{"id":557,"date":"2005-11-12T16:18:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-12T16:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=557"},"modified":"2011-08-24T14:18:02","modified_gmt":"2011-08-24T20:18:02","slug":"557","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=557","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Pagan dreams<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>In the first chapter of The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance<\/em><\/a>, Joscelyn Godwin<\/a> writes of “a state of mind and soul that arose in fifteenth-century Italy, spread through Europe on certain clearly defined fault-lines, and persisted for about two hundred years, during which, although no one believed in the gods, many people acted as though they existed.”<\/p>\n

Although these Medicis<\/a>, Hapsburgs<\/a>, other aristocrats, and the artists and craftsmen who created the paintings, sculptures, artificial grottos, fountains, temples, and all the other accouterments of this intellectual Paganism did not, in fact, claim to be other than good Catholics, in Professor Godwin’s view, they “dreamed” of being Pagans.<\/p>\n

In their waking life they accepted the absurdities acknowledged as the essence and <\/em>credenda of Christianity, all the while nurturing a longing for the world of antiquity and a secret affinity for the divinities of that world.<\/em><\/p>\n

That same dream underlies three of my favorite novels: John Crowley’s<\/a> \u00c6gypt, Love & Sleep,<\/em> and D\u00e6monomania<\/em>, particularly the first.<\/p>\n

And then what happened? Some historians cite the discovery and exploitation of the New World as turning Renaissance Europeans away from contemplation of an antique Golden Age and toward the exploitations of the Age of Exploration<\/a>. The wars and intellectual struggles of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation took their tolls.<\/p>\n

But the work was done. The hermetic texts were saved from the Islamic purge of Constantinople<\/a>. Great art was created that lives today. The images of the gods were restored after a thousand years of Christian destruction; and as Pagans we know that “acting as if” is more important than “believing.”<\/p>\n

Tags: Joscelyn Godwin<\/a>, Renaissance<\/a>, Paganism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pagan dreams In the first chapter of The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance, Joscelyn Godwin writes of “a state of mind and soul that arose in fifteenth-century Italy, spread through Europe on certain clearly defined fault-lines, and persisted for about two hundred years, during which, although no one believed in the gods, many people acted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-557","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4979,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4979","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":0},"title":"PLTV \u2014\u00a0New Pagan Video Podcasting","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Todd Berntson's Pagan Living TV video podcast has launched with a news-magazine format. Production values are a lot higher than in some Pagan video podcasts I have seen, although it's still just talking heads in the studio at this point. At least there is a studio, not a sheet tacked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7020,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7020","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":1},"title":"New Pomegranate Published","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Issue 16:2 of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies has now been published online, with print copies coming soon. The publisher does charge for articles (but try to see if your library can get them), although book reviews are free downloads. Contents \"Deepening Conversations between Ritual Studies and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"Pomegranate web header","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Pomegranate-web-header.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Pomegranate-web-header.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Pomegranate-web-header.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11803,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11803","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":2},"title":"Book to Explore Paganism in Early Modern Lithuania","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I post a lot about old and new Pagan movements in the Baltic nations, a region that I have never visited, although some of my family members have.((One of my older sisters lived the last couple of years of her life in Kaunas, Lithuania, but that had nothing to do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Latvia\"","block_context":{"text":"Latvia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=latvia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/shrine.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/shrine.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/shrine.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":397,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=397","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":3},"title":"Pagan outreachCherry Hill Seminary has\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagan outreachCherry Hill Seminary has been updating its Web site, although some of the news links seem to misdirect. Still, CHS has the most extensive program of any of the several Pagan seminaries in existence.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2324,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2324","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":4},"title":"Quick Review: ‘Pagan Metal’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"M. and I watched Pagan Metal: A Documentary (dir. Bill Zebub, 2009) Saturday night. It was flaccid. We gave up on it midway through. (Netflix has it.) What we saw was primarily rambling interviews with members of three bands: Alan Averill of Primordial (Ireland), and musicians from Korpiklaani and Finntroll,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Finland\"","block_context":{"text":"Finland","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=finland"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/PaganMetal-116x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10568,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10568","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":5},"title":"Pagan with a Capital P","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In editing the current issue of The Pomegranate, one of my \"favorite\" issues came up again: whether or not Pagan is capitalized. American scholars and Pagan authors tend to say yes. There has been a small campaign to convince the editors of the Associated Press Stylebook, widely used in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Letter-P.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3148,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/3148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}