Pagans

[Guest guest]

Dear Phoebe,

You wrote:

>From: Zozie@...

>

>Dear fire-sitters, fellow pirates... In current threads and those I recall

>from before, on this ship and around the JungCircle, I'm hearing about the

>*ferocious pagans.* Acknowledging fully that some (and I mean some, not all)

>ancient spiritual rituals and traditions seem bloody and unacceptable to us

>here just barely in the 21st century, but there is much more to it. It is

>difficult now, given two millenia of propaganda by the major Western World

>religions, but not impossible, to discover how those faiths actually worked.

>

>It has seemed to me that whenever there is a discussion of early

>Christianity, Gnosticism and other roots of our past, *paganism* is tarred

>wth a very broad brush.

This criticism is perhaps fair enough, although maybe I should say for

myself that when I talk about " paganism " I am using the word more as a

shorthand for " pre-Christian classical Western culture, especially that

of the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, " rather than in reference to any

specific religous beliefs or practices; in the same way, I am using

" Christian " to mean something like " Christendom, " or " predominant

Western culture of the past 1500 years " rather than to refer to any

specific Christian belief or practice. We are all Christians now.

> Pagans beliefs, customs, rituals, even the deities

>themselves, were NOT uniform over the ancient world. What all of them did

>have in common was a tradition of personal piety. Every house had its altar

>and its personal gods, who were honored daily.

>

>Temples and shrines were served by the clergy, and people could (and did) go

>to them for prayer, to beg for things, to be healed, to study. They did not

>go there every Sunday from 11-12 o'clock and then forget about it the rest of

>the week; nor were they punished for not going. They prayed at home, though.

> The priests and priestesses were not mediating between the ordinary man and

>woman and the deities. At public festivals -- of which there were many, and

>most of them pretty joyous -- the clergy served the public directly. But

>they didn't INTERPRET the gods to everyone. People went to the gods

>themselves, anticipating answers.

>

>That sort of practice is seen throughout ancient faith systems. The deities

>involved are still with us, however imperfectly we know them now. They have

>never left. Our societies and civilizations lose sight of them now and then,

>but gods do not die. And they do not need to be Christianized to be

>understood.

>

>The world was alive. Numinous. We on this list purport to believe that

>now.

I must confess that I do not experience the world as numinous, although

I wish that I could. You are right that the gods do not die, but they

are dormant (and will remain dormant as long as they are understood

psychologically - this is something that I wish I could whisper in the

ears of Hillmanians). To talk of a " belief system " or a " faith system "

as we do is already to deny the reality of the gods, to drive them out

or make them dormant. A " belief system, " understood as such, is, i

think, the opposite of numinous experience.

>The cynical may scoff at the multitudes of deities -- those who guarded

>the door coming in and those who guarded it going out comes to mind -- but it

>was a way of recognizing that everything, humans included but not

>exclusively, is in the hands of the gods.

>

>Dan wrote...

><snip> ,,,it does seem that the ferocity of pagan culture and the safety,

>security, and gentleness of Christian culture are irreconcilable. ..>>

>

>and Mike responded...

>

>>Being neither Christian, nor Pagan, nor Jew, (I am reminded here of the

>>safety, security and gentleness of Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa,

>>Eastern Orthodox Serbia, and so on... Methinks your pagans were painted by

>>a Christian brush, brother - Barbarians are everywhere - around us, and -

>>worse yet - within us), I'm afraid I can't help you.

>

>to which Dan replied:

>

><<My pagans are painted mostly by Plutarch, no one's idea of a Christian; but

>do you seriously think that the good modern Christian citizens of the

>modern liberal democracies would accept the laws and customs of Sparta or

>Rome or even Athens?>>

>

>and then later Gene added (in a different context, please note, but similar

>theme):

>

><<Of course, the church was very dualistic as well. I don't know which side

>outdid the other, but they were both reacting to the excesses at the time of

>paganism. Perhaps some of the folks here wouldn't regard them as excesses,

>and perhaps I wouldn't either, until you get to child sacrifice, etc.>>

>

>I think Mike is correct that pagans are painted with a Christian brush, and

>it is an old one, not reflective of modern scholarship, for which it seems to

>have little taste. But Mike's examples in rebuttal are as narrow as those

>both Dan and Old Mr Grace give us. And I would add my narow observation

>that the pagan Hypatia, the most learned woman of her time, a philosopher and

>teacher, the Librarian at andria, was flayed alive by Christian zealots.

>

>Child sacrifice? Not a widespread practice. Pagans *ferocious*? How so?

>Such an evocative word. And, of course, no one is asking a modern society to

>return to the customs and laws of Sparta... but Rome? Roman law is the

>bedrock of all Western law.

I wonder how many moderns would accept Roman laws and customs, though -

how many would be willing to crucify thieves, or throw defective infants

in the Tiber (although now that I think of it, amneocentesis and

abortion of defective fetuses is not too much different)? You are of

course right that many cruelties and injustices have been done in the

name of Christianity, and the destruction of the works of Hypatia is one

of the worst, if not the worst. But such actions go against Christian

*values*. That is, when putative Christians behave ferociously, they are

not behaving in a Christian manner; when, on the other hand, pagans

behaved ferociously, they were perhaps not behaving inconsistently with

their own religious values, insofar as those values did not elevate love

or siblinghood or compassion above all other virtues; the latter is, as

far as i know, a Christian innovation, at least in the West.

You state in another post that present day pagans, or neo-pagans, have

adopted the ethic " do as you list, as long as you don't hurt anyone

else " (or words to that effect); I think that this is very much a modern

attitude (growing out of Christianity?) rather than a classical one. So

maybe it is new-and-improved? Well, fair enough, although I also wonder

if it is possible for people to do as they like, without obligation,

without in fact hurting anyone else (if I made up my mind to do as I

liked, even without picking anyone's pocket or breaking their leg, the

first thing I would do is stop paying taxes).

When we express a nostalgia for paganism or polytheism, or for that

matter a wish to be pirates, how serious are we? I am built in such a

way that, if I am going to be a pirate, I am going to arm myself and

start taking over ships, complete with plunderin', pillagin', rapin' and

throat-cuttin', or nothing; not interested in pretend or playful

pirating. In the same way, I am not interested in playful or pretend

paganism or polytheism (while remaining essentially Christian), as I

have seen practiced, I think, in some of Hillman's students. I'll go

native all the way, or not at all.

My ongoing question is, What was Jung's true opinion about these

questions? Was he, as Noll argues, privately a bona-fide,

no-holds-barred neo-pagan, despite his frequent (exoteric?) praise of

Christianity? Probably not. But if so, if Noll is right, I certainly

don't have a problem with it.

Thanks for a thoughtful response.

Regards,

Dan Watkins

>

>The thing that strikes me as MOST different between early and late

>Christianity (and Islam, for that matter, but not the faith paths of the

>East), is that it presented One God, My God, Only God, and, sword in hand,

>proclaimed that throughout the land, especially once the might of the Roman

>legions stood behind it. In its very earliest days in Rome, had I lived

>then, I can imagine learning about the teachings of the new Jewish cult and

>this man Jesus, and being very interested. I probably would have added Jesus

>to my personal shrine, the one right beside the hearth, and honored him along

>with the other presences there.

>

>One other point, and a perhaps curious one. We often talk on this list of

>the ancient thinkers, and the medieval thinkers, and the enlightenment

>thinkers, et al... mortals, I'm talking about here. There is a cold wind

>blows through my heart when I think that there were women alive at the time

>of Pythagoras, of Ficino, of Cicero, of Descartes, et al. We cannot conjure

>them, quote them, and examine what they had to say because they were not

>allowed to say it. I feel an enormous sadness about that.

>

>The names of those we know are tiny clear bells. Someone mentioned Hildegard

>von Bingen. I have spoken Hypatia's name... but what of all the rest? What,

>indeed.

>

>I am merely looking here, for a pax pagani. The word pagan, of course, is

>just the Latin/Italian for country. Where the old gods never died but simply

>became rustic for a few centuries. What is a millenium to a deity? There is

>still time for harmony and love... all the time there is.

>

>pace, pace

>phoebe

>

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