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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.traditional.witchcraft,alt.pagan,alt.satanism,alt.witchcraft,alt.religion.wicca
From: raven@solaria.sol.net (Raven)
Subject: Re: Post-Christian Wiccans and Neuvoreligious Authority
Date: 3 Jan 2004 03:41:32 -0800

Continuing from where my previous reply left off...

"Aetyr"  wrote in message :
> "Raven"  wrote in message :
>> "Aetyr"  wrote in message :
>>> "Raven"  wrote in message :
>>>> "Aetyr"  wrote in message :
>>>>> "lorax666"  wrote in message :



>> [*] I could also dispute Hutton's statement, pointing to neo-Druidism
>> and Theosophy as other religions Britain has given the world -- but
>> again, even taking it as undisputed truth, it doesn't make Wicca
>> non-neopagan.
> 
> You have to first define what pagan is.

Not a worshipper of Abraham's God (the deity shared by Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam); in other words, not Muslim, Christian, or (religiously) Jewish.

That's my wording.  Dictionary definitions use the same basic criteria for
the primary or literal meaning, which is what we're discussing here, though
there are secondary meanings which go into associated or figurative usages.

My copy of the Oxford English Dictionary gives:

PAGAN:                                          [etymology etc. skipped]
1. 'heathen' as opposed to Christian or Jewish...
   A. 1.  One of a nation or community which does not hold the true
          religion, or does not worship the true God; a heathen.
          (In earlier use, practically = non-Christian, and so
          excluding Mohammedans and, sometimes, Jews.)
      2.  fig. or allusively.  A person of heathenish character or
          habits, or one who holds a position analogous to that of
          a heathen in relation to a Christian society.
          b. spec.  A paramour, prostitute.  Obs.
   B. 1.  Not belonging to a nation or community that acknowledges
          the true God; worshipping idols; heathen.
      2.  fig. Of heathen character, heathenish.

[note the implicit assumption of which God is the "true" one]

HEATHEN:
   A. 1.  Applied to persons or races whose religion is neither
          Christian, Jewish, nor Mohammedan; pagan; Gentile.
          In earlier times applied also to Mohammedans; but in modern
          usage, for the most part, restricted to those holding
          polytheistic beliefs, esp. when uncivilized or uncultured.
   B. 1.  One who holds a religious belief which is neither Christian,
          Jewish, nor Mohammedan; a pagan.

[note a certain circularity of definition; also, Hindus are polytheists
but have a civilization of long standing, so whether the "modern usage"
in A1 would apply to them is a bit unclear]

My copy of the American Heritage Dictionary gives:

PAGAN:                       [citing nouns only; adjectives are similar]
   1.  A person who is not a Christian, Moslem, or Jew; heathen.
   2.  One who has no religion.
   3.  Formerly, any non-Christian.

My copy of (G.C. Merriam's) Webster's 7th New Collegiate Dictionary:

PAGAN:
   1.  HEATHEN 1.
   2.  an irreligious person.

HEATHEN:
   1.  an unconverted member of a people or nation that does not
       acknowledge the God of the Bible.
   2.  an uncivilized or irreligious person.

Notice the one common factor, phrased either in reference to the object of
worship (does not worship the true God, does not acknowledge the God of the
Bible) or in reference to [exclusion from] a specific set of religions (not
a Christian, Moslem, or Jew; neither Christian, Jewish, nor Mohammedan).

The etymology is one thing often relayed incorrectly by well-meaning folk
who saw the OED's main entry, but not the correction in a separate section.
Having had to explain this numerous times, I wrote a mini-FAQ about it.
___________________________________________________________________________

FAQ:  What is the original meaning of "pagan"?

The Latin word for a province was "pagus"; a resident of a pagus was
"paganus"; this developed the same connotations as the English word
"provincial", such as "rustic" or "hick".

The usual explanation for how "pagan" got its present meaning is that
the cities were converted to Christianity before the countryside, thus
"pagan" came to mean "those unconverted hicks in the provinces".

This is inaccurate, and for years it has been known to be inaccurate.

"Paganus" was also a soldiers' word for "civilian".  This was adopted by
the Christians, who referred to themselves as soldiers (in the Church
Militant) and to all non-Christians as civilians.

One speculation is that Christians borrowed this usage from Mithraists,
who also were "soldiers" (often literally, because Mithras was a soldier-
god himself, and very popular in the Legions) and called non-Mithraists
"civilians"... but this has not been proved.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives both the erroneous and correct origins.

"Pagan", p.2052 (Vol.II) Compact Edition:  "L. paganus, orig. 'villager,
rustic'; in Christian L. (Tertullian, Augustine) 'heathen' as opposed to
Christian or Jewish; indicating the fact that the ancient idolatry
lingered on in the rural villages and hamlets after Christianity had been
generally adopted in the towns and villages of the Roman Empire...."

But turn to "Additions and Emendations", p.4092 (Vol.II) Compact Edition:

"Pagan. Etymology. The explanation of L. paganus in the sense 'non-Christian,
heathen', as arising out of that of 'villager, rustic', given by Orosius
(a Spaniard) c. 417, has been shown to be chronologically and historically
untenable, for this use of the word goes back to Tertullian c. 202, when
paganism was still the public and dominant religion, and even appears,
according to Lanciani, in an epitaph of the 2nd cent.  The explanation is
now found in the L. use of paganus as = 'civilian, non-militant', opposed
to miles 'soldier, one of the army'.  The Christians called themselves
milites 'enrolled soldiers' of Christ, members of his militant church, and
applied to non-Christians the term applied by soldiers to all who were
'not enrolled in the army'.  Cf. Tertullian, De Corona Militis, xi,
'Apud hunc [Christum] tam miles est paganus fidelis quam paganus est miles
infidelis'.  ..."
___________________________________________________________________________

> And I mean in encyclopedic terms using the nomenclature that
> religious studies would use.

It doesn't take an encyclopedia to define the word "pagan".  That's a basic
"outsider" word in Christian vocabulary, similar to "goy" as used by Jews or
"kafir" as used by Muslims.  Until roughly the 16th-17th centuries, it simply
meant "non-Christian", and applied even to Jews and Muslims. (Shakespeare
used it in this sense, e.g. Launcelot calls Jessica "most beautifull Pagan,
most sweete Iew", in The Merchant of Venice.)  Subsequently, the meaning
changed to exclude Jews and Muslims from the "pagan" category, on the basis
of their worshipping the same God that Christians worship.  (Using the
"civilian" vs. "soldier" metaphor, they are "other branches of service".)

> Neo paganism, is pretty much a journalistic and internet term.

Since its usage antedates the Internet by roughly a century, I have to ask
what you mean by "pretty much a journalistic and internet term".  Is it that
you yourself have only seen it used in "journalistic and internet" sources?
That wouldn't be probative; you yourself may have read chiefly "journalistic
and internet" sources, which would make every word you saw there seem to be
"pretty much a journalistic and internet term". 

> Its sloppy.

You have been given some very specific definitions earlier in this thread
(in  12/28/2003),
which you seem neither to accept nor to understand -- since you now claim
the word applies to Native American religions (continuous traditions which
predate the arrival of Christianity).

> Despite that, you have the chicken and egg argument, which came
> first, wicca or neo paganism?

The OED documents usage of "neopagan/ism" back to 1876.  In a sense,
the word "wicca" (lowercased) is older, being an Anglo-Saxon word;
but as the capitalized name, "Wicca", referring to a witchcraft-religion
(rather than simply a male magic-user), it's mid-20th-century, thus newer.

As a category, "neopaganism" is certainly older, even taking just the
19th-and-early-20th-century Odinists as an example.  They were referred to
as "neopagans" in the English-language press, another pre-Wicca usage.

Post-Christian attempts to revive pre-Christian religions are even older,
taking for one notable example Julian "the Apostate"'s brief revival.

That "which came first" question, however, is still irrelevant to whether a
given item (religion) fits the criteria of a category.  The *words* "Jurassic"
and "Cretaceous" were invented long after the periods they name, yet it is
not wrong to apply those categories to times and events millions of years ago.

> The society of Druids has been around since the 1920's,

This is something of an understatement, by a bit over two hundred years.
John Toland's [Ancient] Druid Order was founded in 1717; the Ancient Order
of Druids was founded in 1781 and had a number of splits or spinoffs during
the 1800's; and by 1896 there were over 100,000 members of the various
Druidic groups -- including 2,000 in Germany.  Here's a German summary of
the early history of neo-Druidism: 
(the linked English version of the article doesn't contain as much detail):

("Neuzeitliche Druiden:  Als Vater der neuzeitlichen Druiden gilt William
Stukeley (1687-1765). Er stellte als erster einen Zusammenhang zwischen
Steinkreisen (z.B. Stonehenge) und der keltischen Religion her. (Ein solcher
Zusammenhang ist weder historisch noch archäologisch belegt, und findet sich
auch nicht in älteren Sagen oder Mythen.) 1792 wurde in Wales eine Zeremonie
zur Sonnenwende entworfen, in der junge Druiden von einem Erzdruiden berufen
(geweiht) wurden. 

"Diese Bewegung ging einher mit einer Rückbesinnung in Irland und Wales
auf eine eigenständige, von England unabhängige, Geschichte mit keltischen
Wurzeln, und gewann im Zuge nationaler Bewegungen Zulauf. Gleichzeitig waren
die neuen Druiden aufgrund ihrer Geheimhaltung (in einer Blütezeit von
Geheimbünden) attraktiv.
.                                     vvvvvvvvvvvvv
"Das Druidentum, eine allgemein unter Neopaganismus oder Heidentum
eingeordnete Religion, entstand aus neuzeitlichen Druiden, sieht
sich aber in direkter Nachfolge der historischen Druiden.")

> and it was never called neo pagan, until now.

The Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods were never called that until "now" --
long after they were over.  From this fact, should we conclude that those
periods should not be called "Jurassic" or "Cretaceous", but something else?

> But as far as nit picking goes, you've met your match.

Not yet.  You're still engaging in fallacies.  Now you seem to have got it
into your head that a category cannot refer to (or include) anything which
predates the naming of the category; a genus cannot include a species if the
species existed before the genus was named, etc.  That seems to be your only
reason why the category "neopaganism" cannot include Wicca or neo-Druids.

But in fact it is usual for specific cases to happen first, and a category
that groups them to be named later; otherwise why name the category at all?

Thus the various species existed for a very long time indeed, before there
was ever a genus named to group any of them.  Yet each genus *does* include
its subset species, even though they existed before it was named.  And a
genus might get previously unknown (newly discovered) species added to it.

The *time* at which a category is named, versus the *time* at which a
specific case first existed, is simply not a relevant factor in deciding
whether that category properly includes that case. 

> Nothing picks nit like an academic rebeating a dead horse.
> We get master's degrees based on such crap.

I rather doubt you'd get any kind of degree based upon a fallacy like that.

>>> And its curious that it bothers you so much,
>>
>> Given the fervor of your invective, you seem to be the one who's bothered.
> 
> You do sort of bother me.

I gathered that.

> You sound educated,

If this is your concern, please set it aside.  I make no boast of it, and
will take no offense if you simply assume I have no more education than you.

> but you cheerfully stray into fields that you have no knowledge of,

And in those cases, I ask questions.  In fact, I often ask questions anyway.

> and then hold forth, without stating that its your opinion.

I used to use a rather long sigfile, which listed my "generic disclaimers":

+-------------------------GENERIC DISCLAIMERS:-------------------------+
| 1) The above is personal opinion, and not anyone's "Official Policy".|
| 2) No disrespect of differing opinions/writers is implied or should  |
|    be inferred, unless explicitly stated.  Even friends can disagree.|
| 3) No claim of expertise or special knowledge (e.g. legal, medical)  |
|    is implied or should be inferred, unless it is explicitly stated. |
| 4) In case of ambiguity, please assume the writer intended the more  |
|    reasonable of the possible meanings, and interpret accordingly,   |
|    just as if you were corresponding with a friendly acquaintance;   |
|    in case any doubt still remains, please ask before taking offense.|
| 5) Reasonable people would make these their default assumptions.     |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

When there was concern about the bandwidth this chewed up, I changed to
a one-line sigfile with my ID and "[All standard disclaimers apply]".

Now I no longer bother with those.  I expect that disclaimer #5 applies.

> I guess I should just cross you off.

It's your decision to make, either way.  Just as mine is mine to make.

>> I thought that directing you to the meaning of the term "neopaganism",
>> showing *why* Wicca fits into that category, might calm your fury. Oh well.
> 
> You have to realize that neo pagan is a garbage pail term, and
> proceed from there.

But it isn't, really.  If you actually were an anthropologist wandering
the English countryside in search of surviving old traditions, you might
be excited to discover some tiny hut in a rarely travelled area, with
signs of long settlement (weathered construction and perhaps a big midden)
but also current inhabitants (smoke from chimney or through roof thatch).
You might be eager to meet and interview those inhabitants.  You might want
to know, among other things, what traditions have been preserved in such
isolation, without a wider social contact.  If it turns out they practice
some sort of witchcraft or non-Christian religion, you might be barely able
to repress your glee at this discovery.  But then, if you discover that the
craft or religion is taken word-for-word from Gardnerian Wicca, rather than
some genuinely ancient tradition, you might well mutter, "Oh. NEO-pagans."

That term marks off the newly invented or "revived" pagan religions from
the continuously-kept traditions predating the arrival of Christianity.

(This, by the way, is why Native American religions are *not* neopagan.)

That is a useful distinction.  Even (or especially) for an anthropologist

like the above, who would have been horribly embarrassed to have announced
such a wonderful find at a conference -- only then to be told this "ancient
survival of pre-Christian tradition" was taken from a 20th-century revival.



>> ne.o.pa.gan (plural ne.o.pa.gans)   noun
>>
>> modern adherent of pre-Christian religion:
>> a believer in a modernized version of the principles of old
>> pre-Christian religions, especially reverence for nature and
>> natural objects rather than worship of a transcendent supreme being
> 
> That definition would include ALL Native American religions too.

Not the ones I'm acquainted with.  These are continuously-kept traditions
predating the arrival of Christianity.  They're "paleopagan", unless some
partial admixture (perhaps of Christianity) has crept in, after which point
they're "syncretopagan".  (The OED contains the term "Pagano-Christian".)

> See, here is why anthropologists don't use the term neo pagan.

Are you very, very sure about that?

May I direct your attention to another book, this one by an anthropologist?

Sabina Magliocco is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at California State
University, Northridge.  She is also an initiate of Gardnerian Wicca -- as a
part of her study of rituals and folklore among American neopagans, which she
did with the support of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship. 
.                                        vvvvvvvvvvvv
Her book, WITCHING CULTURE: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America, is being
published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, under the category of
Contemporary Ethnography:  :

 "Taking the reader into the heart of one of the fastest-growing religious
 movements in North America, Sabina Magliocco reveals how the disciplines
 of anthropology and folklore were fundamental to the early development of
 Neo-Paganism and the revival of witchcraft. Magliocco examines the roots
 that this religious movement has in a Western spiritual tradition of
 mysticism disavowed by the Enlightenment. She explores, too, how modern
 Pagans and Witches are imaginatively reclaiming discarded practices and
 beliefs to create religions more in keeping with their personal experience
 of the world as sacred and filled with meaning. Neo-Pagan religions focus
 on experience, rather than belief, and many contemporary practitioners have
 had mystical experiences. They seek a context that normalizes them and
 creates in them new spiritual dimensions that involve change in ordinary
 consciousness.

 "Magliocco analyzes magical practices and rituals of Neo-Paganism as art
 forms that reanimate the cosmos and stimulate the imagination of its
 practitioners. She discusses rituals that are put together using materials
 from a variety of cultural and historical sources, and examines the cultural
 politics surrounding the movement--how the Neo-Pagan movement creates
 identity by contrasting itself against the dominant culture and how it can
 be understood in the context of early twenty-first-century identity politics.

 "WITCHING CULTURE is the first ethnography of this religious movement to
 focus specifically on the role of anthropology and folklore in its formation,
 on experiences that are central to its practice, and on what it reveals
 about identity and belief in twenty-first-century North America."

Magliocco had previously written NEO-PAGAN SACRED ART AND ALTARS,
published by University Press of Mississippi, 2001.  Book review:
.
To buy via Amazon: .

(You might also enjoy her article on Italian traditions about witchcraft,
with critical comments on Leland's ARADIA and the claims of Raven Grimassi:
.)


...And yet you tell me that anthropologists don't use the term "neopagan"?

> Don't be afraid, its a really good reason.

It had better be, since the claim turns out to be false (as shown above).

> The dictionary includes lots of new words so that people will know how
> they are being used by the general public.

How nice.  But since "neopagan" has not been a new word for the past century,
what is the relevance?

> That doesn't make them precise, or even useful.

True.  On the other hand, it does not make them imprecise or useless.

With your cynicism, one might ask: why bother printing dictionaries at all?

> We all know what is being driven at by the adjective neo pagan,

So it conveys its meaning to everyone?  Good.  Some words don't.

> but is it a good adjective?  No.

Has it been stealing cookies from the cookie jar again?  BAD adjective!  BAD!

> Its a garbage pail term.

This appears to be argument by repetition (the ad nauseam fallacy).

But in view of your immediately previous text, I must ask:
is "garbage pail" a good adjective?

And I must answer:  no.

Leaving aside the fact that "garbage pail" is usually a noun, not an
adjective, here in your usage of it *as* an adjective, it isn't a good one.

It isn't even clear "what is being driven at" by it.

Does "garbage pail term" refer to terms which are used to gather together
many diverse objects which belong there and nowhere else?  Then this would
be a useful function; yet you have said that such a term is *not* useful.

Or does "garbage pail term" mean a term which belongs *in* a garbage pail?
Then such a meaning would be conveyed more clearly by "garbage term".

Really, with your contempt for Lorax as being "sloppy", and for "neopagan"
as being not "precise", I would have expected more clarity in your own text.

>> ne.o.pa.gan.ism  -n.
>> a 20th-century revival of interest in the worship of nature,
>> fertility, etc., as represented by various deities.
> 
> So any NA who wishes to revive the rites of their ancestors are neo pagans?
> They would have to be by this definition.

Since they and their ancestors have not abandoned these rites, no REvival is
involved, just SURvival.  Again, *these* are continuously-kept traditions,
unlike the scraps taken out of books and pasted together to create Wicca. 

> Especially if they were raised as xtians....or just the advent of
> xtian conversion of the nations....

Oh, now you're looking at the *advent* of conversion, not its *reversal*.

By *that* reasoning, the Roman Empire was "neopagan" before it was
coverted to Christianity the first time -- in the *advent* of that.

> see, sloppy.  Sloppy terms = sloppy thinking.  This is the real problem.

Yes, I see.  And I agree completely.  This is indeed your real problem.

> Neo paganism as a term or description was NOT around before the later
> part of the 60's.  Not in print, nor traded around the occult community.

So much for awareness of history.  So much for the poor neglected OED, which
cites multiple uses back to 1876.  So much for the poor forgotten Odinists of
19c Germany; they were called "neopagans" before you were born, but that
doesn't count, oh no, because if you didn't know about it, it never happened.

> You could learn a lot more if you actually spoke to people who
> remember those years.

*I* could, yes, even though I remember those years myself.

But could *you*?  In view of present experience, it seems unlikely.



>> ... so Wicca is not *chronologically* the first neopagan religion.
> 
> To consider neo paganism a relgion,

Aetyr, neopaganism *isn't* a religion, any more than polytheism is, or
theism or atheism for that matter.  These are *categories* of religion.

Just as "quadruped" is not a species of animal, but a *category* of animal.

Mice and cats and dogs and horses and tigers and elephants are quadrupeds.

They are not of the same species or genus, but they all fit the criteria
for "quadruped" (having four legs), and therefore that category fits them,
and, as it could also be put, they fit into that category.

The category "quadruped" wasn't *named* until after mice and cats and dogs
and horses and tigers and elephants had already existed for a long time,
but still they fit into that category.

Nevertheless "quadruped" is not, itself, the name of any specific animal.

> you have to first exlude all people who claim to be neo pagan and
> yet still adhere to the dominant religion.

*blink*  Which "dominant religion" are you talking about?  If you mean
Christianity, it's odd that you avoided naming it this time.

As to excluding Christians from the category, well, *yeahhhh*.  Since the
category "pagan" is defined by exclusion from Christian, Muslim, and
(religiously) Jewish, it follows that the subset "neopagan" would be too.

In fact, I don't know of any "people who claim to be neo pagan and yet
still adhere" exclusively to Christianity, so you appear to be bringing
up a null category.  Or do you mean someone who tries to hold *two* faiths?

There is a crossover category called "Pagano-Christian" in the OED, and
some other terms have been proposed (eg Christopagan, syncretopagan), but
this is simply because the real world is sometimes messier than categories,
and real people can simultaneously hold more than one religious belief.

One of the famous examples would be William II, William Rufus, the son of
William the Conqueror, who was reputed to have two altars, one for Christ
and one for Odin.  Was he Christian, was he pagan, or was he some of both?
It is for people like this that terms like "Pagano-Christian" were coined.

> You see, how weak your definitions are?

On the contrary, the crossover case is foreseen and already labelled.

With a couple of spare labels provided, in case you don't like one.

> They define nothing.

Sure they do.  You simply haven't been paying attention to *how* they do.

Otherwise you wouldn't have mistaken a *category* of religion for a
religion in itself.  Oh my goodness, how can someone be a Wiccan *and*
a neopagan, that's two *different* religions; oh, and wait, they claim
to be a pagan as well, that's *three* religions; oh, there's more, they
say they're also a polytheist, that's *four* religions....  Ridiculous,
but that's the direction your fallacy goes in; reductio ad absurdum.



> To call neo paganism a relgion excludes all xtian witches, for one thing.

Well, yes, if they're entirely Christian with no admixture of other faith,
the term for them would be "Christian witch", and would not be "neopagan".

If they're Christian on Sunday morning, and drawing down Diana on full moon
nights, then the answer would be different, because they'd be crossover cases.

> Are you ready to admit this?

Clearly.  It's inherent in the meaning of the term "pagan", of which
"neopagan" is a subset.  Someone who's entirely Christian, or entirely
Muslim, or entirely Jewish in the religious sense (not just ethnically),
would *not* be "pagan", and therefore would *not* be "neopagan".  Someone
who holds two or more faiths concurently, or blends them together, would
qualify for a crossover term like "Pagano-Christian" or other hyphenation.

It's possible for religions to borrow from each other -- Christianity has
borrowed a number of things from Mithraism, ranging from iconic statuary
to the use of the title "Father" for priests, neither of which are found in
either Judaism or the teachings of Jesus -- so it's possible for neopagans
to borrow song tunes from Christian hymns without becoming Christian, and
possible for Christians to borrow neopagan tattoo and henna designs, jewelry,
and nature-veneration themes.  But this doesn't mean a change of *religion*.

> The garbage pail term

There you go again.

> neo paganism ignores these problems,

Nope.  See above.

> that's a sign that it defines nothing.

Nope.  See above.

Go back to the drawing board, Aetyr, and start over.