Myth and History in Modern Paganism

Some comments on the tendency of many neo-Pagans to bend history in order to make it accommodate their modern myths:

I believe it is safe to say that from a pagan perspective – or better from a generally premodern point of view – mythological reality is by no means less real than historical reality. For exactly this reason does a truly Pagan spirituality – that is one which among other things re-awakens mythos in order to profoundly challenge modernist ways of thinking and organizing knowledge - not primarily depend on historical figures, historical founders, historical prophets and so on.

However, this should not lead one to believe that our Pagan ancestors did not distinguish between the one and the other side of reality. Even though on occasion mythos might have been drawn upon to justify claims to political power it is quite unrealistic and arrogant to assume that ancient Pagans did not know of the distinction between mythological and historical reality. There is enough evidence by anthropologists to suggest that even those traditional cultures who up to this day live isolated and on the technological level of the palaeolithic do indeed draw a clear line, say for instance, between everyday-consciousness and the mythical shamanic realm of non-ordinary reality.

In fact, to confuse what Karen Armstrong calls the logical mode and the mythological mode of thinking - i.e. to rationalize mythological reality into historical reality – well, most ironically, this is quite a common trademark of post-Axial Age totalitarian religions such as the non-Jesuanian ecclesial occidental perversion of Christianity which has been haunting human beings of all creeds and denominations for more than a thousand years now.

Having clarified this, it seems logical enough that a modern mythological religion such as Wicca or Goddess spirituality ought not be despised or rejected on the grounds alone that it draws on rather ahistorical myths such as a universal Goddess which cannot be found in any actual historical pagan culture or a universal Horned God which resembles a specific Jungian archetype much more closely than it does resemble anything in the ancient world. For if mythological reality is distinct from historical reality „but not in any way less real“ how could a modern myth be inferior to an ancient one as long as it speaks to people today and has the power to transform their lives for the better.

However, it is not the use of such modern Jungian myths which casts a dubious light on Wicca or other types of modern Witchery. It is the refusal by so many a modern pagan to openly see and acknowledge the non-historicity of such myths which alone ridicules contemporary paganisms.

It is by failing to draw a clear line of distinction between mythos and logos – and in failing to do so falling into the Christian trap of rationalizing mythological into historical reality - that so many modern witches, Wiccans and Goddess worshippers profoundly betray the worldview of their Pagan ancestors. For what could be more Christian, or rather, what could be more in line with the modern occidental and pseudo-rationalist version of Christianity, than the questionable efforts by some second wave feminists and Wiccan would-be-academics to find a historical ground for what has so often been proved to be an inhabitant of the mythological realm of reality alone.

A Goddess spirituality acknowledging the fact that ancient European cultures were largely polytheistic - and thus certainly did not know a single universal female deity - a critical version of Wicca casting aside its ridiculous old ways of constructing false historical lineages, in short, a progressive Pagan spirituality honouring its powerful myths by acknowledging them as what they truly are, namely myths, now, that would be the sort of Paganism with the power to transform our pityful postmodern religious landscape.

However, a neo-Paganism which goes on with large-scale history falsification, a pseudo-Paganism betraying its own myths by trying to convert them into historical reality – all this in a desperate attempt to boost its own credibility - will not achieve anything apart from revealing its hysterical proponents as exactly that which they truly are:

Shockingly well-conditioned occidental little Christians who suck the last bit of power out of Paganism by undermining it with their shockingly well-internalized post-Axial Christian way of thinking.