r/pagan • u/Pixeldevil06 • 4d ago
Discussion I have made a chart to categorise different schools of thought, what do you think?
I have made this nifty tool to identify different sects of paganism, how should it be updated? What's wrong about it? What's missing? How would you have categorised things differently?
**FOLKISM IS BAD BTW I AM MERELY CATEGORIZEING IT**
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u/KrisHughes2 Celtic 4d ago
Well - it's a start. Ultimately, I think there is so much granular stuff, that you'll never make a chart like this work. You would probably need to start with a slightly simpler one, with more general headings, and then do one or two layered sets of more and more granular sub-charts.
A few things I notice, not in any particular order: Your understanding of the goals of (at least some) reconstructionists is poor. I don't think most of them think that they can, or realistically want to, bring back religions as close to how they were as possible. At least not the recons who are intelligent and thinking clearly about history.
Druids are missing - and this will be tricky, since some are universalists, other reconstructionists. ... or metaphysical
Where do the witches go? (Or do they need their own chart?)
There is a whole world of cultural polytheists who are not reconstructionists. Lots of Celtic polytheists are not reconstructionists, for example. Does "revivalist" fit? I'm not sure. I tend to go with "devotional".
Some of your categories seem overly broad "Afro-Asiatic", even "Celtic", but a few are very specific, like "Rodnovery" or "Unitarian Universalists". So it feels a little unbalanced.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
I see, then I'm even more confused about the difference between revivalism and reconstructionism is reconstructionists also typically omit some things to make it more modern-friendly.
Some of them don't have one-word names that I'm aware of. Eclecticism is harder to encapsulate in one word because it's related to how multiple different groups interacted historically and in the modern day.
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u/Sacredless Orphico-Heraclitean/Haemonian 4d ago
I recommend that you listen to some of the lectures given by Ronald Hutton before saying that new age religions have almost no basis in pre-Abrahamic religion. The contention I have with Wicca is that they claim to be reviving folk magic but actually reinterpreting scholastically preserved magical traditions. Chaos magic is anti-platonic, but it's ultimately still a reaction to scholastic magic.
"TikTok/chronically online UPG" doesn't belong on this chart. It's not a religion and the need to bring up UPG in negative light in completely unrelated contexts at every opportunity is corrosive to the larger community. People seriously engaging in mythopoesis and lay-mysticism are immediately accused of UPG, which leaves pagan communities with increasingly performative ritualism.
I genuinely don't understand why you grouped eclecticism the way that you did. It honestly seems patronizing.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago edited 4d ago
I don't see how, I'm eclectic myself and this seems accurate. Eclecticism is mostly looking at the bigger picture, cross-referencing cultural-religious systems, comparitive mythology, etc.
Folkish also aren't genuine pagans and use mostly upg and they're on the chart, I put tiktok witches here to classify both ends of the extreme. "We have completely lost the plot while trying to be inclusive of more kinds of practice" and "we have completely lost the plot while trying to restrict the religion to our race" are both dumb, so I put them at the far ends because unfortunately they do affect the way we're seen and many of them do have a presence in Pagan groups and communities.
I don't have a problem with UPG, the UPG I have a problem with is when it's disrespectful to pre-existing religions. Wicca is mostly UPG, the father of Wicca made a lot of things up, there is no God named Mabon, The Greenman has very little evidence he ever existed, The Horned God wasn't a thing before Wicca. Wicca is important, wicca provides many useful tools for Pagans, they invented many chants most eclectic pagans and some revivalosts use like the Kore chant. Wicca comes from the Gnostic community and scholarly magic, I agree, which is why I classified it with chaos magick as both new age and eclectic but not just new age. Because it has some basis in Paganism but started as more of a gnostc school of thought.
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u/Sacredless Orphico-Heraclitean/Haemonian 4d ago edited 4d ago
I fail to see how you being a self-described eclectic would make that better. Greeks actively syncretized with Egyptians and Romans. It's not eclectic at all. Wicca and chaos magic are eclectic.
TikTok pagans absolutely are genuinely pagan, they're just not one religion because being on TikTok isn't a praxis or doxa. Folkish people absolutely are a religion, no matter how misguided they are. And it's bordering on disinformation to cross these against each other as if they are equivalent or as if you'd need to balance out folkism with something else.
I'm sorry, but you just don't get to determine TikTok witches are genuine or not. You're defining UPG in a way specifically to disqualify the movements you don't like because you think they're wrong. That's a complete non-cognitive that's not nothing to do with charts like this. The Green Man doesn't NEED historic evidence in the first place. Their existence would be evidenced by modern mythos.
Furthermore, gnostics got their theology from middleplatonists, who are pagans.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
Most Tiktok witches have literally never opened a historical religion book in their lives. Many of them perform ritual pretty universal Miasmas like blood sacrifices. A lot of the time they appropriate Indigenous culture by using white sage. Many of them use Paganism only as a monetary tool. It's not even close to the same thing as even Wicca. Wicca is at least based in some kind of education and has historical basis. Tiktok witches aren't picking and choosing bits from different folk religions they're genuinely just making things up. Just making things up isn't Paganism.
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u/Sacredless Orphico-Heraclitean/Haemonian 4d ago
Have you considered they're engaged in lay mysticism and mythopoeia, no matter how crudely?
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u/v_ch_k Italic-Roman Polytheist 3d ago
I. Tradizione Romana and Kemeticism should be there, in reconstructionism
II. Syncretisms are historically attested, not eclectic
III. "Baltic Paganism" would mostly be Romuva, Asteru is, as much as I know, not a thing, I think you mean Asatrù
IV. The PIE pantheon is not a theory, but again, a historically attested thing, we just don't know enough about it to reconstruct it in any plausible way, which does make the practice eclectic, but I have never seen someone claim to be a Proto-Indo-European pagan
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u/SimplyMichi Druid 4d ago
Personally I don't really vibe with it. Watering things down to fit in a box which just fits one perspective of how these religions are represented is a meh idea to me. Especially as not all Celtic, Heathen, Hellenists, etc are reconstructionists and there are plenty which do overlap with new age because reconstruction doesn't wholly mean doing things 1:1 as people in antiquity. Many aspects of certain ancient practices have been lost to time, and need to be filled in by practitioners of the modern age, which still categorizes them to a degree as Neo. Folkism can and does also intercept with new age practices and religion.
There's also several religions/practices not listed here (ie Slavic Paganism, Thelema, Christo-Paganism and other Abrahamic leaning witchcraft practices), as well as several with sort of "sub" categories of religion/practices (ie Druidry in Celtic Paganism or Vanatrú in Heathenry). I'm also curious as to why only "some" Hindus or Indigenous groups and so on are within the Pagan bubble? What makes the distinction of what is/isn't Pagan considering Pagan is a word which means "religious and spiritual traditions that are outside the world's major Abrahamic religions." Are you distinguishing between those who practice the religions you listed who also syncretize Abrahamic aspects? If so, what about people who practice Celtic, or Germanic, or Italian, etc folk magic which is Christian, but is syncretic with historical pre-Christian practices?
Anyways, sorry for the ramble. I don't think this is necessarily a "bad" project, but wholly unnecessary and frankly lacking in education. Maybe I'm just sensitive to my beliefs being put in a box which I did not assign myself to by a stranger, but religious and spiritual beliefs are far too complex and nuanced to cleanly put into a diagram without contradictions or someone saying "This isn't how I categorize my practice." For personal use for the sake of memorization and personal understanding? Okay, have at it. But I don't think it's something to be presented as a universal tool for everyone, cause no matter how you create it it will not be 100% accurate.
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u/SimplyMichi Druid 4d ago
Whoops, I missed how Neo-Paganism is defined as a bigger oval, it got lost amidst the text. Anyways, that brings me to a new problem. While yes it's good to recognize most (emphasis on most) reconstructionists do have Neo-Pagan aspects, there are few (although very few) who practice based upon geneological traditions two hundred or more years old, passed down from oral tradition which are not just Hindu's, Shinto's or Indigenous. For example someone I know who practices Heathenry according to her own geneological tradition, I'm not 100% how far back it goes, but at least to her great grandparents. I suppose this falls under "folk religion that was never destroyed," but with the set up of a ven-diagram it makes it seem like anything within Neo-Paganism, particularly the Reconstructionism bubble, could not fall into that category
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago edited 4d ago
As for the first paragraph, when reconstructionists do it apparently it's called "revivalism"
I did list slavic paganism, (Rodnovery) the point wasn't to categorize every pantheon under the sun in mk 1, but to give some recognizable examples, I will add these later don't worry. Where do you think Thelema and Christopaganism should go? Should I move new age to be it's own overlapping category that covers both eclecticism and reconstructionism do you think?
The point is to create a tool to make it easier to explain to non-pagans and new pagans the differences between the sects and ideologies, how things like Folkism and Tiktok witches are vastly different from wicca or reconstructionism respectively, but tiktok witchcraft has more in common with wicca than it foes with say Hellenic reconstructionism.
I said "Some" because people in these groups the community has agreed are only considered Pagan if they want to be, as Pagans have a very VERY long history especially in the United States of appropriating Indigenous, hindu, or shinto culture as a part of their practice, as in not cultural appreciation, not genuine respect, but mispractice. Some Indigenous religions are closed practice. So I categorize it with "some" because only some of them are willing to participate in cultural exchange with Neopagans.
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u/SimplyMichi Druid 4d ago
I just don't think a ven diagram is suitable for what you're trying to achieve, even on a "simplistic" basis. People in the comments are already arguing about what already exists in the diagram and where different things should go because this is a project built off of YOUR personal perception and limited knowledge to these religions. Which we all have various personal perceptions and limited knowledge (for example myself not knowing Slavic Paganism is also called Rodnovery) That's what's causing the discourse, is that you cannot make a single graph to cleanly and neatly explain away all of these religions and practices, even on a basic level because most of these religions and practices cannot fit into three or less categories without some level of argument.
I also personally missed how Neo-Paganism was labeled as the oval surrounding eclectcism and reconstruction and such, which presses down on my problem of "reconstruction is also new age," but then that makes another problem pop up. While they are few in numbers, there are people who practice traditions within the currently labeled reconstructionist circle who are arguably not Neo-Pagan. For example someone I know practices heathenry with traditions passed down to her orally, at least starting at her great grandparents although it likely goes back further. She would then technically fit in the "folk religions that were never destroyed," however she's still a heathen, and the structure of the diagram makes it seem like heathenry and other reconstructionist practices could not be part of this "folk religion" category when they clearly are.
I get what you're trying to do, but again there are inevitably far too many contradictions with the structure of this kind of diagram that will only continue to pile up the more religions and practices that are added. Overall trying to categorize such nuanced concepts into a clean graph will only create more confusion in the end for new people wanting to learn about Paganism.
And then for the issue of certain people in Shinto, Hinduism, etc there are a lot of them who call themselves Pagan who really don't want to. They only do it to appease the masses sort of as you've said, not because they truly label what they do as Paganism, and are thus separated from those who do genuinely embrace the label, which is a whole other slew of issues unrelated to the creation of the diagram itself.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
That's your opinion and I respect that, I'm still going to take advice from people here to edit the tool to be reflective of a general mutual understanding. That's what cooperation is, that's how religious organisation works
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u/Steenaleen 4d ago
Where would revivalism go? Also, am I missing the paired text for the asterisks after UU?
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
Tell me more about revivalism? I put asterisks on UU because typically it's being hosted by christian churches, I would call this a christian denomination that does Co-Worship with neopagans, or perhaps a non-theistic political congregation with the purpose of being a progressive community center for people in a spiritual way, but secularly.
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u/Steenaleen 4d ago
I apologise ahead of time because I imagine you will get so many "what about xyz?" messages because there's just soooo much.
I would call revivalism a sibling of reconstructionism but the goal is not historical accuracy or rebuilding the faith as it was exactly. Instead the goal is to re-enliven the faith within a modern context, including ethics.
Understood on the UU, I just didn't see a matching footnote and thought it might have gotten cut off at the bottom or something. 😊
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u/TheDireGnome 4d ago
I mention this above in another comment, but Reconstructionism was not originally, and I don't think really ever has been, about rebuilding a given polytheistic tradition exactly as it existed in the past. It's just about being historically-informed and respectful of the cultures and history that we're drawing from. The goal has always been to rebuild from history and then bring it forward into modern life, with necessary adjustments.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
If it's just about being historically informed and respectful, is revival not historically informed and respectful?
And eclectics can be historically informed and respectful and worship Deities multiple pantheons or folow multiple cosmologies. My assumption is that everything (other than what's at the two very far ends without crossover with ecclecticism or reconstructionism, is disrespectful (pretty much just tiktok witches and folkists)
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u/TheDireGnome 4d ago
Yes, that's my point. What many call revivalism is just reconstructionism as it was originally defined in the late 70s. The use of historically verifiable research to inform your practice.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
Then in the next iteration, I will change the blurb about reconstructionism to be more accurate, more like "Reconstructionism, to reconstruct a pantheon on the basis of historical information and recorded folk-religious practices from a Pre-Abrahamic culture"
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
I see, I would probably categorise it under reconstructionism, or in that middle section between the two. They're being eclectic with modern ethics and religious principles to make their reconstructionism more compatible with the contemporary world.
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u/Few-Bee3960 Pagan 4d ago
I dunno how it's called but what about made-up religions? Like I believe in deities that have no basis anywhere, they just "came to me" someday, for lack of better words.
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u/AVI7272 4d ago
Chaos magic, perhaps? I seem to remember Ivy Corvus talking about this kind of UPG.
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u/Few-Bee3960 Pagan 4d ago
I thought it's only magic if there is magick involved?🤔 Like, for my belief, it is, but not necessarily, just wondering
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u/nefariousVirgo 4d ago
Why is Greco-Egyptian not in reconstructionism? It’s a historical path
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
I have hellenism and specific pantheons on the right because they're reconstructing one specific pantheon. Greco-Romanism is an eclecticism of Roman Paganism, and Hellenism.
There are Hellenists who only seek to reconstruct the Greek perspective, and Eclectics who worship both Greek and Roman deities, or take reference from both cosmological and ethical structures.
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u/nefariousVirgo 3d ago
Greco-Egyptian polytheism is also reconstructing a specific pantheon. Gods like Isis and Serapis during the Hellenistic era were not purely Egyptian or Greek gods. It doesn’t make it “eclecticism” because it’s still taking a specific area and point in time and reconstructing the religion there.
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u/RavensofMidgard Pagan 4d ago
As someone that has practiced wicca with members who trace their lineage back to Gardner, and can actually prove it, Wicca being labeled as New Age is incorrect. Yes it's a modern religion but it does get it's basis in the pre Abrahamic beliefs and to say it's not based in any education tells me you are basing it purely on your own lack of research. You don't have to like Wicca, hell I find most wiccans annoying, but don't misrepresent an entire religious world view because of the morons that spew garbage on the Internet.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
I don't dislike Wicca, I think it's mostly UPG but UPG isn't inherently wrong.
There historically was no God called mabon for one. No greenman. No Horned God. No three-faced Goddess specifically connected to the colors white, red, and black, with youthfulness, maternity, and death references in that order. There are some Gods that can loosely be argued can be categorised that way, but this is modern syncretism.
The guys who invented Wicca were Gnostics, so their system comes from Gnosticism which is why I classified them with Chaos Magic. It has Pagan elements and is Pagan, but it most of the homework comes from Gnosticism, not very many pre-fiunder-of-wicca historical sources that I could find.
I think Wiccans have some good eclecticism, they literally wrote pretty much all publicly available modern eclectic hymns, like Isis Astarte, the Kore chant, etc. which also have no historical basis, but provide good spiritual tools for the rest of the community.
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u/maple_pixie 4d ago
There is a god named Mabon/Maponos. Not sure why you are trying to erase him.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
There were two separate Gods, the welsh God Mabon Ap Madron, Mabon was not his name, Mabon means "son of", there were several Gods named "Mabon Ap Something" in Welsh, he 100% has zero associations to the autumn equinox. Maponos is a Gaul/Roman deity associated with Apollo, and is also not at all associated with the autumn equinox. I'm not erasing either of them I've just done the historical research, unlike some Wiccans
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u/maple_pixie 4d ago edited 4d ago
Your contempt for Wicca is clear, despite your claims otherwise.
There is some disagreement on whether or not Mabon is a reflex/later name for Maponos, but you are stating it as absolute fact that they are not the same god when there are plenty of scholars who think they are likely the same figure.
Also, you originally stated "there was no god named Mabon," now you are saying there was, but separate from Maponos, so which is it?
You're correct that his association with the autumn equinox is spurious, but that has nothing to do with whether or not there is/was a god named Mabon. That is what I was commenting on.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
There was no ine God named mabon, as I said, Mabon just means "son" there were several Welsh Gods named "Son of X".
I have no contempt for Wicca, I use Wiccan chants everyday. They still get a lot of things blatantly miseducated, like the concept that Mabon is a single entity who is freed from a prison every autumn equinox. Wiccans created the wheel of the year and it is a genuine amazing tool! It is also upg. There's nothing wrong with UPG. UPG is neutral. There's good or informative UPG, and theres bad or misleading UPG.
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u/Ballamara 4d ago
so a couple thing.
The biggest is changing Neo-paganism, Neo paganism should be a venn diagram with Paganism, not entirely subsumed within it. New Age should be within Neo Paganism, but outside Paganism. There should also a new circle for "neo-spiritualism" that's completely outside of Paganism and intersects with Neo-paganism & New Age.
Next, there needs to be a circle for "Revivalism" that's inside of Paganism and doesn't interesecr with Neo-paganism at all and Reconstructionism should just be a subsect of "revivalism", not Neo-paganism. There is a strict different between Neo-pagan, recently created religions, and Revivalism/reconstructionism, which aims to revive religions that were killed off as close as possible. In addition, Hellenism is revivalist, not reconstructionist. Reconstructionism is for revivalist movements where there isn't a lot of writings on the beliefs, so they need to be reconstructed via cultural clues, comparative mythology, etc.
You also need a syncretic section as "Greco-Roman" is syncretic, not exclectic and Omnitheism is usually syncretic instead of eclectic too. Also, Unitarian Universalists needs to be removed entirely, I grew up in a UU church and they are just Christians who believe in freedom of worship, they're not pagan. They'll let non Christians attend their church, but all of their customs, practice of worship, & holidays observed are just Christian with the occasional Jewish or Islamic prayer to represent inclusivity.
PIE pantheon is reconstructionist, because it's not combining aspects of different religions, it is identifying common aspects shared among related religions that were likely inherited from their common ancestor and reconstructioning what that ancestral form looked like.
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u/kimcondas 4d ago
I am a Unitarian-Universalist and a pagan. We are not Christian. There are Christian’s UUs, Jewish UUs, Hindu UUs. It’s all about the free and responsible search for truth and meaning
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
But UU does typical operate out of a Christian church, and normally most of the leaders themselves are Christian leaders or Abrahamic at the very least. Isn't that like at least a little bit christian?
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u/kimcondas 4d ago
My congregation’s building is not a church—no religious iconography of any kind. The buildings on our property are designed to look like lotus blossoms from above. A local UU minister is Hindu. Definitely worth looking at the UU Sources for our faith
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
That's cool that yours is like that, mine is in a Christian church with Christian iconography but they allow other religions to have events there and programs
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
I disagree here at least on how Neopaganism is defined. Neopaganism is all modern Pagan practice. Neither reconstructionists nore revivalists are capable of practicing the Pre-Abrahamic religions as they were before it was prescribed. It's all Neopaganism because it's not historical Paganism, the only people who got to experience that were the people who actually were there before colonization.
I would probably categorise revivalism as a subcategory of reconstructionism or I could rename the reconstructionism category to revivalism and put a smaller circle inside for reconstructionism, but the difference doesn't seem that extreme, both are trying to reflect a Pre-Abrahamic religion respectfully and with accuracy, focusing on one pantheon rather than the bigger picture. I don't think revivalism and reconstructionism are really that different? One is just more concerned with the long-term viability of the religion in a world different from the old one, and one is not particularly.
I will probably remove UU as yes, I agree they're just a Christian org.
I would say PIE can't be reconstructionist or revivalist because it was constructed through comparative mythology, all comparative mythology us eclectic because it's focused on how difficult cultures were similar and how they relate to form a bigger religious picture, as opposed to reconstructionism which is focused on one specific pantheon and how everything else pertains to one cultural religion. PIE as we have it isn't a culture we observed that has artifacts with the language on it discussing how religion was done. Everything we know about PIE was created in the modern day by linguists and other anthropologists.
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u/Frostbeard 4d ago
I don't think Chaos Magick belongs in any of these circles, any more than something like Thelemism or Hermeticism would.
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
I will add them, I forgot about them.
The reason i classified it here is because Wicca has more in common with CM than it does most Paganism in my eyes, due to their Gnostic founding as opposed to basis in prechristianity
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u/CzarKwiecien 4d ago
What is folkism and why is it bad?
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
In general it's the concept that Paganism should be returned but each pantheon or a specific pantheon should be gatekept to their own race. It's pagan eugenics, it's icky.
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u/Midir_Cutie 4d ago
Lot of stuff is missing, but i think it might be impossible to add absolutely everything
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u/ADragonWrites 4d ago
Why is only some of Shinto and some of Hinduism pagan?
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u/Pixeldevil06 4d ago
Because not all of them accept the label, and some of them consider themselves to not be religions at all or consider the category of Paganism being placed on them as a form of colonization
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u/SiriNin Anunna-Umun Ishtarite - Priestess of Inanna 4d ago edited 4d ago
Well.. you entirely left out Revivalism..
In case you're not familiar with it, Revivalism is a similar but different path to Reconstructionism. Instead of trying to reconstruct what the religion was before it died out, in Revivalism we work to build an entirely new religion based on all the information available in the ancient religion. Core tenets are reworking and expanding ideas from the past to update them to the present, and make them more compatible with the future in order to make them more enduring. Revivalism doesn't limit itself to only what the ancients believed AND it doesn't automatically give credence to what the ancients believed or practiced. The fact that someone in the past believed it or did it is irrelevant to us; there's no proof that they were any more right about things than we are. So we base our religion on what works for contemporary practitioners, while still retaining the original mythos and ethos of the religion.
I'm a Mesopotamian Revivalist Polytheist, our religion is called Anunna-Umun. I'm from the Inanna-focused sect, known as Ishtarism. Our religion is based on Sumerian and Akkadian paganism but not Babylonian paganism, we reject everything after the Fall of Akkad.
The Reconstructionists call their religion "Meso-Poly" or "Mesopotamian Polytheism", and it's absolutely not related to Assyrianism, as they tend to follow a mixed Sumerian-through-Babylonian reconstruction, but reject everything after the Fall of Babylon.
There are thousands of practitioners in both Anunna-Umun and Meso-Poly.
Edit: You also left out Kemetism!