Open Post on Folkish, Universalist, and Tribal Paganisms

[causticus]

On yesterday's Magic Monday post, there was a rather interesting discussion on the several "feuding" branches of today's Germanic pagan/polytheist community. Particularly the question on the merits of the frequent "racism" allegations flung at Folkish Heathens.

Here's the whole thread:
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/237888.html?thread=41766464#cmt41766464

My lengthily response here, with some follow-up replies:
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/237888.html?thread=41778240#cmt41778240

I figure I'll use this as an open post to continue the discussion, if anyone so desires to do so. I think there's three interesting sub-topics to be expanded on from that thread:

1. Inclusionary vs. Exclusionary approaches to contemporary polytheism/paganism.
2. The third "tribal" (Theodish) option that's an alternative to the Folkist/Universalist binary.
3. The very fascinating (IMHO) concept of a "Holy Guild" being a new way of terming a religious fellowship.

Of course, any other ideas tangentially related to the above thread is more than welcome! Thank you for not using profanity, namecalling/ad-homs, bad faith arguments, or other cheap troll behaviors.

Comments

[jprussell]

Thanks for continuing the discussion. Since this is a more focused topic, rather than an answer to a specific question, I figure I'll put out some initial thoughts on the pros/cons of these different options, with the express purpose of hearing others' reactions to those, as I am far from settled on how to feel about these topics. Also, honestly, so far it hasn't had much to do with my entirely-solitary practice, so beware of rampant theorizing and second hand knowledge ahead!

1. Inclusionary vs Exclusionary Approaches to Contemporary Polytheism
a. Inclusionary/Universalist Polytheism
Pros: Making a universalist argument in a modern American alternative spirituality sub-culture isn't all that hard. It's been close to the default for a long time. I think it jives well with the individualism and desire for freedom that a lot of American weirdos (very much including myself in that category) yearn for. There are also good historical precedents for polytheists welcoming folks from all backgrounds, incorporating worship of Gods from other lands, and praying to whichever Gods were worshipped in the lands you fared to. Lastly, if holy Beings truly are well beyond the bounds of our earthly/fleshly being, why should they much care about the most incidental bits of our earthly/fleshly background?

Cons: To me, the main con is more circumstantial than based on principles - these days, there is a strong demand that "inclusive" means "you can't keep me out for any reason and you have to let me participate in anything you do, but that participation must allow for my restrictions." For example, if someone who believes the Gods are only archetypes wants to join a polytheist organization and insists they should be let in for "inclusiveness," but then demands that their Jungian-inspired approach be used rather than something more traditional other folks want to do. To use an escalatingly-silly example: imagine a vegetarian insisting on being allowed to compete in a chili cook off, in the name of "inclusiveness." Okay, likely fair enough. But then when no one likes his spicy bean soup as much as the chili it's competing against, he insists on a separate category with its own trophy for "vegetarian chili." Ehhh, okay, I guess? But then, when folks don't take the vegetarian category as seriously, demanding that all the chilis be vegetarian, or else the event should be canceled for being exclusionary. That's just nuts. That's also the kind of behavior that universalist polytheist groups seem to be prone to.

Related, but worth calling out as distinct: because universalist groups welcome a wider swath of folks, it's more likely that some of those folks will want to use the group for ends outside of the group's core purpose (getting laid, puffing up their egos, politics, whatever). Once this kind of capture takes hold, it becomes a positive feedback loop, making the group more and more about whatever this theoretically-non-core purpose is, until the group either implodes or obviously has nothing to do with it's original "main" purpose.

b. Exclusionary/Folkish Polytheism
Pros: For better or worse, the kinds of rough groupings most of these groups base themselves on (Northern European ancestry, being white in America, where you live now, what language you speak, and so forth) have some correlation with shared culture, norms, and behaviors, and that makes it easy to get on the same page, especially about things as potentially contentious as religion.

More fundamentally, if you believe that any group has a right to say "hey, these beliefs and practices belonged to my forbears, they're not for everyone, and we have a right to keep them around and say who gets to learn them under what circumstances," then to be consistent, you likely ought to extend that courtesy even to folks who say that about the pre-Christian beliefs of Northern Europe (or wherever else).

For those religions that include worship of forebears, it also kind of makes sense to insist it's really for those who share those forebears(now, whether you define that by culture, genetics, language, or what, is fuzzier).

Also, in a kind of inverse to the above with inclusive groups, the very fact that being exclusionary is politically unacceptable these days means that these groups might be less likely to become political or otherwise be seized for some end other than their stated goals, so that might be worth something.

Cons: These kind of exclusionary beliefs can shade into actual hatefulness, xenophobia, or racism, and the line between "we're not hurting you, we just don't want anything to do with you" and "we hate you" can be fuzzier than we might like to believe.

There's also an in-built tendency in these approaches to seek "purity," usually in the form of adherence to what we know about the beliefs of one historical time and place - but which time? and which place? Were the Vikings of the early middle ages a better model of religious practice than the Germanic tribes of the folkwanderung? This is exacerbated by the extremely fragmentary nature of what we know about pre-Christian beliefs. Pretty much every flavor of Heathenry relies heavily on Snorri Sturlusson's medieval Icelandic work, since that's one of the few coherent sources of myth we have. We don't really know how much that tells us about what Anglo-Saxons were doing in the 5th century, and it can be weird to insist on "purity" around something so very uncertain.

2. The Tribal/Theodish Option
Pros: Theodism made a real effort to re-create some of the social and cultural assumptions that likely were integral to the day-to-day practice of Anglo-Saxon heathen belief. Tight, personal bonds, oaths that you take very seriously, acknowledging and accepting the reality and importance of certain hierarchies. I think there's some worth in taking that stuff seriously, or at least trying to.

Another thing that made this model a nice alternative to the above binary is that it wasn't "no holds barred" like the universalists - you had to swear oaths about what kind of behavior you'd engage in and who you'd listen to and such, but its limits also weren't based on where you or your ((great) grand) parents were born, they were based on freely-entered agreements.

Cons: This seems like one of the options most likely to devolve into true LARPing. We don't actually live in early medieval England. The parallel social/cultural structures the Theodsmen tried to set up were brittle and shallow compared to real-life tensions and commitments. Read the history, including all the "outlawings" of folks found wanting as members of the tribe: https://ealdrice.org/theodspell/

3. The Holy Guild Concept
Pros: This is the option I'm currently most excited about, as I think it might share some of the best of the above options, while having ways to curb the worst sides. Having a religious organization you belong to with certain rules about who can or can't join, what duties and behaviors are expected of you, and what you can expect to get from the organization is one that has a long history of working in this culture (see: every church). The model is flexible in terms of what those expectations and duties will be, and it includes thoughts on how to change them as needed.

Cons: Voluntary associations of all kinds aren't doing so hot in our society today. Especially for weirdo niche religions. Finding enough folks to participate at all, much less in ways that reinforce and strengthen the group would be very tough. Also, a lot of what made guilds strong in the past (mutual aid for members in need, covering things like funeral expenses, and so forth) are these days more often handled by other methods, and so much of the "meat" of belonging to such a group just isn't there. But that criticism applies at least as well to all of the other options above.

Okay, so those are my takes, as I said, I welcome thoughts, pushback, or other ways of looking at this stuff.

Cheers,
Jeff

[causticus]

I'll respond to a few of these in more detail when I have a fresh brain tomorrow morning. But on that last part I have to totally agree that now is a very rough time for organizations of any type. A mutual aid society today has to compete with the welfare state, paternalistic corporate employers, generic/corporatized mega-charities and nonprofits, and an increasingly-byzantine and restrictive legal environment. Plus groups in general tend to go septic real fast if a paranoid vetting process isn't put in place from the getgo. One starting an org along these lines has to make the org all about offering something that mainstream society has totally failed at. At this point in time, I think the best thing is to keep things as informal as possible.

[fluffybeaver]

A completely exhaustive answer. There is nothing to add. Modern pagan religion has turned into a game that does not affect the life basis of the vast majority of people who profess it.

[k_a_nitz]

Firstly, I like the concept of pluralist folkish polytheism - i.e. we will exclude from our groups those from different folkish backgrounds, but we support your right to form your own groups with essentially the same beliefs that don't exclude others on the basis of folkish background. Just because I don't want you in my group doesn't mean I'm against you forming a group with essentially the same beliefs (less the folkish part).

Secondly, as soon as you call it an organisation you are admitting that it is not an organic form. Such forms should best of all arise from actions that are not driven by an organisational imperative. That is, if you and your mates share beliefs and get together on a regular basis to celebrate things that have a shared meaning for you then that will most likely last a lot longer and be a lot stronger than if you try to call it something and put some structure around it. There will of course be a natural limit to the numbers involved - but that it is a natural limit indicates that that is a good thing. Shades of gift culture versus exchange. So I'm siding with causticus's suggestion that the best thing is to keep things as informal as possible. I am also reminded of that old adage of gangs: if someone used to be in X, then they were never in X.

[causticus]

Yeah, I would agree that the vast majority of modern paganism is a LARP (Live Action RolePlaying). For most it seems to be a consumeristic, escapist fantasy hobby activity for bored middle class and affluent people. You're right that it has little bearing on the everyday lives of people who call themselves pagans, or polytheists, or whatever. Even the devotional end of things seems to be a weird rehash of spiritualism.

[causticus]

Shared meaning and reciprocity, yes.

One thing I forgot to mention about formal organizations is that the moment a group incorporates and becomes a legal entity, it becomes the business of some public bureaucrat who may or may not be entirely hostile to what your organization stands for. Secondly, incorporated groups tend to be eventually taken over by people skilled in the bureaucratic arts, i.e. lawyering, bean counting, paper shuffling, and various types of procedural chicanery. These folks may or may not be sympathetic to the original stated purpose of the group. I think there's a very good reason the ancient Druids didn't write anything down.

[causticus]

1. Inclusivity/inclusiveness has become a very weaponized concept in today's culture. Fundamentally at its core, inclusion is the female mothering instinct taken out of its familial context and misapplied into the public realm. Do the math on how this has played out over the past 70 years or so. Ofc, within "pagan" groups there's never any theological or retro-cultural justification for this, rather it's a blind deference to the prevailing pop culture and political norms of the time. Having said that I believe there is a real case to be made for pluralistic universalism (which I think you get at above), which has nothing to do with sentimental inclusionism.

On the Folkist form of exclusion, I think the appeals to genetics and "the ancestors" is incoherent and reeks of shallow sentimentalism; overall, something that was never thought through very deeply. This makes for a very selective type of ancestor worthship; 1000+ years of Christian ancestors (which includes all of one's knowable ancestors) are instantly photoshopped out of the picture, as if they don't matter one bit. Secondly, for Americans of British Isles ancestry, unless ALL of one's ancestry is from East Anglia or Kent, it's virtually impossible to formulate a "pure Germanic" ancestral pedigree, or really any appeal to a reductive ethno-linguistic categorization referring to a reality from antiquity. In most parts of the British Isles, the Germanic and Celtic ancestry is so intertwined over so many centuries of mixing and remixing, it's impossible to neatly separate out the two. And this is not even how it worked back then anyway. We have archeological evidence of Brythonic tribes allying with Germanic incomers (presumably against rival Brythonic groups) and quickly assimilating into the Germanic culture. This includes worship of the Anglo-Saxon gods; it doesn't seem "having the wrong ancestry" was any impediment to this at all. And of course, if the gods know we humans quick incarnate in and out of different physical bodies many times over, why would they care all that much about our very-temporary flesh-suits? I think this is what you get at above, and I wholeheartedly agree! So the whole notion of exclusivist "folk gods" is a whole bunch of nonsense unless maybe it's ancestral spirits we are talking about. And even then, what does that even mean since the spirits of the ancestors have re-incarnated countless times since their lives in [insert arbitrarily-pedestalled time period and place].

2. What's weird is that Theodism is very LARPy in some ways, but interestingly open-minded in other ways that seem to escape most modern reconstructionist efforts.

Namely,

In part because ours is a reconstructed belief, and in part because it represents a more primitive form of Teutonic myth, Anglo-Saxon Heathendom has an ambiguous and dreamlike feel to it when compared to Norse Heathendom. The lines between God, Giant, Elf, Ancestor, and Hero are at best blurred and, quite often, nearly nonexistent. Take Weland the Smith for example. He is a prince of the elves, an apparent god of blacksmithing, depicted as a semi-divine yet semi-human hero, and is said to be the son of a giant. Likewise, Wóden, the king of the gods, is also said to have been an earthly king who sired noble lines that are with us still. For many, such ambiguities would be problematic but, for we Anglo-Saxon Heathens, they are the strength of our religion.

...

Of the gods themselves, who can count them? Some we know from the holytides of the year or the days of the week, yet most are the very gods worshiped by our Norse neighbors or our Germanic continental cousins and are thus known to us through poems, songs, sagas, hagiographies, and histories that have survived the Middle Ages. Yet it may be that not every goddess who was given offering on Hálogaland was worshiped by the West Saxons. Of such things no living man may say for sure. As such, in the Ealdríce, we find it wiser to err on the side of belief. Far luckier is it to worship more gods than our Anglo-Saxon forelders did than it is to risk godlessness.

I like this approach. It leaves theological interpretation wide open, without the usual cringey atheistic takes being thrown in the mix.

Again though the LARPiness is an issue. We truly don't live in Early Medieval England. So why pretend otherwise? At least though they finally realized how silly and unworkable it was to pretend their organization is a warband.

[jprussell]

I agree with you and causticus that formal organizations bring a lot of trouble with them, and might be wholly pernicious, or at best necessary evils, most of all when it comes to spiritual matters. Also, implicit in your answer, and explicit in Causticus's replies, is the thought that "organizations" carry certain risks and complications in today's world that they might share with the past or the future - specific bureaucratic challenges, contending with certain political ideologies, and so forth. That's worth taking very seriously.

My one quibble, though, is that I can think of at least two (semi) spiritual movements I admire for whom formal organizations have played some part in their persistence and success (I'm leaving aside the elephant in the room of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, which maintained not only Christianity, but much of what we have left of classical culture through the last dark age). Those would be Revival Druidry and Free Masonry. In both cases, groves/lodges, and at some points, wider governing bodies have helped these movements to stick around longer than the lifetimes of those currently interested in them. Not the only way, of course (JMG has likely made more Druids single-handedly than AODA ever has), but I'm sure that it has helped sometimes, and maybe even more than the downsides harmed these movements.

The other strength (and weakness!) of more-or-less formal organizations is that they allow for discovery beyond "folks who know an existing member personally." If I'm a lonely rando Heathen, I can do a search online or look at local bulletin boards or whatever for groups that might welcome me, but it would be much harder for me to run into someone who happens to know that a handful of folks get together on the Holytides and have weekly Edda Study meetings. (This is, of course, a weakness, in so far as it also makes it easier for bad actors, bureaucrats, and so forth to find the group).

[jprussell]

That's a very solid point, but I would add that a group can have "organization" without being a legally-recognized entity. Just look at the mafia! Less extreme, but my mom used to play Bunco with the ladies in our neighborhood. They rotated who had responsibility for what (who hosted, who bought drinks, who handled the pot, and so forth), and there were some rules around that, but it was never a legal entity or something that advertised itself. So there're grades of "organization," and some might be more helpful for different purposes or under different circumstances than others.

[jprussell]

1a. Yeah, I agree that in the public discourse of our time, "inclusion" has a specific meaning rather different from how I was (charitably) using it in my answer. Pluralistic universalism is much closer to what I meant, and something I'm far more on-board with, but it is, of course, vulnerable to stringent or even intentional re-interpretation as the more political "inclusion."

1b. Also good points on the "selective memory" of folkishness as often practiced in the US. If anything, the muddle makes me slightly more sympathetic to the groups that throw up their hands and say "you know what, white is the best we can do here," even though that smashes together a wide swath of pre-Christian peoples and cultures under the umbrella of just one subset of them. I mean, if you really want a purely reconstructed indigenous religion for all white people, you likely ought to go for PIE reconstructionism. But that still leaves your maybe even-more valid point of the vast swathes of time involved and the inconvenient millennium of Christian ancestors. Still, for me, a pluralistic answer of "hey guys, if that's how you want to set your group up and you're not hurting anybody else, go nuts." I've come to believe that how much a spiritual practice speaks to you aesthetically and intuitively is a lot more important than most modern Americans think, so if that's what gets their spirits up, who am I to tell them to stop?

By the way, as a personal note on the ancestor thing, I solve these difficulties by cheating in two ways: 1) I use the word "forebear" as an intentionally "inclusive" (see what I did there?) word that holds both my literal genetic ancestors as well as folks who shaped the culture that makes me who I am, and 2) when I offer worship and blessings, I specify "to any of you who welcome it," while offering my "thanks" to all. I reckon this has me covered for any Christian ancestors that want no truck with such heathen nonsense, as well as my Heathen ancestors who are happy to finally be honored again, as well as whatever other guardian spirits, group souls, egregores, or whatever I might be worshipping when I make that kind of offer.

2. Agreed that Theodism has done a lot of stuff that I respect and admire as well as a lot of stuff that I find kind of cringe. Jettisoning the warband structure for the Holy Guild approach is one of the things I respect the most (along with their detailed research). My current resolution for this dilemma is to treat them as a very valuable source on what we know about historical Anglo-Saxon beliefs and practices, and then use that knowledge to craft my own weirdo path.

The one piece of sympathy I have for the LARP aspect is the aesthetic thing I mentioned above. It's long been known that it can help rituals be more effective if they are made to feel "set off" (sacred) from normal life, and it helps if the methods of differentiating the ritual time/space from normal life are emotionally charged and/or stir the imagination. I reckon for some folks, putting on your tunic and cap or what have you helps to get the energy flowing for rituals. Once again, I can't judge too hard if I'm going to put on a robe for Universal Gnostic Church or Druid initiations.

Oh, actually, one more, lesser argument I can see in favor of LARPy rituals is "well, maybe we don't understand some of what made it work" - for example, maybe it's covering your head that's important, or maybe that the covering is made of cotton but not linen, or that it has certain colors, or patterns, or whatever. That could likely be determined by experiment and/or comparison with other rituals that work, but copying historical models known to work is a tried and true human approach: https://www.alibris.com/The-Secret-of-Our-Success-How-Culture-Is-Driving-Human-Evolution-Domesticating-Our-Species-and-Making-Us-Smarter-Joseph-Henrich/book/32353538?matches=30

[causticus]

Yep! That's precisely the sort of informal organization I had in mind (sans the mafia part). No one will ever bat an eye at "John and his buddies who meet up every Sunday afternoon to go on a brief hike, for the mutual enjoyment of hiking." What if it actually happens to be an informal Druid grove? No one will know unless people in the group blab about it to outsiders. And in the eyes of the government, if it doesn't have a tax-ID (or isn't doing anything overtly nefarious), it might as well not exist.

[jprussell]

Hahah, errr, on re-reading, I feel like I should clarify that "the pot" here means the winnings for the game - Bunco is a game of chance with dice, and they wagered small amounts of money to make it interesting.

[k_a_nitz]

To me the LARPiness is on a par with the foundation myths of druidism or wicca. Everyone knows it is bollocks, but nobody really cares about that. Consistency is nowhere near as important as many people think (just read the Bible literally). The great value comes from establishing rituals and enacting them repeatedly, greasing the groove, as some would say, or making tracks in the ether, as others might say.

[jprussell]

Agreed on the value in establishing and repeating rituals and that known-to-be-made-up foundation myths can do just fine.

What I was referring to with Theodism specifically is that for their first ~20 years of existence, they organized themselves as a migration-era männerbund, with thralls, churls, and so forth. They also for a long time placed great stock not just on saying "we are the inheritors of Anglo-Saxon religion," but instead on trying to literally do as much ritual and other practice as exactly like the Heathen Anglo-Saxons as they could possibly manage - speaking in Old English, dressing in clothes based on archaeology/old tapestries, using the titles from their warband structure, and so forth. To me, that's a little LARPier than at least modern Druidry and Wicca, but maybe the early days of both were just as LARPy, I dunno.

At the end of the day, I can't really fault folks for LARPing, it just doesn't especially appeal to me in spiritual practices.