Post-Neopagan Paganism

[causticus]

For quite a long time now I’ve been pondering the question, “what might a future Paganism here in North America look like after Neopaganism has fully run its course?”

After thinking about this and going back-and-forth on some ideas, I came to the “Captain Obvious” realization that I cannot predict the future. Duh. So, I refrained from trying to make any futile attempts to guess what the specific details might look like; particularly, when it comes to whatever cultic practices and spiritual teachings any such hypothetical future Pagan groups might have.

Instead, I thought about the possible social, cultural, political, and economic attributes of “Future Paganism.” First I shall defined Paganism is any type of religious or spiritual approach moving forward that is neither Abrahamic, nor a copypaste of some Eastern tradition.

Anyway, I think the examination of cultural-social criteria here is appropriate approach because Neopaganism seems to have been mostly a reflection of the social-cultural value system of its secular parent culture (the 1960s counterculture and the progressivist politics that followed) rather than a distinct set of spiritual teachings could stand on its own feet. Really, I’m of the belief that whole “separation of church and state” mantra is a farcical delusion; in any practical sense, at least. A belief system is a belief system. And an effective belief system is one that is capable of ordering and shaping the lives of its adherents, regardless of whatever the stated source of those beliefs might be. A non-theistic belief system that successfully tells a critical mass of people what to do is just as much a “church” as one that claims a God or Gods as the ultimate source of its authority. By that, I’ve yet to see any evidence that a “theocracy” of college professors, corporate managers, and government bureaucrats is inherently better than one consisting of people dressed in fancy robes who invoke deities and claim to divine the intent of beings vastly more intelligent and complex than humans (I’d argue the latter arrangement is better, but that’s just my opinion).

I think it’s a safe bet to say that future trends in religion and spirituality will reflect the broader culture just as much as present-day spiritual fads do. The question on whether it will be the religion that shapes the culture, or the other way around is a fascinating one, but not a question that’s a concern of mine right now in this post. What I am laying out below is simply an exercise in comparing and contrasting the values that shaped the alternative spirituality scene (and its Neopagan offspring), versus my thought experiment on what an emerging “post-liberal” value system might look like, whether that system shaped by religious or secular forces. The primary hypothetical I am taking into account is the gradual (or more sudden) decline of industrial civilization and the eventual dissolution of the sort of values and cultural expressions that have resulted from our present reality of cheap energy, material abundance, easy travel, and transient living patterns.

Below I describe each pattern using a list of keywords. The first is the arrangement we’ve been stuck with for the past several decades, though it’s now deep into its death throes. The second is something I see emerging right now out of the populist (anti-neoliberal/globalist) counterculture that has gained quite a bit of ground over the past ten years or so.

Values of the late 20th century alt-spirituality scene (which includes Neopaganism): rejection of time-honored traditions and ancient wisdom; spiritual novelty over established praxis; egalitarianism; secular humanism; (i.e. primary values derived from materialist and utilitarian doctrines rather than spiritual sources); liberal globalism; politeness and sensitivity being seen as more important than truth; hyper-individualism and the promotion of individual license; the rejection of limits and boundaries; logophobia; a thick firewall erected between religious and secular values when it comes to traditions claiming an ancient source; pacifism; nature romanticism; emotional self-expressionism; feelings and subjectivism taking precedence over impersonal observations and reasoned discourse; feminism and gynocentric perspectives taking center stage; apprehension toward making substantive value judgements; stated aversion to hierarchies and the hierarchical values (though not practiced in mundane, everyday lives); radical inclusionism; moral relativism; noble savage romanticism; “blank slate” wishful-thinking about human nature; lack of any serious challenge to big city living and consumeristic cosmopolitanism despite rhetoric suggesting such; being a cog in the system rather than challenging it despite rhetoric suggesting otherwise; romantic notions of love and family; ideological environmentalism that favors a preach over practice approach; emphasis on the foreign and exotic over the familiar; civilizational self-loathing; persistent pandering to narcissistic and solipsistic sentiments; ambivalence (or even hostility) towards family-formation and pro-natal lifestyles; aspirations toward a classless society; blind acceptable of scientific-materialist dogmas, despite rhetoric which sometimes claims otherwise.

Post-liberal religion and spirituality (which would include post-Neopagan Paganism): spirituality of localism and community-focus, with some degree of disregard toward abstract notions of “humanity”; a positive view toward ancestry and time-honored traditions; a recognition of natural limits, boundaries as being a part of the cosmic scheme; the willingness to work within those constraints rather than fight them or pretend they don’t exist; metaphysical belief becomes more a personal matter than a collective imperative; inter-community pragmatic relations rather than sectarian antagonism; religious and secular values seen as inseparable; emotional restraint and modesty/humility becoming important public virtues once again; providing a challenge/alternative to industrial modernity rather than just reflecting its favored lifestyles and value system; local experience over universal abstractions; meritocratic hierarchy (though this can easily degrade into nepotism over time); families and guild/fellowship societies as the fundamental social unit (as opposed to the atomized individual); constructive martial values; recognition of the sexes as being fundamentally different, though having complementary roles and being co-equal in terms of spiritual worth; cultural self-confidence; emphasis on small-town, small-city, and rural living; local food production; attentiveness to local ecological conditions; craftsmanship valued over raw efficiency; providing an alternative to being a cog in the system; pragmatic notions of love and family; acceptance and encouragement of family-formation and pro-natal lifestyles; practical environmentalism; recognition and utilization of natural social classes; skepticism toward scientific-materialist dogmas.

***

I’m probably missing a lot of things from both patterns. Please feel free to suggest anything that should be added or omitted!

Comments

[lincoln_lynx]

I've mulled this over for about two days, my initial impression was "The rising populism isn't indicative of what a future alternative spirituality will look like.", but upon reflection it doesn't matter because you nonetheless are probably right about the values of a new alt-spirituality. Although I still wouldn't credit populism and in fact think the populists are going to be a problem in the short term. (I say this as someone who was excited early on about the growth of populism.)

[causticus]

Oh I do agree it will take quite a bit of time for anything resembling these hypothetical "new values" to settle in. And I agree that in the shorter term, a populist backlash will probably be very unfriendly to most (if not all) alt-spirituality.

We'll see if a backlash actually happens though here in the US, as right-populists so far haven't really figured out how to effectively wield power, much less gain it in many cases. Even in deep red states, they struggle with unseating establishment Republicans. And in blue and purple states, fuggedaboutit. Left politicians and media propagandists have shown zero shame/apprehension toward acting in a totally Machiavellian and duplicitous manner; zero qualms about constantly lying, gaslighting, using every dirty trick in the book in order to win. Whereas, much of the right still acts like there is some fair set of rules and "principles" to play by and thus keep getting defeated over and over until they wise up and start playing dirty like the left. (And all of this is why I stay as far away from politics as possible, haha)

If/when right-populists get a clue and manage to grab power ... let's just say I'm not going to be advertising my spiritual beliefs and philosophical interests to strangers. Though, someone in a thread on one of the Ecosophia blogs (can't remember which thread) did suggest that now might be a good time for some enterprising individual of our ilk to preemptively put out a "we don't do that weird/cringey/depraved stuff" flavor of alt-spirituality into the public space.

[lincoln_lynx]

Republicans seem to have a aversion to winning, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Republicans start witch hunts before they even gain any measure of significant power, falling for the tired but effective framing the Democrats used against them in the past. That Republicans have sticks wedged in a certain orifice about everything remotely pleasurable. In my not so humble opinion they've already made a mistake pushing anti-abortion initiatives, which being a guy I don't care that much about one way or another to be honest, but my guess is that is what saved the Democrats bacon in the mid-terms.

I will concede, for the purpose of fairness, that when Republicans point out they have a inherent disadvantage against Leftist activism, from having less time for their own activism, that it's a legit point, and a big one. Still, they are slow learners, because now, with more information available than ever before on the Left's tactics and strategies, the populists are devoting most of their time to winning local elections. Perhaps I'm not aware of other efforts but that's all I've heard about what the populists are doing.

[causticus]

First paragraph I think you're talking about the GOPe + Neocon faction. Yes, they don't care about winning at all, beyond each individual politician retaining their own congressional seat and all the money, power, prestige, and other perks that come along with having that seat. And they're the ones who always use worn-out wedge issues like abortions to distract from their own corrupt and self-serving conduct. To make matters worse, I think the GOPe have been deliberately sabotaging populist races, to the point where the party as a whole has very little unity. The Democrats however are almost all completely on the same crazy page.

As far as I see it, leftist activism that manages to capture a critical mass of institutions (or the entire state itself!!) always becomes an unstoppable force, when left to its own devices. There's always one leftist who is more "pure" and devoted to the cause than the next leftist. And leftism itself self-perpetuates by appealing to the weakest, most mediocre, and inferiors qualities in people. Leftism grows an army of orcs and when that army gets big enough, it mobs the halls of power. This force is unstoppable until a ruthless dictator (from within that leftist push) comes to power and shuts down the purity-spiral to hell. Essentially, it takes a Cromwell, Napoleon, or Stalin to stabilize any form of leftist zealotry that has captured the state.

Most of the right-populists who want to stop Woke Leftism really have little idea what they are up against, despite having a thorough familiarity with all the outer cultural elements of Wokeism. Starting at the local level and taking back school boards, sheriff's offices, town councils, ect. is a good start, but they'll eventually have to face the problem of dealing with corrupted state-level party machines (with a lot of help from their federal-govt friends), who will use every dirty trick they can to stymie the populist wannabe-insurgency.

I'm really unconvinced that the sort of colossal mess we're in right now is something we can vote ourselves out of.

[lincoln_lynx]

No, I'm not talking about establishment Republicanism here, though the same is true for them. Populists themselves give me similar vibes, they were celebrating when anti-abortion stuff started coming down the pipeline, even though I saw them admit it probably was going to help Dems in the mid-terms. There's all manner of ways in which populists put personal preference ahead of tactics and strategy. Now I would grant that's natural but these are people who for the most part realized that Republicans getting branded the anti-fun party helped Democrats. How are populists presenting themselves? Early on as edgy but now? There's not enough difference in positions between them and establishment Republicanism.

I agree, the Right, generally, are in a unenviable spot, having allowed Leftists run roughshod long after they saw the danger. Pretty much the only thing they have going for them is that the Left are in their over-reach phase which doesn't have collapse far behind it.

[jprussell]

So, I've taken much longer to reply to this than I intended, my apologies! I knew it deserved a more careful response than something off the cuff, and then a bunch of other stuff kept coming up.

At any rate, the first thing I'd like to reply to is your belief that future spiritual trends will, like the Neopagan fad, embody and reflect broader cultural trends. I think you're likely right, but I also think this may be less neutral than you paint it. Vine Deloria, Jr. in God is Red asserts that ever since reaching prominence in the West, Christianity has subordinated itself to what was going on in the culture - Kings are unifying kingdoms, kicking out the Infidel? Divine Right of Kings! Oh wait, the kings want to stop us from worshipping in the ways that seem best? Democracy is truly Christian! (to pick two overly-simplified examples). Deloria argues that this is actually a very bad thing, because you get all of the swinginess of human behavior, but amplified by the belief that it's justified by ultimate truth. He contrasts this approach with his characterization of Native American religion, where the culture is firmly subordinated to the religion, but the religion is very firmly grounded in this place, these spirits, and this relationship our people have developed with them over time. I think he has some solid points, but I worry about its applicability to peoples who do not have long-standing beliefs rooted in a particular place. Maybe the lack of roots is the bigger problem.

The second main thing I wanted to raise is that your characterization of 20th century alt-spirituality and post-Liberal seems. . . maybe not as even-handed as you were shooting for. The 20th century section seems more overall "bad" and the Post-Liberal more overall "good". I don't necessarily disagree that such leanings are even necessarily wrong! But if your goal is to provide as neutral a discussion of what we had and what we might have, a little more weight on what good came of the 20th century approach to things and a little more on the potential downsides for the post-liberal approach, might go far in showing that neutrality.

But maybe neutrality wasn't your goal! If so, maybe lean harder into "this is what was sick about the 20th century approach, and why folks thought it sounded like a good deal, but were wrong" and "here's what's great about this ferment of weirdos of all different stripes and where I think it might go."

Now, in the spirit of being concrete and not abstract, some of the things that at least seemed good or attractive to many folks about the 20th century approach that could be highlighted more: exploration, welcomingness, freedom, authenticity, acceptance of the unusual, novelty, re-discovery of lost myths and beliefs, abandoning sterile "going through the motions" practice, fellowship based on voluntary association instead of accidental circumstance, rejection of prudery and small-mindedness.

And, some of the maybe-downsides of the post-liberal complex: Deviation from community norms not tolerated, fear and distrust of outsiders, over-skepticism to all things "scientific", enforcement of narrow conceptions of gender or social roles, insular communities and organizations, hidebound following of tradition, nepotism and tyrannical abuse of hierarchy, lack of interest in coordinating on large-scale or global problems.

Probably interesting to note, and I promise only a coincidence with my name: much of what I came up with above was just flipping the "Russell Conjugation" (named after Bertrand Russell), where the same concept is described differently depending on the desired emotional valence: "radicial inclusionism" versus "maximally welcoming," for example. My point is that most of my sympathies likely lie closer to the latter group than the former, but I think it's helpful to try to step outside of those sympathies sometimes.

[causticus]

You're right that I made a huge value-judgement imbalance between the two categories; I'm most certainly biased against the first. And the second is largely aspirational. The future could just as very well be marked by a resurgence of Christian fundamentalism, or some right wing secular ideology that's a mirror image of woke leftism.

Either way it might go, I think the Vine Deloria Jr. insight you highlight will probably continue to hold true for the foreseeable future in the US. It will probably take Americans centuries to localize and "re-settle" the land in a manner where traditions are once again land-based. In the meantime, people can expect more passing fads and ideologies to color their spiritual lives (or lack thereof).

I'd argue that the positive things you highlighted about 20th century alt-spirituality had already come to pass during the early 20th century; mostly concerning the Theosophical scene and the vibrant occultism of that time. What (re)emerged during the late 60s was the mass popularization of those ideas, which is precisely what I'm dunking on in that first list (It might seem what I'm really doing is roasting the Boomer generation; not gonna deny that). By that, the idealized stuff I posted in the second list (if anything like that came to pass) could just as easily end up degenerating into something less-than-stellar. Your mini-list contains the qualities that would likely be just that.

I just my "hope" is that the bridge between now and the distant future is something a little better than the usual assortment of sterile-disenchanting and bad romanticist fads.

[jprussell]

Fair enough on the value judgments! I would maybe have leaned toward highlighting your explicit goal there as something like "look, you've heard enough about why 20th century alt-spirituality was so awesome, but wasn't so great about it? Here's a list: [list]" and then "Well, if we can't have that, does it mean going back to old-fashioned Christianity? I sure hope not, I'd rather see something like this: [list]". Mostly that's just for rhetorical effect (you don't lose anyone who already agrees with you, and you seem more transparent and even-handed to anyone on the fence, and either way is already going to piss off folks that don't agree with you), and you might not be too worried about persuasive/rhetorical shenanigans (I just teach this stuff - for example, I just had to grit my teeth and help some students improve their persuasive presentation on why folks' problems with TikTok are misplaced).

And yes, that's a good point about localizing and re-settling. As I believe we have talked about before, the particular blend of Magian-Faustian religion seems optimized for being as universal and un-local as possible, and that's made a heck of an impact on the last few centuries of settlement and culture here, so it's no surprise that it would take a heck of a long time for anything different to take hold.

Lastly, hear, hear to the hope for something better than disenchantment or cheap romanticism!

[causticus]

Oh that's really cool that you teach persuasive writing! Anything that can get those ultra-distractible zoomer students to actually use their noggins is definitely a net positive, in my estimation. (Yeah I sound like a grumpy old man here complaining about the rotten kids .. lol)

Very good points on how a persuasive rewrite of my disorganized jumble of thoughts might look like; duly noted. If I had persuasion in mind, I would have definitely toned down the pejorative language in the first list.

Magian-Faustian religion seems primarily focused on imposing abstract ideas on the masses from the top down. In other words, it's something totally ill-equipped for encouraging any sort of genuine land-based spirituality.