The Pagan Community

[kokopelle]

What is the role of the pagan community? This was a question asked on one of the LJ groups I belong to. It’s an interesting question, one that I’ve been exploring during the past half year. I’ll give a big answer here, using Dictionary.com to lay the groundwork for definitions...

Noun. Community:
1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.
2. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually prec. by the): the business community; the community of scholars.

Ok... a community shares common characteristics and is perceived or perceiving itself as distinct from the larger society. Now for the pagan part.

Noun. Pagan:

1. one of a people or community observing a polytheistic religion, as the ancient Romans and Greeks.
2. a person who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim.
3. an irreligious or hedonistic person.

This covers the gamut of possibilities. So many possibilities. Personally, I've hung with spiritual, the irreligious and the hedonistic. They’ve all been pagan to some degree. The largest "umbrella" of common characteristics and distinction is that of pagans are not being Christian, Jew or Muslim. From there, the global pagan community immediately splinters into smaller pagan communities. It is in these smaller communities that the party pagans, the neo-witchcraft pagans, the shamanic pagans, the druidic pagans, the norse pagans, the strega pagans, the furry pagans, the otherkin pagans, the BTW pagans, the goth pagans, the discordant pagans, the satanic pagans, and many many more, hang out. The smaller communities have even more specific communities and so on.

So what is the role of the "pagan community"? The biggest umbrella of paganism will give you shelter and comfort from the Abrahamic religions, but that's about it. In the larger pagan community you'll be prosecuted there if you're different enough. The true refuge for the individual pagan is in the smaller tribes within the omnibus "pagan community". What does these niches of paganism give a person? You'll find companionship, validation, and a place to be.

Comments

[ssuzzi-q.livejournal.com]

well I have to kind of disagree with the christian, muslim or jew thing. There are actually 7 monotheistic faiths on this planet. Zoroastrianism, Buddhaism, Judism, Christianity, Muslim, Babi, and Baha'i. So I guess that according to dictionary.com that my parents being baha'i are pagan??? But they most certainly believe in only one god and that all these 7 faiths spring from this one god. Maybe I ought to write dictonary.com.

Personally I believe the pagan community serves the same global purpose of most faiths. It is in essence active spirituality. One god, many gods, it doesn't really matter, they all serve as enlightenment on our paths. And more specifically many pagan faiths offer tools to your enlightenment that are very important in serching for "the powers that be". Its more empowering than your standard western faith. The rules taught are so fundamental that you must master them in order to move forward on your journey. I pity those who are just christian, muslim, or what have you. They've never learned these basics. Thats why they are so confused and afraid all the time. Even if they choose to continue to belive in one God they're faith will be made more whole and richer if they had taken the time and been allowed to learn the fundamentals.

Another good purpose. Pagans serve to teach, so that reguardless of their path a person's journey is made richer by a "pagan experience".

There is nothing so evil in this universe as the purposeful lack of information.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

The word "pagan" is almost useless because it is so broad, having different meanings for different people. The ardent Christian would say that everyone else is Pagan. The Dictionary.com definitions lean towards the Abrahamic faiths being the contrasting non-pagan religions to the world's pagan faiths. You are leaning towards the definition that Paganism is polytheistic and contrasting religions are monotheistic . So many meanings for the same word.

Here's another side of paganism to consider. There are parts of paganism that do not seem to be embrace active spirituality. These "non-fluffy" pagans are scientists and scholars of the pagan world. Their focus on details and proof is honorable, but IMO do not promote active spirituality. There are also rebellious streaks to paganism. An example would be the satanic beliefs. Yes, some of the Satanic groups are diametric to Christianity, but other forms of Satanism merely embrace the power of humanity. Lastly there are the hedonistic pagans. They believe in embracing the earth in all its delightful forms. Active? Yes. Spiritual by all peoples' definitions? Hardly.

I have a strong teacher archetype. This is probably one reason I blog so. It is from my own teacher archetype that I can say that not all pagans serve to teach. In fact, there are strong undercurrents in the pagan community that are very secretive and selective about where and when knowledge is shared. The Abrahamic faiths are much more sharing in comparison. In my part of the Carolinas (North, South) it is very difficult to get a quality one-on-one pagan Craft (Witchcraft) education. The lack of information is not "purposeful". It is just a happenstance of our region. The teaching archetype is not strong enough to push through societal resistance, egos, power structures, lack of a foundational teaching, and so on. The silver lining is that a person on the pagan path will learn through their own desire to do so. The restrictions can foster a quest with results greater than any spoon-fed dogmatic menu.

[elegy-of-flames.livejournal.com]

I've run into this kind of question when attempting to define any kind of community where there is rarely an orthodox way to interpret something, and beliefs will vary vastly from person to person, even with regards to what defines membership in this community (yep, goth gets this too). This is the point at which, in this particular example, I began to distiguish between "pagan faith" and "pagan community".

For example, some people identify as Christian and yet embrace New Age aspects into their spirituality, and can sometimes be run into discussing these things on pagan forums. If asked, they'd say they're Christian, or that all gods are one god by any other name, or something else which confounds the description of members of the pagan community as either "non-Abrahamic" or "polytheistic"; yet, even though they are not pagans, they are members of the community.

There are sub-divisions which fall into this category as well I suppose - for example, as I understand it, many Otherkin do not identify as pagan (particularly the ones identifying as entities from the Abrahamic mythos - angels, demons, you name it). It's probably as confusing as the convergence and divergence between the terms "Wiccan" and "Witch", as I've run into people who identified as only the former, or only the latter, or both.

So, I'm not going to attempt to come up with a definition which manages to do justice to the enormous spectrum of pagan spirituality today, or I'll miss my boarding time, but the pagan community is probably just that: a collection of individuals ineracting within the framework of an alternative spirituality (whether active or not). A member of the pagan community is one that is involved in it, regardless of what they self-identify as (this within limits I'd imagine, I could come up with all kinds of strange exceptions), and the pagan community is composed of them.

A bit of a truism inasmuch as definitions go, I know, but so far it's helped me get by...

[elegy-of-flames.livejournal.com]

I think the over-emphasis on secrecy within some traditions (BTW particularly I'd imagine, though I have no first-hand experience with it) can have many negative consequences, but I've always gotten the impression that the lack of "teacher archetypes" around also has to do with the thought you put forward: "The silver lining is that a person on the pagan path will learn through their own desire to do so." I'd gotten the impression that, in many ways, this was exactly the point: that you find your own way, so an overabundance of dogmatism from external sources might actually inhibit you from finding your own answers. In that respect, I think your blogging is one of the best possible manifestations of the "teacher archetype", because it offers ideas which prompt you to think for yourself rather than accept any one person's interpretation of the truth as your own :)

[ssuzzi-q.livejournal.com]

for the most part: Agreed.

Semantics is important to me, so you will find I argue them alot. There is power greater than most realize in words.

Abrahamic faiths.....um well Mohammed was a direct decendant from Abraham. And so were the Bab (founder of the Babi faith) and Baha'u'llah (founder of the Baha'i faith). So really Abrahamic faiths are all post Judaic faiths. I think dictionary.com just hasn't updated is historical files since like 1844. (I've been involved in religeous persecution of some form or another since I was born so correct information is important to me.)

I guess I'm aware of the "scientific pagans" but I never really considered them pagan. I sort of classify (perhaps wrongly) as occult technitions. They're intersted in only how it happens and take away all the magick by doing so.