I have often spoken of the corrosive effects of the current popular culture on the rationality of those taking part in it. When one can't answer a question by saying "I don't know" without the listeners taking this as proof of some vaguely defined ulterior motive, one can't help but see those effects in clear focus.

Is the Shrine, properly speaking, a Syncretic group? Some, like one former editor at dmoz.org, would say "no" and claim that this is "really" a Christian site on which ancient Greece and Rome are mentioned "in passing". Judging from the material linked to, from higher up on the index page, I seem to have spent a great deal of time passing them. Unless, of course, the story of Aphrodite and Adonis is now part of the New Testament and the Lupercalia has become an officially recognized church holiday? So, if any of you happen to see a naked Pope John Paul sacrificing a goat, by all means, please tell me, right away. Just don't send me any pictures.

Until then, let us be honest enough to acknowledge that there is more than a small amount of Graeco-Roman material on this site.

Others, on the Pauline Christian side, mostly fundamentalists, have said that no, it's all heathen, Satanic "poison", denying that there is a Christian element to any of this. But then, they say much the same of Roman Catholicism, so consider the source.

So, is this, properly speaking, a synchretic group, or not? Honestly, I don't know, because we haven't defined our terms, yet. "Synchretic" in terms of ritual? To some extent, EVERY reconstructionist group is synchretic in that regard, because the full body of ritual has never come down to us intact, and there are always gaps to be filled in. Demipagans do so using material from the contemporary traditions that derive from the Pagan traditions that they wish to reconstruct. Neo-Pagans do so using material from unrelated "Pagan" traditions, or by inserting material that they simply made up. Why the latter is any less an exercise in Synchretism than the former, is never explained.

Let us be clear, though - I am not going to be donning priestly vestments or distributing the host, at any Shrine gatherings. We meet for the festivals, not on Sunday, and those are the festivals of Greece and Rome, reconstructed with the aid of material derived from those modern Southern European festivals, which, themselves, derive from the original festivals that we seek to reconstruct. Why would we celebrate Pentecost when there are so many Christian churches in which one may do so, already? Such an effort would be redundant and would pale in comparison to what a larger congregation would be capable of.

Such a redundant effort would not be in keeping with the Shrine's mission, because it would tend to seperate that Shrine from the surrounding community, by creating time conflicts for those who might wish to visit those churches. A shrine of Aphrodite Urania should strengthen the bonds of a cohesive community, not sever them. As we have often pointed out, Jesus already has a well-established cult, to put it mildly, considering the fact that it has a billion members at this point. Our contributions in this area, are not needed.

In what other sense might we be regarded as being "synchretic"?

Synchretic in terms of Philosophy? As we have pointed out before, this is a meaningless concept because the advent of Christianity was more of a consolidation and reapplication of pre-existing thought, which was then built on, than it was a remaking of Western civilization. Look at "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, and a great deal of what you see will look very "Christian". Nevertheless, the emperor was a worshipper of the Olympians throughout his life and there is no evidence that he ever paid his respects to Jesus. Quite the contrary, the practice of Christianity was a capital offense during his reign. Religion does not define Philosophy, it is informed by Philosophy.

Synchretic in terms of pantheon, then? There, we get to a more interesting question, and the reason for our uncertainty.

Is Jesus a novel deity, or isn't he? I don't know. To use the terminology of the previous article, the literary Jesus certainly is, at least to an extent. (Some would argue that his story, is a barely disguised rehash of earlier Pagan stories, but all the same, a new story does not cease to be a new story, even if it should turn out to not be a very original one). The real question, is whether or not the noumenal Jesus is, as well.

We note, with some amusement, that before hostilities with "Hellas" arose, as a result of goading by a Wiccan member of said "Reconstructionist" organization, the moderator herself was one of the people who would have said "no" to that last question. (She referred to Christianity as being "a perfectly good cult of Dionysus"). Her former position is not without supporters. It is an interesting one to look at. Dionysus, like Jesus, dies and is resurrected. Wine is referred to as "the blood of Christ", and Dionysus is the god of wine and intoxication.

One might say that while Dionysus, like Jesus, may encourage a sense of loving brotherhood among his worshippers, and an intense sense of communion with himself, that he is far more vengeful than the Christ. Perhaps so, but the gospels do have their darker passages, and, as we have argued, at best, the character of a myth speaks to the frame of mind of the myth maker under the inspiration of the deity, not to the frame of mind of the deity himself. Is it the deity who is gentler, or the times in which he is spoken of? And are we so very sure that the character of a deity does not change in time? Our arguments elsewhere would suggest the contrary.

A far more persuasive argument against this suggestion, one might argue, is that Jesus, above all else, seems to be a god of restraint. In the scriptures, perhaps, this is to be expected. The "New Testament" was written, at first, for a Rabbinically Judaic (ie. Pharisaic) audience. Wild abandon would not have inspired the followers, so one may expect that those sects that taught that Jesus had indulged in such would have quickly disappeared, had such ever existed. (For that matter, if Jesus, the man, had ever actually done so). The Greek and Roman converts came to Christianity at a time when ascetic cults were on the rise (consider Augustine's earlier involvement with Manichaeanism, if I recall correctly). One would not expect them to have shifted the newborn faith away from its earlier tendencies toward asceticism.

HOWEVER : there is more to our knowledge of this deity, than is to be found in his scriptures. There is about 2,000 years of prayer, soul searching, and the spiritual experience of many, throughout many times and places which we would consider to be anything but puritanical. It is a common experience to feel drawn to the choice, of becoming more akin to the man we see Christ represented as being, in the New Testament. Lest we attribute this purely to the orthodoxy of the inquisition, let us note that the spirit of the Old Testament has not seemed to come through to our era as intact, even though it is also part of the canon for almost all sects of Christianity.

So, given this, is it reasonable for us to think of the literary Jesus and the literary Dionysus, as being creations inspired by the same noumenal entity? Surely, wine has never been known to inspire restraint.

The best way of answering this question, would be to examine the body of myth and cultic practice which have come down to us, in connection to Dionysus, and for that reason, he will be the next deity to be discussed on this site. This is convenient, because he was the next divinity whose worship I had intended to introduce into our observances. (Whether that takes us up to four, or leaves us at three, is a question for each to resolve for himself).

As we have explained elsewhere, in the discussion of the Saturnalia, others might suggest Prometheus or the Roman god Saturnus. Given the identification with Cronus, the father who devoured the Olympians, some might find this curious, but how else might one describe what Christianity did to the earlier Olympic cults? Given our own point of view on the nature of Divinity, this would be very much akin to a devouring of the other gods. Divine mercy doesn't always seem to extend to other divinities.

These are matters to be discussed, later. The discussion of Dionysus, in particular, will be indexed under this article. But one thing can't be rationally denied, as much as others will struggle to keep the reader from listening. The mass conversion of the West to Christianity, which has lasted for about 40 per cent of recorded history, is a major historical event that any modern religious movement must come to terms with, if it is to deserve to be taken seriously. Why did this event occur, and what does it mean? Pretending that the last two millenia never occured might make for a nice bit of role playing, but no adult can seriously believe that it is a sensible way of approaching the world that we live in, today. What it says, when alleged spiritual leaders try to marginalize another for being willing to address the subject, I'll leave to the reader to decide.

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