[Main Blog Post] Further Thoughts on Religious Authenticity

[jprussell]

This week's post comes mostly as a response to a question by causticus on last week's Magic Monday by JMG. It was spinning around in my thoughts all week, and I decided to share the expanded thoughts here. As always, your thoughts are welcome, and let me know if you'd like to be on the mailing list.

Comments

[causticus]

Hey Jeff, if you don’t mind I’m going to split up my response into a series of posts. First I want to address what you said about polytheism and communities. Because I think this is something that has to do with all forms of alternative spirituality in the current era.

One thing that I just remembered -- awhile back I had read a book that was all about the history of the Independent Sacramental Movement; particularly about modern Gnostic Christian churches. Those organizations faced many of the same problems that modern pagan groups have had to death with. They attract mostly intellectuals and eccentrics (as opposed to Joe and Jane Sixpack), meaning people with their own strong opinions and idiosyncratic takes on what the organization should be and what it should do. Predictably, this has led to constant schisms and the inability to grow substantial congregations beyond 10-15 people. Many of the ISM churches ended up being more like small groups of like-minded enthusiasts rather than community-oriented congregations full of ordinary people. Sound familiar? In the book, some of the church leaders interviewed did mention that running their groups was like herding cats because most participants wanted the group to be reflective of their own personal preferences. And of course, everyone has their own unique snowflake preferences. This is exactly what you were talking about in your response. Basically, we’re all so very selfish and stubborn when we get involved in these novel spirituality projects. It seems that getting people to agree on things (enough for an organization to maintain a coherent focus) requires a lot of potentially-awkward compromises to be made.

Back on the topic of pagan groups and these issues, Raven Kaldera wrote a very on-point and brutally-honest (IMHO) article about the inability for modern pagan/polytheist groups to attract and serve broader communities. I’d say it’s well worth the read:
https://www.churchofasphodel.org/articles/why-my-aunt-judy-isnt-a-pagan-or-how-far-we-still-have-to-go.html

And this all gets to a big sticking point for me, which is the community question you alluded to. I often ask myself a fundamental question: is what I practice in private something I can share with friends and family? Is what I do something that’s very limited to a specialized “fandom” niche sort of appeal? If that is the case, then the religious/spiritual activity in question will likely be something that never leaves my living space. At best, it can become something that can be practiced in a group of those aforementioned like-minded enthusiasts living in my area. At its greatest extent, maybe a fraternal “lodge” type of outfit, but not a general-congregation religious organization.

As an occultist, I have no problem with my spirituality being entirely a solitary activity. I just find it a bit sad if it can’t end up being anything more than that.

In some follow up responses, I’ll share my insights about a few successful Heathen groups I’ve read up on (besides the Theodish, which we've talked about a lot), in addition to my observations on some new-ish “start up” groups on the Greco-Roman side of things. And a few things about our “Androphile” friend Jack Donovan; I think his new project isn’t nearly as bad as I might have made it out to be in my MM thread reply (though still elementally-unbalanced)

[jprussell]

Don't mind about multiple posts at all, thank you for responding!

Yeah, I haven't read Plummer's book on the ISM yet, but it's required reading for my UGC seminary, so it's on the list. That doesn't surprise me at all, really, but it does suggest that in a cosmopolitan world, having some hierarchy, organization, and dare I say it, orthodoxy, might actually be necessary to compete with the other options on offer, especially in a culture where some of the options do offer all of those things, or the kinds of things that having those enables.

I agree that Raven's article seems pretty spot on, thank you for sharing that. My own hunch is that the best way around it for us weirdos is, as you say, something like a lodge or a guild structure, where certain rules and activities are firmly written in to "this is what we're about here" - totally voluntary to join, lots of leeway on most things, but a few hard and fast things like "we collect money for this kind of service and go volunteer monthly" or what have you. Don't keep up with the guild rules, you get kicked out. Here, though, there's still the problem of getting together a critical mass to be self-reinforcing.

I look forward to the follow-up responses!

Jeff

[causticus]

Oh for sure, some "orthodoxy" is certainly in order. When I get to talking about the Greco-Roman group, that will come up as a central theme. They embrace orthodoxy but to the opposite extreme of your typical loose-goosey Neopagan group. (Spoiler alert: the group's main founder comes from a staunch Catholic background).