) was very popular for a number of decades but now has been abandoned by scholars. The evidence does not support it, it is seen as racist and ethno-centric, and we now recognise religious belief systems in human cultures to be much, much more complicated than simple linear progression culminating in abstract, philosophical monotheisms. The ascendency of Christianity and Islam in the world today has nothing to do with any sophistication or moral superiority of the religion, but a huge amount to do with the fact that each religion's teachings and structure encouraged massive enforced conversion and supported a ruthless hierarchical polity. Vyrdolak a career Neo-Pagan and deadly serious about it *************************************************************** "If ever there was in the world a warranted and proven history, it is that of vampires: nothing is lacking, official reports, testimonials of persons of standing, of surgeons, of clergymen, of judges; the judicial evidence is all-embracing." ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau ~ Vyrdolak vyrdolak@net1plus.com Visit the Real Vampires Home Page! http://www.net1plus.com/users/vyrdolak/realvamp.htm ***************************************************************