I know I’m going to offend some with this post, but I’m going to ask you to consider being bigger than the offence taken, and just ask if I might have even half a point.
I’ve not had much connection with my (albeit limited) experiences of pagan ritual. Don’t get me wrong, I love ritual… brought up all bells and smells High Anglican; a nicely crafted Nunc Dimitis and the smell of frankincense can have me in a trance at the drop of a hat. So I’ve pondered much about why I find most pagan ritual (neo-pagan ritual) that I have come across, at best, deeply superficial… in performance terms closer to street theatre than to ritual.
There is something of tradition and history in the answer I think, and evolution of a community responding to need. If there is a ritual “language”, then neo-pagan ritual is the Esparanto of the ritual world… attempting to reach across cultures and created for a purpose. I’m probably going to insult a few Esperanto speakers now, but I cannot imagine the poetry of Kathleen Raine having come to fruition in Esperanto:
That was my mother’s tale.
Seventy years had gone
Since she saw the living skein
Of which the world is woven,
And having seen, knew all;
Through long indifferent years
Treasuring the priceless pearl.from Heirloom, Kathleen Rain
It seems likely to me that language works best that has evolved with a culture, with a tradition, where ambiguities have developed and been played with for centuries, where the poetry and rhyme and meaning is as rooted in childrens’ playground games as much as in high art… and maybe ritual works in much the same way?
Naom Chomsky’s deep grammar and its various offspring are the best known of current linguistic theories. Now I’m no linguist, but as far as I can see the theory envisages a common underlying structure to all languages, and a complex set of rules to generate individual utterances. Great poetry and compelling childhood games seem to tap into this underlying structure. Maybe ritual too?
And then there is an issue of underlying ecology… within a given (in this case socio-spiritual) system, all parts of that system have an ecological relationship to all other parts, supporting, synergising, sometimes inhibiting and destabilising, but if a system has “evolved” over time and all parts of that system have evolved and are evolving with it, it seems likely to me that the leverage that the parts have to effect change in the whole are greater than if a new part is introduced… I would even question the potential longevity of the new part.
So what happens when someone takes part of the patterns of say, a Native American Vision Quest and incorporates them into Druid ritual? First, the Vision Quest has a very specific context (and if I am talking out of turn here, I mean no disrespect and apologise… the fact that this is not an area of deep knowledge for me is pretty much my point!)… it is intended for young boys starting out on the path to manhood… fasting, drumming and a sweat-lodge in Cheshire for a bunch of 40 somethings just has no ecological viability as far as I can see. Maybe, over time, if the community has need of it, something can grow from this appropriation, but would seem to grow from weak stock.
Adam dons flack jacket and ducks
Hi there, I only recently discovered your blog but I’m really enjoying reading and wanted to drop by to say hello.
This post is particularly interesting, and I think you raise some really good points (I’m sending a link along to my partner, who is a linguist and has actually written a few essays on “religion as a language” that you might find interesting
. I agree with you that Neo-Pagan ritual comes up a bit short a lot of the time, feeling contrived and sometimes melodramatic, and I rarely participate in group ritual for that reason. On the other hand, I don’t think that means we should throw up our hands and declare the whole project pointless; rather, what we really need to do as a community is own up to this feeling of contrivance and allow ritual to evolve and develop organically. After all, if we are seeking to resist a mainstream monotheistic culture, it’s not enough to forfeit ritual simply because we don’t already have a rich heritage to draw on–such things have to begin somewhere.
What it reminds me of, actually, is the way a person learns to write poetry. Back in middle school when I was just beginning to write, my work was for the most part a combination of copying another’s style and really bad rhyming. I think you could say the same of most Pagan ritual these days. But the way I improved was simply to persevere, to allow myself to learn from what I imitated and eventually develop my own voice free of the I’m Writing Poetry Now pretensions that most beginning writers have. In the same way, I think that the attempt to find our “ritual voice” as individuals and as a community must be taken seriously as a process, while at the same time we forgive ourselves for those first embarrassing stumblings and trite pretensions. Yes, cultural appropriation is probably a more serious issue than someone trying to mimic Byron or Neruda, but respectfully studying and learning from other cultures (and giving ourselves the freedom to experiment, test our footing and find our own path) is a vital part of that organic development that gives rise to ambiguity, mystery and meaning.
That was very beautifully put, and I guess exactly the sort of response I had hoped to elicit even if I didn’t know it. You are quite right, I think, in your analogy with early adolescent poetic fumblings… “forgive ourselves for those first embarrassing stumblings and trite pretensions”… just so.
I also whole-heartedly agree about respectfully studying and learning from other cultures… if I had to describe my “path”, that would probably be the whole of it
No need for the flack jacket as far as I’m concerned Adam – what you say makes perfect sense to me.
On Chomsky’s universal deep grammar, I’m no expert but my understanding is that it generates the propensity to speak language in all individuals and generates the individual grammars of particular languages or language groups. And this would fit with what you say about native traditions and their relevance. Of course languages like traditions have got mixed up as far as their superficial manifestations are concerned. But deep down, even if there is a universal urge to do certain ‘spiritual’ things, the particular things we do are special to our own tradition(s) and a consequence of pick and mix religions is that nothing much is any longer special.
Agreed Heron, though I think Ali has a point with her analogy… but it’s got me thinking that maybe the biggest and most insidious appropriation is from the church and from the “western mystery tradition”… the desire that seems to be evident amongst many neo-pagans to be “priest” even if it is priest to the self. I even see the word priestcraft bandied around.
I have a strong suspicion that a mature neo-pagan sense of ritual will look very different to that of the church (RC or High Anglican)… and maybe more in common with indigenous traditions… but it isn’t happening yet as far as I can tell unless it is in the simpler, spontaneous, expressions of animism that occur.
Hi Adam — I’m Ali’s linguist-partner, mentioned in her comment.
You’re touching on stuff here that I’ve thought a lot about, and written a lot about; and the parallels between religion and language really inform the way I think about both topics.
To set the record straight, Chomsky’s universal grammar is a hypothetical system underlying all human languages, a system which assists children in the learning of language, and constrains the way languages are structured, especially their syntax. The hypothesized universal grammar, if it exists, would say nothing about poetry or childhood games. Poetry may well break or bend the rules of universal grammar, but otherwise poetry is not constrained by it. I think poetry would belong to what Chomsky calls “P-language”, how language is used, as opposed to “I-language”, our internal knowledge of language.
Now, if you believe in universal grammar (and I do, roughly), then you may also believe in Universal Ritual or Universal Religion, i.e. an instinctive system underlying all human religions, constraining them, and helping children learn them. I pretty much believe in that, too.
I don’t think it’s the same as Universal Grammar, but it may be similar in some ways.
That said, I don’t think Esperanto is a great example / analogy of what’s going on today in paganism. Esperanto was basically invented by one person, has rigid rules with no exceptions, and is more like Swedish than anything else.
I think modern paganism — with dozens of sub-movements practiced by all sorts of people, exceptions and variations everywhere, and overall, very much unlike Swedish — is more like a creole language. A creole language is a completely new language created out of the bones and broth of several other languages. It is young and relatively simple, and no great body of poetry or song associated with it yet, and it has a very mish-mashy character and tons of exceptions and odd rules and weird words. To me, modern paganism is like that. 
Over time, as Ali says, neopaganism will develop more depth and breadth; for now, at least we have a nourishing soup.
Thanks Jeff… creole… yeah, makes sense as a better analogy… I’m not a linguist and it certainly helps to have the comments of one when thinking in these terms
A commend you and applaud you. And I am thrilled at the great thoughtful responses you have elicited. I have long been critical of neo-paganism for many reason, one of which is just what you have touched upon. I have seen and participated in my share of neo-pagan ceremony and training, from Wicca and Witchcraft to Druidism and Celtic Reconstructionism/Revisionism . . . and some where along the line I out grew it relatively quickly and found myself an Animism. I have to admit, without the experience, and the dissatisfaction I felt I may not have found myown path – for that I do feel some gratitude to the movement, but I also feel it has stagnated and been co-opted via the New Age movement and still caries a lot of baggage from a colonial construct . . . but don’t we all? the trick is being aware of it. Anyways I have digressed.
The original point to my posting is to encounter a personal experience I have had with ceremony in an animist perspective. Most of my practice has been a private one, so much of my interactions (if you want to look at them as ritual) have been spontaneous and subtle. Then I was charge the task of re-working a Winter Solstice ceremony for the local UU Pagan group. I was relucted to the task – and there whas a core elment to it I liked, but I did not want to alianate the group or those who have attended in the past and give them a complete curve ball so I reluctently worked around some of the pre-existing neo-pagan constructs, and completely gutted other parts. I left the directions alone, and there was always been a pregrestion into a spiral into the sancturary – which I kept but I wanted to give it a local bioregional flare and removed the generic neo-pagan / wiccan script and filled it in with ceremonial poetry of which came through my communion with the land. Switching the direction (entirely unintentionaly) of the direction the spiral went caused people to go a little Ape shit – which the trickster in my found amusing as all hell, though frustrating with their inability to be flexible and develope their own ways (the eventually changed the direction at the last moment) . . . it is not an experiance I particularly wish to repeat – but it tought me a lot about ritual and cereomony and how to properly go about it in a respective animistic way that I have slowly been developing with this group in a more covert copacetic.
I see ceremony as a part of a conversation, the language analogy works well as just one of the languages, or an extension to the intuitive language to develop a relationship and carry a conversation with the land, spirits, animal, mineral, chemical people etc. . .
What bothers me about the neo-pagan and new age approach is that it feels like they ask me to assume a relationship with foreign deities and a foreign land that I have no right to. It is like a stranger assuming they have the same rights and privileges you would grant a brother, sister, mother, or father . . . and I find it down right rude.
I have found working with the land and getting to know it to find the proper ceremonies is a slow processes which requires a lot of patience, time and effort, but the results have been fare more rewarding to me personally, and to the community of all persons i interact with, then anything i have experianced in any neo-pagan ceremony.