Conservative Hellenism


November 14, 2004

I'm amazed that this could really be news to anybody who has looked over this site in years past, but I guess it is, so let's spell this out: I'm a moderately conservative Republican, and this is a Conservative site. A Compassionate Conservative site, to be sure - you won't hear me suggesting that the poor should be allowed to starve out of some kind of social Darwinist ethic - but conservative, nevertheless. That conservatism is not an add-on to this site, but something that has been a natural outgrowth of the philosophy developed in it from Day One, and thus something which we make an implicit requirement for membership. This we will do, by including a kind of activism as part of what it is, that the Shrine does.

Some will point out, for example, that the ancients tolerated the practice of abortion, and then ask how a Classical Traditionalist could do otherwise, given Reconstructionist considerations. The answer is simple - the ancients couldn't read the brain activity of a child still in the womb, but in the 21st century, we can do exactly that. With added knowledge, comes added responsibility, because while the physicians in classical antiquity may not have known that they were snuffing out the life of a thinking, conscious person, the physician of today does, and to ignore such knowledge as it is gained would be unconscionable. It is also glaringly at odds with one of the basic values we argue in support of, on this site: that of Enlightened Benevolence, which includes that of a reverence for life.

"Out of sight, out of mind" is not a valid reason to set that value aside; just because one can not see the life that one is ending, that doesn't mean that the life isn't there, or that no moral imperative to respect and protect it is present. And while the Romans may have had their paterfamilias, remember that we are Traditionalists at the Shrine, not strict Recons: coming from cultures which have their roots in the ancient ones we would (in part) reclaim, we do not discard the modern in search of the ancient, but rather infuse elements of the ancient back into the modern. Modern Western civilization, before it was hijacked by hedonism (and then postmodernism) spoke with one voice on this, on almost all occasions - the blood of the innocent is sacred, certainly not to be shed for the sake of convenience. So, without hesitation, I am going to say that the Shrine, as a group, is pro-life, and it would have to be.

Other Liberal pet causes will often smash head-on into the Uniform Base Code of Morality in much the same fashion. Affirmative Action? Runs into the call for Limited Egalitarianism. And the normative liberal response to dissent has been anything but Civil. The undiplomatic fact of the matter is that Liberalism is more than a series of divergent opinions about how society might best be governed; in practice, it has been a call to tear down all that society ever was, before what is now called "liberalism" saw its first vogue, and that is something that is incompatible with every traditional culture I can think of, offhand. We can accept and embrace the Moderate, here, but we can not make peace with the Liberal - and yes, we've tried. There is no common ethical ground for us to meet on. Where would we ever begin to look for it?

We are Christo-Pagans of a sort, and in our dealings with certain odd individuals, we've loudly insisted on staying true to the Christian side of our spirituality. But we must insist on doing the same, with the "Pagan" side of our faith, and if there is one thing that Hellenism never called on its practitioners to make a part of their own character, it would have to be helplessness. The Far Left vision of a society in which an unchallengable central government cares for all, from cradle to grave, with little need or room left for private charity, and indeed little money given the crushing taxation that would result, is one that those who came before the bread and circuses of imperial Rome would have viewed with abhorrence.

The Romans emphasized the strength and self-reliance of their ancestors, and admired these things in them, and when the ancient welfare state came, it marked the beginning of the end of first their way of life, and then their civilization. Liberals have pushed for an endlessly strengthened central government, responding to calls for state's rights with howls of outrage; the Greeks jealously guarded the independence of their cities, right up until the time that first the Macedonians, and then the Romans took it away from them. And when the peoples of the empire lost their self-determination, this wasn't because submission to the imperial government's micromanagement of their local affairs was an expression of the values and hopes and dreams, but because they were forced to do so at swordpoint, by their heirs of a successful overthrow of a free society by a military that had lost its respect for the traditions that would have lead it to use its power with respect and restraint, including the one against taking the army across the Rubicon.

Yes, that was 2000 years ago, but anybody who has known the people of Southern Europe in the flesh have known that these traditions, those of jealous concern for the autonomy of one's community, of emphasizing the importance of providing for oneself, of looking to one's friends, family, church and community (as opposed to governmental) institutions did not diminish down through the centuries, but were given new life in the wake of the death of the empire. This being the case, how, then, could we justify something that is at odds with our basic values, by making reference to a desire to recapture some of what was lost in antiquity, knowing that the ancients themselves would have viewed these innovations (being ironically made in their name) with revulsion, back during any part of antiquity that at all resembled a golden age?

The Pagan roots of our faith help to inspire in us something that would have come naturally, anyway - a desire to see each find a healthy balance between reverence for the Divine and the values it leads us toward, and the desire to walk proud and free. Living in an expanding welfare state not point us in that direction, because more and more of us will be beholden to a state that by its very nature will hold the individual in little regard. One can not help to build such a future and be a good Hellene of any sort, and so, without hesitation or apology, I'm going to say that the logic of our religion has political implications, and they're not ones favorable to Democratic candidates from Massaschussetts who would spend $1.5 trillion - a substantial fraction of the entire US economy - on their health care packages.

A few presidencies like that, and "bread and circuses" may be an apter description of the lives we'll end up leading, than current fashion would allow us to believe possible. How could we be accepting of that, and still expect to be taken seriously when we spoke of our desire for freedom? We've spoken of the need for Classical Traditionalism to be culturally specific; maybe it's about time to recognize that politics, if it is to be anything but a horrifying stumble through the dark, has to be an expression of our culture and our values, and thus inextricably linked to and guided by our faith and our traditions, all of which seem to be pointing to the Right, at present. Those who are displeased by this thought are free to be elsewhere. Judging from the tone of much of what has been heard out of many of them down through the last few years, such as we heard when the Conservative pagan ring was introduced, I'd have to say that the sooner they avail themselves of that freedom, the happier I will be. As I've said so often, enough is enough.





Welcome to Our Page, The Almond Jar


NOTE : This site is being re-organized. Certain articles which, though once fairly relevant, are no longer linked to from the main page, owing to our change in emphasis. If you had linked to them, don't worry, we're not planning on deleting them. With 30 Meg of diskspace allotment, and 700 pages of text per Meg, why would we want to? We're just not telling the reader to look at them any more.

Most (in fact, so far, all) of the articles on our site which we've broken links to, from our main page, dealt with community politics in one way or another. How do we make the community a healthy and viable place? That may sound like a worthwhile topic to explore, but it turned out to be an unprofitable area in which to invest effort. How much of a constitution or structured subculture does a prayer and discussion group really need, anyway? These matters have been shoved to the back of the site, where they belong. It's time to focus on more pleasant, and more interesting subjects. Like the fact that the Almond Jar has won its first award! OK, so we're geeks. Is there something wrong with that? (Old index page material beyond this point).

We are a non-hierarchical post-baby boomer Hellenic Traditionalist group primarily dedicated to Aphrodite Urania, the goddess of Higher Love, that of family and community. We are located on the North Side of Chicago, and are cautiously seeking new members, in our local area.

School of Athens, Raphael, Plato and Aristotle detail. Click on this graphic if you'd like to see the whole painting.

"The Almond Jar" is not the name of our group, it is the name of our homepage. We used to call ourselves "The Shrine of the Sleeping Gods", but that sent the wrong message. It had been adopted as a joke, mainly, a small satirical comment on four person groups that had been going for a few weeks that would give themselves names like "The Sacred Temple of Ancient Wisdom". Do you know what a shrine is? When you go into the Vietnamese grocery near Argyle and Sheridan, you'll notice a box with a few electrical "candles" and a plastic statue of Buddha. That's a shrine. The point was to make a joke about our less-than-mythic stature. But, people just didn't seem to get it, and responded to us via e-mail, as if we were a would-be secret society. So, the decision that I'm making, as the organizer of this whole travesty, is to dispense with the notion of having a name at all, in order to emphasize the informal nature of what's going on, here. Think of it as a Hellenistic coffee klatsch.

Please note that this page is only used as a reference, not as a gateway for new members. There are no mail links, no phone numbers, and no contact information provided, here. You can find us in the real world, if you're in the right place, but not online.

This will be a little different from the other sites you are used to seeing. This is not, primarily, a mythology site, nor is it a site about "magic". This is a site about one outlook on the establishment of a Hellenic Traditionalism 1 for the third millenium. Why do we worship who we do, in the way we do? And, on a practical level, what must we do to make such a group work, and why?

Most sites will tell you that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, and assure you that you will see this when you find enlightenment, while getting in touch with your inner child. We'll tell you that life is at best, a meaningful struggle, even for the gods, for us all, given our own innate imperfection, and your inner child would probably have turned out to have been an axe murderer anyway.

Most of all, let us emphasize that we do not believe that this site will answer your questions, but if it does, you have our apologies. Belonging to the Platonic (Rationalistic) wing of Hellenism, we will tell you that the point of our telling you about an idea is not for you to adopt it, but for you to think about it as you formulate your own. So, our fondest hope, as you read this, is that you will drop by to tell us "here is where you went wrong and here is how you could have done better", backing that up with a solid argument and not just an assertion. At that moment, the discussion has begun.
Important notes :

  1. This is not a Wiccan, Magical or Occult group.


  2. In light of the persistent behaviorial problems of a number of members of our local Wiccan community here in Chicago, we find that we can not welcome Liberal Wiccans as guests any more.


  3. We no longer answer e-mail.
  4. We discard it instead.
  5. No exceptions to notes 2, 3 or 4, ever.


  6. Any or all of what you are about to read, may be utter nonsense.
Table of Contents

So, why would we want to start a new group? OK, even that's premature to an extent. You're reading this, and I haven't sold you on the value of becoming part of any "we", yet. So, why would I be asking people to join a new group? What have I looked for, and found absent?

In broad terms, a few years back, in the general spirit of "what the (deleted), I've tried everything else", I prayed to someone, and found that the prayers were being answered. What they were, I won't tell you, for reasons that will be explained if you read through these pages. An answered prayer, is a private matter between divinity and worshipper, I feel. But I found myself feeling a deep need to honor Aphrodite, my new patron deity, and not knowing anything about the traditional rites.

I found a Pagan community, and looking for answers, I found none. I found people talking to me about UFOs, about palm reading, Astrology, Atlantis, ... you name it. "What does any of this stuff have to do with paying our respects to the gods?", I found myself wondering.

In part, then, I decided to get this group going, as an effort to get back to basics, and specific basics at that. No spell casting, no Alchemy, no warlocks, elves or vampires. Just life in this world. That, and a deep heartfelt connection with the Divine in a religion that just happens to be polytheistic, instead of monotheistic, as one offers worship to Aphrodite, herself, and not merely a goddess who occasionally claims that name as a title.

Are there other issues? Yes, absolutely. Read the articles here, and you'll encounter some of them. But let's start by saying that a loving embrace of and return to traditional cultures and attitudes more our own will be prized over the casual and unthinking anglo-centricism or homogenised "multiculturalism" that so many will try to steamroller us into accepting. As for the rest, please read on.
Question : Are we really expected to read all of this?
. Answer : Good lord, no!
Question : Then why is it here?
. Answer : Click here.

Let's return to our previous index, unless you'd like to visit one of the other sites on one of the other webrings belonged to by a number of pages on this site (and on The Memory Hole). Did you enter the Almond Jar from a ring at Ringsurf or the Playa Dust ring or perhaps via some other ring system?


The Almond Jar
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(1) "Traditionalism", in this context, might be viewed as a protest movement away from the counter-culturalism, and political correctness that have characterized far too much of modern Paganism. It is a movement back towards common sense, intellectual rigor, and something strongly resembling traditional Western values, albeit free-spirited ones in our case. Tradition isn't necessarily stern or puritanical.




(2) To answer a not-so-common question, no, the Metaphysical Empiricism (Quasi-Empiricism, actually) of this site, is not that of Friedrich Joseph Schelling, which I was not familiar with when I wrote this article. At its core, the Quasi-Empiricism of this page is an Agnosticism that allows itself to be won over to a belief in Deity by life experience. Schelling, on cursory examination of the article linked to, seems to take a far different position. As we haven't looked as his works, yet, please view this comment with an appropriate degree of skepticism.




(3) A common question : "What's the deal with the name 'Chicago Hellenic Conspiracy'?" (Especially common after somebody's just read that name six times in a row).

Answer : It's an old in-joke, and the name for an on again, off again (mostly off again) Hellenic networking effort in Chicago . One of the Wiccan elders in the Reader Circuit community of Chicago tried to high-pressure a number of us into converting to Wicca by arguing that Pagans must unite or fall, and that to hold onto anything as "divisive" as a non-Wiccan identity would be to be part of the Evil Christian Conspiracy to destroy Pagans. Hellenism as a covert Christian ploy? It was too insane to pass up. We've been the Hellenic Conspiracy ever since.

At last report, the elder was not amused.




(4) "The Circle by the Lake" was the original name for the Shrine of the Sleeping Gods. The name is not a Wiccan reference, but rather a statement of the group's non-hierarchical nature.