The issue of HISTORICAL ACCURACY in (modern) PAGANISM
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มิ.ย. 2024
- Thank you guys for watching this video! This week I discuss how historically accurate modern (norse) paganism is, how accurate it can possibly get and how important historical accuracy is for practitioners and for me personally. If you have anything to ask or say, let me know in the comments!
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Something random I recently learned-
Goodbye is a contraction & corruption of the phrase "God be with you," which is actually a common phrase among Jewish & Arabic peoples in the Holy Land & Arabian Peninsula that got adopted into all the Abrahamic religions.
Only examples we seem to have from Germanic/ Scandanavian culture that aren't related have no religious tie-in, at all- "Fare thee well" & "to our reunion," the second of which, some believe derived from a drinking toast.
@MrChristianDT Well yes, many languages use a God-related term for "goodbye", look at the Spanish adiós, French adieu or greek αντιο. However, in Romance language the word for God is derived from Dzeus, giving it a pagan origin after all.
Farewell is just related to traveling, you still see it in Dutch, where "varen" means something like sailing. Vaarwel in Dutch then literally means "sail well". The word "Ferry" in English is actually also related to this :)
I definitely agree. For Norse Paganism, as well as Celtic, there's a lot of information missing. That's why a lot of the older practises these days have to go through a recontructionist route. It's more about practicing in the spirit of the old religions, a harkening back to ancient times, even if it's not and can never be exactly the same.
It's the same with things like Wicca (though that's a bit different), but do we know that there was a witch cult with unbroken lines to antiquity? No, and the likelihood of there being one is not very likely at all. But, honestly, that doesn't really matter in the sense that it's still a legitimate path to take. Wiccans practise in the spirit of older pre-Christian religions, even if they have to add things from already existing occult and religious paths to fill in the gaps. Some of that for wicca was, at least ritually, high magick, for which The Golden Dawn and even Crowley were major inspirations. But it still retains an old world, pre-Christian feel to it.
I actually like reconstructionism better, for any Pagan path, in the sense that, especially if you're like me, a solitary practitioner, you're not beholden to dogma. You use what fits for you, and you don't have to cling onto the things that don't work for you, while still showing respect for where you pulled from. That's what I intend to do now that I'm getting back into things from almost a decade of inactivity.
I like how you said "practicing in the spirit of the old religions". That is exactly it, isn't it? Not practicing said religions per se, but taking as much inspiration from them as possible, sometimes not even actively trying, just deconstructing Christian/Abrahamic elements and ending up with something that could be a plausible earlier form.
Continuity is a funny thing, and people tend to look for patterns of continuity everywhere. And sure, some of the pagan beliefs have been able to keep themselves alive through folklore or taken up into Christianity, but no one big coherent whole. That's why there are so many places to look to for inspiration, and also so many gaps to fill.
And even occultism or mysticism, while basically practiced by people with a Christian background, still aims to find these hidden truths, elements that have somehow been lost in the Christian scriptures but were thought to exist "earlier", like Moses getting some secret extra wisdom from God while on mount Sinai.
It's fascinating what the lack of precise information and the need for there to be something more does. I completely understand that thirst for knowledge.
@@queerpagan I mean, the occultism hundreds of years ago was primarily practiced by Christian mystics. Even they were seeking something more authentic in spirit than they were getting just from Catholicism and later Protestantism. Actually, most of the occultism of years passed, while primarily practiced by Christians, drew heavily from Kabbalah, (Which itself is kind of a holdover from the pre-Judaic Hebrews, I think, though of course still practiced today and more or less intact), Kemeticism (Egyptian religious practices), Hellenism to an extent, and some more eastern practices. All of that has seeped down into various segments of modern Paganism, because most Pagan practices have needed some parts of some or all of those to fill in the gaps of our practices and knowledge.
I think, as far as authenticity goes, while none of us are practicing exactly as pre-Christians were, since as has been said, it's impossible with the knowledge we have, it gives us a new perspective of the term Neo-paganism. New Pagans, kind of picking up where our spiritual ancestors left off, taking what we have and honoring them, but with fresh eyes and a new perspective on spirituality and the world around us, while still honoring those whose shoulders we're standing on.
I think you're exactly right, it's a thirst for knowledge. Not only that, it's a search for authenticity, a search for a connection not only with the universe and nature, but with ourselves. Paganism has helped me break out of the box that Christianity had me in, and reconnect with my authentic self. I mean, not to say anything bad about Christians or the more progressive forms of Christianity, because people can connect with their authentic selves there too.
However, I think some of us found that in Christianity, while the basic message of Christ wasn't bad, it was limiting us spiritually, and especially those that were from a more evangelical, fundamentalist sect, was suffocating and trying to snuff out what made us, well us. Especially those of us that are queer, or otherwise would be considered "black sheep". As a queer person, I can feel free to express myself as a Pagan where I never could as a Christian.
Before I started to reconnect as a Pagan again, I went through a period as an atheist. I am still agnostic, but, it's a testament to how freeing Paganism was for me that, through the almost 10 years as an Atheist, I still identified as "culturally" Pagan, which made people a little confused. I kind of secretly enjoyed that confusion a little bit, but I always explained what I meant. It's nice to be able to reconnect with myself again.
@Kawamura2 I can definitely see myself in a lot of things you're mentioning. While I have said in this video that I have nothing against people who chose to practice Christianity, I have never felt at home in it, and have also gone from atheist to more of a modern pagan. I do see how Christianity brings people together in communities of like minded people, and I have found a similar feeling in the pagan community.
But going back to Occultism and Christian mysticism, of course those were heavily inspired by Kabbalah and Graeco-Egyptian religious elements, and even Islamic ones (like alchemy and astrology, but of course any links to Islam and the Arabic world are deliberately ignored). Religion is a fascinating concept, and combining elements from multiple religious sources is as "historically accurate" as one can get. I know that I can never be pagan in the same way people were before Christianity, and that is also not what I, and probably many more, are striving towards!
@@queerpagan Sorry for being long winded btw lol
@Kawamura2 oh don't worry about it! Everything you're saying is very interesting! This is exactly the type of comments/feedback I love getting on my videos, not just for myself, but also for watchers who happen to stumble into the comment section!
Living with people from other parts of the non-Christian world can give some insight into how to practise an alternative belief within the scope of what textual evidence we have, and appropriate respect. I put a statue of Thor and some amulets in the main entry of my home, something I've seen referenced in media about the Vikings and learned from Nepali residents during certain times of the year when they gave offerings during festivals to Shiva and Lakshmi, who I also honour during Shivaratri and Diwali. Syncretism was normal before Christianity and I think if done properly there is scope for Paganism to engage and learn about other beliefs without either deliberate appropriation or incorporating Christian practices they grew up with. Great video QP!
@@AmanoJyaku-ok1tw I couldn't agree more! Many scholars and practitioners alike do travel to places where non-Christian religions and worldviews are still in place in hope of learning something about how "pagan Europe" could have looked like. Of course, there are a lot of dangerous areas like cultural appropriation or seeing these studied cultures as "less developed" and therefore comparable to a time where Europeans were "less developed", but if looked at with the right mindset, willingness to learn and have your assumptions challenged, then looking at other non-Christian religions might definitely be useful for understanding both historical and modern paganism in the West.
@@queerpagan Agreed, there are I think strong connections in the Pagan tradition with Indo-European gods/diffusion with the Greek world that connect us more broadly, and definitely pagan practitioners have engaged with this as an alternative perspective (Shivaratri attracts quite a few worshippers from Europe I've heard). Sometimes I worry that a focus on restoring our own traditional cultures authentically, as impossible as that is, tends to appeal to supremacist notions of Europeans being distinctly tied to ethnicity and race in many pagan movements, even ones more closely adhering to Christian belief. Do you think a more syncretic approach that incorporates global diversity of belief might remove supremacist attraction to pagan movements?
@AmanoJyaku-ok1tw Oh for sure, diversity of belief and practice through syncretism would definitely put a halt to the interest of supremacists in paganism. That is why modern paganism should also be set up differently than pre-Christian paganism, since it can be assumed that religion, if we can even call those sets of beliefs "religion", seemed to be place-bound, where specific places had their own gods. This notion was unfortunately very popular in the rise of Germanic and Scandinavian nationalism in the 19th century, where connection to a pure and native homeland, and cleansing it from foreign (especially Judeo-Christian) elements were popular ideas.
By letting go of the ideologies that litetally led to the creation of Nazism, paganism could stop being attractive to people interested in those ideologies, and instead be more open to people from diverse backgrounds, willing to combine elements from different sources in their practice.
Unfortunately, for now that is not yet the case, and paganism, especially Norse or Germanic paganism keeps attracting white supremacists of all kinds. Again, it makes sense, since the renewed interest in Viking Age history and pre-Christian beliefs in Western Europe is directly linked to nationalist movements, but it's time to move past that and be interested in it for different, less right-wing reasons.
@@queerpagan Couldn't agree more. Thank you for sharing your expertise, look forward to more content like this and your experiences relating gender identity 🙂
I know that even some of the first generations of Native Americans trying to reclaim their religions had similar issues after having been forced into Christianity by the boarding schools- acting like they believed that they had to have a concept of absolute belief & religious exclusionism, or it wasn't a real religion & having an extremely squeamish relationship with the term God.
But, you also have the awkward fact that, before these religions had died, but after Christianity & Christian Missionaries were a well established thing for them on this continent, many Natives attempted to change their people's religions to add ideas from Christianity that they thought would slow or halt conversions because they saw the effect when Christians did them. There was a Lenape Shaman from Ohio who was known to travel from village to village & literally evangelize Algonquian myths & gather crowds to do liturgies/ sermons. Some cultures downplayed the roles of spirits other than the Creator & heightened the role of a punishment type afterlife & added weekly religious gatherings. A lot of them actually attempted to outlaw some of their more bizarre or upsetting ceremonies so they couldn't be used to demonize their people.
Yeah, Christianity caused a lot of harm wherever it went, both directly and indirectly. It's really sad to hear. But at this point, when most the pre-christian religions have died out, one almost has no choice but to look towards and use Christian structures, there is nothing else available, since like you said, Christianity had become the guideline for how a religion was supposed to look like.
I was raised Lutheran and chose paganism in early adulthood. It had more meaning for me. As a child, I was bothered that Christians had a whole book written millenia ago, yet they swear this "word of god" is unchangeable and eternal while they fight over whose "true interpretation" is really real. 🙄 Modern paganism gave me the space to define my own morals and ethics. I work with deities, rather than worship them as monoliths (hope that makes sense).
@@HLBear That makes a lot if sense! And it corresponds to how I view my own paganism! I was raised Roman Catholic, which is even more pompous and fake than protestantism if I may sau so myself. I'm sure Christianity can be helpful for some with providing a ready-made moral framework, but it is indeed much better to just be able to construct your own and not be dependent on something that is viewed as the one and only truth.
Do people who believe in this stuff always have to look so....... stereotypical?
@@Brianfailedgot2keepontruckin do you... know what a stereotype is...