Past Was Pagan - Understanding the Ancient Pagan Paradigm

Religion is a Defined Life Path.


Everyone has a life path although many do not want to define one for themselves. Many will adopt the life path defined for them by their culture. Others are unwilling or unable to define and follow a life goal and end up just going with the flow. They are like leaves blowing in the wind or like a log flowing in a river.

Ancient Paganism Transitioned from a Culture into a Religion 

(November 27, 2023, Updated November 12, 2024)  The Pagan people of the past not only had a different culture from today but also thought differently because of it. They were not simply polytheists. For most of the ancient past people just followed the culture they were born into. They did not have a choice about a life path. That only came about when cultures started interacting and empires started conquering other cultures. Then people has a choice of life paths, that is, for the first time in history they could choose a religion.

Different defined life paths (religions) are characterized by their answers to these three fundamental questions of existence: 

Paradigm change cycle
One example of a paradigm change is a scientific revolution like the one in which plate tectonics replaced the idea of a static earth with rising and falling land bridges. Changes in paradigm tend to follow the circular pattern above. This cycle was first described by Thomas Kuhn in his book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962at http://faculty.humanities.uci.edu/bjbecker/revoltingideas/week1d.html
Paradigms can be difficult to change because they bias perception and because they are often selected initially because they satisfy some emotional need. This neediness can make such people appear completely irrational even makes them willing to perform atrocities in defense of their paradigm. This was noticed by German Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was jailed and eventually killed by the Nazis. He wrote this:
“The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison)

Paradigms About Reality: Ancient Druidry Was Perceptheistic-B

(November 27, 2023, Updated November 13, 2024) Facts must be organized so they can be found when needed. This requires a mental framework or model (that is, a paradigm) for working with acquired facts. If new facts cannot be fitted into a person's existing paradigm they will tend to be ignored. Paradigms can be difficult to change because they are heavily influenced by humanity's cultural psychology, that is, the psychology of identity.

The four main views of Reality (paradigms) are:

Goddess of Freedom on top of the United States Capital
Goddess of Freedom on top of the United States Capital. It has Pagan elements from both the new world and the old world because certain Pagan traditions of both influenced the concept of liberty in the United States. The native influence was the Iroquois confederacy while the classical influence was Athens and republican Rome. The statue was patterned after the Greek goddess Athena and native American Pocahontas. No Christian elements were included because religions with lord gods don't have the concept of liberty. 
In the May 11, 1855 letter detailing the commissioning instructions, the Christian biased Capital Engineer, Captain Montgomery Meigs wrote this: 
“We have too many Washington’s: we have America on the pediment, Victories and Liberties are rather pagan emblems, but a Liberty I fear is the best we can get.”
In July 1853, Meigs, supervising engineer of the construction of the Capitol extension, asked Massachusetts Senator Edward Everett to recommend artists to make the sculptures for the new pediments on the East Front. Everett recommended the American Thomas Crawford (1813-1857) who was then working in Rome.
 After getting the commission Crawford began to collaborate with Meigs and former Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis on artwork for the Capital. At the time Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War (1853 to 1857) and in charge of Capitol art and construction. He would later become President of the Confederacy.  Meigs wrote to Crawford:
 “I do not see why a Republic so much richer than the Athenian should not rival the Parthenon in the front of its first public edifice.”
To top the capital dome, Crawford was commissioned to design a statue of "Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace." In 1855 he built a plaster model for the statue in his studio in Rome, Italy.
Crawford died suddenly in 1857 after completing of the full-size plaster model for the Statue of Freedom in Rome. After his death, his widow shipped the model to the United States, where it was cast in bronze by Clark Mills and placed atop the Capitol Dome on December 2, 1863. Crawford's original plaster model is now on view in Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitor Center. During the placement ceremony it was hailed by President Lincoln as a symbol of the country's unification.
References
Katya, Miller (2007) An Appreciation of Thomas Crawford's Statue of Freedomhttp://www.ladyfreedom.net/articles/Lady%20Freedom%20article%20(complete).pdf and http://www.ladyfreedom.net/history.html
 Fryd, Vivien Green (2017) Thomas Crawford, Statue of Freedom, 1855-63. American Social History Productions   http://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/thomas-crawford-statue-of-freedom-1855-63/
Image from https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/blog/nature-capitol-statue-freedom)

Perceptheistic Spirituality is Freedom - Liberty Originated In a Pagan Revival Called The Enlightenment (1690- 1770)

(July 6, 2022)  The first phase of the Enlightenment challenged human created religious laws and institutions hiding behind a claimed divine sanction. The next phase would challenge was the divine right of kings to rule. Before modern freedom could emerge the claims that cultural traditions and state laws were the divine will had to be challenged. Once they were seen as human creations then they could be changed according to the will of the people.

The rise of this modern freedom movement began in Britain in 1688 with the "Glorious Revolution." At this time constitutional limits were placed on monarchical power and religious toleration was made state policy. This early phase had its roots in the philosophy of government from the classical era. This is why all the original government buildings in the United States look classical. An overview of this phase of the Enlightenment published in 1966 said the following:

"To call the Enlightenment Pagan is to conjure up the most delightfully irresponsible sexual license: a lazy sun-drenched summer afternoon, fauns and nymphs cavorting to sensual music and lascivious paintings, preferably by Boucher. There is some reality to this fantasy: the philosophes argued for a positive appreciation of sensuality and despised asceticism.... In speaking of the Enlightenment as pagan therefore, I am referring not to sensuality but to the affinity of the enlightenment to classical thought. Words other than pagan - Augustan, Classical, Humanist - have all served as epithets to capture this affinity ...." (Gay 1966)

In this phase, the Enlightenment thinkers tried to separate the role of the state from the role of religion. Europe had seen too many religious wars and wars against heretics in its history. They concluded that the state would be responsible for material things while religion would be responsible for emotional/spiritual things. This first stated by John Locke  (1632-1704) who was also important in closing out the previous phase of Enlightenment. He wrote the following between 1689 and 1693:


The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests. Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of the body (freedom from bodily pain); and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like. (Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration in Kramic 1995)

Thomas Jefferson in the U.S Declaration of Independence shortened and generalized Locke's phase to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."


"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The concept of happiness as used by Jefferson thus includes the right to health and the right to acquire and hold possessions. During the civil war Abraham Lincoln and the nation elevated in blood the Declaration of Independence above that of the constitution to justify the elimination of the property right of slavery. The Declaration as a statement of purpose trumped any legal document meant to implement that purpose. Freedom is Pagan.

References

Gay, Peter (1966)  The Enlightenment - The Rise of Modern Paganism 

Kramic, Isaac [editor] (1995)  The Portable Enlightenment Reader.  Penguin books 

Path through a forest
Your life path has certain inherent assumptions. The faith-based religious model common today based upon sacred texts is not the only possible model. The other way is a path based model based upon nature and informed by tradition.  

Defining a Community Knowledge Source: Ancient Druidry's Knowledge Came From Nature and Tradition (Sacred Texts Did Not Exist)

(November 27, 2023)  In the ancient past before the rise of books and institutional authorities, nature and cultural tradition were the only source of community knowledge. While gaining a good model of nature is a challenge, nature itself is the only possible source of community knowledge which is internally consistent. If it wasn't self-consistent, the universe would crash like a computer.

 Community knowledge is the facts a community is expected to believe in order to insure their mutual prosperity and survival. Not believing in germ theory and acting upon that knowledge puts many in the community at risk of early death. Humans do not exist in isolation from others so a community has the right to expect its members to care about the truths of the physical world.

Other sources of community knowledge beside nature have been charismatic gurus, institutional traditions, or leaders and sacred texts claiming divine inspiration or secret ancient or alien knowledge. These differing sources never agree with each other which results in endless conflict and drama because truth cannot be agreed upon. The only potentially peaceful religions are nature based religions.

In contrast to community knowledge, personal spiritual knowledge is knowledge about your own emotional reactions. It is knowledge that only you can really know. You cannot expect others to feel the same or to use the same mental model which works for you emotionally. This is why Nature Religion is perceptheistic encouraging any divine conception which works best for each individual. All personal knowledge is equally valid as long as it does not contradict community knowledge.

Map of Persian Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent(550-330 BCE
Dualism was spread by Zoroastrian religion of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BCE). Dualism claimed that because conscious experiences like smells were inherently good and bad that the divine realm was also inherently good and bad. (this assumption of inherent valuation of conscious experiences was only proved false in modern times). 
Zoroastrianism claimed these two realms were at war with each other until the end times when they would be united once again. In the west, idea was inserted into Judaism and from there into Christianity and Islam. In the east it triggered the debates which led to the founding of Buddhism as a dualist religion whose followers seek to escape the material world and the creation of the Hindu Bhagavad Gita.

Goal and Purpose of Druidry: Initially To Align with the Divine Powers And Keep Them In Balance. Later Also To Maintain a Healthy Spiritual/Social Network With Love.

(November 27, 2023) Religions can have these overarching goals:

(September 7, 2023) The  Ancient Pagan Paradigm in stone. This is the entrance stone (labeled as K1) to the Newgrange mound tomb in Ireland dating to 3100 BCE. To the right are the life powers while the triple-spiral (triskelion) on the left represent the magical motion powers. These vortices are emerging out of a background of spiritual powers in general. The life powers consist of 3 layers of masculine and feminine deities. The layers are source powers, connective powers, and manifestation powers. The motion powers merge the genders. The motion connective power is the hermaphrodite deity Thu. The motion source deity/deities are the bright and dark (new) moon. The motion manifestation deity/deities are winds and breath.

The chart summarizing the Three-Layered Ancient Pagan Paradigm was originally constructed from information found in the oldest Near East texts and from recent archaeological findings. These early texts are Sumerian texts (2300-2000 BCE), Alphabetic Akkadian Mediterranean texts (2000-400 BCE), and Egyptian Pyramid texts (2300-2100 BCE). It was later refined as new information became available through runic text translations. The Ancient Pagan Paradigm is divided into two power classes. The life-growth class generates the growth of living things while the motion class generates all translational motion. 

Photo from https://www.newgrange.com/kerbstone-k1.htm

Three layered spirals/vortices from Minoan Crete

Three Layers of the Ancient Pagan Paradigm Represented by Three Minoan Vortices  (1800 BCE)

This lintel is on display at the Minoan Heraklion Museum in Crete. It shows the three vortex layers of the Ancient Pagan Paradigm going through the sky shell.   (Olmsted personal photo 2019)
2300 BCE Cuneiform sign KEŠ2 meaning "to bind."

Three Layered Sumerian Cuneiform Sign KEŠ2

The Mesopotamian Akkadians adopted cuneiform signs from their southern neighbors known as the Sumerians. This is their cuneiform sign KEŠ2 which means "to bind." It dates to 2300 BCE.
This sign has all three life layers of the Ancient Pagan Paradigm. The cuneiform signs during this early era were still mostly pictographic so they can still be read symbolically.
The top sign is a star which is the sign for the sound AN which as a symbol represents the sky shell or the life source powers which when personified represents the god Anu. The second sign is a storage pot with a toga inside representing “woven fabric” or the “network.” By itself it is the sound GAD. The bottom sign by itself means "earth" and it is the sound KI. It consists of a pot containing a cluster of vertical lines divine powers. Pots represented confined spaces.  
Knowth Ritual Macehead (Scepter) with spiral/vortex and network from Boyne Valley Ireland

Knowth Ritual Macehead (Scepter) from Boyne Valley Ireland Shows Paired and Single Spirals (Vortices)

Spirals or vortices represent a clustering of divine powers into a deity just like how a fluid vortex in a river cluster fluids into one spot.
This polished flint macehead was found on September 1, 1982 in the eastern tomb at Knowth in the Boyne river valley. It was found near the door to the right room under a large shale floor tile. The central main mound in which it was found was dated by carbon 14 to be about 2800 BCE. The smaller eastern mound is assumed to be of a slightly later date of around 3000 BCE.
The paired (also called horned) spirals represent the feminine and masculine paired deities of the life class of powers while the single represents the cross-gender motion class of powers.
Image from British Museum presentation by Alison Sheridan entitled "Exploring the Wider World of Stonehenge: Long Distance Connections and Movements" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjJZUWTts3M&t=4323sat 1:03:14.

Quotations from Vero are now found in: The Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum is maintained by David Camden as part of the larger Forum Romanum resource. Online at: http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/index.html

Quote in Roman Author Cicero on Diana and Juno

    ... people regard Diana and the moon as one and the same. ... the moon (luna) is so called from the verb to shine (lucere). Lucina is identified with it, which is why in our country they invoke Juno Lucina in childbirth, just as the Greeks call on Diana the Light-bearer. Diana also has the name Omnivaga ("wandering everywhere"), not because of her hunting but because she is numbered as one of the seven planets; her name Diana derives from the fact that she turns darkness into daylight (dies). She is invoked at childbirth because children are born occasionally after seven, or usually after nine, lunar revolutions ...
(Quintus Lucilius Balbus as recorded by Marcus Tullius Cicero and translated by P.G. Walsh. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), Book II, Part ii, Section c)

Early Roman Historian, Marcus Vero's (116-27 BCE) Deity List Allows Identification of Druid and Indo-European Deities

(May 3, 2024) Marcus Varro (116-27 BCE) has an important deity list in his book entitled Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum (Histories of Human and Divine Things). He was born in or near Reate (now Rieti) in Lazio, Italy into a family thought to be of equestrian rank. He ended up owning a large farm in the Reatine plain which was reported to be near Lago di Ripasottile.

Unfortunately, his book did not survive but it was quoted by many including Saint Augustine (354–430 CE) in his De civitate Dei Contra Paganos (City of God Against the Pagans) which was widely distributed after 426 CE. Additionally his quotes have been found in other surviving texts including Pliny (1st c.), Gellius (2nd c.), Censorinus (3rd c.), Servius (4th/5th c.), Nonius (4th/5th c.), Macrobius (5th c.), Priscian (5th/6th c.) etc.. 

His important passage about early Roman deities is quoted by Augustine in "de ciu. Dei, VII, 2." This is the earliest complete list that we have on the main Roman deities:  

Roman Deities Corresponding To Druid Life/Fertility Deities 

Masculine

Feminine

Roman Deities Corresponding To Druid Motion Deities 

Roman Deities From Indo-European Culture - The Planetary Motion Powers of Fate

 Planets are ordered from fastest to slowest. Being fate powers they affect life powers.

Roman Deities From Indo-European Culture - The Elemental Powers

References


Verro., Marcus Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum (Histories of Human and Divine Things).Online at: http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/antiquitates.html