The rise of neo-paganism (No, this one is NOT SATIRE)

America was founded by Christian Puritans, who had a deep aversion to idolatry, popery, and magic. The hardships and dangers of their predicament made them cling to their religion as the one thing that justified the perilous pilgrimage to the New World. And from time to time they would tremble before the thought that paganism lay not only around them, but within, where it was all the more dangerous because hidden from view. So began the trials of suspected witches and the vigilant denunciations of neighbors that tore the New England communities apart.

Constant immigration has diversified the religious inheritance of the United States. Nevertheless the country remained until recently predominantly Christian, with a continuing aversion to pagan cults and superstitions, and a trust in the Bible as the common inheritance of the Judeo-Christian faiths. Indeed the United States has been held together more effectively by its Bible culture than by its Constitution: for the Bible has shaped the language, the morality, and the aspirations of ordinary Americans and provided them with a common frame of reference. American patriotism is scarcely thinkable without the Judeo-Christian God as its Almighty Guardian, and it is hardly surprising to find that the outlying communities in America-many of them suspicious of the Constitution as a weapon used against them by urban liberals-cling to the Bible as their most trusted guide. Debates over school prayer, over creationism and the curriculum, over abortion and sex education, are not, in America, the halfhearted affairs they are in Europe. On the contrary, they are at the center of politics since they affect the deep-down loyalty of many Americans to the settlement under which they live.

Strange things are now happening to this religious inheritance. The Christian churches have clung to their congregations, but often at the cost of dividing and subdividing into ever more marginal sects, each striving to accommodate the eccentricities of some obstinate community of believers. Almost none of the old denominations retains any centralized authority that can control the doctrine, liturgy, or membership of its peripheral congregations, while new cults and new services spring up everywhere, as dormant religious passions ignite like forest fires. In Europe we observe the slow, steady decline in faith, and the gradual disappearance of human hopes behind a cloud of skepticism. In America, however, every loss of faith is met by a gain, as new religious practices rise in the places vacated by the old. That this should be happening now, in the age of scientific inquiry, is testimony to the strength of American society, which finds new sources of hope beneath the never-ending stream of disappointment. Nevertheless, these sources of hope make less and less reference to the Bible and the Judeo-Christian tradition and are more and more pagan in tone. That which the Pilgrim fathers found most horrendous- witchcraft-is the latest, and one of the most successful, among the pagan cults now colonizing America.

Of course the witches-devotees of "Wicca," as they like to say-strenuously argue that their faith has been traduced in the past, that it is older and deeper and more spiritual than Christianity, and that it was branded as evil only because it was seen as a threat to the "patriarchal" culture. And by way of proving the point they have cobbled together a very up-to- date and user-friendly version of goddess-worship, which answers so well to the spiritual hunger of modern Americans as to cast serious doubt on its antiquity. Their basic principle-"Harm none and do what you will"-is the gospel of liberalism dressed up as law, rather than the lack of it; their "covens" are in many cases vamped-up feminist circles, devoted to boosting the confidence of women downtrodden by men, or at any rate by their own image of men; their symbols-the pentagram, the altar, the nine- inch daggers or "athames," the long robes, and the leaping over flames-may have ancient precedents, but they come to the Wiccans from 19th-century charlatans like Eliphas Levi and Aleister Crowley, men who cannily judged the spiritual hunger of the new middle classes and thereby notched up women by the score. Indeed, as Philip G. Davis has shown (Goddess Unmasked: The Rise of Neo-pagan Feminist Spirituality), the Wiccan theology is derived not from the old forms of goddess-worship, but from the writings of 19th-century commentators like Johann Jacob Bachofen, who invented the notion of a lost matriarchal past in a work that is now entirely discredited.

Still, religion will survive any amount of skeptical scholarship, and the Wiccans are no exception. They offer the commodity for which modern Americans are hungry-the conversion experience, the transition from dark to light, lost to found, outsider to insider. In comparison with this redemptive gift, other things are of no account. The covens have been spreading through the suburbs; even the military now recognizes the Wiccans as a "minority religion," with the right to hold rituals and classes for serving personnel. Weak though their doctrines may be from any intellectual or historical perspective, they are a triumph of applied anthropology. Feminism, environmentalism, and liberalism all come together in a religion that recognizes the goddess as the object of worship, the priestess as her representative, and the earth and its seasons as the source of sacred rites.

It is tempting to regard the Wiccans in the same light as the other cults that have recently sprung up in America-the Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, the Moonies, the church of the notorious Rev. Jim Jones. There are, however, two important features that distinguish them. There is no leader or founder of the Wiccan cult; and there is no sacred text. Witchcraft is a religion without any structure of command and without any written law. True, there is an attempt to compensate in the use of antique and fustian language-"yclad," "mote," "hallowmas." But the religion recognizes no objective authority to which the worshipper must submit. On the contrary, it is a religion of "empowerment," to use the feminist word. Spells and brews, chants and talismans are all weapons in the hands of the individual Wiccan, who gains power over self and others through the manipulation of things. True, the Wiccan draws on mysterious cosmic forces; but the purpose of the spell and ritual is to join these forces to yourself-to amplify your own power and so achieve a kind of here-and-now redemption.

In this, at least, the Wiccans are close to the witches as they were once imagined. The witch was anathema to the Christian believer because she had arrogated to herself the powers that belong to the Almighty. Her spells were the antithesis of the sacred text-indeed, it was often thought that they consisted in reciting Biblical or liturgical texts backwards. For they were expressions of the individual will, rather than admonitions and counsels of a higher power. All the discipline of religion-which consists in obedience to the divine command and a day-to-day study of its meaning- was negated in the Puritan image of the witch, which is why witches were so greatly feared. They were the archetype of the liberated human being- the human being who had stepped free from the chains of morality and seized the world and its glories for herself.

For this very reason, however, witchcraft has a singular appeal to modern Americans, increasing numbers of whom are brought up without any knowledge of a sacred text and without the language and the concepts of the Judeo- Christian tradition. The idea that religion might be a matter of obedience and example strikes them as weird; the idea that it is a matter of the self and its empowerment connects immediately with the surrounding secular culture.

But why isn't feminism enough? Why the need for a Wiccan religion? What is added by religion that is absent from the politics of the group?

The answer is enchantment. Science has disenchanted the universe and deprived us of our place at its center. Human beings cannot live with this demoralized world. They need to see their environment as their tribal forebears saw it: as an enchanted place, which mysteriously returns our glance. The spell answers directly to this need, since it enables the witch to reanimate her universe. It gives supernatural power to a human being, and so rescues her from nature.

Rituals, spells, and incantations are deliberate defiances of reason. They place nonsense in the center of people's lives and ask them to unite in believing it. People on their own are nothing-victims of the natural world, and at the mercy of their own skepticism. People in a group, however, have a power that is more than the sum of their individual efforts. And the spell symbolizes this power. Alone you could not possibly believe in it, since alone you have only reason as your guide. Together, however, you can believe anything. In short, the Wiccans have rediscovered the phenomenon observed by the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep-the rite of passage, which purges the individual of his isolation and grants him membership in the tribe. The rite of passage works by summoning occult powers, by standing outside nature and against it, and by reassuring the individual that, absorbed into the community, he cannot be harmed.

And that is what is missing from modern life, and especially from life in the American city. The most important rite of passage in recent Western societies was marriage-the consecration before the community of a lifelong commitment. The collapse of marriage is not the result of feminism, but the cause of it. Without lasting marriages, women have no real guarantee of security, and no reason for trusting men. If men cannot be trusted, then women have to set up on their own. Feminism turns on the masculine realm and deconstructs it, representing it as a realm of lies, manipulation, and the brutal misuse of power. It thereby reassures women that they don't need men in any case. But it relies on rational arguments, sociological theories, and objective policies-so leaving the heart unconsoled. What is needed is a new form of membership, a new rite of passage, and a new lifelong commitment-hence a new form of nonsense. In other words, what is needed is witchcraft. This is surely why the Wiccans are expanding, even though they have neither a leader, nor a doctrine, nor a text.

On the other hand, a cult that spreads so quickly, and that has so little substance when it comes to answering the great metaphysical questions, is ripe for takeover by the real witches. Strong personalities like Aleister Crowley preyed on the vulnerable loners who had lost their religion but not their religious need, and who wanted to throw themselves beneath the juggernaut of some crushing ego. Modern America has seen the emergence of these leaders-Koresh and Jones being symptomatic. And it has discovered that their promise of a new life is also a death threat. For the moment, the Wiccans speak only of peace and love and finding oneself. But without a doctrine or a text to protect them, they may soon find themselves opening the door to the Devil. Those old Puritans were wrong about many things; but they were not entirely wrong about witchcraft.

Re: the "intolerant Puritans" They didn't stay intolerant for-ever. My goodness we talk of them as though they formed Taliban like legislative structures that have since locked our country from its founding in an Islamic like embrace. The actual witch trials in Salem only lasted six months, at the end of which, their consciences were so pricked by the deaths(and the violation of the commandment"Thou shalt not bear false witness") that it broke the power of the extreme legalism of the Puritan faith and opened the way for real love and Holy spirit power. These churches, their off shoots and other denominations that arrived throughout the early 1700's to our shores would act in concert(especially the Great Awakening in 1756) to produce the moral character needed for the colonies to break away from Britain. It produced the 80 to 90 percent literacy rate(barely 50 percent now) that deToqueville discovered in the 1840's. Let's lay-off the Puritans, their history is a little more complex than Hawthorn's mean spirited writings (incidentally he had more than a personal axe to grind against religion himself). For a more balanced view of the religious life in early America please peruse Peter Marshall's "The Light and the Glory" where he presents both the warts and beauty of the bay colonies and their histories from the 1600's through the early 1700's.

I doubt the they are fleeing Christianity in droves so much as many are abandoning the traditional "liturgical" protestant and catholic churches due to disconnects between the relative piety of the laity and the increasing corruption being found in the church clergy. Many Christians are seeking the true source of Living Water, unpolluted by debauched "reinterpretations" of classical Christain faith and the crass commercialization[read Bible Granola diet bars and WWJD beads and bracelets, much(not all) Christian Contemporary Music.]of religious life.

Morality is completely independant of religion.

Careful.

Religion is independent of spirituality.

"Morals" are a deceptive replacement for the "avoidance of sin."

Morality is a man made construct that is different than being guided by the Spirit.

"Again, it is my contention that you are putting the cart before the horse. True freedom flows when the True God is trusted and relied upon. Those who willfully deny Him, and thrust him away, at the same moment thrust away all of His blessings...one of the first of which is freedom. "

Absolutely correct.

Some of these neo-pagans are sandwich board nuts.

I am likewise surprised by some of the so-called atheists. Anyone who tells me I am immoral is nothing different than any preacher or rabbi telling me I'm a "sinner." (None of which have the power to condemn or take up the sword of their God's authority.)

Today, "morals" are defined by a quasi-religious philosophy based on esoteric hobgoblins.

A greater number of "atheists" and "pagans" adopt many of the same tenets of the Judaic-Christian ideal. They subscribe to the Judaic fetishism of "sin." Most are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than anti-Christians. They just slap a new label on it hoping nobody will notice. They replace the idea of avoiding "sin" with "morals."

"Morals" are a deceptive replacement for the "avoidance of sin," they are a man-made construct.

This is the foundation of the gay religion, the neo-pagan religion, the environmental religion, the new religion of prime time television, and the Marxist religion.

Although "Wicca" is a partial extension of Judaic fetishism, it is purely primitive nonsense, the type that led to the execution of Socrates because he was being impious to the gods of Athens.

The collapse of marriage is not the result of feminism, but the cause of it. Without lasting marriages, women have no real guarantee of security, and no reason for trusting men. If men cannot be trusted, then women have to set up on their own.

This is a point that the Catholic Church has made repeatedly. It's something that all FReepers should remember the next time they start grousing about feminazis and such. How many times has Rush Limbaugh been married anyway?

While I have known some Wiccans who are pro-life FOR THEMSELVES, thier view is not so cut and dry as "do no harm". In fact, I can think of a few sites where Pagan/Wiccan are justifying abortion as "degrees" of do no harm.

Right. And being "personally opposed but pro-choice" is despicable hypocrisy. You either believe babies have the right to life or they don't. If they do, then no one has the right to take that life away without breaking the law. If they don't, then there is no sense in limiting yourself, when clearly they deserve no such thing.

No, that wasn't hyperbole. It was an insult of a very specific type of person. That person that, like Chesterson, goes to great lengths to tell me what I'm thinking. There's a group of people within Christianity that try to tell atheists and agnostics why they aren't Christians and what you must believe if you don't believe in their God (as I pointed out at one point in this thread there is a vice versa crowd giving these same declaratives about Christianity). These people are idiots. Pure and simple. Their idiocy has nothing to do with their faith, it has to do with how much time they spending telling people they obviously know nothing about what's going on inside those people's heads.

I'm not bashing Christianity, only certain Christians. I've stayed well away from the tenents of the religion in this discussion because I don't think that's the point. From what I see here's the basic issue: there's a group of people that call themselves Christians that are an embarassment. Play a thought game for a moment, pretend you've never heard of either Christianity or Wicca, remove all predispositions about either, now re-read this thread. Which religion would you be interested in? I think we have a group of people making vast declarative statements about things they don't understand that, and that group is all tied to Christianity. These are the folks reading people's mind, these are the folks showing a dramatic fear of something they clearly know nothing about.

As for my belief in myself that stops at the boundaries of the physical and the known. I don't play with any of that woovy groovy stuff. I know what I'm capable of and it has never and will never involve spells or other trapping of Wicca or other forms of paganism. That's just not my game.

Yeah that's why I picked that one, though I couldn't make the sentence work the way I wanted it to. Too tired to turn a good phrase. Basically I was trying to say that crediting Wicca with the works of Crowley is like crediting Catholicism with the works of Martin Luther. Sure they're both in the same religion (paganism on one hand, Christianity on the other), but they aren't in the same sect and are't in general agreement on a lot of basic stuff.

The same beliefs occurred at or near the time Rome transmuted into an empire from a republic. The rise of witchcraft is one more symptom of a collapsing order.

Er...now wait a second. Maybe I'm missing something here, but weren't the Romans pagans to begin with, and then their progress from Republicanism into Imperial rule seems to chart along with the rise of Christianity?

Certainly I'm not blaming Christianity for that, but it seems just as silly to blame "paganism" on the fall of Rome, as it was around for hundreds of years before hand.

I think it had more to do with the fact that Democracies and Republics have a nasty tendancy to start turning into dictatorships "when people learn they can elect themselves someone who will give them access to the public treasury".

I forgot who wrote it, but I remember someone posting up a quote from an ancient Greek who stated the above, and even pegged the lifespan of a democracy at about 200 years....freaky.

Er...now wait a second. Maybe I'm missing something here, but weren't the Romans pagans to begin with, and then their progress from Republicanism into Imperial rule seems to chart along with the rise of Christianity?

Christianity became powerful a couple centuries LATER. This "couple centuries" was the period as long as from American Revolution to this day. Christainity was BORN at the time of Roman decadence and spread of witchcraft, but it was among distant and distinct Jews. Only later Christianity took over and transformed decayed pagan society. If there is the causal relationship it is one more step detached: first was the collapsing order then second was spread of witchcraft and despair and the third was Christian repentance.

Certainly I'm not blaming Christianity for that, but it seems just as silly to blame "paganism" on the fall of Rome, as it was around for hundreds of years before hand.

It the text the words used were - "symptom of a collapsing order". This collapsing order was pagan and contained some pagan natural virtues. The collapse was connected with the corruption of the good aspects of old Roman religion into the witchcraft, decadence and perversion.

To repeat - Christianity prevailed LONG AFTER the Republic died.

Wonderful post.

There is some real scholarship and worthwhile insights out there flowering amongst the weeds.
Any of us can weave together some relevent meaning from it all if we employ but a little effort.

Thank you, Askel.

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