Greetings Caroline et al
and happy new year

I wonder how you'd distinguish between the original practitioners of a
religion and the reconstructivists - given that all religions change over
time - and pretty much all of them went through the debate about the
ancestral cannibalism and human sacrifice - which they subsequently
reframe - its an oft ignored fact that even the 'wicked' crowley' underlined
the new covenant in which animal and human sacrifice was 'outlawed' in
favour of the 'best blood' - and this echoes the work of (i think) francis
barrett, who substituted 'fumigations' for 'pigeon blood' in the grimoires?

I wonder why we, as pagans, need see ourselves as less connected to our
historical past than others cultists - perhaps it is the hiatus - but even
so, for example christianity (roman variety) has its breaks in its apostolic
succession (as in the anti-popes) and yet has no porblems about styling
itself christian. Isn't the idea of continuity a bit of a mental fiction?  I
thinking of the book 'After Babel' in which the author talks about the
paradox of translation.

WE might all have our favourite practitioners as well as those we regard as
less authentic or even positively in denial about magick - or just
bowdlerising it all for their own commercial gain or so as not to offend
some putative public taste - magick is still a taboo word for many
supposedly magical practitioners - its maybe a hangover from the 1970s when
there was maybe a concerted attempt to make paganism respectible - and that
meant for many the denial of its quite recent magical past. At the moment in
UK, the commercial tail (especially of wicca) is seemingly wagging the dog -
its irritating but just that IMO a minor irritation that should not deflect
us from the task in hand ; )

'love and do what you will'


mogg

ps: on greek religion -
i wonder if you know of
Evangelos Rigakis and his Threskian project -

pps: a conference is always fun - SASM had a rather fine one a year or two
back









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-----Original Message-----
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Caroline Tully
Sent: 02 January 2006 01:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Pagan Reconstructionism


Hi Caelum, Mogg...

This is one of those topics on which I've got a lot to say, but which my
fingers are unable to keep up with my thinking... sheesh! Bloody email
communication. Do you think we could instead organise some huge
international conference where we can all come and chat? (I'm in distant
Australia so have hardly anyone to talk to in person regarding my particular
interests). Hardly anyone is interested in Pagan Reconstructionism here in
Australia. A friend and I set up an Australian Pagan Reconstructionism email
list and had about 15 members subscribed, nobody said a word to anyone
else... I've advertised for about 2 years in local zines regrading setting
up a group interested in ancient Greek polytheism. I think I've had one
response, or was that two... anyway, I've kinda given up and just do my own
thang...

I'm very taken by Pagan Reconstructionism, from both an academic and a
practitioner angle, mostly Hellenic in my case, so I know of some of the
problems with trying to be "historically correct". ie/ animal sacrifice,
lots of people do not want to do that, so cakes in the shape of animals are
often used instead. (I know some Recons - the 2 examples I'm thinking of are
a Roman and a Heathen - do perfom animal sacrifice, according to historic
prescriptions of their Recon religions of choice). Caelum, with the
inability (legally) of you to perform human sacrifice, wouldn't you say that
you are really *unable* to really reconstruct Aztec religious practices? (As
I also think is the case with the other attempts at Recon). Even if
practitioners *were* to perform *all* aspects of the cult in question... are
we not simply too far divorced from the ancient culture to *truly*
reconstruct that religion? If our mental space(s) are not the same as
ancient practitioners, then aren't we *really* doing something else than
actually re-constructing a series of ancient cult practices that constitute
a polytheistic (in most cases) "religion"? Aren't we really re-creating? If
I call a (water) spring here a "Nymph"... am I not really being horribly
self-consciously "Classical" and pretensious and delusionary? (Although
Chaos Magic - thank the gods for Chaos Magic, it has liberated me from
feeling that I *have to* be anything at all.. unless I feel like it), Chaos
Magic says that I can adopt whatever belief system I like without needing to
keep it for eternity, so I can call a spring one day, "Nymph", and another
day, "H2O", and another day.... umm..."hidey-hole of the Rainbow Serpent"
(although that might be cultural appropriation because Australian
Aboriginals still exist - unlike ancient Greek Pagans - although I guess
Greek Pagan groups like "Dodekatheon" would argue that one...)

I'm not saying that attempting Pagan Reconstructionism this is a bad thing,
or that we shouldn't do it, (indeed, I think if we are going to call
ourselves "Pagan" (assuming we are going to do that) then we owe it to
ourselves and to "Paganism(s)" to actually research what we purport to be
doing) but that with all the strictness about practice I see in various
Recon discussions, isn't it really true that reconstruction of an ancient
cult is actually not really possible? OK, even if we can reconstruct the
*form*, our sensibilities regarding ritual action, apprehending deity,
processing of experience, are going to be *entirely different*. Which does
not mean that we should not do that - I mean ideas about say, the goddess
Aphrodite in Classical Greece were reasonably different to how Aphrodite was
perceived in say Hellenistic Egypt - does that mean that it was somehow
"inauthentic"? No, just that people's perception had changed through time
(which brings up the question, if a deity changes through time, are they
still the same deity later on, including NOW?). I guess maybe I'm
questioning the assumption that ancient religions can be "re-constructed" in
entirety. Maybe it should be called "Pagan Re-vamping", or "Pagan
Re-creating"....

I guess that I am less annoyed about say "pop-Wiccan" reinterpretations of
ancient deities than I used to be. If ancient Greek and Egyptian deities can
be re-interpreted by the magicians of the Greek Magical Papyri (according to
several authors, the PGM can be looked at not simply as magic, but as folk,
as opposed to "state" or "public", _religion_), then I'm feeling more
lenient toward soft pop-Wiccan re-writings of ancient deities. BUT I'm not
entirely tolerant there. I HATE the lack of research and utter laziness
evident in much popular Pagan/Wiccan writing, and the (IMO) totally surface,
lets say "lip-service", approach that it *seems* is being adopted toward the
deities that these neo-forms of Paganism purport to be about. Or do they
purport to be about ancient Pagan deities at all? Perhaps not, maybe they
are really about running round being sociable and creating social
hierarchies (hey, I'm just telling it as I see it in Australia - and I've
been watching and participating in it here for 20 years). Or maybe this
mixture of ceremonial magic and ancient Pagan deity names that passes for
"Paganism" today simply *is* the latest permutation of ancient Paganism?? I
dunno, I'm just musing..

So many interesting things to talk about....

There's a lot of bossy fascism in Pagan Reconstructionism though (oh, like
that's something new for modern Paganism? Not). What about the idea that
ancient "Pagan Religions" did not approve or or perfom magic that I see so
many Recons bandying about? From my reading on ancient Egyptian, Greek  and
Roman magic it seems in many cases difficult to differentiate between cult
practice and magickal practice (literary fictions of "witches" aside). And
the idea in Recon of "purity"? Were any of thse ancient cultures culturally
pure, and if so, for how long? Is syncretism OK?


Happy 2006,

~Caroline.