Goddess! A question about Paganism!

[Broomstick]

Dogma: Since Paganism is NOT "organized religion" in the sense most Christians mean, there is no One True Authority. We don't operate out of a Holy Book that's unquestioned, there is no such thing as a "Witch's Bible" (although there is at least one book of that title, and it's not bad, but it's NOT some holy, invariant Writ), and there is no Pagan Pope. Steer clear of people who say you MUST and THOU SHALT and "All Pagans are --" There are some rules which, if you're halfway intelligent, you'll pick up on quickly but there's more than one way to do things. Anyone who says there is but One True Way to Call the Quarters or that you MUST be an expert in astrology or you MUST become a vegetarian because that's what a "real Wiccan" would do is full of shit at best.

Evangelism: NeoPagans are not prostelytizers. We accept new converts but we don't systematically seek them out or try to "sell" our religion to the masses (Llewellyn mass market paperbacks notwithstanding - Llewellyn is a publisher seeking customers, it's not the Church of NeoPaganism). This is most frequently seen in new converts from Christianity, who have been thoroughly indoctrinated since baptism that if one is a believer one must convert others. Not so in this camp. Quite a few groups view prostelytizing as a form of coercion, frown upon it, and might even describe it as "sinful" except that's a really unusual word for a NeoPagan to use.

Coercive Tactics of Any Sort: Religions of any sort can be a really good way to mind-fuck someone. There are manipulative cult leaders in Pagandom just like any other slice of religion. One subset of this, and the warning is directed more at women although either gender can be affected, is sexual bullshit. Now, a lot of Pagan sects are fertility cults of one sort or another - if Christian communion is ritualized canabalism then a lot of Wicca and related Neo rites are ritualized sex. Some groups incorporate actual sex into their rites, which is OK if and only if that really is the free choice of everyone involved. Being forced or pressured to have sex is never OK, regardless of age or marital status. If you aren't free to say "no" as well as "yes" then you aren't really free. Legitimate groups - like the Church of All Worlds which is one group that accepts/promotes polyamory - recognize that celebacy and abstinence are choices every bit as legitmate as intercourse and that "no" means "no". Which, by the way, is why young horny studs getting into Wicca thinking it's full of hot willing women are so frequently disappointed - quite a few of the women at any given time are not seeking a mate, don't hesistate to say "no", or just prefer sex with other women rather than men. They also get a bit freaked when/if the men-who-prefer-men proposition them - sorry, homophobes, but gayness is OK in Pagandom (mostly) and the proper response is NOT outraged horror or violence but a simple "Thank you, but I prefer girls". If you act like a Fundie in a redneck bar you will, at best, be ridiculed and at worst forcibly ejected to protect the rest of us. Granted, the "orthodox" Gardnerians and some others maintain only heterosexuality is natural and proper, but since they don't invite outsiders to their parties that hardly matters. Behave yourself at public gatherings.

More Bling-Bling Than a Posse of Rappers: Unless you are at a public festival of some sort, excessive jewelry and pentagrams the size of dinnerplates are a Bad Sign. Until the 1980's, Pagandom was largely secret societies and one feature of secret societies is that they are secret, meaning no large ostentatious displays. A discreet necklace or ring is not uncommon, but obnoxious displays are the sign of Newbies and Fluffbunnies. Not that there isn't some cool Pagan jewelry - one of my personal favorites is a pendant depciting cunnilingus between a witch and the man in the moon (she's having a very good time) - but there's a time and a place for it, and Mundania isn't it.

Outrageous Claims and "Credentials": As I mentioned before, there is no Pagan Pope. Anyone who claims to be a 15th degree Gardnerian Wiccan is full of shit. Ditto for reincarnations of Merlin or Morgan Le Fey. Those who have the goods almost never brag about it. There ARE some real high muckety-mucks which come to various festivals, but they will usually be listed in the brochure, not found at random eating cold hotdogs and drinking warm beer in the "Con Suite" at the hotel. As a general rule, the louder and more frequently claims to greatness are recited the less likely they are to be legitimate.

Outrageous Claims of Magical Acts/Denial of Reality or History: Look, witches do fly - in airplane, just like everybody else. After 30+ years in the game I've yet to see a legit flying broomstick - I'm the closest there is, and I ain't really a broomstick, just an aging eccentric. No one can read your mind at 20 paces or predict the next winning lottery number (if someone could do the latter, they wouldn't be advertsing the talent in public anyhow, nor would they be living on food stamps like a lot of these nuts). We live in the real world/Mundania/Midgard/the Material Plane where we have real limitations. Likewise, the ancient Eqyptians left extensive written records so we can look up what they actually had to say about their own practices, we don't have to meditate/astral travel to Atlantis to magically divine what went on way back then and such "revelations" are horseshit. No one has a book of Ancient Druid Writings because the Ancient Druids never wrote anything down, ditto for the Greek Mystery Cults. Paganism does NOT require you to check your logic and reason at the door (though you wouldn't guess that from some of our dysfunctional folk). And if anything starts to sound like "Treknobabble" - walk away, just walk away. (This happens much more often than you'd suppose, there being considerable overlap between Pagandom and Fandom)

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.

[Rye]

Astral travelling: I've heard one celtic pagan go a bit weird on this subject, , like she believes it fits with superstrings and all that stuff. While alarm bells are automatically ringing, and I can be certain that she won't actually be all that knowledgeable in regards to QM or superstring stuff, what is astral travel meant to be, exactly? Do you accept what it is meant to be on faith, or is it imagination, and you're allowed to be candid about it?

[Broomstick]

Nothing like a "simple" question.

First, we start with "planes". We live on the material plane (cue up "Material Girl"). That's reality. Under many (but not all) Pagan beliefs there are other "planes of existance". This can get rather complicated, but suffice to say that both heaven and hell may be considered alternative planes, or they may be separate "worlds" or "universes"... and then there are the nine worlds of Norse mythology which might be referred to as planes... and sometimes these other planes are referred to as other dimensions (and there's your QM/string tie-in, with its discussion of dimensions beyond three or four. Usually brought up by people who know jack shit about physics of any sort.)

It's another realm of existance, which, from a material plane perspective may or may not exist (but probably don't).

Alright, one of these hypothetical "planes" is the astral plane which is, in some ways, a parallel universe existing alongside/within/encompassing our own material plane. The astral plane, from a material perspective, would be a place of spirit and will.

Astral travel is when you detatch your spririt/soul/conciousness from your material body and it goes to the astral plane. Usually, this means you travel in spirit along the astral plane to some other location that corresponds to a spot of interest on the material plane, observe, then return your spirit/self to your material body. One detail is that your soul/spirit remains tethered to your material body via the silver cord, which is achored in your navel and is basically a psychic umbillical cord. If it's severed, you die, for real - or so the theory goes.

Astral travel is frequently conflasted with clairvoyance, telepathy and, yes, quantum mechanics through technobabble that would be at home in a bad sci-fi movie. There's also an idea floating around out there that if you astrally traveled and instead of your spirit being pulled back to your body you pulled your body to your spirit you could teleport.

Astral travel claims can be as pedestrian as "I went to the next room" to as grandiose as "I travel to other star systems" or "I traveled to heaven and spoke with God". If you get someone claiming to have accessed the Akashic Record through the astral plane you can also get claims of time travel, or at least time viewing.

That's it in a nutshell. Next question --?

[Magnetic]

Okay, so how do I do it?

[Broomstick]

How do you what? Astral travel?

Sort answer: you don't.

Do you want the long answer?

[Magnetic]

How do you what? Astral travel?

Short answer: you don't.

Do you want the long answer?

Yeah, sure! I've got time.

Really though, if you don't want to tell me outside of this thread, PM me and I'll send you an email address. Besides, I'd like to ask you some other questions anyway.

[Broomstick]

Mainly it was a time constraint - my employer has this hang-up that I must actually show up to work in order to get paid.

OK, as part of my religious training waaaaaaaay long time ago, I did "astral travel" exercises. And my conclusion is.... it can't be done. Certainly I can't do it, and I've never known anyone who could credibly say they could do it (INcredible claims are a different matter - those are rampant in the NeoPagan community). Personally, I think there's a greater validity to telepathy than astral travel, but that's a whole 'nother subject right there.

Astral travel exercises typically involve a relaxation phase, followed by a will to "project" oneself to another state of existance/location. There are books out there about it, and I can probably dig up some references - I'm a little handicapped in this regard in that I was studying all this in the 1970's, well before we had personal computers, the internet, and Google and my occult library and Book of Shadows doesn't travel well over a modem. Not that you would be able to read most of my Book of Shadows, anyhow, it being in my own personal script. I'd have to hunt down on-line sources for you. Anyhow...

Relaxation/meditation is a common theme in many NeoPagan/occult activities. And really, that's not all bad. There are documented good effects from meditation when done in a serious manner. The problems arise when people adopt a one-thing-cures-all attitude. That's not the part I have issues with.

It's the "astral travel" part I have issues with.

The "remote viewing" aspects, the visiting other parts of reality.... it just doesn't hold water. It's not reliably reproducible, nor is it accurate. Nor more so than any other purported psychic ability. Until I run into/hear about someone who can actually pull this off at will, and in a provable manner, I just don't buy it. Mind you, this can piss off the True Believers and it's by no means a universally held opinion. I'm speaking solely for myself here. As I've told people before - I'm a practicing NeoPagan Skeptic. And when necessary I justify it by saying we ARE creatures of the Material Plane, with all the limitations that implies. Anyone who feels they can transcend those limitations is welcome to try, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".

Now, there's the other side of the Astral Plane.... that's where you acquire Amazing Powers. You see, on the Astral Plane you are no longer bound by Material limitations. If you will it, it is so. You can create, change, etc. by an act of pure will. Pretty cool, hey?

My take is that this is really, really good visualization. "Visualization", for better or worse, has entered the mainstream vocabulary so at least I don't have to explain it too often any more. Put yourself in a relaxed state/trance, activate the imagination, add some practice... and you wind up with a really vivid, almost hallucinatory effect. And because it's in your own head you really do have god-like powers and total control. This would also tie in with what I've heard about sensory isolation tanks "improving" one's astral travel - fewer distractions from the internal show.

And, you know, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Visualization is a great technique, it's used in all sorts of situations by all sorts of people, and it can lead to real world effects. Athletes, for example, use visualization to improve their games. Pilots have been using it for years - but they usually call it "chair-flying" and add hand motions. It's your own, private reality simulator and using it well can improve your abilities in a number of areas. Sometimes people call these techniques "self-hypnosis". In that sense, "astral travel", where you "project" into a pocket reality in your head and use it to your advantage is perfectly real and legitimate.

Then there's the almost-standard-joke of someone in dire straits trying to find "a happy place" in their head - Finding Nemo had a traumatized starfish playing that game. You know, there's a legitmate place for that mental trick, too - it's probably gotten more than one person through a horrible experience with their sanity intact.

But let's not overstate what it's capable of, m'okay?

If you want to learn "astral travel" in the sense that I just described - as a means to create your own "reality simulator" or just to create your own private fantasty-land - sure, you can learn how to do that. And with practice you'll actually feel like you are really there. It's a great mental trick, it has uses. It's what people did before they had video games and movies.

But it won't take you to Alpha Centauri III, or even let you know what's going on in the next room over.

And go ahead and ask any question you want - if I can't answer (either through ignorance or prior promises) I'll let you know.

[Spoonist]

Just a tip from the outsider...

->Magnetic
If you ignore astral travel and instead go by shamanistc drumritual, where they "descend into the otherworld" you do get effects within a few tries. I believe that they are similar since the feeling that I've heard described from people who believe in astral travel is uncannily similar to the trance of shamans, (with a little egoistical omnipotence thrown on top).
You get results since it uses a dreamworld/underworld/totems/spirits which in actuality is your subconscious (sp?). So it's sort of a much more ritualistic way of mediation/awakedreaming.
There are several good books on the topic. Though most of them are written from the view of a "true"-believer which means that you need to sort through the bullshit.

A properly guarded drumtravel is something which I would recommend most people, believer and skeptic alike since it's fun and give that eerie feeling. (Unless of course you are prone to depression in which case I'd say that you should steer clear of anything remotely similar to meditation/trance/selfhypnosis).

[Kurgan]

I use 'Goddess' as an exclaimation. IT's just a habit I picked up, not due to any religious (Atheist here) reason, but rather one that I find it novel to use. I know a few neopagans, and they happen to think that I picked it up from them, since they used it.

Now, here's the question. We've got a few on the board IIRC, but what is Neo-Paganism? From what I can tell so far with my limited info, it's a form of modern druidism... how accurate is that? And can someone get me a primer?

Neo-paganism is really a bit of an umbrella term, as I understand it. There hasn't been a "Council of Nicea" for Neo-Pagans to hammer out doctrine and define exactly who's in and who's out, so in many ways its a self-made plurality. Sure you have various currents and movements developing, (and even though you have claimants talking about "ancient traditions") but essentially you have nothing older than 60 years in terms of tradition (and more like 20-25 years for the types that most people think of, like Wicca).

In such a short time, with no single, central, charismatic founder or prophet, you don't usually end up with a very developed religion or organized. So in a sense there are as many different kinds of neo-paganisms or paganisms as there are self-identified members.

Though many neo-pagans will hate the analogy, and I mean no offense, it's sort of like New-Age, in that respect.

Again that's my assesment after looking into it a bit and dicussing with some members.

[Kurgan]

Also:

As a student of religion I've always tended to use the term "paganism" to refer to polytheism, seeing it's roots as the Roman/Greek civic cults verses Christianity in the early centuries (where supposedly the term came to be defined).

"Pagans" though many tend to be polytheistic (though others will say they are monotheistic, or pantheistic or henotheistic, etc.) identify the term more in the sense of it meaning "ancient, nature based religions." While other religions could be considered to be nature-based, perhaps paganism, if it has any defining aspect tends towards a "nature-centric" view rather than a human-centric view.... though one could easily argue with that. If the goal of these religions is to use one's will to impose on or mould nature to one's desires (the goal of magick?) then it could be said to be human-centered in that way.

I'm sure though that there are neo-pagans who will say they want to be "one with nature" and "go with the flow" rather than saying they want to change things to suit their own whims. But again, that's a debate about the function of prayer or magick. Do you hope to change something with your action, or does the action change you?