Compared to when I first started learning about paganism, there is a goldmine of pagan publishing. Unfortunately, the deluge of information available in a google search also includes a lot of crap. Below are some issues that frequently found in trying to learn about paganism. Hopefully being aware of the pitfalls will make them easier to avoid.
Bad History
It may seem counter intuitive, but it is true: history changes.
Or to put it the long way, our knowledge and understanding of history changes as new information comes to light (new archaeological discoveries, texts translated) new tools are developed to analyze what we have (DNA evidence, forensics) or researchers ask different questions. Old theories are replaced by new theories, and the narratives change to include factors that used to not be considered important.
When I was in college, the professor teaching a course on native American women said that when she was a grad student in the 70’s, she and her classmates wanted to study topics that their own professors had no interest in and they had to start their research from scratch. As we learn more, our understanding changes. Many theories were a good place to start looking, but when more is found turn out to be inaccurate or not a complete picture. This doesn’t mean it is bad, it means we are learning.
Too much bad history is being taught within the pagan community. Many of the influencers of the pagan revival themselves had theories that have been debunked by further research. I don’t know if bad history has staying power because there is a delay before academia reaches the masses, or those ideas are more appealing, or it is simply hard to dislodge an idea that has already been ingrained. My pet theory is that many authors who influenced paganism were well versed in the occult, but weren’t trained scholars and didn’t know how to fact check and the standards for peer reviewed research.
There isn’t always a push against ideas that were more romantic than realistic, and fact checking wasn’t highly demanded by the pagan audience. I will say the bar is being raised for pagan authors since the 90’s. (Although to be perfectly honest, that isn’t saying much…) There also have been emerging pagan academics writing work based on good history. If an author does not clearly cite sources, it might be best to put it in the poetry category instead of historical fact.
UPG Being Told As Historical Fact
UPG is Unverified Personal Gnosis, or personal experience that has no backing in lore. Shared personal gnosis is when different people have the same experience/insight that is not supported historically independent of each other, then come together to share experiences and realize it is the same.
I am not knocking UPG. For everything we have about historical paganism, there is 100 things we don’t. We have to fill in the gaps somehow, and I think the explosion of pagan blogs is helping followers get together to compare notes and turn UPG to SPG. We live in a different world than our ancestors. Pagans need a religion that works for us now in this time and this place, which means we have to use UPG and SPG.
What I am knocking is not labelling UPG properly and trying to pass it off as historical fact. Or trying to pass off UPG as the one and only truth. If someone doesn’t have historical evidence to back up claims but it works for them, they should be honest and say so. Gods are complex and have multiple aspects. People have radically different experiences of the same gods, which makes perfect sense. “My god is this… and only this.” Strikes me as someone who hasn’t completely confronted their monotheistic programming. I wouldn’t tell someone their experience is invalid because it differs from mine, but I might wonder at their discernment to make sure they are talking to who they think they are talking to and getting the message clearly.
With the exception oracles (and oracle traditions have a very specific context and framework for interpreting the messages) no one speaks for the gods. They are quite capable of speaking for themselves, if people actually listen. Most messages tend to be very specific to the receiver.
Wiccanizing
Yes, Wicca has a huge influence on modern neo paganism. It is probably the most well known pagan tradition today. But Wicca is a modern religion from the 1950s that has roots in ceremonial magick, and many other pagan traditions have different roots. Historical paganism most likely didn’t have the great wheel of the year, for starters. Just because it is accepted in Wicca, doesn’t mean it is ancient, or universal.
Confusing Lore With Pop Culture
This probably deserves its own blog post (Morgan Daimler had a good post about this specifically with faeries). But the nutshell is: at the end of the day, fiction is to entertain. Most fiction that has pagan gods or draws upon pagan imagery is not made by pagans. Even the media being produced by pagans for a pagan audience will still have to use dramatic license to make a good story.
The problem is, mass media has a lot of power to shape perceptions. Too often ideas from pop culture sneak into modern beliefs without being properly critiqued as being from a movie. Sometimes the idea at face value might make sense, so it might require some work to trace it back to its source.
See pop culture for what it is. Entertainment to draw inspiration from but not something to base religious beliefs on.
Appropriation/Racism/Whitewashing
Some of that bad history I spoke of earlier is to be frank because of racism. There have been influential people of color within paganism/ the occult that have been largely forgotten. Being honest about racism is the only way to move forward. Just as the United States faces a needed reckoning on the treatment of BIPOC, so does pagan publishing.
Most indigenous and African Diasporic religions are closed or semi closed traditions, which means you need to either be born into it or have to go through a training process to be able to practice it. The decision of what can be shared with outsiders and what is kept secret is made by elders of the tradition and must be respected. Unfortunately too often it hasn’t been.
If there is a choice of learning about a tradition between someone who studies it and someone who practices it, go with the practitioner. Not only will it support a member of that community but it will make sure the information being shared does not violate a tradition or oath. Too often a white “expert” is given a platform over BIPOC practitioners of the tradition. What needs to change in pagan publishing is more editors and publishers of BIPOC, in addition to authors. In roles of decision making and authority, not just token.