A lot of people don't want to hear it, but at the end of the day, in most cases, we cannot know what exactly our ancestors did to worship their gods. This is due to the ravages of time, destructive Christian zealotry, and colonialism. Related to this issue, today, there are more than a few people who feel the colonialist entitlement that anything from any culture is theirs for the taking and twisting however they want. There are also those who believe one must live or grow up in the land where certain gods were historically worshiped in order to fully engage in spiritual practice -- saying anyone from outside who teaches or expects to be paid for the work they do is committing cultural appropriation. Let's ruffle some tailfeathers.
Photo: Two unknown types of brown mushroom nestled closely together in a nook at the base of an old broken tree stump that is so dark a greyish-brown that it is nearly black. Dead grass is on the ground around the stump.
The Reality of Modern Paganism
I try to build my practice on much study and scholarship. BUT no amount of study and scholarship is ever really "enough". We (me too) who are concerned with connecting to our polytheistic ancestors (be they blood, cultural, or spiritual ancestors) can often too easily get wrapped up in obsessions with the "evidence" -- or, usually, lack thereof. We are often pained by how very (very) little really has been left to us from our ancestors' ancient polytheist practices and beliefs. At least, there is very little left that is marked as such by reputable scholars of the era in big bold letters, shouting "This is Pagan, look at this!" It seems from what I've read that more often, if a scholar came across something obviously Pagan, they didn't write about it (except sometimes to denounce it, or to say they found something Pagan going on but no details of what), but instead rebuked the practice to the faces of those performing it, and then either hoped it would die out or reported it to the authorities so it could be forced to stop. Either way, they didn't write about it much, and the practices that went around with obvious Pagan labels died (sometimes literally along with their practitioners). If a practice (or the people doing it) wanted to survive, it had to be rebranded as Christian.
It may sell well to write books and publish websites full of wishful thinking and fantasies of pure, unchanged Western Polytheistic/Pagan practices surviving since ancient times. However, the fact is that state-enforced Christianity, the fires of Christian zeal which seek to destroy all that is not itself and label it "of Satan", and the ravage of centuries (and in the case of the Celts, the likelihood of a lack of ancient written record in the first place) have done extremely well in eradicating nearly all obvious evidence of our Pagan heritage. Therefore, if we are to honor the ancient Gods of our ancestors, we must forge ahead with a willingness to carve out the practical part of the path for ourselves, because there simply is no other choice -- we have very, very little to go on that is based in fact directly from the Pagan era. Even what little there is left to us (mostly the medieval texts and folklore) has at least a veneer of Christianity by the time of its writing. Or else it is from the Pagan era but only found in archaeological ruin, with virtually no writing to elaborate on actual practice, symbolic meaning, or the specific uses of any artifacts we find.
The Bright Side
There is a silver lining on this cloud. We have been afforded the opportunity to take a rough foundation handed to us by our ancestors and the living cultures where our ancestors once lived and to smooth it over again, refurbish it, and build our spiritual homes upon it, knowing that even if the original home is gone, we are building on the same spiritual foundation stone. Our highest privilege, in this case, is that we can do this without the nasty social and political baggage that would likely be attached to it if it had indeed survived whole in an unbroken line. We are free to replace and/or update certain beliefs and rituals (such as human sacrifice, over-glorification of war, or leaving the bodies of animals to decay in open temple pits) with rituals that are more relevant to modern life and fulfilling to the modern spirit. We can do this without backlash for "ruining" or "diluting" the practice precisely because there is no unbroken line of tradition that is explicitly polytheistically religious.
We have also been handed the opportunity to do what the most ancient of our ancestors have done -- to build our spirituality and practices for ourselves. We tend to forget that the ancients were also just going off of what was essentially centuries' worth of shared gnosis and personal experiences of the Gods, mixed with their symbolism systems, coded histories, and life lessons that built up and were tweaked over time until these found a place among the bedrocks of wisdom and culture in those societies. That is, after all, where the "lore" of any tradition came from.
Someone (or more accurately, someones, lots and lots of them over vast stretches of time) made the lore. The ancients, especially in Celtic lands, did not write down their spiritual practices (or so we are told). There was no written lore for them to fall back on as we now have the privilege to do -- they were the ones memorizing, reciting, making, and re-making what we now call "lore". To my knowledge, the ancient Celts never claimed to be handed a golden book or an end-all-be-all prophet that we've lost and can never rebuild. They were just as human as we are, albeit from a time when some different behaviors were acceptable and desirable, and many aspects of life for the average person were very different. At their core however, they bore many similar flaws and concerns, and had the same basic needs, and by studying what survives of their Gods and heroes we see that they also valued several (not all, but several) of the same virtues that many of us still value today. Not all these values would have been defined the same way for them in ancient times as they are today, but wisdom is wisdom (for example), and while the nuances of its definition may change with time, the core value is the same. So it goes with integrity, prudence, beauty, strength, health, justice, courage, knowledge, skill, loyalty, compassion, hospitality, stewardship of the land, and many other values humanity has shared across time.
We see these virtues and values venerated as the domains of ancient Gaulish and Brythonic Gods as well as in the medieval written lore of Wales and Ireland. We can build up lore and practices again over time just like the ancients did, which is precisely the beauty of a practice that is NOT set in stone. We (the Pagan community who venerate ancient gods) are building again with our own hands a new structure, but the structure must be laid on the foundations that are what we know of the surviving culture and language if we are to call it of a culture and have that mean anything. (Of course, people will experience deity somewhat differently as individuals, and will have local variations in practice across different places. Regional variations of traditions are still the case in all living cultures today that span any distance.)
Toxic Colonialist Spirituality
I can comprehend the reflex to reject ANYTHING not supported by lore, or that blends traditions. Many circles within Paganism allow totally baseless claims, sometimes flying in the face of what precious little is known -- or worse, being totally disrespectful to living cultures -- and brushes it all off as "you can't say anything about that person's truth" or "do whatever 'feels right' to you", or whatever completely self-centered hogwash, with no entreaty to take the feelings and "truth" of others into account as well.
Anyone who's been a part of the Pagan community for long knows there is and has been a serious integrity problem. "Fakelore" is presenting invented or cherry-picked history and folklore, mishmashing various traditions, folklore, or terms with those of other cultures, and people purely making up their own traditions and calling it the "secret" or "authentic" or "ancient" tradition of culture X. This is often done to start a "tradition" based on the founder's UPG (but they feel the need to falsely claim it is ancient or of a particular culture in order to make it sound "authentic" and draw people in), to sell a book, or to otherwise make some sort of personal profit or gain.
The Neo-Pagan community, especially in the early 2000s and earlier, has had a BIG fakelore issue. It's why I went on my years' long Llewellyn dry spell. It is what spawned the various Reconstructionist communities. Thankfully, large parts of the Pagan community are recognizing these lies for what they are, and are doing the work to call it out and fix it, especially over the past 10 years or so, from what I can see. Sadly, many, many people saw these lies for what they are and left the Pagan community altogether because of it -- usually heading towards agnosticism or atheism, in my experience, although some go back to Christianity all the more zealous for having fallen for actual Pagan lies. (Yes, this is Pagans' fault for being dishonest to make a quick buck and giving them that ammunition by doing so.)
When fakelore has a culture's name slapped onto it (and it virtually always does), it is also cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. It is no wonder that still-living cultures (often struggling for their own survival) are angry at the Neo-Pagan community. Wales and Ireland and Scotland and Cornwall and the Isle of Man all have histories of being colonized, oppressed, and erased by England. The people of Brittany are likewise oppressed and ignored by France. When we participate in cultural appropriation and spreading fakelore, we are contributing to this colonization and erasure, and piling on to an already oppressed culture and people.
In my experience, there are usually 2 main points that are being made when issues of cultural appropriation arise:
1. The modern Celtic cultures do not have continuously-living overtly Pagan religious traditions or liturgies. As I said above, we have very little to go on because the overtly Pagan practices were wiped out by Christianity in Europe. However, they do have continuously-living languages and cultures and folk practices. The still-surviving Celtic cultures and languages (in Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, Ireland, and Scotland) are struggling against colonialist powers (mostly those of England and France) to regain or maintain legitimacy and socio-political recognition even in their own traditional stronghold regions and countries. We must be respectful of that struggle. One way to show respect is to leave the Gods and practices who are uniquely and identifiably theirs to their own identities, rather than trying to create a single Pan-Celtic over-culture that is parts of all of them but wholly none of them. Another important way to be respectful is to learn from, support, and amplify the voices of natives of the modern living cultures and nations, regardless of their "race".
2. People who are actually from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Brittany, the Isle of Man, or Cornwall often get drowned out by people from the diaspora regions (the U.S., Canada, Australia, etc) due to the population of the diaspora outnumbering the population of the home countries of these cultures, and due to diaspora regions often having further cultural reach (especially the case for the U.S.). In addition, many in the diaspora have misinformed or outdated ideas (or even ideas born from colonialism and racism) about the surviving Celtic cultures and Celtic polytheism. This can become particularly nasty when it is combined with the above-mentioned fakelore. The Celtic cultures are often the target of this kind of dishonesty, which is adding insult to injury when they're already down due to already having to fight against colonialism and being spoken over/ignored on their own home turf. This issue (which we, as Pagans in the diaspora, are working on but still have a lot of improvement to go), combined with the louder and more numerous voices of those in the diaspora, leads to a proliferation of misinformation and a paucity of native voices regarding the Celtic cultures and Celtic types of polytheism. This is understandably frustrating (sometimes enraging) to natives and to people who know better, to see outsiders selling made-up New Age fakelore with the culture's name slapped on it, to turn a quick profit and take advantage of unknowledgeable people who are just trying to learn. Again, learning from, supporting, and amplifying the voices of natives of the modern living cultures and nations is one of the primary ways to combat this. Also, taking the time to learn how to vet sources for quality and accuracy, even though it is tedious and difficult, is another important step to reduce the spread of misinformation. Not everyone with a Celtic-sounding name (or pen name!) is actually a native, and just because someone is native doesn't necessarily mean they know what they are talking about, for example. Context and the history of where we come from also matter. There is no easy, black and white, "if you do X then you're in the clear" formula.
I would recommend listening to what the following people have to say about it:
Gwilym Morus-Baird (Wales): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQAMt_-rvh0
Mhara Starling (Wales): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQjTH6opMeA
Tara Tine (Ireland): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bwlqx010_c
Lora O'Brien (Ireland): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nB4Txq948k
Toxic Backlash Against the Toxicity
Human interaction and emotions are complex (surprise!). To act like we know everything about a culture just because one of our great-grandpas was from that culture is wrong. But the flip side can be wrong too. To claim that someone has to be from the place of a tradition's origin (or have lived there for X amount of time -- for how long is always variable according to who you ask) in order to be able to fully comprehend, participate in, be paid for work in, or become a teacher in any European-based Pagan religious tradition is the "soil" side of the dangerous "blood and soil" purity mentality. This is especially the case when the non-native in question has learned from practitioner(s) or specialist(s) from the native culture. (Calling out people who learn from natives and then go on to act like everything they learned was their own idea and not give credit when they pass on what they've learned, now that's another story and 1000% warranted to call out the dishonesty and appropriation.)
In my personal experience, most people making claims like this are one of two types:
1. people who have experienced a lot of pain and frustration from repeatedly having to deal with colonialist, racist, or ignorant (whether willfully or innocently ignorant) treatments of their people, culture, nation, and language, and they are exhausted from dealing with it, so they just make blanket statements to gatekeep certain practices, paid work, or positions to bar anyone not from their country. Or,
2. people who are xenophobic and think that anyone who doesn't live in/was not born in their country could never "get it" and is not "culture X enough" and so should not be allowed to practice Paganism traditions whose foundations are based on their nation's cultural heritage in any context except the privacy of their own homes. They also often seem to buy into the zero-sum fallacy that if someone else shares, teaches, or creates works within the tradition (even in a respectful and accurate way) that it will take away from opportunities for natives to do so.
While I empathize with the reasons for the people in group 1 having come to their conclusions, it is still nevertheless wrong.
It is wrong to deny access, participation, roles*, or the right to be paid for your work in a European Pagan tradition based on:
race, ethnicity, or blood descent
sex, gender, or orientation
nationality, where you happen to be born, or where you happen to be able to take up domicile (which is also classist, because it excludes anyone who cannot afford to move to the tradition's country of origin)
any other basic identity factor that is essential to the person and largely or entirely out of the person's control
Denying full access and participation to a European Pagan spiritual tradition on the basis of these things is wrong -- it does not matter who is saying it. If they are barring access, participation, certain roles, or the right to be paid for accurate and respectful work in a European Pagan tradition for any of the above reasons -- that is a case where I draw the line and do not listen to or amplify that, even if it is coming from native practitioners or learned scholars.
We need to listen to native voices, but we do not have to agree with everything they say just because of where they come from -- native practitioners can have prejudices too.
*Obviously, some roles -- especially heads of groups or organizations, and highest-level leadership roles -- are going to be limited to people who have the most experience in the culture (which will usually be people who have lived there a long time or who grew up there) or who live in certain areas, for practical and logistical reasons. I'm talking about red flags of blanket exclusion here, not practicalities and experience qualifications.
Taking Responsibility
On the other side of the same coin, it is ridiculous for us to claim a cultural tradition or a pantheon when we have no connection (or an outdated connection, which is what many people who live in the diaspora have). How can one label their spirituality as being of "culture X" when they have no connection to that tradition, its lore, the native land it comes from, its living culture, language, values, or worldview? It is our responsibility to create said connection if we are not born into it. This is work and takes time.
As Gwilym Morus-Baird once said, "culture can be learned" -- it is our responsibility, if we are not living in the host culture, to learn about it and interact with it and its people in a respectful manner. This includes treating it as the living and breathing culture that it is, not only interacting with it purely for religion or treating it as if it were some dead ancient civilization ripe for fantasizing and historical reenactment. This is especially important for us practitioners who live in diaspora cultures that are in colonized lands (i.e. the Americas and Australia), where it is a part of our culture to view things that are simply typical of European history and landscapes -- such as castles, royalty, stone circles, etc -- as the trappings of literal fantasy. They are fantastical to most of us, seen and heard of only in movies and stories and the fairytales we grew up with that come from Europe, and this puts an unreal or hyper-idealized sparkly veneer over it (e.g. many people in the U.S. tend to think of Disney princesses and romantic, lavish royal palaces when we think of castles, rather than thinking of them as the deteriorating war forts and symbols of colonization, power, and subjugation that most of them actually are). We have to control for this and remember these are real, modern, living cultures and people and places with real, modern views and joys and problems. They and their culture are not our escapist fantasy playground.
We are participating in living traditions, not performing reenactment. We are honoring our gods and the cultures they come from (which means connecting to and learning about the cultures they come from, which still exist now). We are also making regional and personal adaptations -- and of course we will make regional and personal adaptations, to not do so would be to not acknowledge the reality of where we currently live and who we are. The original native traditions themselves also have regional and personal/household/family variations. But they are variations on a foundational understanding and practice -- this is not license to just innovate whatever we want, or take our own UPG, and then slap the name of a tradition or culture onto it. Symbolism and meaning behind what is done are encoded in culture, and so to make any adjustments to a cultural practice requires an understanding of the culture sufficient for the adjustments to make sense and not obscure the purpose of the practice in the first place.
Personal innovation and UPG are fine -- in fact, they're essential. We cannot have a practice without having UPG. We cannot form SPG if we don't share our UPG. But we must have integrity about what we are doing, what it is called, and where it comes from. We are responsible for the way we handle the precious traditions that we take up for study, devotion, and practice. Whether we like it or not, what we do can affect millions of people, many of whom have already suffered under the tyranny of colonization and being silenced -- we must do our best not to contribute to that suffering. Our personal feelings and experiences are important, but they do not trump hundreds and thousands of years of tradition and cultural identity, nor do they trump the feelings of hundreds, thousands, or millions of other people.
We must take the time and effort to give all due credit where it is rightfully due. We must also be clear as to when we are borrowing from traditions both living and dead, and which ones, in which ways. Also, and this is big -- if we aren't sure where our idea or understanding or tradition comes from, we must have the integrity to admit that we don't know or can't remember. It really is okay to not be a literal know-it-all. (I also have to remind myself of this -- I want to know all the things!)
We must do what is right out of respect for the host culture, the Gods and people who come from that culture and land, and a sense of integrity. It is absolutely imperative, for what we do is sacred. Any less is to be dishonest in how we present ourselves to the world, and disrespectful and lacking integrity towards the still-living cultures from whose lore and traditions we build our practice. After all, it's pretty hard to say we honor the Gods when we don't honor the people who are presently living in the culture and land those Gods' stories come from.
We have this golden opportunity to rebuild spiritual traditions on the foundations of the LIVING cultures of the lands from which our Gods come, and on the ways of our ancestors (be those spiritual or cultural or blood ancestors), and leave the baggage OUT. Let's do our best to do right by them -- by the Gods, by our ancestors, by the living breathing people who currently reside in the lands from which these cultures spring, and by the people who will come after us and continue to build these traditions on the work that we now do.
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