Creationism=Paganism

I don't know whether to laugh or cry....whether to agree or be outraged....that paganism would be equated with protestantism....oh wait that is the historic basis for protestantism, as it was a 'protest' movement against the Holy Mother Church and competing Holy Roman Empires. It arose in the antinominalist movements which suckled at the breast of European paganism.


Luther and his princes used the pagan peasants as canon fodder in their political religious war for economic and temporal power.

But this is rather hilarious as a headline don't ya think....luckily most pagans have a good sense of humour unlike our fundamentalist protestant counterparts....

Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer

BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.

Of course in one fell swoop the Vatican astronomer has dismissed his historic political rivals as heretics, again. When in reality he should admit that if science and religion can co exist it is not in the Vatican or in Catholicism but in the philosophy of the enlightenment and America's founding fathers; Deism. Even God in her wisdom would agree with that.

“Spinozism dominated the eighteenth century both in its later French variety, which made matter into substance, and in deism, which conferred on matter a more spiritual name.... Spinoza’s French school and the supporters of deism were but two sects disputing over the true meaning of his system.... The simple fate of this Enlightenment was its decline in romanticism after being obliged to surrender to the reaction which began after the French movement.” Hobbes had shattered the theistic prejudices of Baconian materialism; Collins, Dodwell, Coward, Hartley, Priestley, similarly shattered the last theological bars that still hemmed in Locke’s sensationalism. At all events, for materialists, deism is but an easy-going way of getting rid of religion. Marx & Engels, The Holy Family

A tip o the blog to NewsTrolls

Also check out this blog on this topic and her article on the Sumerian origin of the old testament creation myth.



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 Opinion

Rabbi David Wolpe’s pagans aren’t the ones I know

The distinguished rabbi characterizes a broad collection of small faiths as idolators of nature or money.

(Image by Rihaij/Pixabay/Creative Commons)

January 2, 2024

By 

Nathan M. Hall

(RNS) — The rising sun is shining through my south-facing windows, just over a week after the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. As a scientifically minded person, I understand that this means that the amount of daylight minutes will be increasing until the summer solstice in June. As a modern Pagan (yes, with a capital “P”), I celebrate it as a return of the light after the dark half of the year, bringing clarity and illumination.

It’s clear that I’m not the kind of Pagan Rabbi David Wolpe wrote about last week in The Atlantic in his essay “The Return of the Pagans,” and I can’t say I know any who are. Wolpe, a distinguished rabbi in Los Angeles for most of his career and now a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School, working from a monotheistic worldview — one specifically rooted in the Bible — describes Pagans as the arch embodiments of evil or simply idolaters. 

“The worship of natural forces generally takes two forms: the deification of nature, and the deification of force,” Wolpe states at the outset of his essay, and concludes, “Hug a tree or a dollar bill, and the pagan in you shines through.”

Wealth is a particularly odd attraction to assign to Pagans (“Wealth is a cover for, or a means to, the ultimate object of worship in a pagan society,” he writes later, “which is power”), which shows his confusion about who modern Pagans are. His description of Pagans is so clearly a characterization he sets up in order to puncture some trends of our modern era. In itself, this is fine; I don’t agree with some of them either. But it was unfortunate that he chose to create a straw man of Paganism to knock around.

To do so, Wolpe abandons any nuance in describing cultures of antiquity. While there may be kernels of truth to biblical accounts, to land on them as one’s sole source for information about other religions, much less vast numbers of cultures in human civilization, is distressing. I would attribute it to a lack of intellectual curiosity, but Wolpe, a university lecturer, is known for questioning the historicity of the story of the Bible’s Book of Exodus. He can hardly plead ignorance.

Rabbi David Wolpe in a recent video about Hanukkah on social media. (Video screen grab)

Wolpe’s real point seems to be that people on the left have been promoting the primacy of nature, while those on the right award it to the individual. Both, to him, connote some form of what he calls Paganism.

But having used Paganism to call out the failings of the political left and right and to decry how our culture has ruptured along these lines, Wolpe wants us to believe that, if there is a way out, it’s through someone’s interpretation of the Bible. If only, in Wolpe’s view, we weren’t so focused on the beauty of creation, of the pleasures of the body or the acquisition of material wealth, we would be in a better alignment with what the deity of biblical monotheism intended.

What is Paganism, if not the brittle collection of stereotypes Wolpe has assembled? It’s a term that has historically included those moderns who follow pre-Christian religions from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa — think the beliefs of ancient Greece and Egypt, but also modern-day Druids and Heathens. Paganism in some places includes attempts at reconstructing these ancient religions or devising modern approaches and adaptations that stretch far beyond its history.

It includes practitioners of witchcraft; tree-hugging animists; close-knit, family based groups; and large magickal academies. It includes Indigenous peoples from parts of Europe and the Mediterranean. Most importantly, it includes people from any part of the world who simply decide that Paganism is the best description for what they practice.

In the United States and Europe the term Pagan has anecdotally been fading in recent years, as different individuals’ and groups’ practices have become more clearly defined — though Wolpe’s piece has given it new life. In the short time since it was published on Christmas Day, there has been an uproar from practitioners of this small collection of beliefs and religions who have overwhelmingly rejected his message.

What bothers me most, perhaps, is not that nearly everything Wolpe says about Paganism is simplistic or just plain wrong, or his laziness or even his political argument — it’s where his article appeared.

The Atlantic is read by people of a host of different religious and spiritual worldviews — Christians and Jews, of course, but also Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, followers of African traditional religions, Indigenous North American religions and yes, people who have claimed or inherited the descriptor of Pagan as part of their background. Its readers also include atheists, agnostics and so many more. 

There was certainly a way of calling out the behaviors of the people Wolpe wants to blame for our culture’s dysfunction without demonizing those who believe differently than he does. It speaks to a lack of empathy and ability at a time when we have seen a record number of hateful incidents directed at members of minority faiths, not least antisemitic hate.

That the magazine’s editors didn’t challenge Wolpe’s article for being too myopic is troubling. Pieces like his can commonly be found in publications that skew toward more religiously or politically tailored points of view, where Paganism is used as a stand-in for a collection of traits to be mourned or avoided. I can’t entirely fault a monotheist like Wolpe for seeing his path as the only true and correct way of interacting with the world or divinity, but The Atlantic should have considered the harm of allowing the term “Pagan” to be used as a dog whistle.

(Nathan M. Hall is a freelance journalist and author who lives in Florida. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

The sonnenrad and the Buffalo shooter: How the 'black sun' became a symbol of hate

The Conversation
May 27, 2022

People embrace at a vigil outside of Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York a day after a mass shooting left 10 people dead, in what authorities described as a racially motivated attack

Just before the supermarket shooting that killed 10 people on May 14, 2022 in Buffalo, New York, the suspected terrorist posted a manifesto online. The top is adorned with a “sonnenrad,” or “black sun,” an old Nordic symbol.




The sonnenrad is composed of 12 repeated runes – letters from ancient Germanic languages – arranged in a wheel. Each rune represents a sound, like in the Latin alphabet, but they also have a meaning when they stand alone.

The sonnenrad is a well-known Nazi and neo-Nazi symbol that has been seen in other white supremacist attacks. For the Nazis, the rune in the design stood for “victory.” What is less discussed but nonetheless important is that the symbol has a spiritual component. It is connected to a contemporary religious movement, folkish Heathenry – a form of contemporary Paganism.

Today, “Heathen” is an umbrella term used by people who practice various forms of spirituality inspired by Nordic cultures. Folkish Heathenry, specifically, was resurrected from Nazi spirituality. In the 1960s, a group in Florida began spreading spiritual ideas inspired by Nazi writings, and they gained adherents throughout the United States. In turn, they also influenced some other heathen groups to embrace white identity politics.

Understanding the sonnenrad’s spiritual roots can provide a better grasp of the implications of its use and its importance to members of the far right.

Many kinds of paganism

Heathens are a minority form of contemporary Paganism, which is itself a minority religion. Adherents not only live throughout the United States but are active in Northern Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

All forms of contemporary Paganism are shaped by pre-Christian spiritual practices. Contemporary Pagans rely on archaeological, historical and mythological accounts, mixed with modern occult practices, to create a religion that speaks to their lives in the 21st century but is inspired by past practices.

As a sociologist of religion who has studied contemporary Paganism for over 30 years, I know that all forms of Paganism share a number of similarities. Contemporary Pagans venerate gods and goddesses, view the Earth as sacred, celebrate the changing seasons in a set of yearly holidays and participate in magical practices. Most members of these religions are white. In a survey I conducted with religion scholar James Lewis, which I discuss in my book “Solitary Pagans,” we found that the majority are socially liberal and open to variety in all aspects of life, including ethnic and racial differences.

People who identify as “Heathens” differentiate themselves in several ways from other Pagans. They celebrate the ancient Norse gods once worshiped in Scandinavia, Iceland and Germany. When discussing ethical issues or exploring how best to know and celebrate the gods, they rely on medieval Icelandic texts about them: most importantly, two called the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda. Runes, normally carved or drawn on stones, are used in their rituals and divination – that is, foretelling the future.

Within Heathenism, there is a growing divide between those who are more liberal or middle of the road politically and folkish Heathens who are politically right-wing. Inclusive Heathens believe all who “hear the Norse gods’ call” should be welcomed into the religion, regardless of race or ethnic background.

Folkish Heathens, on the other hand, state that the religion should be restricted to those of “pure” northern European heritage; in other words, a religion for white people only. They view the religion itself as part of their white identity and have incorporated Nazi writings into their spirituality.

Folkish Heathens joined in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and since then, more inclusive Heathens have been declaring that folkish Heathens do not represent their religion.

Nazi occultism

Adolf Hitler was not particularly religious, but some of his lieutenants embraced a form of occult worship that focused on the ancient Norse gods. They viewed it as a religion of the “volk” or folk – the common man and woman who the Nazi Party romanticized as the heart of the nation.

Since extreme antisemitism was at the heart of Nazi ideology, the fact that Jesus was Jewish and Christianity grew out of Judaism troubled some Nazis. Therefore, they viewed Norse traditions as an appealing alternative and imagined it as the “true” faith, the religion of the original occupants of Northern Europe. Their religion emphasized healthy outdoor living and a connection of the folk to “their” land. The people and the nation were tied to the land in a mystical manner.

Propaganda suggested that people considered “outsiders” or “others” were like weeds: They needed to be eliminated both for the health of the nation and for the health of the folk, who were imagined as the “true” people of the land. The runes, the worship of Norse gods – particularly of Odin, who was viewed as a warrior god – and the sonnenrad were all part of this spiritual component that infused elements of the Nazi agenda. The sonnenrad, for example, was embedded on the floor of a palace for SS officers.

‘Folk’ views today

Similarly, folkish Heathens in the U.S. have come to see the land as “belonging” to white people, even though everyone except Indigenous peoples immigrated or were brought here. As with the Nazis, the land is viewed as connected spiritually to a “people.”

In his manifesto, the suspected shooter in Buffalo contends that he is not religious, although he ends with the words “I will see you in Valhalla,” the Norse afterlife for warriors. This was the same ending that the terrorist who had killed 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019 used in his manifesto. The 2022 manifesto relied on this earlier one as a model, and both illustrate the racist conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement.”

The use of Heathen imagery in both of these manifestos is not, however, simply an act of imitation. Folkish Heathens are part of the far right and their imagery, that of a “pure” white world, is appealing to other members of the far right. Folkish Heathens interact with both other Pagans and others on the far right online and in person. Heathen religious rituals and imagery are becoming integrated into far-right groups.

Images like the black sun do not just emerge from the ruins of Nazi Germany, but directly from those who are practicing a contemporary religion. The participation of folkish Heathens is an important piece of the puzzle in understanding the far right.

By Helen A. Berger, Affliate Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Christianity and Paganism in the Roman Empire, 250-450 C.E.

Mark Humphries

Forthcoming in Nicholas Baker-Brian and Josef Lössl (eds),
A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity
(Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell)
CHAPTER 3

Introduction
Superstition shall cease; the madness of sacrifices shall be abolished. For if any man in violation of the law of the deified Emperor, Our Father [i.e. Constantine I], and in violation of this command of Our Clemency, should dare to perform sacrifices, he shall suffer the infliction of a suitable punishment and the effect of an immediate sentence (Codex Theodosianus16.10.2).

In 341, with these apparently uncompromising words, the Christian emperor Constans (337-350) commanded his official Madalianus to restrict the worship of the ancient gods. This lawis preserved in a fifth-century compilation of imperial legislation that speaks loudly of its hostility toward traditional cults (Hunt 1993; Salzman 1993) and offers a window onto a world that seems utterly at odds with the religious dynamics of earlier Roman history. One of the most striking features of that earlier world was its capacity to absorb new cultures and, with them, new gods. It is no exaggeration to say that much of what we know about the pantheons of Iron Age Europe arises from their assimilation into Roman religious habits in the Empire’s provinces. 

As native gods were adopted by the Romans, so they became subject to Roman forms of worship: this included the setting up of votive inscriptions from which we know the names of a range of deities, such as Antenociticus on the northern frontier of Britain (RIB1327-29). Some of these local cults spread far beyond their homelands, such as the mother deities of the Pannonians (Matres Pannoniarum) attested at Lyons in Gaul in the190s (Mócsy 1974: 232-4, 250). A similar adaptability can be seen in the East, this time building on Hellenistic foundations (see chapters 3 and 6).

THE RELATION BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM 

IN THE REIGN OF SAINT EMPEROR CONSTANTINE THE GREAT

Dr. Adrian BOLD
University of Craiova, Faculty of Theology

Introduction

The relation between Christianity and paganism represented, especially in the early Christian centuries, the main concern of both the Fathers and Writers of the Church and the pagan Greco-Latin authors. The way that the new religion was understood and interpreted was for along time, one of the major concerns in the Roman Empire, regardless of the social position of those involved in the dispute. This situation lasted until the time of the emperor Constantine the Great (272-337), and even after his reign (306-337), its analysis being of great interest in knowing how Christianity defeated Greco-Roman paganism and spread throughout the empire and even beyond its borders. St. Constantine the Great remained a controversial figure in the history of the Church of all confessions. „He is one of those people who seem by their personality, their acumen, and their ability both to take the opportunities offered and to leave the world markedly changed by their presence in it. He bequeaths a series of paradoxes: an autocrat who never ruled alone; a firm legislator for the Roman family, yet who slew his wife and eldest son and was himself, illegitimate; a dynastic puppet-master, who left no clear successor; a soldier whose legacy was far more spiritual than temporal”.

 Constantine the Great is considered „holy” in the Orthodox Church, in the Roman Catholic Church „great”, while the Protestant world and a large number of modern scholars consider him a political opportunist who was driven by personal and state interests to achieve his goals. „Many scholars ascribe sincere religious motives to him, while others see him as an opportunist currying favor with a vocal minority. We do know that Constantine's contemporaries and successors viewed his patronage of Christianity as a watershed: for pagans, such as Zosimus, it was the beginning of the end of a proud empire; for Christians, such as Eusebius, it was the dawning of a bright new day of Christian triumph. Constantine put a great deal of financial and political support behind Christianity, beyond the simple legalization of the movement in 313 C.E.”

According to some researchers, the king helped the Christian Church in order to use it: he kept the title of pontifexmaximus, he tolerated paganism, he was baptized only on his deathbed by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, he oscillated between Christianity and paganism and between Orthodoxy and Arianism. His policy was unfavorable to Christianity frequently.

Jakob Wilhelm Hauer’s New Religion and National Socialism

By Karla Poewe and Irving Hexham

Department of Anthropology and Religious Studies

University of Calgary 

© 2003

This paper was eventually published as :“Jakob Wilhelm Hauer's New Religion and National Socialism.” Karla Poewe and Irving Hexham. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 20 (2) 2005: 195-215.

Abstract

Jakob Wilhelm Hauer (1881-1962) was a missionary to India and, later, both a professor of religious studies at Tübingen and a founder of a new religion called the DGB. According to Hauer, his movement was the essence of National Socialism. Because some contemporary scholars try, nevertheless, to separate Hauer’s scholarship and the DGB from National Socialism, this paper reviews existing literature about the Hauer phenomenon. It does so in light of our research at the Federal Archives of Koblenz and Berlin. Then Hauer’s personal development and determination to further Nazism are traced. Together the literature review and Hauer’s view of religion show that his religious thought and his Nazi politics are inseparable

https://www.academia.edu/515881/Jakob_Wilhelm_Hauers_New_Religion_and_National_Socialism

New Religions and the Nazis

Karla O Poewe

Published 2006

19 Pages

Völkisch National Socialism and Arabic Islam

The main thesis of this paper is that Nazi political religiosity has its origins in the pagan phenomenon called the völkisch movement. This movement consisted of uncountable religious-cum-political groups called Bünde whose leaders and followers were closely interconnected with one another and with the developing Nazi Party. From there völkisch thought penetrated the German Protestant Church and found followers among some Catholics. Given this development, an obvious question follows, namely, can National Socialism be blamed on Christianity and is Christian anti-Judaism the ultimate source of the Holocaust?

https://www.academia.edu/515845/New_Religions_and_the_Nazis

Scientific Neo-Paganism and the Extreme Right Then and Today: From Ludendorff's Gotterkenntnis to Sigrid Hunke's Europas Eigene Religion

Karla O Poewe

1999, Journal of Contemporary Religion

Publisher: .ucalgary.ca

Publication Date:  Jan 1, 1999

Publication Name:  Journal of Contemporary Religion

ABSTRACT

 During the Weimar Republic, flourishing new religions were harnessed to usher in the cultural revolution from the right that was soon dominated by the Nazis. J. William Hauer’s Deutsche Glaubensbewegung, an umbrella group for numerous new religions from versions of Hinduism to Nordic Neo-Paganism, all collaborated, at some point, with Hitler and his party. This paper shows the continuity of core ideas from Mathilde Ludendorff’s Gotterkenntnis to Hauer’s Glaubensbewegung and, importantly, Sigrid Hunke’s Unitarier. 

It shows, further, theclose connections between these forms of neo-paganism and the present day European NewRight. The paradoxical co-occurrence in fascism of a religious populism and a metapolitical elitism, philosophical vitalism and dreams of national or European rebirth, has its roots in these French and German forms of neo-paganism.

https://www.academia.edu/515870/Scientific_Neo_Paganism_and_the_Extreme_Right_Then_and_Today_From_Ludendorffs_Gotterkenntnis_to_Sigrid_Hunkes_Europas_Eigene_Religion

THE SPELL OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM:

The Berlin Mission’s Opposition to, and Compromise with,the Völkisch Movement and National Socialism: Knak, Braun, Weichert.

BY Karla Poewe

© 1999

This paper was published as: “The Spell of National Socialism: The Berlin Mission's Opposition to, and Compromise with, theVölkisch Movement and National Socialism: Knak, Braun, and Weichert.” In Ulrich van der Heydenund Juergen Becher, Eds. Mission und Gewalt: Der Umgang christlicher Missionen mit Gewalt unddie Ausbreitung des Christentums in Afrika und Asien. (Missionsgeschichtliches Archiv, Band 6)Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 

Introduction: Cultural Context

From the time of the first major internments of Berlin missionaries by the British in 1915,the Berlin Mission defined and redefined its place in the larger scheme of things which includedthe international Christian community, the mission field in the colonies of Britain, and Germanyitself. Berlin missionaries did not see Germany as belonging to the Herrschervölker 

(dominatingnations) like England, France, and Russia. Nor did the Berlin Mission see Germany as having aninterest in conquest politics (cf. Dumont 1994). In their view, internment belied the universalisticideals heralded during the 1910 mission conference in Edinburgh (Richter 1915:93, 95, 97; Knak 1940). Furthermore, far from seeing internationalism as succeeding, Berlin missionaries notedthe simultaneous striving toward nationhood of neue Völker (new peoples) (ibid.). 

Of particular concern were the Afrikaaner whose nationalism, like that of Germany in the nineteen twenties and thirties, took on religious qualities (Knak n.d.a:227).The Berlin mission saw itself as beleaguered on all fronts: by the English and French in the trenches of the First World War where their recruits fought, died, and were lost to the mission; and by the English and Afrikaaner in South Africa where the first mentioned enhanced their Imperialism and the last mentioned their religious nationalism. The worst battle of the mission was fought, however, in Germany itself where, after 1933, national socialism, the völkische Bewegung (völkish movement), and the various “new” Nordic and German religionstogether attacked Christianity as right for its downfall. Germany of the thirties was awash with virulent movements. There was first the party specific movement of the national socialists. There was the broadly based völkische Bewegung (Mosse [1966] 1981). Within this, and very much in tune with Nazi ideology, which it refined, were the “new” or “other” religious movements loosely referred to as “deutscher Glaube”(German Faith) (Meyer 1915), “deutschvölkischer Glaube

” (Faith of the German folk) (Boge1935), “Rasseglaube” (Race Faith) (Braun 1932), the “Deutsche Glaubensbewegung” (GermanFaith Movement) (Hauer 1933), various Wirklichkeitsreligionen (Reality Religions) (Mandel1931), the “Deutschreligion” (Bergmann 1934), “Gotterkenntnis” (God-cognition) (Ludendorff 1935), various “Nordungenkreise” or Nordic religions (Boge 1935), to mention but a view(Bartsch 1937; Poewe 1999). Also included in Germany’s “other” or “own” religions must be the Deutsche Christen who rejected the Old Testament and Pauline Gospel as foreign, that is, as Jewish, and/or they argued for an Aryan Christ.

https://www.academia.edu/515893/THE_SPELL_OF_NATIONAL_SOCIALISM

New Religions and the Nazis

Karla Poewe,2006 Oxford: Routledge,pp. 111-127 

Chapter 8

Hauer and the War of Attrition against Christianity

 

Introduction

By 1933 religion in Germany was muddled. There were three major forces atplay: the Catholic Church, the Protestant church, and the diverse groups of German faithlers, völkisch, and free religious. With the Reich Concordat passedin Cabinet on July 14 and signed in Rome July 20, the Catholic Church ceased tobe part of the religious confusion. Not so the Protestant Church. It was gravelydivided into various factions from the Young Reformers who wanted anindependent church but one unconditionally loyal to the state, to the DeutscheChristen (German Christians) who had no use for the Old and New Testamentand made Jesus a fellow Aryan

https://www.academia.edu/2954894/Hauer_and_the_war_of_attrition_against_Christianity_in_New_Religions_and_the_Nazis_2006_Routledge_Press_London_pp_111_127

Bush Apologizes to Witches

Good news Wicca has been officially recognized by the U.S. Military as a religion.
In this BBC report an update on the recent recognition of Wicca as a religion by the U.S. military.

Pagan branch gains strength

31 Aug 2007

Followers of Wicca, a branch of paganism, have stepped up efforts for recognition of the religion.

Historic Headstone Dedication at Arlington National Cemetery for Wiccan Priestess on the 4th of July -

Of course considering the U.S. military operates from the Pentagon, itself a form of Pentagram, and uses the Star on as its symbol on its equipment, perhaps they realized how silly this was. Or perhaps their reluctance was that they were afraid of being outed as a Satanic conspiracy like poor old Procter and Gamble.

A Wiccan military family who got dissed last week by President Bush when he was meeting with military families who lost loved ones in Iraq, gains an apology from the Pres.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today commended President George W. Bush for his apology to a Wiccan war widow who was excluded from a private meeting with veterans and their deceased family members in Nevada earlier this week.

Roberta Stewart, whose husband Sgt. Patrick Stewart was killed in combat in Afghanistan, was not invited to meet with Bush and other family members of soldiers who have died in combat. Other members of Sgt. Stewart's family were invited to the meeting.

"He apologized for the exclusion and the error that was made and said that he admired me for my spirit and thanked me for accepting his apology and said that he hoped he would have the opportunity to someday meet me," Stewart continued. "I was very pleased with the way the conversation went, very pleased that he did call and put this right."

Lynn asked Stewart if the president touched upon her Wiccan faith. She replied that the president told her that "he would not discriminate against someone because of their religion."

Unlike other Born Again Christians who are still at war with the Old Religion.

The Return of the Old Gods: A Challenge to Green Evangelicals

Just as they are against secular society which allows Wicca and other alternative religions to flourish in spite of Christian Hegemony.



See:

Gone to Croatan

Whitman Wicker Man

The Wicker Man Review

Wicca

Pagan



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A modern witch celebrates the cycle of life and death at the confluence of cultures

This time of year, a bruja, or witch, practices central Mexican Indigenous rituals and modern pagan ones, both honoring the Earth and “us as individuals as part of nature.” But the holidays of the Day of the Dead and Samhain are not the same.

The Rev. Laura Gonzalez poses after teaching about Day of the Dead at a bookstore in Chicago in 2019. Courtesy photo

October 28, 2022

By 

Heather Greene

(RNS) — As Americans of all faiths prepare for Halloween with costumes and candy or the Day of the Dead with food and flowers, the pagan community is also preparing for its holiday celebrating death and rebirth.

Samhain is the third and final harvest festival of the pagan Wheel of the Year, as the holiday calendar is known in many Earth-based religions.

“(Modern) Pagans have incorporated the seasonal concern with the dead in a holy day that celebrates the cyclicity of life, death, and rebirth,” writes folklorist and pagan scholar Sabina Magliocco in her book “Witching Culture.” 

Not unlike the Day of the Dead and Halloween, Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “Sow-en”) includes feasting and honoring one’s ancestors, though those celebrating Samhain are likely to add some divination. Based largely on Irish folk religion, it is a time when the divide between the physical and spiritual worlds are believed to be thin.

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RELATED: No, they do not worship the devil, and other myths dispelled in new book on satanism

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The Rev. Laura González, who is a practicing witch and a pagan educator and podcaster in Chicago, celebrates all three. “(My practice) is a hodgepodge,” she laughs.

The Rev. Laura Gonzalez celebrating Tlaxochimaco 2022 in Little Village, Chicago. Courtesy photo

González merges modern paganism with Mexican traditions, including practices indigenous to central Mexico, where she is from. “At their core, modern paganism and these indigenous practices both honor the Earth,” she said. Nature reverence is essential, she said, to her spiritual path.

“Let me describe to you what happens in my life,” González said in a phone interview. On Oct. 1, the decorations go up for Halloween, a purely secular holiday for her. Then, around Oct. 27, she sets up a Day of the Dead altar to honor deceased relatives, as most Mexicans do about this time, she said. “My mother died on Oct. 27, 2011. I believe it was her last wink to me,” said González.

Since then, González has been honoring her mother with bread and coffee but has also made it her mission to teach others about the Day of the Dead and its origins. She teaches those traditions as well as modern paganism both locally and over the internet at the pagan distance-learning Fraternidad de la Diosa in Chihuahua, Mexico.

On Samhain, González always hosts a small ritual for her Pagan students and participates in Samhain celebrations, either as an attendee or organizer. Some years she travels to Wisconsin to be with fellow members of the Wiccan church Circle Sanctuary.

Samhain is traditionally honored on Oct. 31, but some pagans celebrate it Nov. 6 or 7, an astrologically calculated date. Regardless, group celebrations must often yield to modern schedules, and González said she will celebrate an early Samhain this year.

“My (Samhain) celebration is for the ancestors and for the Earth going into slumber — the Goddess goes to sleep,” González said. She likes to focus her ritual on modern pagan trailblazers, often referred to as “the mighty dead,” rather than on her relatives, which she honors on the Day of the Dead.

González’s central Mexican indigenous practice and her modern pagan practice, rooted in  northern Mexico and the United States, “are very similar,” she added, both honoring the Earth and “us as individuals as part of nature,” something she believes has been lost in modern Day of the Dead traditions. However, she quickly added, “Indigenous practices are not pagan.”

Growing up in Mexico City, González was surrounded by mainstream Mexican culture, with Day of the Dead festivals and altars. As she was exposed to the Indigenous traditions that are still woven through Mexican culture, she explained, she began to study folk magic and traditions, as well as “Native philosophies.”

The Day of the Dead, she said, “is the ultimate syncretic holiday,” a merger of the European-based Catholic traditions with Indigenous beliefs and celebrations. “The practices brought to Mexico by the Catholic colonizers were filled with pagan DNA,” she said. All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day contain remnants of traditional Samhain and other older beliefs, she noted.

“These colonizers came to a land filled — filled — with skulls and its imagery,” she said, which must have been frightening and somewhat of a culture shock, she added.

An altar during Tlaxochimaco 2022 commemorations in Chicago. Courtesy photo

González is now actively participating in the revival of the Indigenous traditions as a teacher and celebrant. The Indigenous holiday, she said, is a 40-day celebration. The first 20 days is called Tlaxochimaco, or the birth of flowers, and the second is Xoco Huetzi, or the fall of the fruit.

“We all are flowers,” she explained. We grow, flower, bloom and then become fruit. Eventually falling and becoming seed, and the cycle continues. The Aztecs “used this mythology to describe life and life cycles,” she said.

“But there are people who do not make it to fruit. They die young,” González explained. These people are honored during Tlaxochimaco.

During Xoco Huetzi, celebrations are held to honor those who have made it to old age before passing. Both festivals traditionally involve dancing, she said, which is considered an offering to the dead. 

The 40-day celebration was eventually condensed into two days aligning with the colonizers’ Catholic traditions, she said, becoming the modern Day of the Dead celebration, a holiday that is quickly becoming as popular north of the Mexican border as Halloween is.

While González is not offended by purely secular Halloween celebrations, even with its classic depiction of witches, she struggles with the growing commercialization of the Day of the Dead. “I know what I am, and I know what I celebrate,” she said, speaking of Halloween. “I find it funny that the wise woman has been made into something scary.”

What does offend her is people dressed as sugar skulls. “It’s a double-edged sword,” González said. “It’s a source of pride knowing the world loves our culture,” she said. However, she added, “You love our culture, you love our music, you love our food, you love our traditions, you love our aesthetics, you love our parties and holidays, you love all of that, but you don’t love us.”

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An example of a Samhain altar. Photo by Heather Greene

This is the definition of cultural appropriation, she added.

“The world is filled with racism, discrimination, colorism, classism,” she continued. “There is a disconnection between the thing and the people who made the thing.” She likened this to a second wave of colonization.

Her recommendation: “If you like Day of the Dead stuff,” she said, “shake a tree and a Mexican artisan will fall from it. Buy Mexican. You will benefit the very people who have created the aesthetic,” she said. “The big box stores don’t need your money,” she said, but Mexican and Mexican American families do.

Many pagans, especially in the growing Latino pagan community, do honor multiple traditions like González, particularly around the time when the holidays align.

“I think it’s important to recognize where we come from and how we survive whatever challenges our ancestors had,” said González. Samhain, Day of the Dead and the Aztec traditions “are, after all, a celebration of life and their lives.”

Ex-Catholics in Rome reconnect with roots, spirituality in paganism

As Romans search for alternatives to Catholicism, some have turned to Jupiter, Minerva and Juno.

Luca Fizzarotti, center, pours water on hands during a ritual with the Communitas Populi Romani, Feb. 10, 2024, near the Forum in Rome. 

(RNS photo/Claire Giangravè)

February 21, 2024
By Claire Giangravé

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Disillusioned by their experiences in Catholicism, some Romans are turning to paganism and finding a connection to their roots through worshipping the gods of antiquity, whom they see as more welcoming than the church.

“Rome is pagan,” Pope Francis told members of the Roman clergy during a closed-door meeting Jan. 14, when he urged them to consider the city a mission territory. Asked about the pope’s surprising words a few weeks later, the head of the department for catechesis of the Diocese of Rome, the Rev. Andrea Camillini, admitted: “Rome is at the same time pagan and the city of the pope: It’s a paradoxical city.”

The number of practicing Catholics in Italy has plummeted after the COVID-19 lockdowns to an all-time low. The Italian National Institute of Statistics found that only 19% of Italians were practicing Catholics in 2022, compared with 36% in the previous 10 years. The number of people who “never practice” their faith has doubled to 31% in the historically Catholic country.

While the church grapples with the causes behind the emptying pews, some who have left their Catholic faith behind are searching for other spiritual outlets. An eclectic group of Romans who gathered near the ancient Forum on a windy morning on Feb. 10 have turned to Juno, Jupiter and Apollo to find answers.

“I was a practicing Christian Catholic for many years. I was a catechist,” Luca Fizzarotti, who recently started attending the ancient Roman rituals, told Religion News Service. “Then I had a spiritual crisis when I moved in with my wife. I had a very bad experience and had to leave my church,” he said.

A computer programmer, Fizzarotti fell in love with a woman who believes in Kemetic Orthodoxy, based on the ancient Egyptian religious faith. “In the beginning I could not really understand this, then as I slowly learned about the pagan community, I found a way to live out my spirituality,” he said.

Incense burns during a ritual with the Communitas Populi Romani, Feb. 10, 2024, near the Forum in Rome. (RNS photo/Claire Giangravè)

Paganism — though sometimes used as a derogatory shorthand for anyone who does not worship the Abrahamic god of Judaism, Islam and Christianity — is an umbrella term that encompasses a number of religious traditions, many of them polytheistic. Ancient Romans worshipped a pantheon of gods, mainly Jupiter, Juno, Apollo and Minerva, through rituals and observations with activities than included animal sacrifice and temple worship.

Fizzarotti was among a dozen people who gathered for the early February ritual, organized by the Communitas Populi Romani, a community started in 2013 by a group of young enthusiasts of Roman history, culture and religion.

In the beginning, the group focused on reenactments and history, but it slowly shifted toward becoming an officially recognized religious group. There are 20 or so members, said Donatella Ertola, who joined the group in 2015 and now organizes meetings three or four times a month in the places that are closest to the original temples spread across Rome.

“We all believe in the gods, we make rituals at home, we have devotion temples at home, we have our priests and officiants,” she told RNS, adding that this is a “niche community that has been growing recently.”

Communitas is hardly the only Roman religion organization in Rome or Italy. Groups like Pietas in Rome have larger memberships and even their own temples. According to a 2017 study by the Center for Studies on New Religions in Turin, the number of neopagans in Italy has grown to more than 230,000 people, a 143% increase over 10 years. In the United States there are 1.5 million pagans, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center survey, a significant increase compared with 134,000 in 2001.

The draw of the Roman religion is clear for many modern-day Italians, who view it as a way to reconnect with their ancient roots. Fascination with ancient Rome has also become a worldwide phenomenon. A social media trend last year found a staggering and surprising number of people — especially men — think about the ancient Roman Empire at least once a day.

“I was looking for something that monotheism didn’t give me,” said Antony Meloni, an airport construction worker. “I found in polytheism a new strength,” he added.

There is no religious text in the Roman religion, meaning faithful today must rely on what was written by people of the time. Communitas attempts to re-create the ancient rituals, without any human or animal sacrifice, of course, using ancient texts.

The group gathered that day to celebrate Juno Sospita, or Juno the Savior, whose temple once stood a few steps away, where the Church of St. Nickolas in Chains is located today. The original columns are still visible. She is usually shown as a warrior, lance in hand, and covered with goat skins and historically celebrated in February, considered a month of purification by the Romans, as winter turned to spring.

Communitas Populi Romani members use incense during a ritual on Feb. 10, 2024, near the Forum in Rome. (RNS photo/Claire Giangravè)

They follow the description of a ritual offered by Cato the Elder in the “De Agricultura.” It starts off with an offering to the local “genus,” or spirit, followed by ablutions with water and incense. During the central part of the ceremony, the “Favete Linguis,” faithful are asked to “hold their tongues” and quiet their minds.

Amid the chaos of Roman traffic and the occasional bark of their mascot — the dog Poldo, who has two different-colored eyes — the group shouted prayers in Latin. Two nuns, dressed in black, looked over suspiciously. Wearing a white veil, the officiant May Rega, scoffed with annoyance.

Rega was an active member of her church in Naples and sang in the choir, but she also drifted away from Catholicism due to ruptures with the church and its congregants. As an archaeologist, she loves how specific and detailed Roman religion is, forcing one to check sources, follow the ritual precisely, with no mistakes and with the appropriate citations.

She had carefully put together the flowers, scones and almond milk — because she could not find goat’s milk — for the ceremony and was annoyed when her boyfriend and concelebrant, Daniele Pieri, interrupted the ritual, forcing them to start over.

“When I met her, she said, ‘I am pagan and vegan,’ and I thought ‘Great! I am celiac!’” said Pieri, who works as a sound technician. Pieri left the Catholic Church after the parish priest insisted he could not be harmed by receiving Communion despite being celiac. He said he still has an admiration for Jesus: “If Jesus had prayed to Jupiter, he would have been even cooler.”

For Pieri, Roman religion is a question of identity. “I love this city. I was born in this city, and I want to die in this city,” he said. “When I began to study Roman history and these cults, I found my roots. This is where I come from. This is who I am.”

May Rega, center, speaks during a Communitas Populi Romani gathering on Feb. 10, 2024, near the Forum in Rome.

 (RNS photo/Claire Giangravè)

Taking turns, the members of the Communitas made their personal offering to the goddess. Unlike other pagan communities in Rome, the group doesn’t have any initiation rite, and everyone is welcome to join. “The Roman religion is not about saying these are my gods, and there are no others,” Pieri explained.

Chiara Aliboni is a student of history, anthropology and religions from a “very Catholic family” in Perugia was also attending the ceremony. She said she had her conversion to Orthodox Kemetism when she learned about the ancient Egyptians. “I thought, if I am to follow any religion, it’s this one,” she said. While hesitant at first, she found in the Communitas a welcoming home for her beliefs.

Fizzarotti was also pleasantly surprised by the openness of this religion compared with his experiences in the Catholic Church. “I am drawing closer to this community. I am finding many answers that I have been searching for for years,” he said after the rite was completed, and the group reveled in wine and an improvised banquet.

“I am feeling emotional. I deeply felt today’s ritual. It was truly beautiful,” he added.

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The group members gathered their things, leaving nothing behind but the lingering scent of incense. They spoke of plans for creating a temple one day just outside Rome and of upcoming gatherings with other pagan groups. Their faith, believed to have been long lost, is still very much alive, they said.

For Camillini, as the number of Catholics dwindles in the Eternal City, he has had to face reality. “It’s time to give up the delusion of omnipotence, of evangelizing Rome, and abandon the idea of making Rome into a Christian city. It’s no longer our objective and it never was,” he said.

Secret Belief Means Wagner’s Most Dangerous Men Won’t Back Down

Will McCurdy

The Daily Beast
Mon, September 4, 2023

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Reuters

All eyes are on the Russian mercenary group Wagner in the aftermath of a mysterious plane crash that presumably killed the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, last week. Angry over what many suspect was an assassination plot ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, many factions within the infamous mercenary group are now emerging with shadowy threats of vengeance and violence.

The “Rusich” Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group, a Wagner-linked unit of fighters that have received additional sanctions for “special cruelty" in battles in the Kharkiv region in Ukraine, has recently taken to Telegram to post one such ominous warning. “Let this be a lesson to all. Always go all the way,” the group said in a statement after the plane crash.

There’s good reason for Vladimir Putin to take threats from Rusich, and other like-minded Wagner fighters, seriously.

That’s because behind the headlines, many of the Wagner units most known for their violence—including the Rusich battalion, and even the now-deceased commander Dmitry Utkin—are fighting what they believe is a spiritual battle, taking religious and ideological inspiration from sources far removed from the Russian mainstream.


These soldiers are shunning Jesus, Mary, and the Russian Orthodox patriarchs, and instead booking to Gods such as Perun— the ancient Slavic god of thunder and lightning—for protection and inspiration.

Members of the far right Russian paramilitary unit Rusich take a walk in the Kremlin square during a break in their participation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
STR/NurPhoto/Getty

The “Rusich” battalion is formed almost entirely of adherents of a variant of Slavic neopaganism known as “Rodnovery,” according to former unit commander Alexei Milchakov’s interviews with local Russian media. Marat Gabidullin, who served in the Wagner group from 2015 to 2019 and rose to the rank of commander in Syria, also confirmed these reports to The Daily Beast.

Members of the Rusich group, which has been active in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Africa, and Syria since 2014, have often adorned their badges, tanks, and banners with images of what’s known as the ‘kolovrat’. This spinning wheel—one of the critical symbols of the pagan revivalist belief system—could be easily mistaken for a swastika by the untrained eye. Pagan symbols such as the ‘Valknut’ and ‘Black Sun’ have also frequently appeared on the groups’ uniforms and banners.

These pagan symbols have prompted disgust and confusion in several news outlets, in both Ukraine and Africa, due to the symbols bearing a distinct similarity to the SS imagery of Nazi Germany. Outside of the Rusich unit, these pagan beliefs are common among members of the Wagner Group, and the Russian military more widely, according to several sources who spoke to The Daily Beast.

‘Rodnovers’ practice polytheism, the belief in multiple gods, roughly seven, all said to be manifestations of the one true god Rod. These ideas began to take root in the ’90s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and state atheism led to a revival of religious faiths of all kinds, including Christianity.

Men are hugely overrepresented in Rodnovery, particularly those involved in martial arts clubs and the heavy metal community, where its imagery often crops up. A core text of Rodnovery, “The Book of Veles” places the Slavs as a type of chosen people, with a unique destiny. Though texts like the above have proven likely to be 19th-century forgeries and much of the faith represents guesswork based on incomplete records from Medieval scholars, that hasn’t stopped these beliefs from slowly rising in popularity.

There are estimated to be between several 100,000 to several million Pagans in Russia, divided between different sects with quite diverse beliefs. The deity that receives the bulk of the attention, at least among male devotees, is Perun, a deity who in the Book of Veles engages in constant war against the forces of evil, not unlike the popular Norse god Thor. The belief in reincarnation is also common among believers.

Gabidullin, the ex-Wagner soldier, told The Daily Beast the practice of Rodoverny within the group as merely a type of “fashion hobby” for a marginalized community of soldiers.

The ex-mercenary says the popularity of these beliefs stems from the “laziness to study the scientific school of history” and the desire to find a justification “for self-aggrandizement in the past.” He terms the vision of the history of Rodverners in Wagner as an: “invented version with great ancestors and achievements.”

Expressing sympathy with Rodnovery may even get you promoted within the Wagner Group. A group of anonymous informants, who served in the Wagner group in Syria, told a Ukrainian publication Radio Liberty in 2018 “it is desirable to be a Rodnover” to progress in the Wagner group.

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Gabidullin, in a previous interview with a Russian language publication, has alleged that Dimitry Utkin, the group’s recently deceased commander, has Pagan beliefs of his own, alleging the general has multiple Rodnovery-inspired tattoos.

Portraits of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin are seen at a makeshift memorial in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia August 27, 2023.
Anastasia Makarycheva/Reuters

The insider also alleged that there was “an ideological department within the Wagner PMC (private mercenary company),” formed back in 2019 that is promoting the movement, which he derides as merely a “disguised form of Nazi ideology.”

Denys Brylov, a Ukrainian scholar focused on religion in the Slavic world, believes that the actual specific religious practices of the Rodnovers serving in Wagner may come secondary to the wider ideological component it can provide for soldiers.

Brylov believes that for Wagnerites neo-paganism is attractive due to its ability to provide a spiritual justification for the “cult of force”. In these types of fringe, hardline interpretations of pagan beliefs, the very act of battle or the shedding of blood can be “considered as an act of sacrifice to the pagan patron deities of warriors and war.”

That said, Brylov feels that in many cases persons “inclined to cruelty” may simply gravitate to neo-pagan ideology to justify these instincts, rather than the beliefs themselves being inherently warlike.

Rusich commander Alexei Milchakov, for instance, went viral on VK—effectively Russia’s Facebook—for beheading and eating a puppy, while barely out of his teenage years, and well before he joined the army. He would later joke he respected canines' rights to be “1-tasty, 2-fried, 3-not have a lot of veins and bones.”

Neopaganism in the West, which started to first grow in the 1960s, has yet to shake lingering associations with flower power and the hippie movement, though this hasn’t always been the case. Norse Neopaganism, the revival of old Viking and Northern European religious traditions, has often been co-opted by the far right, both in Scandinavia and in the U.S. Popular heavy metal musicians such as the Norwegian Varg Vikernes, who has served a 15-year jail sentence for murder, employ long-winded, fairly academic descriptions of Nordic paganism as a justification for antisemitism and a protest of what they view as the corrupting influence of Anglo-American liberalism. In the U.S., Norse revivalist ideas have become popular in Neo-nazi or skinhead groups, and there are even seen Asatrú ministries—a type of revivalist Norse paganism—popping up in jails across the country.

Western neo-pagans, at least between the 1960s and early 1980s, generally but by no means always, leaned left, anti-war, and pro-environment, and were seeking a more earth-centric religious philosophy. Now, western neo-pagan movements have shifted to include large numbers of individuals from across the left and right of the political spectrum.

Still, there is a definite bent towards libertarianism, according to Adrian Ivakhiv, a professor at the University of Vermont who has conducted research into Ukrainian pagan revivalism, which includes 'Ridnoviry,’ among other overlapping traditions.

Rodnovery, in contrast, tends to be marginally more socially right-wing than Western forms of neo-paganism and may portray Western liberalism and consumerism as a corrupting influence.

Rodnovers, according to Ivakhiv, ‘definitely’ often have a streak of Western anti-liberalism, because they see liberalism as a secularizing force that threatens traditional social institutions such as families and communities.

Ivakhiv feels that Rodnovery, in some but certainly not all manifestations, can play into the vaguely esoteric, right-wing sort of spirituality you can find the world over, uniting the Steve Bannon wing of the American right with the “Alexander Dugin wing” of Russian conservative politics that is intensely anti-secular.

Alexander Dugin, a Russian far-right political philosopher, is primarily known for conspiratorial rhetoric. He promotes neo-imperialist viewpoints known as ‘Eurasianism’ and characterizes Western liberalism as a spiritual evil. His popular book, The Foundations of Geopolitics, has been attributed by some sources as having some influence on Russian foreign policy and Vladamir Putin, even being called “Putin’s Brain,” although these claims are heavily disputed.

According to Ivakhiv, you would find certain strains of this anti-western thinking in both Ukrainian and Russian pagans. Ivakhiv believes this is more common among Russian pagans than in Ukraine, and many Ukrainians still see Russians as fellow slavs and blame Putin’s regime, not Russians in general, for the war.

Ivakhiv admits it is difficult to generalize, but that Ukrainian Rodnovers will tend to see as much commonality with Polish, Czech, Slovak, and South Slavic pagans as with Russian or Belarusians.

No area better demonstrates the appeal of Rodnovery among young Russian males than combat sports. In fact, these beliefs are held by some of the most successful Russian athletes. Heavyweight boxer Alexander Povetkin, who at one time held the WBA belt and had a high-profile title bout against Vladamir Klitschko in 2014, is a self-admitted pagan. He regularly wears a necklace of the Axe of Perun on his chest and on his left shoulder, and he has a tattoo of the star of Rus, another popular symbol in Rodnovery.

Povetkin has expressed some of the nationalist views that are so often parceled up with Russian interpretations of Rodnovery, telling a Russian sports publication: “I am a person who loves his homeland and his people. Therefore, consider myself a nationalist.” Though he shoots down the idea that nationalism necessarily means fascism or Nazism.

Denis Aleksandrovich Lebedev, who was also a WBA champion and was ranked as the best cruiserweight in the world at one point in 2016, has also come out as a believer, though he may have pivoted back to the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years, at least in public. Alexander Pavlovich Shlemenko, who has successfully competed in the middleweight division of UFC-competitor Bellator, has expressed pagan sympathies to local sports media.

In a collection of photos posted on the Russian social network VK, we can see members of the popular Moscow MMA club “R.O.D.b.,” potentially named after the supreme deity Rod, celebrating the key pagan festival the ‘Day of Perun.’ The aforementioned world-famous boxers are pictured wearing Rodnover garments.

Though it may be an overstatement to call combat sports clubs a recruitment pipeline for the military, there is certainly a connection there. These clubs are popular targets for Russian military advertising due to their core demographics of young males. It’s also not uncommon for the coaches and founders to have served in the Russian military, as is the case with the founder of the ROD MMA club.

Ivakhiv feels that young men involved in fields such as boxing, MMA, and military service all might be attracted to Rodnovery in part because of its traditional representations of masculinity, such as the god Perun, because it can provide a source of inspiration for hard training, a type of intense motivation that seems rooted in traditional ‘martial arts.’

Magda, a practicing Slavic pagan from Poland, who is attempting to reconstruct pagan traditions as part of the Witia Project, has her own theories about why Rodnovery might be popular with young men.

“I think that men are really lost in modern times. I think that masculinity, nobody really knows what it is anymore. Men are just looking for something that will tell them how to be.”

Magda also believes that Rodnovery may also appeal to young men because, at least in comparison to the Russian Orthodox church, it is pro-sex and physicality.

“In Slavic Native Faith, there's absolutely no question that physical stuff is part of it.”

“During Kupała, the Slavic pagan celebration of summer solstice, you are supposed to be in couples. You have the whole tradition of going off into the forest, which is where the couples were intimate. Men likely find this appealing.”

Russian language message boards dedicated to paganism, blocked to Western IP addresses, generally contain conservative viewpoints on most social issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and women’s place in society. There is also a clearly anti-establishment bent, with a number of posts critical of the Russian military's abuses of power as well as government censorship of the populace.

“A part of the searching for their own identity was basically just making up stuff,” Magda said. “You have all these crazy people nowadays, mostly men, and they get it in their head that they are the sons of Perun. Whether they are these fighters or these warriors, they have to gain fame or honor on the battlefield.

“It is just crazy,” she added.

Though many within the movement may use Rodnovery as a way to justify Russian nationalist ideals, so do many followers of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are likely more Muslims serving in the Russian army than Pagans, and yet many more Christians or Atheists. The Orthodox Church has arguably provided just as much backing for Russian Nationalism as Rodovery ever has, with Patriarch Kirill even personally blessing the invasion of Ukraine.

Still, it’s not surprising that a faith based so much on guesswork surrounding a long forgotten way of life, and with no central hierarchy, can attract devotees of questionable morals. For those who go into with a pre-existing tendency to be violent, bigoted, or nefarious, it’s a blank slate that offers a justification to do what they please.

And considering the current instability within Wagner and the Russian military more widely—that spiritual justification could spell trouble ahead.

The Daily Beast.