The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

To some extent, I think that recon traditions attract people who are very interested in religion, but may also have a relatively low level of comfort with or trust in religious experience in comparison to other contemporary pagan traditions.

Ooh, that's a nice point.  I think there's got to be some of that in there.

Me, I think 99% of most modern pagan poetry is fucking terrible and want quality liturgy.  (That is the flip comment.  But it is also true.)

I think to some extent it is also a method of dealing with any feelings of self-doubt or shame that arise for a person who has difficulty reconciling their self-image as a "rational" or "normal" person with their embrace of a fringe religious tradition. "Yes, I worship Thor, but I'm not crazy, look at all these fucking books".

Ha!  And I suspect there's also a certain amount of - gods know I've run into plenty of religious discussions that treat veneration of any of the polytheistic gods as just the sort of obviously laughable thing that nobody actually does as anything other than a lark, so I can see that being a sort of armour as well, from that sort of casual dismissal.  "I am doing this seriously for serious."

Thankfully, I'm not a hard reconstructionist, so it doesn't actually matter to me that there was a pre-Christian cult for Hel or not. I'll honor her if I see it fit to do so. Remember, not everyone uses recon methods in the same way you do, so the decision is not always as "easy" as you perceive them to be.

Just Reconstructionist, not hard or soft that's for boiled eggs.

The problem lies with the "fleshing out"; in a way Reconstructionism is a reaction against the myriad websites and neopagan authors that have/are flooding our community with their pseudo-history, outdated scholarship dressed up as fact, their own personal UPG and any other gimmick that sells books to the unwary. Most of the "fleshing out" I've seen revolves around regurgitating the gooble found in said books or importing aspects of modern mythology,  such as Wicca as if it were a general template of how our polytheistic ancestors worshipped; common example using the Wheel of the Year and plugging in Norse god/esses.

As I've said before, I have no issue with UPG, remythologising or modern cults but I have little forbearance with folks who try to tell me that its ancient lore, use questionable sources, can't be bothered reading the original texts or beat me about the head for being a Reconstructionist.

I agree there is a lot of really poorly researched, ahem, crap out there, and I also strongly agree that the presentation of information which has no historical basis as a true statements (or worse requirements of modern practitioners) is a significant problem. Reconstuctionist methodology has been an excellent counter to this. To put it another way, if someone wants to worship Hel, I am fine with that. If someone wants to claim that Hel is a deity with a well-attested pre-Christian cult, I would disagree. If someone were to argue that worshipping Hel is a requirement of modern Heathens, I would be less than appreciative of that statement.


 

Of course its going to exist in a different context!  I think you misunderstand the point of Reconstructionisim and are possibly confusing it with historical reenactors. Reconstructionism is a methodology used to investige sources, with the end product being an understanding of a specific worldview, which is then applied to our modern lives. Attempting to reproduce social structures wholesale from ancient and medieval societies and import them into our modern world is a fairly ridiculous notion.

I understand that reconstructionism is not an attempt to recreate ancient cultures exactly. Given this however, it is not always exactly clear what someone trying to incorporate a Heathen worldview into their lives should do in many situations. Is it "more Heathen" to worship as an individual (some recons would suggest that at least major deities were not worshipped in such a way) or as part of a group of people with whom you only share a theological outlook (also not something that historical Heathens would do). My point is simply that there is not always a clear answer as to how a historical Heathen mindset would be incorporated into a modern life.

"This is a perfectly reasonable way for Heathens to organize themselves. It also has far more in common with the way early Christian communities were organized than historical Heathen ones".

Huh? Please explain.

Historical Heathens, as you noted, "had no word for their belief system, it pervaded every aspect of their lives and society". Their identity was passed to them through their families/tribe. Early Christians often created new tight-knit communities in social situations where they were a distinct minority, and their communities were based off of common theological ideas than traditional family relationships. Given that today, almost no one inherits Heathenry from their family, and people are often creating new Heathen communities based on a shared theological outlook, I would say the formation of modern Heathen communities is structurally more similar to early Christian groups than historical Heathen ones.

 

Poor logic, disappointing. There is a robust corpus of lore and scholarship in regards to Odin and Freya, which closely associates these deities with death in the Norse tradition. Hel is a medieval personification,  likely the product of Snorri’s Christian worldview. Mentions of Hel are rare and even Snorri does not overly elaborate "her" persona, the cult of Hel is modern.

My argument is not that the cult of Hel is pre-christian, my argument is that there are likely (from a polytheistic viewpoint) Gods associated with death. I think that some of these Gods may choose to interact with people through the name and associations Hel developed. I don't think the cult of Hel is ancient. But nor do I think it is invalid as a modern practice.

 

 

 1. Heathens had no word for their belief system, it pervaded every aspect of their lives and society. So not a religion per se but a worldview, people with a Christian background often get that confused.

That is not relevant to the point that information about these "worldviews", if you prefer, cannot be fully understood.

 2.  Yes, that is the point of Reconstructionisim, to bring out that which can be incorporated into the modern world from our Heathen ancestors, to understand their worldview and apply it to modern contexts.

My point is that even perfect knowledge of how historical Heathens practiced their religion would still involve a great deal that could not be effectively of relevantly translated to the modern world.


 

   3. Bring down a religion through the family? I think you are oversimplifying polytheism and conflating ancient with modern neopagan cults. Group identity? Which group? I belong to many groups as did our Heathen ancestors.....the warband, the tribe, the family, family cults, local cults, tribal cults, artisan groups etc. etc.

"Separating myself from my tribe"?  

    1. You are not my tribe. My kin, friends and local community are my tribe (and that is an example of a Heathen worldview in a modern context) .
     2. Historically, pan Heathenry did not exist, so there was never one Heathen tribe based on one belief system, that is a Christian notion.

If your family is a) not Heathen, and b) practices a religion which is important to their identity as a family, than a decision to become a Heathen will involve, to some extent, a rejection of a part of your group's identity. (Hence, "leaving your tribe").That is not a very Heathen thing to do. Which doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done, just that there are going to be contradictions no matter what you do.

I honestly don't see a modern cult of Hel as more of a divergence from a historical Heathen worldview than the process of rejecting one's family's (most likely Christian) religion, or the creation of new communities based on theological outlook.

I'm having a hard time figuring out why anyone would become a modern pagan of any flavour if they had not experienced epiphany "woo". But I'm sensing that it is a cheap shot at Reconstructionists.

Personally, I think there's is a little more to being a Heathen than forging a cohesive social group, you can do that by joining a sport club.

While I do feel that some reconstructionists can be overly dismissive of other people's spiritual experiences, in this specific case, it was a response to Darkhawk's anecdote about the former-Heathen turned Christian. My point was that this is actually quite in keeping with a "Heathen worldview", and also an example of a situation where an emphasis on social rather than the religious elements of the culture being studied can lead to a rather self-negating practice.

That being said, I very much consider myself a person who has a lower level of acceptance for overt religiosity in comparison to many (most???) contemporary pagans. One of the appeals of reconstructionist methodology to me is that it tends to marginalize many of the things in contemporary paganism which just don't "click" for me.

I am not against reconstruction. I've just seen it used many times to either obscure really questionable ideas (I'm not really a big fan of the whole "Heathen worldview" trope), or to dismissively enforce boundaries that have more to do with a persons' social/aesthetic choices than with the actual religion being studied. Due to that, I'm not as enamoured with it as much as I once was.

What, not even fried eggs?

I'll have you know my polytheism is scrambled, thank you very much

More seriously, I certainly see the hard/soft distinction used to differentiate other 'ranged' positions (f'ex, 'hard' atheism and 'soft' atheism, generally expressed respectively as 'there is no God' and 'there is no evidence indicating the existence of God').

 
Designating ranged positions is useful to avoid oversimplification, which often leads to misunderstandings and mischaracterization. It's usually best to be as clear as possible about religion, whether recon or not.

Also, I think the view of deity depends on the reconstruction/religion??? It's never as simple as "all ___s believe ____."

(I mean.  I've seen Hellenics do this.  And unlike other things, it is utterly fucking undeniable that Hellenic religion included the possibility of a number of explicit mystical traditions.  But no!  Living people cooties!  Nobody gets mysteries anymore, because they are not explicitly preserved in THE LORE, and obviously the gods wouldn't stoop to handing out new ones!  Christ on a cracker with cream cheese and chives.)

So Im a little confused here.

Are you saying that modern cults based on individual and group revelation (of which there are many) should be seen as a continuation of specific pre Christian mystery cults?

Or, are you saying you don't think Reconstructionists have UPG? In a way Reconstructionism is a specific cult within Heathenry based on group UPG or a certain way of seeing the wights and honouring them. Reconstructionists come from all backgrounds, many have been involved in the pagan community for a long time and have had a variety of religious experiences based on UPG.

Or, are you saying Reconstructionists don't accept other peoples UPG? UPG is individual if its accepted by others it becomes group UPG and a cult is born. It puzzles me why it should be so important to you that Reconstructionists accept everyones UPG as fact. Personally, I'm happy to be challenged and informed it gives you new ways of looking at things, of approaching the wights and appreciating the culture of our ancestors.

The other issue is, would you want to be involved in a pre Christian mystery cult?  Given from what little is known about them they included aspects that are unacceptable to our modern sensibilities,  such as  ritual prostitution, brutality, strict hierarchies,  life long virginity and blood sacrifice.

So Im a little confused here.

Are you saying that modern cults based on individual and group revelation (of which there are many) should be seen as a continuation of specific pre Christian mystery cults?

Or, are you saying you don't think Reconstructionists have UPG? In a way Reconstructionism is a specific cult within Heathenry based on group UPG or a certain way of seeing the wights and honouring them. Reconstructionists come from all backgrounds, many have been involved in the pagan community for a long time and have had a variety of religious experiences based on UPG.

Or, are you saying Reconstructionists don't accept other peoples UPG? UPG is individual if its accepted by others it becomes group UPG and a cult is born. It puzzles me why it should be so important to you that Reconstructionists accept everyones UPG as fact. Personally, I'm happy to be challenged and informed it gives you new ways of looking at things, of approaching the wights and appreciating the culture of our ancestors.

The other issue is, would you want to be involved in a pre Christian mystery cult?  Given from what little is known about them they included aspects that are unacceptable to our modern sensibilities,  such as  ritual prostitution, brutality, strict hierarchies,  life long virginity and blood sacrifice.

 
None of this has anything to do with the words I typed.

To repeat myself:

I have met many, many reconstructionists who are of the opinion that there can be no mystery work in modern reconstructionism because the ancient cultus is not recorded and thus, obviously, cannot be reconstructed.

Those people are actively hostile to the concept of individual and group revelation and argue that if one has such things one is thus, by definition, not a reconstructionist.

As to another point: you are not going to be able to point out to me where I said something about "Reconstructionists accept everyones UPG as fact", because there is no such text in this thread or anywhere on the board.  As UPG goes, you'd be better off with something that has some tangential connection to the visible lore.  (I am, in fact, on the record as believing that people who are looking for "fact" in religion are doing something tremendously ill-advised that will do them no good, and, in the case of pagans, should really shed that particularly pernicious bit of Christian baggage.)

Also, you do not need to explain to me what reconstructionists are, given that I am one.  You might have noticed that I mentioned so in this thread.

I wasn't making reference to views of deity at all, except insofar as atheism was the example I came up with for 'something for which the hard/soft terminology is used' I could just as well have used 'hard butch/soft butch' as my example - or possibly the instance that's the closest parallel would be hard and soft sciences.

Sunflower

 
I was more making a general point than talking to you specifically. Talking about specification and then not being clear about the latter part of the post; only something I could do, it seems :rolleye::