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Veneration 20181203: Reviving a Dead Religion
Imagine, if you will, that a battle had gone differently on October 10, 732 in France. The Battle of Tours not only stopped the Islamic conquest of Europe from Africa and up the Iberian Peninsula, but started the reversal which would culminate in 1492 with the Iberian Peninsula united into two Christian kingdoms with the Muslims (and the Jews) eventually cast out or forced to convert. What would have happened had the Muslims won? The battle took place at least half the way into the heart of France. Had the Muslims been successful there, things would have been dark for European Christendom. It’s possible that Byzantium could have faced a two-front war within a few hundred years. Byzantium might have fallen earlier, leaving only Islam in Europe with Paganism on the Northern fringes in areas that were not yet Christianized. Over time, those areas, too, might be brought into Islam.
Now, imagine further that a thousand years after the thorough conquest, a thousand years after the last Christians and Jews had converted to Islam, that someone wanted to revive the old religion. Perhaps Islam was starting to fall under its own weight. The only problem is that nobody had wanted to be seen as trying to preserve the old religion against Islam, so very little was left. All that scholars had found about Christianity was one fairly well-preserved version of the Book of Psalms, and then some attestations throughout time that didn’t really get into exactly how the whole religion worked and was practiced. Certainly, it lacked the cosmogony and theology components. Further, there had been three scholars writing about “the old ways” a couple of hundred years after the fall of Christianity, but the true scholars of the old languages, history, and archaeology were pretty sure that their writings were very tainted with their Islamic religion, plus they were probably misunderstanding things from spotty oral history that had passed down for two hundred years by the time the stories reached them.
Imagine, then, that you wanted to revive this old religion to take the place of a moribund Islam that nobody any longer believed or cared about, at least in Europe. Would you look at the lack of data and give it up as a lost cause? Or would you fake it until you make it?
Germanic Neopaganism is in exactly that situation. During the Romantic Period of the Nineteenth Century and into the early Twentieth Century, some German Romanticists tried reviving the old religion of the Volk. This was tied up with German Nationalism. Germany only “kind of” became a country in 1871. Before that, it had been a loose confederation of states with related languages and traditions for about a thousand years. Even then, it was still not what we would think of as one nation until after WWI. Beginning especially after the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, many Germans were feeling the lack caused by their disunity. They wanted one ring to rule them all…or something like that. And that is the period, while the Brothers Grimm were starting to study old German folk tales and Beethoven was writing big works and Richard Wagner was glorifying the old stories with the Ring Cycle, that there was first interest in reviving the old Germanic Paganism. These revival movements went through into the Twentieth Century and got themselves entangled with German National Socialism, which sort of put a damper on them for a quarter of a century. But by 1970, some people were back at it, trying to revive the old Germanic Paganism.
There was only one problem. They really never had too much information to revive it with. You know how I asked you to try imagining restarting Christianity with only the Book of Psalms, a few historical attestations, and the writings of some Muslims trying to record the traditions two hundred years after they had died out? Well, the old Germanic Pagans weren’t really big on writing things down, and about all that is left is the equivalent. There is the Poetic Edda, a collection of old poems that mention aspects of the old religion as it existed in Iceland, at least. There are a few attestations of how things were supposedly done that have come down through other cultures, such as the Romans and at least one Muslim traveler. This includes accounts of human sacrifice, by the way. Then there are the works written by Christians, two of three of whom were probably monks, and all of whom were writing hundreds of years after their area and country had converted to Christianity.
The rest of what these German Neopagan movements have been doing is filling in the prodigious gaps as best they can. They are classified as New Religious Movements, not as revivals of old religions. Why? Because the gaps were that big. Again, imagine trying to restart Christianity without the Gospels or most of the Old Testament, only the poetry of the Psalms.
I am left wondering what sort of desperation drives people to try to reconstruct religious practices based on so little information. Certainly, the Germanic Neopagans are not the only example out there these days.
What do you think, Ricochet? Are such things worth the effort? Are they all stuff and nonsense? Should the Mexican peoples try to reconstruct the old Aztec religion? What is your reaction?
Published in Group Writing
I will speak in defense of Pepsi on a hot day when chilled to the point at which it is slushy.
I will also note that in Quebec in the mid ’70s, the Anglos I mostly hung with referred to the Quebecois as “Pepsis,” a derogatory reference to what was apparently the favored cola of that group of citizens.
“Derogatory” should really go without saying, except it has to be said to be derogatory. Perhaps Pepsi is a synonym?
On a really hot day when Coke isn’t available, almost any other super-cold drink is defensible. Of course, almost any othere drink (such as lemonade) is superior to the P word.
Wrong. The correct answer to the question “Which Brown Soda is best” is “Moxie.”
Angels dancing on the head of a pin!
Free yourself from that diarrhetic. No more caffeine should cross your lips, lulling you into a dependency that consists of fending off lethargy following every burst of mania. I’ve been caffeine free since March of 1989. You can do it too. There is no need to be a slave to caffeine.
But that would mean giving up Excedrin (or its Wal-Mart equivalent) also.
(I should probably admit that I stopped stocking Coke at home, so I only resort to it in dire emergencies elsewhere. It’s not the caffeine, it’s the sugar I need to do without.)
Now, tell us about being vegan.
Especially since the fateful day when, on a non-air conditioned bus driving southbound back from summer camp through the Sacramento Valley in late July, we stopped at an A&W. Following the consumption of large quantities of ice cold root beer and soft serve ice cream, the remainder of the journey became an exercise in enduring carsickness. This resulted in a Pavlovian association of the taste of root beer – even plain, not a root beer float – with nausea.
In Pakistan, the Dr. Peppers are available as relatively expensive imports. Pepsi and Coke are manufactured locally. Take whichever is available for the caffeine. The best drink in the country is the mango juice.
I wish I got the lethargy and the mania in that order. On the other hand, if that d-word is the one you meant to use, I have used coffee in that manner on occasion.
I can, I just don’t want to.
Although I’m going to need the parameters involved before I can know if I’m a slave to caffeine.
I’m not being sold here on the quality of beverages available in Pakistan.
Trust a man with experience: The mango juice is sublime.
The tea is good if you like it in the English style.
I guess, if you like mangos.
Or it’s sublime in itself, and some of us who don’t like mangoes just don’t appreciate that.
Same with the tea: I probably shouldn’t have said “good if you like it.” It is good, and that’s also good for you if you like it, like opera (one supposes) may be good even though it is not good for me if I don’t like it at all.
Lewis starts off The Abolition of Man with this stuff.
One of the signs is irritability. For example, if a friend suggests that maybe you drink to much coffee do you find yourself chocking them to death?
I like tea in the American style. That is to say; coffee.
No, I usually find myself doing that for other reasons.
*sigh* yes, I typoed.
Or perhaps misspelled. Or more likely something exactly between a typo and a misspell.
You might be suggesting that I put blocks up to keep a vehicle from rolling away. Not sure how that causes death though.
As have we all, and will in the future. Hope my little joke was seen more as a subtle wink than as a mean-spirited jab.
Well, now I feel foolish – I had set aside time to for a prolonged safe-space coloring binge and it turns out you didn’t mean to trigger me.
If you get something from my lawyer regarding pain and suffering go ahead and ignore it. ;)
Or really old school:
Not a slave. I can quit anytime. I just don’t like the headaches.
I don’t get headaches when I stop. Then again, I don’t get anything when I drink it either, so I guess it’s a wash.
You are being cheated out of the human experience.
Fair. Although I could and have rephrased it to “caffeine only works when I don’t need it to.”
What, like RC?
Or Softa.