Witchvox Article

Author: mistiq
Posted: January 22nd. 2006
Times Viewed: 4,892

Modern Paganism, in many ways, seeks to emulate the wisdom and traditions that are found in all indigenous cultures, both extinct and surviving/intact ones. It recognises that they had/have a connection to Nature and to the Land that is rare today, and it therefore seeks to partake of that connection by adopting some of their beliefs, traditions, and practices. Thus Neo-Pagans can be found studying the beliefs, traditions, and practices of the Celts (1), the Native Americans, the Norse, African traditions, and many others. They study these cultures and traditions and try to emulate them by adapting some of their beliefs and practices for their own modern, Western mind and lifestyle.

However, this approach is intrinsically flawed, and the issues involved with these flaws have been largely ignored and are silently expanding. These issues affect two main groups: the indigenous cultures being plundered, and the Neo-Pagans who do the plundering.

There has been much discussion, especially recently, regarding certain approaches to Neo-Paganism that are often deemed �fluffy� and inappropriate. The major of these approaches is eclecticism, which is essentially taking, adapting, and amalgamating various beliefs, traditions, practices, deities, mythologies, concepts, etc. from various cultures. As with all things, the extent and structure of this process varies, but the underlying principle is the same: that no spiritual tradition is exclusively �owned� by anybody, and therefore all are there to be utilised by anyone who so desires.

Also, many Neo-Pagans, especially �Neo-Wiccans� (or Eclectic Wiccans), have a view of Divinity that sees all different Deities as merely different interpretations or facets of a greater whole or source, and therefore all Deities and hence spiritual traditions are essentially the same (or at least come from the same source). This is often represented with metaphors such as �many facets of the crystal� or �many faces (personalities/archetypes) of the God/dess�.

While I am not saying that there is no value to this approach in general, in the context of a Nature religion it does lose its validity and value. Nature religions - a group of religions of which many indigenous traditions are a part - are religions based on Nature and the Sacred Land. Almost all these indigenous traditions that we supposedly seek to emulate were/are Nature religions - they saw the Divine embodied in Nature, Nature was/is Sacred, and therefore all their traditions, beliefs, and mythologies were intrinsically linked to the Land upon which they dwelt, and therefore could be separated neither from the Land nor each other.

Eclecticism, however, along with specific branches of Neo-Paganism that choose one indigenous Nature religion they will emulate and then endeavour to do so, does not recognise the fact that these indigenous traditions are tied to the Land of the people who practised them; away from this specific Land, they are spiritually worthless, although they still provide interesting psychological, anthropological or historical specimens. One cannot simply transplant the ancient Celtic tradition into Australia, the Indigenous Australian or Icelandic into North America, or the Native American into Europe; to simply super-impose these Nature religions onto your own land and context is to annihilate their value and meaning, resulting in a merely superficial shadow of the true depth of these traditions. �To be Pagan is to be particular� (2), because each Land has its own unique energy and Divinity; �The rituals and ceremonies and myths of the ancestors all arose from their actual relationship to a specific [emphasis mine] place on earth� (3).

Many people have criticised rampant eclecticism for its habit of pulling various deities or practices from various sources and bunching them together in ways that are inappropriate for and inconsiderate of the individual cultures� and traditions� beliefs; �Searching for easy answers to complex problems, they mix and match materials from a mind-boggling variety of cultures with no regard for the contexts in which the symbols, beliefs or practices evolved� (4). Examples of this behaviour can be found in a �fluffy� (or �bunny� book/site) choosing to invoke two or more deities from different cultures because they both have �active energies� even though these cultures may have been/be entirely separate and hostile to each other, or choosing to invoke two or more deities from the same culture/pantheon for similar reasons despite the fact this culture�s mythology knew that these deities were hostile. However, these people fail to see that they are often guilty of misappropriation themselves; by taking any spiritual or indigenous tradition out of its context (which in the case of Nature religions is the Land upon which said indigenous people dwelt), you are dishonouring both the tradition which you have taken out of its context and your own spiritual growth.

It may not seem obvious, but if you truly believe the best path to spiritual growth is through a Nature religion then you are merely doing yourself a disservice by choosing to copy one that has been taken out of its context. How can we ever truly understand what the ancient Egyptians meant by �Ma�at� or how the Australian Aborigines really view the world? It�s the same principle underlying why nobody can ever truly understand how we feel or perceive or what we believe: because they lack the same foundation of personality and experience; they aren�t in our unique context. Other examples can be found in Chinese ideas of the Tao or other Eastern philosophies, which it is often said, cannot be translated into English or into Western society because they lack the context (of societal personality and experience) that these Eastern cultures have. The same holds true for indigenous traditions - each tradition has its own unique context, which for Nature religions is dominated by the Sacred Land, and no one can ever truly understand these traditions in their full depth when they are not in this context.

Why should we, as genuine spiritual seekers, restrict ourselves to a mere shadow of a tradition that has been removed from its context and is therefore spiritually meaningless to us? Why shouldn�t we create our own rich, layered, textured tradition of beliefs, traditions, practises, concepts, deities, etc.? Why shouldn�t we create a true Nature religion by developing a personal relationship with the Sacred Land - not the Sacred Land in the other hemisphere, across the equator, on the other side of the planet, but the Sacred Land on which we are standing right now?

There is no reason why we should not or cannot achieve these things - we are neither intellectually, emotionally, nor spiritually inferior to those indigenous peoples we so admire, and we have every capability to build a personal Nature religion that is every bit as deep and strong in our own hearts as theirs was/is in theirs. Stop being a �Neo-Pagan� already and get outside - Nature is waiting, ready to teach those who will listen�

Footnotes:
(1) While the Celts were not indigenous to the British Isles, they are more often than not treated as such and did, after all, live there for a very long time practising their own unique tradition based on their view of the Sacred Land. Therefore, for ease and discussion�s sake I am including them here as an �indigenous� tradition.

(2) Chas S. Clifton. 1998. �Nature Religion for Real�. Available electronically on The Proteus Coven�s Webspace ( http://draknet.com/proteus/proteus.html) .

(3) Starhawk. 2005. �The Earth Path�. San Francisco: HarperCollins.

(4) Landstreet, Lynna. �The Soul of Nature: The Meaning of Ecological Spirituality.� Unpublished paper, available electronically on Wild Ideas ( http://www.wildideas.net) .

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mistiq

Location: Melbourne, Victoria

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