A Buddhist teacher talks about "bribing the Gods".

Meanwhile, in Uzbekistan (SERIOUSLY CHECK THIS SHIT OUT!!!)

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"We call many of these religious movements something genuinely new, but ...."

In my previous post I looked at J. Gordon Melton's 2007 article on "New New Religions" ("What is wrong in some societies where new religions are relatively absent?"). In that post I also included a table listing some of the major "new religions" that have appeared in Japan since 1925. That table was drawn from a collection of essays by Susumu Shimazono titled From Salvation to Spirituality: Popular Religious Movements in Modern Japan (Trans Pacific Press, 2004). In a review of that collection, Daniel A. Metraux (a religion scholar of some note in his own right) describes Shimazono as "one of the foremost scholars of the contemporary religious scene in Japan." Metraux's whole review is available online here: http://www.globalbuddhism.org/6/metraux05.htm.

In this post I want to call attention to the fact that Shimazono has raised serious doubts about just how "new" the so-called shin-shûkyô of Japan really are, by emphasizing both (1) the fact that real objective similarities exist between the teachings of various ancient religious traditions (especially Buddhism and Shinto) and ideas characteristic of "new spirituality movements", and (2) the fact that many proponents of these "new spirituality movements" subjectively feel a very strong affinity to ancient traditions (especially Buddhism). In discussing this section in his review, Metraux appears willing to go a little further, or at least to be somewhat more direct, than Shimazono, when he (Metraux) states: "We call many of these religious movements something genuinely new, but scholars such as Shimazono correctly point out their strong roots in more traditional Buddhist or Shinto culture in Japan."

Here is the relevant section of Metraux's review of Shimazono's book:

Shimazono makes links between more traditional Buddhism and some of the New Religions and New Spirituality movements. There are concrete differences between the new spiritualism and traditional Buddhism in that some of these newer movements do not focus as much on an awareness of human suffering and lack a concept of personified agents such as God, gods, or a sacred Other. But, he notes (p. 302) that

[I]f we interpret Buddhism as a teaching that every person can undergo the Buddha’s enlightenment as one's own experience if one follows the righteous paths based on the truth, then Buddhism is rather close to the new spirituality movements and culture. Significantly, some persons involved in the new spirituality movements and culture are so sympathetic to Buddhism that they consider their own quest in the new spirituality movements and culture as merely a new evolution of Buddhism for the contemporary world.

This last point is well argued and most interesting. We call many of these religious movements something genuinely new, but scholars such as Shimazono correctly point out their strong roots in more traditional Buddhist or Shinto culture in Japan. To get back to the Soka Gakkai, there are those who assert that the Soka Gakkai is not a real "Buddhist movement," but Shimazono's chapters on the Gakkai, as well as Reiyukai and other Lotus Sutra-based New Religious Movements (NRMs), indicate that many of the most popular of these groups are indeed very Buddhist in their orientation — and quite traditionally Buddhist at that.

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"We decree the death penalty for those who openly perform sacrifices or honour the images." Emperor Constantius, 356 AD

There is a great new post over at the European Pagan Memory blog on Pagans, Sacrifices and Temples. In that post, independent scholar Manuela Simeoni provides us with a translation of section 16.10 of the Theodosian Code, which documents the official suppression of Paganism by Imperial decree from 320 to 395 AD.

Below I will quote some of the highlights, but please go to the link to read the whole thing.

Two things are especially noteworthy about these decrees, in my opinion. First, there is very clearly a fixation on the part of the Christian Emperors specifically on the Pagan practice of sacrifice. In some cases Temples are allowed to be left open and even the statues and images of Pagan Gods are to be unmolested, if they are deemed to possess sufficient artistic and historical merit. Even traditional "festive assemblies" can be allowed at the discretion of local officials. But all such leniency is forgotten when it comes to "forbidden sacrifices". One reason this is so interesting is that it helps to explain the great positive emphasis placed on sacrifice during the Julianic Pagan revival.

The second thing to note is the focus on officials who fail to faithfully implement the persecution of Paganism. Just as laws proscribing Paganism serve as evidence of Pagan resistance to Christianization, so do laws specifically targetting officials provide us with evidence that religious coercion was not viewed as "business as usual" by Romans, who often simply ignored imperial decrees that encroached upon the traditional freedom of religion that Romans had always taken for granted.

Constantius, 341:  "Superstition shall cease, insanity of sacrifices must be abolished."

Constantius, ca 354: "We also demand that everyone avoids sacrifice. So if by any chance someone made such a thing, shall the avenging sword cut him down."

Constantius, 356: "[W]e decree death penalty for those who openly perform sacrifices or honour the images."

Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius, 385: "[N]o mortal shall dare to perform sacrifices in order to obtain, with the reading of livers and entrails, hope in a vain promise or, that is worse, the knowledge about future with a so despicable consultation. Therefore a harsh torture will be implemented for he who tries to explore the truth of present and future events in spite of our prohibition."

Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius, 391: "[N]obody shall be allowed to perform sacrifices, nobody shall go around temples, nobody shall venerate sanctuaries."

Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius, 392: "If someone dares to sacrifice a victim or consult its still warm intrails, he’ll be charged for high treason and subject to the prescribed penalty, even though he didn’t try to divine anything in favour or against the prince’s health."

"To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence, of witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God"

In 1753, noted jurist William Blackstone set down some of his thoughts on the subject of Witchcraft. Several essential points need to be emphasized about what Blackstone had to say:

1. Witchcraft is a religious crime against Christianity.
2. Witchcraft is placed in the general category of magic, without necessarily requiring any qualification that the magic in question be used to cause harm.
3. Witchcraft is placed in the same category as the crime of Heresy, "condemning both to the flames."
4. Special emphasis is placed on the fact that practitioners of Witchcraft are actively sought out by those who wish to employ Witches for their magical services.
5. Divination and love magic are explicitly included in the types of magic included in the prohibition against "witchcraft, conjuration, enchantment, or sorcery."
6. At no point is Witchcraft in particular singled out in any way (for example as somehow worse either from a legal or a spiritual perspective) as opposed to "conjuration, enchantment, or sorcery."
7. Blackstone divides the general category of magical crimes into those that are punishable by death on the first offense, and those that are punishable by death only on the second offense.
8. Magical crimes deserving death on the first offense are further divided into three categories: (i) any and all consorting with "evil spirits", (ii) necromancy, or (iii) killing or causing harm "by such infernal arts".
9. Magical crimes deserving death on the second offense consist of all attempts (whether successful or not) to employ "sorcery" in order to (i) "discover hidden treasure", (ii) "restore stolen goods", (iii) "provoke unlawful love", or (iv) "hurt any man or beast".
10. The fact that Blackstone does explicitly mention the use of magic to cause harm (or even attempting to do so), alongside other specific acts that are all treated as equally deserving of the same punishment, serves to highlight the fact that there was no absolute correlation between Witchcraft as a crime and the use of unlawful magic to cause harm.

CHAPTER IV: 
OF OFFENSES AGAINST GOD AND RELIGION
Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books, vol. 2 [1753]
[Please see the original at the link for notes and sources.]

VI. A sixth species of offence against God and religion, of which our antient books are full, is a crime of which one knows not well what account to give. I mean the offence of witchcraft, conjuration, enchantment, or sorcery. To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence, of witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God, in various passages both of the Old and New Testament: and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws; which at least suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits. The civil law punishes with death not only the sorcerers themselves, but also those who consult them,(j) imitating in the former the express law of God,(k) “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” And our own laws, both before and since the conquest, have been *equally penal; ranking this crime in the same class with heresy, and condemning both to the flames.(l) The president Montesquieu(m) ranks them also both together, but with a very different view: laying it down as an important maxim that we ought to be very circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy; because the most unexceptionable conduct, the purest morals, and the constant practice of every duty in life are not a sufficient security against the suspicion of crimes like these. And indeed the ridiculous stories that are generally told, and the many impostures and delusions that have been discovered in all ages, are enough to demolish all faith in such a dubious crime; if the contrary evidence were not also extremely strong. Wherefore it seems to be the most eligible way to conclude, with an ingenious writer of our own,(n) that in general there has been such a thing as witchcraft; though one cannot give credit to any particular modern instance of it.

Our forefathers were stronger believers when they enacted, by statute 33 Hen. VIII. c. 8, all witchcraft and sorcery to be felony without benefit of clergy; and again, by statute 1 Jac. I. c. 12, that all persons invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding, any evil spirit; or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment; or killing or otherwise hurting any person by such infernal arts, should be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy, and suffer death. And if any person should attempt by sorcery to discover hidden treasure, or to restore stolen goods, or to provoke unlawful love, or to hurt any man or beast, though the same were not effected, he or she should suffer imprisonment and pillory for the first offence, and death for the second. These acts continued in force till lately, to the terror of all antient females in the kingdom: and many poor wretches were sacrificed thereby to the prejudice of their neighbours and their own illusions; not a few having, by some means or other, confessed the fact at the gallows. But all executions for this dubious crime are now at an end; our legislature having at length followed the wise example of *Louis XIV. in France, who thought proper, by an edict, to restrain the tribunals of justice from receiving informations of witchcraft.(o) And accordingly it is with us enacted, by statute 9 Geo. II. c. 5, that no prosecution shall for the future be carried on against any persons for conjuration, witchcraft, sorcery, or enchantment. But the misdemeanour of persons pretending to use witchcraft, tell fortunes, or discover stolen goods, by skill in the occult sciences, is still deservedly punished with a year’s imprisonment, and standing four times in the pillory.12

Vaguely Pagan-esque (possibly) videos from the Ukraine

Well, at least the first two are both kind of vaguely Pagan-esque. After that, I found it difficult to stop .....

"Pan, O Great God Pan, To Thee, Thus Do We Sing" (1608)

"Hail, holy Earth ..." Thus begins John Fletcher's The Faithful Shepherdess, first performed in 1608. This was a crucial time in English history. Elizabeth I had been dead for five years, but the "Elizabethan" era was still going strong. One of the remarkable hallmarks of that Age was a great flowering of pastoralism in literature and the arts. Some of this pastoralism was purely stylistic, and to some extent it was merely one aspect of a broader classicism (for there is much pastoralism in classical Greco-Roman literature). But there was a deeper, spiritual aspect to this Elizabethan pastoralism as well. This was, after all, a time when Alchemy and Astrology were highly valued courtly Arts, even if their practitioners had to live under constant suspicion of being in league with Satan.

"Holy Earth" is mentioned, in those precise words, once more in the play, but another deity is granted pride of place in Fletcher's pastoral tragicomedy. "The Great God Pan" is referred to with those precise words three times. In addition we hear of "great Pan" eight more times, and Pan is referred to as a "great god" three additional times. In all, Pan is mentioned by name over twenty-five times. The play begins and ends with a hymn to Pan, sung by a chorus of shepherds and shepherdesses who are led by a priest of Pan.

For more, check out these two links:

• http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?action=GET&textsid=33071
• http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12222/pg12222.txt

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A few quick notes on historical Witchcraft

"The Double Star" Louis Falero

If we strictly limit ourselves to the English language, the following five statements about "witches" and "witchcraft" are clearly true:

1. The earliest evidence shows that the pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon word "wiccecraeft" was explicitly associated both with beneficial magic and with the survival of Heathen beliefs and practices. This is openly acknowledged by Simpson and Roud in their Dictionary of English Folklore.

• Witchcraft, Magic, and Anglo-Saxon Law
• Witchcraft as Beneficial Magic in Old English Sources
• "Witches and other evils": Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud on Witches and Witchcraft

2. Middle English sources demonstrate that "wicchecreft" continued to be associated with both Heathenry and beneficial magic during the Middle Ages. This is found in such well-known literary sources as Piers Plowman and Le Morte d'Arthur, as well as less well known works.

• Witches As Healers in Piers Plowman (ca. 1370)
• Beneficial Witchcraft in John Trevisa's Middle English Translation of Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon (1387)
• "They hate me not all." Sorcery and Maleficium in "The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man" (1426)
• Why did the other knights suspect Sir Balin of Witchcraft? (1485)

 3. Early modern English sources, including sources from the times of the Witch-hunts, show that the word "witch", even without any modifiers such as "good", "white", etc, continued to be used to refer to practitioners of beneficial magic. For example, William Shakespeare attests to the fact that "witch" (by itself) was interchangeable with "wise woman" as an appellation for practitioners of divination. Many of these sources directly attest to the "common" or "vulgar" usage of "witch" among "the people" to refer to practitioners of beneficial magic. Only once the most intense period of Witch-hunting was getting under way do the terms "good Witch" and "white Witch" become more prominent in the surviving sources as a means for specifically referring to practitioners of beneficial magic.

• Beneficent Witchcraft: One Hundred And Seven Sources  
• Witches, Wise Women, William Shakespeare, and the Lambton Worm
• "Thou art so wise, people will take thee shortly for a Witch"
•  Cornelius Agrippa on "Witchinge Magick", according to James Sanford's 1569 English translation of "De incertitudine et vanitate omnium scientiarum et artium liber"

4. Trial records from the Scottish Witch-hunts, which comprise the large majority of all Witchcraft trials conducted in the English language, show that accusations of maleficium are documented in only 12% of these trials. If we restrict ourselves to the subset of trials for which we have specific information concerning the charges (less than one-third of the trials), still less than half of these cases involved any documented accusation of maleficium, whereas over 20% of this subset of cases involved documented accusations of beneficial magic.

• Malevolent Magic and "The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft"
• Julian Goodare Contradicts His Own Data on Witches and Healers
• Benevolent Magic and "The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft"

5. After the end of the Witch-hunts in the English speaking world, the word "witch" continued to be used to refer to people who were sought out for their ability to perform beneficial magic, in a direct and seamless continuity from usage going back to before the Norman Conquest up to the present day.

• Of White Witches, Rattlesnakes, David Hume, and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1807)
• The Case of the North Devon White Witch (1877)
• "She was of the old way of mind [i.e. a Witch]" (1878)
• The White Witch of Waverly, from Grose's Antiquities (1785)  
• "The White Witches of Our Ancestors" (1621 - 1895)

"A Visit to the Witch" by Edward Frederick Brewtnall, 1882

Pagan History, Pagan Identity, and Pagan Resistance (The Bones of Pagan History and Pagan Identity, Part Two)

As previously noted (The Bones of Pagan History and Pagan Identity, Part One), there are two diametrically opposed views of the relationship between ancient and modern Paganism. One position rests solidly (or, perhaps one should say, rigidly) on an absolute denial of any survival of ancient Paganism, so that there is simply no possibility that modern Paganism could be in any manner connected with the Paganism of the past. In extreme cases this viewpoiont finds expression in the accusation that all notions of any connection whatsoever between modern Paganism and ancient Paganism amounts to "the trap of fundamentalism".

The other position accepts that ancient Paganism did, at least in some sense, survive, so that modern Paganism can reasonably be allotted some amount of historical rootedness. This category is fairly broad and could, conceivably, include those who might actually deserve to be labeled as "fundamentalists" for claiming, for example, that modern Wicca is the modern expression of an unbroken lineage that has preserved intact and unchanged some religious cult dating back to the Stone Age. One small problem is that such "fundamentalists" simply do not exist, but perhaps we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by anything so trivial as mere facts! On the other hand, there are a great many modern Pagans (almost certainly the vast majority) who do conceive of themselves as the modern-day inheritors and continuators of ancient religious traditions, but without going (anywhere near) so far as to claim that these traditions have remained unchanged through the centuries. In most cases, modern Pagans readily accept, as did Gerald Gardner, that our present day Pagan beliefs and practices represent a mixture of traditions from a variety of cultures and historical periods, including a non-negligible amount of quite recent additions.

However, the whole matter of ancient Paganism's survival can also be profitably studied in it's own right, without necessarily being concerned about any possible connection between ancient and modern Paganisms. This approach more narrowly focuses our attention on the fourth century AD (and the next century or two or three before and after), posing the question of whether or not during this period ancient Paganism "died".

(More broadly speaking, Christianization is not, of course, at all strictly limited to the religious transformation of the Roman world during late antiquity. But to the extent that one wishes to investigate the whole historical process Christianization in the broadest possible sense, then one's first order of business still has to be understanding the Christianization of the Roman world.)

If one focuses on the rise of Christianity in late antiquity, and the concomitant decline of Paganism, this leads to two subsidiary questions depending on how one answers the question: did Paganism die? If the answer is "yes", then one must futher inquire into manner of the death of Paganism. Alternatively, if Paganism somehow survived, then it must be asked: what was the nature and mode of this survival?

There are at least five distinct kinds of answers to the question of whether or not Paganism died:

1. Paganism died a violent death. This means both (1) that Paganism was actively suppressed by Christians, and (2) that Pagans actively resisted this suppression.
Sources supporting this view: MacMullen, Brown, Trombley, Chuvin, Hedrick, Zagorin, Bury, Gibbon

2. Paganism died a peaceful death because by the time Christianity came along, Paganism was already moribund and very close to dead anyway. Therefore it was not necessary for Christians to apply much, if any, pressure on Pagans, nor were Pagans in any real position to offer any resistance.
Source supporting this view: Alan Cameron

3. Paganism did not really die, so much as it gradually transformed itself into Christianity, by way of the missing link of "Pagan Monotheism". This point of view, like the one above, claims that the transition from Paganism to Christianity was largely peacefully, and even, in the words of Stephen Mitchell, "tidy".
Sources: Mitchel & Co. (the whole motley "Pagan monotheism" gang)

4. Paganism did not die but rather went underground. In this case it is posited that there existed crypto-Pagans who practiced dissumulation, that is, they publicly professed to be Christians while secretly and self-consciously rejecting Christianity and continuing to practice the "Old Religion", so to speak.
Sources supporting this view: Anthony Kaldellis, Niketas Siniossoglou

5. Paganism did not really die, but after a certain point there were no longer any people that could any longer be accurately called Pagans. In this case it is posited that while Pagan beliefs and practices were kept alive, the agents of this "survival" were people who were sincere, if possibly heterodox, Christians.
Source supporting this : Ronald Hutton in chapters 4 and 5 of his Witches, Druids and King Arthur.

One thing cannot be doubted. To the extent that there were any Pagans who wholeheartedly resisted conversion to Christianity, then it must undeniably be the case that there was a period of time when these Pagan diehards stubbornly continued to worship the old Gods even after all public forms of Pagan religious practice had become impossible. So the real question is whether or not there was any such formidable resistance to Christianity, for as long as there was such resistance, Paganism was still very much alive. And this, of course, is not an open question at all, but rather one to which, at least in terms of the basic facts, the answer is clearly established beyond any reasonable doubt. We know that such wholehearted resistance absolutely existed and that, furthermore, it was not limited to any one social class or group or to any one part of the Empire. We know that there was such resistance in the ancient city of Rome itself, and also that Athens was another center of resistance. But we also know that there was determined resistance to Christianization in such far flung parts of the Empire as Britania, Egypt and Anatolia.

We also know that in the 8th century the Saxons had their turn to fiercely resist conversion by the sword at the hands of the Franks. We also know that the Saxons were far from alone, and that Frisia, Denmark, Norway and Iceland were also centers of resistance. We know that the Baltic peoples continued to resist even in the face of the Northern Crusades, which lasted for over two centuries. Baltic Pagans even succeeded in establishing a powerful Pagan Empire in the heart of northeastern Europe that lasted well into the 14th century!

And even after Europe was finally "Christianized", the same kind of fierce resistance is seen in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, and this resistance is ongoing today in the 21st century. But then we have come full circle, back to the question of the relationship between modern and ancient Paganism. If we stupidly reduce Paganism to an epiphenomenon that exists only as a kind of appendage to isolated, disconnected, mutually exclusive "cultures" or, worse, "ethnicities", then we have already surrendered ourselves to the Christian strategy of divide and conquer.

Modern Pagans only deserve to consider ourselves Pagan if we unhesitatingly embrace everyone who has ever cursed the name of Christ and sworn to go down fighting rather than meekly submit to the missionaries, and prayed to the Gods for the chance to take as many Christians as possible with them in the process. And we only deserve to call ourselves Pagan if we unhesitatingly embrace as our spiritual kin those who chose more subtle modes of resistance, keeping the worship of the Gods alive in secret from generation to generation.

In sum, both Pagan history and Pagan identity are inseparable from the historical question of Pagan resistance. Those who either deny that such resistance has taken place and continues to take place, or who seek to diminish the importance or extent of this resistance, or who decline to identity with and declare solidarity with those who have engaged in this resistance, cannot in any sense be considered Pagans.