From: SL500000@brownvm.brown.edu (Robert Mathiesen)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Documented Evidence
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 15:04:06 EST
Organization: Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island  USA
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In article <1348@abb-sc.abb-sc.COM>, ksm@abb-sc.abb-sc.com (Ashley) said:

>
>        I cannot say much more than this but please trust me, it *does* exist,
>it *is* a religion and there *are* people passing it down to their children in
>modern times. Yes, it did survive, no it's not Wicca but there are some
>similarities. Still, it is there and they worship their deities whether anyone
>believes they exist or not.

I don't doubt that you've met some of these, Ashley, and that they are
telling it to you as they see it themselves.  BUT ... my question is,
how do they know that what they are practicing is a survival rather than
a 19th or even 18th century reconstruction?  This, for me, is the TRULY
important question, not whether it works or not.  Many religions work,
and not all of them are very old.  Nor are they all the same religion,
even if they do all work.  --  Can you give me even a partial answer to
the question of evidence for survival rather than old revival, without
saying more than you find permissible?

>
>        This whole argument is starting to sound silly. Why not practice just
>what you want and borrow where you will?

If all you want is a religion for yourself in the present, then of
course you're quite right, Ashley.  But what are those of us to do who
are compulsive rummagers in the leavings of the past?  For any knowledge
of the past is best tested against whatever evidence can be got that
bears on it, and the present practice of such people is part of that
evidence.  I recognize that they have a right to refuse help, if they
choose; but *I* think they have an obligation in return to respect the
impulse that drives people to find out about the past for motives other
than worship.

>
>        Ultimately, the people who have the family passed religious
>traditions will continue with or without the pagan community as they are
>outside it and seldom interact with us. Why worry about them? They are there
>and we are here and what each of us do is just as valid and just as real to
us.

What we may all do by way of religious practice can indeed be equally
valid, despite our differences.  But there is, I am convinced, more than
the present moment: there is also a real past, distinct from various
fantasy pasts, and some of the things one might say about that real past
will be true, others false, no matter who says them, or for what purpose
they are said.  I wish to learn which of these things are true, which
false, to the full extent of my ability to distinguish between them.
Obviously, I can never succeed completely, but the effort is still worth
making.  The analogue in personal life is one's own past: obviously,
some of the things I might say about your past, or you about mine, will
be true, and some false.  It may be in both our interests to find out
which are which, for example, if one of us has been accused of a crime,
or has been the subject of malicious gossip.  -- Robert

(Robert Mathiesen, Brown University, SL500000@BROWNVM)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan,alt.slack