Pagan or Neo-Pagan

[Crazy Healer Lady]

Yeah they tend to be a bit bitter, too. They keep well, though. Canned Born-Agains go great on toast, not to mention in stir-fry.

Why am I thinking of "A Modest Proposal"?? AH! Us poor Irish!

[Ragnar]

If you boil them right down, until thick..., well thicker than normal, and add salt, they make a great substitute for Marmite, thats "Vegimite" to our Ozy mates. OR you can use the result, the same as Marmite, to repair Motor cycle tyres or even bombed air field runways!
Should this not go under food and recipies thread?

Edit; On second thoughts no, Marmite does not count as food.

[Crazy Healer Lady]

Or we could do it Titus Andronicus style and just make old fashioned Born Again pie ^_^ Hmmm. Too bad I'm vegetarian O_O lol.
Mind, I wonder what it would be like to make soap O_O (ha ha, good old Chuck Palahniuk)
Why is this so entertaining!!!
I have a gory mind. My goodness, I'm imagining all the cool things I could make from them >< Vegetarian Healer Lady talking about cooking up born-agains

Mind, I wonder... What WOULD human meat be like? Obviously for the spiritual reasons I would not like to try, but from simple curiosity... Some people say it tastes bitter, others really good (this based from a few tribes that eat their dead, for spiritual reasons). Methinks I would never forgive myself, forever deemed unclean, if I ate human.

WINDEGO!

Sorry, strange mood. Too much going on today, winding down, going crazy... heh... heh...

[Ragnar]

Whilst doing Ethnology at Edinburgh uni, one of the proffessors who specialised in canabalistic tribal rituals told us, that human should be treated just like pork, and it tasted the same to. He would not elaborate on how he knew.

[Silver Spider]

You know, it doesn't really matter all that much. The whole "Neo" title thing or lack thereof. Neo-paganism means, in essence, new or modern paganism, which is true, considering that the practices followed these days are new or reconstructionist, for the most part. However, they're still forms of paganism. If you get right down to it, unless you're discussing paganism both ancient and moderning in a historical, anthropological or sociological point of view, the "neo" prefix is pretty much useless.

I mean, come on, it's like calling episcipals "neo-catholics" or all other denominations of kristjanity "neo-christianity". Kinda pointless and there's no reason to classify pagans in such a way, just as there aren't neo-toaists, neo-buddhist, neo-christians, neo-jews, etc. It seems that the only time they like to use that "neo" prefix is if the spiritual path can involve magick and isn't mainstream, i.e. neo-pagan, neo-shaman, etc.

In the end though, pagans are pagans and the use of neo just denotes whether you're talking about people from current times or people from a thousand years ago or further back. So, don't let it worry you, it's not a big deal.

wassail

I kind of agree and disagree with you Runewulf. First let me define some words:

Pagan: Country dweller. It's a word often misused to refer to someone who is being spiritual.
Urbanite: City dweller. (I think there's another word that describes this, but I don't remember it.)
Neo-: New.
Spiritualist: One who believes and practices Spirituality.
Spirituality: The spiritual (not religious) beliefs that form a spiritual path (Wicca, Shamanism, Druidism, Gnostic Christianity, etc.) The word Paganism is often misused for this meaning.

"Wicca is a form of Paganism."
"Wicca is a form of Spirituality."

That's what I do when I see or hear Paganism. I simply replace it with Spirituality because that's what it is.

I'm not a country dweller, although I can understand how some spiritual people could end up a pagan; I belief and practice spirituality, but I'm an urbanite.

Regarding the whole issue of Neo- or not, though, I can understand how you think. Either way we're still being spiritual; no problem there.

However, sometimes adding Neo- can make a difference in describing one's spirituality if applied correctly.

For instance, if I told you that I'm a Shaman, what would many spiritual people automatically think? They'd probably think about primitive tribes, Native American tribes, people who see the animals as having a particular meaning, and perhaps some other beliefs and practices that crossover many spiritualities like the moonlight, the aura, crystals, the colors, etc.

Now if I told everone that I'm a NeoShaman, (which I am, or maybe I'm a NeoShamanic Wiccan? I'm not sure.) that could make a difference. Why? I know some traditional totems, and I know some totems and signs that are only found in the 20th/21st century. In that sense I'm truly a new or NeoShaman. Wouldn't you say?

I'm leaning towards calling myself either a Spiritualist and/or Neo-Shaman, either would work fine.


In a sense, we don't need the neo-. However if we're being precise and using words correctly, then yes it could matter if someone uses a word such as neo-.

That's another troublesome thing I see in Spirituality; it's as though we don't have a central spiritual terms book that everyone could agree on, yet still believe in our own spiritual path. An example of this would be if I saw someone who had wings–most people would agree that such a person is called an Angel.

How irritating. Sigh, oh well, that's my take on this topic.

[Kystar]

Pagan: Country dweller. It's a word often misused to refer to someone who is being spiritual.
Urbanite: City dweller. (I think there's another word that describes this, but I don't remember it.)
Neo-: New.
Spiritualist: One who believes and practices Spirituality.
Spirituality: The spiritual (not religious) beliefs that form a spiritual path (Wicca, Shamanism, Druidism, Gnostic Christianity, etc.) The word Paganism is often misused for this meaning.

Where did you get this?
The dictionary definition of Pagan is someone who is not one of a mainstream religion, or someone who follows a polytheistic religion.
How did you get from that to Pagan meaning a country dweller?
I'd like to know, because this has confused me.

[runewulf]

Actually Kystar, Pagan comes from Paganus, which was latin for country dweller or "hick". The "non mainstream religion" has only been added to dictionaries in the last decade or so.

When I first got involved in paganism seriously, about 15 years ago, looking up pagan gave a definition of "Country Dweller; Non Christian" and sometimes other less savory things, but the root is from the latin Pagan, like heathen's root is from latin and literally means "people of the heathes or fields".


Now Spider, you're right, pagan doesn't really mean a spiritual path, if you want to get technical, you would answer "follwer of a polytheistic, nature based spiritual path", however, the term pagan became used for modern pagans because our spiritual practices came from the country dwelling people and survived longest with them. Add to that this term was often used to try and insult early wiccans, les bonne maggies, odinists, asatuar, etc... so it was taken as a kind of umbrella title.

The whole point to this wasn't "is pagan correct", was more of "are modern pagans neo-pagan or pagan", and what it really comes down to is that it doesn't much matter. All religions and spiritual practices evolve, be they polytheistic, nature based spiritual paths , judaic based faiths, animism, budhist, shinto, etc. So, if one is "neo", they really all are "neo", as they all change in ways both major and subtle fairly frequently.


Wassail

[Kystar]

Ah, well, the Latin root was something I wasn't aware of.

Thanks, Rune!

[Rain ForestMoon]

I think the latin root goes back a lot further than most people realise.

It comes not from the times when Rome was officilayy xtian and the country dwellers were still non-xtians.

The way I understand it that it comes from much earlier times, when country dwellers had not yet adopted the "official" roman pantheon, but were still worshipping local gods and spirits.

Blessings

[Crazy Healer Lady]

The country folk still worshipped strange gods to help control prosperity. Wherever you have people tied to the land, you will have people tied to the spirituality of the land. Xianity destroyed that. After all, what do rich snobs have to do with the gods and goddesses of wheat or irrigation?? They could not fully get rid of it, though. Faeries such as Brownies were and are still given milk as thanks for their work around the home or in the crops, though this is more European, methinks. Wherever you have literal Pagans (country folk) you will have spiritual Pagans, generally speaking.
Or so it is accepted in the Anthropological community. Of course there are many exceptions, especially in our world of incredible forms of communication, like the Pagan Library ^_^

[runewulf]

Actually, you're right... the 'pagans', the literal ones the word was originally defining, practiced a polytheistic religion, somewhat similar to wicca and other indigenous polytheistic nature religions. The Roman gods were the gods of the powerful, politcal citizens and city dwellers. It was post kristjan take over that the term was being used for those on a non judaic based path, then even later those on a non kristjan path. It's actually fairly interesting, from a dry, scholarly/sociological point of view.

And Kystar, you're quite welcome. It's funny how dictionaries can change in such a short period of time.

wassail

[Silver Spider]

So Runewulf, even though I know some modern-20th/21st c.-totems in addition to the traditional totems, you'd still call me a Shaman–not a NeoShaman? Do I understand you correctly?

[Ragnar]

What would you call a 21st C totem? As far as I am aware totems are living beings. As most of them have been around just as long, if not longer, than humaitty it'self. The I am curious as to what you mean.

[Silver Spider]

What would you call a 21st C totem? As far as I am aware totems are living beings. As most of them have been around just as long, if not longer, than humaitty it'self. The I am curious as to what you mean.

Oh, you're curious aren't you??? (You're profile mentions Philosopher.) I don't want to say because if I'm going to write a book about them (if I can get in physical shape first,) I'd like to make sure that I'd be one of the first authors to do so. You may have to wait a few years before I can write and publish "The Book."

Rest assured, there are MANY contemporary totems out in our world.

[runewulf]

Nope, I would call you a shamanic practitioner something along those lines. If you've read the post that Rag and I had going, you'd realize that I don't call anyone a shaman who hasn't gone through a shamanic initiation. As far as the word "shaman" goes, I reserve that title to the root meaning of that word, the tungus and other shamans who went through a rebirth initiation that wasn't of their choice.

As far as totem choices, depends on your philosophy. You can talk totems, as in bear, wolf, raven, fox, turtle, moose, etc., which is what I assume you're referring to when you say old totems. Of course, then you have another level of totems that are definitely on the spiritual realm, dragon, wyvern, unicorn, gryphon, etc. Now, I am guessing that when you talk modern totems, you're talking urbarn totems, animism of the modern world, i.e. things like street, building, car, etc. Personally, I get into a part of that, but not fully. Often it has to do more with place spirit than actual totem. There are a lot of spirits out there and more created/empowered all the time. But just as each individual elemental being wasn't considered a totem, neither do I consider the place spirits that have evolved with urbanization to be totems.

Now, add to that fact this one. Shamanism and shamanic practices, as with all healthy spiritual/magickal paths, are organic, they grow and evolve. Heck, read a few books like City Magick, Urban Shaman, Urban Primitive, Prime Chaos/Condensed Chaos, several of the more open books on wiccan magick, etc. and you'll see plenty of examples of that. So, if these paths grow and evolve, then why would I consider someone using the newer knowledge to need a "Neo" prefix on their path? That's kinda asinine, non? It's the natural evolution of the practices to continue to grow with the time. "Without growth, all things stagnate". So no, I wouldn't add "Neo" to that, might say someone practices "Modern Shamanism" or "Modern WitchCraft", but I wouldn't say that such would make someone a "NeoShaman" or "NeoWitch".

Think about it.

Wassail