New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements: Alternative Spirituality in Contemporary America by Hugh B. Urban

Author:Hugh B. Urban
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520281172
Publisher: University of California Press

NEOPAGAN BELIEFS, ETHICS, AND RITUAL: ORTHO-PRAXY RATHER THAN ORTHO-DOXY

Because of the sheer diversity of groups that fall under the label, it is impossible to describe a single neopagan “theology.” In the Gardnerian Wiccan tradition, the emphasis is usually placed on the balance between the female and male deities. The female is typically identified as the Triple Goddess, who embodies the three phases of a woman’s life as Maiden, Mother, and Crone and is represented by the three phases of the waxing, full, and waning moon. The male, conversely, is typically identified with the Horned God and the sun. Many neopagans, however, are polytheists, celebrating a wide array of gods and goddesses, drawn either from one traditional pantheon (Norse deities, for example) or from multiple pantheons (the full Indo-European spectrum, in the case of Druidry). Finally, at least one group, the Church and School of Wicca, is monotheistic and believes in one universal Deity called “God-ess,” which includes but transcends both male and female aspects of the divine.

Most—though not all—neopagans also believe in some version of reincarnation, that is, the idea that we have lived multiple lives prior to this particular body and will take on many more after its end, undergoing a cyclical death and rebirth much like the cycles of nature. This is usually tied to some version of a belief in karma, or the idea that our actions have future consequences both in this lifetime and in future lives. And most—though, again, not all—neopagans abide by a basic ethical principle most famously embodied in the Wiccan “rede” or creed, which states: “An it harm none, do what ye will.” This is in turn a reworking of Aleister Crowley’s famous law of “Do what thou wilt,” though it adds the important provision “if it harms none.” In other words, do what makes you happy, as long as it doesn’t injure anyone else or interfere with anyone else’s happiness. As Gardner’s chief student, Doreen Valiente, argued, this simple law is “the only moral code that really makes sense. If everyone lived by it, would not the world be a very different place? If morality were not enforced by fear, by a string of Thou-shalt-nots; but if instead people had a positive morality, as an incentive to a happier way of living?”7

In many ways, neopaganism is less a movement based on beliefs than a movement based on practice. Neopagans disagree widely on theoretical and metaphysical questions such as reincarnation, the number or nature of the gods, and even how exactly magic works, but they typically do agree that ritual practice is central to what neopagans do. Hence it may be thought of as a religion of “ortho-praxy” (“right practice”) rather than “orthodoxy” (“right belief”). Most neopagans share a sort of symbolic vocabulary used in ritual practice. The most recognizable neopagan symbol is the pentacle or upward-pointing star, which is usually said to represent the four elements of earth, air, water, and fire plus the fifth element of spirit and is also identified with the four limbs and head of the human body.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.