{"id":7972,"date":"2015-01-21T07:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/allergicpagan\/?p=7972"},"modified":"2015-01-21T16:59:38","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T21:59:38","slug":"the-neo-pagan-mysteries-part-3-the-eternal-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/allergicpagan\/2015\/01\/21\/the-neo-pagan-mysteries-part-3-the-eternal-return\/","title":{"rendered":"The Neo-Pagan Mysteries, Part 3: The Eternal Return"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Neo-Paganism has multiple centers, including Earth, Deity, and Self<\/a>.\u00a0 This is the third in an 8-part series that explores Neo-Paganism as a Self-Centric \u201cmystery religion\u201d<\/a>. This essay was originally published at Neo-Paganism.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ztumblr_mgsm0twj311qhttpto5_1280\"<\/a>
\u201cRebirth\u201d by Tomasz Alen Kopera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\u201cAll mortal things, by necessity of Nature, revolve in a wheel of changes. \u2026 When they are born they grow, and when they are grown they reach their height, and after that they grow old, and at last perish. At one time Nature causes them to come to their goal in her region of darkness, and then again out of the darkness they come back into mortal form, by alternation of birth and repayment of death, in the cycle wherein Nature returns upon herself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Hippodamus the Pythagorean, quoted in Stobaeus, Florilegium<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mircea Eliade\u2019s writing on comparative religion has had a profound impact on Neo-Paganism, not to mention religious studies generally. He is the author of Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return <\/i>(1954), The Sacred and the Profane <\/i>(1957), and Patterns in Comparative Religion <\/i>(1958). Eliade introduced a whole new vocabulary to the study of religion, and many of these concepts made their way into Neo-Paganism, like the \u201caxis mundi<\/em>\u201c, the symbolic center of the world that is often represented in myth and ritual as a great World Tree or sacred pole. Eliade\u2019s study of shamanism (1964) was also critical in the development of Neo-Shamanism, which influenced Neo-Paganism as well.<\/p>\n

Another important concept of Eliade\u2019s which influenced Neo-Paganism was the \u201cEternal Return\u201d. The Eternal Return is one religious response to what Eliade called \u201cthe terror of history\u201d, the anxiety produced by our consciousness of our finitude, an anxiety which produces either denial or nihilism in the modern mind. The Abrahamic religions<\/a> of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, respond to this anxiety by sacralizing linear history, which is envisioned as a series of episodes in the continuous revelation of God progressing toward a culmination in a messianic age or last judgment. In the Dharmic religions of Hinduism, Buddhism<\/a>, and Jainism, time is cyclical, not linear, but this cycle is perceived, not as something sacred, but as as something to be escaped. The Eternal Return is a third response to the terror of history. It is the response of what Eliade calls \u201ccosmic religion\u201d, which includes Paleolithic religions as well as many forms of Neo-Paganism.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the monotheistic religions<\/a> with their linear view of sacred time and the progressive nature of history leading to a final eschcatological event, many Neo-Pagans view sacred time as cyclical, rotating between life and death in an eternal cycle of periodic renewal, which Eliade calls \u201cthe eternal return\u201d. Many Neo-Pagans visualize time not as a straight line, but as a circle or as a spiral (a combination of cyclical and linear time). The cyclical nature of existence reflected in the movement of the sun, the moon, and the stars, the changing of the seasons, the life cycle of plants and animals, and in our own biological and spiritual lives. In contrast to the Dharmic religions, which seek escape from this cycle, many Neo-Pagans embrace it. Far from being a source of pessimism or despair, for these Neo-Pagans, the ineluctability of death<\/a> gives deeper meaning to existence.<\/p>\n

According to Robert Ellwood and Harry Partin, Neo-Paganism is \u201ca new cosmic religion oriented to the tides not of history but of nature \u2014 the four directions, the seasons, the path of the sun \u2014 and of the timeless configurations of the psyche.\u201d Mircea Eliade defines a \u201ccosmic religion\u201d as one which in which religious activity is centered around the mystery of the periodic renewal of life in the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, manifested in the rhythms of nature and symbolized in the myths of deities who die and return to life.<\/p>\n

Many Neo-Pagans believe in a dialectic continuity or complementarity of life and death. One of the most important insights of this Neo-Pagan metaphysic is that new life depends on death, and that death can only be conquered by accepting it and being reborn. Joseph Campbell calls this palingenesis<\/em>, the \u201ceternal recurrence of birth\u201d. He writes that all truly creative acts derive from some sort of dying. \u201cWhen our day is come for the victory of death,\u201d writes Campbell, \u201cthere is nothing we can do, except be crucified\u2014and resurrected; dismembered totally, and then reborn.\u201d This truth is manifested on both the cosmic and personal levels. On the cosmic cycle, we see it in the passage of the sun and the seasons. On the personal level, it is reflected in both the biological life-cycle as well as the psychological \u201cdeaths\u201d that we must endure in order to be reborn to a fuller life.<\/p>\n

This principle is also expressed mythologically in the form of the Neo-Pagan Goddess<\/a>. Unlike the omni-beneficent God of monothe<\/a>istic religions<\/a>, the Neo-Pagan Goddess is understood by many as being both creative and destructive, the one aspect necessitating the other. This is expressed in the aphorism, \u201cThe tomb is the womb, and the womb is the tomb\u201d, which refers to the Goddess as both the ground or source of life and its ultimate destination.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cLet her, that is womb and tomb of all
\nGreat Nature, take, and forcing far apart
\nThose blind bindings that have made me man,
\nDash them anew together at her will
\nThro\u2019 all her cycles \u2013 into man once more,
\nOr beast or bird or fish, or opulent flower.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tennyson, \u201cLucretius\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For more information, check out Mircea Eliade\u2019s The Myth of the Eternal Return<\/em><\/a>, The Sacred and the Profane<\/em><\/a>, and The History of Religious Ideas<\/em><\/a> (vols 1-3).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In contrast to the monotheistic religions with their linear view of sacred time and the progressive nature of history leading to a final eschcatological event, many Neo-Pagans view sacred time as cyclical, rotating between life and death in an eternal cycle of periodic renewal, which Mircea Eliade called “the eternal return”. In contrast to the Dharmic religions, which seek escape from this cycle, many Neo-Pagans embrace it. Far from being a source of pessimism or despair, for these Neo-Pagans, the ineluctability of death gives deeper meaning to existence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1538,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1253,1248,178,1256,1255,1252,179,1251,895,139,20,1254],"class_list":["post-7972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abrahamic","tag-cycle","tag-death","tag-denial","tag-despair","tag-dharmic","tag-eternal-return","tag-linear","tag-neo-pagan","tag-neo-paganism","tag-paganism","tag-time"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Neo-Pagan Mysteries, Part 3: The Eternal Return<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In contrast to the monotheistic religions with their linear view of sacred time and the progressive nature of history leading to a final eschcatological event, many Neo-Pagans view sacred time as cyclical, rotating between life and death in an eternal cycle of periodic renewal, which Mircea Eliade called "the eternal return". 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