I’m back after my brief summer hiatus, and readers will notice a few changes. For one thing, I’ve come out of hiding. You can access my Curriculum Vita by clicking on “About Me” in the right margin. I didn’t include my name earlier because, frankly, I didn’t know how some of my friends – especially the political ones – would react. And it’s not like I’m famous, or anything. I’ve done a few things in my time – gone to war, run for political office, published a book – but none of these modest achievements rated more than a passing dash of local notoriety. I’m not the product of any famous school of Shamanism or Druidry that might lend luster to my thoughts. Nor do I speak for any political faction ready to slime my critics. My views must stand or fall based on their intrinsic merit or lack thereof. My personal identity is irrelevant.
However, I recently joined the computer age by going on Facebook. This means that lots of folks will hear about my blog. Anonymity is now impossible, so I might as well make it clear that I’m happy to acknowledge my opinions.
Some who’re coming to this blog for the first time, might wonder what it means to be a Pagan. This isn’t one of the standard religious options in our country today, and it may sound weird and vaguely subversive. I don’t want to minimize the significance of choosing this spiritual path, but in terms of their everyday behavior and adherence to societal norms, most Pagans are the same as other Americans. We have regular jobs, we pay taxes, we serve in the military – we especially do that – we go to football games, we enjoy a cold beer, we shop at the mall, and we watch the fireworks on July Fourth. We don’t sacrifice virgins to Moloch or blight the crops with evil spells.
Here’s an internet article on Paganism.
Pagans come in many flavors. We’ve no Pope or General Council empowered to issue authoritative statements on what we’re supposed to believe. There’s no umbrella organization speaking for all of us, or even a majority. We include Wiccans, Heathens, Druids, Asatru, generic Pagans like me, and more, along with assorted subdivisions of each of those. I can testify concerning my own version of Paganism, but I can’t warrant that other Pagans will agree with me.
In fact, I can pretty well guarantee that plenty of them won’t.
Given the uncertainty about what a Pagan precisely is, it’s hard to say how many of them there are. The best round-number guesstimate for the number of Pagans in this country is over one million – and on the rise. It might be the fastest-growing religion in the United States today.
The somewhat amorphous and elastic nature of contemporary Paganism was one of the principal reasons I was attracted to it. I’m used to thinking for myself. I’d never be content to live under a religious structure in which someone else was telling me how to approach the source of ultimate meaning in the universe. As the poet says, “I am the captain of my soul,” and I’m not inclined to yield control to some supposedly righteous pastor or guru. I admit it’s possible to have too much flexibility – you can lose what’s distinctive about a particular spiritual outlook. Yet the ancient Pagans were never very dogmatic, and when Christian persecution drove the Pagan priests from their temples, survival of the religion became a matter of folk memories and adaptations, assisted by bits of lore gleaned from dusty manuscripts. Paganism has kept this grass-roots quality to the present day. I like that.
Despite these variations, there’s a central core to the Pagan paradigm. We take inspiration from the pre-Christian religions, mainly of Europe and the Mediterranean region. Evidently, we aren’t pure materialists. We believe there’s a supernatural, nonphysical component to the universe, an actual spiritual Power, which gives meaning and purpose to the whole, and which human beings can approach with appropriate prayer and ritual. In this, Pagans are in entire agreement with Christians, Muslims, and Jews. The differences are twofold: (1) whereas the Abrahamic religions honor only one supreme God, Pagans worship a multiplicity of Gods and Goddesses, and (2) our numerous Deities don’t live in a transcendent realm apart from the material world, but are intertwined with it. I’ll riff on those items in my next blog posting, and finish this with two observations.
First, I hope it’s clear that Paganism is a serious religion – it was good enough for Socrates and Aristotle, after all. It’s true that we put on distinctive garb when engaged in our sacred rites – but so do Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, imams, and rabbis. Pagans suppose that speaking certain words with sincerity and conviction can summon spiritual aid to our endeavors, and this can be derided as “magical thinking,” yet when Christians pray for world peace or the safe return of a loved one, they’re doing the same thing. And whether you venerate one God or a hundred, you’ve equally gone beyond what today’s science can prove.
Second, the purpose of this blog – about which I haven’t said anything here – is not to comment on spiritual matters per se, but to explore the implications of the Pagan world-view for politics. More on that anon.
Blessed be.
# # #