Our ‘Open-Source’ Religion

Paganism as an open-source religion. (That approach works for some Jews too.)

Douglas Cowen, in his book Cyberhenge, goes even further, making an explicit analogy to computer coding: “Pagans are ‘hacking’ their own religious traditions out of the ‘source codes’ provided by pantheons, faith practices, liturgies, rituals, and divinatory practices drawn from a variety of cultures worldwide.” Given all that “hacking,” it’s no wonder that, as Webster says, “There are a huge number of pagan people in the high-tech space.”

Hat tip: Gus diZerega.

‘Great Nights Returning’

A fine poem for the winter solstice.

Up the Hill to Yule

One advantage to living in the hills is that by taking different routes, you can pick the moment of observed solstice sunrise. I could sleep in until nine o’clock and still “drum up the sun” if I took the trail we call “the loop.”

But the dogs want, need, and demand their morning run, so we go “up the hill” on the Forest Service road, into a sunrise that is already happening.

At the top I take a little side trail to a suitable boulder, unzip the case, and take out the frame drum. It booms out over the valley, past the black trunks of ponderosa pines killed four years ago in the Mason Gulch fire, past resurgent Gambel oak, past living pines that the fire missed.

In the south, that is where the fire started when lightning struck. In the west, that is Holt Mountain guarding its maze of overgrown skid roads. In the north, a steep brushy slope surmounted by rimrock. In the east, a glare of light.

Uh-oh, what does Fisher have in his mouth? It’s the spare drumstick, and he is settling down to chew it. No! Come here! No serious damage, just dog slobber.

So much for drumming. The calendrical ritual is done. It is perhaps that calendar that unites us Pagans more than theology–to be doing something at these times.

Happy solstice to all!

Black Metal Music: ‘Abiding and Transcendent’

The wide world of academia  includes Buffy Studies and edited collections published by serious presses on the legal aspects of Harry Potter’s world.

So why not a quasi-academic symposium on black-metal music?

He quoted lyrics from the face-painted, early-1990s Norwegian black-metal bands Gorgoroth and Immortal; he framed black metal as respecting some of rock’s orthodoxies, as opposed to the heresies of disco and punk; and he spoke of black metal’s preoccupation with “the abiding and transcendent: stone, mountain, moon.”.

(Tip of the steel helmet to Margaret Soltan.)

Contemporary Pagans: Indigenous or Not?

A kerfuffle over who said what about which flavors of Paganism at the just-concluded Parliament of the World’s Religions is summarized over at The Wild Hunt.

This year’s parliament in Melbourne listed “Reconciling with the Indigenous Peoples” as one of its key topics.

Some contemporary Pagans have been playing the “indigenous card” since the 1970s, when Oberon Zell and other Green Egg writers argued that Wicca was a form of “indigenous European shamanism.”

The same claim has been made by some British Pagans in controversies over the management of megalithic sites in the UK and the treatment of prehistoric remains.

So are today’s revived and re-created Pagan traditions “indigenous.” I think not—not because they lack ancient roots, but because they are not generally connected to land claims and other current political issues.

In academia, in the world of [Fill in the Blank] Studies, “indigenous” has a more limited—and more political—meaning.  Hang around the people teaching, for example, Native American religion, and you may be told that the descriptor “indigenous” can only be applied to people who are or have been oppressed or colonized.

This claim might seem illogical. After all, were the ancient British not oppressed, and thus not “indigenous,” until the Romans came and created the province of Britannia—at which point they were colonized. And then when the Roman legions left, they were not “oppressed” anymore, so not “indigenous.”

Forget it. This is all about political issues now.

If you cut through the rhetoric, what is really at stake in discussions of who is “indigenous” is land—and sometimes related issues of political power, reparations, and trying to avoid sharing the guilt for how screwed-up the modern world is.

Most Anglosphere contemporary Pagans do not directly connect following an “earth-based religion” with political control of acreage itself, but in other places that connection is the underlying concern.

Particularly in eastern Europe, today’s revived Pagans have made “blood and soil” arguments, saying that their approach is truer to the land than is Orthodox Christianity.

Anglosphere Pagans may invoke a sort of metaphorical or historical “indigeneity,” talking about people who followed polytheistic religions a millennium or two in the past. In the West, our connections with our Pagan ancestors are intellectual (based on books) and theological.

We can talk about prejudice and Christian hegemony—but being blocked from giving a prayer at the county commissioners’ meeting is not “oppression” in the sense that the Australian Aboriginals suffered, for example.

Islam, too, has its “death to the polytheists!” passages in the Qu’ran. Indeed,  I think anyone who opened a Pagan bookstore, etc., in Cairo or Islamabad would be oppressed in a hurry. Is anyone brave enough to revive the worship of Ishtar in Iraq?

In our religious views and practices, we have much in common with the tribal religions of the world.  In the academic study of religion, common ground is being found between “indigenous” and “Pagan.”

In that limited sense, it is useful to show contemporary Paganisms’ (that is a plural possessive) roots in pre-modern, polytheistic,  or “indigenous” cultures.

But before playing that card, we have to understand that it is usually connected to issues of land rights, grievances over such issues as removal of children into government boarding schools, and other current political struggles.

In those instances, the typical Wiccan, Heathen, etc., is probably going to be on the sidelines.

Cue the tablas and whale music

My title is lifted from Charles Blow’s column in the New York Times, noting that the recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report on American religiosity shows that things are pretty darn heterodox in the pews (no pun intended).

When 28 percent of Roman Catholics say that they believe in reincarnation (really?!), or nearly a fifth of Americans say they have seen a ghost, then perhaps American religion is “a mash-up of traditional faiths, fantasy and mythology.”

Sounds almost Pagan.

Cannibalism in ‘Old Europe’?

Archaeologists have found evidence of possible long-term cannibalism at a 7,000-year-old Neolithic settlement in what is now southern Germany.

Human sacrifice at Herxheim is a hypothesis that’s difficult to prove right now, but we have evidence that several hundred people were eaten over a brief period,” [Bruno] Boulestin says. Skeletal markings indicate that human bodies were butchered in the same way as animals.

Other researchers suggest that the people were merely cleaning up the bones of the dead for a ceremonial reburial. But vultures, etc., would do that job for free–and still do in some parts of the world.

But wait, this is Marija Gimbutas’ Old European Culture, the peaceful ancient matriarchies. Were they eating each other?

I think that it is safe to assume that prehistory was much more complicated than we imagine when we look at it through lenses of theory.

Pagan Thoughts at the Parade of Lights

Last fall I looked for Pagan virtues in a small-town “Pioneer Day” parade.

Similar thoughts ran through my mind last night watching an even smaller town’s “Parade of Lights.”

The procession was about one block long: two pieces of fire apparatus, the local mountain search-and-rescue group (yellow jackets, hard hats, head lamps), another flatbed truck or two, various kids and dogs.

On the sidewalk, Father Christmas greeted spectators and drinkers.

Even though the American Thanksgiving holiday was established during the Great Depression to signal the start of the holiday shopping season, many towns now re-celebrate that spending spree with a “Parade of Lights,” a secular solsticial event.

Most seem to be sponsored by downtown merchants’ associations. (You can’t have a traditional parade at a shopping mall.) Stores stay open late hoping to sell things to the spectators.

Some years ago, a Pagan group had a float in Colorado Springs’ Parade of Lights, a first in that city, often jokingly called “Fort God” for its combination of military bases and big-name Protestant “ministries,” like Focus on the Family.

Maybe the frankly secular and capitalist nature of the event was a plus. Pay your entry fee, get a place in the parade.

Other parades, such as those on St. Patrick’s Day or Columbus Day, have their definite sense of “ownership.” Sponsoring organizations are pickier about who they permit to march.

I wrote “frankly secular,” but we Pagans see a brave display of light against the incoming darkness–not to mention the cold wind sweeping down from the mountains ahead of today’s snowstorm.

We are used to the dichotomy of light and dark, of order and chaos, Apollo and Dionysus–or their equivalents. Perhaps commerce and gift-giving are another pair.

These pairs will contend with each other forever.

Father Christmas Works the Bar Crowd


Father Christmas makes his way through the bar after a small-town Parade of Lights (of which more later). No, that was Santa on the fire engine. Different demigod.

Pagan Social Media and the Parliament of the World’s Religions

Jason Pitzl-Waters posts a round-up of blogs, video, and other social media from the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

I clicked the links, and so far what I have seen is pretty bland. Talking-heads video is bland even when they are our talking heads. But maybe we will see some more engaged and personal writing as the event progresses and as people reflect on it.

Although it’s not my scene, I applaud those Pagans who want to do this kind of work. I could see myself note-taking at some of the sessions, for my own writing purposes.

And wow, what what a great place to play Flowing Robes Bingo. I wonder if anyone brought the bingo cards.