Help! I'm Clueless About Paganism

Page Three

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What Pagans Believe As noted in the last section, particular beliefs are much less emphasized in Paganism than in other religious or spiritual traditions. Pagans tend to work out their own belief systems for themselves, drawing on a variety of sources. Nevertheless, there are a number of beliefs that seem to "fit" with Pagan practice so well that they are pretty commonly held. Here are a few concepts that many different Pagans would likely agree with. Spirit is in everything. Pagans feel a close kinship with plants, animals, and even "nonliving" things like rocks and rivers. Pagans don't generally see human beings as superior creatures, or possessed of a "soul" that other beings do not have. Many Pagans consequently show a great concern with other living things and the health of the environment. The body and its pleasures are sacred. Pagans generally feel that being in a physical body is an important part of what it means to be human, and physicality is something to be enjoyed. We do not see ourselves as spiritual beings "trapped" in our bodies, and we do not believe that the pleasures of the senses are evil. Pagans have a positive view of sex, and are generally open to the responsible use of alcohol and other recreational drugs. Time is cyclic. Pagans tend to think of time in terms of cycles, with the Wheel of the Year and the phases of the Moon being important metaphors for us in understanding time and change. We like the idea that everything comes into being, grows, ages, and dies, only to be recycled into something new the next time around. Death is honored as a part of the cylce of life and change, not an ending to be feared. Many Pagans believe in reincarnation. Opposites complement each other. When Pagans think of pairs of opposites - male and female, life and death, body and spirit, day and night, gain and loss - they don't typically feel a need to label one as good and the other as evil. Pagans see opposites as complementary; both are needed to have a complete picture of things and a healthy existence. Rather than seeing good and evil as opposites at war with each other, Pagans tend to see "good" as being in a state of healthy balance, and "evil" (to the extent we use the concept at all), as being some kind of departure from balance. We help create our own reality. Many (although not all) Pagans practice magic, which can be thought of us as a spiritual method for creating positive change in one's life. Although the word "magic" may sound a bit theatrical and conjure up images of Harry Potter or of summoning dark powers, for Pagans it signifies something less melodramatic, but more profound. The idea of Pagan magic is that if we focus our imaginations and direct spiritual energy into something we hope to manifest, we can help bring it into being. Each of us is responsible for what we help create. The flip side of being a co-creator is that you carry your share of the responsibility when something you do turns out unhappily. Pagans generally do not believe that moral responsibility is postponed to the afterlife or deflected by making suitable proclamations or performing certain rites. Our thinking is more in line with the expression from the 60s: "What goes around, comes around." The energy and attitudes with which we approach others and the world work back on us at the same time. We agree with John Lennon: instant karma's gonna get you. Diversity is welcome. Again drawing on the natural world for metaphors, Pagans revel in the many different forms of life and their interaction. This includes, by extension, the many different forms of human belief and culture. Pagans are usually quite nonjudgmental about other religions, about varying preferences in food, clothing, and sexuality. We tend to figure the world is a richer place for all its diversity. For this reason, Pagans seldom proselytize or try to "sell" their religion to others. We delight in sharing our experiences and beliefs when anyone who is genuinely interested, but we don't expect everyone to become like us. Next Steps With a sense of some basic common Pagan practices and beliefs, it should be easier now to pursue more study on your own, if you are so inclined. There are, however, a couple helpful pieces to add. The first is a survey of some Pagan lingo. If you come from a different spiritual background, some of the words Pagans use may seem strange, or raise all sorts of questions and concerns. The next section attempts to clear through some of the language issues. Go to Page Four.

Copyright © 2008 Tom Waters

But Isn't It True That . . . ? Although Paganism has become much more open in recent decades, there are still a lot of misconceptions about. This short list of questions and answer may help clear some of them up. Isn't Paganism evil or Satanic? This question reflects a particular theology, that of fundamentalist Christianity. In that belief system, any beliefs and practices that fall outside a narrow definition of Christianity are thought to be evil and connected with the Devil. If this is your belief system, then it will be natural for you to see Paganism this way. However, if you are inclined to see the world's various religious traditions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, or Native American spirituality, as benign or at least legitimate belief systems, then you would have no reason to see Paganism as singled out from the others as bad in some way. So what about black magic? Well, some web sites will tell you that there is no such thing, or that it isn't Pagan. The truth is that there are some people out there who claim to be doing this sort of thing and identify themselves as Pagan. There is no central authority to certify who's Pagan and who's not, so it's bound to happen. Is it commonplace? No. Is it anything like what most Pagans do? Not much. For most of us, magic involves immersing oneself in the reality you seek to create. If you immerse yourself in negativity, anger, or aggression, you are the first recipient of all that crud. Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would want this, or even find it something they could manage. My guess is that people who talk about casting evil spells on others are mostly after attention, not pursuing any kind of meaningful spiritual work. Is Paganism a New Age thing? Yes, sort of, but no, not really. "New Age" has become mostly a marketing term, a way to label the aisle in the bookstuff where you can find material on alternative spirituality or metaphysical topics. There is certainly a large, loose community of people I think of as "metaphysical seekers" whose interests and beliefs encompass a range of ideas, such as past lives, channeling, UFO experiences, holistic healing, and so on. Many of these metaphysical beliefs overlap or intersect with Pagan practice, to the degree that the two groups of people can interact positively and meaningfully. The difference, as I see it, is the degree to which Pagans are anchored in ancient, pre-Christian religion and the physicality of the natural world. Pagans are earthier, and perhaps more dedicated to a particular form of practice. What is this about "witchcraft"? Why use such a negative word? As I noted on Page Two, an influential period in the history of modern Paganism was the development of Wicca. At that time, it was believed that those who had been burned as witches in the 1600s were actually practicing a Pagan religion. The truth is more complex than that (although surviving Pagan practices cannot be ruled out as a component of the witchcraft persecutions). For many, the witch is a romantic figure, a symbol of feminine magic working outside the authority of social convention and patriarchal power. There is also the appeal of witchcraft being a craft, a practical skill for creating change, rather than a theological system or a religious institution. Not all Pagans like or use the word, but quite a few do, so it is here to stay. The best advice is to not assume too much about what the word implies until you talk with someone about it. Didn't Gerald Gardner just invent all this stuff and pass it off as real? Gerald Gardner was a British civil servant, and the first person to write about Wicca and promote witchcraft as a Pagan religious practice. When it came to light that his claims about Wicca being a tradition passed down in secret through the centuries were not true, some people felt that Wicca was discredited as some kind of con game or stunt. In his landmark work The Triumph of the Moon, historian Ronald Hutton concluded that Wicca, although largely a 20th-century amalgamation from varied sources, was not invented by Gardner himself. It seems likely that Gardner and his fellow witches saw themselves as "filling in" a real surviving Pagan cult that had been eroded and was nearly lost. Whether that makes Wicca illegitimate or not is a personal evaluation. It is worth contemplating, though, that all human religions are created by human invention, evolve over time, and succeed or fail according to how well they satisfy the spiritual (or, sometimes, political and social) needs of their adherents. The Pagan way of being religious - the connection with nature, the imaginative and creative aspects, the awareness and use of spiritual energies - this is a very basic human impulse. Wicca and the other Pagan paths are a spiritual success for hundreds of thousands of people, and that seems to be the bottom line.