Blog Valhalla, Polytheism, Books and More

¶ Yvonne Aburrow’s Pagan theologies wiki has what might be the definitive list of active Pagan blogs. I am adding a link on my sidebar.

¶ Speaking of which, this blog now appears on BeliefNet’s Blog Heaven page again. Thanks to everyone who made a fuss.

¶Bedside reading: I started, put aside, but will return to John Lamb Lash’s Not in His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Future of Belief.

It is a difficult book for me to evaluate: I sympathize with Lash’s point of view, but I think that he distorts some of his sources too much in order to support his views. He wants to use Gnosticism as a path that “can provide the spiritual dimension for deep ecology independently of the three mainstream religions derived from the Abrahamic traditions.”

Gnosticism is still concerned with “salvation,” a concept largely at odds with polytheism, as John Michael Greer points out (see below). Much Gnostic thinking disparages physical existences as a “mistake,” so I am waiting to see how Lash reconciles that with deep ecology and its focus on our relationship with and as a part of nature.

Lash writes his introduction around the life of Hypatia of Alexandria, a Platonic philosopher murdered by a Christian mob in 415 CE. He wants to view her as an “urban shaman,” but I see her more as today’s tenured professor of mathematics. An intellectual through and through. Note how she elevates philosophy over erotic attraction this story of her teaching, true or not.

Reviewing Not in His Image in the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Kirch writes:

Lash is capable of explaining the mind-bending concepts of Gnosticism and pagan mystery cults with bracing clarity and startling insight. At moments, however, he slips into a kind of New Age rant as baffling as any mystical text. “What we seek in ‘Gaia theory’ is a live imaginal dimension,” he writes in one such passage, “not a scaffolding of cybernetic general systems cogitation.” . . . .

And when he considers what he calls the “sci-fi theology” of the ancient Gnostics, he comes uncomfortably close to affirming that the otherworldly “Archons” of Gnostic myth were authentic extraterrestrials.

An interesting book, but full of special pleading.

¶I am happier with John Michael Greer’s A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry into Polytheism, published by the Druidic group Ár nDraíocht Féin.

Greer’s arguments for polytheism as offering a better model of the universe (including the evil and suffering in it) than monotheism and his lucid explanation of polytheistic spirituality deserve a wide hearing.

He works hard to show that monotheistic thinkers simply do not comprehend the polytheistic experience, and their arguments against it (unless enforced by violence as in Hypatia’s case) simply fail.

Indeed, ancient and modern Pagans alike have the described mystical states in which they have become aware of multitudes of divine beings filling every corner of the cosmos; in the words of the Greek philosopher Thales, they have seen that “all things are full of gods.” This is the polar opposite of henotheism; it is also among the most powerful and transforming of Pagan religious experiences.

A Medieval Help Desk


Twice as funny today because the university’s network has been acting up, and I spent much of the morning in fact on the telephone with various Help Desk technicians.

Tip of the English woolen cap to Fretmarks.

Pagan fiction-writing contest

Llewellyn Publications and BBI media (publisher of PanGaia, Sagewoman and New Witch magazines) are sponsoring a Pagan fiction-writing contest.

Judges are Diana Paxson, Elizabeth Barrette, and Anne Newkirk Niven.

Stories may incorporate aspects of any genre. Previously observed examples of Pagan fiction, which have inspired this Award, include but are not limited to stories about contemporary Pagans and the challenges they face in the ordinary world, mythic fiction, urban fantasy, historical fantasy/alternate history, science fiction about Paganism in the far future, paranormal romance, visionary fiction, weird mystery, and slipstream. Use your imagination.

Ted Haggard and Elmer Gantry

Over supper, I suggested to M. that perhaps Rocky Mountain PBS’ scheduling of Elmer Gantry as their Saturday night classic movie tonight had something to do with the downfall of the well-known megachurch founder Ted Haggard.

“Of course!” she said. “I assumed that the minute that I heard about it.”

This 1960 film version, starring Burt Lancaster, covers only a short part of Sinclair Lewis’ novel. To quote Wikipedia:

Although he continues to womanize, is often exposed as a fraud, and frequently faces a complete downfall, Gantry is never fully discredited and always manages to emerge triumphant and to reach ever greater heights of social status. The novel ends as the Rev. Gantry prays for the USA to be a “moral nation” and simultaneously admires the legs of a new choir singer.

The novel traces the opportunistic Gantry through quite a variety of religious organizations, including a New Thought group.

Before there was New Age, there was New Thought, which is essentially the same thing except without the benevolent Space Beings from the Pleiades.

Instead of today’s War on (Some) Drugs, Elmer Gantry is set against a background of Prohibition and the corruption of government and public morality that it produced.

Yes, the 1920s may seem like a long time ago, but the novel holds up well as a mirror to the seamy side of American religion. You can recognize all of its characters as you move down the American religious smorgasbord.

As for Ted Haggard, I am sure that he will be back in the public eye some day. He has not given up his Web domain.

Where are the Irish-speakers–in Ireland?

Now and again among North American Pagans, I run into an earnest student of Gaelic.

When M. and I honeymooned in Ireland (back when the Celtic Tiger was still a kitten), I learned to puzzle out the signage and to go through the door marked “Fir.”

But outside of Co. Kerry, I never heard Irish Gaelic spoken conversationally. I did see posters from the Ministry of Something urging people to speak it. The very fact that these posters existed was probably a sign that they were not.

A fluent Irish-speaker recently decided to put his fellow citizens to the test, and the results were not hopeful.

In Killarney, I stood outside a bank promising passers-by huge sums of money if they helped me rob it, but again no one understood.

A century and a half at least have passed since Irish was the common language. Despite the compulsory schooling, I suspect that it is sliding into the antiquarian category. The goddess Bridget will be summoned in English.

Perhaps there is a parallel with the Gaelscoileanna (Irish-language schools) to something I recently heard in Canada. A friend in British Columbia said that she was sending her son to a special bilingual (French/English) school, not because he needed the French so much as because the normal English-language schools were so full of immigrants with poor English skills that the teaching was slower and dumbed-down. I wonder if the Irish parents likewise see these schools as better overall and that is why they choose them.

This is going out to all my writer friends

True, I drink cheap wine. But I eat good meat. There is an expression for my condition: The wolf is at the door. But I want the wolf at the door. I am tired of living in a world without wolves.

Charles Bowden

Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America

Pagans Want Some Bones Back

Borrowing the rhetorical tools developed in North America, British Pagans are becoming increasingly vocal on the issue of “ancestral remains.”

British pagan groups are increasingly asking for human remains and grave goods from pre-Christian burials to be returned to them as well. The presence of what they see as their ancestors in dusty drawers or under harsh display lights is an affront to their religion. To them, the bones are living beings, whose existence is bound up with their religious descendants and the sacred land.

I am friends with some of the British Pagan academics who have been pushing this issue hard. On the other hand, ask any geneticist: lots of people, most of them not capital-P Pagans, are descended from those ancient ancestors.

So let us admit that these demands are to a large extent a stunt. We are dealing with self-appointed spokespeople here. David at the Cronaca archaeology blog has other comments.

Animal Sacrifice and Authenticity

Last month Classics scholar Mary Beard suggested that contemporary Hellenic Pagans were not quite authentic because they omitted the centerpiece of ancient Paganism: animal sacrifice. (I discussed her critique here, and she responded.)

Orthodox Christian blogger Rod Dreher’s recent post–and especially the comments–pretty well illustrate just how squeamish today’s population–even omnivores–are about the idea of animal sacrifice.

Other than followers of Afro-Diasporic religions (Santeria, Candomble, etc.), only a tiny number of contemporary Western Hemisphere Pagans perform animal sacrifice.

(Muslims typically perform animal sacrifice for the festival of Eid ul-Adha. Christians, as one of Dreher’s commenters points out, believe that Jesus’ death ended sacrifice. Jews would not agree, but having centralized their rituals at the Jerusalem Temple–which was then destroyed–they moved to a different religious model.)

Site feed update

Inspired by the problems with BeliefNet (which still occurred before I touched any of my site feed settings), I have tweaked the settings a little bit, trying to make them more compatible with different browsers and aggregators.

Thanks also to everyone who contacted BeliefNet on my behalf.

Knowledgeable feedback will be appreciated. I am curious to know if the LiveJournal feed that was set up for this blog has vanished into the ether too, but since I am not an LJ user, I cannot check it.

Magic Spells for Professors

I want these!

Just a sample:

1st-LEVEL PROFESSORIAL SPELLS

* CANCEL MEETINGS. Professors at Level One may cancel department meetings only. (See Appendix 253 for a full list of levels and corresponding meetings.) This spell may be countered by another Professor’s Spell of Urgency, and will always be blocked by a Department Chair’s Reminder of Contractual Obligations.
* ACCEPT GRADES. -2 to Students’ Argument rolls. However, Students with 3 hit dice or more may retaliate with a Spell of Grievance (-3 to Professors’ Endurance rolls).
* MAGIC PEN. Increases grading speeds by a factor of at least two.
* SUMMON SENIOR COLLEAGUE. Professors attacked by Red Tape (q.v.) or under a Spell of Bewilderment may conjure up a tenured colleague for assistance. For correct information, perform a DC 12 Bureaucracy check.

(Hat tip: The Little Professor)