A new orthodoxy?
There are many reasons that people feel unhappy with the traditional monotheistic faiths. In many cases at least part of the reason is that they do not feel that they can fully accept the teachings and belief structures that go with an established faith with a lot of scriptural grounding.However for those faiths it is important that their adherents believe the orthodox approved and established teachings and beliefs. This idea of a faith being defined by an accepted body of beliefs is know as an orthodoxy and while practices may vary the core and fundamental beliefs are enforced. In fact the early Christian church was so focused on the orthodoxy that they were more than happy to use festivals or sacred places or practices of earlier faiths as long as the theology and beliefs associated were converted into the Christian orthodoxy. A good example of this is the way that many sacred wells were Christianised and assigned to saints with the earlier belief structures supplanted by Christian ones.
Indeed such was the importance of belief over practice that Pope Gregory I was happy to use existing pagan temples. In his letter to bishop Mellitus he says
“Tell Augustine that he should be no means destroy the temples of the gods but rather the idols within those temples. Let him, after he has purified them with holy water, place altars and relics of the saints in them. For, if those temples are well built, they should be converted from the worship of demons to the service of the true God”This focus on orthodoxy naturally means that these faiths tend to be rather exclusive. They believe that you are either with them or with the enemy. If you do not believe the right things that you are obviously worshiping the devil or whatever incarnation of evil that particular faiths conceives of. This gives them all the excuse they need to persecute and even kill people who did not believe in quite the right thing.
“Further, since it has been their custom to slaughter oxen in sacrifice, they should receive some solemnity in exchange. Let them therefore, on the day of the dedication of their churches, or on the feast of the martyrs whose relics are preserved in them, build themselves huts around their one-time temples and celebrate the occasion with religious feasting. They will sacrifice and eat the animals not any more as an offering to the devil, but for the glory of God”
As far as we can tell however the pre Christian pagan faiths tended to emphasise the practice of their beliefs rather than having a strict set of concepts that people had to believe. We can see this in operation with the Roman and Greek practice of equating gods and goddesses from other traditions with one of their own, such as the water deity Suil being associated with the roman goddess Minerva.
This willingness to accept differing belief structures is more than likely due the rather different view of the gods that these people held. Generally each God or Goddess had a specific task or responsibility. These gods were generally developed from earlier nature based deities and these associations are often retained in Roman and Greek understanding of the gods. This development process naturally leads to a mechanistic view of the gods that promotes the importance of practice. After all if the god was traditionally proprociated by certain rituals, and so far those rituals have staved off the disaster ensured safety or victory then doing it just right is important. This focus on the importance of practice is known as orthopraxy.
Modern paganism has, generally, moved on from this strict orthopraxy as our understanding of the natural world has developed. Very few Pagans today believe that the Gods can be controlled and constrained at all let alone by simplistic ritual activities. Ritual and practice is seen more in the context of providing a link or setting a mind set to enable the practitioner to undertake the working or enter that state where the god / goddess can be contacted.
One of the things that many pagans find attractive in pagan belief is that while there may well be a framework of belief provided by the history of orthopraxy generally the believer is encouraged to explore his or her faith and decide what they actually believe for them selves. There is no orthodoxy beyond believing in the individual connection to the divine.
However there seems to be a gathering movement within paganism that no matter what path you follow when it comes to ritual and magical practice it is important to ‘do things right’. This has unfortunately been fostered, in my opinion, but the increasing commercialisation and popularity of modern pagan traditions. A good example of this is the existence of many books on paganism, and particularly wicca, that emphasise the correct way to do things. I was once asked by a non pagan “What happens if you make a mistake when you are casting the circle? Does the world come to an end? Or does the magic no longer work?”
Well I have to say that to date, despite some rather interesting errors and omissions in casting a circle that I have witnessed in the past, the world has stubbornly refused to come to an end and the magic seemed to be as effective as ever!
This certainly isn’t a new phenomena, Early Christian occultists certainly felt that it was important to follow the spell or ritual activity exactly, they would suggest that the words, order and sequence, the method, time and tools all had to be exactly right
It seems to me however that if magic were as simple as following a set of instructions, no matter how convoluted, then Physicists would have identified how magic works, quantified it and turned it into a repeatable, sailable commodity many years ago. The fact is that magic simply doesn’t seem to be formalistic and deterministic.
However more and more books are being published purporting to show the reader how “do” to magic, “how” to be a pagan, wiccan, druid or fluffy bunny.
Type pagan OR WICCA into Amazon and you get ,as an example
• The Modern Pagan: How to Live a Natural Lifestyle in the 21st Century ~Brian Day
• The Real Witches' Handbook ~Kate West
• he Element Encyclopaedia of 5000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts ~Judika Illes
All geared round telling the reader how to do things. Not in its self a bad thing, I have a number of book that are old traditional / occult cook books of magic as it were, but the image and learning that they give is that there is a right way to do things, a right way to be a pagan.
Part of the driving force behind these books is the quite natural desire to produce easy to read and highly saleable books. The newcomer to Paganism will find these books invaluable but the danger is that he or she will not move beyond the formulaic approach to what lies behind.
Another driving force behind way that media, either for sensationalist headlines or reuse of stereotypical images, portrays all pagans as either witches dancing round the cauldron or wizards chanting and waving wands!
I feel that slowly there is a danger of modern pagans finding, or having thrust upon them a new orthopraxy. This orthopraxy, particularly round ritual, seems to be becoming more common
A year or so ago I designed a ritual that was so different from the expected, although all the parts were there - if in a somewhat in unexpected way, that people shied away from it and it was never done. Surprisingly enough the one person who you might have thought would be inclined to stick to a set standard practice, an old school Gardnerian, was one of the few to embrace the idea
Actually the ritual had all the traditional elements, in exactly the same order but expressed differently. It was this lack of familiarity that caused the problems; it just wasn’t how things were done!
I have to say that I currently think that we are in danger of losing one of the features of modern paganism, its openness and inclusiveness, in the name of a misplaced focus on doing things right!