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I’m gonna be honest this whole division between reconstructionism and revivalism never made sense to me since in theory everyone should be to an extent both.

The only reason I feel like we have made such a difference is caused by a lot of neopagans who ripped the gods from their roots and reconstructionism is a reaction to that.

Many people who are proud revivalists and eclectics tend to really just use those labels as excuses to not care about the importance of cultural understanding.

But other than that we as Hellenic Polytheists who genuinely care about the gods’ culture will be both recon and revivalist there is no real difference tbh.

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There's a strange expectation of omnism in a lot of spiritual communities, and it's just unnecessary and jarring. For example, I believe that Jehovah's wittness theology is inherently less true than, for example, Hermeticism or Shinto. I don't see why anyone should pay lip service to ideologies they disagree with or pretend like every single idea under the sun is equally true or good for society. We grow through criticising others and ourselves and avoiding the pitfalls we see others fall into.

As long as you aren't being rude, you are 100% allowed to believe that your spiritual practice is the only true one or that there are practices that are less true or entirely false.

You don't owe anyone the acknowledgement of the truthfulness of their own chosen beliefs, and you don't owe anyone watering down your own.

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Often, in occult communities, I see a complete disregard for ethics of any kind. There are people out there who can list complete herbal correspondences for each of the planets, recite prayers in Greek and Latin, etc., but they do not have any form of ethical conduct established. Your practice can only be as good as you are.

I think this kind of memorising various abstract pieces of information is a way to spiritually bypass the hard work of actually becoming a better person while still having a feeling of being spiritually advanced. It's much less challenging to learn the astrological decan correspondences in the tarot than to help out in your community, refrain from gossip, spend quality time with friends and family, etc.

In the western esoteric tradition, it's a very common pitfall. By the end of it all, you end up with a mind full of useless information and correspondences that ultimately serve no purpose in bringing you closer to any spiritual or temporal goal, you waste immense amounts of time absorbing information only for you to never use it.

In order to avoid this, I'd recommend the following exercise while studying. Every time you encounter such an abstract piece of information, attempt to bring it down to a mundane level. How will this help you in your day to day life? What's a lesson you can extract from it? And so on. Spirituality is a holistic experience, and an important lesson is that everything is interconnected. If you keep spiritual information and lessons separate from actual life lessons, you'll end up burned out and dissatisfied.

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Be incredibly wary of anyone claiming a monopoly over a spiritual practice or accomplishment. Any person or group who claims to possess an exclusive source of knowledge is not someone who will do you any good. This gets especially dangerous when the information in question is kept behind the curtain of initiation, so you can't even know what you're getting into before you do.

This might seem very obvious, but in some spaces, things like this easily get excused under the guises of "tradition" or "authenticity". Even if a practice or way of practising are traditional, that doesn't inherently make them good.

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Remember, a lot of Greeks and Romans did not take the corpus of stories we now call "Greek mythology" seriously. Platonic philosophers, for example, considered the Gods as being perfect and rejected most mythology as folktales.

It is tempting to view these stories as scripture (since a lot of us are from an Abrahamic background, where any divine story told is considered true), but in reality, a huge amount of them were just stories people told to pass the time, using the Gods as a sort of stock character cast because they were familiar. A lot of them were also written by ancient comedians.

Be sceptical and investigate the origins of any narrative you encounter. While mythology is fun and familiar, it also isn't something we can often rely on to form our relationships with the divine

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That is why I added the ""pre-Abrahamic" part to the definition, because in the parts of sub Saharan Adrica and parts of Asia where other polytheistic religions are practiced, the Abrahamic religions still didn't become the majority.

Obviously, my definition isn't perfect, but this was more about the issue of reducing paganism to just nature spirituality and also the instinct to call religions such as Hinduism pagan.

Defining paganism as "nature based spirituality" is actually really reductive to its actual meaning and doesn't capture the essence of our faiths clearly.

I propose we define paganism as 'the reconstruction of pre-Abrahamic Old world religions'. In this way, it narrows the field down enough so that religions such as Shinto and various African and Native American spiritual traditions don't get caught in it.

Also, paganism is so much more than just nature reverence. Countless deities preside over matters of domestic life, human settlements, society, and other things that aren't conventionally seen as parts of nature. The "nature reverence" definition also doesn't encompass various historic pagan philosophies that spend more time dealing with ontology and teleology.

[nous-teleios]

Wait, where's all the dislike for reconstructionists coming from??

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I know I don't have a lot of Gnostics in my audience, and I'm not a Gnostic myself, however I recently saw a debate that I just really need to comment on.

The thesis was that the Gnostic idea of the demiurge was antisemitic because many gnostic texts imply that the demiurge is the false god of the Old Testament, the problematic part is supposed to be the idea that the jewish god is evil.

This is really clearly not the case, and this kind of reasoning is so dangerous and shallow on so many levels. First of all, those familiar with the broader history of Gnosticism will know that a lot of the early Gnostic movements were spliner groups of Judaism, and they were not all Christian. Some scholars even believe that Gnosticism far predates Christianity.

Also, if we define any criticism or different interpretation of other systems as inherently problematic, we lose so much nuance in our communities. People and groups are allowed to relate to other deities in different ways, just as, for example, various demonolatric groups relate to demons as positive, whereas some others see them as being the polar opposite. Neither group is wrong and neither group is problematic.

Buddhists also see Vedic deities as being ignorant and stuck in the cycle of samsara. That doesn't make Buddhism problematic or hinduphobic. It is just a different way people and systems related to the same groups of deities, as philosophy evolved and changed.

Viewing historic systems and practices through a postmodern political lens never works. If you want to engage with these philosophies, you need to understand the context from which they emerged first.

[nous-teleios]

When a person develops spiritually, all other aspects of their life develop as well. Through learning about religion, one inevitably also learns about various cultures, languages, and practices. One develops in the fields of philosophy and literature.

If you've been on this path for long enough, your journey inevitably made you into a better person.

[nous-teleios]

Defining paganism as "nature based spirituality" is actually really reductive to its actual meaning and doesn't capture the essence of our faiths clearly.

I propose we define paganism as 'the reconstruction of pre-Abrahamic Old world religions'. In this way, it narrows the field down enough so that religions such as Shinto and various African and Native American spiritual traditions don't get caught in it.

Also, paganism is so much more than just nature reverence. Countless deities preside over matters of domestic life, human settlements, society, and other things that aren't conventionally seen as parts of nature. The "nature reverence" definition also doesn't encompass various historic pagan philosophies that spend more time dealing with ontology and teleology.

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I nuancemaxxed so hard that I no longer have any concrete opinions on anything

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Accelerate, strive, achieve, overcome, accomplish. You will never be given a challenge you aren't capable of overcoming.

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I hope most of us have matured beyond the "Jesus bad" phase. This world doesn't need any more division and hatred. We have enough of that already.

I block accounts run by polytheists who make entire portions of their content/personality about despising Christians/"exposing" the "lies of Christianity," btw.

If you spend so much time hating another religion, you probably aren't keeping up with the responsibilities you have to your own, and I stand by that. 🤷

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Hot take, and I truly mean this in the kindest way possible, but some Pagans very much need to examine their own religious trauma before speaking on what is right/wrong to say in Pagan spaces.

I understand that Paganism is an incredibly freeing religion for many people (most notably for those coming from Christianity), and that’s wonderful, but Paganism isn’t lawless, and it never has been.

I understand that you don’t like religious dogma, that’s fair. But that doesn’t mean this religion is a free for all. The Gods are authority figures, they are rulers, and they do ask things of us. For some Pagans I fear that they have based their entire religion on being an opposition to Christianity and that’s just… not ideal.

You cannot build a healthy relationship to the Gods if you are constantly comparing them to Christianity. You cannot follow the Gods if you refuse to do anything they ask of you that feels too similar to another religion that has hurt you in some way.

I’ve seen people say that Pagans shouldn’t veil because modesty is only a Christian invention designed to oppress women. I’ve seen people say that blasphemy doesn’t exist and that the idea that Gods (any God(s)) can get offended is a Christian fear tactic. I’ve seen people say that humans are on the same hierarchical level as the Gods and that the idea that humans are servants to God is a Christian tool for denying human power.

Not only are these things blatantly untrue, but it also negates the power of the Gods, and pushes doubt upon the personal convictions of fellow Pagans.

Paganism exists independently from Christianity. I truly don’t know how anyone can build a healthy practice when the only way they connect with the Gods is in a reactionary “screw Christianity!!” sort of way. Despite what society may say; Paganism is not an enemy to Christianity. It exists independently, and it has for thousands and thousands of years.

I really hope everyone who struggles with religious trauma can find the healing they need, but I implore you to not allow that to be the defining factor of your religion, and I beg that to not distract you from the undoubtable authority of the Gods.

May the Gods bless everyone, hail the great Lords and Ladies above 🩷

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The weird disclaimer culture in spiritual spaces needs to stop existing! It's becoming so annoying, and it started to interfere with discussions and it causes so many unnecessary arguments.

What do I mean by "disclaimer culture"? Well, whenever anyone wants to make a statement that even slightly resembles a generalisation, people are going to strawman it or intentionally misunderstand it unless there is a whole list of disclaimers before this statement, for example, "I know this doesn't apply to everyone, you don't have to take this advice seriously, your practice might be different than mine" etc.

I think it's kinda obvious that when I (or anyone else for that matter) discuss my personal beliefs and the things that work for me and my practice, I'm just talking about my practice. If you don't relate to it or disagree with it, nobody is going to force you to practice in this specific way, and if you relate, then great!

I don't see why anyone should add a bunch of apologetic disclaimers every time they post some kind of subjective opinion. We're all humans, after all, not just robots who spew out objective information with a list of sources to back up every claim. This especially goes for spiritual or religious topics, where we basically can't say anything that isn't already our opinion or subjective belief because that's the realm we're dealing with here.

We all have a right to hold our subjective opinions and to have our takes on things around us, and we don't owe anyone a justification or explanation as to why we hold them. Other people have the right to disagree and to question, but nobody has to engage with them. That's the beauty of the Internet!

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Envy and jealousy are spiritual diseases. The reason why these states are miasmic is because they cause us to:

1) Doubt that the Gods will provide us with what is good for us

2) Forget about an attitude of gratitude towards the things we do have

3) Doubt that the person who was in some way rewarded by the divine deserves their reward.

Besides this, states of jealousy can also cause us to cast the evil eye onto other people, which can have long-term negative consequences for the recipient.

We should also make an effort to wear evil eye talismans as often as we can, as we live in a world where these two spiritual diseases are extremely widespread and more potent than ever.

[nous-teleios]

Establishing a healthy relationship with ritual purity

Ritual purity is one of the many ideas that perennially appears in most religious and spiritual paradigms throughout the world. Many people struggle to integrate it into their daily lives, and some even disregard it altogether, so here I'll elaborate on some points concerning it, give some practical advice, and the theory behind it.

Why is ritual purity important to the Gods?

Preparing a pure body, space, and mind before a ritual is a sign of respect, first and foremost. As you'd never invite an important guest into a messy house, you'd also not invoke a deity into a messy room. If you went to an important dinner and the other person appeared dirty, underdressed, and overall in a state of neglégé, you likely wouldn't see that as polite or respectful in that setting. Thus, preparing a pure space and body are outward symbols of devotion and respect.

Why is ritual purity important for you?

Taking the time before a ritual to neaten up your room, take a shower, pefrom and ablution, perhaps even perfume yourself, and the space helps you get into the proper headspace for the ritual. It takes away the mundane thoughts by the virtue of having you focus on a task that is inherently related to a divine matter. I also found that it motivates me to maintain cleanliness even when I'm not otherwise feeling well.

How to ritually purify a space/yourself?

Depending on your tradition, you may already have specific ablutions and requirements in place for doing this, and if this is the case, definitely stick to those. A general method, however, would be to set the intention to cleanse on both a physical and spiritual level and then just clean/declutter your space as you usually would. After this, it would also be good to perform some kind of a banishing ritual (the LBRP always does the trick, but stuff such as spritzing with moon water can also work).

As for your body, make the same intention as you did above and take a shower.

When is ritual purification necessary?

If you have recently washed yourself or cleaned your space and altar, obviously, you don't need to do it again. You should, however, symbolically do a gesture of cleansing, such as waving away the stagnant energies with your hand, declaring an already clean space pure before ritual, etc. If you have recently showered, washing your hands and face with the intention of purification would also work fine.

How to avoid the common pitfalls?

The first and most important thing to note is that, if you are, for some justified reason, unable to purify yourself and your space, you can still say your prayers or make your offerings. The Gods will always hear you in your time of need and will always help you. A good way to compensate would be to just pray for them to cleanse your space and you. HOWEVER, this doesn't mean that you should just go lazy and not try and make yourself purify before a ritual. This is an important branch of discipline and health, and neglecting it in the long term will have negative consequences for you.

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It is important for you to establish a good relationship with spiritual hygiene and to make a good regiment and schedule for getting it done. It is one of those things many people struggle with, but upon doing it, you will inevitably see the benefits in the long run.