This is required reading.
I don’t agree with everything in this essay have found the author to be a bit pretentious at times, but this is important reading.
Thanks for posting this link. I read it, and I want to point out where I disagree.
The author focuses on New Ageism and Wicca, and includes Reconstructionist and Revivalist under the “neo-pagan” umbrella. At one point the author says:
It doesn’t matter how real and ancient the source material for your spiritual practices are, because of the time you live in your spiritual practice is still classified as a new religious movement. If that practice revives ancient polytheistic beliefs it also becomes classified as neopagan.
That may be academic reasoning, or perhaps not, but, as has been frequently noted elsewhere, some people prefer to be called “pagan”, and many Reconstructionists and Revivalists completely reject “pagan” or “neo-pagan” labels. Academics who refuse to use the labels chosen by the groups they study aren’t helping anyone. I suspect that part of the reason why some classicists reject Reconstructionist and Revivalist religions is because they think of us as “neo-pagans”, meaning they believe our methodology and process is as bad as that described in this article – and, for the most part, they couldn’t be more wrong.
The author doesn’t like ethnographers and anthropologists because white academics weren’t always respectful of the indigenous cultures they studied – which is true, in some cases, but that doesn’t mean white academics aren’t trying to do better now, and erases the work of academics of color.
Further on, the author says:
Neopaganism is one of white people’s ways of trying to reconnect with a core spirituality as, over time and waves of mass immigration, many people of European origin have lost the knowledge and practice of their ancestors’ cultural beliefs, traditions, festivals, rites, and body of knowledge.
This erases neo-pagans of color, and also seemingly throws Reconstructionists and Revivalists under the bus.
There have undoubtedly been abuses in neo-paganism of the sort the author describes, and the author is right to be angry about it. The author also seems to want to watch it burn:
Do the spiritual paths of neopaganism deserve a place at the big table with the grown up religions who are millennia old? In the current state of things, no, I do not personally believe they do.
Thanks again from the Reconstructionsist and Revivalists who are trying, through sound research, to practice religious systems that were destroyed by some of the supposedly “grown-up religions”. And, in defense of neo-pagan religions, just because a religion is “millennnia old” doesn’t give it greater spiritual or moral authority than any others. By that standard, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam should be denied places at the “big table”, too.
The closing paragraph includes this nugget:
Reconstructionists have the potential and experience to keep existing indigenous spiritual traditions alive or to resurrect dormant ones as closely as possible with respect the originals.
Nice that the author grudgingly allowed that Reconstructionists and Revivalists might have something good going, having lumped us in with “neo-pagans” from the beginning of the article makes it a backhanded compliment at this point. I think we can offer advice about doing research, but many of us are solitary, and have poor opinions of groups for the reasons the author stated. Many of us will also caution about “looking to the ancestors”, because we know that has led to fascists and neo-nazis trying to co-opt ancient religions for modern political gain.
No religion so far has been free from abuses of power, or sexual abuse, but here is no reason neo-paganism cannot or should not survive this crisis, if it is willing to clean house. Perhaps, because of the proportionally high numbers of women and LGBTQA+ individuals involved, neo-pagan religions can do better than the rest, and not just survive, but thrive.
I don’t have much to add because this sums up my issues with the article as well. I will add that as far as academia is concerned, how an academic might categorize religious traditions =/= how a practitioner would, academics have a ton of fancy words for talking about religions that aren’t necessarily relevant to people “on the ground” actually doing religion. In my field (religious studies) it is stressed over and over that we don’t teach religion, we teach *about* religion, teaching religion is for religious specialists in that religion.
I should also note that all of my professors when I was doing my undergrad referred to both “Paganism” and “Neo-Paganism”, but, you know, academics argue over terminology all the time. It’s what they do, they argue.
In addition, calling people by the labels they wish to be called is basic respect, it doesn’t matter if it’s “grammatically incorrect”.
Still, while I agree with the above criticisms, the main point of the article, the long history of rampant sexual abuse, is something every pagan needs to be aware of.
This is actually the best criticism I have seen of this article to date and I find myself agreeing with it. I have a lot of respect for Sarah Anne Lawless, and particular respect for the stance she has taken against sexual abuse and abuse of power within modern paganism. While there is plenty of room to disagree with her on labeling, and I’m not so sure it deserved the amount of air time she gave it in this article, I think that the thrust of this article was less about labeling and more about the dirty roots of modern paganism which is something that all of us should address, consider, and be highly aware of.
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