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Hi and welcome to my LJ. All entries are public with very few exceptions. Feel free to friend me if you like but please note the following caveat: If any of the following offends you, friending me is a bad idea:

1) Veganism/vegetarianism
2) Being against animal sacrifice
3) Having negative options about reconstructionism
4) Strong opinions in general

If none of the following bother you, make yourself at home. If they do you can simply choose not to read my LJ.

On this LJ will be rants, essays, and general musings pertaining to worshipping the Greek gods in the modern day as well as mysticism pertaining to such.



Agape,
-A

Hellenismos and Neopaganism

I see about as much knee-jerking against Neopaganism in the Hellenic
community as I do Christianity, I think from way too many people who
joined Hellenism as a rebellion against those religions. Every time
someone brings up something in Hellenism that is similar to something
used in Neopaganism, people go up in arms and refuse to support
it--even if that was what was done in ancient times. I've seen
supposedly hardcore reconstructionists exhibit this behavior as well.

Here's the 411 on recent history: the Golden Dawn was greatly
influenced by Greek mysticism as well as other mystical traditions,
and their officer names were even the same as in the Eleusinian
Mysteries. This was not by accident. Wicca and other Neopaganism
traditions are and have been greatly influenced by both the Golden
Dawn and the OTO as we know of it today, which was revamped by Crowley
after he left the Golden Dawn. Here's a rundown on the similarities:

1) The elements and their properties. The Greeks are to blame for
this, specifically a guy named Empedocles in 5th century BC.

2) Casting a circle also done during Greek circumambulation. People
like to knee-jerk and poke holes and claim that they're not the same
thing, but in reality they are. Deal.

3) Syncretism in Neopagan faiths stems from ancient Greek thought,
albeit misinterpreted. This really comes from Dion Fortune's line
about "All gods being one god and one goddesses being one goddess."
She wasn't saying that Thor is the same as Lugh is the same as Zeus;
she was saying that everything emanates from a single source which
Neoplatonists refer to as "the One" but doing it in a Qabalistic way.
The Qabalah is really to blame for the popularized polarity between
God and Goddess, as the union of the One is expressed in sexual
alchemical terms between a masculine and a feminine principle.

As far as syncretism in Greek culture was concerned, they didn't have
a term for it. It was more like "Oh, cool! You call Dionysos Osiris
and have Mysteries for him too? Wow! Can we participate? We love
Dionysos!" It didn't mean "converting" to someone else's religion; it
was more of an expansive viewing of the gods.

In short, hard polytheism is a modern philosophy. It doesn't make it
WRONG any more than syncretism or any other view of the divine is
wrong; it just means that it's not in line with ancient tradition.

4) Mystery schools existed in ancient Greece and much of their thought
has been transmuted and has inspired modern day Mystery schools,
including the initiatory religion of Wicca, Golden Dawn, and OTO.
Some of these groups even put on their modern take of the Eleusinian
Mysteries!

I'm sure others can babble further. I've long given up on the idea of
establishing "recon" mystery schools or whatever and have just gone
and joined up with their modern day equivalents, provided of course
that they are non-denominational.

In regards to why Christianity replaced Hellenism

The question, paraphrased: Did the gods do this to punish people for collective miasma?

No.

...just maybe...we needed a collective kick in the asses to
genuinely appreciate them. They had been around for so long without
an issue that once it BECAME an issue it also became a whole other
ballgame.

I despise the New Age sentiment of "Ooh this bad thing happened to you
because of karma." I really, strongly doubt that our gods decided to
punish the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great * whatever
grandchildren of our ancient brethern because they misplaced a word in
some ritual they did, and henceforth our religion was illegal for a
time in modern day Hellas and receives scorn in countries such as the
US of A.

And if they're that petty to curse generations that had NOTHING to do
with the original miasma, then wtf are we worshipping them anyway?
Call me crazy, but this is not the image of my gods. Maybe it was to
the ancients, and that's maybe why we have (and had) to learn today
that the gods are above that petty crap.