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| Home > Reconstructionism > Greek/Hellenic > Kerux Index > Kerux #4 | Search |
| The Kerux #4 1 Puanepsion 4/694 (29 September 2000) edited by Drew Campbell |
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THE KERUX #4
1 Puanepsion 4/694
29 September 2000
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE
* Book Excerpt: _Old Stones, New Temples_
* From the Hearth: Putting Up Olives
* Festival Crafts: Making an Eiresione
* Poll Results: Ethics
* New Poll: Magic
* Upcoming Events
* How to Contribute to the Kerux
***
BOOK EXCERPT: OLD STONES, NEW TEMPLES*
Introduction
I am glad you do not neglect the rites of the true religion. Your letter awoke my sleeping devotions, and the same evening I ascended alone the high mountain behind my house, and suspended a garland, and raised a small turf altar to the mountain-walking Pan. -Percy Bysshe Shelley to Thomas Jefferson Hogg, October 1821 [1]
In her now-classic study of the modern pagan revival in the United States, author Margot Adler writes movingly of her childhood devotions to the Greek gods:
When I was a small child, I had the good fortune to enter an unusual New York City grammar school (City and Country) that allowed its students to immerse themselves in historical periods [...]. At the age of twelve...that historical period was ancient Greece. I remember entering into the Greek myths as if I had returned to my true homeland. [...] I wrote hymns to gods and goddesses and poured libations (of water) onto the grass of neighboring parks. [2]
More that twenty years later, in a review for a recent book on Roman religion, she muses:
When I started my own Pagan journey back in the early 1970's, I hoped to find a Greco-Roman spirituality that would be tied to the classical goddesses I had loved as a child. But no such group existed, and I turned toward Wicca. One wonders if the contemporary Pagan movement would be different today if this lovely introduction to Roman festivals and celebrations existed back then. [3]
While some Americans were, like Adler, embracing the ecstatic nature worship of Wicca, others found themselves drawn, not to the magical rites of the Craft, nor to the neolithic goddess religions envisioned by some feminist authors, but to the wellsprings of the ancient world itself. As early as the 1970s, ēsatr was recognized by the Icelandic government and inspired a revival of northern pre-Christian religions on both sides of the Atlantic. However, members of these faiths sometimes found themselves isolated from the more popular forms of modern paganism.
In the 1980s and '90s the face of modern paganism began to change. No longer marginalized as part of the hippie counterculture, pagans hit the mainstream full force. And sometimes it hit back. New research into the early modern witch trials-known to modern pagans as the Burning Times-radically challenged long-accepted notions both of the numbers of people killed and their identities. [4] Some scholars, themselves pagan, took a critical look at the claims made by Wiccan founders like Gerald Gardner. [5] The results of these inquiries made some pagans question the history of the new paganism. If witchcraft was not the religion of our European ancestors, they asked, what was?
The answers were readily found in the works of those ancestors themselves. Turning from the burgeoning popular literature on eclectic Wicca and Goddess Spirituality to more staid, mainstream historical studies, some modern pagans rediscovered their spiritual heritage in the works of Homer and Hesiod, in Ovid and Virgil, in the Eddas and Sagas, and in the Mabinogion and the Ulster Cycle. They set aside some outdated theories-dying vegetation gods, prehistoric matriarchies-and mined traditional scholarship for the ore of ancient religion, always with an eye toward historical accuracy and cultural authenticity. What emerged was a movement away from those initiatory magical traditions that have their roots in freemasonry and ceremonial magic and toward a historically informed, conscious revival of the ancient religions of Europe. This movement has come to be known as Pagan Reconstructionism.
What Is Pagan Reconstructionism?
Pagan Reconstructionism is a methodology for developing and practicing historical forms of paganism in the modern world. It begins from the twin assumptions that the religious expressions of the ancients were meaningful in themselves, and that forms of religious practice remain valid across time. While all reconstructionists acknowledge the need to adapt ancient practice to modern circumstances, they generally hold to a conservative position vis--vis tradition: The ancients are the giants upon whose shoulders we stand.
Pagan Reconstructionism is rooted in specific cultures, and often takes its cues from those cultures' moments of greatest glory. Today, in addition to the Hellenic Reconstructionism that is the subject of this book, you will find groups reviving the pre-Christian religions of the Norse and Germanic peoples (the Troth and numerous other groups), the various Celtic tribes (Imbas, Clannada na Gadelica), the Slavic cultures (Romuva), and ancient Rome (Nova Roma). Similar groups exist for Kemetic (Egyptian) beliefs and other non-European religions as well.
What distinguishes Pagan Reconstructionism from other types of modern paganism is first and foremost its relationship to history. Keynotes of the Pagan Reconstructionist perspective include the following:
* the primacy of historical precedent regarding deities, worship,
and symbolism
* an insistence on cultural specificity and rejection of eclecticism
* the rejection of Mesopaganism (e.g., revival-era druidic groups,
Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, ceremonial/ritual magick) and Christic
influences on modern pagan religions
* an emphasis on "hard" polytheism, and skepticism regarding modern
unifying theologies, particularly (1) Wiccan duotheism ("All gods
are one God; all goddesses, one Goddess"); (2) the triple goddess
paradigm of Robert Graves (Maiden-Mother-Crone); and (3) Jungian
archetypalism
* a respect for personal gnosis (individual spiritual inspiration)
coupled with a clear distinction between practices derived from
intuition and those based on historical precedent
Getting from Then to Now
How does one go about practicing a long-dormant religion? Above all, reconstructionists look to whatever primary sources are available for their chosen culture, be they writings or the archaeological record. From these we derive our mythology, theology, and basic ritual practices. Next in importance is mainstream scholarship, to which we look for help in evaluating primary sources and in expanding our range of knowledge. Finally, building on the well-established premise that pre-Christian religious practices have continued into Christian times in the form of folkways or "popular superstition," reconstructionists may make use of living folk traditions and the work of folklorists who document them. The challenge, which scholars and practitioners alike share, lies in assessing and synthesizing all these sources.
Pagan Reconstructionists are further challenged by some built-in limits to the reconstruction process itself. Some of these limits are natural-that is, created by historical circumstance. We lack concrete information about certain practices, such as birthing rituals or other women's rites, or our knowledge may be severely limited, as in the case of some festivals. In responding to a natural limit, we may omit the element in question altogether, substitute a similar element, or invent a new element to take its place.
Self-imposed limits include those parts of historical paganism that we choose not to imitate because they offend our modern sensibilities in some way. Just as Pagan Reconstructionism rests on a commitment to the past, it is also informed by a number of modern values, such as:
* gender equality
* religious tolerance
* democratic process
So, while historical precedent is preferred to random innovation, Pagan Reconstructionists do not deny the necessity for change; in fact, the reconstruction process makes us all the more conscious of the necessity to modify ancient practices. Nor do we claim to be practicing the ancient religion tout court. Rather, we see ourselves as picking up where our spiritual ancestors left off and adapting their practices to our modern circumstances.
Hellenic Religion: From Reconstruction to Living Faith
Of all the religions known today, why would someone choose to practice a faith that was abandoned nearly 1600 years ago? What is it about Hellenism that still resonates with us after all this time?
To answer this question, we cannot rely on the scholarly sources that form the basis of much of the rest of this book. Indeed, the answers will be as individual as each Hellene, and as varied. I can only mention the core reason that moves me to worship the gods.
Hellenism, like other religions, is and always has been the response of human beings to what they perceive as the actions of the divine in their lives and in the world. It is easy to forget that all we know and can ever know about the gods comes through the immediate and subjective experiences of people like you and me. These experiences are not well served by expository prose, which is why people use the language of ritual, of art, of poetry and song and dance to express their wonder and gratitude. Our first-fruits offerings, our libations, are our own way of saying what Hellenes have always said to the gods: "Please" and "Thank you."
We get to know the gods by many means. Some of us were introduced to them as children, reading the fables of Aesop or Greek myths in our storybooks. Others discovered them in art or in later literature. Still others found their way to them through other religions, such as Wicca, that encourage people to explore the divine world in all its variety. Many have had life-changing moments of mystical union, artistic inspiration, or otherworldly vision, after which it seems impossible not to express our thanks and joy.
In my own case, for example, I received in meditation a series of what I only half-jokingly call "marching orders" from a being of such stern and authoritative beauty that I knew she could be none other than Pallas Athena. Shortly thereafter, in an initiation ritual for a wholly other tradition, I had a vision of an enormous man with heavy dark curls. When I asked his name, he replied, "Well, I suppose your friends here might call me by another name, but you should call me Zeus." (He also informed me that it was time for me to learn Greek, and that I should pay attention to what his daughter had to say.) Several months later, in a vivid dream, I was overwhelmed by music so divine that it still brings tears to my eyes to think of it: Apollon's lyre. My thank-offerings for these gifts have been varied. This book is one of them. I have also gone on to found a Hellenic ritual group and to pursue consecration as a pagan priest.
While not everyone's experiences are so dramatic, most of my fellow Hellenes will find nothing strange in my stories. Indeed, most religious people will recognize that it is these singular moments that mark the entry into faith, whether we attribute them to the care of the Olympians, the love of Jesus, the bounty of Mother Earth, or the mercy of Allah. In all cases, the foundation of our beliefs and our practices is the immediate and intuitive apprehension of the divine by individuals and communities. In short, we worship the gods-our gods-because they invited us to. All we did was say yes.
Even for people who are not inclined to mysticism, Hellenism holds much that is appealing. It is rooted in a civilization familiar to most Westerners, one, indeed, that forms the foundation of our own. Although we acknowledge the ancient Greeks as the source of our philosophy and politics (even of our names for those things), we often forget that those disciplines developed within a deeply religious pagan culture. As one friend put it, "What was good enough for Sokrates is good enough for me."
Hellenism is still a relatively small religion. Although educated people tend to be much more familiar with the Olympians than with virtually any other ancient pantheon, the religion has not attracted the same numbers as, say, ēsatr or the various types of Celtic Reconstructionism. The reasons for this range from the supposed chauvinism of ancient Greek society to the Northern European backgrounds of many Americans to the notorious difficulty of the Greek language. And perhaps familiarity has bred contempt; the same people who studied the Iliad in literature courses were also exposed to the materialist bias in modern academia, not to mention the pronounced Christian perspectives of an earlier generation of classical scholars. As a result, the gods may appear cartoonish or even ignoble.
Yet Margot Adler was not alone in her childhood devotions to Athena and Artemis. For some years now, individuals and small groups around the world have been doing the intellectual work of reconstructing the religion of the ancient Greeks. Like Shelley, they often practiced privately, sharing their experiences with a few trusted friends. At first, few found much support, even from other pagans, for the religion of our Hellenic spiritual ancestors looks very unlike the paganism that has grown up in the covens and groves of the English-speaking world in the last thirty-five years. Only recently, with the help of the Internet, have people begun to meet in any numbers, and compare notes. Those who have been worshipping the gods for years are coming together with those who are looking for alternatives to mainstream religion and to other forms of modern paganism. This book is, in part, the result of those conversations.
Developing as it has in isolated pockets, our religion remains diverse. In ancient Hellas, religious usage could vary considerably from place to place: Different polis (city), different nomos (custom), we say. And yet all practices were recognizably part of the same religion, with the same gods, the same mythology, the same history. What you will find in this book is the nomos of my own community, which is based on that of classical Athens. If you search out other rituals, especially online, you will find some variations: this group makes two libations, that one circles the altar, the other celebrates both the Country Dionysia and the Lenaia, the next prefers Orphic cosmology to Hesiod and Homer. This variety is, I believe, the mark of a living faith, one which moves people to honor the gods in a heartfelt and vital way, and one that makes sense for their families, their communities. For as Shelley once said (in a rather different context), "We are all Greeks."
Over the past year, as I was writing, two books aimed at a popular audience were published on ancient Mediterranean religion: Jennifer Reif's Mysteries of Demeter and Frances Bernstein's Classical Living. I share with Margot Adler the hope that these volumes represent a new flowering of a very old tradition, and that the present book will add new life to that tradition. Houtos Esto! (Let it be so!)
Notes
[1] Quoted in: Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History
of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999), p. 25.
[2] Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers,
and Other Pagans in America Today, rev. ed., (New York: Penguin/Arkana,
1997), p. 15.
[3] Online review of Classical Living on the Amazon.com web site.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062516248
[4] Jenny Gibbons, "Recent Developments in the Study of The Great
European Witch Hunt," Pomegranate 5 (August 1998), pp. 2-16.
[5] Aidan A. Kelly, Crafting the Art of Magic (St. Paul: Llewellyn,
1991). Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon reviews and contextualizes
Kelly's study.
***
WHERE TO FIND THIS BOOK
*_Old Stones, New Temples: Ancient Greek Paganism Reborn_, an introduction to Hellenic Reconstructionist religion by Drew Campbell, is available for purchase online at http://www.xlibris.com/DrewCampbell.html . Another excerpt can also be viewed there. The book may also be ordered directly from the distributor by calling 1-888-795-4274, or by placing a special order through your local bookstore (ISBN 0-7388-3201-4). Ten percent of the proceeds from the sale of the book go to charitable organizations that promote the study and practice of modern pagan religions. The author will be happy to provide review copies to journalists. Please contact him at hiereus@n... with your name, postal mailing address, and the name of the publication you write for. Review copies are expected to be available within 3-4 weeks.
***
FROM THE HEARTH: PUTTING UP OLIVES
In our house, the Khalkeia isn't just an opportunity to honor Athena Ergane and Hephaistos as the helpers of craftspeople; it's also the time of year when we put up olives to cure. The olives will be ready by the following summer and are offered to Athena at the Panathenaia. In the United States, fresh California olives can be found at farmers markets in October.
Wash fresh olives thoroughly and place in a large glass or ceramic
bowl with enough water to cover. (I find it easiest to put the
olives in a colander, and put the colander in the bowl with the
water.) Put a plate or pot lid on top of the olives to keep them
under the water. Let the olives soak at room temperature for a
week or ten days, changing the water every day. This will allow
much of the bitterness to seep out. When you can taste one of
the olives without wanting to spit, they're ready for the next
step.
Make a salt water brine of 1/2 cup of sea salt to each pint of water. You will need enough brine to cover the olives. Place olives in a clean Mason jar and cover with brine. Add the juice of half a dozen lemons and a sprig of dried thyme. (Marjoram, oregano, and wild fennel can be substituted for the thyme if you prefer.) Close the jar firmly and store for six to nine months in a cool, dark cupboard. Make a first-fruits offering to the goddess, and then enjoy!
***
FESTIVAL CRAFTS: EIRESIONE
The eiresione is a decorated branch symbolizing plenty and associated with Apollon in his role as protector of the fields and harvest. Decorating one makes a great family project; ritual groups can also work together to make one to be hung over the door of their meeting place, or each person can create one to take home.
Materials: You will need a sturdy tree branch, scissors, strong thread, and decorations.
Suggestions for decorations: Marzipan or candied fruit, nuts, small ornaments (like miniature Christmas decorations), ribbons, netting, pendants or charms from bead store or jewelry supply house, small toys
Using thread, tie decorations to the branch. Wrap ribbons around the thicker twigs. Larger items can be encased in netting and hung.
***
POLL RESULTS: ETHICS
Poll Question: On what principles do you base your ethics? Choose as many as apply.
Choices and Results:
- Commandments of Solon , 7 votes, 8.64%
- Delphic maxims (Nothing too much, etc.), 10 votes, 12.35%
- Precepts of the Seven, 2 votes, 2.47%
- Homeric writings, 11 votes, 13.58%
- Hesiod's writings, 7 votes, 8.64%
- Socratic teachings, 5 votes, 6.17%
- Stoic philosophy (e.g., Epictetus, M. Aurelius), 4 votes, 4.94%
- Aristotle's ethical writings, 4 votes, 4.94%
- Ancient purity laws, 2 votes, 2.47%
- Orphic or Pythagorean teachings, 3 votes, 3.70%
- Other Hellenic source, 5 votes, 6.17%
- Golden Rule (Do unto others...), 9 votes, 11.11%
- Teachings from other religions (Rede, Bible, karma, etc.), 7
votes, 8.64%
- None of these, 5 votes, 6.17%
***
NEW POLL: MAGIC
To vote, go to http://www.egroups.com/polls/kerux
*** UPCOMING EVENTS
=Northern California=
Saturday, December 2, 2000: "History of Paganism" class for Collegium, the clergy training program of Fellowship of the Spiral Path. 2 p.m., private East Bay location. For more information on any of the above events, contact Drew at brightwave@y...
Saturday, September 30th: Thiasos Olympikos will be hosting a Pyanepsia celebration. For more information, contact Pyrokanthos at rhinoceroslodge@p....
=New England=
The Greater Boston Pagan Network hosts a series of open rituals by different local Pagan groups. For transportation and parking details, send a blank message to: sabbats-faq@n... or contact Maureen at MaureenRW@e... or 781-388-3773.
***
CONTRIBUTE TO THE KERUX The Kerux is always looking for articles, reviews, and announcements of interest to the Hellenic Reconstructionist community. We're particularly interested in items that support home-based religious practice and eusebeia (piety). Paste your contribution into an email and send to kerux-owner@egroups.com.
***
The Kerux is a project of Nomos Arkhaios, an educational resource center promoting the study and practice of traditional Hellenic religion. For more information, visit the website at Individual authors appearing in the Kerux retain all rights to their work. If you'd like to reprint something you see here, please write directly to the author of the piece for permission.
This article originally appeared on Andrew Campbell's Nomos Arkhaios site which is currently on hiatus.
This article is copyright © 2000-2003 by Andrew Campbell and is reprinted here with permission.