August 21, 1999 (or thereabouts)
Let us begin with a truth that many of us know and yet few will acknowledge. Paganism is dying out in Chicago, and those remaining in the community have no right to be surprised. Look at the covens where the average age seems to go up by two years, every year, and common sense should tell one where this is leading our traditions. Straight into oblivion.
Some will speak of ingrained shame left over from Judeo-Christian upbringings, or the intolerance of our neighbors, as they try to explain why this might be. But we know that's a lie. As much as some of us might like their drama, the fact is that most people in Chicago don't care that we're here and the few that do, tend to greet us in a far more friendly fashion than we greet them. That hints at what part of the problem is. A raging paranoia endemic in our community that drives off so many that come into contact with us - including, a fair number of our own people. When the majority of a community consists of "solitaries" - Pagans who worship alone, and keep contact with their fellow Pagans to a minimum - that should tell us something. It bodes ill for the future of Paganism here, because those so fully solitary will lose the support and encouragement of their fellows. When they encounter the vibrant life of a closely knit Christian community, they're going to feel that absence and it's going to be very hard - maybe impossible - for them to pass up what that other community has to offer.
"Well good", some will say, "if their convictions are so weak, we'll be stronger without them". But what are convictions, outside of a life in which those convictions find expression? A religion that produces no living subculture, no community to be a part of, is no religion at all. And how does one know a goddess, save through the acts of her worshippers? But look at how we have so often represented our gods, in our actions, and one begins to realize that it is a true miracle that we haven't died out already.
In part, the problem is that two very distinct desires have made their presence felt. There are those who are drawn to Paganism because they desire mystic power. They will be sorely disappointed. But their hunger for power will remain, made all the keener by denial. And then there are those who come seeking the freedom to live in new ways and to explore new ideas. And so, we bring together those who would seek freedom for themselves and those who would deny it to others and wonder why the mix proves explosive.
So, on the surface, the problem seems an easy one to solve. If somebody spends a lot of time talking about finding the true names of demons and turning milk into pearls, while trying to bully those around him into submission - then let's have the sense not to invite him.
Well, yes, that is something that one should keep in mind, but to do just this, won't be enough. The real problem isn't those among us who rant and rave. The problem we have to deal with is that of more subtle belligerence. There are those who persuade others to refuse to listen to those they disagree with and ostracise those who offer even the mildest dissent to even the most absurd group consensus. And so people walk away angry, because their legitimate grievances are never heard. Or they do so in disgust, because the group will attack them for their 'failure' to embrace an absurdity or for no particular reason at all, and having lost the capacity for self-examination, never comes to the realisation that it should back off.
Who, but the most passive, desires to take part in a conversation where his own thoughts will never be heard? Who, but a megalomanic, will be prepared to do what one must do in order to be heard under this system - to browbeat the others into 'agreement' or silence? And how much wisdom can one expect from those who are so certain of their own rightness that they will not tolerate the idea of their ideas being subjected to scrutiny? What can such a person offer, save the first unexamined idea to pop into his mind and an endless string of rationalisations afterward, in the likely case that he won't have stumbled onto the truth through sheer accident or divine inspiration?
Paganism is dying out, here, because we have created a community in which nothing is open to real discussion, nothing at all. True, that's not unique to Paganism. The notion that good manners consists of "going along to get along" - that the responsibility for preventing a temper tantrum lies with everyone save the tantrum thrower himself, and that one should give up any real freedom of speech in order to appease the irascibly insane - has defined much of this decade of the 1990s that is now ending, this golden age of cowardice. But we have, perhaps, taken it further than most, and given it up more reluctantly, and so as this decade dies unmourned, our community is dying with it.
Nobody is to blame for this, but us. If you believe in the truth of your faith, this should bother you. It will mean that our efforts will have come to nothing. If you don't believe in it, then what are you doing here?
So, are we going to talk about how to heal the Pagan community? Yes and No. To talk about enacting a global cure would be a perpetuation of a bad concept - the notion that to solve a problem, calls for the motivation and coordination of the masses, as opposed to the use of individual initiative. Our objective is to create the nucleus of a new community that will grow, to that extent to which it serves its membership. The answer is not to achieve a political victory, but to foster competition, and foster freedom of choice, as we restore the marketplace of ideas and of ways of life.
So, what do you do, if you want to reform such a community?
The answer is not to persuade others to give up their ways and adopt your proposed alternative. In a community where people, as a matter of reflex, react hostily to those who would "convert" them, nothing good will come of that effort. The answer is for you and some friends to start living the alternative and let people come to you of their own accord. You should make your own setting, create your own connections, and make it a pleasant one, one that the right people want to be part of. You shouldn't care if it's most of the people, as long as it's enough of the people for your community to be a vital one and for it to endure, on what should eventually become a historical time scale.
If your changes are good ones, they will, in time, make for a better life in the community that adopts them. If people are free to see this, some will vote with their feet and join you. Some, of course, will stubbornly (and probably masochistically) hold to how things were done in the bad old days. Don't sweat it. However larger the holdout community may be at first, the intransigent (by their very nature) are incapable of living in peace with each other, if they lack others to take their frustrations out on. How can people who never listen, ever hope to resolve their disputes in anything but an embittering fashion? As recent history has shown, left by themselves, they will drift away from each other. In time, if you are right, your remnant community will become the whole community, and the community will thus be reformed. And, of course, if you are wrong, but well intentioned, then you will realise that defeat is a thing to be greeted, perhaps with chagrin, but without regret.
So, the question is, how do you keep your alternative alive, so that people will be free to choose it? How does one keep politicing from undermining freedom of choice in the new community, as it has in so much of the old? How does one keep those who have indulged in power politics in the past, from using it to turn the new community into a carbon copy of the old, and thus subvert freedom of choice ("freedom being defined in the broader sense of one having the freedom to walk away from an unwholesome system)?
It is not a matter of writing charters, or setting up organizational charts, but of establishing custom, something that historical experience tells us, will provide a real hindrance to would be dictators.
Here's how we do it.
The worry we have, as we recruit, is a familiar one to those online. We are worried about gossip. We are concerned that, as has been very popular in the recent past, that those in love with the constrictive status quo, will pressure others not to invite us (so we will not have the chance to reach others), or not to listen (so it won't matter, even if we arrive). The answer to this problem is a simple one. In part, we stay underground. We don't tell people who we are until a relationship of trust is established, and we can count on them to not tell other people who we are. And, we encourage those we meet in other groups, to maintain their membership in those groups. As we seek to help build community, we do not aspire to replace other groups, but to form a bridge between them. A fringe benefit of this, is that we gain a network of contacts that can work to quickly counteract any false rumor spread against a group member, before people close their minds, and it is too late for his side to be heard.
Our organization couldn't be simpler. There are no votes, and so politicing is pointless. Antistoicus is the moderator for one reason, and one reason alone. He is the only one crazy enough to agree to host, at the moment. The rule is as simple, as it is traditional. The rules at an event, are made unilaterally by whoever has taken the time, and made the effort, to host it. So, one might say, that if we have seven members, we have seven different organizations all with the same membership. If Antistoicus hosts, we are "The Shrine of the Sleeping Gods", and we adhere to one (extremely loose) set of rules. If another member hosts, we are his organization, and do things his way.
It is understood (and one's word of honor is given) that invitation to or attendance at one event, shall not be conditional on (or even have its likelihood influenced by) an invitation to or attendance at any other. It is likewise understood that invitations are not to be refused to those who have been active with us, without good reason, amply explained to the others. A failure to honor the nature of the event (or that which it stands for) is a good reason, as is a breach in behavior that would represent a violation of The Uniform Base Code of Morality, sort of a common ground between the moral codes of a great many cultures and religions, one that serves here as an ethical baseline. Personal dislike is not, unless one can point to some real harm that will come to one, or one's own, as a result of the invitation. Obnoxious behavior, or a failure to respect these understandings, is an excellent reason.
It may prove instructive to consider why something this simple will work. But, historically, it really does. None of this is at all radical. "A man's home is his castle" is as traditional an attitude as they come. But, in the last few years, we have witnessed people casually tossing away traditional attitudes, thinking that asking the rhetorical question "Well, why would this be true?", is ample defense. It never seems to occur to some, that just because reasons have not been offered for these traditions to be honored, it does not follow that reasons do not exist and should not be sought.
One would not have expected to see them offered, because unlike these new ideologies made to order to suit someone's agenda, a traditional one would have grown out of the experience of life, being adopted because it worked, not because someone offered a superficially persuasive pitch on its behalf. And if you wonder why you rarely see an intellectual examination of these traditions, one need look no further than Usenet to see an example of why. Someone will come on to argue in favor of the rash adoption of a radical idea, and someone will offer a defense of the traditional way of doing things, by way of rebuttal. And what will people say? "You're boring us. You're wasting our time, proving things that we already know". But, again, that is a lie. We don't all know these things. Ill considered innovations are adopted, often with hideous results, because the rhetorical playing field has been made uneven in such a way as to keep those who would support those traditional ways from being heard. And so the misconception arises, that only radicals know how to think, and it is only the radical ideas that reflect the action of thought. But to refuse to examine the alternatives to an idea with an open mind, is to fail to examine the idea itself, and unexamined thought, like we have said, is not thought at all.
With this in mind, we remind our elders (and inform our juniors) of how things were once done, until some disrupted that well tested way of life, just for the entertainment value of having done something weird and different. But look around at the rabid conformity that this has lead to, and ask yourself just how entertaining that has proved to be, as we ponder the irony of it all.
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Table of Contents
1. The Uniform Base Code of Morality
An explanation of what, on an ethical level, we demand of those who visit us. A promise to some, a warning to others.
2. Why I am a dictatorial (ahem!)
An explanation of why we decided to go with serial dictatorship, instead of direct, low scale democracy, in the running of our group(s). Hint : because we're in favor of personal freedom!
Yes, we worship Aphrodite. No, we don't employ temple prostitutes, and no, you can't bring one to share with the group. Here, we answer one of the questions that is inevitable as it is unavoidable. What, in a sexual sense, do we consider to be acceptable behavior? Where do we draw the line between free-spirited and piggish behavior?
So, are we a pack of feral children in the making? Why have we rejected both teaching, and clergy, at this shrine, and closed the doors on our elders? We discuss these matters.
Note : at the beginning of this article, written back on December 30, 1999 (or thereabouts), we refer to the priestess mentioned (and left unnamed) as being "one of the nice ones". Sad to say, this individual apparently has quite the history of making anti-Catholic remarks. Do we condone this? No. But, we would suggest that one occasionally be open to the possibility that a bigot acts out of ignorance rather than malice, and that ignorance can be overcome. In the case of the priestess, subsequent history at this point (July 2, 2002) suggests that we were being too optimistic. Even so, we feel that the principle is a sound one. To deny the possibility of redemption to those who hate, is to give them a vested interest in fighting in defense of that hate; if the hate is swept aside, they will be swept aside with it. What choice are they left with, but to fight? To speak on behalf of that which keeps hate alive, is to be hate's ally; our mission here is something else, entirely.
Condemnation of the person herself, as opposed to condemnation of her actions, should be a mark of that despair that comes either when, following an established pattern of bad behavior (as opposed to what may be an unrepresentative isolated incident), a determined effort to achieve an honorable reconciliation has been rebuffed by the one who would be condemned - so stubbornly, that prudence dictates that later peaceful overtures be viewed with suspicion - or when the person's actions have been so egregiously uncivil that one would have to be insane to allow the person into one's presence long enough for a discussion to occur. It should not be our first choice, despite the current dictates of fashion to the contrary, and so here, it was not.
A rebuttal to Stoicism, and Nihilism, its sickly modern heir, alike. We begin, in the development of our core ethical code and theology, with the value of human life taken as a given. How does one justify this choice, in light of postmodern and Nihilistic critiques? In broader terms, if one believes that faith in Divine justice would incline one to belief in an afterlife, how does one reconcile this belief with a fear of death? Can there be such a thing as a Humanistic Spirituality?
Further, as experience has taught us that the postmodern will not give up without a fight, and a fairly ugly one at that, how are we to conduct ourselves in the course of that argument? What are the ethics of debate, and how can we speak of love, if we are willing to get hostile back?
Why the promotion of pleasure can be a legitimate goal in a religious setting.
7. Our Once and Future Newsletter
Some ideas for a community newsletter, that the elders of the old community helped to shoot down, back in 2000. Perhaps, some ideas for how a newsletter might be set up, if a new community arises, or if our own group wishes to do one for itself (a good way of raising consciousness about one's group). Plus, some ideas about networking, and how they may be put to use in building an organization without elders. Practical anarchism, in a religious context.
Some specific examples of why it is, that we aren't going to be seeking to be more active in the "Pagan" community. Those seeking good gossip will be disappointed, as there is a scarcity of real names in these accounts. However, it does give the newcomer a feel for what it might be like, to pursue her connection to the community in some of the ill-advised ways we've tried in the past.
9. Building Community in the Post-Elder Era
Authoritarianism left us with a dying Pagan subculture. How do we build a new Polytheistic subculture, more compatible with the traditional values of Western liberal democracy, that will have a better chance of enduring?
10. The Almond Jar
Our group's homepage, and the parent site for this page. Go find out what on earth a Demipagan is. Or return to the table of contents on it, if that's where you came from.
11. Webrings this site is on (with some HTML code fragments available for those whose browsers can't handle Javascript).
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