That's why I set my hopes on peak oil. It is physically impossible that all the fossil fuel extraction will last forever.
Sometimes I want to remind people that ultimately, capitalism is not something otherworldy but a cultural and economic relation that is dependent on certain conditions, as you say, among them unlimited energy extraction. It will ultimately end, even without a heroic struggle, even without a globe-wide spiritual awakening because it is something that exists in this world and nothing of this world is eternal.
Oct 21, 2022·edited Oct 21, 2022Liked by Rhyd Wildermuth
I think there's a hole in this. I've been trying to put my finger on it, acknowledging my own biases as I do.
Maybe what you're doing here is constructing your own kind of political religion. I think the problem is in the notion that, for example, 'All the huntress goddesses became Dianas, and then there were no more huntress goddesses at all but just a one-god.'
That's a description of the creation of a monoculture from varying and diverse cultures. But it doesn't say anything about the reality at its heart - or otherwise. It sounds like a political claim from someone who wants to condemn empire and capitalism. I am happy to join you in that condemnation. But it doesn't seem to me to be the case that varying gods were channeled into a 'mono-God' for political reasons. It seems to me that people stopped believing in the varied gods and started believing in the creator god instead.
I'm not suggesting force and politics were not often involved. Of course. But I think the claim is not just political. I also think it's important to see that the 'gods' of the pagans and the 'God' of the Christians (and other 'monotheists') are not comparable, despite the common use of the confusing word. It's the difference between creator and created. The Christian God is 'everywhere present and fills all things' - created reality itself and is within it, alive amongst it, and total. That's a metaphysical claim. It's a huge metaphsyical shift that is happening as the world moves from 'pagan' to monotheist. It's by no means just a crude political manouevre. Some new sense is opening up. And the ultimate question is not political. Does 'the one' exist, and if so what we can we know about him/it? And how can we reforge our borken connection? That's a move from created to creator.
It's also worth saying that medieval Christendom, with its emphasis on the sinful nature of usury, held off the development of capitalism for many centuries, as did the eastern Orthodox world. It was the reformation which opened up the space for radical individualism. Something else we can blame the Americans for ;-)
I'm not sure I've explained myself very well. I'm not trying to be defensive, but as someone who has been both pagan and Christian, I can see a radically different worldview at the heart of things, and a different experience too, I think.
"I also think it's important to see that the 'gods' of the pagans and the 'God' of the Christians (and other 'monotheists') are not comparable, despite the common use of the confusing word. It's the difference between creator and created."
That is begging the question. Taking a claim of Christianity (and the other monotheisms) and making it the foundation of a claim to their truthfulness.
Well, not really. You could just as easily make the claim from the other direction. What Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews etc refer to as 'God or 'Allah' or any number of other names is not the same order of being as, say, Diana or Thor. So the worldview and the metpahysics, if you like, is very different. Obviously on all sides it is a matter of faith.
I always enjoy your comments and am especially grateful that you read me. And I really like that you and I have both seen both paganism and Christianity from the inside, and despite going in opposite directions come to rather similar conclusions about the core sickness of the modern world.
As a few points of clarification, I believe the monocultural drive started with empire, not with Christianity. Roman "evocatio," which renamed the gods of others according to their own gods, began that process, even though it was really hard to make these names stick even within the center of Rome. Thus the scores of additional epithets for certain gods (Dionysus especially) which helped allow the recognition of difference without admitting separation.
Another point is that I don't think all the pagan gods were squished up into the Christian one-god, but rather that the Judeo-Christian (the woke don't like that phrase, by the way, don't tell them I used it!) one-god came to displace the others into first lesser gods and then later demons and then false superstitions.
That point is relevant to the change you're referring to, which again I think started before Christianity (with Plato, really, whose work informed Paul and other early church fathers). But I think we can't look at that change without also noting the changing material conditions of people and the birth of the polis, the civitas, and especially the imperial state. As that rising form of the state flattened difference and tried to codify thought and belief in order to govern, the changes it wrought to everyday life affected not just what people believed, but how they believed. That ultimately molded people into easier acceptance of universality.
Also helpful to remember here is that I see 'political religion' the way Carl Schmitt and Georgio Agamben do, that modern political forms are all merely theological forms. But there's an extra layer here when we think of Orthodoxy and other isolated Christianities that either lost (as with Orthodoxy) or were separated from (as with Irish Christianity) universalizing political force. That both developed more contemplative traditions with greatly reduced and in some cases completely absent missionary drive gives us a sense of what Christianity might have looked like (and still could) untethered to empire.
We of course absolutely agree about the Reformation. I'm not a violent person but I'd do some really, really unkind things to John Calvin were I given the chance.
From my knowledge of history early Irish Christianity possessed a active missionary drive Christianizing Scotland and re-Christianizing part of England after the Anglo Saxon conquest and extended that same impulse to the continent, continuing the example of its fervent founder - Patrick, whose own autobiographical words are here - https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/pat-confession.asp Patrick IMO is an interesting blend of the sacramental, evangelical, and even Pentecostal strands of Christianity, he recounts an experience that sounds like he spoke in tongues!
Yeah, Patrick was a zealot. My reference more is to the way in which the bardic druid traditions carried on in Ireland and Scotland until Rome found out about it. In fact, Patrick was there to 'purify' the wayward Christians on behalf of Bishop Palladius and Pope Celestine, both of whom were trying to suppress the teachings of Pelagius in the British Isles.
“Patrick was there to purify . . . . .” Perhaps, but that could be an academic guess or speculation about what was going on with no fear of being verified one way or another as the records are so sparse. Patrick plainly states in the writing I referred that he was called in a visionary dream by the one who laid his life down for him.
I’m a zealot, you’re a zealot, but we aim to be nice zealots! The world needs kinder, nicer zealots. I think Paul is a nice zealot too. As is Charles Eisenstein.
I'd guess the Druids were zealots too. From what we know, they were certainly not lovely earth-loving pacifists! I agree with Jeff that you are also a nice zealot ;-) at least since your conversion from wokeness. Perhaps this is the state we should all be aiming for.
Oct 22, 2022·edited Oct 22, 2022Liked by Rhyd Wildermuth
Sounds like I should be reading Agamben. As if my book pile weren't already big enough.
I think we're about to see, in coming years, decades and centuries, what Christianity again looks like untethered from empire. Except in Russia! I think this will be a very good thing. Mind you, I'm also mindful of what some Christian historians have suggested - that God's purpose for the Roman empire all along was to spread the Christian story around the world ... I rather like that idea.
I think you're right about Plato being an important pivot point. I've seen Orthodox churches with frescoes of the Greek philosophers on them for this reason. I'm coming to see the distinction between creator and created as the key distinction between the 'monotheists' and the 'pagans', and the word 'God' just to be actively confusing. There are any number of levels of spiritual reality. A Christian, a Muslim, a Jew or a Sikh is trying to direct their attention to the highest one: to the Source. Many indigenous cosmologies also did this. It does not preclude the existence of many lessers beings of course. Whether they are 'gods' is another matter. I'll only say that I went into Wicca thinking they were and came out with quite a different worldview ... Christian caution about these beings is very wise, I believe.
I'm still seeing your Marxism coming through though! It sounds like you're suggesting that a belief in 'monotheism' dervies from economic conditions. If that were true though, why would we find that belief in cultures the world over, including small tribal cultures, outside and before empire? What if it's not a 'belief' but an understanding - one which, in fact, a focus on lcalised, earthbound 'gods' of springs and wells and woods can even obscure? I can see how empires can work much more easily with dentralised religions, priestly hierarchies and 'monotheisms.' But it doesn't follow that they spring from this source.
Jeff's point below about St Patrick is interesting. Ireland was of course Christianised by Patrick, a former British slave boy, virtually single-handedly - but also entirely peacefully. Interestingly, it is speculated that pre-Christian beliefs in Ireland must have been sufficiently similar to that of Christianity - perhaps a worship of the 'One' - that conversion seemend natural. I think it's worth bearing in mind that missionary work has many different faces. St Herman of Alaska to me is the finest example of modern missionary work which is entirely peaceful and respectful of indigenous customs. It can be done. But as you say, faith has to be de-linked fom imperial politics, and from politics in general. I'm with you on the state being the heart of the rot.
It's more my materialism than my Marxism, since by the material conditions I mean more than just economics. So, for material conditions of gender identity now, we'd need to include the widespread use of smartphones and the internet as well as the physical alienation from community that modern cities enforce in any explanation for why so many people are "converting" to trans and non-binary. And for the transition from polytheism to monotheism, we'd have to include the violent destruction of pagan shrines (and the pagans who venerated there) to have a fuller idea of why people converted.
Also, there's a careful distinction we need to keep in mind between the ideas of an overarching "source" or singularity in indigenous animisms and monotheism, which is that often the structures of their cosmologies get re-narrated in a way to fit the contact culture.
For instance, many First Nations in America now talk about "the great spirit," which is seen as a kind of monotheistic belief now. This was actually the influence of the Quakers attempting to convert them: they translated their sense of the ground of being into "great spirit" because they were looking for commonalities that would help in converting them. The same happened on a much larger scale in Hinduism, where English colonial administrators tried to frame the millions of gods as all being facets of a larger, singular god or "emanation." Basically, the monad suddenly appeared in Hinduism on account of British rule.
The cosmological clash here can be seen if you look the other direction, especially in Africa. Christian missionaries complained very often that animist African tribes kept merely adding Jesus into the pantheons instead of replacing all their other gods with him. That's because polytheisms are generally additive, often taking on foreign gods whenever new peoples are added to their societies. (I've argued elsewhere this is a much better model of pluralism than neoliberal "multiculturalism," which really just tries to make everyone suppress their distinctions).
I agree we'll see many more examples of Christianity outside empire. Unfortunately, knowing America too well and having grown up in Evangelical/Baptist Christianity, I think we'll also see more examples of Christianity married to political power. And I do think that the Woke ideology is really a new kind of perverse protestant Christianity, complete with a metaphysics about the soul (true gender), original sin (whiteness, privilege), salvation/redemption (confessing your settler colonial identity), and a terrifying missionary drive.
Oct 23, 2022·edited Oct 23, 2022Liked by Rhyd Wildermuth
I entirely agree about wokeness. Have you written about this in your book? Agree also about smartphones being the necessary precondition for the transgender craze ... and much else.
Jeff makes an interesting point below. It's worth pondering. The Christian God is a triune God. Christianity in that sense is not quite 'monotheistic' in the way that, say, Islam is. There are not three gods, of course, but the One has three aspects we can experience, and they are all quite different in their action in the world and in our relationship with them.
I'm not sure your point about Hinduism is quite right. I don't know enough about it to argue, but I hear from my Indian family that there was always an overarching 'one' that loomed over the various smaller Gods. Overall, I'm not convinced by your case though. It seems like you're painting a picture that suggests the natural way of things is polytheism/animism, and that 'monotheism' is a modern perversion. Correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm not, you basically seem to believe that 'one God' is a falsehood bred of civilisation, and the reality is lots of little 'gods' instead.
Obviously I disagree, though we're not going to get to the bottom of who's right in this lifetime. I will come back to the distinction between creator and created though, and propose another way of seeing things. Instead of 'monotheism' being a violent imposition of empires who want centralsed control systems, I see it as an evolution of human understanding.
In the Christian story, for example, the 'one God' is always the god of a small and outsider-ish people who triumph against the odds, and his son comes to live amongst the poor and excluded before being killed by an empire. (I'm always struck by the fact that Christ spent his earthly time in villages, small towns, mountains and deserts. When he goes to the power centre - the city - it kills him.) The Christian faith was small and persecuted for 300 years. It was of no use to power, which was quite happy with its paganism.
In fact, I think a case could be made that Roman-style paganism is much easier for empires to use to their ends. Rather than having to forcibly convert new peoples to your faith, you can just incorporate their belief systems into yours, as long as they agree to burn incense to Caesar and pay their taxes. Which is just what the Romans did.
It's always worth bearing in mind too the sheer awfulness of many 'pagan' and 'polytheistic' and 'indigneous' worldviews. Tom Holland talks about this in his book 'Dominion.' One that sticks in my mindis the Aztec god Tlalac, who 'required the sacrifice of children who had recently been made to weep.' Chinua Achebe, in 'Things Fall Apart', writes of the tradition of his tribe as regards the birth of twins, which were regarded as unlucky. The mother was supposed to throw them into the jungle to die. For days she would hear them crying as they died but was not allowed to rescue them. When the Christian missionaries arrived and condemned the practice as evil, mothers and young women became - voluntarily - their first converts.
Back to my main point, which is that perhaps monotheism, as you call it, is a growing awareness of what is beyond the created world. I always liked Chesterton's quote: 'nature is not our mother, she is our sister.' That was quite revolutionary when I first heard it. It's why we don't worship nature, but we do - or we should - revere and protect it. But to raise ourselves beyond it is to seek a union with the source/the 'ground of being' - which to a Christian is not simply some universal 'one' but is a loving creator with a desire to restore a broken creation to its original state. That is a story of redemption and restoration - something which riases us up and beyond. It is more than any pagan god can do, or would. And if there weren't some truth in it, I doubt it would have survived this long. But prayer works. Maybe that is the material condition at the heart of the thing ...
The points you bring up really require an entire essay or three to respond to. Perhaps I'll do that!
In the meantime, what probably isn't as evident as it should have been in this essay is that I'm attempting to point out how cosmological shifts occur, and how there is always an underlying "bare life" that resists these transformations.
Again, drawing on what's happening to the Woke, those who now believe gender is a "felt sense" would themselves describe what has happened as a liberating "evolution" in thought, with of course the idea of progress or betterment woven into their sense of evolution. For thousands and thousands of years, humans were crushed by the idea of sexual difference being physical, but now we are able to transcend those primitive ways of seeing the world into a new light of understanding.
For those of us wary or critical of this new cosmology, it doesn't sound like liberation at all, especially because it needs to transform everyone else's cosmologies. That's a missionary zeal, and of course they've got a particular hatred for the "heretics" who don't fully convert.
The matter of Pelagius I mentioned is relevant as well, since his "heresy" was ultimately a compromise between the Roman Christian doctrines and pagan beliefs. Similarly now, those who say 'yes, some people are trans, but no this doesn't mean there is no such thing as sexual difference' are particularly hated by the new converts, since they undermine the totalizing nature of this gender religion.
Maybe it's also helpful if I point out that monotheism in my view is really just henotheism, which is why I can recognize the sacred of Christians without it conflicting with the sacred I recognize. In polytheisms, the idea of revering only one god was quite common: many people devoted themselves exclusively to a god or goddess and didn't have anything to do with other gods. In fact, the early Hebrews were henotheist (thus the "no other gods before me"). It was only when the priest class was trying to consolidate power that they then began to insist that there were no other gods and to order the slaughter of those who still believed otherwise.
Maybe the best way to see what I am getting at is to look at atheists. Most atheists (in my experience, at least) tend to be utterly indifferent to other people's beliefs in god or gods, happy to just let others believe whatever they want. Then, there is an extreme minority of them who insist the entire world must be made to believe as they do, who would destroy all churches if they had their way.
The need to totalize a cosmology onto others can happen in any religious framework. And I think that's the machine you identify, the inescapable process of totalizing all of human life into a singular cosmology that pulls everyone into it and turns them into mere cogs, mere consumers, mere subjects.
And yeah, I think this ought to become an essay. :)
Do the essay. You can just glue all the comments together ;-)
Really, the totalising force is the key to the whole conversation. What you say about gender ideology is very interesting. It certainly has a remarkably affinity to the worst kind of totalising religious oppression. Personally, as a Christian, I believe that imposing Christian belief on anyone is a particularly gross sin for which an answer will have to be made. We are all supposed to be created with free will. If I feel I must pretend to believe in anything, whether it be Christ or Diana or transgenderism, I am being quite genuinely spiritually oppressed.
Henotheism! I had to smile. Does that mean the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are out there somewhere in your pantheon along side your gods? The Trinity, They are a very powerful god. I am jokingly serious, hanging out in plurality is fun. Speaking your truth and still being friendly acquaintances.
I remember feeling utter strangeness upon realizing that Christianity, among other things, is centered around a human sacrifice performed by God! Romans 3:25. I had placed trust in the risen Jesus as the way to God and hadn’t really considered the purpose of his death. By modern secular standards the “Lamb, looking as if it had been slain” is Aztecian! Apparently the ancient philosophical Greeks thought it was weird too. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 or is it wyrd? Fortunately it was a done once for all time thing not needed to be repeated with a multiplicity of victims. Glad that’s over, “It is finished!”
Although, of course, the Lamb sacrifices itself, voluntarily, for others. Weird most certainly - but then all religious claims are weird by material standards. In my view, the universe is just very, very weird and we persist in pretending it isn't ...
I have a lot of difficulty emphasizing Jesus’ crucifixion as the ‘universal sacrifice’ that enabled the subsequent ability to ‘save’ all who believed in him and this can stand in for all our ‘sins’ and offer salvation. I don’t find it necessary to emphasize the sacrifice as his true mission anymore than the millions sacrificed by war and conflict who happened to die for a just cause. He died as a threat to empire and state, didn’t he? Wasn’t he trying to restore truth and justice in his teachings? Isn’t that the emphasis and meaning and the transcendent and mystical way he embodied and pointed to? You are the light of the world. We, in our being, when hearing this, how do we then respond, how do we try to understand the various teachings that he gave. And also how much can we truly ascribe to Jesus, as what was written was decades and centuries after his life? Did Jesus come to establish a new religion and would he be accepting of the result?
You are the light of the world. Powerful, precise, challenging, humbling. And the ways into this light would seem to offer many opportunities that have been accessible to infinite routes. This is what matters to me, I cannot define it with particularity as in the Triune or God or gods. And it speaks to me of the depths. And in my view we are not sister to nature, we are and of nature, as there would be no breath, no life possible, a dead rock, and we would not be embodied. Creation is of the divine, is of the light, no separation. And thus the pantheistic gods are an expression a communication, a way into a realm of connection to the divine. Still a mystery though and not an endpoint in definition.
We are being called to the light as always. How can we bring it forth into our time? To restore peace and live in harmony with the potential offered. If we would humbly turn away from Taking and return to what nature’s design processes (as an embodiment of the divine) instructs us in how to live within it. The nuance and distraction of words and interpretation is endless, and I admit, rather presumptive. In need of composting so the fertility gained nourishes each in his/her garden and so on thru the seasons. And we can feed each other and all kin, each digesting in order to breathe the light
Yes, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” and the only place in the New Testament where the term “kingdom of God” is explicitly defined is by Paul who says in Romans 14 that the “kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” I prefer an older word (rightwiseness)once used in the place of ‘righteousness’ in translation, as righteousness is a good word now having an unpleasant connotation - yes, rightwiseness - we are now rightwise with God as a gift through Christ!
Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization thought the ready conversion of the Irish was that they found what Patrick preached was a better deal than what they had. Another speculation that needs a time machine to verify!
“Whether they are 'gods' is another matter. I'll only say that I went into Wicca thinking they were and came out with quite a different worldview ... Christian caution about these beings is very wise, I believe.”
I have to wonder if such beings realized you would end up someday batting for the other team…
What a powerful discussion. Wow. Feeling into the duality here... creator and created. Liking this frame very much. It speaks to a thought form I’ve been sitting with... that we are children of the earth (created) and children of the sun (creator).
I resonate with this frame partly because I cannot inhabit this duality without deeply honoring both. Clearly all that is here on earth necessitates both celestial and material parents.
The notion of mana, chi or spirit has always infused indigenous cultures. Pervasive and powerful… the “one source” and ground for all things. The impulse to prioritize that energy feels like an natural pivot point on a personal and collective level. Serve her/them. Serve him/it. It’s like being right or left handed in some ways. Either way we are serving life.
What I love so much about this exchange is the obvious deep respect that two people I admire so profoundly are bringing to this subtle difference. It gives me hope. As does Paul’s story of peaceful mission work.
The interior experience of God while not polytheistic is curiously and strangely Triune., Three for the price of one and much more fun than plain singularity. A dance in personal divine quantum physics - inside and out and all around!
Hmmm, it’s difficult to parse the inner/outer journey between these two roads taken. I resonate with Rhys’ discussion of Dianna and her persistence thru the centuries as a force for connection and worship of the wild; also for the portrayal of the imperial domination of Rome to move the old god of the horse to horsemen. An example of the usurpation and co-opting paradigm that infinitely cloaks and obfuscates our truer natures as part and of the world. AND we, the totality of WE, are the Word made manifest. Is that not the paradox? Why must there be an either/or?
It is a beautiful essay here and one I relish from Rhys for his deep and discerning analysis of the historical origins. Particularly the contemporary cultural and societal citizenry of France who still express a collective sense of power in action that the rest of the West has wimped out on. I would ask Paul to consider his own neighborhood in Ireland and the persistence of dimensional beings beyond the human and the surrender in recognition of our limitations to any mental constructs defining reality as This or That. Jesus in and of himself seems to be a transcendent being here to teach and reconnect to eternal truths that had been again co-opted by the elites of his day.
However transcendence is by nature universal. To exclude or limit or define what other possible sources of light fall on the earth will not bring us toward cooperation, collaboration and the endeavor to turn away from these horrible conflicts and rape of our home and our family of life. A place in an ever growing number of beings yearns to find harmony and true relationship in concert with our home on this beautiful earth. We are in despair over continuous war and the for profit subjugation of life. We need not dwell on the particulars of our personal heartfelt beliefs. Rather dwell on manifesting the greater good for all, knowing we are not alone.
The boots, the boots! My eyes have been opened! But seriously how did I never notice this before ? I need to know more about bear and sheep (?) statue you pictured. I agree with Paul K. that the Roman habit of conflating Gods and Goddesses into to the classical archetype does not then have a necessary follow on as ‘one god’. This is a different thread that had been current for centuries (Plato, Zoroaster, Ankenaton etc).
I am late to this and cannot add much except perhaps to suggest an even longer reading list. Paul is partly to blame because a recent essay of his flagged up Jeremy Naydler. I had known of Jeremy for a while from a friend and correspondent but am now reading Naydler's 2018 'In the Shadow of the Machine'.
Such well sourced summaries from long careers of contemplation and scholarship are assuming for me the role of textbooks, a chance to save history for the future, and bridge the inevitable discontinuities as contemporary consciousness changes with society.
Its a number of years now but the formative years of Judaeo-Christian thought described by Geza Vermes ‘Christian Beginnings’ came at a time of a belated reassessment of my inevitably Christian heritage. Although with a vaguely Christian protestant background, I had not gone to Church as a child, so ours was a 'folk-version', which at times disputed the stuff we were obliged to participate in at school at the time. (I am going back into the 1950s in England.) I remember being somewhat shocked when I first met the Nicaean Creed when I was 17. Vermes is highly qualified to introduce the early Church thinkers leading to Niceae.
The Time Machine? I guess we would find it difficult to comprehend what was actually happening if we could go back in any literal sense. I respect the difficulty of historical perspective witnessed in the work of Naydler and Vermes, when almost literally they stub real scholarly toes on the Antikythera Mechanism or the Dead Sea Scrolls. Naydler’s book is wonderfully illustrated, and I likewise much appreciate the illustrations in this current essay by Rhyd.
Thanks
PS I first encountered the 19thC romantic ‘Celtic’ Yeats in an old book of his early poems picked up at a junk shop when I was 18. It contained ‘The Wandering of Oisin’, an unlikely conversation between St Patrick and Oisin, but strong stuff.
Very interesting essay! Reading of the pantheons of gods from cultures such as Babylon, Greece, Rome, and Egypt (my understanding is simple and basic), it seems like they're often parallel - same gods with different names (or very close). I know I've listed empires which perhaps pulled all the local gods into their pantheon (I really have no idea). I'm curious as to your thoughts on this.
Reading history doesn't present a very kind view of many polytheistic cultures. The fear, the tribal conflict, etc. Now, much of that may be modern bias of course. However, I am curious if you have done a serious examination of these early cultures (or, do we have enough of a record to even do so?) to establish that there were indeed peaceful peoples who just always ended up being swallowed up by empire/local warlords. Or perhaps, there has always been a mixture of peaceful people and those who create conflict and pain - whether based on the rules of their gods or at the behest of their empire.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I am curious - my impression from your piece is that we would all be wise to embrace our local gods and return to an earlier simpler form of living, with a local and peaceful devotion to these more peaceful gods.
This post, Rhyd. It makes me feel honored to have been given my name, which I didn't like as a child, and which is one of the Greek names for Artemis, in her moon goddess form. Didn't get exactly till now how she was a goddess of the Wild. The description of how Euro & American "leftists" serve the oppressive class expresses clearly my concerns. Whenever I see UK creatives who claim to be "pagan," and they parrot all the official multibillion dollar PR firm narratives of the neoliberal ruling class, I feel so sad. Part of them honors the Old Ways but other parts buy into the US Democratic Party vision of how we should all live. Many are heading to Mastodon, because Twitter is supposedly contaminated now (the only true leftist journalists I know are still on Twitter).
Oh!! Oh!!! So much in here that resonates, disturbs, and enlivens. Also you made me laugh. Christians in funny clothes.
That's why I set my hopes on peak oil. It is physically impossible that all the fossil fuel extraction will last forever.
Sometimes I want to remind people that ultimately, capitalism is not something otherworldy but a cultural and economic relation that is dependent on certain conditions, as you say, among them unlimited energy extraction. It will ultimately end, even without a heroic struggle, even without a globe-wide spiritual awakening because it is something that exists in this world and nothing of this world is eternal.
I think there's a hole in this. I've been trying to put my finger on it, acknowledging my own biases as I do.
Maybe what you're doing here is constructing your own kind of political religion. I think the problem is in the notion that, for example, 'All the huntress goddesses became Dianas, and then there were no more huntress goddesses at all but just a one-god.'
That's a description of the creation of a monoculture from varying and diverse cultures. But it doesn't say anything about the reality at its heart - or otherwise. It sounds like a political claim from someone who wants to condemn empire and capitalism. I am happy to join you in that condemnation. But it doesn't seem to me to be the case that varying gods were channeled into a 'mono-God' for political reasons. It seems to me that people stopped believing in the varied gods and started believing in the creator god instead.
I'm not suggesting force and politics were not often involved. Of course. But I think the claim is not just political. I also think it's important to see that the 'gods' of the pagans and the 'God' of the Christians (and other 'monotheists') are not comparable, despite the common use of the confusing word. It's the difference between creator and created. The Christian God is 'everywhere present and fills all things' - created reality itself and is within it, alive amongst it, and total. That's a metaphysical claim. It's a huge metaphsyical shift that is happening as the world moves from 'pagan' to monotheist. It's by no means just a crude political manouevre. Some new sense is opening up. And the ultimate question is not political. Does 'the one' exist, and if so what we can we know about him/it? And how can we reforge our borken connection? That's a move from created to creator.
It's also worth saying that medieval Christendom, with its emphasis on the sinful nature of usury, held off the development of capitalism for many centuries, as did the eastern Orthodox world. It was the reformation which opened up the space for radical individualism. Something else we can blame the Americans for ;-)
I'm not sure I've explained myself very well. I'm not trying to be defensive, but as someone who has been both pagan and Christian, I can see a radically different worldview at the heart of things, and a different experience too, I think.
"I also think it's important to see that the 'gods' of the pagans and the 'God' of the Christians (and other 'monotheists') are not comparable, despite the common use of the confusing word. It's the difference between creator and created."
That is begging the question. Taking a claim of Christianity (and the other monotheisms) and making it the foundation of a claim to their truthfulness.
Well, not really. You could just as easily make the claim from the other direction. What Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews etc refer to as 'God or 'Allah' or any number of other names is not the same order of being as, say, Diana or Thor. So the worldview and the metpahysics, if you like, is very different. Obviously on all sides it is a matter of faith.
I always enjoy your comments and am especially grateful that you read me. And I really like that you and I have both seen both paganism and Christianity from the inside, and despite going in opposite directions come to rather similar conclusions about the core sickness of the modern world.
As a few points of clarification, I believe the monocultural drive started with empire, not with Christianity. Roman "evocatio," which renamed the gods of others according to their own gods, began that process, even though it was really hard to make these names stick even within the center of Rome. Thus the scores of additional epithets for certain gods (Dionysus especially) which helped allow the recognition of difference without admitting separation.
Another point is that I don't think all the pagan gods were squished up into the Christian one-god, but rather that the Judeo-Christian (the woke don't like that phrase, by the way, don't tell them I used it!) one-god came to displace the others into first lesser gods and then later demons and then false superstitions.
That point is relevant to the change you're referring to, which again I think started before Christianity (with Plato, really, whose work informed Paul and other early church fathers). But I think we can't look at that change without also noting the changing material conditions of people and the birth of the polis, the civitas, and especially the imperial state. As that rising form of the state flattened difference and tried to codify thought and belief in order to govern, the changes it wrought to everyday life affected not just what people believed, but how they believed. That ultimately molded people into easier acceptance of universality.
Also helpful to remember here is that I see 'political religion' the way Carl Schmitt and Georgio Agamben do, that modern political forms are all merely theological forms. But there's an extra layer here when we think of Orthodoxy and other isolated Christianities that either lost (as with Orthodoxy) or were separated from (as with Irish Christianity) universalizing political force. That both developed more contemplative traditions with greatly reduced and in some cases completely absent missionary drive gives us a sense of what Christianity might have looked like (and still could) untethered to empire.
We of course absolutely agree about the Reformation. I'm not a violent person but I'd do some really, really unkind things to John Calvin were I given the chance.
From my knowledge of history early Irish Christianity possessed a active missionary drive Christianizing Scotland and re-Christianizing part of England after the Anglo Saxon conquest and extended that same impulse to the continent, continuing the example of its fervent founder - Patrick, whose own autobiographical words are here - https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/pat-confession.asp Patrick IMO is an interesting blend of the sacramental, evangelical, and even Pentecostal strands of Christianity, he recounts an experience that sounds like he spoke in tongues!
Yeah, Patrick was a zealot. My reference more is to the way in which the bardic druid traditions carried on in Ireland and Scotland until Rome found out about it. In fact, Patrick was there to 'purify' the wayward Christians on behalf of Bishop Palladius and Pope Celestine, both of whom were trying to suppress the teachings of Pelagius in the British Isles.
“Patrick was there to purify . . . . .” Perhaps, but that could be an academic guess or speculation about what was going on with no fear of being verified one way or another as the records are so sparse. Patrick plainly states in the writing I referred that he was called in a visionary dream by the one who laid his life down for him.
I’m a zealot, you’re a zealot, but we aim to be nice zealots! The world needs kinder, nicer zealots. I think Paul is a nice zealot too. As is Charles Eisenstein.
I'd guess the Druids were zealots too. From what we know, they were certainly not lovely earth-loving pacifists! I agree with Jeff that you are also a nice zealot ;-) at least since your conversion from wokeness. Perhaps this is the state we should all be aiming for.
Sounds like I should be reading Agamben. As if my book pile weren't already big enough.
I think we're about to see, in coming years, decades and centuries, what Christianity again looks like untethered from empire. Except in Russia! I think this will be a very good thing. Mind you, I'm also mindful of what some Christian historians have suggested - that God's purpose for the Roman empire all along was to spread the Christian story around the world ... I rather like that idea.
I think you're right about Plato being an important pivot point. I've seen Orthodox churches with frescoes of the Greek philosophers on them for this reason. I'm coming to see the distinction between creator and created as the key distinction between the 'monotheists' and the 'pagans', and the word 'God' just to be actively confusing. There are any number of levels of spiritual reality. A Christian, a Muslim, a Jew or a Sikh is trying to direct their attention to the highest one: to the Source. Many indigenous cosmologies also did this. It does not preclude the existence of many lessers beings of course. Whether they are 'gods' is another matter. I'll only say that I went into Wicca thinking they were and came out with quite a different worldview ... Christian caution about these beings is very wise, I believe.
I'm still seeing your Marxism coming through though! It sounds like you're suggesting that a belief in 'monotheism' dervies from economic conditions. If that were true though, why would we find that belief in cultures the world over, including small tribal cultures, outside and before empire? What if it's not a 'belief' but an understanding - one which, in fact, a focus on lcalised, earthbound 'gods' of springs and wells and woods can even obscure? I can see how empires can work much more easily with dentralised religions, priestly hierarchies and 'monotheisms.' But it doesn't follow that they spring from this source.
Jeff's point below about St Patrick is interesting. Ireland was of course Christianised by Patrick, a former British slave boy, virtually single-handedly - but also entirely peacefully. Interestingly, it is speculated that pre-Christian beliefs in Ireland must have been sufficiently similar to that of Christianity - perhaps a worship of the 'One' - that conversion seemend natural. I think it's worth bearing in mind that missionary work has many different faces. St Herman of Alaska to me is the finest example of modern missionary work which is entirely peaceful and respectful of indigenous customs. It can be done. But as you say, faith has to be de-linked fom imperial politics, and from politics in general. I'm with you on the state being the heart of the rot.
It's more my materialism than my Marxism, since by the material conditions I mean more than just economics. So, for material conditions of gender identity now, we'd need to include the widespread use of smartphones and the internet as well as the physical alienation from community that modern cities enforce in any explanation for why so many people are "converting" to trans and non-binary. And for the transition from polytheism to monotheism, we'd have to include the violent destruction of pagan shrines (and the pagans who venerated there) to have a fuller idea of why people converted.
Also, there's a careful distinction we need to keep in mind between the ideas of an overarching "source" or singularity in indigenous animisms and monotheism, which is that often the structures of their cosmologies get re-narrated in a way to fit the contact culture.
For instance, many First Nations in America now talk about "the great spirit," which is seen as a kind of monotheistic belief now. This was actually the influence of the Quakers attempting to convert them: they translated their sense of the ground of being into "great spirit" because they were looking for commonalities that would help in converting them. The same happened on a much larger scale in Hinduism, where English colonial administrators tried to frame the millions of gods as all being facets of a larger, singular god or "emanation." Basically, the monad suddenly appeared in Hinduism on account of British rule.
The cosmological clash here can be seen if you look the other direction, especially in Africa. Christian missionaries complained very often that animist African tribes kept merely adding Jesus into the pantheons instead of replacing all their other gods with him. That's because polytheisms are generally additive, often taking on foreign gods whenever new peoples are added to their societies. (I've argued elsewhere this is a much better model of pluralism than neoliberal "multiculturalism," which really just tries to make everyone suppress their distinctions).
I agree we'll see many more examples of Christianity outside empire. Unfortunately, knowing America too well and having grown up in Evangelical/Baptist Christianity, I think we'll also see more examples of Christianity married to political power. And I do think that the Woke ideology is really a new kind of perverse protestant Christianity, complete with a metaphysics about the soul (true gender), original sin (whiteness, privilege), salvation/redemption (confessing your settler colonial identity), and a terrifying missionary drive.
I entirely agree about wokeness. Have you written about this in your book? Agree also about smartphones being the necessary precondition for the transgender craze ... and much else.
Jeff makes an interesting point below. It's worth pondering. The Christian God is a triune God. Christianity in that sense is not quite 'monotheistic' in the way that, say, Islam is. There are not three gods, of course, but the One has three aspects we can experience, and they are all quite different in their action in the world and in our relationship with them.
I'm not sure your point about Hinduism is quite right. I don't know enough about it to argue, but I hear from my Indian family that there was always an overarching 'one' that loomed over the various smaller Gods. Overall, I'm not convinced by your case though. It seems like you're painting a picture that suggests the natural way of things is polytheism/animism, and that 'monotheism' is a modern perversion. Correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm not, you basically seem to believe that 'one God' is a falsehood bred of civilisation, and the reality is lots of little 'gods' instead.
Obviously I disagree, though we're not going to get to the bottom of who's right in this lifetime. I will come back to the distinction between creator and created though, and propose another way of seeing things. Instead of 'monotheism' being a violent imposition of empires who want centralsed control systems, I see it as an evolution of human understanding.
In the Christian story, for example, the 'one God' is always the god of a small and outsider-ish people who triumph against the odds, and his son comes to live amongst the poor and excluded before being killed by an empire. (I'm always struck by the fact that Christ spent his earthly time in villages, small towns, mountains and deserts. When he goes to the power centre - the city - it kills him.) The Christian faith was small and persecuted for 300 years. It was of no use to power, which was quite happy with its paganism.
In fact, I think a case could be made that Roman-style paganism is much easier for empires to use to their ends. Rather than having to forcibly convert new peoples to your faith, you can just incorporate their belief systems into yours, as long as they agree to burn incense to Caesar and pay their taxes. Which is just what the Romans did.
It's always worth bearing in mind too the sheer awfulness of many 'pagan' and 'polytheistic' and 'indigneous' worldviews. Tom Holland talks about this in his book 'Dominion.' One that sticks in my mindis the Aztec god Tlalac, who 'required the sacrifice of children who had recently been made to weep.' Chinua Achebe, in 'Things Fall Apart', writes of the tradition of his tribe as regards the birth of twins, which were regarded as unlucky. The mother was supposed to throw them into the jungle to die. For days she would hear them crying as they died but was not allowed to rescue them. When the Christian missionaries arrived and condemned the practice as evil, mothers and young women became - voluntarily - their first converts.
Back to my main point, which is that perhaps monotheism, as you call it, is a growing awareness of what is beyond the created world. I always liked Chesterton's quote: 'nature is not our mother, she is our sister.' That was quite revolutionary when I first heard it. It's why we don't worship nature, but we do - or we should - revere and protect it. But to raise ourselves beyond it is to seek a union with the source/the 'ground of being' - which to a Christian is not simply some universal 'one' but is a loving creator with a desire to restore a broken creation to its original state. That is a story of redemption and restoration - something which riases us up and beyond. It is more than any pagan god can do, or would. And if there weren't some truth in it, I doubt it would have survived this long. But prayer works. Maybe that is the material condition at the heart of the thing ...
The points you bring up really require an entire essay or three to respond to. Perhaps I'll do that!
In the meantime, what probably isn't as evident as it should have been in this essay is that I'm attempting to point out how cosmological shifts occur, and how there is always an underlying "bare life" that resists these transformations.
Again, drawing on what's happening to the Woke, those who now believe gender is a "felt sense" would themselves describe what has happened as a liberating "evolution" in thought, with of course the idea of progress or betterment woven into their sense of evolution. For thousands and thousands of years, humans were crushed by the idea of sexual difference being physical, but now we are able to transcend those primitive ways of seeing the world into a new light of understanding.
For those of us wary or critical of this new cosmology, it doesn't sound like liberation at all, especially because it needs to transform everyone else's cosmologies. That's a missionary zeal, and of course they've got a particular hatred for the "heretics" who don't fully convert.
The matter of Pelagius I mentioned is relevant as well, since his "heresy" was ultimately a compromise between the Roman Christian doctrines and pagan beliefs. Similarly now, those who say 'yes, some people are trans, but no this doesn't mean there is no such thing as sexual difference' are particularly hated by the new converts, since they undermine the totalizing nature of this gender religion.
Maybe it's also helpful if I point out that monotheism in my view is really just henotheism, which is why I can recognize the sacred of Christians without it conflicting with the sacred I recognize. In polytheisms, the idea of revering only one god was quite common: many people devoted themselves exclusively to a god or goddess and didn't have anything to do with other gods. In fact, the early Hebrews were henotheist (thus the "no other gods before me"). It was only when the priest class was trying to consolidate power that they then began to insist that there were no other gods and to order the slaughter of those who still believed otherwise.
Maybe the best way to see what I am getting at is to look at atheists. Most atheists (in my experience, at least) tend to be utterly indifferent to other people's beliefs in god or gods, happy to just let others believe whatever they want. Then, there is an extreme minority of them who insist the entire world must be made to believe as they do, who would destroy all churches if they had their way.
The need to totalize a cosmology onto others can happen in any religious framework. And I think that's the machine you identify, the inescapable process of totalizing all of human life into a singular cosmology that pulls everyone into it and turns them into mere cogs, mere consumers, mere subjects.
And yeah, I think this ought to become an essay. :)
Do the essay. You can just glue all the comments together ;-)
Really, the totalising force is the key to the whole conversation. What you say about gender ideology is very interesting. It certainly has a remarkably affinity to the worst kind of totalising religious oppression. Personally, as a Christian, I believe that imposing Christian belief on anyone is a particularly gross sin for which an answer will have to be made. We are all supposed to be created with free will. If I feel I must pretend to believe in anything, whether it be Christ or Diana or transgenderism, I am being quite genuinely spiritually oppressed.
Henotheism! I had to smile. Does that mean the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are out there somewhere in your pantheon along side your gods? The Trinity, They are a very powerful god. I am jokingly serious, hanging out in plurality is fun. Speaking your truth and still being friendly acquaintances.
I remember feeling utter strangeness upon realizing that Christianity, among other things, is centered around a human sacrifice performed by God! Romans 3:25. I had placed trust in the risen Jesus as the way to God and hadn’t really considered the purpose of his death. By modern secular standards the “Lamb, looking as if it had been slain” is Aztecian! Apparently the ancient philosophical Greeks thought it was weird too. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 or is it wyrd? Fortunately it was a done once for all time thing not needed to be repeated with a multiplicity of victims. Glad that’s over, “It is finished!”
Although, of course, the Lamb sacrifices itself, voluntarily, for others. Weird most certainly - but then all religious claims are weird by material standards. In my view, the universe is just very, very weird and we persist in pretending it isn't ...
I have a lot of difficulty emphasizing Jesus’ crucifixion as the ‘universal sacrifice’ that enabled the subsequent ability to ‘save’ all who believed in him and this can stand in for all our ‘sins’ and offer salvation. I don’t find it necessary to emphasize the sacrifice as his true mission anymore than the millions sacrificed by war and conflict who happened to die for a just cause. He died as a threat to empire and state, didn’t he? Wasn’t he trying to restore truth and justice in his teachings? Isn’t that the emphasis and meaning and the transcendent and mystical way he embodied and pointed to? You are the light of the world. We, in our being, when hearing this, how do we then respond, how do we try to understand the various teachings that he gave. And also how much can we truly ascribe to Jesus, as what was written was decades and centuries after his life? Did Jesus come to establish a new religion and would he be accepting of the result?
You are the light of the world. Powerful, precise, challenging, humbling. And the ways into this light would seem to offer many opportunities that have been accessible to infinite routes. This is what matters to me, I cannot define it with particularity as in the Triune or God or gods. And it speaks to me of the depths. And in my view we are not sister to nature, we are and of nature, as there would be no breath, no life possible, a dead rock, and we would not be embodied. Creation is of the divine, is of the light, no separation. And thus the pantheistic gods are an expression a communication, a way into a realm of connection to the divine. Still a mystery though and not an endpoint in definition.
We are being called to the light as always. How can we bring it forth into our time? To restore peace and live in harmony with the potential offered. If we would humbly turn away from Taking and return to what nature’s design processes (as an embodiment of the divine) instructs us in how to live within it. The nuance and distraction of words and interpretation is endless, and I admit, rather presumptive. In need of composting so the fertility gained nourishes each in his/her garden and so on thru the seasons. And we can feed each other and all kin, each digesting in order to breathe the light
Yes, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” and the only place in the New Testament where the term “kingdom of God” is explicitly defined is by Paul who says in Romans 14 that the “kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” I prefer an older word (rightwiseness)once used in the place of ‘righteousness’ in translation, as righteousness is a good word now having an unpleasant connotation - yes, rightwiseness - we are now rightwise with God as a gift through Christ!
Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization thought the ready conversion of the Irish was that they found what Patrick preached was a better deal than what they had. Another speculation that needs a time machine to verify!
“Whether they are 'gods' is another matter. I'll only say that I went into Wicca thinking they were and came out with quite a different worldview ... Christian caution about these beings is very wise, I believe.”
I have to wonder if such beings realized you would end up someday batting for the other team…
I doubt it. But I was dragged out of there and enlightened as to my delusions.
Does that imply that practicing Wiccans are deluded? And that Christians are enlightened?
Depends what the Wiccans think they're doing. And how the Christians are practicing.
What a powerful discussion. Wow. Feeling into the duality here... creator and created. Liking this frame very much. It speaks to a thought form I’ve been sitting with... that we are children of the earth (created) and children of the sun (creator).
I resonate with this frame partly because I cannot inhabit this duality without deeply honoring both. Clearly all that is here on earth necessitates both celestial and material parents.
The notion of mana, chi or spirit has always infused indigenous cultures. Pervasive and powerful… the “one source” and ground for all things. The impulse to prioritize that energy feels like an natural pivot point on a personal and collective level. Serve her/them. Serve him/it. It’s like being right or left handed in some ways. Either way we are serving life.
What I love so much about this exchange is the obvious deep respect that two people I admire so profoundly are bringing to this subtle difference. It gives me hope. As does Paul’s story of peaceful mission work.
Grateful.
Hi, Brian, good to bump into you here and there, my fellow traveler!
The interior experience of God while not polytheistic is curiously and strangely Triune., Three for the price of one and much more fun than plain singularity. A dance in personal divine quantum physics - inside and out and all around!
Hmmm, it’s difficult to parse the inner/outer journey between these two roads taken. I resonate with Rhys’ discussion of Dianna and her persistence thru the centuries as a force for connection and worship of the wild; also for the portrayal of the imperial domination of Rome to move the old god of the horse to horsemen. An example of the usurpation and co-opting paradigm that infinitely cloaks and obfuscates our truer natures as part and of the world. AND we, the totality of WE, are the Word made manifest. Is that not the paradox? Why must there be an either/or?
It is a beautiful essay here and one I relish from Rhys for his deep and discerning analysis of the historical origins. Particularly the contemporary cultural and societal citizenry of France who still express a collective sense of power in action that the rest of the West has wimped out on. I would ask Paul to consider his own neighborhood in Ireland and the persistence of dimensional beings beyond the human and the surrender in recognition of our limitations to any mental constructs defining reality as This or That. Jesus in and of himself seems to be a transcendent being here to teach and reconnect to eternal truths that had been again co-opted by the elites of his day.
However transcendence is by nature universal. To exclude or limit or define what other possible sources of light fall on the earth will not bring us toward cooperation, collaboration and the endeavor to turn away from these horrible conflicts and rape of our home and our family of life. A place in an ever growing number of beings yearns to find harmony and true relationship in concert with our home on this beautiful earth. We are in despair over continuous war and the for profit subjugation of life. We need not dwell on the particulars of our personal heartfelt beliefs. Rather dwell on manifesting the greater good for all, knowing we are not alone.
The boots, the boots! My eyes have been opened! But seriously how did I never notice this before ? I need to know more about bear and sheep (?) statue you pictured. I agree with Paul K. that the Roman habit of conflating Gods and Goddesses into to the classical archetype does not then have a necessary follow on as ‘one god’. This is a different thread that had been current for centuries (Plato, Zoroaster, Ankenaton etc).
I love her boots. :)
See my reply to Paul about that transition.
I am late to this and cannot add much except perhaps to suggest an even longer reading list. Paul is partly to blame because a recent essay of his flagged up Jeremy Naydler. I had known of Jeremy for a while from a friend and correspondent but am now reading Naydler's 2018 'In the Shadow of the Machine'.
Such well sourced summaries from long careers of contemplation and scholarship are assuming for me the role of textbooks, a chance to save history for the future, and bridge the inevitable discontinuities as contemporary consciousness changes with society.
Its a number of years now but the formative years of Judaeo-Christian thought described by Geza Vermes ‘Christian Beginnings’ came at a time of a belated reassessment of my inevitably Christian heritage. Although with a vaguely Christian protestant background, I had not gone to Church as a child, so ours was a 'folk-version', which at times disputed the stuff we were obliged to participate in at school at the time. (I am going back into the 1950s in England.) I remember being somewhat shocked when I first met the Nicaean Creed when I was 17. Vermes is highly qualified to introduce the early Church thinkers leading to Niceae.
The Time Machine? I guess we would find it difficult to comprehend what was actually happening if we could go back in any literal sense. I respect the difficulty of historical perspective witnessed in the work of Naydler and Vermes, when almost literally they stub real scholarly toes on the Antikythera Mechanism or the Dead Sea Scrolls. Naydler’s book is wonderfully illustrated, and I likewise much appreciate the illustrations in this current essay by Rhyd.
Thanks
PS I first encountered the 19thC romantic ‘Celtic’ Yeats in an old book of his early poems picked up at a junk shop when I was 18. It contained ‘The Wandering of Oisin’, an unlikely conversation between St Patrick and Oisin, but strong stuff.
Very interesting essay! Reading of the pantheons of gods from cultures such as Babylon, Greece, Rome, and Egypt (my understanding is simple and basic), it seems like they're often parallel - same gods with different names (or very close). I know I've listed empires which perhaps pulled all the local gods into their pantheon (I really have no idea). I'm curious as to your thoughts on this.
Reading history doesn't present a very kind view of many polytheistic cultures. The fear, the tribal conflict, etc. Now, much of that may be modern bias of course. However, I am curious if you have done a serious examination of these early cultures (or, do we have enough of a record to even do so?) to establish that there were indeed peaceful peoples who just always ended up being swallowed up by empire/local warlords. Or perhaps, there has always been a mixture of peaceful people and those who create conflict and pain - whether based on the rules of their gods or at the behest of their empire.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I am curious - my impression from your piece is that we would all be wise to embrace our local gods and return to an earlier simpler form of living, with a local and peaceful devotion to these more peaceful gods.
This post, Rhyd. It makes me feel honored to have been given my name, which I didn't like as a child, and which is one of the Greek names for Artemis, in her moon goddess form. Didn't get exactly till now how she was a goddess of the Wild. The description of how Euro & American "leftists" serve the oppressive class expresses clearly my concerns. Whenever I see UK creatives who claim to be "pagan," and they parrot all the official multibillion dollar PR firm narratives of the neoliberal ruling class, I feel so sad. Part of them honors the Old Ways but other parts buy into the US Democratic Party vision of how we should all live. Many are heading to Mastodon, because Twitter is supposedly contaminated now (the only true leftist journalists I know are still on Twitter).