Are Witches "Pagan"? Part II

Pagan:n. a pre-Christian term meaning "rustic, rural-dweller", implying "redneck, hick" and specifically "some inbred gunrack who hasn't read Plato and doesn't know how to worship their gods properly." We first see it used as a snide label by Roman centurions who were complaining about the savages who wiped their bums with their hands. It is not, therefore, a particularly appealing word.

[Please understand I am not saying this is what I think of those who consider themselves Pagans. I loves me some Pagans. Yay Pagans. I'm just talking etymology here, okay?]

We first see it mean "nature-worshipper" about 100 years ago. So 105 years ago it still carried the baggage of the definition above. Redneck. Illiterate. Not someone you're likely to see cavorting naked in a painting in your living room, worshipping nature. But here's the problem with "nature worship" theologically: We're all cool and up on our nuances these days and we take a lot of words for granted, which tends to mean they compound meaning very rapidly. But "nature worship" in and of itself is not all that accurate to describe what those who identify as "pagan nature-worshippers" are doing.

Real Nature-worshipper: This tree is our God. This one, not the one next to it, although that's its cousin. If we don't pour libations to it, it will become angry and our cattle will get sick. Lightning means the trees are mad at us and demand more libations.

Modern "Pagan nature-worshipper": We're all a part of the natural world, which includes yet transcends this planet and solar system. There is a divine connection within and between expressions of the natural world and our worship is a way of respectfully communing with this whole. A model I've used before is the Quintessence of the Pentagram; the former is a world view with just four elements, the latter adds spirit to complete the pentagram.

It's the difference between "this rock is god" and "this rock is also god". Theologically this is a CHASM that is not, for the most part, sufficiently addressed.

[In my opinion, a huge part of this problem is that so much of Pagan Studies is done in America, against the backdrop of American Christianity which for the most part is limited to this "angry Zeus demanding sacrifice" primitive theology.]

So, a nature-worshipper hides under the covers when lightning strikes or sacrifices a rabbit to make it stop, while a "nature-worshipper" celebrates the divinity (magic) as expressed by the lightning and feels personally connected to it.

As you can see, any terminology which requires us to keep changing case and inserting quote marks is not, in the long run, all that viable. And yet it's just that sort of hairball which plagues contemporary Pagan Studies as an academic discipline.

Now, it's a perfectly legitimate branch of anthropology and comparative religious studies to look at overlaps between, say, 21st century American Paganism and African Tribal Religions. But the prevailing paradigm is to identify and equate these two phenomena. And a lot of pages have been cranked out to do exactly that. In my opinion, they've failed utterly, and I'll explore that more in the coming days.

Three notes:

Cui bono?

The upside to this equation is that by making middle-class urban, educated paperback book collectors feel solidarity with ATR or Voudon practitioners in the developing world is that the North Americans can actually help preserve cultures and save lives through action they might not necessarily take without such identification. Ironically, the same thing is happening with the far right wing of the Anglican church throughout the world as it embraces the homophobic evangelism of the Global South - schools are being built and wells are being dug where before vestments were being embroidered. So maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and say that Wicca with its Gnostic, educated, profoundly British literate and literary heritage is of course exactly the same as Santeria or Hopi Shamanism because neither are mainstream Christianity. So long as people get mosquito nets, where's the harm?

One of the notes I got from yesterday's post was that I was being "Anglo-centric" in my definition of Witchcraft. Well, that was my point exactly. Wicca (or as Garder wrote "Wica") and Graves seminal White Goddess are inescapably Anglo-centric (although "Britain-centric" is perhaps more accurate) and therefore can't be extended too far outside that cultural context.

Another note said that I implied that Gnosticism's influence ends at Wicca and ignores the strong ties between 19th Century Gnosticism and Voudon. I didn't mean to insinuate that all, as I'm well aware of this connection. However, the thrust of my article yesterday was specifically an Apostolicity-to-Gnosticism-to-Wicca lineage.