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22 September 2019 10:39![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonI think what im writing about today is the idea that hierarchical systems come out of mainstream society, they're comfortable and familiar to people - but are applied to Paganism in a way which just...won't...work, because those drawn to paganism are already outsiders who are more likely to crave individualism, freedom and so forth.
The original druids in lore were imagined to work like the Roman senate, and then like an English priesthood; Murray imagined the witches as meeting in tiny cells linked into a wider organisation; occult groups often borrow the language and imagery of universities. These are models which are intuitive and familiar.
But they're imposed on Pagans from outside: these are people imagining what witches do, or setting up their own group nd using a familiar model for how to structure it. They're not responsive. They don't look at the participants of a Pagan group, and decide retroactively what model suits and matches their demographic.
I think if we did that, our standard group designs would look very different. Ideas like having a single fixed priest make no sense when we can all be our own priest, and choosing one person to channel the Goddess (or whatever) makes no sense when we all have our spirit guides, and so on. A system which is inherently set up to say - we are a community of individuals, and we meet in these ways for these reasons, and the ways and the reasons echo our understanding of a group that brings together a group of individuals as equals.
We all want what hierarchical, tradition Paganism seems to promise - the idea od having a lineage and being part of a Real group and so on. But very few of us seem prepared for the reality of that, like -do you accept someone as a spiritual authority? what happens when you disagree with this person? What happens when the office is passed to the wrong successor? Do yoy have a belief in that hierarchy, in that structure, or do you go off and do your own thing instead? Most people, I think, have this "choice capitalism" mindset where a community or religion which isn't working can easily be replaced with an alternative. and I don't want to trash that idea, because obviously you need to leave religions and communities which are dangerous, and why would you stay in one shih made you unhappy? But if it can be picked up and dropped so easily, it's not really community or religion. And it's that shallowness of engagement which I encounter a lot in Paganism, and which I guess I want to act against. I don't know many Pagans who would practice in secret under a repressive regime, for example, or risk prison; perhaps this is good, we're tricksters and survivors who reject the ways thst other religions harm their followers. Perhaps it's because...most Pagans just don't seem to believe that deeply or strongly that...the gods are real, and present, and not a figment of imagination or something which exist to serve our personal journey of self-actualisation.
I think we have to design membership structures around the people we tend to get, and find ways to create community which doesn't require Pagans to wholesale change their behavior and attitude to life. Design the community for the people, and it won't be at odds with their values.
The original druids in lore were imagined to work like the Roman senate, and then like an English priesthood; Murray imagined the witches as meeting in tiny cells linked into a wider organisation; occult groups often borrow the language and imagery of universities. These are models which are intuitive and familiar.
But they're imposed on Pagans from outside: these are people imagining what witches do, or setting up their own group nd using a familiar model for how to structure it. They're not responsive. They don't look at the participants of a Pagan group, and decide retroactively what model suits and matches their demographic.
I think if we did that, our standard group designs would look very different. Ideas like having a single fixed priest make no sense when we can all be our own priest, and choosing one person to channel the Goddess (or whatever) makes no sense when we all have our spirit guides, and so on. A system which is inherently set up to say - we are a community of individuals, and we meet in these ways for these reasons, and the ways and the reasons echo our understanding of a group that brings together a group of individuals as equals.
We all want what hierarchical, tradition Paganism seems to promise - the idea od having a lineage and being part of a Real group and so on. But very few of us seem prepared for the reality of that, like -do you accept someone as a spiritual authority? what happens when you disagree with this person? What happens when the office is passed to the wrong successor? Do yoy have a belief in that hierarchy, in that structure, or do you go off and do your own thing instead? Most people, I think, have this "choice capitalism" mindset where a community or religion which isn't working can easily be replaced with an alternative. and I don't want to trash that idea, because obviously you need to leave religions and communities which are dangerous, and why would you stay in one shih made you unhappy? But if it can be picked up and dropped so easily, it's not really community or religion. And it's that shallowness of engagement which I encounter a lot in Paganism, and which I guess I want to act against. I don't know many Pagans who would practice in secret under a repressive regime, for example, or risk prison; perhaps this is good, we're tricksters and survivors who reject the ways thst other religions harm their followers. Perhaps it's because...most Pagans just don't seem to believe that deeply or strongly that...the gods are real, and present, and not a figment of imagination or something which exist to serve our personal journey of self-actualisation.
I think we have to design membership structures around the people we tend to get, and find ways to create community which doesn't require Pagans to wholesale change their behavior and attitude to life. Design the community for the people, and it won't be at odds with their values.
