At around 2:30 p.m. on November 9, around 20 men, allegedly members of the ruling Awami League party’s student wing Chhatra League, beat Alim, a reporter for the online news portal Rajshahi Post, and Rony, a correspondent for the online newspaper Bangladesh Journal, on the Rajshahi College campus in western Bangladesh, according to privately owned news website New Age, the local press freedom group Bangladeshi Journalists in International Media, and Alim, who spoke with CPJ.

“Bangladeshi authorities and the Rajshahi College administration must immediately hold accountable those who attacked student journalists Abdul Alim and Abu Sayed Rony while reporting on the university campus,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, from Washington, D.C. “The government must take action against the deeply disturbing trend of the Chhatra League’s violence against student journalists on their campuses.”

The journalists were filming an argument between the university vice-principal along with professors and the men, who were led by undergraduate mathematics student Masud Rana, a Chhatra League member who was not permitted to take an examination after repeatedly missing class, according to those sources.

The men recognized Rony, an undergraduate mathematics student, as a journalist, but not Alim, an undergraduate history student, Alim told CPJ.

The men then beat and slapped the journalists, grabbed their collars, and repeatedly pushed them into a wall before they fell unconscious and woke up in the teachers’ lounge. The journalists were taken to the hospital, where Alim was treated for a blood clot in his back and significant bruising throughout his body, and Rony for a severe head inquiry, Alim said.

Following the attack, the journalists learned the perpetrators took their phones, which were returned to them broken, Alim said. Rony did not immediately respond to CPJ’s messages.

The Chhatra League leadership on campus subsequently suspended eight members for their alleged involvement in the attack. University officials have also appointed a committee to investigate the incident, Alim said.

Rony filed a complaint about the attack at the Boalia Police Station, but it was unclear whether a formal investigation had been opened, Alim said, adding that no suspects had been apprehended by the university or police as of November 13.

Rana and the officer-in-charge of the Boalia Police Station did not immediately respond to CPJ’s messages.

On September 24, around 15 to 20 alleged members of the Chhatra League beat student journalist Mosharrof Shah on the University of Chittagong campus.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Orientation: the politics of the sacred

The word “pagan” is one of those words that has been worked over by monotheists and secular rulers so that it has many meanings, mostly  negative. This has been the case except for the past fifty years when Neopaganism has made a comeback, thanks mostly to the women’s movement. In his book Being Pagan, Rhyd Wildermuth writes that:

Being pagan means being of the land, rural villager, rustic. In modern terms, being a peasant or being a country bumpkin as opposed to the city (39) …

Rhyd tells us that Frankish or German people were called “heathens” by missionaries, meaning “dweller of the hearth”. Heathen lands were the most uncultivated places not suited for large-scale farming such as moors, scrubland and sparse forests.  This land is better for small grazing animals like sheep and goats or for hunting small game. Because of the lack of large scale land productivity, politically it tended to remain independent of urban control far longer than other agricultural people who became dependent on cities.Heathens also more easily resisted Christianization and were made fun of by Christian and urban people because of this resistance.

In addition, my own stereotypical picture of pagans is that we are:

• Materialistic
• Overly sensual
• Have sacred presences that are carnal and undignified
• Violent
• Racist (heathens or Nazi’s)
• Uncivilized

Rhyd writes that when people ask him what being Pagan means he points to the flooding, the droughts, the melting icecaps, the extinctions and the plagues in the world today. He writes that in pagan animist societies people took care of the land because being an animist means everything is alive and nothing is inanimate. If we lived as animists, terrible ecological circumstances would never have been possible.

When the Christians strove to take over Celtic lands, they created stories by which old pagan presences were conquered, driven out or demonized by magical or miraculous means. The stories of Graoully, Coulobre and La Tarasque are examples and these stories were widespread in France, Spain and Germany.

Scope of this article

Rhyd Wildermuth in his book Being Pagan outlines a high contrast between our alienated existence in monotheist, industrial capitalist society while taking us back in time to when we are not alienated, in pagan animistic societies. He does not specify what kind of societies these are. My best guess is he was mostly talking about hunter-gatherers, various kinds of horticulturalists and simple, small-scale farming societies. He contrasts differences in how time and place was conceived. He shows us how the treatment of the land, including fruits, vegetable, trees, plants and animals was radically different in animistic societies

One of his most interesting contrasts was how the body and mind were thought to be related. He points out that in industrial capitalist societies the mind drives the body. In animistic societies bodies drove minds. More on this later. In current times, those who are monotheists believe they have a soul that transcends death. What did pagans prior to monotheism think about this? For them, connection to the ancestors was part of the same ecological networks that connects us to rocks, rivers, plants and animals. Today, at least in Yankeedom, ancestors don’t matter. What happened and why did it happen?

Rhyd says that pagans do not believe in the supernatural. But if pagans populate the sacred worlds with gods, goddesses, earth spirits and ghosts how can they not be supernatural?

Years ago Benjamin Lee Whorf argued that language is an organ of perception. If animists think that everything is alive, how does this translate into language? We will see how it affects the proportion of nouns and verbs used, along with the proportion of tenses to indicate the past, present and future.

Because we live in a global age, all sacred traditions have to face the problem of mixing. Monotheism has been impacted by globalization, but Christian monotheism in Europe has a clear developmental trajectory: Catholicism and Protestantism. For pagans the problem is deeper because Neopaganism has had about 150 years of eclecticism. Its history has been broken up, gone underground and resumed. Should Neopagans mix with native traditions in the United States or in African societies? Should Neopagans incorporate Shintoism? Some say this is “cultural appropriation” while others say mixing traditions has always been part of polytheism.

For most of this article I will be analyzing the book Being Pagan. However, I will also be adding my own material to fill out his argument, and hopefully make it better.

Process “becoming” philosophy vs being “static” philosophy

When verbs become nouns

Rhyd points out that every known language has two primary kinds of words: nouns and verbs. They also have two secondary categories, modifiers, which are adjectives and adverbs.

• A noun is the name of something specific
• Verbs describe actions
• Adjectives describe a noun
• Adverbs describe an action

He points out that languages spoken by indigenous peoples and by ancient cultures use more verbs than nouns – especially animist cultures. Modern languages like English and French, both products of monotheism, employ more nouns than verbs. In addition, every language has a certain proportion of words devoted to describing tenses: the past, present and future.

For industrial capitalist societies, once the present is over it becomes past, and pasts are connected to things like documents, statues, relics. For animist cultures, everything is alive and moving. The present tense is part of a never-ending act of becoming. For Western monotheists today, there are people who personally are lost in the past or the future. The inability to concentrate on the present is so bad that people take meditation classes to force them to live in the present. Animist cultures have no problem living in the present.

Furthermore, it is no accident that industrial capitalist societies are more “thing”-oriented because they have writing. Writing freezes thoughts into words and words become objects. In oral animistic cultures what people say is more in the service of social-psychological interaction. On the other hand, thoughts have a short shelf life when the conversation is over. With the introduction of writing, language becomes more static and words become things frozen on a page.

Time of the moon

We are all familiar with the calendar and tracking our time in relation to days of the week? But how far back does this go? For most of the history of social evolution it was the light of the moon and its  rhythm of the new moon, half-moon and full moon which set the course, the patterns and meaning of everyday life. For pagans, the moon isn’t only visible at night, but with careful training we can see it is also visible during the day. Activities were tracked according to changes on and during moons cycles over the course of a month. Rhyd points out that the origin of the word month comes from the moon. In terms of tracking human time, at the beginning there was the month, long before there were days of the week.

There is nothing spiritual or supernatural about the moon. The tides come and go twice a day, pulled by the gravity of the moon. The tides sweep in and out daily n rhythmic patterns, twice out twice in, pulled by the moon’s gravity. The moon has different phases. During the full moon or the new moon the tide sweeps further inland and returns further from the shore than at other times. Knowing the phases of the moon is a very practical affair. It tells us when we are more likely to find fish that might be scattered on the shore. All an animist would have to do is look at the moon’s face to know when food might be more plentiful and what the conditions were best for a boat entering the ocean.

Research shows that many animals are more active during the night of the full moon. People sleep later during the full moon and longer during the new moon. Before the invention of electric lighting which enabled humanity to have the night permanently lit, people who hunted did so by using the light of the moon. Early pagans knew which phase the moon was in and they acted accordingly.

Rhyd describes how this impacts him personally:

I always feel my absolute lowest when the new moon is new and just before it is new… Noting how certain things are easiest to complete as the moon wanes, because I know that I am often more tired and feel less intuitive during new moon, I try to avoid scheduling too much for that time and instead try to rest. I find my life much more grounded and anxiety is rarely something that can overwhelm me. (22-23)

Knowledge of the moon only appears as superstitious to people living in industrial capitalist countries because they are those who are blinded by city lights, and the lack of need to hunt and fish for food. They have stopped paying attention to the moon. Until the mechanistic phase of clocks, we scheduled activities looking at the moon as well as the time we go to sleep. We city Neopagans are encouraged to look at the moon, find out where it is and what phase it is in, as well as where it has arisen and where it has set. Like anything else, it takes practice for our eyes to become sensitized to the moon and its movements. In modern city-life these sensitivities are deadened. For us, each night seems like the next and we go to sleep at the same time regardless  of the moon or whether it is wintertime or summertime. We have lost our rhythm.

Cyclic time to clock and linear time

It is not just the moon that waxes and wanes. The yearly seasons change throughout the years depending on the zones around the earth. Plants and animals follow the seasons, going through developmental cycles of growth and death. Different animist cultures follow suit, dividing their cycle of the year according to the temperate or polar regions. Those who have four seasons in temperate zones divide their years into four quarters. The “time of land” tells us when berries or tomatoes are ripest. On the other hand, upper-middle class people living in industrial capitalist societies, especially Yankeedom, have come to expect the same fruits and vegetables to be available all year, regardless of the season.

Rhyd  says the land has character just like human temperaments do. She is gruff, grizzled, hearty, stoic, or lush. The combination of minerals are different in some places than they are elsewhere. She is shaped by the rocks, the wind, the cold, heat and the humidity. Rhyd points out local lands themselves have a unique taste. Whether wild or domesticated, those same plants and animals taste differently depending on the quality of land they are grown and live in. By saying pagans are of the land it just means understanding basic ecological dynamics: how it works on humanity and how humanity works on it.

This natural time was the enemy of Protestants anxious to abolish the seasonal holidays, and capitalists who wanted to discipline workers to punch a time clock and work long hours regardless of the seasons or the phases of the moon. They wanted disciplined workers to accept clock time. In animist time, when people worked, they also slept during the day. Even as late as in early modern Europe, when artisans were given an order by merchants, they took breaks when they wanted to. They controlled the pace of their work. In the early Industrial Age capitalists were insensitive to workers being sick or tired. If they didn’t continue working they would be replaced.

Keeping time has a long history deep into ancient civilizations. They used the sun dials, water clocks and hour-glasses. But these were not precise and they were not used by artisans or peasants. Clocks were used by the upper classes as a luxury item. They were used by alchemists in cooking the elements or by astrologers for casting the horoscope of great political figures. Bell towers were used to remind people to pray or to announce foreign invasions or fires.

In addition, as cities rose and farming declined the drive to see time cyclically waned. Cyclic time was replaced by linear time. Capitalists hate the past because the past is a reminder that their system is historical. Linear time is laid out like a straight line moving from past to present to future. Once the past is over, unlike cyclic time, it never returns. But capitalists need to display the future as always open, and where anything can happen. This feeds into the ideology that any person can become a capitalist if they have the right psychological state.

Becoming Body

One of the most interesting arguments in this book is the relationship between the body and the mind. Rhyd says we do not have bodies, we are becoming bodies. This means that:

• There is no getting out of being a body
• We are becoming bodies. This connects to the difference between process and static philosophy that we touched on earlier.

For example, Rhyd points out that hunger and thirst were not something you were or had, but something you did. Being thirsty is passive state, a condition that needs to be resolved. It is something that has happened to you. On the other hand, thirsting for water is an active state. It is not happening to you. It is something you try to do something about. But then you expend energy at work and you become thirsty again. The body is constantly reproducing itself with needs, satisfaction and new needs.

How we came to have bodies

Just as we have externalized and reified our language, we have externalized our bodies and separated them from ourselves, making them something we have rather than something we are. This negative attitude about the body is not unique to Western monotheism. In the East we hear we are “trapped in the body” or we are “a prison of flesh” that needs to be escaped from. Occultists claim we “are inhabiting different bodies”. Teenage girls “hate their bodies”. To say we have a body implies that there can be a state without one. What’s left? Minds without bodies, a product of patriarchal sacred traditions, not paganism.

According to Wildermuth, the reasons for this anti-body orientation include the development of Christianity with the separation of the soul from the body. Secondly, Descartes added to this by claiming the mind can be separated from the body. Lastly, capitalism insisted on the discipline of the body during capitalist production to conform to the pump and lever in Early Modern Europe. Later, human bodies are disciplined again as a reflection of the complex machines and the steam engine in the second half of the 19th century. In the early 20th century the bodies of workers were subjected to the time and motion studies of Taylorism.

Ecological networks are bodies

In pagan understanding, everything that exists is in terms of living bodies. Ecological settings are bodies too. Having a body is like seeing a body mechanically, seeing a body as a collection of separate things. Imagining having bodies has negative ecological consequences. Seeing the forest as a collection of separate beings rather than a body leads to:

• Killing off of species of insects
• Hunting too many of the birds and animals
• Felling too many trees
• Damming a river or taking too many fish from a lake which can turn the entire system into something unlivable for everything there

Doing this to our ecology is like removing an organ from a human body and expecting it to work right. It is only possible for us to do such destructive things to the natural world because we do not see it as body, but rather separate things unrelated to each other. Rhyd tells us that:

Over the last 100 years alone, 543 species of terrestrial vertebrates (reptiles, birds and mammals) have gone extinct worldwide, a rate of disappearance that would have historically occurred  over 10,000 years. That is, the rate of extinction is occurring 1,000 times faster for such beings now. (91-92)

Alienation from trees

Rhyd points out that oaks are special trees for pagan people. Oaks are more likely than shorter species of trees to be hit by lightning and are more likely to survive a lightning strike. It is no accident that oaks were associated with the gods of thunder. Oaks also protected other trees from storms and high winds. Many oaks grow very old, outlasting the rise and fall of civilizations. When oaks die they are put to sacred use as shrines or temples by Celtic and Germanic peoples  An oak struck by lightning became a political ritual site, often becoming a place for major decisions. The importance of oaks to pagans was not lost on monotheists who ordered the cutting down of oaks dedicated to Thor to make the conversion of pagan peoples to Christianity easier. The Christians then built Cathedrals from the oaks.

Alienation from other animals

In my diet, much of my protein comes from eating chicken and fish. I know two women vegans who insisted I watch documentaries of what goes on in slaughter houses and chicken factories. I watched part of one and then turned it off. I didn’t want to know my eating habits were linked to so much suffering, but I continue to buy chicken at the supermarket. I’m confident I am not alone. We buy meat in packages at the supermarket but we rarely know anything about the process by which these dead animals arrived there. Rhyd points out that the flesh of these beings:

is processed by machines into forms that would be unrecognizable to people even a hundred years ago. Cows, pigs, chickens live in settings that look much more like factories than the pastoral landscapes. (93)

Contrary to all this, animist views see all living forms to include not just plants and animals, but rocks and rivers are also connected to the ancestors. Animists are engaged in reciprocal exchange of gratitude. When humans killed an animal, they apologized to the animal and made sure that future hunts were conducted in ways that did not thin out the species they hunted. This contrasts to monotheists who tell humanity we have “domain over nature. It is there for us to do what we want”. It is easy to see how this domain would directly link up to the scientific exploration of the 17th and 18th centuries and capitalist exploitation of land through colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The importance of ancestry for pagans

Today, especially in the United States, ancestry is not anything that is taken seriously. For the most part, people can’t trace their genealogy beyond their grandparents. Sure, there is new interest in tracing genealogical trees but in my opinion this is a fad. Whatever value and meaning this has, it is certainly not pursued with the same level of building a serious sacred connection. Most Yankees do not hope to have their ancestors come to them in their dreams, in their homes or giving them direction. Our relationship with ancestors is thin. In part, this is because we didn’t live near them because capitalist enclosures drive communities apart. This has been widened even further in the 20th century by capitalists. Geographical industrial specialization drives people to work in different parts of the country. In addition, the rate of change in industrial capitalist societies is so fast that the wisdom of the ancestors dries up quickly because the world has changed so much between generations. As gaps between generations grow, political differences emerge as to how to handle the change. Ancestry is marginalized as race and class identities replace them.

Pagans on the other hand, because they were not displaced, lived in the same location for many generations and they could trace their ancestors well beyond their grandparents. Secondly, because the rate of change was slow, the knowledge of the ancestors was respected knowledge that did not change much between generations. This means their politics are similar. Lastly, since tribal societies did not have classes and groups, ethnic composition was similar. There was no class or race identity to compete with ancestry. In many cultures a common truth is that the dead speak to us in our sleep.

Scale of pagan presences

According to Rhyd Wildermuth, in most pagan societies there are four levels of scale.

At the bottom and the smallest level there are shrines to the home. On a larger scale there are rituals to the ancestors. On the third level there are community festivals which include arts and crafts. Lastly, there are offerings to a god a few times a year. It’s important to understand that these scales are not hierarchically organized. In other words, the gods do not control the community rituals, ancestors or shrine presences. What is true is that they are organized in terms of the frequency with which they are enacted, beginning with the shrines in the home. In animistic societies when something is strange or has gone wrong, the spirits are not seen as evil but in the wrong place. The job of the shaman is to understand the problem and resolve it.

What happens when monotheism arises? Shrines are marginalized and in the case of Catholicism, replaced by pictures of saints in the house. Ancestors lose their connection to the rocks, rivers, plants and animals along with their wisdom. Community rituals and outdoor places are replaced with patron saints. The pagan gods, whether dragons or giants, are demonized and replaced by a single monotheistic deity.

Are spirits, ancestors and gods internal to us or external?

The key to understanding the difference between animalism and monotheism centers on where the sacred source originates. For animistic people, consciousness is diffused so that spirits, ancestors and even gods are inside our psyche and project outward. This is based on the unconscious intelligence of the body. Under monotheism, our alienation from the body is an important obstacle to our understanding of magic. As a result, for monotheists both spirits and God are external, objective and have little to do with our psychology

Magic is the unconscious intelligence of the body

Rhyd has a very interesting although strange definition of magick. He argues that magick is the unconscious perceptual wisdom of the body that is constantly reacting to the real world, which we have forgotten to notice in our modern world. Our bodies are constantly steering us in everyday life. When we speak of the unconscious, partly what we really mean is everything that our body knows and senses.

A very simple example is body memory. It is a process by which you find your way through a dark room that you know very well. Another example is being able to drive down a familiar road where your motor skills take you home while you are zoning out on music. Another example is if you are playing the outfield and you know how far back to go for a fly ball just by hearing the sound of the bat. In the case of baseball, that body knowledge has never been consciously processed. We know things we don’t realize we know. A pagan definition of magick is aligning consciousness to the body in order to enact change. Consciousness is the servant of the body. It is the directed focus of the body. Magick means giving attention to what the body is telling us and acting consciously in accordance with it.  Our conscious attention, including our minds or our egos, is not the true seat of knowledge.

Meditation is not magick. Rhyd says:

In most forms of meditation a person stills their thoughts in order to have better control over consciousnessand the ways in which it was directed. (158)

Magick is not about quieting our thoughts in a disembodied way. It is about listening to how those thoughts are related to the sensations of our body.

Eudaemons and genii’s vs the eternal soul and permanent genius

In animistic societies people recognized that benevolent protective presences entered into the person at birth and left the body at death. Even as late as the time of the Greeks such presences were called eudaemons. The Romans called them genii’s and made shrines for them. This was too much commotion for monotheists, and St. Augustine replaced these fluid presences with a noun like eternal soul. Long after monotheism, in 20th century intelligence testing, we have the same noun – like genius – which is permanently attached to the eternal soul. For pagans, people were not geniuses themselves but had a particularly helpful genii to whom they listened.

Left and Right Sacred

In the early days of animism, from hunter-gatherers 100,000 years ago up to the Bronze Age civilization of 5,000 years ago, animists kept to their local identity and did not try to mix cultures. The great civilizations of the ancient world certainly traded enough so that pagan people became aware of other pagan people. Did they keep separate or did they mix? Their answer was always to mix and to synthesize. With the rise of globalization, the knowledge across cultures became even more intense. However, in the last 50 years, Neopaganism arose as part of the women’s movement. Because Neopaganism has a broken and suppressed history rather than a single stream leading all the way back as monotheists do, it has to determine what it will mix and match with. A new problem emerged for Neopaganism as the New Age emerged in England and the United States. A significant number of New Age organizations were small capitalists who have overridden Neopagan resistance to commercialization.  New Age organizers have offered people courses that have drawn from native cultures (from the United States and Africa) and have turned a nice profit. Some native cultures have fought back against this. So pagan mixing cross-culturally has become politicized because of the ravenous nature of capitalists for profits.

There are two tendencies within paganism. Right-wing pagans think that the sacred should be orderly, that there should be separation between the sacred and the secular and the sacred traditions should be kept pure, based on exclusion and supposed genetic ancestry. These are represented by far-right groups who are nationalist, some neo-Nazis. They say white people should only involve themselves with European gods.

The left-wing pagans care less about order and are more interested in continuing the historical paganistic mixing. The socialist wing is very aware of the exploitation of cultural appropriation but they don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water. They want to trust spontaneously mixing, multiplying and adding. They do not want to keep the sacred and secular separate, but are committed to expanding the sacred into the secular. We do this, not because we want an animistic theocracy, but because sacred pagan life will challenge the capitalistic control over secular life.

What is ironic is the so-called social justice movements that demand that cultures don’t mix because they think mixing is inherently exploitative. Yet they wind up on the same side as the right-wing sacred pagans. They also want to keep things pure but for different reasons than right-wing pagans.

Criticisms

I do not disagree with anything that was said in Being Pagan. However, the contrast between rural tribal paganism and monotheism and capitalism is too severe and some transitions need to be at least suggested. For example, there is nothing said about the city paganism of the Greeks and Romans, the Alexandrians of North Africa or the city magick of Renaissance Italy. At least a few pages of some of the differences between city and rural paganism would have been very helpful along with some references. This is especially important  since today the overwhelming number of Neopagans live in cities.

As I said earlier, the kind of animism described is overwhelmingly tribal. But in between tribal societies and industrial societies are agricultural states where the goddesses and gods predominate. Had this been included, there would be an evolutionary sense of movement from animism to industrial capitalism. As it stands now, Rhyd’s description of alienation would have come about gradually. Without that alienation seems to come out of nowhere. A few  pages about the polytheism of agricultural states would have thickened history and minimized abrupt changes.

Third, it was disappointing to me to have the word “god” introduced along with land spirits and ancestors and used interchangeably. Typically, the word “god” is used to indicate a degree of power that is more powerful than ancestors or land spirits or nature nymphs, yet this distinction is left out. A good example is the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses who were superior to humanity in scope and scale. Why introduce the word god at all unless it was used to refer to something different than other sacred presences?

Fourth, In his book All That is Sacred is Profaned, Rhyd claims to be a Marxist. His purpose is to introduce Marxism to Pagans. But in Being Pagan there is no mention of Marxism. Given that Marxism denies the ontological existence of a spiritual world, it would have been helpful to explain somewhere, either in the preface or an epilogue, how he squares a Marxist denial of the sacred world with the paganism he espouses in Being Pagan, especially in his chapter “The Fire of Meaning”.

Fifth, the definition of magick is limited to tapping into the unconscious wisdom of the body. This is an important addition to pagan practice. But why call it magick? Why not call it “body” knowledge? Furthermore, magick is often defined as changing consciousness through the use of imagination along with saturating the senses though the use of theatre and the art as in “Tree of Life” magick. There is no mention of any of this.

Lastly, ritual descriptions are disappointingly skimpy and it makes it seem as if all pagan rituals are private. This ignores the fact that most pagans practice magick in groups. There should be at least some description of group rituals to see how his animism would be practiced.• First published at  Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

A Rangamati magistrate granted Elahi interim bail on June 8, pending an additional hearing at the Chittagong Cyber Tribunal, which adjudicates alleged cybercrime offenses, where he was granted permanent bail on June 14, according to a report in the Dhaka Tribune and the journalist. The next hearing in his case is scheduled for July 31, Elahi said.

Police arrested Elahi in relation to a December 3, 2020, article he published in Pahar24, which detailed alleged irregularities concerning a property rented by Nazneen Anwar, daughter of Furoza Begum Chinu, a former member of parliament with the ruling Awami League and head of the Rangamati District Women’s Awami League, according to those reports and the journalist.

On December 8, 2020, Chinu and Anwar each filed separate complaints, which CPJ reviewed, against Elahi in relation to his article, alleging that the journalist had defamed them, Elahi said.

On March 15, 2021, the Rangamati police submitted a report to a magistrate, which CPJ reviewed, stating that they investigated Elahi under sections of the Digital Security Act related to defamation and publishing offensive, false, or threatening information after receiving those complaints. The police report said it would allow the court to decide a course of action.

On June 7, 2022, the Chittagong Cyber Tribunal issued a warrant for Elahi’s arrest, which CPJ reviewed, under unspecified sections of the Digital Security Act.

Elahi was taken to Rangamati’s Kotwali police station after his June 7 arrest, he said, adding that Anwar was at the scene and demanded the officers put him in a cell when he was placed in a chair in the front office. When reached by phone by CPJ, Anwar said she had asked officers why Elahi was allowed to use his phone in custody.

Anwar told CPJ that she stands by the allegations in the complaint. Chinu did not respond to CPJ’s text message requesting comment. Kabir Hossain, officer-in-charge at the Kotwali police station, did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

In a separate case, on June 7, 2022, the Khulna Cyber Tribunal accepted a police chargesheet that had been filed on August 31, 2021, against Abu Tayeb, Khulna bureau chief for the privately owned broadcaster NTV, and Subir Rana, a reporter for the privately owned newspaper Daily Loksamaj and privately owned news website New Age, according to a copy of the chargesheet, which CPJ reviewed, and the two journalists, who spoke with CPJ by phone.

A hearing in their case is scheduled for September 20, according to Tayeb. The chargesheet accuses the journalists of violating sections of the Digital Security Act related to the publication of offensive, false, or threatening information; defamation; and deterioration of law and order. Those offenses can carry a prison sentence between three and seven years, and a fine of between 300,000 taka (US$3,230) and 600,000 taka (US$6,460).

The chargesheet accuses Tayeb and Rana of violating the Digital Security Act with Facebook posts they each published in April 2021 accusing a local company affiliated with Talukder Abdul Khalek, mayor of the Khulna City Corporation, a municipal agency that oversees the development and maintenance of the city, of evading taxes.

Tayeb made those allegations both in a report for NTV and on his Facebook page, and Rana also published the allegations on his page, according to CPJ research, both journalists, and a screenshot of the posts, which CPJ reviewed. Tayeb told CPJ that within 24 hours after the article and Facebook post were published, Khalek called him and ordered him to remove the report and the post, and he had complied.

On April 20, Khalek filed a complaint against Tayeb and Rana and published a rejoinder in The Daily Purbanchal newspaper, which CPJ reviewed, denying the allegations and warning that legal action would be taken against those who spread the information shared in their posts.

Tayeb was detained in relation to the case from April 20 to May 10, 2021, when he was released on bail, according to CPJ documentation and the journalist. Rana was also detained from June 3 to July 7, when he was released on bail, according to the journalist and the Bangladesh High Court bail order, which CPJ reviewed.

The investigating officer in the case did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app. Khalek did not respond to CPJ’s text message requesting comment.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

Atheists bet on the wrong theistic horse

When atheists challenge religion, they pick on monotheism. Their explanations of what supernatural monotheism is really about are as follows:

• It uses pre-scientific explanatory strategies.
• What it describes are really seasonal phenomena.
• The characters are prehistorical political figures.
• It uses vague and muddled language.
• Its sacred beings are neurotic projections.
• Religious ideas are bugs in the human neurological programming.

However, the idea that there must be some single reality, underlying the wild diversity of gods hasn’t been challenged by atheists.  Why don’t atheists pick on polytheists as well? Most likely, they were raised in monotheism and know its weaknesses well. Since polytheists are in the vast minority in the United States, their traditions were not closely studied. In addition, atheists are likely to have bought the monotheistic propaganda against polytheists: its cosmology is chaotic; its practice is preoccupied with sex and pleasure; its reasoning is short on abstract thinking; and its gods are a reification of images. Further, monotheists complain that polytheistic gods are not ambitious enough: they are not there all the time and not in space all the time. This article not only challenges these ideas about polytheism, but following John Michael Greer in his book A World Full of Gods, I explain why polytheists are much better opponents for atheists than monotheists. Greer states that atheist arguments are against Christians and Jews and have little relevance when used against paganism. Perhaps the diversity of human sacred experience is an accurate response to the diversity of divine reality.

What makes polytheism broader than either monotheism or atheism

What makes polytheists different from both monotheists and atheists is that it applies the same critical tools it uses against atheism and monotheism to itself. Monotheists say that polytheists and atheists are mistaken and have all kinds of problems, but those same problems are not applied to their own beliefs. So too, atheists criticize monotheists, but they don’t apply their same reasoning to atheism. Polytheists show the limitations of monotheism and atheism, but they apply the same criteria to their own thinking, so they accept the plurality of beliefs. In other words, polytheists admit that monotheism, atheism, and polytheism all have problems, but the fact that all three exist says something about the reality of diversity. What both monotheism and atheist have in common is there is one single truth, and they argue over which has it. Polytheists don’t do this.

Monotheism as the imperialism of religion

Many people use the word “theism” as though it inevitably implies monotheism. But monotheism is not the only theism in town. Greer points out that works on philosophy of religion are still written as though the choices are atheism on the one hand and some variant of classical monotheism on the other. The idea that there must be some single reality underlying the wild diversity of gods has rarely been challenged. Whatever “the sacred” might be, to Eliade, in his studies of the history of religion, there’s only one version of the sacred, and all the mystics and saints had to be experiencing the same things. The religio-political task is to deny, demonize, or at least subordinate luxuriant polytheistic growth. If all polytheistic systems are by definition false, illusions, demons, or guises behind which monotheism waits to be found, the competing field of deities is cleared for monotheists to be the only theism in town to battle atheism.

Polytheism afoot

A substantial number of people from wholly orthodox Christian and Jewish backgrounds have broken decisively with the god of classical monotheism. The history of modern pagan revival is intricate and only just has begun to receive the attention of serious scholars. Its origins reach back to the late 18th century. Wicca remains the largest of the modern pagan movements. As of 2005 a mid-range estimate suggests there are between one and two million followers of modern pagan religions in America. For the history see Margret Adler, Drawing Down the Moon and Cynthia Eller, Living in the Lap of the Goddess.

Exoteric vs Esoteric theism

The more fundamentalist monotheists deny the reality of different sacred experiences and deny the existence that other gods exist but theirs. But the more liberal, upper middle-class traditions of monotheism are perennials. They say there is exoteric religion which is filled with superstition and what the masses believe. These are usually the same working-class folks who atheists pick on. However, any religion also has an esoteric wing is the core of any religion. It is not superstitious – God does not throw down thunderbolts or call people sinners. All the world religions have the same core which only the few understand. All esoteric perennialists say all sacred experience are the same, but they have different cultural meanings. Most polytheists make no such division and place ordinary religion at the center.

Polytheists also have a similar exoteric-esoteric division. Wicca is generally open to men and women without any formal training. But there are magical traditions in the West which require special study and a grading system in which mysteries are revealed. However, esoteric polytheists do not say that all people who make the grade have the same underlying experience. For example, the mystical path up the center of the tree of life is different from the magical paths to its right or left. Polytheists claim that the difference between an Anglican mystical experience, an Islamic mystical experience of Sufi dancing, and the vision of a buffalo spirit on a Native American vision quest are all different experiences because they have contacted three different spiritual beings. There can be more than one Sacred experience.

Lesser sacred presences

For polytheists there are levels of sacred beings to serve: the gods of nature who provide sustenance; the gods of the community who provide peace and atmosphere for civilized life; the spirits who provide more narrowly defined blessings; the ancestors who provide family and heritage; the genius who provides personal guidance and protection. Another example is the prevalence of ancestor worship in contemporary Japan. In Greece, each nymph was believed to be active in a relatively small area, and to have power only over  limited aspects of the natural and human worlds.  Nymphs were believed to have power surpassing human beings, but nothing even remotely like omnipotence or omniscience was ever attributed to them.

Like nymphs, ancestors cannot usefully be described in any of the terms used to define the god of classical monotheism.  It is not always easy to tell who should be counted as gods and who should not. The boundaries separating gods from ancestors and spirits is sometime very hard to draw. Many cultures make offerings to beings who are not considered to be gods. Pagans revere the presence of nature spirits, land-wights and nymphs, as well as gods and goddesses. What becomes of them? Are they swallowed up in a monothetic night in which all cows are black? Monotheism runs roughshod over competing sacred identities – earth-spirits, ancestor spirits, totems, and nymphs.

Polytheists have respect and reverence for their gods, not worship

For a classical monotheist, the divinity is infinite, humanity is finite, and the only possible relation between them is the absolute submission of the worshipper to the God. God is transcendental, a “holy other”. The core of monotheist sacrifice is appeasement and renunciation. But from what we’ve seen in the last section, there are lesser sacred presences who require attention, offerings, and persuasion, not worship.

In the lives of polytheists there is diversity of levels within a religion as well as cross-cultural differences between religions. This might indicate that the corresponding diversity of divine reality is because of a variety of sacred presences who actually exist. “Wholly other” has no place in traditional polytheism. No god is wholly other. In paganism Greer says a particular culture is given “citizen rights” in the presence of deities. Pagan gods and goddesses are superior in their might and majesty, but they live in a common world. What the gods ask of humanity is not abject submission but reverence or respect. Both exist in a common world defined by mutual relationships. The central concept of polytheist practice is reciprocity, a matter of exchange. The relationship is never one-sided. Some pagans argue that becoming involved in the ecology movement is the ultimate pagan practice. We support nature so that nature continues to support us.

Generosity is thus a central divine characteristic, but it is not limited to the gods. Greer says the pagan habit of competing in tests of strength and skill has its origin as acts of reverence to gods and ancestors. The gods are supremely powerful and skillful and to demonstrate skill in their presence is to do the honor by imitating them. Funeral games celebrated the vitality and strength of ancestral spirits.

Monotheists are too ambitious

Arguments about monotheistic theism require the highest standards of its god. They must be omnipotent, omniscience and omnibenevolent. To claim that a god is omnipotent means that not only is he merely very powerful, but that god is more powerful than anything else in the universe. Greer says that since no human being can independently vouch for the strength of every other entity, the claim can’t be justified by any possible experience. Characteristics such as omnipotence, which define a being’s relation to the rest of the universe, are harder to verify than characteristics that define the beings’ existence or nature. Monotheist worship is a one-way relationship between an otherworldly god and a submissive population. Humanity depends on God, but God does not depend on humanity. This god is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipotent. These qualities cause great problems for monotheists in their debates with atheists.

In polytheism, the gods are powerful but not omnipotent, smart but not omniscient. They are associated with specific virtues but not omnibenevolent. The gods are superhuman, but they are not without limits; They are not supernatural, but exist within a natural order, both shaping its manifestations and bound by some of its laws. Finitism means the gods do not operate within significant limits and have particular areas of concern or rulership. Therefore, they are respected or revered but not worshiped. In fact, Greer points out that the weirder entities of current physics – superstrings, bubble universes, folded dimensions – transcend ordinary matter and energy far more drastically than the average pagan god. Polytheism provides a better rebuttal to atheists because the powers of its sacred presences are less demanding. These gods are not isolated from one another or from the ordinary world. They engage in both conflict and cooperation. Engagement for them is a participatory celebration, not appeasement or renunciation. Pagans start with the world of ordinary humans. The interaction between humans, gods and goddesses does not result in a smooth, singular process. The interactions are messy, unresolved, with some degree of harmony and some degree of continuing conflicts.

Furthermore, the monotheistic teleological argument of design does not just have to battle atheists. It does nothing to exclude polytheism. As. Hume says, there could just as well have been more than one intelligent designer of the cosmos and that the designs clash with each other. This would be unacceptable to monotheists because their deity must be orderly and reassuring.  They are running for shelter and security, not for a clash and uncertainty. There is enough of that on earth.

Atheist arguments against biblical claims and the origin of evil do not impact polytheism

The vast majority of atheist philosophers have aimed at Christian and Jewish ideas from the Bible. These include the origins of the earth, the scope of natural disasters and the existence of life after death. They may also argue that monotheists are wishful thinkers and superstitious. They cannot reason quantitatively (statistically), and they have selective perception. Atheists make efforts to make the Bible internally incoherent and show how it is contradicted by modern science. They are right. For monotheists, their God is the origin of everything, and this carries a heavy burden – as we have seen.

Against monotheism, Greer says, the argument about evil is the most effective weapon in the arsenal of atheism.  If God is all good and all powerful, how do we explain all the horrendous, pointless suffering? If there exists a God who is omnipotent and omniscient and all-loving, such a God would have both the power and the knowledge necessary to prevent all extreme or unnecessary suffering. An omniscient, omnipotent an omni-benevolent God who created the universe would have known in advance what evils would follow. Greer says this problem is so deep for monotheists that its defenders have created an entire branch of theology called “theodicy” to explain why the universe is not as unfair as it looks. There are three broad types of theodicies that have played a major role in western philosophy of religion:

1. Augustine says that suffering is caused by the misuse of free will by created beings, not by divine intervention.
2. In 130-122 CE Irenaeus says God has to permit evil because the experience of suffering is the only way for the human species to develop spiritually and morally. The world is a place for soul making. The problem with this defense is that it conflicts with the claim of divine omnipotence. An omnipotent God could just as well have created humanity in such a way that people could achieve spiritual and moral maturity without going through the experience of horrendous suffering.
3. God permits and causes evil things to happen to demonstrate his power over the Egyptians. Isn’t that a sign of insecurity that would hardly be present in a God who is all knowing, powerful and loving?

Polytheists have no book that claims divine inspiration

Most of this has no relevance to polytheists. Pagans have no holy book that they claim is divinely inspired. From the standpoint of traditional polytheism, gods are not the origin of everything and because of that the work of the gods is less demanding. Polytheistic gods are not seen as the grounds of being. The gods are neither infinite, timeless, spaceless, nor changeless. They have superhuman capacities of power and knowledge, but these powers are limited. This can be seen in Taoism where the Tao is prior to the one, the Yang and the Yin and the elements.

Polytheistic Myths as literary rather than revealed religion

The well-organized pantheons found in classical mythology and German sagas are literary rather than theological creations. Greer points out that the heroic struggles of Achilles and Siegfried gain much of their dramatic power from the literary device that places them at the meeting point of two clearly defined communities. The symbols, rites and myths of polytheism can most usefully be seen as the result of extended processes of interaction between gods, rather than through a revealed religion.

The argument from evil doesn’t work with polytheism

If the gods in question were not all powerful and all knowing, evil and suffering can be readily explained by limitations in the gods’ power and knowledge. If the god is not omni-benevolent, evil and suffering can be explained by the fact that the god may have no motive to eliminate them. If more than one god exists and conflicts between the gods is possible, then the argument from evil loses nearly all of its force, since the benevolent actions of one god could be countered by the opposite action of another. Traditional polytheism provides no effective targets for the argument from evil coming from atheists. Polytheism is a more straightforward explanation for the world we actually experience than classical monotheism.

Epistemology: Strong vs weak miracles

When monotheists make their case of the truth of their religion, they site as sources of evidence scriptures which they claim are divinely inspired – wonderous events, miracles, and the works of holy people within their experience. Monotheists will dogmatically deny the reality of polytheists or atheists whom they will claim are ignorant. Monotheists may claim polytheists might be delusional, hallucinating, misperceiving, or unfocused.

Strong miracles are events which have a religiously meaningful context and appear to violate the familiar patterns of nature. For example, the earth’s rotation stopping for several hours. Miracles in a weak sense are extraordinary coincidences which occur in a religiously meaningful context but follow natural pattens like a successful rain dance. Hume rejected the possibility of strong miracles, claiming that it’s always more likely that the witnesses to miracles were either mistaken or dishonest.  Greer points out that churches that defend strong miracles don’t seem to be able to produce them at all in these days, or anytime recent enough to allow for reliable investigation. Atheists have usually focused discussions of miracles on the strong type, and often as not leave the weak type of miracle entirely out of the reckoning. Polytheists don’t believe in strong miracles, but they are moved by natural patterns which overlap with a meaningful sacred context. Therefore, they are hardly subject to atheist criticism.

Religious ineffability

A very common term for this quality of religious experience is ineffability – that is, beyond words to describe. But this usually refers to verbal language. There are at least some unusual experiences that may not lend themselves to verbal description, but they can be described mathematically. For example, the realm of quantum physics might be ineffable in terms of the English language, but it can be discussed very clearly in the language of mathematics. Because most monotheists are not professional scientists, they would have no way of knowing this.

Monotheist and polytheist ethics

Christianity and Judaism are profoundly conflicted by the human capacity for pleasure. The gratification of the senses is carefully weighed, if not forbidden entirely. For monotheists, a lack of Judeo-Christian faith leads straight to immorality, and “pagan” orgies. Monotheistic rhetoric for well over 2,000 years has treated pagan religion as though it were inseparable from sex. But the sexual behavior of Christian fundamentalist pastors over the past 50 years can be seen as a projection of their own unresolved sexual problems. On the other hand, pagan art uses the unclad human body to symbolize its superabundant beauty. Pagan thought sees erotic desire and delight as expressions of divine power.

The moral teachings of western monotheisms commonly define morality in terms of what it excludes. Monotheistic traditions see morality as telling people what to do. The purpose of sacred engagement for monotheism is appeasement of God or renunciation of sin. For polytheism the purpose of sacred engagement is participation with the spirits in recreating the world.

Pagan morality is a quest for wholeness and balance, not what it excludes. For pagans there are at least four levels of morality:

1. Intention of the self;
2. The values of the community;
3. The processes of nature; and,
4. Purposes of the gods

In contrast to being externally driven, moral thought in most traditional polytheist faith is inner directed, a process of a person mulling over options between the four levels above and making the best available choice.

The gods of paganism may do many things, but they don’t preach. In order to work these problems out, literature of ancient pagan cultures include a legacy of ethical writings ranging from the Norse Hávamál; the Irish Audacht Morainn, as well as the works of the great moralists of Greek and Roman pagan traditions. Lastly, the moral principles upheld by different gods would not be absolute. The moral argument can be used to least as effectively to support a belief in many gods as it would be to defend a belief in only one.

Monotheist rejection of myth for history

When the Hebrews signed on to the covenant with Yahweh, they were told that there would be no more mincing around with the plants and animals. They had a separate destiny. Their destiny was not in nature but in history. Mythic storytelling was dismissed as part of pagan superstition. Humanity’s job was to make human history according to God’s will. But the tendency to make myths wasn’t so easy to dispense with. Jews and Christians continued to live under myths but they did so behind their own backs. They continued to build up new myths as they were joined by European philosophers, scientists, and capitalists, as we shall see.

Monotheist Myth of Progress is a myth to be overcome

The name of this new myth, the myth that has gripped the imagination of Europe and Yankeedom over the last 300 years, is “progress”. Unlike people in societies that accepted myths, the Jews, Christians and the European intelligencia would see mythic narratives as nothing but illusions. but prosaics imagine themselves free from the myth and creatures of prosaic facts. However, the idea of superceding myth for history was part of another myth, the myth of progress. According to Greer, (162) progress came from two events, staggering, but temporary:

• European people discovered three continents previously unknown to them – North America, South America, and Australia. These continents were subjected to ruthless economic exploitation.
• Deposits of coal and oil buried within the earth in the prehistoric past were also discovered and exploited.

Greer calls the result the “Age of Exuberance” – a boom that lasted 300 years.  Today all the factors that gave rise to this age of exuberance are waning or gone. If you are one of those people who deny this, you will feel the power as a living myth in your very denial of it. In fact, the extent to which myth is conscious in the minds of the West’s allegorical interpretations of myths are offered. The problem with allegories is they tend to assume that it’s the human dimension that is primary, not the whole natural world.

Polytheist myths do not suffer from such limitations. These myths are wiser and much closer to the cycles of history. First, there is triumphant success, then overweening pride and folly, followed by a humiliating defeat. These myths are very common to human social and individual lives. If we use them, we face the world with a wider range of interpretation patterns than those raised only on the myth of progress.

In the pagan hermeneutics of myth, according to Greer, it could be said that ecology provides the scientific, experimental, and quantitative dimension of pagan myth. Pagan myth can be said to provide the narrative, spiritual and humanistic dimension of ecology

Time and eschatology

For monotheists, the evidence supporting eschatological prophesy consists of visionary experience guided by accepted authority such as seers and prophets and followed by passages of sacred writings. For monotheist perennialists, attempts to reconcile different prophesies with a lowest common denominator leaves it with super-thin universals.

The apocalyptic claims of monotheists presuppose that one God is able to cause spectacular violations of natural law. For example, the authors of Genesis mistakenly turned a local event in West Asia and Europe into a global catastrophe (the Flood).

For polytheists, matters are quite different. Greer says in Greece:

The word “eschatology” means last or furthest. In Greece the “eschattai” were areas near the borders of each city-state, regions of mountain, forest, seacoast where culture gave way to nature and Pan, the goat god of herding folk and hunters and was a much closer presence than the gods of Olympus (178).

In the pagan myth of Ragnarök is the Old Norse twilight of the gods. Ragnarök is not the end of everything. In Irish texts like Lebor Gabala, the book of invasions traces the world through a succession of ages, each ruled by its own gods, which came to power at one age, then are replaced by new gods in the next. Remove Ragnarök from Old Norse mythology and it looses some of its best literature and it takes away hope in adversity.

Likewise in Greece, Hesiod tells us of 3 generations of gods:

1. Primal gods ruled by Ouranos
2. Titan gods ruled by Kronos
3. Olympian gods ruled by Zeus

Monotheists have unrealistic miracles combined with apocalyptic endings at the end of time. Polytheists claim, following Stephen Jay Gould, that besides gradual change, there is punctuated equilibrium where there are qualitative leaps which explain disasters. For polytheists there is no beginning or end to nature. After a disaster there is a new cycle in which there is a new configuration of gods and goddesses.

Conclusion

To review, monotheism is a religion which consists at the extreme ends of fundamentalism on the conservative side and perennialism on the liberal side. Since few are perennialists outside of intellectual circles, I will concentrate on the more popular form of monotheism. Monotheists are people who are less likely to take personal and social responsibility for the world we actually live in. Instead, they project an infantile picture of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving God who lives in a far-away place but who benevolently will take care of everything. Nevertheless, this God barks out orders and demands worship and obedience. In reaction, humans offer appeasement and renunciation of the senses. Nature is not a closed, self-regulating system, but a means to an end: to know God in a transcendental world in the hereafter, in exchange for being taken care of in this one.

In his extreme claims about his God the monotheist gets trapped by atheists who point out contradictions based on known science.  This includes the existence of evil, an afterlife, strong miracles, and apocalyptic endings. Further, insistence on a single God who rules everywhere for all time is a kind of religious imperialism, which runs roughshod over the variety of religions and the varieties of religious experience that actually exist in this world.

Polytheism also consists of various types. “Hard polytheists” are those who believe in the ontological existence of goddesses and gods. Then there are soft polytheists who believe the deities are socio-historicalstructures which are the product of human societies. Lastly, there are Jungians who believe the gods and goddesses are psychological inventions of human beings, a collective unconscious which, when put to use, will create a more structured, hopeful life.

Because polytheistic gods are limited, they are far less subject to atheistic criticisms. Under polytheism there is room for chance in nature, society, and individual life. But there is also room for necessity since the gods have some limited power over their domain. The gods are immanent in nature and allow for responsible human intervention into ecological challenges through collective creativity and reciprocity. Furthermore, polytheists are not missionaries out to convert the world. Polytheists are happy with cross-cultural variation

Humans creatively participate with the gods and goddesses in ongoing earthly evolution with no need for promises of an afterlife because life on earth is erotic and pleasurable, rather than a reform school. There is no far-fetched expectation to believe in a God who created the world out of nothing. Instead, nature has always been here, infinite and eternal. Rather than obedience to God, polytheists claim to “do as thou wilt”, provided it harms no one. There are no apocalypses in polytheism. There are disasters within cycles, but because nature is infinitely creative, nature recovers from local disasters and keeps on spinning.

It is true that hard polytheism is on a collision course with atheism because atheists do not believe in the existence of God. But we must remember that the two kinds of soft polytheists can accommodate atheism because the gods are products of socio-history or psychology. But even hard polytheism is mostly accommodating to scientific atheism if we examine polytheist answers to the categories in the table.

• First published at Socialist Planning After Capitalism

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

Is it possible or desirable for socialists to integrate pantheism into dialectical materialism? Can Wiccan covens be integrated into anarchist affinity groups? Can socialism improve itself by embracing celebratory Neopagan seasonal rituals? All this is possible if socialists could admit that being atheists has not been attractive, fun or inspiring in organizing the working class.

Orientation

The term “New Age “means different things to different people: some positive, some negative. But I disagree with those sociologists or scholars of New Religious Movements who are overly inclusive and lump all kinds of alternative movements into New Age. To address this, in Part I of this article I contrasted twenty-seven ways in which Neopagans differ from New Agers. I began with what New Agers have in common. Then I defined the New Age, its boundaries and relationships with other movements along with its heroes and heroines. Then I did the same for Neopaganism. I also identified the historical and economic circumstances in which each arose.

However, my intentions are more ambitious than just doing a compare and contrast exercise. As a socialist, I want to know if either the New Age or Neopagan movements have anything to offer 21st century socialism. If you ask socialists themselves the overwhelming majority say no! They might say New Age is a desperate attempt by alienated middle classes to escape the crisis in capitalism by retreating into mysticism. They might refer to its commonalities with the mysticism of the end of the 19th century that Lenin criticized. As for Neopagans, socialists might say they are a throwback to superstitious times before the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, after all, dismissed witches as products of the sick minds of the Inquisition. Undeterred by this socialist cynicism, in Part II of this article I answer the questions I raised at the end of Part I. First, I address what New Age has to offer socialism. Then I ask is there anything of value that Neopaganism has to offer socialists. I conclude that there is almost no New Age claims and values that are of any use to socialism. On the other hand, there is quite a bit that Neopaganism has to offer socialism if only socialists would listen.

What Does The New Age Have To Offer Socialism?

Eastern spiritualism and spiritual individualism

Many socialists are insensitive to the difference between the Judeo-Christian religion of the West and Eastern spiritualism, which is embraced by New Agers. They are likely to dismiss the new-found techniques of meditation and rarely meditate themselves. What socialists would particularly reject is the do-it-yourself individualist spirituality. Liberation Theology socialists might say at least Catholic spirituality has a social component. Working-class socialists would either continue with their traditional religions or simply drop out and be apathetic to their religion. Individualist spirituality would have no draw for them.

The new science and decentralized eclecticism

Socialists would happily agree with New Agers who rejected mainstream political and religious authorities, but they are not likely to agree with New Agers about science. For socialists, science is a bedrock and they are likely to be unaware of new science and would not be very interested in challenging tradition. There are some socialists that would celebrate Stephen J. Gould’s punctuated equilibrium as the application of dialectics to Darwinian theory. However, New Age interest in science is usually the New Physics, the study of the brain and states of consciousness. Socialists usually aren’t interested in these subjects. New Age is a decentralized association of groups that have made little, if any, attempt to centralize or coordinate their activities let alone centralize so that they might fight for power. Socialists would see New Age as a spiritual marketplace.

The subjective nature of evil, anti-proselytizing

The New Ager’s pollyanna attitude of love and light would drive all socialists crazy. While socialists would agree with New Agers that there is no objective evil in the form of a devil, socialists would disagree that evil comes from psychological short-sightedness, lack of education, or ignorance. Socialists would say capitalists are a small class of people that are willing to destroy humanity and the planet.  This class struggle is not a matter of capitalists being short-sighted, lost, greedy, or incompetent. Socialists would not call capitalists “evil” because of its moral and spiritual overtones. But this is what it amounts to.

Some socialists would agree that the development of a socialist individual identity would move beyond the individual ego, but would say that deeper individual self is inseparable from the practice of a community of socialists and not to be achieved through an isolated spiritual practice. New Agers reluctance to proselytize or do a kind “missionary” work would be treated as lacking ambition. Socialists want to recruit the working class to its ranks and understands that the working-class has “false-consciousness” that must be overcome through argument and struggle.  Socialists know that socialism can only be successful if it can spread internationally. It must aspire to expand. It cannot afford to wait for workers to get on board on their own accord.

The shape of change

Socialists would agree with New Agers that operating with a linear sense of time is outdated. They would agree up to a point with New Agers about the importance of looking at long-term change as cyclic. However, socialists’ interest in cycles would be limited to historical change. It would mock New Age interest in long-term astrological cycles. For socialists, astrology has nothing to do with what happens in history. Lastly, for Marxian socialists, cycles change into a dialectical spiral moving from theses-antithesis and synthesis.

Ancient Wisdom of the East 

Is it in some way advantageous for socialists that New Agers draw heavily from Eastern traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism rather than western traditions in Europe? For better or worse, for socialists it would be a disadvantage. Capitalism developed first in the West and working-class opposition to it also derived there. Most socialists still believe that any hopes for socialism will come out of Europe, because there has been a much deeper history of rebellions and revolutions than in the East. The fact that the first socialist revolution (Russia) did not have advanced industry;

The fact that today the largest socialist country in the world (China) is not from the West, should make socialists pause. Unfortunately, many socialists treat Marx’s theory that socialism is most likely to be from industrialized countries dogmatically and will be slow to change.

Where do sacred sources come from: the perennial philosophy

New Agers are critical of organized religion not because the spiritual world doesn’t exist but because organized religion is a bastardized, exoteric version of religion for controlling the masses. For New Agers, at the core of every world religion is an esoteric core of spiritual truths which all the great spiritual founders agreed with. This has been called “the perennial philosophy”. New Agers support the esoteric version of all the world’s religions. What would socialists think of this? They would be happy to see that New Agers are sensitive to the propagandist nature of world religions. The less dogmatically atheists like social democratic socialists might see some value in this.

Transcendentalism, monism, and the reality of matter

New Agers tend to see an ultimate spiritual force as being monistic and transcendental to biophysical and social reality. How might that be received? Socialists will be split on the question of whether the ultimate source is singular or plural. Most Marxists are materialistic monists and they will appreciate all of reality comes from a single source. The anarchists, being decentralists, will object and claim this as some form of spiritual imperialism. However, both Marxist and anarchists would be dead set against the sacred source being beyond the world (that is, transcendental). All socialists see nature and society as immanent, self-regulating, and creative. The fact that most New Agers see matter as either an illusion or a derivative of spirit would be dismissed by socialists. Socialists are generally materialists who think that matter is real and spirit is either an illusion or derivative.

Altered states, parapsychology, reincarnation, and creating your own reality

New Agers are greatly drawn to altered states of consciousness, either through mystical experience of through the use of hallucinogens. How will this go over with socialists? Not well. The leaders might think taking mind-altering drugs is a distraction from doing political work. Socialists will roll their eyes at New Age interest in ESP, clairvoyance, and telepathy and claim that a century’s worth of research has not found anything significant.  They see this as more New Age escapism. Working-class recruits will find this interesting and would probably enjoy TV shows like The X-files. Some New Agers claim to believe in reincarnation. Some say individuals are working out karma based on past lives. What will this do to socialist organizing? How might it help or hurt a working-class person to know they were a prince or a pauper in another life? Socialists will view belief in reincarnation as more pie in the sky when you die. It is a distraction from the one life we have and it pulls us away from making the world a better place. It reduces our world to a reform school for learning spiritual lessons.

More extreme New Agers like EST or Shirley MacLaine claim that individuals create their own reality and that reality has no objective existence. All socialists would throw up their hands at this and point to Berkeley or Fichte and say this is subjective idealist narcissism. The objective world is prior to, independent of, and beyond subjective reality, and individuals are limited in their aspirations based on their class location, their race, their gender, and the point in history they are born.

Upper-middle class and mildly patriarchal

Demographically New Agers are primarily upper-middle class professionals. This would work against organizing them into socialist organizations or a mass party because upper-middle class people are more individualistic based on the kind of work they do. However, if mobilized, they would be good at public speaking or legally defending socialists. Because some New Agers are susceptible to following Gurus this may work well with Leninist organizations which are sometime cultist (Democratic Workers Party in San Francisco and the Sullivanists in New York, both in the 1980s). New Agers are moderately supportive of feminism.  However, many women in New Age cults have been sexually exploited. Socialist feminists would be especially disgusted by this. They would see that women can only gain more power by being part of a movement that includes the working class, which is essentially absent in New Age circles.

Spiritual intentional communities: Burning man, Arcosanti and Findhorn

If a radical socialist labor union were taken on a tour of Findhorn, Soleri’s Arcosanti city, or given admission to a nine-day Burning Man, what would they think? Burning man would be immediately dismissed as a decadent play-pen for spoiled upper-middle class yuppies. Arcosanti would be dismissed as an impractical utopian city which is hopelessly running away from capitalism. Socialist cities have to grow out of a revolutionary struggle, not set up outside of it. Findhorn community would be looked upon as a bunch of spiritual kooks listening to angels.

Please have a look at Table A which lays out the New Age spectrum of interests. Following that, please see Table B which summarizes how New Age beliefs and actions compares with 21st century socialism. Across these 20 categories there is not a single clear commonality. Now we will turn to Neopaganism and see what it has to offer socialists.

What Does Neopaganism Have to Offer Socialism?

Western magic and matter as creative and self-regulating

Paganism and the western ceremonial magical traditions have deep roots in the West, from ancient Roman times through the Renaissance magicians, alchemists, Rosicrucian’s, and up to the Golden Dawn at the end of the 19th century. All these traditions were committed to in some way redeeming matter, rather than dismissing it or warning that it was an illusion. The “low” magical traditions of witchcraft are more controversial in terms of their origins. But we do know that witches were herbalists and midwifes and were committed to working with and transforming matter. Matter was seen by all magical traditions as creative, self-regulating, and immanent in this world. They are either pantheists or polytheists. Like socialist materialists, matter is seen by pagans as real. There is clearly a relationship between pagan pantheism and dialectical materialism.

Nature and society are objective forces that impact individuals and only groups change reality

Unlike New Agers, Neopagans would never say individuals “create their own reality”. Neopagan nature is revered and must be taken care of. The forces of nature or the gods and goddesses actively do things to disrupt the plans and schemes of individuals. How would socialists react to this? Very positively. All socialists understand nature and society as evolving. Secondly, socialists understand that the individual by ourselves can change little. It is organized groups which change the world. Since much of Neopagan rituals are group rituals, there would be compatibility in outlook here as well.

Embracing the aggressive and dark side of nature and society

Neopagans could never be accused of being fluffy or Pollyannish. They recognize that there is dark side of nature, and as Jung would say, a shadow side of humanity and individuals. These dark forces must be worked with and integrated. Socialists would agree with this, but insofar as the darkest force on this planet is capitalism, socialists would disagree that there can be any integration with capitalism. Since most Neopagans are not radical socialists, they might see socialists as advocating a dualistic cosmology.

Importance of the past and future and the shape of change

As I said in Part I, the past is very important to Neopagans mostly because of what Christianity did to pagans throughout Western history. Socialists might disagree with the value of Christianity. Some socialists focus on early Christianity and think in some ways Christianity was an evolutionary advance from paganism. Regardless of this difference, the past is also very important to Marxists because primitive communism was an example of how humanity could live without capitalism. Neopagans, like Marxists, are also very pro-science (some anarchists are not) and are very interested in science fiction and how society could be better organized in the future.

However, there is a difference in how the shape of change in conceived. Pagans see change as taking place in cycles with the turning of the seasons over the eight pagan holidays of the years as a model.  Marxian socialists would say this misses the fact that cycles turn into dialectical spirals, where the past returns on a higher level. This can be seen in Marxist visions of social evolution when primitive communism returns on a higher level to mature communism after mature communism has appropriated the material wealth produced by capitalism.

Neopagans also seem far less interested in the prospects of paranormal psychology than New Agers are. As I said earlier, good pagan rituals create altered states of consciousness on a regular basis and perhaps they are not looking for something out of the ordinary if the ordinary rituals can achieve altered states. This is one less obstacle for socialists to overcome.

Attitude towards authority, politics and economics

Unlike the New Age, there has never (to my knowledge) been pagan cults. Neopagans are generally an anti-authoritarian lot and organizing them can be like herding cats.

They are also anti-authoritarian in that most are self-educated like most socialists and do not have many “holy books.” Neopagans, like socialists, are very anti-capitalist in that they usually do not charge beginners in terms of passing on knowledge. Dedication to learning, sincerity, and consistency are all that is required. Anarchists and Neopagan witches are sympatico on this. Leninists who are hierarchical in their political organization would have difficulty with Neopagan anti-authoritarianism and they would be dismissed as anarchists.

Politically, many wiccan pagans like Starhawk’s Reclaiming have organized themselves anarchistically with consensus decision making, so they would be on a collision course with Leninists. Even worse, Neopagans who are ceremonial magicians organize themselves in graded orders, with knowledge passed on gradually over many years. This hierarchy in the magical world is then projected into politics. There are real reactionaries and even monarchists involved in ceremonial magic. Another point of difference is over whether or not to proselytize and convert. Like New Agers, Neopagans think people have to come to paganism on their own. Socialists disagree with them, as I discussed in our section on the New Age.

The most predictable anti-capitalists in Neopaganism are wiccans. Wiccans are also very pro-feminist and some are organized where the goddess values of women are predominant. All this is good news for socialists since Margot Adler has said that about half of the roughly 200,000 Neopagans are wiccans. The rest of Neopagans are for small business capitalism like running bookstores or coffee shops rather than supporting big business. Neopagans are more diversified class-wise than New Agers. There are some artisans, white collar working-class, middle-class, and those working with computers. These folks have less resistance to being organized with working class people than the prospect of socialists trying to organize with mostly upper middle-class people as in the New Age.

Altered states of consciousness, sensory saturation, gods and goddesses

I have saved these categories for last because this is the area of Neopaganism that might be the most actively contested by socialists, but it is also the area that I think Neopagans have the most to teach socialists. As I’ve stated in other articles, a good definition of magic is the art and science of changing group consciousness at will by saturating the senses through the use of the arts and images in ritual. Socialists are likely to dismiss this as dangerous because it sweeps people away. They are also likely to confuse this with religious rituals which religious authorities use to control their parishioners for the purposes of mystifying people and asserting control over them. This is a big mistake. Not all rituals are superstitious and when done well, they can empower people and build confidence. People in egalitarian societies, the ones Marxists call primitive communism, understood this.

As far as gods and goddesses go, in a superficial way we can say socialists are atheists and Neopagans believe in gods and goddesses, and that’s the end of it.  But it is not so simple. Yes, there are Neopagans who believe in the real existence of gods and goddesses (called “hard polytheists”) but these gods and goddesses do not contain the usual attributes of the monotheistic god. They are not transcendental; they do not promote fear and submission, nor do they have unrealistic, one-sided positive attributes such as all loving and all-knowing. These gods and goddesses don’t infantilize the population. Neither is there a devil as in monotheism. In Greek mythology, for example, all the gods and goddesses have strengths and weaknesses, expressing on a larger scale similar problems as human beings. There are no escape hatches for Neopagans.

Secondly, not all Neopagans believe in the independent existence of gods and goddesses. Some follow the Jungians in claiming the gods and goddesses are archetypes of collective humanity. They are projections along with mythology that show people how to live. Finally, there are those like myself who are Atheopagans. Led by Mark Green, we see gods and goddesses as metaphors for how to live. In their rituals, Neopagan gods and goddesses are not part of the ritual, but the ritual is very powerful without them.Conclusion

Of the 23 categories I’ve actively compared between Neopaganism and socialism, there are eight categories where there was full agreement between Neopaganism and social democrats, anarchists, and Leninists. The categories include:

• Western sources of influence
• The similarities between pantheism and dialectical materialism
• Matter is active, self-creative, self-regulating, and independent of mind or spirit
• Importance of the past—paganism before Christianity; primitive communism before class societies
• Importance of the future in the form of science fiction
• Recognition and acceptance of the aggressive and dark side of nature and humanity
• Very pro-feminist—emphasis on goddesses in Neopaganism and socialist feminism
• Passing on special knowledge without economic exchange. Importance of self-education

In addition, the political decentralization of the anarchists is directly in line with wiccan covens. This is a direct challenge to any kind of federation or centralization, whether it be Leninists or Social democrats. Given that according to Margot Adler about half of Neopagans are wiccans, there is an even stronger connection between anarchism and Neopaganism.

In other articles I’ve named some of the major components of 21st century socialism for Yankeedom. A mass political party which analyzes, generalizes, and spreads working-class self-organization: the presence of newsletters like Labor Notes which tracks working class struggles around Yankeedom; the presence of a transition program which shows workers our plans 3,5, 10 years down the road; the presence of worker cooperatives where workers rehearse how to make decisions about what to produce, how to produce it, and where the product should go as well as how much to pay themselves. Lastly, economic theorists which track the crisis in capitalism and project various alternative socialist economic models. In socialist economics, this would be the work of Richard Wolff, David Harvey, Anwar Shaikh, Michael Roberts, and John Bellamy Foster. Since most of these economists are social democrats, they might have some appeal to Neopagan New Deal liberals who might be curious about socialism. The work of anarchist economist David Graeber would be perfect for Neopagan witch anarchists. With the possible exception of a transition program, Neopagans could easily be brought in.

However, where Neopagans have most to offer socialists is their ability to do meaningful rituals during the course of the seasons of the year. There are eight Neopagan holidays throughout the year: Yule (Winter Solstice); Brigid (Candlemas); Eostar (Spring Equinox); Beltane (May Day); Litha (Summer Solstice); Lughnasad; Mabon (Fall Equinox); Samahin (Halloween). People all over the world celebrate some or even all these holidays. The benefit of celebrating these holidays is that it gives a cyclic dimension to social life. It harnesses us to nature and the turning of the seasons.

The history of socialism is out-to-lunch in not understanding the importance of cycles of the seasons to human beings. It is one of many reasons why nationalism, sports, and religion have been more attractive to the working-class than socialism. Sports is rooted in the seasons of the year. For baseball, spring to fall, then next spring and next fall. For football, its fall and winter. Nationalism has its special holidays peppered throughout the year that are connected to the seasons. So does religion. What do socialists have to celebrate seasons? Nothing. Socialists have no yearly rhythm. Strikes, boycotts, and protests all rise in reaction to a particular event. When they are over, there is no grounding in how they might be connected to the spring and summer. There is no socialist respect for the turning of the seasons in nature and that we are partly biological beings who need rituals to ground us in the seasons. As I’ve said in other articles, we need socialists in the arts, especially in dance, music, choreography, and playwriting to join with Neopagans who are already good at this. Socialism badly needs seasonal rituals if it is to compete with sports, nationalism, and religion.

• First published in Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

Neopagans have a great deal to teach 21st Century socialists, if only we would listen. As capitalism has gone into deep decline in the United States and England beginning in the 1970s, two spiritual movements have sprung up outside Judeo-Christianity: The New Age and Neopaganism. Contrary to some sociologists’ claims that Neopagan Wiccans, Druids and Ceremonial Magicians are not part of the New Age, I argue that there are at least 27 differences between the two. I claim that these differences could be the basis of an alliance between Neopagans and 21st Century socialists.

Orientation

Beginning in the late 1970s, Yankeedom became increasingly conservative as the standard of living declined. The white working-class flocked to the more conservative fundamentalist churches where they were told to vote for a conservative in the 1980 elections. But what happened to the middle and upper middle-classes? They also experienced an economic decline. For some, their strategy was to reject organized religion, and build two alternative spiritualities: the New Age on the one hand, and Neopaganism on the other. This article compares and contrasts them to each to each other.

I begin the article with the economic conditions of Yankeedom between 1948 to about 1978. I then provide working definitions of each movement, when they started and who their major contributors were. I then compare and contrast the New Age and Neopaganism in depth. I begin with what they have in common, but I spend most of the article contrasting their differences across 27 categories including the importance of the past and future; attitude towards Christianity; the methods of achieving altered states of consciousness; importance of the paranormal and attitude and stance towards authority. As a materialist, my concern is also with New Age and Neopaganism’ place on the political spectrum and their attitudes towards capitalism. Lastly, I examine their class composition and their stance on feminism. I close Part I of this article by asking questions about how relevant both movements might be to 21st century socialism. In Part II of this article, I answer the questions I’ve raised.

My sources for this article are The Emerging Network: A Sociology of the New Age and Neo-Pagan Movements by Michael York, The New Age Movement by Paul Heelas, Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler, and The Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson. I will also draw on my personal experience, having lived in and around both of these movements in the San Francisco Bay Area (jokingly referred to as the Neopagan capital of the world) between the ages of 30-50 during 1970- 1990.  I also witnessed the start of the Burning Man phenomenon, which some say is the essence of the New Age.

Yankeedom Economic Roller Coasters 1950-1990

Marxian economists agree that between the end of World War II and about 1971 were the golden years of capitalism, at least in Yankeedom. Germany and Japan were decimated by the World War II and offered no competition to Yankee capitalists. The white working-class never had it better. Unions were stronger than ever (about one worker in three was in a union). The GI bill allowed these workers to buy cheap homes in the newly built suburbs and go to college tuition-free if they wanted. The Yankee rulers were so wealthy that they were taxed up to 90% of their earnings and they still made great profits. A working-class family lived comfortably on one income and the job, on average, was 40 hours a week.  Under these abundant conditions, it is no accident that there were no New Age or Neopagan movements because movements are more likely to emerge when economic, political or ecological conditions are difficult.

Economically, things began heading south in the early 1970s. Germany and Japan had recovered from the war and were beginning to compete with Yankee capitalists. One response from the Yankee rulers, rather than competing directly with these two nations, was to rip off more surplus value from workers. Yankee capitalists uprooted manufacturing jobs and set up factories in what were then called “Third World” countries where land and labor were cheaper. These were called “runaway shops”. This meant the end of well-paying manufacturing jobs for workers. Unions were not strong enough to stop this. No retraining was provided by the state, as workers had to scramble to find semi-skilled or unskilled jobs. The second way Yankee capitalists squeezed surplus value out of workers was to increase the number of hours workers labored during the week and the number of hours worked each day. By the 1980s, the average work week had risen from 40 to 50 hours per week and working-class and middle-class households required two incomes. Workers struggled with insecure jobs and the unions were unable to protect workers’ health-care benefits. Workers began to lose confidence in unions and union membership declined.

A third major decision the ruling-class made was to invest their money in financial capital rather than industrial capital. In 1971 the rulers decided to go off the gold standard as the reserve currency and the dollar had no gold backing. Capital could be exchanged by bankers without needing gold to back it up. In addition, the United States had lost in Vietnam and the oil embargo by the OPEC countries sent a shiver down the spines of the Rockefellers. The Rockefeller sponsored Club of Rome project told the Yankee population that population pressure was a real problem and people needed to live on less. Yankeedom was in economic decline. By the late 1970s Jimmy Carter was telling its population that we needed to learn to do with less.

All this is not the kind of news the Yankee population expected to hear. Increasingly, politicians were distrusted while the mainstream religions were seen by both middle-class and upper middle-class sectors of the population as part of the problem. It is in these declining conditions that the Neopagan and the New Age movements should be understood. Both alternatives were optimist spiritual reactions to a depressed state of the political economy and mainstream religion.

What Does the New Age and Neopaganism Have in Common?

Before we define the New Age and Neopaganism, let’s begin by what they have in common. Though the seeds of these movements are difficult to pin down, the time of their clear presence was remarkably similar. Neopaganism “arrived” in 1979 with the simultaneous publishing of two books: Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance and Margot Alder’s book Drawing Down the Moon. For the New Age, the founding text, the Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson was published in 1980.

Both movements were strongly motivated by a rejection of mainstream Judeo-Christian religion. Both movements believed in the power of personal experience, whether magical or mystical, as opposed to trusting religious authorities, whether they be priests or rabbis. Each believed that every individual had a “higher self” that superseded the ego. The experience of novices of both Neopagan and New Age movements when they first find out about the movements is mostly described as a “homecoming”. There are no reports of conversion. Both agree that evil not an objective force (as in the form of a devil). Rather, each think that evil has either a psychological or social origin. Neither intends to grow bigger, as there are no Neopagan or New Age missionaries. Each is life-affirming and optimistic rather than life-denying and pessimistic.

Each movement was decentralized, consisted of word-of-mouth, grapevines and networking.  Neither movement has a national central organization. Neopagans are militantly against centralization and Wiccan covens closely resemble anarchist organizations. New Agers’ interests span a larger number of disciplines and the whole movement is more of an eclectic mishmash with no center. Partly for these reasons, the precise number of people in each movement is hard to pin down. Both movements are located in the United States and, to a lesser extent in England. Both are critical of depicting change in a gradual, linear and inevitable way. Each sees change as happening in cycles, and when something new emerges it is the product of non-linear dynamics.

Summarizing the Commonalities:

• Point of origin: late 1970s
• Place: United States, England
• Economic conditions: decline of industrial to finance capital
• Religion: Rejection of Judeo-Christianity
• Authority: Distrust of religious, political and scientific authorities: value of personal experience
• Type of self: higher self (Jung) atman self (Hinduism)
• Outlook: optimistic
• No need for conversion or proselytizing
• No devils (evil is psychological or social)
• Organization: decentralized
• The shape of time: Both see the limits of linear time. Each sees change as happening in cycles, spirals and in non-linear ways.

Defining the New Age

Why Aquarian?

Many consider the book The Aquarian Conspiracy to be the “bible” of the New Age Movement. The title of the book locates the New Age within an astrological framework. Supposedly, we are coming out of the darker side of Age of Pisces, the age of spiritual decline, into the Age of Aquarius. Astrologically the Aquarian Age means the age of experimentation, innovation, light, healing and love. In what areas do we see these characteristics operating?

Ferguson tells us the spirit is operating in many fields: brain science and consciousness studies; the new science of general systems theory and physics; medical health with alternative medicine; in education and spirituality. The problem here is that by calling this movement, “Aquarian” or even “New Age”, gathers people in these fields under an astrological umbrella. Some schools of thought listed such as the complexity theory of Prigogine, the General Systems theory of von Bertalanffy or the philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, would hardly be happy with astrological associations. Neither would Ferguson’s heroes L. L. Whyte, Jan Smuts (Holism and Evolution), Alfred North Whitehead or Gregory Bateson. Let’s accept this unfortunate start and let’s say she is on to something regardless of its astrological associations.

Who are its heroes and heroines?

Besides those mentioned above, who are the rest of Ferguson’s New Age heroes? In history we have Toynbee, De Tocqueville, and William Irving Thompson. In education, A.S Neill and Ivan Illich; in the globalization of society there is Marshall McLuhan, Teilhard de Chardin, Willis Harman, and H.G. Wells. In brain science there is  Karl Pribram, in  physics  Fritjof  Capra (The Tao of Physics) and David Bohm. Mystics of many ages are claimed as predecessors – Meister Eckhart, Jacob Bohme, Pico and William Blake, and closer to the present, the New England transcendentalists William James (Varieties of Religious Experience) and Bucke (Cosmic Consciousness). There are two humanistic astrologers who were especially important to the New Age: Dane Rudyhar and Marc Edmund Jones. Mythologists like Joseph Campbell and psycho-mythologists like Jung were enormously popular.

Very important to the New Age was the work of Ken Wilbur and Jeanne Houston. Wilbur’s first book The Spectrum of Consciousness created a continuum link between psychology and spirituality. From there he went on to write spiritual books on social evolution (Up From Eden) and developmental psychology (Atman Project). Jean Houston also straddled the line between psychology and spirituality with what she coined “Sacred Psychology”. She wrote books which showed how Greek mythology could be used for psychological growth. Her book Life Force described the history of the West based on five stages of self-development. These stages were based on the work of Gerald Heard.  In the field secular psychology, the humanistic psychologists Maslow and Rogers, Rollo May and Erich Fromm were part of the human potential movement, not the New Age. But some of these humanistic psychologists were also interested in LSD and were influenced by Aldous Huxley and later by Stanislav Grof along with the popular shamanism of Carlos Castaneda.

Down with mechanistic, reductionist science!

The New Age is not just rebelling against organized religion. It is also reacting to conventional science with its overspecialization. This overspecialization keeps traditional science from seeing the big picture and having an interdisciplinary perspective. New Agers complain about mainstream’s sciences tendency to reduce all complexity in nature to physics. It also rejects dualism involving separation of mind from matter and mind from body. It believes modern science is slow, plodding and preoccupied with gradually building things up. What this misses is that nature is full of surprises and qualitative leaps whether in scientific knowledge (Kuhn), physics (Bohm), the nature of subatomic participles (Capra), or biology (Gould’s punctuated equilibrium). Change often does not happen in a linear way but in a non-linear manner as described by Prigogine. Lastly, conventional science sees nature as mechanistic and driven by external forces, rather than organic and self-regulating (Von Bertalanffy, general systems theory.)

Sharpening the boundaries of the New Age

One problem with the New Age is its fuzzy, overly inclusive boundaries. For example, its inclusion of the human potential movement within it. When we look at the practice of the human potential movement, the psychological boundaries of individuals were pushed much more aggressively than most of the practitioners of the New Age would be comfortable (with the exception of “Guru” groups like EST of Rajneesh). Secondly, the use of hallucinogenics in the early 70s had no official approval and the psychologists were treating those who came to Esalen as human experiments. Fritz Perls and Will Schutz got into raging fights. Perls slept with many of the participants at Esalen and took enjoyment in reducing them to tears. Many of the group therapy sessions were done in the nude with no structure, explanations or reasons. Group marathons were held all weekend, “opening people up”, without offering any follow-up support. This method is hardly about bringing love and light to people that New Agers advocate.

The Human Potential Movement was primarily psychological with spirituality on the periphery. Yes, I remember books by Alan Watts and Dameon on the coffee table of hippie friends in Berkeley in 1970, but they were more the exception than the rule. The New Age was primarily spiritual with psychology on the periphery. Lastly, the New Age was much more supportive of petit bourgeois capitalism, whether it be small shops or decentralized economies (Small is Beautiful). The Human Potential movement was generally silent about capitalism.

Defining Neopaganism

Monotheism is but imperialism in religion.

— James Henry Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, Charles Scribner’s Sons, September, 1912, pp. 312, 315.

It is also significant that one group that Marilyn Ferguson never mentions as exemplars of New Age were Neopagans. The reasons for this will be clearer later on in this article, but for now it is just worth mentioning.

Roots of Neopaganism

Neopagnism clearly came of age in the late 1970s and has grown since then. But how far back does it go? In terms of the Wicca tradition, there was the work of Gerald Gardner in the 1940s. However, in terms of ceremonial magick, Neopaganism goes back to the 19th century with the Golden Dawn. But ceremonial magic has a long history itself going further back to the Renaissance magick of Ficino, Bruno and Paracelsus. The term “Neopagan” really refers to pagan practices since Gerald Gardiner reconstructed wiccan ritual practices.

Types of Neopagans

Like the New Age, Neopagans exist on a spectrum.

• Gardnerian Wicca which originated in England and was the first reconstructed wicca which drew from Margaret Murray and Robert Graves
• Alexandrian Wicca which also originated in England and more than other wiccas, has hierarchical grades and tests that must be passed to advance
• Dianic Wicca focuses on a single goddess and consists of virtually all women covens. They also draw from Margaret Murray. Z Budapest is a famous example.
• Faery Wicca specifically working with nature spirits. Gay men have been influential. Starhawk’s group Reclaiming is part of this.
• Ethnic/historical Neopagans aim to revive pre-Christian practices of the Greeks, Romans, Druids, Celtic and Norse traditions.
• Voudon – these practices developed in Africa and Haiti, combining magic with Catholicism. It used to be called Voo-doo.
• Ceremonial magic which draws from the Golden Dawn and the work of Aleister Crowley.
• Ceremonial magicians tend to synthesize systems such as The Tree of Life, the Tarot and Astrology.
• Neopagans who emphasize the future based on science fiction writers. The Church of All Worlds is an example of this.
• Jungian archetypal psychology. While Jungians are not themselves a type of Neopaganism, there are Jungian interpretations of what wiccans and ceremonial magicians are up to. Besides Jung, James Hillman’s polytheistic psychology and the work of David Miller have done a great deal to make paganism respectable in the eyes of psychologists. Margot Adler has brought a Jungian perspective to the history of Neopaganism. Vivianne Crowley has done the same in England. Robert Bly has added a mythopoetic slant to involving more men in “men’s mystery traditions”.

Who does Neopaganism exclude? Excluded are most Eastern mystical groups with an authoritarian structure, Christianity and Satanism, which most Neopagans consider reversed Christianity.

Characteristics of Neopagans

Though there are significant differences between Neopagan groups, they do share the following characteristics:

• The sacred sources are plural. There is a belief in animism, polytheism or pantheism. There is one exception to this and that is some feminist wiccans insist on revering a single monotheistic Goddess. Recently there has developed paganism without gods and goddesses. Mark Green has developed something called “atheopaganism” and John Halstead has cultivated something he calls “humanistic paganism.”
• The sacred sources are immanent, not transcendent. This means that the material world is self-regulating and does not require intervention. Nature is all we need.
• Like the material world, the human body is not in a fallen state. The senses and sexuality are celebrated, not depreciated.
• The method of altering states of consciousness is through a collective ritual in which the imagination and senses are saturated through the arts, using music song, dance, incense, and mask-making. This is called the art and science of magick.
• Neopagans are generally anti-authoritarian and do not accept revealed sacred knowledge. Magical practices are experiential.
• There is a practice which is connected with the celebration of eight pagan holidays throughout the year. Rituals are also done for special occasions like coming of age, marriages and death.

Who are Neopagan Heroes and Heroines? 

Besides Gerald Gardner, some recent figures associated with Neopaganism are Margaret Murray, Robert Graves, James Frazer. Theoreticians are Isaac Bonewits, Aidan Kelly and Starhawk. Other notorieties include Z Budapest, Morgan McFarland, Selena Fox, Tim and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart and Gwydion Pendderewen.

Comparing the New Age to Neopaganism

I will now systematically compare New Agers to Neopagans across 27 categories. Please peruse the table to get a handle on where we are going.

Time, place and ontology

The first major difference has to do with ontology. New Agers draw mostly from Eastern traditions: Buddhism, Hinduism and the Theosophy of Blavatsky and Alice Bailey. Neopagans draw from the Western tradition of witchcraft, hermeticism and alchemy. Closely connected to this are the differences in the attitude towards matter.

New Agers follow Eastern traditions that say that matter is an illusion at worst, derivative of spirit at best. Neopagans treat matter as real, recalcitrant and to be struggled with. Western alchemists saw that their work was to “redeem matter” by changing sulphur, salt and mercury into gold. For New Agers the universe is one and transcendental to the material world. As I said earlier, with the exception of some female wiccan goddess worshipers, all Neopagans speak of nature as plural. They are either polytheists or animists and they believe these powers are immanent. Nature is self-creating and self-regulating. Lastly, New Agers follow Huxley’s perennialism which says that all the world religion has esoteric core claims which are the same around the world. The differences between religions are exoteric, superficial, superstitious, and decadent. For Neopagans, sacred knowledge comes from local places which are unique to it and cannot be joined with others without the tradition being watered down or lost.

New Agers do not spend much time analyzing the past. They believe that ancient societies were wiser and contained spiritual wisdom that was lost with the Age of Pisces. What matters is that we are living in the present and the long-distant future in the Age of Aquarius. The New Agers have no axe to grind with the past. This is not so with Neopagans, as we shall see next.

Attitudes towards Christianity

Neopagans are very aware of what Christians did to pagans at the end of the Roman Empire. The brutal killing of Hypatia and the burning of the Alexandrian library is just the tip of the iceberg. In the Renaissance, pagans had to hide their magical practices. The centralized state, along with the Protestants and Catholics, persecuted the witches in Early Modern Europe. Pagans for the most part are anti-Christians, and even today have to worry about being persecuted. Many Neopagans neither forgive nor forget.

New Agers are much more likely to be eclectic and incorporate Christianity. For example, in response to Marilyn Ferguson’s questionnaire, the Christian paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin was named as their greatest inspiration. Barbara Marx Hubbard’s book Conscious Evolution is modelled on Chardin’s work. Paolo Soleri’s building of “Asrcosanti” in central Arizona has been inspired by Chardin. Furthermore, New Agers have welcomed Dominican Catholic priest Matthew Fox into the fold. Fox’s Creation Spirituality even made room for wiccan Starhawk on his teaching staff.

Attitudes to authority, community, subculture and countercultures

The wiccan tradition was visited by a passing comet, during the radical wing of the women’s liberation movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some women were not satisfied with promises of the patriarchal churches to reform and they searched for a women’s spirituality beyond all organized religion. They found it in wicca. These women carried the same leveling tendency into wicca that they carried with them into the New Left. They met little resistance from wiccan covens that were already established. Neopagan communities generally consist of many people who are self-educated and are hostile to most authorities. The culture that they create is a strong counterculture which consists of covens, bookstores, coffeehouses in cities, and self-sustaining farms in rural areas. These are countercultures which are in conscious opposition to the dominant culture. While pagans can be very individualist, most of their practice is community-based.

New Agers have had less of a history of persecution and are far less afraid of being harassed by mainstream religious authorities. They are more respectful of authorities (especially Eastern teachers) and are much more likely to be victims of cults. There is a New Age culture that can be seen at talks, conferences or festivals, but it is not built out of necessity and it is much more loosely formed. New Agers are more at home with structured authorities and do not have communities which gather together to create a New Age experience. As we shall see, most New Agers come out of professional settings, are more individualistic and less experienced in creating a community independent of the authorities.

Drug-induced mystical vs magical states of consciousness

Hallucinogens have been important in New Age Culture, going all the way back to Huxley’s use of mescaline. Psychologist Stanislav Grof has studied and advocated for LSD and Terence McKenna has argued for the power of hallucinogenics in tribal societies. Setting aside the issue of drugs, an altered state of consciousness can be achieved in two ways. One is through sensory deprivation, which can create a mystical experience.  The other, sensory saturation, creates a magical state of consciousness. For New Agers, since their major influences have been Eastern, various forms of meditation have been the road to a spiritual state of mind. While Neopagans may use meditation as an initial starting point to ground themselves at the beginning of a ritual, the ritual itself is not meditative. The use of drumming, singing, dancing, colorful costumes, incense, and food saturate the senses to create enthusiasm or ecstasy. This is an active, trance state in which the participate “travels” or in some cases is possessed. Mystical states create calm, passive revelation. Magical states create controlled pandemonium – where all the gods speak.

Paranormal, archetypes and supernaturalism

Marilyn Ferguson’s questionnaire for New Agers indicated that there was very high belief in ESP, clairvoyance and telepathy (85%- 94%). Margot Alder gave no corresponding results for Neopagans, but it is safe to say a large number of Neopagans also believe in paranormal phenomenon. However, there are two important differences. There are more Neopagans who not only are interested in the new sciences, but are more skeptical and willing to criticize them from a knowledge of scientific methodology. New Agers, in my experience, are more likely to commit to the confirmation bias and not look for evidence that contradicts what they already believe.

The second important difference about belief in the paranormal is that Neopagans have seasonal rituals in which they have positive group experience on a repeated basis. They are aware that the social group has the power to alter their state of consciousness. They have less need to believe in paranormal experiences in order to feel connected. In addition, many Neopagans do not even believe in the independent existence of goddesses or gods. Some think they are Jungian archetypes which are the product of humanity, not a spiritual world.

Human nature and individual power

Since New Agers tend to see matter as an illusion, it seems hardly far-fetched to think they see dark and negative forces as products of short-sightedness, ignorance or egotism, but in no sense real. This has led to them being called pollyannish, seeing the world through rose colored glasses. The spiritual power that comes with enlightenment is so powerful that it is thought that individuals create their own reality (as Shirley MacLaine has argued).

Just as Neopagans see matter as real and recalcitrant, they also understand forces that are considered dark as real and which are much deeper than short-sightedness or egotism. Neopagans might draw on evolutionary psychology, specifically sexual selection, to explain conflicts between males and females. So too, they might explain conflicts as evolutionary mismatches between the conditions under which we formed our human nature (hunter-gatherers) and our contemporary industrial capitalist societies, which are far from those conditions. What follows is that for Neopagans neither individuals or groups “create their own reality”. We are limited in what we can achieve as both the biophysical world and the socio-historical worlds are larger systems and cannot be pacified or reduced to background.

Politics and Economics

In her book The Aquarian Conspiracy, Marilyn Ferguson claims that politically New Agers constitute a “radical center”, a combination of Republicans and Democrats. But there is no New Age consensus about this. There really are no conservative New Agers. There seem to be a combination of New Deal liberals or they are libertarians. Neopagans are much broader politically. There is a strong anarchist presence in the work of Starhawk and Reclaiming, and Reclaiming groups have spread from the SanFrancisco Bay Area to other parts of the contrary. In addition, Neopagans seem to be New Deal liberals, but there are also two more right-wing elements. The Heathen Nordic tradition in the United States has more patriarchal elements and has been accused by other Neopagans as fascist. In Europe, some Neopagans who are part of the ceremonial Magick traditions such as the Golden Dawn are reactionaries or even monarchists (Dolores Ashcraft-Nowicki). Ceremonial Magick have  orders with graded hierarchies. It makes sense that if their orders are hierarchical it is a reflection of their beliefs about human political systems.

The New Agers are not bashful about thinking there is nothing wrong with material success. (Heelas, New Age Movement 58-67). Neither do they seem to worry that the cost of their workshops and lectures might be beyond the financial reach of working-class or poor people. In the index of The Aquarian Conspiracy there is no entry about either capitalism or socialism. What this means to me is that economics is not thought of in a systematic way, as in calling it “capitalism”. Rather, it is seen as “the economy”. It seems to have never crossed their minds that they might be promoting a spiritual capitalism. Neopagans are very critical of the New Age leaders charging large sums of money for what spiritual knowledge they have to offer.

Traditionally in wicca, the “Craft” is passed down without charge. The important thing is that the aspiring student be serious, do the work, be consistent in attendance and pass on what has been learned in the same spirit in which it was given – for free.

Wiccans are the most likely of Neopagans to be anti-capitalist. Some, like Z Budapest, envision a socialist matriarchy.

Gender and class

In Marilyn Ferguson’s questionnaire, she said that the most of her sample were professionals (meaning upper middle-class) there is no representation of working-class people. In addition, to the extent that the New Age supports Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism or Zen, they buy into an Eastern patriarchal framework.

The presence of cults that often come out of these traditions and guarantees there will be extreme dominance by a leader which, in cults, is almost inevitably a male.

In her book Drawing Down the Moon, Margot Adler says that some of the first witches she meet in England were working-class. To the extent that wiccans own farms they work on, they are likely to be what Marx called petite bourgeois. Usually, rural pagans do all the work on the farm themselves, including blacksmithing, tanning, weaving and selling to a market. There are also middle-class and upper-middle class Neopagans. The number one profession for Neopagans on Adler’s survey were computer programmer, systems analyst or software developer. But third on her list is secretary or clerical, indicating membership in white collar working-class. There are middle-class and upper middle-class workers such as teachers or therapists but the percentage of upper middle-class is lower than for New Agers. Lastly, Neopagans are extremely supportive of feminism. Some Dianic witches don’t even allow men in their covens. The structure of wicca gives more weight to goddesses than gods and it has been an adjustment for male wiccans not to be centered in these rituals. Generally, wiccan men are very supportive and the presence of gay men in the rituals has helped feminism.

Practical Application

New Age communities can be seen in three applications. The first is Burning Man, which began in 1986, has lasted into the present. This is a yearly creative gathering that began in San Francisco and then moved to Black Rock, Nevada. In my opinion this gathering draws young, upper-middle class people who are disappointed they missed the 1960s and want to make up for that period. In recent years it has been attended by wealthy people whom some complain have not respected the principle of self-reliance. It has gotten more and more expensive to attend. Some say the role-playing and self-expression are more signs of narcissism and capitalist decadence than model communities of the future.

Another New Age community project is one started by Italian city planner and follower of Teilhard de Chardin, Paolo Soleri . His project (started in 1970) is to  build an urban environment which encourages intense social interaction in the absence of large-scale industry and built with ecologically sensitivity. It has been worked on for 40 years, with an ideal of housing 5,000 people. Findhorn Foundation, an intentional village community located in Scotland, has been developing since the 1980s. The community is based on the theosophical principles of Alice Bailey.

Neopagans are less interested in large scale intentional communities. In witchcraft, the basic unit is the coven. The coven usually consists of between 8 and 13 people who meet at a minimum of eight times a year to celebrate and ritualize the eight pagan holidays of the year. Some are more ambitious and meet to celebrate coming of age rituals, marriages or funerals of individual members. There has been a growth in recent years of Neopagan regional conferences and festivals.

Prospect: Is It Possible to Synthesize Socialism with the New Age and Neopaganism?

Towards the beginning of this article, I identified commonalities between the New Age and Neopaganism. I will selectively use some commonalities to pose some questions. Both Neopagans and New Agers reject mainstream Judeo-Christianity. Would this help or hinder the development of socialism? Most socialist theoreticians claim to be atheists, so they would agree with rejecting Judeo-Christiantiy. However, they would not want to replace it with Eastern mysticism or gods and goddesses.  But what about with possible recruits from the working-class, many of whom may be fundamentalists? Both Neopagans and New Agers reject religious, political and scientific authorities and trust their own experience. What would the working class think of this? The organization of both New Agers and Neopaganism is decentralized.  Will that organization help or hurt the development of socialism?

We said the outlook of both movements is optimistic. Will this optimism help or hinder the building of socialism? Both Neopagans and New Agers claim that human beings have a higher identity than the ego. Each claim to have a “higher” self that is capable of tapping into a deeper reality. Will this new identity be welcomed or mocked by socialists? Unlike mainstream religions, neither New Agers nor Neopagans claim they are missionaries and say they are not in the business of conversion. Given that historically socialists have tried to convert the working class, this lack of missionary zeal will not set so well with socialist theoreticians. Neither Neopagans or New Agers personify or objectify evil. Given socialists’ claim that capitalism is the root of all social problems, do socialists personify capitalists as evil? If so, does this mean socialism loses its edge if it stops proselytizing?  Both Neopagans and New Agers reject linear concepts of time for cyclic and non-linear time frames. This would seem to go very well with the Marxian dialectical shape of history.

In Part II of this article, I will discuss how each taken separately can be useful or not useful to socialism. In this section, I will only use the categories of comparison in order to pose but not answer more questions. New Agers are drawn to Eastern traditions and Neopagans to the West.  Should that matter to socialists, and if so, why? Should it matter to socialists whether Neopagans or New Agers understand nature as a single force or plurality of forces? Should it matter to socialists if nature is understood as  both self-creating and self-sustaining or whether there is a force beyond nature? Is matter real and independent of consciousness or is matter an illusion and only consciousness is real? Why should this matter to socialists?

Both New Agers and Neopagans emphasize the importance of creating altered states of consciousness, with drugs or by sensory deprivation or sensory saturation techniques. Does this get in the way of building socialism or can it advance it? Neopagans are further away from mainstream culture than New Agers. Can this assist or hinder socialist attempts or organize and sustain socialist organizations? Many New Agers are convinced that paranormal psychology is real and that we must cultivate those skills. How will this be received by socialist theoreticians and socialist recruits from the working class?

Both movements reject reductionist science for the new, non-linear science in the fields of physics, and the brain. Will socialists jump on this bandwagon or dismiss this science as pseudo-science? How will socialists greet the New Age notion that people are good and only turn out badly because they are uneducated, ignorant, short-sighted. Will they agree with Neopagan characterizations of the New Age as Pollyanna?

Freedom is highly valued by both New Agers and Neopagans. But is there such a thing as going too far? How will it go over with working-class people when Shirley MacLaine tells each working-class individual that they “create their own reality”? Some New Agers claim to believe in reincarnation. Some say individuals are working out karma based on past lives. What will this do to socialist organizing. How might it help a working-class person to know they were a prince or a pauper in another life? The class composition of New Agers is primarily upper-middle class. How easy will it be for socialists to integrate them into a socialist organization? Many wiccans are organized into covens. Will that organization help or get in the way of building a socialist mass party? New Agers are more hierarchical than Neopagans and they are more likely to accept a spiritual leader, who is most of the time, a man. How will this be received by socialists?

Many women into feminist wicca are anarchists. How will this work with a socialist party organized along Leninist lines? Some New Agers are libertarian and commercial capitalists. Do these folks have any redeeming value for socialists? If a radical socialist union were taken on a tour of Findhorn, Soleri’s Arcosanti city, or an admission to a nine-day Burning Man, what would they think? What would it be like for the same group to be invited to one of the Spiral Dance rituals of Starhawk’s organization, Reclaiming? We will address and provide answers to these questions in Part II of this article.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.