The Great Mother Goddesses

Or, How Our Own Death Wish is Causing Many of Us to Return to the Old Ways.

Let me preface the following by saying I know nothing of genetics and very little of hardcore science in general. I'm probably going to use various, or many, terms incorrectly and miss the intended point of an important theory. So, if any of you science-y people out there spot errors I encourage you to correct me. Okay, on with the wild ramblings.

Have you heard of the Toba Catastrophe Theory? It states that roughly 70,000- 75,000 years ago a volcano on what is now Sumatra, in Indonesia, blew the Hel up and set in motion a series of environmental effects that caused a pretty drastic bottleneck in the human population. What's a bottleneck in population? That's when something pretty big, nasty and scary, like a plague, earthquake, ice age, volcanic eruption, etc., brings about the deaths of so many beings of a certain species that the descendants of the survivors are incredibly close genetically because so few were left to perpetuate the species. In the case of the Toba eruption it's estimated that perhaps as few as 1,000 breeding pairs of humans survived. There are also estimates that go as high as 10,000 pairs but either way, it was a pretty big damn drop in population. And it got me thinking.

It got me thinking about how many people look to religion and spirituality in hard times. Before I started learning about population bottlenecks, and the Toba disaster is just one of many, I had always wondered about the Great Mother Goddesses. Why were they so important to our ancestors? Why were they most likely the first to be crafted into statuettes? Why were they among the first divinities to be worshiped? Why were they, in many lands, cultures and times, the most loved? Why did they, above so many others, spread out from their homelands and find adherents over many continents? What's so special about them? And the most obvious, and somewhat unsatisfying, answer was that they were in charge of the continuance of human life. They were in charge of sexuality that led to conception, pregnancy, birth and growth leading eventually back to sexuality. They were the ultimate creators, the supreme progenitors, they were the mothers of us all.

Seems pretty simple, right? Why then, I ask you, did the worship of said Great Mother Goddesses die out and eventually become despised? What made them so important and then, at best, meaningless and, at worst, evil? I know, I know. It's the fault of the Judeo-Christians and their comparatively new religions. But things must have changed to allow for such a male-centric mythos to take hold. What could it have been? Answer: The population had long since stabilized and the need for Great Mother Goddesses had waned. Which means something major must have happened long, long before that to make the production of children an extremely high priority for nearly everyone alive. But what could that have been? Answer: An extraordinary drop in the population and the resultant desperation.

Now skip ahead a couple thousand years. People began returning to the old ways and the old gods about the time of the Industrial Revolution. Just about the time factories began spewing poison into the air, the water, earth and the bodies of every living creature on the planet a few folks here and there started looking back to the ancient religions. The Great Mother Goddesses become more and more important just as pollutants, pesticides and other chemicals started invading every aspect of life. It's not the same as a massive volcanic eruption, a meteor plowing into the Earth or the plague but we may be creating our next population bottleneck. As the human-made problems of global climate change, industry-induced cancer and infertility, and our own medicines poisoning our drinking water begin to weigh on us more people are turning back to the ancient ways. As our human situation grows ever more precarious the number of Great Mother Goddess, and other pagan, adherents has risen. Coincidence? I think not.

I don't think it's about simple fear either. If it were then many people would just turn to whatever religion is handy, whichever religion is acceptable i.e. the dominant religions, that of the Judeo-Christians. No. More and more people are turning to a form of religion and spirituality that is very much not acceptable to the majority of our fellow citizens. Why? Why would this current threat to our race cause such a thing? It's because the situation is radically different this time. It's something that hasn't happened ever before in the history of our race and our planet. Instead of a volcanic eruption or a plague or other disaster that we have no control over we are putting ourselves at risk. We are killing ourselves.

Our own technological advancement, our "progress" is putting our very existence as a race at risk. And because said progress involves a would-be domination of the Earth, untold and unnecessary cruelty, unparalleled waste and monumental greed many of us are not just turning away from the mainstream way of living, eating, consuming and working. We are returning to the ancient ways because we feel and know, at least subconsciously, that the ways of the Great Mother Goddesses, and their cohorts, are the only things that can save us. If we don't return to living in balance with the land and learn to embrace life, and all its joys and indignities, as sacred then we are doomed to destroy ourselves. If we don't return to the Great Mother Goddesses we are doomed to create the next human population bottleneck.

Critters Great and Small

Disclaimer: I just want to say from the get-go: the following stream-of-consciousness ramblings are not intended to offend anyone be they vegetarian, vegan, sympathetic omnivore or hard-core carnivore. These are just some weird thoughts I've had running through my head.

When I was about ten years of age I decided to become a vegetarian. I can't recall my specific reasons but I think it must have had something to do with my love of and gift for attracting animals. I've always had a gift for putting animals at ease, especially scared animals stuck up a tree, or hiding under the house/bed, etc. And animals love me. Of course, I'm speaking of typical pets like dogs, cats, ferrets, hamsters, ya know, small mammals. They love me. I don't think I've ever met a single furry critter that didn't love me like magnets love the refrigerator door. I can't tell you how many times I've had people, whose homes I was visiting for the first time, express amazement that their extremely anti-social critter was curled up in my lap. Now, to be honest, I've lived in the country for a large part of my life and so my shoes will naturally have great smells attached to them. I understand that to a city animal the scent of a raccoon or possum is fascinating. But even without that particular nose candy I've always had a knack for the furry critters of the world. And when I hit puberty around 9-10 years of age I became conscious of the link between the 10 dogs and cats in my bedroom and the hundred cows out in the fields. So, I decided to quit eating meat.

I think it lasted 3 months. The lure of barbecued hamburgers was just too strong for me to resist. Like my initial decision to give up meat I don't remember the specific thought process that went into the decision. I just remember craving a good, grilled burger. Now that 20 years have passed I think the fact that really decided me was that cats, dogs, etc., were/are small, affectionate and familiar. Cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs and fish were/are unfamiliar and, as far as I've ever seen since then, completely uncaring about human companionship. I think my ten-year-old mind figured that if they didn't care for me then I had no reason to care for them. Does that make sense?

Now that I'm older and I, along with most of the world, am much world environmentally conscious I think about how the overall meat and poultry industries are affecting our planet. Being that I'm from cattle country I'll bring up cow flatulence. Strange as it may seem, I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Does it really hurt the atmosphere? I can't help but think it does. Sure, one group in one field doesn't mean much. But there are millions upon millions of cattle the world over; that's gotta add up to a helluva lot of methane. And, lest we forget, in many parts of the world acres and acres of oxygen-producing, animal habitat-providing forests are obliterated for the sake of cattle raising. So that's two big strikes against cows.

Where am I going with this? I don't know, as usual. I'm not going to declare myself a vegetarian. But I have cut back on my meat consumption. To be honest, it's not been that hard for me. I've never been a lusty carnivore. If it's there, and it's cooked right and I'm in the mood for it I'll eat it. It's a hit-or-miss affair with me. I'm usually much more interested in grains, vegetables and anything with a disgusting amount of sugar in it. Still, I'm left with a lingering, nagging sense of doubt about the meat consumed in my home. Back in the days of pre-history early humans had to eat meat, it's what we did to survive. Our teeth, and the teeth of animals the world over, are proof of this. But now? Ummm, not so much. We don't need to eat meat anymore. It's no longer required. Our mastery of agriculture has provided us with all the food we will ever need. There are plenty of protein-rich foods that negate the need to ingest meat of any kind. So, I'm left with a big question: are those of us who continue, for whatever reason, to eat meat fighting a battle that we will inevitably, if slowly, lose?

Who's in Your Monkeysphere?

First, what's a monkeysphere and why does it have such a dumb name? Well, the term itself is just another name for Dunbar's Number. See, this anthropologist Robin Dunbar did a study back in the early 90s, involving some of our primate cousins and a bunch of mathematical figurin', and came up with a theory about why we humans can be such assholes to our fellow humans. The basic idea is that we can only conceptualize a certain number of people as real people and then the rest just become a vast group of "other". The size of our brains decides this number for us. As humans, we can apparently handle a group of perhaps 150 - 300 people as real individuals. Our lesser cousins can only recognize, and thus peacefully live in, much smaller groups. Chimps and such maintain these groups by social grooming and there's even a theory that human speech developed because our groups kept growing and we simply didn't have enough time to socially groom each other. So, we started talking to maintain social bonds. Verbal communication replaced grooming, how 'bout that?

Anyway, back to the theory. Since we can only conceptualize a certain number of people as real individuals the rest are little more than walking statistics. For instance, we are deeply disturbed if someone we know and love is killed in an accident. But if a thousand people are killed somewhere in the Pacific by an earthquake we aren't all that bothered by it. We might say something like "oh, that's awful" and perhaps donate some money to the rescue efforts but that's about it. We aren't all that broken up by it even though many, many more lives were lost. And why is that? Those thousand people killed in that disaster are just as real as you and me. They were just as alive as we are now. And now they are just as dead as our loved one killed in the accident. But because they are outside our little sphere they don't matter as much. We don't know them personally, we can't recognize them as real people and so we don't feel as bad.

Or think of it this way.

Remember how yesterday you got cut off in traffic and flipped the bird and shouted several vile things at the offending driver? Think about what you said and did. Would you feel comfortable saying such things to someone you actually know? Probably not. And why? Because you know them and you know how much it would hurt them. And you also know that, if this someone you knew did something to piss you off, they were probably distracted by their own problems and didn't realize they were wronging you. But you could easily say horrible things to the jerk on the freeway because you don't have the concept of him/her as a real person in your mind. Why? Because that stranger on the road is outside your monkeysphere and doesn't qualify as one of your group.

Now, about us being total assholes to our fellow humans. Ya know how we always wonder how terrorists can do the horrible things they do? Well, it's because they don't see anyone outside their little sphere as real. So, it's kinda easy for them to do the things they do as they only conceptualize a few hundred people as real, as relevant. They can easily arrange the deaths of thousands because none of those thousands are real. The same goes for us when we think of them. We don't know them, they aren't real people. They are simply listed under the heading "terrorist" and that's it. I'm not equating ideologies here, just relating how the monkeysphere phenomenon affects all of us regardless of our politics or views on wholesale murder which is, obviously, the business to which most terrorists are devoted.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I've just been wondering about the nature of human cruelty lately and how the monkeysphere theory relates to it. The psychiatrists of the world say that certain types of people lack the ability to see others, even those who should be within their monkeysphere, as real. That's why some violent criminals lack empathy for their victims; they aren't real in their eyes, which I guess makes some sense. If you don't see anyone as a real person it would be a lot easier to rape, beat, torture and kill them.

And I wonder if our constantly growing populations are only making the asshole behavior worse. If there are more and more and more of us there's too many to recognize and so we become more and more discourteous to others because they aren't real people. They are "other". And this lack of courtesy become rudeness and agitation, disdain and can eventually lead to outright cruelty and violence. I can't prove any of this of course. I can only use myself as an example. You see, I am not a social person, never have been. I am a hermit by nature and I rarely leave the house (and by rarely I mean I leave the house twice, maybe three times a month) so my monkeysphere of people I physically interact with is very small. I believe this is what enables me to be much more courteous to others who often receive abuse, like cashiers and others in the service industry. My monkeysphere is small so I find it quite easy to recognize pretty much everyone I come across as a real, genuine, feeling, thinking, breathing, living, growing, aging individual. And I know this hasn't always been the case.

For instance, when I worked in a busy hospital, and came across hundreds of people each day, I was much more likely to see patients as faceless, nameless numbers. There were simply too many to include in my personal monkeysphere. This helped me maintain my sanity to a degree by allowing me to distance myself from their pain and discomfort. But it also hurt me, and them, in the sense that I wasn't always as compassionate and understanding as I could have been. I wasn't trying to be insensitive; I couldn't help it. Simply put, my monkeysphere was full to max capacity leaving little room for compassion.

So perhaps our exponentially growing population is doing more damage than we realize at first glance. We're not just straining our resources to the breaking point. We're not just damaging our environment, perhaps irrevocably. We're not just mismanaging food and social services leaving many out in the cold and starving. If this monkeysphere idea is the real deal we are forcing ourselves to relegate most of the world into a realm where they don't exist as real people.

I'll have more to say about the monkeysphere theory in forthcoming bloggings. I'm especially interested in how it relates to our wild and wonderful internet world and the somewhat bizarre communications and relationships that spring from it.

Growing Pains

So if your read many pagan blogs you're likely familiar with Deo's Shadow, a popular pagan podcast, and the fact that it's two creators have switched to atheism. There are so many posts about this that it would take forever to link them. Just check out The Wild Hunt to find a few and that will get you on your way if you haven't already read about it. Apparently, this change in two apparently well-known pagans (that I've never heard of btw) has caused a little uproar. There's talk of folks outgrowing paganism and of paganism having no coherent community. Some have explained/complained that all the magic and worship and general weirdness of paganism is pointless. Some have said they couldn't get a scientific grasp on paganism and so left it behind them. And on and on and on. And some formerly die hard pagans have, for some reason, been hit pretty hard by this. They're feeling the need to re-examine their beliefs, or something like that. Personally, I don't get the big deal. So some folks who were pagan aren't anymore? Who cares? We are all walking a comparatively new path and there are bound to be dabblers who drift in for a while, some for shallow reasons, some with all sincerity, and eventually drift out. Why does this cause people to doubt themselves and their pagan path?

It makes me wonder how many of us have studied the early years of Christianity. If you haven't given that fascinating period in history a look lately, or ever, let me just tell you: it was a mess. People didn't understand what was going on because no one knew what they were doing. It was all new to them and they were creating a religion from the ground up. They started form scratch. They had less to work with than neopagans as we have a rich history of ancient paganism to study. The rituals of mass and all that didn't spring up out of the ground; they took years to become entrenched. The organization and power of the Christians didn't rise up from out of nowhere. People drifted into Christianity because it was different, because it was new or because it spoke to them. And not all of them stuck with it. And lookee at what those early Christians created: a religion that has dominated for 2000 years! I'm not saying neopaganism will do the same but what I am saying is that we've just got to expect these kinds of things. Just because these events are new to neopaganism doesn't mean they are new in the larger sense. Of course we don't have much coherence. Of course we don't have much of an established community. How could we? There are only a few of us and many of us are very far flung.

I imagine in big cities and in places like California there are a lot of pagan-y, magical people to form a community so maybe they have a different perspective. But, lest we forget, the greater part of this country is not very densely populated. Yes, I'm talking about the Midwest and the Bible Belt. I'm smack in the middle of it and I can tell you there are very few pagans around here. In my entire county there are maybe 6 pagans that I know of and probably not many more than that in the closet. We can't form much of a coherent community because, well, it's hard to galvanize a movement consisting of only 2 or 3 involved people. This is just a microcosmic example but do you see what I'm getting at? There just aren't enough of us yet to be called a movement in the true sense of the word. And I imagine that neopagans in other countries face the same lack of numbers issue that Americans face. We haven't been around long enough; there just aren't that many of us. Compared to the age of religions throughout history ours is still very young. Neopaganism is a child; we've got to expect some growing pains.

What Came First? The Monuments or The Agriculture?

Or, was the Neolithic Revolution, during which agriculture and thus populations exploded, brought about by the need to feed large groups who gathered to build (and later worship and celebrate at) monumental structures? Or was advanced agriculture already taking place which then allowed for the feeding of large groups of builders and later worshipers and celebrants?

This is something that has long puzzled me. It's also been a subject of debate among archaeologists and historians for years. And while this fascinating archaeological dig in Turkey doesn't actually settle the problem it promises of great things to come. For, you see, only about 5% of the entire area has been excavated and it will be many years before everything is uncovered. But what has been uncovered is amazing.

But the location, age and sheer size of Gobekli Tepe have led some to posit a radically different explanation for the change. "The intense cultivation of wild wheat may have first occurred to supply sufficient food to the hunter-gatherers who quarried 7-ton blocks of limestone with flint flakes,"

What is most interesting about the site is that, so far, it looks to have been constructed right smack at the point when the semi-nomads settled into communities. In other words, this site was built by a new breed of men who, unlike everyone before them, began to live in structured communities. This is one of the most important time periods in the history of the human race. Settled communities, brought on by the need to sew, watch over and harvest crops, lead to everything that we think of as civilization: planned cities, organized work forces, writing, mathematics, etc. If not for this radical change the human race might not have even survived!

And, interestingly enough, the sudden change might not have been so sudden and may have taken place for a completely different reason.

For many experts, climate change was behind the transformation. Global temperatures had been warming gradually since the last Ice Age. Between 10,800 and 9,500 b.c., they suddenly plummeted again.

From a pagan perspective I can't help but wonder about the role of early religion within this debate. After all, the ancient monuments weren't just built with simple, pointless partying in mind. Some of them were probably temples dedicated to specific deities and many of them were built to mark solstices, equinoxes and other celestial events. So, what role did that play? Was there a religious revolution which then brought about the agricultural revolution? Did the ancient pagans decide to build big to show veneration for their gods which then brought about the need for more food? After all, if you got several hundred, or even thousands, of people quarrying and transporting huge stones that doesn't leave much time for hunting. If you've got 1000s of man hours devoted to massive earthworks there's not going to be time or energy for the tracking of game.

I guess what it really boils down to is that we may never be certain what brought about the Neolithic Revolution but that, in future decades, the site of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey may contain a lot of revelations. Personally, I think the answer probably lies somewhere in between the various theories. Some people wanted to build big and realized they'd need a lot of food to nourish their workforce while others in another region decided to build big simply because they had plenty of well-fed folks with nothing much to do while the plants grew. I'm not discounting the climate change as catalyst for change theory either. If things got colder it would stand to reason that people might come together to tough it out. After all, communities provide more people to cut and gather firewood. More people crammed into the same building means more body heat. But then, more people means more help with the harvest too. So, who knows?

The Winter Solstice: Neolithics to Christians

The word solstice comes from the Latin: "sol" for sun and "stictere", to stand still. Did you know that in January the Earth is about 3 million miles closer to the sun than in June? It doesn't affect our climate in any way though. After all, 3 million miles is nothing in astronomical terms. Rather, it is our planet's curious 23 degree tilt that gives us our seasons. On the winter solstice our hemisphere is tilted farthest away from the sun than at any other point during the year, giving us the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. And there's more than that happening, astronomically speaking. From Wikipedia:

On the night of winter solstice, as seen from a northern sky, the three stars in Orion's Belt align with the brightest star in the eastern sky Sirius to show where the Sun will rise in the morning after winter solstice. Until this time, the Sun has exhibited since summer solstice a decreasing arc across the Southern sky. On winter solstice, the Sun ceases to decline in the sky and the length of daylight reaches its minimum for three days, during which the sun does not move on the horizon. After such a time, the Sun begins its ascent into the northern sky and days grow longer.

This special time of the year has been celebrated the world over from time out of mind. We're not really sure which ancient culture first began to study and honor the solstices and equinoxes, as there are monuments relating to these dates in nearly every ancient culture, but it's likely to have been of marked importance since Neolithic times. For the record, "neolithic" means new stone and refers to a particular stage of human technological development starting around 10,000 BCE. This period saw what is historically referred to as the "Neolithic revolution" in which farming and metal toolmaking reached previously unknown heights of sophistication. These advances allowed for intense population growth and the development of settled communities which leads us, via the ancient Sumerians in what is now termed the Middle East, to the first examples of recorded history. So, it would stand to reason that the Sumerians were among the first to recognize the solstices and equinoxes.


The first peoples to make monuments related to the winter solstice, however, came from Europe. Or, perhaps more accurately, the oldest surviving monuments known to modern archaeology that relate to the winter solstice come from late Neolithic and Bronze Age sites like Newgrange in Ireland and hundreds of henges and other monuments in Britain. Newgrange is one of my personal favorite ancient places, far closer to my heart than Stonehenge and several centuries older than said henge. It is older than even the great pyramids of Egypt at about 5,000 years of age. The huge monument was built to receive a ray of light into a deep chamber on the morning of the winter solstice that fell on beautiful spirals, solar discs and other symbols. At no other time of the year was this space illuminated which gives us a good indication of the significance of the winter solstice to those who built this ancient site. After all, the Neolithics were the first to perfect farming; the timing of the seasons was crucial to their very survival.

But, as stated above, the ancient Europeans weren't the only Neolithics to honor the solstices and equinoxes in stone. Sacred sites relating to the winter solstice alone have been found all over, including the Americas, Asia, Indonesia and the Middle East. Most notable, in my opinion, are the Chaco Canyon sites in New Mexico built by ancestors of the Pueblos and the Hopi and the Great Zimbabwe, AKA "African Stonehenge", site. These ancient sacred sites, and many others the world over, have fairly precise alignments involving the winter solstice. It gives me shivers to think of the ancient sites not yet discovered!

As the winter solstice sees the return of the sun after the longest night of the year it naturally lead to the incorporation of the worship of sun gods and no holyday holds more sway over us today than that of the ancient Greco-Roman period. The ancient Greeks celebrated the Chronia, in honor of Chronus, around the time of the winter solstice. Eventually, as is typical of the ancient Romans, the holyday was Romanized and became Saturnalia, and Chronus became Saturn, a deity of--you guessed it--agriculture and the harvest. The festivities were marked by the usual sacrifices, the exchanging of gifts, legal gambling-even by slaves, and a symbolic reversal of the roles of slaves and their owners (meaning the slaves were still doing all the work but things were a little more laid back than usual) and general partying all around. Originally the holyday was only celebrated for a single day, 17 December, but gradually grew in length due to its immense popularity. It was such an important and popular festival that, despite the efforts of more than one Caesar to shorten it, the celebrations eventually spread to encompass an entire week.

Saturnalia is tied up with such an important decision that a little Christian history is warranted to explain it. To understand this you must know that Saturnalia was eventually superseded by the festival of Sol Invictus, the Roman sun god imported from Syria, which borrowed many of the characteristics of the previously celebrated holyday. During the reign of Julius Caesar a great number of calendar reforms were instituted, one of which firmly placed the winter solstice, the celebration of the return of Sol, on 25 December. Later in the 4th century CE the Emperor Constantine, who considered Sol to be the same deity as Jesus, perhaps quite naturally decided upon 25 December as the birth of the savior of his new religion. So what was once Saturnalia became the festival of Sol Invictus and then became the celebration of the birth of the new sun god, the Christ child. So it would seem that some of the old Saturnalia traditions would quite naturally have survived in the more recent celebrations of Christmas, namely the gift giving and the general emphasis on food and drink.

And so, to honor his return and ask his favor I say a short prayer to Sol.

In these dark days of winter, and dark economic times of social unrest, may the light of the returning sun bless us all. Whether we honor Chronus, Saturn, Sol, Jesus or no god at all but simply welcome the return of warmth may we all be filled with the joyous potential of the season. As the calendar year turns and a new president takes the helm of my country may we all benefit from the better times to come.

Edited on 21 December: It has occurred to me that, given all the dates and facts being thrown around in the above, it might be good if I listed some sources. Duh! You'd think I'd never written an essay before. So, here are some of the sites I consulted for this post:

Free Republic
Wikipedia entry for Sol Invictus
Wikipedia entry for Constantine the Great
Wikipedia entry for Saturnalia
Wikipedia entry for Winter Solstice
Solstice at Candle Grove.com
December at Religio Romana
I also consulted "The Golden Bough" and a couple of other books that I'm too lazy to run upstairs to fetch. I've also read a lot about this subject over the years so I just consulted my memory and my pineal gland.

Syncretism, Or, The Fight Not Worth Fighting

There seems to be some talk about religious syncretism around the pagan blogosphere lately. And I've found it worthwhile to jump into the greater discussion. Now, I debated in high school, so I like to define key terms before I start shooting off my mouth. According to Wikipedia

Religious syncretism exhibits blending of two or more religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation into a religious tradition of beliefs from unrelated traditions. This can occur for many reasons, and the latter scenario happens quite commonly in areas where multiple religious traditions exist in proximity and function actively in the culture, or when a culture is conquered, and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them, but do not succeed in entirely eradicating the old beliefs or, especially, practices.

Jenavira over at Essais has recently reviewed a book which includes the subject of religious syncretism. According to her review the author misses the mark.

But he never gets syncretism, never seems to be able to move beyond “but that's not how Christianity works” and “but that can't really be real,” even though he obviously really, really wants to.

On the flip side, Celestite from A Pagan Tapestry takes a pretty strong stance against the syncretism of Wicca and Christianity.

How can you possibly be honest in your beliefs and say that you believe in both?
I know it is hard for some people, but you cannot walk these two spiritual paths at the same time.

Okay, cue the shooting off of the mouth. On the one hand, I can almost understand the frustration of seeing someone supposedly "pervert" one's personal religion but I have to throw my lot in with the pro-syncretism side. For one thing, no religion is entirely "pure". There is no such thing as a religion that is not, at least in some part, influenced by others. And we all know that when a religion is influenced by another various things, traditions, ideas, etc., get "borrowed". Even if the influential aspects died out hundreds, or thousands, of years ago and their meanings have been largely forgotten they're still there.

While I'm not a Christian or a Wiccan I can empathize with the desire to mix the two. After all, many of the Christian holidays are pagan in origin and those same pagan holidays make up the eight festivals of modern Wicca. I can clearly envision a Wiccan celebrating Christmas. Hell, for a few years I considered myself Wiccan and did just that. Trying to convince others to keep the two completely seperate seems a little, well, desperate to me. It stinks of some deep and unresolved issues with Christianity that one might be trying to distance oneself from. (Not that I'm a psychoanalyst or anything, this is just the coinage of my brain, to mutilate Shakespeare.) And just to be clear let's not forget that Wicca itself is a syncretic religion which draws on Celtic traditions as well as Rosicrucian, O.T.O. and other paths. Wicca itself is a perfect example of religious syncretism.

Now let's forget about Wicca and Christianity for a moment and consider other syncretic religions. How 'bout Voodou? Yes, it's a religion, not just a practice for those three of you who don't already know that. And it's a beautiful mix of African, Roman Catholic and American Indian traditions. What about the blending of the ancient Greco-Roman pantheons? What about the deities borrowed from Roman provinces that became established figures in the Roman pantheon? Can you say Cybele? What about Jewitchery, Rastafari, etc., etc.? The list goes on and on ad infinitum.

My point is that railing against religious syncretism is pointless; it's like trying to break a dam with a toothpick. Its rich history goes back to the dawn of spirituality. In fact, syncretism makes up the larger part of religious studies. You can't have religion without some form of syncretism; that's what some people just don't seem to grasp. That's why I made this rant, er, post; I'm here to help.

Ancient Cave Art & Echolocation

I've always been fascinated by ancient cave paintings. Be they animals, human figures or more abstract images like spirals or odd-shaped symbols there's just something amazing about them. They are the proof that, even in prehistory, our very distant ancestors were not only capable of abstract thought but also capable of expressing themselves.

There are many theories attached to these ancient paintings. The animal images could have been painted to help hunters attract/become/honor the spirits of the animals they would have to kill to survive. The images of vulvae could have been ancient pornography or, more likely to my mind, meant to promote fertility and the perpetuation of offspring. The symbols and other abstract images could mean just about anything. Considering that what we call shamanism today was the norm back then there were most likely hallucinogenics used that not only opened eyes and minds but inspired the art of the day. But some of the art could have a more down to earth reason behind it.

A new study suggests that certain images were painted in certain areas where the acoustics were best. And the only way to test acoustics is to make music. According to a LiveScience article:

Ancient hunters painted the sections of their cave dwellings where singing, humming and music sounded best, a new study suggests.

Analyzing the famous, ochre-splashed cave walls of France, the most densely painted areas were also those with the best acoustics, the scientists found. Humming into some bends in the wall even produced sounds mimicking the animals painted there.

On the one hand it could be they tested the acoustics and painted as a way of making a guide to cave systems. Singing or humming to test the space of a pitch black unexplored cave is one very useful way of mapping out a space. Perhaps certain images were used like road signs: "curve ahead" and the like. But it's also quite likely that the music and paintings were aspects of ritual. Or both. It makes me wonder: which came first? The music or the paintings? And how did these two activities come together? It's the beginning of religion and the beginning of ritual that fascinates me most. What we call witchcraft and paganism today has its roots in these ancient ways; without them we wouldn't be doing what we do today.

Magnetic Archaeology

Magnetic Archaeology? Yeah, I made a weird face when I read it the first time too. But it's real, I swear. The technical term is: archeomagnetic dating, a process built around two phenomena: when heated, magnetic particles reorient themselves to magnetic north; and over time, magnetic north is, literally, all over the map.

Seems that, as time passes, magnetic north moves on this wibbly wobbly world of ours. This fascinating, and fairly new, technique of using that phenomenon to date artifacts is being used on Pawnee Indian artifacts from a dig in Kansas. Using heat the specimens are slowly, and in progressing stages, demagnetized until only the base magnetism is left. What this means is that objects can be magnetized by "outside" forces like lightning or other magnetic objects around them. The heating process removes these distracting magnetic fields so the objects' true magnetism can be analyzed. It sounds like science fiction doesn't it?

First their magnetic fingerprint is taken, and then they are slightly demagnetized. The process is repeated several times; eventually all that is left is the baseline magnetic signal, she said. If the material is fired to about 500 degrees Celsius or more, the magnetic field will point to where magnetic north was located at the time.

I thought carbon dating was high tech but this beats it I think. And I don't know why I'm surprised to learn that magnetic north changes over time. After all, this planet doesn't act very sober as it swims drunkenly through space. All pagans know a little about this kind of thing already as the irregular movements of the planet make some of our holydays bounce around the calendar by a day or two every year. I just never considered how that affected the science of archaeology. I guess you do learn something new every day.

Healing Blue Stones of Stonehenge

News from England: the blue stones of Stonehenge, which were placed 150 years before the larger, more recognizable stones, were transported 250 miles from Wales most likely because reputedly healing spring waters flowed in the area of their origin. This is fascinating. This theory lends credence to what I've always thought: Stonehenge wasn't (just) a memorial to the dead, it was an active and dynamic site for the living. According to the LA Times article:

Tim Darvill, a professor at the University of Bournemouth, and Geoff Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries of London, have spent the last six years researching Stonehenge and the rocky outcrop Carn Menyn, thought to be the site in the Preseli Hills from which the bluestones were taken.

Darvill and Wainwright, the co-directors of the dig, found the Welsh site to be a center for ceremony and burials, where the springs that flowed below the rocks were regarded by ancients as having medicinal powers.

They hope that by finding evidence to tie the stones from the Preseli Hills to those at Stonehenge, they will have an answer to the age-old question of the site's purpose.

The two men hope to establish a more precise timeline, to within 10 years, for the construction of Stonehenge by using radiocarbon dating to compare samples from the excavation with those taken from the site in Wales.

I find this fascinating! There's even evidence, according to the article, that brain surgery took place there! I can't wait until the results of the radio carbon dating come in. I've always thought of Stonehenge as a center of worship, a ritual circle where the various holydays were celebrated, deities invoked and nature honored. But now it seems it could also have been a center for healing where green witches and shamans of the herbal and midwifery persuasion would perhaps gather and practice their art.

A World of Stonehenges

I thought I'd share this interesting Craig Childs opinion piece regarding new finds at Stonehenge and seeming different versions of the ancient site all over the world, old and modern.

The new discovery, two miles from Stonehenge itself, is an elaborate residential compound now being excavated. It is a site where the builders of Stonehenge may have lived and where pilgrims may have stayed while attending feasts and ceremonies. Fascinating tidbits have been unearthed: a timber version of Stonehenge, evidence of different kinds of occupations in the 4,600-year-old village and a processional "road" leading to the nearby Avon River. These finds add to the picture of an enigmatic Neolithic religion, in which stone-paved roads are aligned with celestial features and great circles frame the rising and setting sun at key times of the year.

These recent discoveries fill out the picture of Stonehenge. I always assumed, as did everyone I guess, that there must be remains of settlements somewhere close by Stonehenge. For all that building to go on there would have to have been people living in permanent homes, similar to the worker settlement near the Giza pyramids in Egypt. That said, the bigger story is the Stonehenge-like structures the world over. There is a Stonehenge-like structure even here in the states.

The Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, dating back several hundred years, is a complex celestial calendar, its 28 spokes of aligned stones pointing to risings and settings of the sun and various stars. This medicine wheel, in turn, is similar to the Nonakado Stone Circle of Japan, from the 1st millennium BC, where standing stones mark important, calendrical events on the horizon.

Other Neolithic Stonehenge-like structures can be found in Turkey, the Sahara desert in Egypt and New Mexico from the Chaco culture. All these structures, as well as many modern buildings such as governmental buildings in D.C., were built according to the stars or otherwise incorporated sacred geometry. I find this fascinating to say the least. I don't know a thing about architecture in the practical sense. I just find it amazing that ancient, and many modern, buildings were built to align with the cardinal directions or showcase celestial events like solstices, equinoxes or the rising of certain important stars. And while I don't really care about modern government buildings I would definitely want my fantasy Roman home and temples built according to these sacred alignments.

The Horned God

Above is a line drawing version of "The Sorcerer" or the horned shaman from Paleolithic cave art found in modern France. The figure is quite obviously therianthropic, meaning it blends human and animals’ forms into a symbolic image. The trouble arises when one tries to pin down the meaning of said symbology. The most commonly held theory is that the image portrays one of the earliest spiritual leaders, a shaman, in the course of a ritual or trance. Pre-historic shamans used the same techniques that later shamans use to induce trance and work magic: chant, dance and various hallucinogenic or otherwise psychotropic natural substances. These shamans were the medicine men, and possibly women, of their society; they were learned herbalists and healers, intermediaries between the people and the gods and the natural world, practitioners of the earliest religion and magic. These historical horned shamans are the ancestors of later gods such as Cernunnos and Pan.

Cernunnos is probably the most easily recognizable and most popular of the Horned Gods. His name is literally "the horned one". He was worshiped all over Gaul (mostly present-day France) and in Britain; hence he is a Celtic deity. He has the antlers of a stag and is thus the lord of the wood and wild things. He is also sometimes accompanied by his symbols the torc, ram-headed snake, the stag and purse full of money. He is the god of fertility, life, animals, wealth and the underworld; he is a Great God. He is the Celtic British leader of the Wild Hunt, which makes its way across the land by night sweeping up evildoers. He is reborn every year at the winter solstice after the longest night of the year, or Yule, falling at about 21 December in the northern hemisphere, joins with the Great Goddess at Beltaine, around May 1, reaches his full strength at the summer solstice, around June 21 and dies at Samhain, October 21, which many pagans consider the end of the year; all so he can be reborn again at Yule. Most historical records maintain that Cernunnos traditionally dies at midsummer and that's very likely true. But we neopagans have felt it necessary to lengthen his life until Yule. In Gallo-Roman images he is shown alongside other Celtic deities as well as Jupiter, Vulcan and other Greco-Roman gods. After the coming of the Anglo-Saxons he became Herne the Hunter worshiped somewhat in England but more so in Germany and France.
Pan is the Greek god of shepherds and flocks, most popular in Arcadia. He is a son of Hermes the messenger god. Pan is a satyr with the horns, feet, hairy body and mountain climbing abilities of a goat. His attributes include a shepherd's crook and a crown of pine needles. As a part of the retinue of Dionysus his overwhelming lustful appetites lead him to chase nymphs throughout the forest. He is another descendent of the Paleolithic horned shaman.

Us and Them and the Colloseum

Just came across this blog post by Jonathan Jones at the Guardian Unlimited; this was posted in Wren's Nest on witchvox. Jones writes:

The first people to denounce the Roman empire were the ancient Romans themselves - and their language of self-criticism lies behind every modern denigration of what they did. It is a mark of our ignorance that we fail to recognize this, and if you do see it, the very idea of Rome becomes more human.

Because we are no longer familiar with Roman authors, we unknowingly leap on fragments of their rhetoric as fact - so Tacitus becomes a source of caricatured images, rather being seen as the sublime product of Roman civilisation that he is.

Rome was the first society to acknowledge that it failed to live up to its own values. Greeks never seem to have worried that much about the decline of their city states, but in Tacitus you find a culture in mourning for its self-betrayal. Rome is our true mirror.

The above blog post started out with a brief mention of how we moderns consider ancient Romans to have been nothing but a decadent, warlike and scandalous people. He discusses how many people generalize ancient Rome because all they know about it they learned from movies (even Gladiator commits serious historical errors) or the Bible. And I think he's right. The ancient Romans had their problems of course and they often owned up to them. They aren't that different from us. They had jobs and families and gossip and bureaucracy and everything else that comes along with "being civilized". And they had their detractors from within and without the Empire. And I find it laugh-out-loud funny when modern Americans, especially the right, criticizes The Roman Empire for its wars; it's an outrageous example of hypocrisy of the highest order. But I would go a step further. I would also say that those who mouth off about the evils of ancient Rome are the same people who think that zillions of early Christians were killed in the Colloseum and that it was therefore some kind of litmus test for the sanctity and legitimacy of Christianity. We've all heard or read that kind of rhetoric: the early Christians were hounded and murdered en masse by the evil Romans and were/are therefore of the highest holy order. And there simply isn't evidence for that. Were some of the early Christians killed by the Romans? Yes, that's almost certain. But that's as far as it goes. The ancient Romans, for the most part, disliked the Christians but didn't go to any great lengths to eradicate them until the time of Diocletian. There's no historical or archaeology evidence to support the idea that countless Christians were specifically targeted and killed in the Flavian Amphitheatre, the original name for the Colloseum. And it wasn't even considered sacred or otherwise special until Pope Pius V and Fioravante Martinelli popularized the idea in the 16th and 17th centuries. In early Christian times the place of death wasn't even all that important; it was the place of internment that was venerated. More than that, up until the 17th century the Collosseum was used for numerous and varied purposes, including a quarry, a fortress, workshops, housing and only later as a Christian shrine. At one time members of a particular Christian order lived in one section of the structure but for no particular religious reason. And just to be anal, Christians were very likely killed in other places, not just the Colloseum, but also the Circus Flaminius, the Gaianum, the Circus of Hadrian, the Ampitheatreum Castrense and the Stadium of Domitian. What's the point of this rant? Just the same point that Jones expresses: take the time to read more than just one ancient Roman's book before you shoot your mouth off about them. You just might learn something, namely, the mirror with ancient Rome on one side and modern western society on the other.

The Ancient Roman Home

I find that the more I read about ancient Rome the more I like it. The ancient Roman home consisted of some truly remarkable and beautiful innovations. The atrium was just what you think it was, an attractive hole in the roof that allowed rainwater to fall through into the impluvium, the basin in the floor which supplied the household with fresh water before plumbing became commonplace. The most common type of atrium did not include columns of any kind; the weight of the ceiling was carried by the rafters. It would have also provided plenty of light and fresh air to the rest of the home.

Another Roman innovation, my favorite, is the peristyle. This section of the home consisted of rooms built in a larger rectangle leaving an open space in the center. Sometimes these spaces were paved with concrete, another Roman invention, but were usually left bare and used as gardens. The Roman family spent most of its day outside in the peristyle: spinning, cooking, working in the gardens, etc. The household garden contained fruit trees and vegetables as well as flowers and, one would assume, herbs. There were fountains, seats and work areas. They were practical sources of food and flavor and beautiful spaces to work, relax and entertain. In fact, some have speculated that the peristyle was the very heart of the Roman home, much like our modern living rooms. Can you imagine what that would be like?

The center of the home, where everything takes place, in the garden? Instead of being relegated to the area behind the home the gardens were inside and within the house. Amazing! If I ever get rich and can afford to build my own home, I would definitely include a peristyle as well as other aspects of Roman architecture like the arch, columns and the atrium. While I'm dreaming I might as well go all out and plan a remote-controlled automatic glass door for the atrium. As much as I like the idea of lots of light and fresh air, I don't like those things in the frigid Ozarks winters. I would also include the built-in hearths and altars to the spirits of the home as well as the greater world. I wish worship spaces really were included in the planning stages of a home, instead of being an afterthought, if that. I think it says a lot about our culture that sacred spaces have absolutely no bearing within the modern types of home design. It's a sad fact when what should be the most important feature of the home is forgotten and left in the past.

Witch Bottles: Then and Now

Another witch bottle was recently found in England. It's an interesting little bit of history and I decided to delve into it to find out more, especially since, if the comments on witchvox are any indication, not many modern pagans and witches understand the rich history or meaning of these old bottles. It turns out that many of the 200 or so witch bottles that have been found, and found their way into museums, came from a part of England called Anglia. Witch bottle usage was prevalent throughout Europe but especially high in Elizabethan England and the people of Anglia long held onto their beliefs about the evil witches can create. Oftentimes, of course, there was probably no witch around to stir up trouble. But many things that most people today would chalk up to human error or simple bad luck were considered the work of a witch. So, the common folk would make a witch bottle that would, ideally, solve their problems. (As an aside, I must admit I find it highly amusing that the steps folks took to deflect witchcraft were themselves just as magical as anything we'd call witchcraft.) The earlier more traditional bottles were usually quite small, about 3 inches tall, and were made of glass, often green or blue. Later bottles, that could be as tall as 9 inches, were made of brown or grey stoneware and often had scary bearded faces on them. For this reason some of this type of bottle was called Greybeard's. Others of this kind were called Bellarmine bottles after a particularly evil Inquisitor by the name of Robert Bellarmine. He was a great persecutor of Protestants and thus became identified by many as a devilish individual. The first of the Bellarmine bottles was found in the Netherlands but the practice spread all over Europe.

The theory behind witch bottles was that, if someone felt that someone else was working magic against them the evil spell could be tricked by the bottle into "thinking" it had found it's target (especially if it had a face on it) and so become trapped inside it with its contents. The bottle would have broken or bent pins and needles and some personal items/fluids from the individual seeking help: so as to confuse the spells intent. There was usually a hair or two and, of course, urine. Of all the bottles found so far all of those that were intact were found to have urine inside. It's gross for sure, but has a pretty rich magical history, especially in African and Italian magical systems. In fact, almost every culture on the planet had folk magic that included some magical use of urine, as well as other bodily fluids and parts. After being filled with these various items the bottle would be sealed and ideally hidden inside the walls or underneath homes. The idea with the usage of the witch bottle is that as long as they stayed intact and undisturbed they will continue to be effective. That idea makes the history types who open them up for analysis seem like they're doing something they shouldn't. But after hundreds of years I guess it's safe to say that the person who made the bottle might not need the help anymore.

Nowadays, of course, witch bottles made by neo-pagans are usually very different from their historical cousins. They might have anything from herbs (often rosemary), flowers and seeds to gemstones, minerals, feathers and glitter. And while they may often still contain bent pins, needles, hair and nail clippings, the urine is gone and is replaced by red wine. I don't know who made that decision but I guess neo-pagans can be forgiven for giving up peeing in a bottle. I can't help but wonder, though, what kind of magic is being missed without the urine. At least the hair and nail clippings haven't been completely forgotten. And instead of being buried inside or under homes they are nowadays buried in back yards, thrown in lakes or kept on windowsills and altars and reused. It's quite amazing to think how far they've come and how their usage has evolved.

Rue, Skullcap and the San Pedro Cactus

This year I decided to take it easy on myself; I'm only gonna try to start two herbs from seeds. Instead of watching dozens of seedlings die of root rot I'm hoping having just a few seedlings will increase my chances of success. This year I'm trying Rue and Skullcap (official) from seed. Rue is supposedly a natural insect repellant and that's always a good thing around this house. And although it stinks it is medicinally useful as well, especially for cough, croup and bronchitis.

And the Skullcap makes a very calming tea, it's considered better than Lemon Balm or Chamomile tea. It has such a calming effect on the nervous system that is has historically been used to successfully treat epilepsy. It can help relieve nervous headaches and induce a safe sleep with no side effects.

I also ordered two cuttings of San Pedro Cactus, one for planting and one for ...something else. I first heard of San Pedro from a TV documentary about the ancient Peruvian culture called Chavin and since then I've been studying up. I'm really looking forward to trying it out on a camping trip.

A Peek into the Future of Neopaganism?

If you're interested in Christianity or ancient history at all you've probably heard of the much ballyhooed Gospel of Judas. I haven't made a detailed study of it yet, but I've paid attention to what some "experts" have been saying. And while it's interesting to note that Judas, in the eyes of the Gnostics at least, helped to liberate Jesus from the prison of his earthly body there's another aspect of the story that, as a pagan, concerns me. It's the notion, so hard to imagine now, that in the early days of Christianity there were a lot of different gospels floating around and a lot of disagreement. It was a new faith and its followers were still figuring out what they wanted officially included in their particular religion. The more I've learned about that period of adjustment, from my research into The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Dead Sea Scrolls and others as well as accurate translations of Biblical texts and the related historical contexts, the more I've come to see the similarities between the beginnings of Christianity and the modern beginnings of neopaganism.

We're still figuring things out. The path is a relatively new one and there is much disagreement and dissent. And while the notion of heresy, so common in early Christianity, is blessedly absent from neopaganism there's still plenty of discussion and occasional accusations of "fluffiness" i.e. uneducated practice. There's a plethora of essays over at Witchvox discussing Wicca vs. Reconstructionism vs. eclecticism as well as self-taught vs. formal training. And these are just a few of the common problems facing neopagans. And the more I learn of early Christianity the more I wonder what forms of paganism will survive the centuries. Will some forms die out and others become the officially recognized forms? And, if so, which will be sacrificed and which will survive? Whatever the answers, I hope we don't go the way of dogma. I hope we manage to keep our sense of individuality and our freedom to pursue our own personal paths.

Reconstructionists Religions and Animal Sacrifice

As many neo-pagans know by now, not too long ago Greece changed its laws about religious practice, officially recognizing the Athenian group Ellinais as a legitimate religious organization. For a church-dominated country like Greece this is a big deal. I've seen a few blog posts here and there make fun of the ritual Ellinais performed in January in Greece and it doesn't bother me because those funnymen obviously didn't fully understand the situation and thought reviving an ancient religion was foolish. Many also seemed to miss the fact that this ritual was also a political statement as well as an appeal to Zeus. They seem to think the folks from Ellinais are alone in their desire to reawaken the ancient gods.

Ellinais is just one of many Reconstructionist groups that seek to revive the ancient rituals and religions of old, often with exacting attention to detail. Take a quick gander at the traditions pages at Witchvox and you'll find recon religions of all types: Celtic, Minoan, Roman and, of course, Hellenistic (that's Greek for you muggles). As a pagan and a lover of all things ancient I have always mistrusted the philosophy of Reconstructionist religions. As pointed out in this Times Online article not everything about modern versions of ancient religions is exacting; the biggest factor being that there is little or no animal sacrifice. Now, as any student of ancient religions knows, sacrifice was usually the whole point of religious ritual.

All the hymns and libations and mysteries were just the pre-game show before the ritual slaughter of an animal, or perhaps animals. If it was a small, minor affair it might be only one small animal, if it was a big, extravagant ritual on an important festival day for the most important god multiple bulls might be sacrificed; the deity and reason for the ritual dictated exactly how much blood would be spilled. In many, many ancient cultures it was the duty of the devout to purchase animals for the sole purpose of offering them to the gods. That said, I am aware that some few ancient traditions and writings recommended against blood sacrifice of any kind but, on the whole, the ritual sacrifice of animals was the norm.

Animal sacrifice, and sometimes even human sacrifice, can be found in the history of every continent and in the roots of almost every religion. Sometimes the ritual slaughter of an animal was carried out for the sole purpose of appealing to the gods. Sometimes certain animals were sacrificed and buried with the dead for their use, as the ancient Nordic peoples were known to bury horses with their dead. And, of course, what didn't the ancient Egyptians place in tombs for use in the afterlife? The Romans not only sacrificed plenty of animals but there was an entire industry based on "reading" their entrails as a form of divination. Anyone who has ever read the Old Testament of the Holy Bible is no stranger to the idea of animal and human sacrifice. The Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Celts, Norse, Aztecs and Hebrews all practiced some form of animal sacrifice and they had plenty of company; it was nearly universal.

So I'm left with this question that has bothered me about the Reconstructionist religions from the first time I heard about them: why don't they perform animal sacrifice? I've read all sorts of explanations: only someone with the necessary skills can humanely kill an animal; there are laws prohibiting animal sacrifice; the neighbors would call the police, I could never kill an animal, etc. And those are all very good reasons. But the line I can't quite accept is the idea that these are modern times and we, as humans, have outgrown the ancient necessity of sacrificing an animal to honor the gods. Where's the logic in that? You want to revive an ancient religion, and reenact exactly how ancient rites were performed because you feel a call to worship ancient gods but you don't want to sacrifice an animal because the idea is so "outdated"? Huh? That doesn’t make much sense to me. Either you honor the ancient ways or you don't. Are these folks reviving the ancient practices or just playing around?

Honestly, who do they think they're fooling? Claiming to be a modern pagan reconstructing ancient religion but excluding animal sacrifice seems almost insulting to the ancient gods. They're the same gods after all, just because we have the hubris to claim we are above such things doesn't mean the gods don't still desire sacrifices of flesh. Who are we to say what the gods do or don't desire? Maybe they don't even listen to prayers than don't follow the scent of blood. I wonder what recon pagans think of those folks whose religious practices do include animal sacrifice; modern practitioners of Voodoo and Santeria for instance, they are true to their roots. They acknowledge that animal sacrifice is not kindly looked upon by human society but also recognize that gods, spirits, etc. don't necessarily change with us. And so, they practice animal sacrifice as dictated by their religion. They are strong in their beliefs and have held on to all of their ancient ways, not just the easy parts. Now, am I encouraging recon pagans to start slitting the throats of their pets? Of course not! What I am suggesting is that these folks either drop the "reconstructionist" tag or be ready for an entire universe of gods, fellow pagans, and history buffs that cannot and will not take them seriously.

P.S. Lest you wonder, dear reader, I do not practice any form of animal sacrifice as I do not hope to revive an ancient religion as it once was. I think many of the ancient rituals, like animal sacrifice, self-castration and killing those who reveal the mysteries, should be left in the past where they belong so that new rituals can become modern traditions.