PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Or, How Transcendentalism and Panentheism are theological notions unworthy of contemporary Pagans.

The view I take in these matters is Pantheist, which simply stated is the intuition that All is God (from Pan = All, Theos = God), for whatever value of ‘God’ you care to apply. Many Pagans today hold to some variation on this perceptive. The Pantheist view makes ideas like Transcendentalism and Panentheism logically untenable, and they have some further consequences for Pagans that make it worthwhile to remove them from our thinking.

I'm currently working on a new article (after way too long a hiatus, I know) and if all goes well, I'll have that for you next week. There are a number of issues and topics that have caught my attention, I have a few projects in the works,  plus I still owe the final article in my 'honoring city spirits' series.  That's all in progress and i'm hoping to post weekly  now that my school term is nearly finished,  but in the meantime, i wanted to make a brief announcement.

This post started as a discussion of whether some Pagan traditions are more “privileged” than others.  It rapidly became deeper than this.

When I first became a Pagan and began thinking about the deeper implications of my spiritual path, my first major insight was that since Spirit is everywhere, every spiritual tradition, including those made up from whole cloth, have the potential of carrying someone closer to harmony with the Sacred. For example, even if Gerald Gardner simply made up Gardnerian Wicca (which I do NOT believe), that the Gods come in our workings is all the proof I need that it is a valid path – at least for me.

 How might our Paganism influence our politics? A post I wrote before the election, was recently rebuked because I supposedly had no respect for nearly half the American people. Supposedly my views were alien to the Wiccan rede. I disagree as will be obvious, but my basic issue is not with the author, who I assume was sincere, but with a style of thought and the confusions it breeds.  While this post begins with a political question to answer it I will take a journey through some theology and some philosophy.

How big a tent?

I love a good mystery. Gore I can do without, but good old fashioned suspense, intriguing puzzles, deep dark secrets. Heck, yeah. Even better if the sleuth who stars in said mystery is Pagan; or, at the very least, magically-inclined.*

The latter is easy enough to find. Study the shelves at your neighborhood library or bookstore, or browse the Amazon or B&N sites, and you will find plenty of mysteries which feature magically-gifted protagonists. Most fall in to the "cozy/amateur sleuth" category; meaning, no gore, no sex, and no hard-core swearing. Just to name a few such examples: the Magical Dressmaking Mystery series by Melissa Bourbon; the Magical Bakery series by Bailey Cates; the Magical Cats series by Sofie Kelly; Annette Blair's Vintage Magic series; the Magical Cures series by Tonya Kappes; and Ellery Adams' brand new Charmed Pie Shoppe series.

The ancient world was rich in poetry. The ancient authors who most readily spring to mind were either poets themselves (Hesiod, Virgil, Sappho) or recorders of/commentaters upon others' poetry (Snorri Sturulson). Plus, all those anonymous works of poetic genius (see Beowulf).

The modern Pagan movement is just as rich in poetry. I can't remember when I first began reading and collecting modern Pagan poetry. It was well after I came home to/converted to/embraced Hellenismos. I had plenty of the old authors at hand; everyone from the aforementioned Hesiod, Virgil and Sappho to Bacchylides, Callimachus, Catullus, and an assortment of anthologies. It was with great surprise and delight, then, that I found their modern descendants.

As a parent, whether you homeschool or not, a question you will inevitably encounter is this: will you rear your children in Paganism or teach them about it?

Some parents are committed to rearing Pagan children, including them in all related activities, and passing on a family tradition.

Others prefer to present Paganism as one of many religious choices.