This is a more in depth article on Paganism than the one titled "What is Paganism?" shown on the site contents. I found it at http://intranet.oxted.surrey.sch.uk/community/mc/paganism.htm
Paganism is a nature-based religion, with many paths (Wicca, or the Craft; Druidry; the Northern Tradition; shamanism, etc.). Pagans honour the ancient deities of the earth and celebrate the seasonal cycle of festivals. Most Pagans believe in reincarnation, magic, and the celebration of life. This includes a positive attitude to pleasure in all its forms. As the Goddess says, "All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals". This means that sexuality (in all its many and varied forms) is celebrated as a gift from the Gods. We also celebrate the beauty of the physical plane. Spirit is immanent in matter, and the universe is a conscious entity. The purpose of our existence is to enter into a relationship with the Universe. By being aware of it, we enable the Universe to be conscious of Itself. Before the Universe existed, there was the Unmanifest. Manifestation arose from the Unmanifest because opposite polarities within it differentiated themselves, and became manifest. (This mystical account of the origin of the Universe is similar to the quantum theory of the Big Bang, which was actually more of a series of little pops as particles winked in and out of existence, until eventually enough of them existed to start the Universe.) Our relationship with the divine is not one of self-abasement; rather we honour the divine as it is manifest in Nature and in other human beings. Each of us has a spark of the divine within us. In Nature, everything has a soul: animals, trees, rocks, mountains, rivers. It is just that the consciousness of other entities operates on a different "frequency" from our own, and we have to become attuned to them in order to perceive them. This process of attunement is part of the practice of magic. Magic is "the art of changing consciousness in conformity with Will" (that is, the higher or divine Will). It can include healing, consciousness-raising, visualisation, and spirit travel. The aim of magic is to make whole what is broken: that is, to reconnect matter and spirit. The ethical viewpoint of Paganism is that each person is responsible for their own actions, and must therefore consider the consequences of every act. This means that the desirability of a given action will be different under different circumstances, so there is no "Thou shalt not..." The ethic of Paganism is love, respect, and kinship with Nature. Pagans do not seek to make converts; Paganism as an attitude wells up from within the individual - it cannot be imposed from outside. Pagans believe in the equality of men and women, and express this by celebrating both the masculine and feminine aspects of the divine. Paganism tends to view the Universe in terms of the polarity of masculine and feminine, light and dark, and their creative interaction. Darkness does not equate to evil. The darkness is necessary for rest, growth, and regeneration. Death is not evil, but a necessary adjunct to life. If there was no death and dissolution, there could be no change or growth. The cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth is part of the interaction of the polarities. Suffering is also part of the process of growth; just as a tree is shaped by the wind, we are shaped by our experiences. It is only by experiencing suffering that we acquire sufficient depth to know the fulness of joy. It is then that the full light of consciousness dawns in us, and we achieve mystical oneness with the divine. Polytheism There seems to be a growing tendency among some sections of modern Paganism to refer to "the God" and "the Goddess" as if there was only one God and one Goddess. The source of this tendency apparently lies in the assertion of the mystery cults of the first and second centuries of our era that "all the Gods are one God and all the Goddesses are one Goddess". Before we take this statement at face value, however, we need to examine its historical context. The mystery cults came into being at a time when Gręco-Roman Paganism encountered the religions of the Near East: Mithraism, Egyptian mysteries, the worship of Saviour-gods. The Romans could see that their Paganism was similar in a number of ways to these other religions. Perhaps the early Christians had some influence on their way of thinking as well. Either way, the result was that they needed a synthesis of religious thought. Hence a large number of syncretic deities came into being (e.g. Serapis) or deities from other pantheons were modified to suit the tastes of their importers (e.g. Isis and Osiris, originally Aset and Ousir). The upshot of all this was the dilution of the idea of polytheism - if deities could be merged with each other, and Thor, Jupiter, Taranis, Perkunas, Zeus, were all the same deity, then the ultimate conclusion to the argument was that all the deities were the same. It is worth remembering, though, that this 'mapping' of one deity to another was not always possible. The Romans started it when they took over all the Etruscans' deities, then changed their characters quite drastically when they came into contact with the Greeks, to fit in with Greek mythology and astrology. For instance, Saturn was originally nothing like the Greek deity Cronos; he was married to Ops (who had a festival called the Opeconsiva), not Ceres (the Roman equivalent of Demeter). Mars was originally a god of agriculture, not of war, like his Greek counterpart Ares. The Romans continued to acquire deities as they expanded their empire. To their credit, they never persecuted another religion unless it was a threat to the State (Christians refused to participate in the cult of the Emperor, which was regarded as treasonable), and often venerated other cultures' deities. For example, Epona (the Gaulish horse goddess) was very popular with the Roman army, particularly the cavalry. However, it is worthwhile comparing this scenario with Hindu polytheism. According to the Hindus, their great multitude of deities are all expressions of the ultimate divine essence, which cannot be named or defined. Yet many Hindus have a personal relationship with a particular deity (e.g. Laxmi, Siva, Vishnu, Ganesh). Admittedly some of these are relatively monotheistic about their personal deity, regarding him (less often her) as the ruler of the universe, or its creator, but they do not deny the existence of the other deities. They also have many nature spirits, related to particular localities. If we look at European Paganism in this light, we can see that there are many similarities between the original "primal" Paganism and Hindu polytheism. There are local deities and spirits of place; nature spirits and elementals; and deities derived both from divine heroes and from natural forces. There is also a distinct tendency to regard the various types of religious belief as stages on the road to rational thought. In this world-view, the most irrational belief is seen as animism (the belief that everything has a spirit), followed by polytheism (the belief that some of these spirits are powerful divine beings), followed by monotheism (a belief in one god), followed by atheism (belief in no gods at all), which is seen as the most rational. This was in fact the premise underlying Frazer's The Golden Bough; he was attempting to show that all religious beliefs are linked, and evolved from one another, in order to support his view that all religion was irrational. Since we clearly do not subscribe to such a view, it seems strange that we should take on board Frazer's hierarchy of belief systems. This progression is in any case too simplistic; Frazer argues that the theriomorphic form of a deity often "progresses" into the human form. As Bob Stewart has shown in Celtic Gods, Celtic Goddesses, this is quite simply untrue - in many cases, the animal form of the deity came after the human form, and the animal was not worshipped as such, rather it symbolised the deity. Also, there are other forms of belief which do not fit into this hierarchical arrangement, e.g. pantheism (the belief that the divine is all-pervading) and humanism (atheism with ethics and love for humanity), or the worship of a specific pantheon (e.g. Norse, Celtic, Egyptian, Greek, etc.). Paganism and Wicca are predicated on the idea that we do not have beliefs, because we know by experience. (Those of you who think you know everything are annoying those of us who do!) In other words, we don't believe in anything unless and until we have experienced it for ourselves, and then we come up with a "working hypothesis" to explain it. This could easily be mistaken for a belief system, but there is a distinction. I believe that water consists of two hydrogen molecules and an oxygen molecule, because I have been given reliable scientific evidence to suggest that this is so. I have a working hypothesis that reincarnation happens, because certain subjective evidence suggests that this is the most likely explanation of flashback / spontaneous regression experiences. Therefore our working hypothesis to explain the experience of the numinous should be as close to experience as possible, not driven by dogma. My personal working hypothesis to explain my experience of the divine is polytheistic. In this scenario, the divine essence pervades the universe, and is more concentrated in some bits, giving rise to consciousness (both incarnate and discarnate entities, some of which are more powerful than others). Different kinds of consciousness may arise, and be transformed from one kind to another. (According to Jung, the whole universe is striving towards consciousness.) There seem to be two kinds of consciousness, that which dwells in linear space-time, and that which dwells in cyclical space-time (more traditionally known as "time" and "eternity"). We can become part of cyclical space-time briefly by spirit travel, astral projection, and the like. When we die, we become part of that reality. It is also possible to have as many deities and pantheons as you like in this system, as the local forms of various deities are different "frequencies" at which you can tune in to a divine being (as it were), but may also be individual entities in their own right. Personally, I like to pick and choose between different pantheons, taking various personal deities (the household gods, if you like). This may sound terribly eclectic, but it works. After all, the Craft is not about worship as far as I am concerned. To me, the word worship is irredeemably tainted by the idea of self-abasement (the "I am not worthy" school of thought). We honour the gods and celebrate the festivals and work magic, but we do not prostrate ourselves before the gods. Honouring the gods implies invoking them and becoming closer to them, not regarding them as completely and utterly beyond our reach. Although our consciousness is limited to time and space, yet we can aspire to the Domain of the Gods, the realms of the numinous, the Otherworld, Elfland, call it what you will. According to many schools of thought, there are two forms of religion: the lovers of god and the knowers of god (Jospeh Campbell, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space). The first is the devotional path, the second is the esoteric path. I feel that Paganism strikes a balance between these two paths; the magical side seeks to expand consciousness and be as competent as possible in all endeavours, whether spiritual or material, whilst the celebratory side seeks mystical union with Nature. Purely devotional paths (e.g. Krishna Consciousness, Christianity) tend to be rather monotheistic and not very intellectually challenging, whilst the more knowledge-based paths (e.g. Western Kabbalah, Buddhism) tend to be lacking in emotional content. Paganism tends to offer a synthesis of both approaches which satisfies both hemispheres of the brain and all aspects of consciousness. It follows from this that a monotheistic or duotheistic form of Paganism would be less satisfying in that the personal element would be removed from it - one cannot have household gods, familiar spirits, genii loci, etc. if there is only one God and one Goddess (even if they have many aspects). And, as Ronald Hutton has pointed out in Pagan religions of the ancient British Isles, there is no historical precedent for this "duotheism" (apart from the mystery religions, which were a bit dubious anyway). Polytheism, on the other hand, provides as many archetypal models of relationships and ways of being as you could wish for - and all the deities are REAL, not just ideas about the numinous, but genuine manifestations of the numinous. You can honour specific personal deities, as well as having a flexible working hypothesis of how the universe works. There are three types of deity within the polytheistic model: the deified hero, e.g. Odin, Hercules, Aradia, Asklepios; the personification of a natural force, e.g. Thor, Nut, Tefnut, Amaterasu; and the personification of an abstract concept, e.g. Nemesis, the Furies, Maat. Some deities are an amalgam of two or three of these types, e.g. Hecate. They may acquire power through the strength and complexity of belief in them, or they may acquire it from the phenomenon they represent. However, there is a definite personality associated with all these deities. As Granny Weatherwax would put it, witches don't believe in the gods, it would be like believing in the postman. by Y Aburrow |
