Fascinating article about the differences between the American Pagan revival and continental European Paganism , some of which --as in Lithuania-- is a still-living continuation of spiritual traditions that go back thousands of years. FYI, there also is still-living Paganism in parts of Russia and a few rural areas of Poland and Finland and the Balkans. In America, but not in Europe, or not very much in Europe, some % of Christians have obvious interest in reviving Goddess traditions within a Biblical context. Also the case among some Jews, those who seek to do things with Lilith tradition or Shekhina / Matronit tradition. So, there is a Christian - Pagan blend going on with some version of the Goddess as mediating between the two. Anyway, a good overview of this movement in modern religion. Billy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Pointedly Pagan The Pagan-Fascist Controversy We need a new historical understanding of Paganism's recent past. By _Gus diZerega_ (http://www.patheos.com/About-Patheos/Gus-diZerega.html) , September 29, 2011 "Like" the _Patheos Pagan Page_ (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Patheos-Pagan-Portal/185230108170664) on Facebook to receive today's best commentary on Pagan issues. A few years back, there was a bit of a stir within the academic Pagan community when the _Pomegranate_ (http://www.equinoxpub.com/Pom) , a Pagan journal then seeking to become academic, published a piece by Peter Staudenmaier on why Paganism was irrational and would likely lead to the kind of politics he equated with fascism. The editor wanted to stir up controversy, and stir it he did. I responded that the author, a follower of the left-communist anarchist _Murray Bookchin_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin) , didn't know anything about modern Paganism and was cherry picking his examples and blurring his categories to make his case. Further, by equating totalitarianism with the right, he rather glaringly ignored Stalin. The issue of Pagan irrationality leading to fascist politics rose up again in a debate I had with Ken Wilber. (Ken has _since set aside_ (http://www.integralworld.net/dizerega.html) his blanket condemnation of us.) I summarized many of these issues in _an article_ (http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2008/02/deep-ecology-paganism-and-fascism-revisited.html) a few years back on my Beliefnet blog. But at the same time, the people who had pointed to an earlier connection of Paganism and European fascism had raised an interesting issue, one that since then has never been all that far from my mind. For the connection between "Paganism" and fascism did in fact exist. Martin Heidegger and C. G. Jung were both German thinkers who influenced many people in believing that the modern Enlightenment lost access to and recognition of the power of spiritual truths within the world. Heidegger's collaboration with the Nazis _is well known_ (http://books.google.ro/books?id=0eJa3xPCThsC&source=gbs_similarbooks_r&cad=2) ; Jung's is less so. But in 1932, before Hitler came to power, Jung wrote, "The huzzahs of the Italian nation go forth to the personality of the Duce, and the dirges of other nations lament the absence of strong leaders." Two years later, after Hitler came to power while referring to this passage, Jung wrote, "Since this sentence was written, Germany too has found its Führer" (_The Seduction of Unreason_ (http://www.amazon.com/Seduction-Unreason-Intellectual-Nietzsche-Postmodernism/dp/0691125996/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317249003&sr=1-1) , p. 75). And yet the critiques these men made of the modern secular mentality and the kinds of knowledge it provided were often penetrating and remain valuable. I, for one, agree with many of their criticisms. So what are we to make of their execrable politics? And is there any connection between their critique of secular modernity and fascism? At the same time, there were some superficial similarities between an interwar German youth movement and the American counter culture of the 60s. The tragedies and disruptions of the first-world era disgusted many German young people and more than a few elected to turn to getting closer to nature as more authentic and worthwhile. Here is an interesting account of this movement's _impact on Werner Heisenberg_ (http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p04_text.htm) , one of the greatest scientists of his time. His motivations will be completely understandable to many of us from the 60s generation. I think I have found the answer to the similarities as well as the profound dissimilarities between the interwar German interest in Paganism and nature and that of the 60s and all that has followed. If I am right it is very interesting, but not in the way our critics think. What follows compresses elements of English, German, and French cultural history over about a century into a few paragraphs. It paints with a broad brush. But I think it paints broadly accurately, although I look forward to any constructive (or critical but on topic) comments any of my readers might wish to provide. America and Europe: Different but similar When modern industrialism began to arise, a great many penetrating observers in Europe and America alike saw and wrote about its shadow side. But they saw and wrote about it from within very different contexts. Americans wrote from within a culture profoundly shaped by the ideals of the American Revolution and the liberal sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, sentiments that had let most of the original states to abolish slavery peacefully and for some even to give women the vote. America's loyalists had fled to Canada or to England, and most never returned. For a few decades, the South also remained within this liberal zone before the growing profitability of slavery led its leaders to reject the liberal principles of the Declaration. And so our critics of industrial modernity, men like Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson and the homegrown critics of mass wage labor, such as Henry George, all wrote from within a liberal framework. The first flowering of an alternative spirituality under conditions of religious liberty and the growing spiritual leadership of women also occurred during this time, as Sarah Pike explains in her book _New Age and Pagan Religions_ (http://www.amazon.com/Neopagan-Religions-Columbia-Contemporary-American/dp/0231124031/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317249554&sr=1-1) . Europeans with similar sensibilities towards spirit and the world lived in a very different world. They confronted a liberalism that for the most part no longer spoke the language of human rights. After the French Revolution, for various reasons good and bad, European liberals had narrowed their appeal to the bourgeoisie and the new industrialists. Much of Europe remained rural, conservative, religious, and wedded to the old aristocracy even as the new working class eventually allied with various socialist movements. The socialists generally shared the nature-is-nothing-but-resources outlook of the industrialists. European conservatives were disproportionately hospitable to the romantic critiques of the new industrial mentality. Of these men and women, some were traditionally Christian, and often Catholic. Others had accepted the Enlightenment critique of the ancien regime, but believed that order and hierarchy were necessary to prevent chaos. Here is where the later fateful seeds that distinguished European conservatism from fascists and Nazis were planted. While one saw itself as traditional and the other as revolutionary, both hated liberalism and extolled hierarchy and authority. It was within these broad anti-liberal groups that the romantic critiques of the new industrial and liberal orders rising in Europe were most avidly accepted. While the conservatives employed conservative Christian frameworks, those who were no longer Christian often blamed Christianity for the evils of the modern world, especially its egalitarianism. Many of them cultivated an interest in Pagan traditions as an alternative. (Here I would disagree with the European secular right and give far more credit to classical civilization than to Christian, but that's another argument.) The evidence I have encountered suggests these people were not practicing Pagans in our sense; they were cultural Pagans as an alternative to a Christianity they considered decadent and soft. They certainly were not Goddess-oriented, for those qualities were the opposite of the "manly virility" praised by the European right and their political fascist wing. Pagans then and now So how do we differ from the so-called "Paganism" of some European right-wingers between WWI and WWII? 1. We come to it out of liberal culture, a culture the European right regarded as too soft and feminine to survive. 2. Consequently, we are vastly more receptive to the Divine Feminine than were the European Pagans I have so far read about, who generally regarded themselves as manly critics of an overly feminine (!?) society. 3. Our Paganism is primarily religious in focus, whereas the Europeans of that time saw what they did in primarily cultural terms. These are very important differences indeed. They dominate despite an overlap in elements of their and our critique of secular modernity and a common use of the term "Pagan," albeit with different meanings. In a sense, I see most of them as appropriating the term Pagan as a tool in their attack on liberal modernity rather than as a description of their religious beliefs. Today, this issue is not entirely past history. Elements of this European cultural focus remain within some European Pagan circles, and I am curious as to how they will work out. For example, Lithuania was the last Euro-Pagan culture to be crushed by Christian military might. It retains a strong Pagan cultural identity, and while under Soviet occupation many Lithuanians held fast to that identity. Lithuanians I know have told me most, but hardly all, Pagans there are Pagan for cultural reasons rather than religious or spiritual ones. If my argument is correct both we and they can benefit from increased contact. By example (and not by lecture), we can offer an alternative to the most reactionary political implications of their courageously maintained Pagan identities. They in turn can help us find ways of increasing the breadth and richness of Pagan culture in America. That sounds like win/win to me. But most importantly, if this argument is valid, it helps us all appreciate the best parts of our heritage even while seeking to live more harmonious and peaceful lives ourselves.
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