Once again, I just cannot have such optimism. I think we are not entering a resurgence of life affirmation, but instead we are reaching a new state of decadence — fully materialistic life denial. People are now seeking to escape the troubles of the material world through an increasing reliance on material, rather than some sort of asceticism or heroic action. The dopamine chambers. The Dyson spheres. This is exactly what Heidegger feared about technology, that people would use it to run away from the world rather than to achieve power in the world, which subsequently will turn human beings reliant on technology rather than the vice versa.
I am so focused on creating eucatastrophe and life-affirmation in my life, that I sometimes forget most people do not focus on this. Personally, I think a new trend has/is being set by people who simply don't care about the mainstream decadence and will do their own thing anyways. I think this is one of the better things about all this hyper-individualism - multiple routes are being taken, multiple tactics and strategies. I focus on my own, and leave people to theirs. When I experience a small win, it feels much bigger because of my focus. I am not so interested in saving society, or even the entire racial body - a tall order, and a waste of time to focus large amounts of energy on.
It is better to focus on building things in my own life. This is what changes trends, sets new courses for society, it just takes the right set of people to show a path, to make a standard, to set a new trend. I think this is already being done, we are just at the very beginning of it. Remember: if we are at the beginning of something new, that means we are either at the peak, peaking, or just over the peak of the last trend - materialistic life-negation. It is ending, we just don't know the time scale yet, but that also means we just have to do our own thing and build in spite of the current zeitgeist.
I hear some people say the right wing is "terminally online" and that is largely true. We have plenty of boots-on-the-ground organizations in the West, but most of us are fine hiding behind our PFPs and internet identities. Pagans, Christians, NatSocs, Constitutionalists, whatever, there are groups for each individual.
What kinds of ritual and worship experiences do you create for people in the AFA? One thing that I've found to be very well liked during the winter solstice season is creating experiences where flash paper is used at a peak part of the ritual.
People write their wishes on a piece of flash paper, and then drop it in a flame to manifest it. Of course this isn't the entire ritual.
I would say that the life-denying attributes of Platonism are more of a late influence, the notion of “henosis” was introduced by Plotinus who was probably the most life-denying of the Neoplatonists. Middle Platonists and early Platonists were only really interested in demonstrating the underlying oneness of reality, they were less concerned with some sort of soteriology and it was generally agreed that the world was worth living in and that goodness had much more sway over the world than evil. Later more mystical platonists agreed with the goodness of the world, but also viewed enlightenment as the best possible good and sort of a form of apotheosis more than self-immolation. The Dharmic equivalent of this is probably Vishishtadvaita. It still recognizes underlying unity but enlightenment merely brings one close to God (Vaikuntha) while still having a separate being.
I would say Gnosticism is in sort of a league of its own. Christianity is kind of life denying but more in its praxis, with the whole martyrdom schtick. Christians do still believe, after all, that the best end to history is a reincarnation of human beings — that being with a body is better than being without a body
What do you think of modern religions like Freemasonry, which peaked during the 1850s, or New Thought / New Age, which peaked during the 1960s and 70s?
Many cultures never went through early modern and modern religion. The corrupt, usurious Buddhists and ignorant chicken sacrificing locals that my grandparents' generation complained
about were the final stage of Chinese religion before secularization.
We don't actually know how they, or the traditional Chinese government that was its governing structure, would've confronted the challenge of modern science. Because when we encountered the science, evolution, gay marriage, contraception, divorce and abortion debates we were already fully secularized with a an adopted Soviet ethos.
Orthodox Christianity and Islam have the same problems and are just starting to confront the issues that the Protestant and Catholic churches, as well as Liberal and Modern Orthodox Judaism, has been dealing with for centuries.
Ultimately, a religion will be both collective and individual-developing, like Athens. The present circumstances is very similar to the Roman Imperial period where there were many competing cults and philosophies. Many will fall away like the Shakers since they rejected sexual union as sinful, limiting their numbers.
An authoritarian religion that enables a man to become stronger, wiser, public-spirited, and fruitful as both an individual and as a member of his tribe is more likely to thrive and to reproduce. The number of children will determine its future as they transited from the freeform charisma period to institution-building that supports family formation and individual development within a strong fraternity. This will help its members weathers changes better than radical individualists and to position them to take opportunities to shape their own future, including settling the stars.
Theravada Buddhism is world-denying in both theory and practice ("nibbana is an ultimate, absolute, unconditioned reality, entirely beyond this world. To reach it, follow ascetic practices.").
Mahayana Buddhism is world-accepting in theory, world-denying in practice ("nibbana and samsara are the same thing. Nibbana is not beyond this world, it IS this world. However, still follow the ascetic practices").
Vajrayana Buddhism is world-accepting in theory, and world-accepting in practice ("nibbana is within this world. It can be thought of as a type of space within the universe. Esoteric approaches, including sex yoga, ecstatic tantra, collective worship, individual practices, etc. are all acceptable. All is sacred..").
Perhaps the last one has to do with much of its surviving development having taken place in the remote mountains of Tibet, where animism and the Bon religion were a thing, so it became life-accepting.
I think Neopaganism in the West is too problematic because it has no... let's say "skeleton". It has no true foundation, no cohesive metaphysical and ethical structure. I think its better for neopagans to adopt something like Vajrayana Buddhism and transform it by infusing its practices and deities into it (extremely common in Buddhism) rather than try something totally new from scratch. I think evidentially, much of its practices are validated, karma, rebirth, nibbana, forms of yoga, meditation and tantra, etc. I think it would also give it more legitimacy than plainly worshipping old gods. If people couldn't convince others of monotheism and that one, ultimate, abstract, and theoretically provable God exists, then what makes one think they'll be able to convince others of the existence of someone like Zeus. Vajrayana Buddhism gives the whole package: metaphysics, goals, ethics, practices and methods, etc. Its easier to adopt and transform it within certain bounds than to conjure something random and have to convince everyone of it.
By the way, I think that the whole thing about religious institutions or structure has more to do with scale, rather than *type* of religiosity. Its not as if paganism of the Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian or Graeco-Roman types didn't have major systems and religious institutions. Only the first type lacked them, albeit they did have its proto-form in people who specialized in shamanism. They only didn't have large scale institutions because there weren't civilizational surpluses to go around and specialize, so it wasn't something one could afford.
I understand the desire to protect one's heritage. I have no heritage to protect, so its easy for me to adopt whatever religion. Northwestern paganism seems too conceptually disorganized to be able to scale, and doesn't have enough unity.
I am not saying it's foreign in the sense that it's from non Whites, I'm saying that none (not a one) of my direct ancestors followed Buddhism, or Mazdism, or Hinduism. I am certain I do have some Hellenic ancestors, but they would not be direct.
We are a patrilineal people. Follow the gods of your ancestors, not the gods of your ancestors cousins. That is the main point I am making.
Asatru is not dead, and Celtic paganism is seeing the first stages of its revival. So, if you are of northwestern descent your ancestral route it laid open to you. It is not gone, nor is it capable of being taken from us. It is our birth right.
We are patrilineal. So follow your patrilineal ancestors.
Axial Age developments may not have formulated throughout the entire Indo-European world. They really only developed in three parts, I don't see why people make the assumption that Axial Age philosophies are the end point for Indo-European religions. I do understand why you make this point.
I have always found it funny that folks claim that Germanic religion has largely been destroyed, but yet they also utilize comparative mythology to make points about the relation between Indo-Aryan religion and classical European religions. No. They are not destroyed.
You mention Sectionalism, a great internet voice for paganism. Why not go out and meet pagans in your country? America has multiple hofs through the AFA. You can go to a hof and speak to pagans this month. Its not increasingly small and fragmented either - the AFA has multiple schism groups, yes, but none of these groups have a hof or grow in numbers. I've been in the AFA for a year and have seen multiple new members come, and two new halls built, with a new hof well on the way. That is tangible growth that exists off the internet.
I think my points about patrilineal importance went right over your head. I brought up how northern Europeans should follow their ancestral gods and honor their ancestors in traditional ways. You brought up Greeks and other Indo-Europeans who are far afield.
Focus on your ancestors. Our religion is not cerebral nonsense. It is folkish, community based. Go out in person and do ritual with people who are related to you by blood - honor your direct blood ancestors. That is our religion at its core. Its not an internet thing, something we can pontificate about without doing real stuff.
If you can build a pro-White, all-White Buddhist community then I won't complain. But make it a real thing with brick and mortar, and make your folk stronger. That's kind of the whole point. Blood and soil. Not ideas and virtual spaces!
I've never "romanticized paganism for being secular and liberal", it's clearly anything but, or accused Abrahamism of the inverse, as many "liberal" tenets originate from it. No clue where you're pulling this from.
*I am* eurocentric, I don't care, but Bellah's article covered here certainly isn't. It covers the entire temporal & spatial history of religion with plenty of Eastern and New World examples, such as Shinran Shonin/Pure Land Buddhism, Jodo Shinshu, Kanzo's non-Church Christianity, Mahayana, etc. Special preference is given to Protestant Europe because it, like in many other topics, found itself to be exceptionally different from the standard norm.
Much of your criticism here comes from me shortening and selecting for my own purpose. "You left this out," probably true for sake of brevity. I'd just read Bellah's article and go from there.
Jumping around a lot, so some quick replies. You're applying a modern idea of religion to primitive peoples. They didn't see the supernatural as "some other world", it was simply part of the same one. Hence the horseshoe to monism (or pantheism, or panentheism, or pandeism, whatever).
Christianity itself, in Europe, is a blend of native paganism and Christianity. That's from Rome's long-held policy of inculturation (see James Russell's Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, which cites Bellah). He (nor I) never insinuated there is a static "contradiction" between these faiths, in fact the proposed fluid transition between them assumes some form of continuity. Again, I have no clue what you're actually arguing against here.
You should know that Bellah was one of the most important Christian scholars in America and an ardent believer and defender of it. I don't think you know who he is.
Now you're at my thoughts, not his, because Bellah proposed that religion would simply atomize into a billion personal beliefs in the following of Jefferson/Payne's "I am my own church" philosophy. The reason why I state that it seems to be horseshoeing back into paganism & world accepting religiosity is because of a.) The long-term trend of increasingly non-dualist philosophy and its popularity, b.) The increasing popularity of ecological movements and the decreasing popularity of the idea of a "great chain of being", and c.) Simple census data, as paganism is the fastest growing religion in many parts of the West.
4. Bellah isn't arguing for a contrast, he's arguing for an evolution. If you think there is a contrast between chimpanzees and humans, you fundamentally misunderstand EVOLUTION.
5. Covered in my post and Bellah's article, again repeating things you think are novel takedowns.
6. Not an argument, conjectural nonsense, and has nothing to with my post even if true because I didn't claim we were returning to archaic religion and set an entire paragraph to explain why. Which you didn't read.
Growing increasingly confident that you haven't seriously read my post based on how little of my actual points & phrasing you actually use. For example, you have an autistic obsession with a critique of Pantheism, which I used in this article only twice (and Bellah 0), in specific contexts: first to show that modern people want a religion that divinizes the natural world in some way, and later to show the fracturing disorganization of religion. Never have you mentioned my use of pantheism in its context.
You seem to be especially strict on defining some terms and especially lenient on the others. "Pantheism is absolutely not paganism, but Christianity-Buddhism-Platonism-Hinduism, well, they're close enough..."
The difference between the primitive & archaic concept of the world (as discussed in my post... and Bellah's article... again...) is, once again, THE DEGREE of relationships and not THE KIND. The very use of the concept of "evolution" implies this! The primitive conception was "le monde mythique"; rather than having fundamentally "other" beings interfere with and direct the material, the material was a simple but perfect reflection of the parallel spirit world. Rather than aspiring to recreate religious symbols, primitive religiosity viewed the participant as *himself* the myth on a personal basis. Again, you can probably force in loose parallels from Christianity or Buddhism, but certainly not to this degree.
Once again, I just cannot have such optimism. I think we are not entering a resurgence of life affirmation, but instead we are reaching a new state of decadence — fully materialistic life denial. People are now seeking to escape the troubles of the material world through an increasing reliance on material, rather than some sort of asceticism or heroic action. The dopamine chambers. The Dyson spheres. This is exactly what Heidegger feared about technology, that people would use it to run away from the world rather than to achieve power in the world, which subsequently will turn human beings reliant on technology rather than the vice versa.
I am so focused on creating eucatastrophe and life-affirmation in my life, that I sometimes forget most people do not focus on this. Personally, I think a new trend has/is being set by people who simply don't care about the mainstream decadence and will do their own thing anyways. I think this is one of the better things about all this hyper-individualism - multiple routes are being taken, multiple tactics and strategies. I focus on my own, and leave people to theirs. When I experience a small win, it feels much bigger because of my focus. I am not so interested in saving society, or even the entire racial body - a tall order, and a waste of time to focus large amounts of energy on.
It is better to focus on building things in my own life. This is what changes trends, sets new courses for society, it just takes the right set of people to show a path, to make a standard, to set a new trend. I think this is already being done, we are just at the very beginning of it. Remember: if we are at the beginning of something new, that means we are either at the peak, peaking, or just over the peak of the last trend - materialistic life-negation. It is ending, we just don't know the time scale yet, but that also means we just have to do our own thing and build in spite of the current zeitgeist.
I hear some people say the right wing is "terminally online" and that is largely true. We have plenty of boots-on-the-ground organizations in the West, but most of us are fine hiding behind our PFPs and internet identities. Pagans, Christians, NatSocs, Constitutionalists, whatever, there are groups for each individual.
People just need to get in line!
What kinds of ritual and worship experiences do you create for people in the AFA? One thing that I've found to be very well liked during the winter solstice season is creating experiences where flash paper is used at a peak part of the ritual.
People write their wishes on a piece of flash paper, and then drop it in a flame to manifest it. Of course this isn't the entire ritual.
I would say that the life-denying attributes of Platonism are more of a late influence, the notion of “henosis” was introduced by Plotinus who was probably the most life-denying of the Neoplatonists. Middle Platonists and early Platonists were only really interested in demonstrating the underlying oneness of reality, they were less concerned with some sort of soteriology and it was generally agreed that the world was worth living in and that goodness had much more sway over the world than evil. Later more mystical platonists agreed with the goodness of the world, but also viewed enlightenment as the best possible good and sort of a form of apotheosis more than self-immolation. The Dharmic equivalent of this is probably Vishishtadvaita. It still recognizes underlying unity but enlightenment merely brings one close to God (Vaikuntha) while still having a separate being.
I would say Gnosticism is in sort of a league of its own. Christianity is kind of life denying but more in its praxis, with the whole martyrdom schtick. Christians do still believe, after all, that the best end to history is a reincarnation of human beings — that being with a body is better than being without a body
What do you think of modern religions like Freemasonry, which peaked during the 1850s, or New Thought / New Age, which peaked during the 1960s and 70s?
Many cultures never went through early modern and modern religion. The corrupt, usurious Buddhists and ignorant chicken sacrificing locals that my grandparents' generation complained
about were the final stage of Chinese religion before secularization.
We don't actually know how they, or the traditional Chinese government that was its governing structure, would've confronted the challenge of modern science. Because when we encountered the science, evolution, gay marriage, contraception, divorce and abortion debates we were already fully secularized with a an adopted Soviet ethos.
Orthodox Christianity and Islam have the same problems and are just starting to confront the issues that the Protestant and Catholic churches, as well as Liberal and Modern Orthodox Judaism, has been dealing with for centuries.
Ultimately, a religion will be both collective and individual-developing, like Athens. The present circumstances is very similar to the Roman Imperial period where there were many competing cults and philosophies. Many will fall away like the Shakers since they rejected sexual union as sinful, limiting their numbers.
An authoritarian religion that enables a man to become stronger, wiser, public-spirited, and fruitful as both an individual and as a member of his tribe is more likely to thrive and to reproduce. The number of children will determine its future as they transited from the freeform charisma period to institution-building that supports family formation and individual development within a strong fraternity. This will help its members weathers changes better than radical individualists and to position them to take opportunities to shape their own future, including settling the stars.
Theravada Buddhism is world-denying in both theory and practice ("nibbana is an ultimate, absolute, unconditioned reality, entirely beyond this world. To reach it, follow ascetic practices.").
Mahayana Buddhism is world-accepting in theory, world-denying in practice ("nibbana and samsara are the same thing. Nibbana is not beyond this world, it IS this world. However, still follow the ascetic practices").
Vajrayana Buddhism is world-accepting in theory, and world-accepting in practice ("nibbana is within this world. It can be thought of as a type of space within the universe. Esoteric approaches, including sex yoga, ecstatic tantra, collective worship, individual practices, etc. are all acceptable. All is sacred..").
Perhaps the last one has to do with much of its surviving development having taken place in the remote mountains of Tibet, where animism and the Bon religion were a thing, so it became life-accepting.
I think Neopaganism in the West is too problematic because it has no... let's say "skeleton". It has no true foundation, no cohesive metaphysical and ethical structure. I think its better for neopagans to adopt something like Vajrayana Buddhism and transform it by infusing its practices and deities into it (extremely common in Buddhism) rather than try something totally new from scratch. I think evidentially, much of its practices are validated, karma, rebirth, nibbana, forms of yoga, meditation and tantra, etc. I think it would also give it more legitimacy than plainly worshipping old gods. If people couldn't convince others of monotheism and that one, ultimate, abstract, and theoretically provable God exists, then what makes one think they'll be able to convince others of the existence of someone like Zeus. Vajrayana Buddhism gives the whole package: metaphysics, goals, ethics, practices and methods, etc. Its easier to adopt and transform it within certain bounds than to conjure something random and have to convince everyone of it.
By the way, I think that the whole thing about religious institutions or structure has more to do with scale, rather than *type* of religiosity. Its not as if paganism of the Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian or Graeco-Roman types didn't have major systems and religious institutions. Only the first type lacked them, albeit they did have its proto-form in people who specialized in shamanism. They only didn't have large scale institutions because there weren't civilizational surpluses to go around and specialize, so it wasn't something one could afford.
Very good article!
People like us who hail from northern Europe will not convert to foreign religions like Buddhism. Hence us becoming folkish pagans.
Northwestern paganism does not lack a skeleton.
I understand the desire to protect one's heritage. I have no heritage to protect, so its easy for me to adopt whatever religion. Northwestern paganism seems too conceptually disorganized to be able to scale, and doesn't have enough unity.
Are you northern European?
If so, then I urge you to reconsider. There are great resources on runestone.org or through Survive the Jive’s new lesson program.
If not, please stay out of our affairs.
I am not northern European.
Good luck with your project! :D
I disagree, but whatever you think is right :)
I am not saying it's foreign in the sense that it's from non Whites, I'm saying that none (not a one) of my direct ancestors followed Buddhism, or Mazdism, or Hinduism. I am certain I do have some Hellenic ancestors, but they would not be direct.
We are a patrilineal people. Follow the gods of your ancestors, not the gods of your ancestors cousins. That is the main point I am making.
Asatru is not dead, and Celtic paganism is seeing the first stages of its revival. So, if you are of northwestern descent your ancestral route it laid open to you. It is not gone, nor is it capable of being taken from us. It is our birth right.
We are patrilineal. So follow your patrilineal ancestors.
Axial Age developments may not have formulated throughout the entire Indo-European world. They really only developed in three parts, I don't see why people make the assumption that Axial Age philosophies are the end point for Indo-European religions. I do understand why you make this point.
I have always found it funny that folks claim that Germanic religion has largely been destroyed, but yet they also utilize comparative mythology to make points about the relation between Indo-Aryan religion and classical European religions. No. They are not destroyed.
You mention Sectionalism, a great internet voice for paganism. Why not go out and meet pagans in your country? America has multiple hofs through the AFA. You can go to a hof and speak to pagans this month. Its not increasingly small and fragmented either - the AFA has multiple schism groups, yes, but none of these groups have a hof or grow in numbers. I've been in the AFA for a year and have seen multiple new members come, and two new halls built, with a new hof well on the way. That is tangible growth that exists off the internet.
I think my points about patrilineal importance went right over your head. I brought up how northern Europeans should follow their ancestral gods and honor their ancestors in traditional ways. You brought up Greeks and other Indo-Europeans who are far afield.
Focus on your ancestors. Our religion is not cerebral nonsense. It is folkish, community based. Go out in person and do ritual with people who are related to you by blood - honor your direct blood ancestors. That is our religion at its core. Its not an internet thing, something we can pontificate about without doing real stuff.
If you can build a pro-White, all-White Buddhist community then I won't complain. But make it a real thing with brick and mortar, and make your folk stronger. That's kind of the whole point. Blood and soil. Not ideas and virtual spaces!
I've never "romanticized paganism for being secular and liberal", it's clearly anything but, or accused Abrahamism of the inverse, as many "liberal" tenets originate from it. No clue where you're pulling this from.
*I am* eurocentric, I don't care, but Bellah's article covered here certainly isn't. It covers the entire temporal & spatial history of religion with plenty of Eastern and New World examples, such as Shinran Shonin/Pure Land Buddhism, Jodo Shinshu, Kanzo's non-Church Christianity, Mahayana, etc. Special preference is given to Protestant Europe because it, like in many other topics, found itself to be exceptionally different from the standard norm.
Much of your criticism here comes from me shortening and selecting for my own purpose. "You left this out," probably true for sake of brevity. I'd just read Bellah's article and go from there.
Jumping around a lot, so some quick replies. You're applying a modern idea of religion to primitive peoples. They didn't see the supernatural as "some other world", it was simply part of the same one. Hence the horseshoe to monism (or pantheism, or panentheism, or pandeism, whatever).
Christianity itself, in Europe, is a blend of native paganism and Christianity. That's from Rome's long-held policy of inculturation (see James Russell's Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, which cites Bellah). He (nor I) never insinuated there is a static "contradiction" between these faiths, in fact the proposed fluid transition between them assumes some form of continuity. Again, I have no clue what you're actually arguing against here.
You should know that Bellah was one of the most important Christian scholars in America and an ardent believer and defender of it. I don't think you know who he is.
Now you're at my thoughts, not his, because Bellah proposed that religion would simply atomize into a billion personal beliefs in the following of Jefferson/Payne's "I am my own church" philosophy. The reason why I state that it seems to be horseshoeing back into paganism & world accepting religiosity is because of a.) The long-term trend of increasingly non-dualist philosophy and its popularity, b.) The increasing popularity of ecological movements and the decreasing popularity of the idea of a "great chain of being", and c.) Simple census data, as paganism is the fastest growing religion in many parts of the West.
3. Not an argument.
4. Bellah isn't arguing for a contrast, he's arguing for an evolution. If you think there is a contrast between chimpanzees and humans, you fundamentally misunderstand EVOLUTION.
5. Covered in my post and Bellah's article, again repeating things you think are novel takedowns.
6. Not an argument, conjectural nonsense, and has nothing to with my post even if true because I didn't claim we were returning to archaic religion and set an entire paragraph to explain why. Which you didn't read.
Your mouth is far too big for your ears
Growing increasingly confident that you haven't seriously read my post based on how little of my actual points & phrasing you actually use. For example, you have an autistic obsession with a critique of Pantheism, which I used in this article only twice (and Bellah 0), in specific contexts: first to show that modern people want a religion that divinizes the natural world in some way, and later to show the fracturing disorganization of religion. Never have you mentioned my use of pantheism in its context.
You seem to be especially strict on defining some terms and especially lenient on the others. "Pantheism is absolutely not paganism, but Christianity-Buddhism-Platonism-Hinduism, well, they're close enough..."
The difference between the primitive & archaic concept of the world (as discussed in my post... and Bellah's article... again...) is, once again, THE DEGREE of relationships and not THE KIND. The very use of the concept of "evolution" implies this! The primitive conception was "le monde mythique"; rather than having fundamentally "other" beings interfere with and direct the material, the material was a simple but perfect reflection of the parallel spirit world. Rather than aspiring to recreate religious symbols, primitive religiosity viewed the participant as *himself* the myth on a personal basis. Again, you can probably force in loose parallels from Christianity or Buddhism, but certainly not to this degree.
Again, all of this is in the article.
Interesting.
The thing is, the West has largely turned from Christianity and the trends are continuing. You will eventually have to bury most of your kindred.