“You may say this to Théoden son of Thengel: open war lies before him… None may live now as they have lived, and few shall keep what they call their own.”— Aragorn, speaking to Éomer on the eve of the War of the Ring; from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers A month ago, my wife…
Month: March 2008
The Future of Neopaganism in the West, Part II: Going Organic
In the previous post, I outlined a model of prestige and stigma which predicts whether a language or religion will grow or wither in a society. Now let’s take the prestige/stigma model and look at Neopaganism today. By these measures, Neopaganism is in trouble. Stigmatized Neopaganism Imagine trying to revive the Latin language. Imagine speaking…
The Future of Neopaganism in the West, Part I: Prestige and Stigma
Modern religions that are derived from or inspired by the indigenous polytheistic traditions of Europe (I’ll call them Neopagan) have experienced a great resurgence in the last couple of hundred years, and especially in the last fifty or so. This is surprising, because prior to that, everyone pretty much thought they were gone for good.
Interview with Frank MacEowen: Moving Beyond Labels
If you’ve been reading here a good long while, you remember my review of The Mist-Filled Path, a book by Frank MacEowen that struck my life with great force a year and a half ago. Frank’s message came to me at just the right time, and I found that it resolved a lot of issues…
