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Author Topic: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.  (Read 16012 times)

sionnachdearg

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #30 on: January 14, 2015, 09:56:48 pm »
Quote from: Darkstone;169320
Interesting idea, but I must concur with SunflowerP regarding the timeline issue.  There's simply no archaeological evidence to support the Norse reaching Ireland before the Gaels.  That said, there is definitely evidence of habitation of Ireland prior to the Gaelic Celts, and likely it was those people were the Tuatha De Danann (the Godhood of said people could be debated forever).

)

 
I appreciate your comments and understand that the recorded history of Viking attacks and general raiding of the British Isles is associated with a particular aspect of history but the people inhabiting what would later be identified as Norse. The point I am interested in is could the Fomorians refer to a people of a similar origin?  From what I have read there is archeological evidence of  connections between people of the Scandinavian origin and the people of Scotland and Ireland.
Metal composition of bronze age objects end up in Sweden  and there are deposits of Amber in Irish sites that show an old link between people of Scandinavia  and Ireland along northern Atlantic roots.  In the case of amber bead deposits  there is a pattern that includes Ireland, eastern England , and Scotland with the amber source from Sweden and Denmark.

Duald  Mac Firbis  and the author of Annals of Clonmacnois  in the 1600s make indications that the Fomorian’s and the Lochnachs both the light and the dark were connected. They make references that there were other documents available that we no longer have today that link the Fomorians.

From these and reading the mythological cycle, I find the idea that the Fomorians may have been the Lochnachs and the Tuatha Danann to be the people before the Celtic people came to Ireland to be consistent with the way I see the people of this literature.

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #31 on: January 15, 2015, 02:31:39 am »
Quote from: sionnachdearg;164379
The problem I have now is the definition used in this forum is so extensive that I find it hard to understand what it means to be pagan.

I've always felt that good definitions start with a history lesson. What most people mean when they say "Pagan" around these kinds of websites is broadly referred to in Pagan studies as the Contemporary or Modern Pagan new religious movement. Some refer to it as "Big P" Paganism, or Neopaganism. That last term is a bit contentious, for reasons I'll explain in a minute. I personally prefer Contemporary Paganism.

Ever since the Renaissance, there's been a fascination in Western culture with Antiquity and its very different worldview compared to that of mainstream thought in the Christian West. Collectively, these ancient ideas and beliefs, most especially in regards to polytheistic religion, was referred to as "paganism" from the Middle Ages onwards. This fascination with ancient paganism ebbed and flowed over the centuries, and contributed to occasional revivals of Mysticism within Judeo-Christianity in Europe, which took some cues from ancient Hellenistic philosophy and religion. Way down the line in the late 19th century, a serious movement began around the same time as a major revival of Western occultism, whose goal was to revive the beliefs and practices of ancient polytheistic cultures of Europe and the Near East. This was in part fed by Modernist literature, which had an almost obsessive fascination with the pagan roots of Western civilization. It was fed by leaps and bounds made in archaeology and anthropology, which uncovered new things about ancient civilizations and attempted to explain them in the context of comparative religion and cultural studies. It was fed by the aforementioned Occult revival. It was fed by the contemporaneous romantic cultural revivals in Scandinavia and the British Isles for Celtic and Norse history and folklore. It was a lot of things what led to the Pagan revival movement in the early 20th century. But come it did, in bits and pieces, until the 1950s.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, a few individuals in the British Isles led and popularized  new religious movements claiming to be continuations of ancient pagan religion. Not just inspired by it or a revival of it. An honest-to-gods continuation. This is where things like British Witchcraft and Gerald Gardner and Robert Cochrane came into play, as well as Ross Nichols and his Neo-Druid movement. They all kinda were in contact with each other, and fed off of each others' ideas, leading to some bitter rivalry here and there. But some of the main things they roughly agreed on was some kind of polytheistic, animistic, and/or pantheistic worldview, a belief in magic in the Western mysticism sense of the word, and in the power and sacredness of the natural world.
These things spread to the United States by the early and mid 1960s. Around the same time, a bunch of college students were getting inspired by science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as Postmodern philosophy, and started to drift towards a somewhat pantheistic, nature-oriented spirituality. These kinda intermeshed rather heavily in the late 1960s, forming what ended up being referred to as Neopaganism. A somewhat eclectic, multi-cultural, quasi-esoteric, and sometimes polytheistic new religious movement. The term "Neopagan" was coined by a couple different authors involved with the Pagan revival, around the early 1970s. It referenced the idea that Neopaganism was a new (neo-) foundation or continuation of ancient (paleo-) Pagan thought and practice.

But this term quickly became rather contentious. A growing number of people who were fellow-travellers of the Pagan revival in the 1960s disagreed with the eclectic approach most Neopagans had. They distanced themselves from the increasingly-obvious historical inaccuracies in Wicca's foundation narrative (as most Pagans eventually did anyway, in the 21st century). A lot of them took to a more culturally-specific form of revival, with a greater attention to historical detail, and a reduced emphasis on classically Western Occult ideas and imagery. These became the first Reconstructionists, most of whom are much more explicitly and hard-polytheistic than Neopagans. A lot of Recons today even reject the "Pagan" label entirely, disassociating themselves from mainstream eclectic Neopaganism as a whole. It was a very divisive split. Some groups tried--and succeeded--at forming a middle-road approach, such as ADF.
At the same time, you saw in the early 1970s a growth in Women's spirituality and radical Feminism, and a growth in Environmentalism, as major tentpoles in the Neopagan community. As time went on, Neopaganism became gradually very Goddess-centric and focused on Western magic traditions. But it dealt with a lot of internal division, too, beyond the general split from early Reconstructionists. Wicca, effectively the largest denomination within Neopaganism, dealt with rather bitter factionalism while it was--at the same time--becoming somewhat popular among teenagers and young women in the late 1980s onwards. And this Wicca-derived eclectic paganism, including what's referred to as Neo-Wicca, has since become the gateway to the contemporary Pagan community. Even the common media portrayal of Pagans is highly coloured by the mixed popularity and scorn Wicca attracted in the early 2000s. When people say "Neopaganism" in a more specific meaning, they usually are referring to this. An eclectic, nature- or earth-centred spirituality that may or may not be polytheistic, often delineated within itself by differing ritual structures.

So, what does it mean to be Pagan? Or pagan? Well, for the most part, it is for you to decide. It's a label primarily defined by self-identification with it. It's almost meaningless, then, isn't it? But it isn't--it still evokes certain mental images and ideas. Even if those are stereotypes and generalized patterns, there is still a popular conception (or misconception) as to what Paganism as a whole is. And for better or for worse, it usually refers to what I described as Neopaganism.
Now, I personally conceive of Contemporary Paganism as being much broader than Neopaganism. I think of it as comprising many historically related new religious movements that had, to one extent or another, some root in the "pagan" revival of the early 20th century. But I don't have a new person's perspective on it, or even the everyman's popular perspective. I'm a history kinda guy; I have the dusty old historian's approach to the subject. ;)

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #32 on: January 16, 2015, 02:04:36 am »
Quote from: Louisvillian;169351
I've always felt that good definitions start with a history lesson.


Well, maybe; sometimes usage history is relevant. But when that's the case, how good the definition will be depends heavily on how good the history lesson is. This one  isn't very.

Quote
This was in part fed by Modernist literature, which had an almost obsessive fascination with the pagan roots of Western civilization.


You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means... but I can't be certain, since you haven't yet responded to my request that you clarify your usage.

Quote
But this term quickly became rather contentious. A growing number of people who were fellow-travellers of the Pagan revival in the 1960s disagreed with the eclectic approach most Neopagans had....

It was a very divisive split. Some groups tried--and succeeded--at forming a middle-road approach, such as ADF.

At the same time, you saw in the early 1970s a growth in Women's spirituality and radical Feminism, and a growth in Environmentalism, as major tentpoles in the Neopagan community. As time went on, Neopaganism became gradually very Goddess-centric and focused on Western magic traditions. But it dealt with a lot of internal division, too, beyond the general split from early Reconstructionists.


This section appears to be placing the timing of the 'very divisive split' between mainstream neoPaganism and the folks who were developing reconstructionist methodology as occuring in the late '60s or early '70s. That might be an accidental side effect of you departing from what otherwise seems like a consecutive chronology, in which case my only complaint is that it's unclear. But if you intended to place it at that point in the chronology, I would love to see your sources, as this is something I haven't run across at all. The fractiousness in Pagandom in that time frame that I'm aware of is quite different:

Quote
Wicca, effectively the largest denomination within Neopaganism, dealt with rather bitter factionalism while it was--at the same time--becoming somewhat popular among teenagers and young women in the late 1980s onwards. And this Wicca-derived eclectic paganism, including what's referred to as Neo-Wicca, has since become the gateway to the contemporary Pagan community.


Um, no. The bitter factionalism within the Wiccan/Wicca-derived segment of Pagandom occurred in the '70s. It's often referred to as 'The Witch Wars', because the contentious word of the time was 'witch' - indeed, that's how the term 'Eclectic Wicca' came to be, originally; bootstrap eclectics would be told that they couldn't call themselves witches because they hadn't been initiated into the right trad, but no one raised that objection about Wicca. This wasn't just about trad witches vs people who bootstrapped from exoterically-available materials, though; 'not a real witch' was simply the pejorative of choice to disparage one's rivals.

This had subsided by the early '80s, replaced by a very strong desire to not tear apart our communities with vicious rivalry; by the late '80s, factionalism was at a low ebb, and community standards tended to discourage any critique of another person's practice.

Also... Wicca-derived (or more accurately, derived from Wicca and other forms of religious witchcraft, since several other strands were also influential) eclectic paganism has been the gateway since at least the early '70s; it wasn't something that 'became' the case since the late '80s.

Those are just a few of the points that stood out to me as being especially misleading; just because I didn't explicitly challenge any other bits doesn't necessarily mean I concur with them, just that they were less egregious. Many of the points I haven't addressed are not so much wrong as they are the historical equivalent of Not Even Wrong - for instance, the early objections to 'neoPagan' as a term had nothing to do with nascent reconstructionism (nor did either Bonewits or Zell, the two people to whom the coinage is attributed, intend it to imply continuity from paleo-paganism - indeed, Bonewits, who also coined 'paleopagan' and 'mesopagan', was clear that he intended his coinages to reflect the lack of direct continuity); most folks either found it kludgy and unesthetic, or objected because it indicated a lack of continuity. Nevertheless, you're correct that it was a contentious term right from the start, and correct in concept but not in chronology that (later) contention arose in a recon context for recon-related reasons.

Though there's quite a lot about the narrative that is reasonably accurate, there are far too many large and tiny points that are not; someone not already acquainted with movement history would be hard-pressed to even begin fact-checking on the smaller inaccuracies, so I can't even recommend it as a broad overview.

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #33 on: January 18, 2015, 11:15:48 pm »
Quote from: sionnachdearg;164379
I was brought up with Christian beliefs but over the years been dissatisfied and became interested in paganism and thus found this forum. The problem I have now is the definition used in this forum is so extensive that I find it hard to understand what it means to be pagan. Many of the posts suggest a clear desire not to define things, which I can understand, but that makes it harder for someone new to see if they can identify with paganism. There seems to be a wide range of beliefs from worshiping gods and goddesses (including mixing them from different cultures) to animistic to nature worship. Can anyone organize these seemingly different pathways to help me see which pathway I might Identify with?

 
Quote from: Ponder;168948
As to the divine feminine, I think some of that need (if there is such a need; there might but, but I'm not convinced it's universal) is sated by the Mother of God, the blessed Virgin Mary. Of course, Mary is a creature, at least in theory, but she is still the object of intense religious devotion, not just for Catholics, but for most Orthodox and not a few Protestant Christians. Functionally, it is tempting to call her a goddess. This is lacking in American 'evangelical' Christianity, but I don't think American evangelicals represent western Christendom.

I don't know what an imbalanced view of nature entails, because I don't know what you think a balanced view would be. I do know that many Christians in the west are concerned with stewardship of the environment, as they call it. Some Christians seem to disregard the environment just as a consequence of their faith in the power of big business and unrestrained capitalism. Personally I'm a social democrat, so I have little reason to feel that way.

'Suppression of curiosity' is the most puzzling thing for me. St Anselm of Canterbury, one of the most influential western Christian theologians, held to the motto fides quaerens intellectum - 'faith seeking understanding.' The first mind to conceive of the Big Bang, Georges Lemaître, was a Catholic priest. Hugely fruitful work in biblical studies and theology has been done by devout Christian scholars (Richard Hays, N.T. Wright, Brevard Childs, Karl Barth, Jürgen Moltmann, to name a few) - and many of those people are or were quite active in their churches. N.T. Wright is even a retired Anglican bishop. Others (Richard Swinburne, Peter Van Inwagen, Alvin Plantinga, et al.) have instead made strides in philosophy. Swinburne is a British Orthodox Christian. Plantinga is American and Reformed, and his denomination in particular, the Christian Reformed Church in North America, has something of a reputation for producing impressive Christian thinkers. The old Unitarians were often fierce and questioning rationalists, and their descendants, the Unitarian Universalist Assocation, are pretty much the opposite of curiosity-suppressing. On a broader level, whenever I think about 'curiosity' or 'innovation', the first thing that comes to mind is the emerging church. All of this is to say that 'suppression of curiosity' is not some sort of defining characteristic of western Christianity.

 
Hello, Ponder.  I wanted to say that I appreciate your comments and am not ignoring them.  I read over them carefully a couple of times, and, although I don't personally agree with everything you've said, it seems obvious to me that you're a person of intelligence and passion.  I have decided not to answer point-by-point, however, for two reasons.  First, I want to honor the fact that this is a beginner-friendly area, and I know that many people see conflicts (even if they're only conflicts of ideas and not persons) as off-putting.  Second, I felt that a point-by-point reply might digress too far from the intent of the original post.  It would be interesting, though, to discuss your points on a different board and/or under a different general heading.  Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy the forums!
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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #34 on: January 18, 2015, 11:25:03 pm »
Quote from: Aett of Cups;169543
First, I want to honor the fact that this is a beginner-friendly area, and I know that many people see conflicts (even if they're only conflicts of ideas and not persons) as off-putting.

 
It does no honor to what we mean by 'beginner-friendly', to redefine it to mean something else.

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #35 on: January 23, 2015, 08:51:47 pm »
Quote from: SunflowerP;169544
It does no honor to what we mean by 'beginner-friendly', to redefine it to mean something else.

Sunflower, TC Forum Staff

 
I'm not sure to whom you're talking.  I offered no definition at all - only a couple of observations.  If you don't want me here, just say so.
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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #36 on: January 25, 2015, 11:03:27 pm »
Quote from: Aett of Cups;169543
Hello, Ponder.  I wanted to say that I appreciate your comments and am not ignoring them.  I read over them carefully a couple of times, and, although I don't personally agree with everything you've said, it seems obvious to me that you're a person of intelligence and passion.  I have decided not to answer point-by-point, however, for two reasons.  First, I want to honor the fact that this is a beginner-friendly area, and I know that many people see conflicts (even if they're only conflicts of ideas and not persons) as off-putting.  Second, I felt that a point-by-point reply might digress too far from the intent of the original post.  It would be interesting, though, to discuss your points on a different board and/or under a different general heading.  Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy the forums!


Thank you for the input. It is hard starting in a forum but I do want to understand more about what I believe in through the interactions of other in the forum so I am working on a new thread to be placed out of the beginners section.

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #37 on: January 28, 2015, 08:36:44 am »
Quote from: SunflowerP;169425
but I can't be certain, since you haven't yet responded to my request that you clarify your usage

I didn't know you'd even asked in the first place. You don't need to bite my head off over it.

Quote
This section appears to be placing the timing of the 'very divisive split' between mainstream neoPaganism and the folks who were developing reconstructionist methodology as occuring in the late '60s or early '70s.

From what I've read (mainly Isaac Bonewits and Bil Linzie are my sources for this) it began around then. Didn't solidify until later, but it's in the 1970s that you see the first groups describing themselves as Reconstructionist or practising in a reconstructionist method. I didn't mean to say that the whole split happened all at once in that time period. Just that its roots can be found there.

As far as the 'witch wars' thing, I'd figured that was a phenomenon of the 1990s. At least, that's what someone described it as to me. They didn't imply that it was much earlier than that. I knew that there had always been some consternation over the use of the 'witch' terminology, but I was not aware that the conflict was mostly in the 1970s.

Quote
Also... Wicca-derived eclectic paganism has been the gateway since at least the early '70s; it wasn't something that 'became' the case since the late '80s.

I thought that was what I said. It had been for a while, it's just that the late 1980s saw another major wave of popular interest. Hence the 'boom' in "pop Wicca" and "pop paganism" books in the 1990s--at least as far as people here have said.

Most of what I've said in that post is based on things I've seen people mention and talk about on this site and several other paganism-centred websites.

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #38 on: January 30, 2015, 08:04:31 pm »
Quote from: sionnachdearg;170006
Thank you for the input. It is hard starting in a forum but I do want to understand more about what I believe in through the interactions of other in the forum so I am working on a new thread to be placed out of the beginners section.

 
That's great!  Thanks for your patience and understanding; they're greatly appreciated.
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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #39 on: January 31, 2015, 02:31:51 pm »
Quote from: Louisvillian;170131
I didn't know you'd even asked in the first place. You don't need to bite my head off over it.


From what I've read (mainly Isaac Bonewits and Bil Linzie are my sources for this) it began around then. Didn't solidify until later, but it's in the 1970s that you see the first groups describing themselves as Reconstructionist or practising in a reconstructionist method. I didn't mean to say that the whole split happened all at once in that time period. Just that its roots can be found there.

As far as the 'witch wars' thing, I'd figured that was a phenomenon of the 1990s. At least, that's what someone described it as to me. They didn't imply that it was much earlier than that. I knew that there had always been some consternation over the use of the 'witch' terminology, but I was not aware that the conflict was mostly in the 1970s.


I thought that was what I said. It had been for a while, it's just that the late 1980s saw another major wave of popular interest. Hence the 'boom' in "pop Wicca" and "pop paganism" books in the 1990s--at least as far as people here have said.

Most of what I've said in that post is based on things I've seen people mention and talk about on this site and several other paganism-centred websites.


I wonder if whether people agree on a time-line is effected by geography and experience . Even if one just goes by books, the authors will also be effected by their surrounds. I found myself agreeing with your summation in terms of what I had experienced ( I was deeply into the 'scene' during the 80's and 90's) . Popular literature and media 'witch' and 'pagan' portrayals are usually about 5 to 10 years behind what people are actually doing. But then these very books and portrayals get thrown into the mix (and unfortunately acquire spurious 'authenticity') and muddy the 'historical' picture even more. I would put the biggest Western historical push square in the 'Romantic' Era in terms of popular influences. The resulting interest that manifested itself from the huge surge in literature, music, visual art and even the historian's interpretive works  seem to me to have pointed the direction into which so many ideas  on modern 'paganism' related tropes and identities led.
But again, that's *my* opinion based on *my* choice of research and later on, based on *my* experience of the scene around me.
I'm pretty sure it varies from person to person and place to place.

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #40 on: January 31, 2015, 08:44:32 pm »
Quote from: carillion;170258
I wonder if whether people agree on a time-line is effected by geography and experience.


That's definitely true - it's one of the first things I had to learn to take into account when I began seriously studying movement history many years ago, that the history/timeline in any locale is unique, and no single one of them is representative of the movement as a whole.

Quote
I would put the biggest Western historical push square in the 'Romantic' Era in terms of popular influences. The resulting interest that manifested itself from the huge surge in literature, music, visual art and even the historian's interpretive works  seem to me to have pointed the direction into which so many ideas  on modern 'paganism' related tropes and identities led.

 
That would be part of why I questioned Louisvillian's use of 'Modernism' - it seems to me that this really elided the influence of Romanticism. That said - and once he clarified (in the other thread I linked to) just how he uses the word in pagan contexts - the immediate result of Romanticism was, for the most part, essentially secular; the magico-religious impact didn't occur until the latter part of the 19th century, and was driven not only by the Romantic influence but by, as he indicated, the Modernist perspective on the humanities.

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #41 on: February 19, 2015, 11:36:41 am »
Quote from: SunflowerP;170275
T


 
That would be part of why I questioned Louisvillian's use of 'Modernism' - it seems to me that this really elided the influence of Romanticism. That said - and once he clarified (in the other thread I linked to) just how he uses the word in pagan contexts - the immediate result of Romanticism was, for the most part, essentially secular; the magico-religious impact didn't occur until the latter part of the 19th century, and was driven not only by the Romantic influence but by, as he indicated, the Modernist perspective on the humanities.

Sunflower

 
When you use the romanticism influence what are you referring to and what influence did it have on the development of pagan ideas of today?

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #42 on: February 20, 2015, 04:54:20 am »
Quote from: sionnachdearg;171128
When you use the romanticism influence what are you referring to and what influence did it have on the development of pagan ideas of today?

 
The Wikipedia article on the subject is an adequate overview of Romanticism.

Its influence on modern paganism was enormous - basically, as has already been said via Louisvillian's, Carillion's, and my posts, Romanticism as filtered through the Modernist perspective is what became the neoPagan movement; without Romanticism and Modernism, the movement likely would not have occurred, or not in an identifiably-similar form.

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sionnachdearg

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #43 on: May 06, 2015, 12:34:33 am »
Quote from: SunflowerP;171184
The Wikipedia article on the subject is an adequate overview of Romanticism.

Its influence on modern paganism was enormous - basically, as has already been said via Louisvillian's, Carillion's, and my posts, Romanticism as filtered through the Modernist perspective is what became the neoPagan movement; without Romanticism and Modernism, the movement likely would not have occurred, or not in an identifiably-similar form.

Sunflower

 
Could the Romantic poets have sources that influenced them that are no longer apparent to us as we look back to why they wrote what they did? We see rituals and customs slowly die out over time which may have been available to them during their time. They may have been oral traditions still alive at their time that were no longer present as the world became more convinced of their were rational explanations to everything especially as the influence of scientific reasoning became more influential. I do not want to say their embellishments did not distort their writings but can we not still draw understandings from their writings?

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Re: Trying to understand what it means to be a pagan.
« Reply #44 on: May 06, 2015, 05:43:36 pm »
Quote from: sionnachdearg;174661
Could the Romantic poets have sources that influenced them that are no longer apparent to us as we look back to why they wrote what they did? We see rituals and customs slowly die out over time which may have been available to them during their time. They may have been oral traditions still alive at their time that were no longer present as the world became more convinced of their were rational explanations to everything especially as the influence of scientific reasoning became more influential. I do not want to say their embellishments did not distort their writings but can we not still draw understandings from their writings?


It wasn't that long ago so that we would not have available to us pretty much all of the sources and influences that surrounded them. Even oral traditions (actually, *especially* oral traditions for some writers and artists as this was a time of romanticising and recording 'rustic' and pastoral practises and beliefs) are available to us.
If one is interested in an author, just look up the books that they mention or were published in their times. Even newspapers and such magazines as are still preserved are great sources of such information. Travel books were much written and much in demand so one finds these great , sprawling Baedekers , very wordy and full of descriptions of places and cultures . The best place to start is a good autobiography or biography of the author one is interested in and find out the influences on their lives of where they went and what was happening around them.

It's a deep and fascinating rabbit hole and one that will well reward anyone who asks themselves "I wonder what ________ meant when they wrote that?"

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