Putting the Scholarship into Neopaganism

[Starlock]

For those of you that have been following the other "Putting the [blank] into Neopaganism" threads, this one is a spin-off from the other one that is still active that focuses on the presumed Earth-centered nature of Neopaganism. Here now, we turn our attention to the nature of scholarship and academia in reconstructionalist or antiquity-inspired religious pathways. I'm going to just throw out a bunch of possible discussion starters here. The first person to grab this thread gets the benefit of picking the first topic; from there the discussion will probably wander around and we might get back to some of these other questions later.

arrow How important is good scholarship for Neopagan spiritual paths? What are the consequences of good scholarship and what are the consequences of less or poorer scholarship?
--- specifically; One-True-Path-ism and Watered-Down-Fluffy-ism?

arrow What are some ways the negative consequences can be overcome?

arrow What is the relationship, if any, between the concern for scholarship and the tendancy towards Traditionalism or Progressivism?

There are some other more pointed questions that could be asked, but I think letting the discussion progress from here will be just fine. 3nodding  

[Warmdarksky]

On the One-true-path/watered-down continuum, I'd say I'm about a -2...
mrgreen Scholarship is important to the point that we should attempt to keep cultural traditions intact, while still respecting those who choose to be more eclectic. Mixing more than three traditions, though, for me is a bit ridiculous stare  

[Azana Brown]

Study is important to any faith, to be honest. How can you follow something when you don't know or understand about them? Every religion has some form of study, from meditation to Bible studies. Despite the fact that it has no solid holy book or organization, Paganism should be no different in this respect, even for the most eclectic people.

Actually, eclectics who are still seeking their true path would probably study more than some others who have already decided.

Sorry for the random rant; I myself will study everything I can about something I'm passionate about, and this stuff fits that category.  

[Winter Black]

I'm eclecit. I'm Grecco-Norse, and I have a few Discordian and Thelemic views, as well.

I believe that knowing all you can about everything is important. I study all kinds of things, all the time. And my brother has this same view.
If you are a Pagan, you should study the path you've chosen with a passion. If you are a Pagan who hasn't chosen your path, you should study every path carefully before you decide. Like I did. I'm Polish-Ukrainian-Italian-Swedish. But I didn't chose based on my own background. I chose based on what I felt drawn to. And because Dionysus has been in my dreams since I was a small child. Which was what lead me to do the research in the first place (coupled with the fact that I grew up without a religion, so I wanted to see if there were any that called to me).

All that research and study has also given me a lot of things to help with my stories and poetry. I wrote a song called "Chaos Queen", and my friend Chirs said it has "Homerian Wordplay". I attribute that to having read his works while studying my religion.  

[Starlock]

Perhaps I should clarify a bit what I mean by "good scholarship" here. I think we can probably all agree that study is a neccesary part of any religious path; a particular dilema for antiquity-inspired paths, though, is accuracy and truth to history. Accuracy and historical truth are what could be considered "good scholarship" whereas sloppy scholarship may draw distorted or incorrect conclusions.  

[Azana Brown]

Starlock

Perhaps I should clarify a bit what I mean by "good scholarship" here. I think we can probably all agree that study is a neccesary part of any religious path; a particular dilema for antiquity-inspired paths, though, is accuracy and truth to history. Accuracy and historical truth are what could be considered "good scholarship" whereas sloppy scholarship may draw distorted or incorrect conclusions.

Indeed. It is difficult at times to find reliable sources for such things, though. Probably half of your study would be to find what is a credible source and what is not.  

[blindfaith^_^]

Starlock

Perhaps I should clarify a bit what I mean by "good scholarship" here. I think we can probably all agree that study is a neccesary part of any religious path; a particular dilema for antiquity-inspired paths, though, is accuracy and truth to history. Accuracy and historical truth are what could be considered "good scholarship" whereas sloppy scholarship may draw distorted or incorrect conclusions.

I'm a strong believer in going straight to the source text. Even then the translationcan be questionable. When I want to know something that's where I start and then I bridge out my knowledge. This of course starts from my increddiblily poor intros scholarship where I learned a lot of fluffy Silver Ravenwolf methods and had to go back, unlearn that, and then learn what x religion really thought to see if I believed that.  

[Starlock]

Tracing back to original sources is always a good thing, but one also has to be careful in the interpretation of original sourcework, especially if one lacks a good background in the culture it originated from. Ideally one should have a professor guide through works like this because experts understand the context of the time it was written. For instance, if you watch a movie from the 30s that has a pop culture reference to that time, you won't understand it unless you know about the decade.

There's some good new stuff too that didn't come from any one original source. As much as people bash Ravenwolf, she does come up with a number of interesting ideas for how to work magic. One method of hers I used once in a spell and it worked beautifully. The technique is simple: write something on a piece of paper you want to bind into reality and burn it over a candle flame (ideally the candle would color correspond). I wouldn't trust her for history though. But there are few (perhaps no) authors whose books are in the New Age section who I trust for that.  

[The Bookwyrm]

What is considered "source" information, though? Most of these ancient religions didn't exactly foresee a need to detail their beliefs and practices in writing. We have some texts, like The Book of Going Forth By Day or Book of the Dead) from the Egyptians, but that exists within a constructed pretense. If we're to get any description from antiquity about antiquity we have two sources: written accounts by an observer (usually Roman and horribly biased) or the mythology of that culture (with institutions like the early Church ran amok with).

Historical scholarship, I think, is crutial and I actually put a great deal more faith in the work of academics with no overt ties to the Neo-Pagan community, simply because they strike me as the least likely to bend or alter information to suit a market or audience. It can provide an account of what was done, and theories on why, or even indicate the gods or goddesses involved, but it still lacks something, and that's a sort of personal connection.

That's where I find mythology comes in handy. One needs to be careful, of course, but there is great work being done by scholars to unearth unedited myths. These myths paint a picture of what life was life, what the gods of a culture were like, their relationships to eachothers and the humans they encountered. They bring a sort of life to the rituals and practices that often times stuffy academic research simply can't do.

What we have to ccept, however, is that there is no such thing as "the original" text for any one path, and that descretion is key to arriving near the concepts we're looking for.  

[midara the happy banshee]

Starlock

There's some good new stuff too that didn't come from any one original source. As much as people bash Ravenwolf, she does come up with a number of interesting ideas for how to work magic. One method of hers I used once in a spell and it worked beautifully. The technique is simple: write something on a piece of paper you want to bind into reality and burn it over a candle flame (ideally the candle would color correspond). I wouldn't trust her for history though. But there are few (perhaps no) authors whose books are in the New Age section who I trust for that.

While I agree that form of magic can be very useful, I'm not so sure that Ravenwolf can be credited with its invention. In fact, the ancient Greeks and Romans practiced very similar things, and chaos mages have been using it as well.  

[Starlock]

Midra, true, she didn't neccesarily invent it. But if people find the ideas through her, she is at least credited with bringing them to a larger audience, eh?

Back to topic... I have a tendancy to trust non Neopagan authors as well, though more specifically I look for their background qualifications. A number of books written in the New Age section don't have the kind of scholastic background to neccesarily make the best comparissons. What they write can still be interesting, though. It can be useful to look at both kinds of sources to get an idea of how the information can be read differently.  

[The Bookwyrm]

Another reason they're useful is to simply give you a reference, or some direction. You may be reading something by a NeoPagan/New Age author and decide that it's an interesting idea, and decide to persue it further, and that's where the academics can come in handy. biggrin

It not only allows you to check the sources for the original author, but will give some historical perspective as well.