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Helio, who blogs here, has this to say over the usefulness of the label Pagan for polytheists:
By my own experience, I’ve come to realize that calling myself a polytheist can be much more enlightening than pagan. If I say I’m the latter, most people will simply assume I celebrate the equinoxes, cast a circle, use a four elements framework or have a male/female view on ritual and ceremony. The term has a Wiccan baggage that tends to be carried as an assumption into a conversation on my beliefs and practices and no matter how much you try to educate people, largely because for every polytheist trying to explain that they’re not Wiccans there are dozens if not hundreds of books for sale that simply assume the eightfold calendar to be universal (to name just one usual misconception), which then get read by thousands or make up the essential bibliography of covens, courses, bookstores, workshops, and websites that perpetuate those mistakes – including the general public and the mainstream media that happens to do some quick research on modern paganism.
If, however, I say that I’m a polytheist, it immediately puts the conversation on a non-monotheistic tone and easily in relation to more commonly know polytheistic religions, such as Hinduism, Shinto, and even pre-Christian ones from Europe, Africa, or the Middle East. It raises a lot of questions, for sure, and it’s not free of misconceptions: I had a friend of mine who once assumed that it was a Roman “commandment” to kill Christians. But the debate thus generated can be much more enriching and less frustrating, because it puts my practices and beliefs in connection with an historical period from which, to a greater or lesser degree, I actually drawn a lot what I do.
If I say “polytheist”, people are more easily reminded of pre-Christian and modern polytheistic religions and we can build a conversation from there, because it’s the same basis I work from; if I say “pagan”, I’m forced to correct people every few sentences and deconstruct a whole preconceived notion about my beliefs and practices. And that’s something which, after a few years, can be incredibly tiresome and very annoying.
Helio
My experiences are very similar, Helio.
My experiences are very similar, Helio.
Yep. What Helio said!
Yep. What Helio said!
I have two major definitional problems with replacing the term “pagan” with polytheist:
1. It excludes all those pagans who aren’t polytheists: the animists, the henotheists, the monists, those who focus on the orisa, or the ancestors, or nature spirits, or the elements, or…
2. One of the most significant changes I’ve noticed in modern paganism over the last few decades is the gradual inclusion of more retro-pagan approaches. While all of the Indo-European pagan cultures practiced reverence to multiple gods and are thus polytheistic, they also all practiced reverence to nature spirits and ancestors. I see it as a real sign of maturation in modern paganism that the nature spirits and ancestors are being honored by more and more modern pagans. The use of the term polytheist encourages an unbalanced emphasis on just gods.
Ian: Do you think that we need a term that unifies us all (your objection #1), and if so does it have to be “pagan”?
I think coalitions are just as effective as other structures and no one has to adopt a term that is uncomfortable for them in a coalition…
If we are to be a coalition, we need a name for the coalition. If we cannot name it, there is no real coalition. I see “pagan” as the name for the coalition, with many other names for our individual and group identities and practices within that coalition. If you look at the bio on my LiveJournal profile page, you will not see me labeling myself as a pagan. But I do use that term for the larger milieu/coalition.
If someone can come up with a better name for the larger milieu/coalition, I’m willing to hear it. But every attempt I’ve heard has excluded people and traditions that are currently part of the milieu/coalition. And I believe that redefining our milieu in a way that excludes participants who do things differently counts as throwing them under the bus.
Ian,
Replying to your two points:
1. By saying that I’m a polytheist I’m already making a statement of belief and that’s exactly the point of a good label of one’s religion. There’s little use in calling myself something that simply means that I’m not a Christian/Jew/Muslim or carries assumptions that are simply not true and are far from where I’m coming from.
2. I consider animists to be polytheists, too; and ancestors and land/house wights as gods in Their own right. Keep in mind that the Ancient Romans named their dead collectively as Di Manes – the Divine Dead. They’re gods also, even if not greater ones like Jupiter, so I don’t see how calling oneself a polytheist – at least a Roman one – excludes the reverence towards one’s ancestors and local spisirts (from which, IMHO, some of the greater gods sprang).
On this subject, you might want to read the following article published here on Patheos: http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Regulating-the-Gods-A-Hellenist-on-Hubris?offset=0&max=1
I consider animists to be polytheists
Did you realize that in that phrase you redefined others’ spiritual experiences without any regard to what they want to be called?
I read the article you linked, and find it unconvincing. While I have no problem with referring to all the Holy Powers as divine, I don’t agree that they are all deities. That implies that deities are the only Holy Powers, and becomes semantic solipsism. What’s more, if the Greeks and Romans had seen all the Holy Powers as deities, they would have had only one word in each language (theos in Greek and deus in Latin to describe the Powers.)
Please note that I’m not suggesting that you should not be allowed to identify as a polytheist (though I personally feel that’s disrespecting the other Powers), but that polytheist excludes other modern pagans. My preference is to use pagan as the umbrella category, and also use specific label(s) to describe the individual’s or group’s practices. Polytheist, from my perspective, is too vague to describe any individual or group, and thus appears to be attempting to replace “pagan”. Which gets back to throwing the animists, etc., under the bus.
A clarification: I am not arguing for absolute categories or the excluded middle. As a devotee of Dionysos, the only demi-god to become an Olympian, I certainly include apotheosis in my understanding of the world. But I still experience a distinct difference between my grandmother and Dionysos.
What’s more, if the Greeks and Romans had seen all the Holy Powers as
deities, they would have had only one word in each language (theos in
Greek and deus in Latin to describe the Powers.)
Then why does the English language have literally dozens of words that can imply “good”? Or “funny”?
It’s not that daimones and nymphai are somehow “not gods”, it’s that they’re simply a different kind. It’s not that they’re an entirely separate category, it’s that there are nuances within that category that need different words to convey them.
Just like I know that “witty” and “hilarious” are different kinds of funny, I know that “daimon” and “theos” are different kinds of divinity: And if you want to thump dictionaries, “divinity” is “the quality of being divine”. “Divine” means “of or pertaining to a god” — what is more like a god than a god? Even its Latin root, “divius” *means* “a god”.
The modern translation of “Theoi = Gods” is just that — a modern invention. This is what a lot of recon-oriented people are talking about concerning “ancient vs modern mindsets”. Modern translations are tainted with modern ways of thinking. “Polytheism” itself is a relatively modern word — first coined in 1610, long after Europe’s last polytheists were branded as “paganus” and converted by sword. While the roots unfortunately give an over-simplified impression of how to see divinity, the word still means what it’s supposed to — and lacks the baggage that “paganus” and its modern derivatives come with trucks of.
1) I doubt the intent of this piece was to discourage use of the word “pagan” from those who feel it fits, but I think the examples you give assume that people of those religions somehow want or are at least willing to concede to the word “pagan”. My brother-I-law and his family are Chinese and Taoist — their own branch of Taoist is animist (“spirit focused”) and venerates their ancestors. They’ve never called themselves “pagan” when speaking in English, cos that’s the word missionaries use to put them down. They’re Taoist, not “pagan” — it really is as simple as that.
2) The use of the term polytheist encourages an unbalanced emphasis on just gods.
As a polytheist who recognises and reveres nymphai, a degree of divinity that is linked to local lands, and daimones, a degree of divinity existing between what makes a Theos and what makes a mortal (including deified heroes) I don’t see any unbalanced emphasis. I also don’t see an absolute divide between “gods” and “spirits”, that seems a modern concoction — I see Big Universal Deities, and I see Little Local Deities, and I see once-mortal men and women who have become exalted to a degree that makes one ask what a deity really is. There is more to Deity and Divinity than “the majors”, and I’d wager that most polytheists honour all manner of deity in their due measure.
I have two major definitional problems with replacing the term “pagan” with polytheist:
1. It excludes all those pagans who aren’t polytheists: the animists, the henotheists, the monists, those who focus on the orisa, or the ancestors, or nature spirits, or the elements, or…
2. One of the most significant changes I’ve noticed in modern paganism over the last few decades is the gradual inclusion of more retro-pagan approaches. While all of the Indo-European pagan cultures practiced reverence to multiple gods and are thus polytheistic, they also all practiced reverence to nature spirits and ancestors. I see it as a real sign of maturation in modern paganism that the nature spirits and ancestors are being honored by more and more modern pagans. The use of the term polytheist encourages an unbalanced emphasis on just gods.
Ian: Do you think that we need a term that unifies us all (your objection #1), and if so does it have to be “pagan”?
I think coalitions are just as effective as other structures and no one has to adopt a term that is uncomfortable for them in a coalition…
If we are to be a coalition, we need a name for the coalition. If we cannot name it, there is no real coalition. I see “pagan” as the name for the coalition, with many other names for our individual and group identities and practices within that coalition. If you look at the bio on my LiveJournal profile page, you will not see me labeling myself as a pagan. But I do use that term for the larger milieu/coalition.
If someone can come up with a better name for the larger milieu/coalition, I’m willing to hear it. But every attempt I’ve heard has excluded people and traditions that are currently part of the milieu/coalition. And I believe that redefining our milieu in a way that excludes participants who do things differently counts as throwing them under the bus.
Ian,
Replying to your two points:
1. By saying that I’m a polytheist I’m already making a statement of belief and that’s exactly the point of a good label of one’s religion. There’s little use in calling myself something that simply means that I’m not a Christian/Jew/Muslim or carries assumptions that are simply not true and are far from where I’m coming from.
2. I consider animists to be polytheists, too; and ancestors and land/house wights as gods in Their own right. Keep in mind that the Ancient Romans named their dead collectively as Di Manes – the Divine Dead. They’re gods also, even if not greater ones like Jupiter, so I don’t see how calling oneself a polytheist – at least a Roman one – excludes the reverence towards one’s ancestors and local spisirts (from which, IMHO, some of the greater gods sprang).
On this subject, you might want to read the following article published here on Patheos: http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Regulating-the-Gods-A-Hellenist-on-Hubris?offset=0&max=1
I consider animists to be polytheists
Did you realize that in that phrase you redefined others’ spiritual experiences without any regard to what they want to be called?
I read the article you linked, and find it unconvincing. While I have no problem with referring to all the Holy Powers as divine, I don’t agree that they are all deities. That implies that deities are the only Holy Powers, and becomes semantic solipsism. What’s more, if the Greeks and Romans had seen all the Holy Powers as deities, they would have had only one word in each language (theos in Greek and deus in Latin to describe the Powers.)
Please note that I’m not suggesting that you should not be allowed to identify as a polytheist (though I personally feel that’s disrespecting the other Powers), but that polytheist excludes other modern pagans. My preference is to use pagan as the umbrella category, and also use specific label(s) to describe the individual’s or group’s practices. Polytheist, from my perspective, is too vague to describe any individual or group, and thus appears to be attempting to replace “pagan”. Which gets back to throwing the animists, etc., under the bus.
A clarification: I am not arguing for absolute categories or the excluded middle. As a devotee of Dionysos, the only demi-god to become an Olympian, I certainly include apotheosis in my understanding of the world. But I still experience a distinct difference between my grandmother and Dionysos.
What’s more, if the Greeks and Romans had seen all the Holy Powers as
deities, they would have had only one word in each language (theos in
Greek and deus in Latin to describe the Powers.)
Then why does the English language have literally dozens of words that can imply “good”? Or “funny”?
It’s not that daimones and nymphai are somehow “not gods”, it’s that they’re simply a different kind. It’s not that they’re an entirely separate category, it’s that there are nuances within that category that need different words to convey them.
Just like I know that “witty” and “hilarious” are different kinds of funny, I know that “daimon” and “theos” are different kinds of divinity: And if you want to thump dictionaries, “divinity” is “the quality of being divine”. “Divine” means “of or pertaining to a god” — what is more like a god than a god? Even its Latin root, “divius” *means* “a god”.
The modern translation of “Theoi = Gods” is just that — a modern invention. This is what a lot of recon-oriented people are talking about concerning “ancient vs modern mindsets”. Modern translations are tainted with modern ways of thinking. “Polytheism” itself is a relatively modern word — first coined in 1610, long after Europe’s last polytheists were branded as “paganus” and converted by sword. While the roots unfortunately give an over-simplified impression of how to see divinity, the word still means what it’s supposed to — and lacks the baggage that “paganus” and its modern derivatives come with trucks of.
1) I doubt the intent of this piece was to discourage use of the word “pagan” from those who feel it fits, but I think the examples you give assume that people of those religions somehow want or are at least willing to concede to the word “pagan”. My brother-I-law and his family are Chinese and Taoist — their own branch of Taoist is animist (“spirit focused”) and venerates their ancestors. They’ve never called themselves “pagan” when speaking in English, cos that’s the word missionaries use to put them down. They’re Taoist, not “pagan” — it really is as simple as that.
2) The use of the term polytheist encourages an unbalanced emphasis on just gods.
As a polytheist who recognises and reveres nymphai, a degree of divinity that is linked to local lands, and daimones, a degree of divinity existing between what makes a Theos and what makes a mortal (including deified heroes) I don’t see any unbalanced emphasis. I also don’t see an absolute divide between “gods” and “spirits”, that seems a modern concoction — I see Big Universal Deities, and I see Little Local Deities, and I see once-mortal men and women who have become exalted to a degree that makes one ask what a deity really is. There is more to Deity and Divinity than “the majors”, and I’d wager that most polytheists honour all manner of deity in their due measure.
I realized years ago that Pagan is what searchers called themselves before they found their own community, and what outsiders lumped all non-Abrahamatic faiths together in. No reconstructionist that I know self-identifies as Pagan, and the communities are long established and thriving enough now that most of the non-recon traditions also self identify by their own tradition. You can’t define pagan any finer than Non-Abrahamatic faith because no better definition will fit us all under the umbrella. I am a Heathen, Asatru, Norse Polytheist, or even Odinist. To a Christian who looks confused I will tell them it is a type of pagan, but that means spending the next half hour explaining how we don’t all dance naked around the fire and eat tofu; ours are more likely to swap hunting stories while passing the horn beside the fire.
Pagans is the umbrella that covers us all. Polytheism or Reconstructionist covers those specific single culture/pantheon traditions, and each of us has our own name for ourselves (Asatru, Hellenes, Roma Mater, Druid). There are a thousand forms of Pagan, from the from Anamist to Wiccan that are something else entirely. There is enough of each now to claim our own communities, even if we still like to party with the neighbor-pagans.
I realized years ago that Pagan is what searchers called themselves before they found their own community, and what outsiders lumped all non-Abrahamatic faiths together in. No reconstructionist that I know self-identifies as Pagan, and the communities are long established and thriving enough now that most of the non-recon traditions also self identify by their own tradition. You can’t define pagan any finer than Non-Abrahamatic faith because no better definition will fit us all under the umbrella. I am a Heathen, Asatru, Norse Polytheist, or even Odinist. To a Christian who looks confused I will tell them it is a type of pagan, but that means spending the next half hour explaining how we don’t all dance naked around the fire and eat tofu; ours are more likely to swap hunting stories while passing the horn beside the fire.
Pagans is the umbrella that covers us all. Polytheism or Reconstructionist covers those specific single culture/pantheon traditions, and each of us has our own name for ourselves (Asatru, Hellenes, Roma Mater, Druid). There are a thousand forms of Pagan, from the from Anamist to Wiccan that are something else entirely. There is enough of each now to claim our own communities, even if we still like to party with the neighbor-pagans.
I have found exactly the same.
I have found exactly the same.
Hi Helio! Nice post. I agree and relate with many of your points. My only disagreement is that using the term ‘polytheist’ puts us closer to Hindus, Shintoists and ethnic tribal traditions. I disagree because the polytheistic traditions we practice (as far as I know, please correct me if I am mistaken here) are -Reconstructionist polytheist- traditions, which are religiously and culturally distinct from traditions which have an unbroken history of practice. The Neopagan community likes to infer affiliations with these traditions too, based on sharing the Judeo-Christian designation of ‘pagan,’ but this isn’t the same thing as those traditions claiming affiliation with the Neopagan community, which they don’t. While we have seen some Hindus on the Polytheism facebook page, I don’t think the Hindu community relates with the Recon Polytheist community on any broad basis, and we should probably be careful of assigning them an affiliation which they themselves do not largely proclaim.
I don’t think calling myself a polytheist infers a connection with the Hindu or Shinto traditions. We are all polytheists, but we each have our own tradition and belief/celebration structure that differs. There is more similarity in belief between Indo-European traditons due to similar histories and experiences that shaped them.
No one is trying to borrow the cachet of these other religions, because honestly Christianity and Islam have never given any credit to any religious belief other than their own. There are people of their book (whom the subdivide endlessly, lable as heretics and persecute) and devil worshipers (everybody else, whom they lable pagan, heathen, witch, yadda-yadda-yadda-venom blast) whom they persecute as well.
Polytheists often have a lot to learn from each other, as our different traditions and lore, and our different experiences at local organization of our new communities, offer a great body of experiential knowledge that will help the next generation of Polytheist avoid the speed bumps, trolls, and faux-pas we had to stumble through. That being said, we can teach each other about the journey because we respect we are on different paths.
The thing is, Erin, regardless of an unbroken
tradition or not, modern western polytheists are closest to Shinto and Hinduism
than to Wiccans and assorted groups. Drew wrote one thing in a comment on his
own post that hits a nail on the head:
“When the majority
of our community feels perfectly at home with Hindus (no education needed), yet
disconnected from Pagans (regardless of how much education is done), I think
it’s fair to say we’re just a different type of religion.”
And this is how it
often goes. More at home at a Hindu temple where offerings of food and fire are
made or in a Shinto shrine where sake and fried rice are offered to the kami
than in a magic circle where the quarters are summoned. It matters little if
it’s an unbroken tradition or not: Shinto has many sects only a few centuries
or decades old, as does Hinduism. And Sikhs are still monotheists, even if they
are not Abrahamic: should they remove themselves from the monotheistic
category so as to not to be confused with a far older group?
Helios, I agree with both you and Drew that we recon polytheists feel closer to and better understand Hindu and Shinto tradition and ritual than we do with those of the neopagans. That wasn’t my point, though. Mine was that, despite some shared IE heritage where the Hindu traditions are concerned, we should be careful of claiming them under our tent, which is -recon- polytheist, if they themselves would not put themselves under it, and I suspect that they would not. Their own self-identifiers should be respected, even while we claim that we relate with them, even if they might not so much relate with us.
Hi Helio! Nice post. I agree and relate with many of your points. My only disagreement is that using the term ‘polytheist’ puts us closer to Hindus, Shintoists and ethnic tribal traditions. I disagree because the polytheistic traditions we practice (as far as I know, please correct me if I am mistaken here) are -Reconstructionist polytheist- traditions, which are religiously and culturally distinct from traditions which have an unbroken history of practice. The Neopagan community likes to infer affiliations with these traditions too, based on sharing the Judeo-Christian designation of ‘pagan,’ but this isn’t the same thing as those traditions claiming affiliation with the Neopagan community, which they don’t. While we have seen some Hindus on the Polytheism facebook page, I don’t think the Hindu community relates with the Recon Polytheist community on any broad basis, and we should probably be careful of assigning them an affiliation which they themselves do not largely proclaim.
I don’t think calling myself a polytheist infers a connection with the Hindu or Shinto traditions. We are all polytheists, but we each have our own tradition and belief/celebration structure that differs. There is more similarity in belief between Indo-European traditons due to similar histories and experiences that shaped them.
No one is trying to borrow the cachet of these other religions, because honestly Christianity and Islam have never given any credit to any religious belief other than their own. There are people of their book (whom the subdivide endlessly, lable as heretics and persecute) and devil worshipers (everybody else, whom they lable pagan, heathen, witch, yadda-yadda-yadda-venom blast) whom they persecute as well.
Polytheists often have a lot to learn from each other, as our different traditions and lore, and our different experiences at local organization of our new communities, offer a great body of experiential knowledge that will help the next generation of Polytheist avoid the speed bumps, trolls, and faux-pas we had to stumble through. That being said, we can teach each other about the journey because we respect we are on different paths.
The thing is, Erin, regardless of an unbroken
tradition or not, modern western polytheists are closest to Shinto and Hinduism
than to Wiccans and assorted groups. Drew wrote one thing in a comment on his
own post that hits a nail on the head:
“When the majority
of our community feels perfectly at home with Hindus (no education needed), yet
disconnected from Pagans (regardless of how much education is done), I think
it’s fair to say we’re just a different type of religion.”
And this is how it
often goes. More at home at a Hindu temple where offerings of food and fire are
made or in a Shinto shrine where sake and fried rice are offered to the kami
than in a magic circle where the quarters are summoned. It matters little if
it’s an unbroken tradition or not: Shinto has many sects only a few centuries
or decades old, as does Hinduism. And Sikhs are still monotheists, even if they
are not Abrahamic: should they remove themselves from the monotheistic
category so as to not to be confused with a far older group?
Helios, I agree with both you and Drew that we recon polytheists feel closer to and better understand Hindu and Shinto tradition and ritual than we do with those of the neopagans. That wasn’t my point, though. Mine was that, despite some shared IE heritage where the Hindu traditions are concerned, we should be careful of claiming them under our tent, which is -recon- polytheist, if they themselves would not put themselves under it, and I suspect that they would not. Their own self-identifiers should be respected, even while we claim that we relate with them, even if they might not so much relate with us.