In recent years there has been a tremendous increase in interest in these
"pre-Christian" or "non-Abrahamic" religions. For example, Kabbalah has
emerged from near non-existence to being a rather popular religion.
At issue, though, is that with rare exception, the majority of the neo-pagan
religions lack a continuous time-line of being practiced. As such, there is
a difficulty in understanding the context of certain beliefs or practices.
Many of these religious beliefs or practices were adopted or co-opted by
other local or regional groups through the years. It would be similar to
trying to reconstruct a Christian religion from the Americas two thousand
years from now. What would you use as your basis? The Baptists? Catholics?
Mormans? Peoples Temple? Chances are, the reconstructed "neo-Christian"
practice 2000 years in the future will have little resemblance to what we
have today--especially since it doesn't even resemble what it looked like
100 years ago. Even with a continuous time-line of existance, there is
always going to be a modification of the religion to the changing culture
and technology. Shoot, even with a near-continuous time-line of
Christianity there is difficulty and disagreement of what the early church
was like 2000 years ago as it moved from Hebrew-basis to Grecco-Roman-basis
and adopted cultural and religious practices common throughout the world as
it expanded.
Over time, we lose the reference of understanding of a religious practice as
well as the source. Just as my reference to the "Peoples Temple", I would
fear that 2000 years from now, somebody will think that Jim Jones was worth
mimicking and have a gathering in Jonestown staging a mass suicide. For all
we know, that could be how one or more of the pagan religions died out.
Fortunately there is a lot of scholarship going on and new research emerging
into these religions and cultural practices. The Society for Creative
Anachronism (SCA) has been instrumental in bringing alive the culture of the
times and defining context for the neo-pagan religions. Whether accurate or
not, it is both questionable and immaturial as we can only look at evidences
of existance, not at the daily lives.
However, all it takes is a look at the writings of Cicero to recognize that
not much really has changed in 2000+ years.
AG
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