What is Paganism and what does it mean to be a pagan?

With the rise of nationalism in Europe, North America, and Australia which are considered typically 'white nations', paganism, also known as heathenry, is piquing the interest of the European man again. Some feel a genuine disconnect with Christianity while others are merely attracted to the aesthetic side of the European pre-Christian religion. Nevertheless they do want to connect, at least in part, with the religion of their oldest ancestors. But what is paganism and what makes someone pagan? Modernism has given us many definitions of the word ‘paganism’, some entirely wrong. What the religion itself contains has been portrayed even more inaccurately, giving it shamanistic, satanic or occultic themes, portraying it as ‘mere’ nature worship, ‘mere’ witchcraft, or more commonly, ‘merely’ a way for the supposedly stupid and primitive man to explain the world around him. The aforementioned have at best very little to do with Traditional European Paganism. So, let us begin with the etymology of words and branch out from there.

pagan

mid-14c., from Late Latin paganus "pagan," in classical Latin "villager, rustic; civilian, non-combatant" noun use of adjective meaning "of the country, of a village," from pagus "country people; province, rural district," originally "district limited by markers," thus related to pangere "to fix, fasten," from PIE root *pag- "to fasten." The religious sense is often said to derive from conservative rural adherence to the old gods after the Christianization of Roman towns and cities.

heathen

Old English hæðen "not Christian or Jewish," also as a noun, "heathen man, one of a race or nation which does not acknowledge the God of the Bible" (especially of the Danes), merged with Old Norse heiðinn (adj.) "heathen, pagan," from Proto-Germanic *haithana- (source also of Old Saxon hedhin, Old Frisian hethen, Dutch heiden, Old High German heidan, German Heiden). Perhaps literally "dweller on the heath, one inhabiting uncultivated land".

As we can see, both words were created and used in a Semitic context. So why use the word pagan if what many consider as a spiritual enemy used it to degrade us? Mere practicality. Our ancestors' religion was not sectarian, thus there was no need to divide the world in a "those of my sect vs those not of my sect". This has given modernists cause to think that paganism was a tolerant religion. I do not believe this to be the case, seeing how paganism is an ethnic religion. Your tribe or nation was your sect. The ancients divided the world by ethnic ethos which is why we can see historians like Tacitus not giving Germanic paganism a name but calling it "the religion of the Germanic people." Being of a Germanic tribe automatically meant you worshiped Óðinn, Týr, Freyja and so on, or local variants of those deities. The question 'what is your religion?' was not asked in pre-Christian times. One needed only to state his ethnic origin, and the deities he believed in were conveyed through that.

Ethnicity as spirituality is understood intuitively by many European men who see themselves as pagans or are interested in it. However, due to lack of proper guidance and resources they can't quite put it into words. However, the feeling that this religion is uniquely "theirs" is still latently there. There is a connection deep as marrow within this natural spirituality.

To be a pagan means (1) practicing ancestor veneration; (2) devotion to the Gods and believing they have physical and spiritual manifestations; (3) believing that the gods serve as an ideal for humans to strive for which includes hierarchy and the esoteric; (4) believing that the gods are our family through blood; (5) believing that the self is separate from the material and we are spiritual beings experiencing humanity; (6) believing the realm of the divine is superior to the material realm and that divinity imposes its will upon the material realm.

(1) Ancestor veneration 

Our pious ancestors deserve our respect and veneration; it is only right for us to remember them fittingly. For example, in the Germanic faith there exists the propensity for taking heed of our elders and those that have passed on. The Álfablót of the Germanic people, Samhain of the Celtic people, Dziady of the Slavic people – which we today unfortunately know under the highly commercialized 'celebration' of Halloween – is the time of year in which the different ethnic groups of the European people will worship and show respect to the fallen ancestors.

Some would also go to burial mounds to meditate so as to receive creative inspiration or an answer to a burning question through the wisdom of our ancestors. Even in lesser ritual ancestors are petitioned for guidance. On top of the ritualistic reasons, ancestor veneration is also a way to rebel against the Zeitgeist of the modern world. Current ways of thought claim that our ancestors were less intelligent, less mature, less advanced and even less human than we are today, something which is absolutely untrue.

(2) Devotion to the Gods and their manifestations

The Gods are liminal beings who reside in a higher plane of existence, but project themselves through will and can be perceived by us in the material realm. There is this modernist way of thinking which claims that the gods were merely symbols of perfectly natural phenomena. In fact, it is the opposite. The Gods are the ultimate cause of natural phenomena on this plane. To take a very well known and maybe cliched example, Thor is not merely a symbol of thunder, but thunder is the symbol of Thor. The Thunderer is the ultimate cause of every single thunderclap not only on planet Earth, but in the entirety of the universe. This does not limit Thor from expressing himself as only thunder but shows the power this being holds.

Pagans are often portrayed by the media as making offerings to the gods and asking them for materialistic wealth. While there were definitely some pagans that did that, we must understand that the main reason for offerings is devotion. To paraphrase the Philosopher-Emperor Marcus Aurelius: "We ask the Gods for what they do not give, when they have given us so many things." To give ritual, prayer, and sacrifice to the Gods is to give of oneself to the greater being for a greater purpose.

(3) Gods as Ideals

The Gods serve as ideals. Through the myriad of sagas and folk stories we read there are virtues found within for us to integrate into our lives. From the physical act of keeping a weapon on you to the spiritual act of beholding wisdom of the sun the Gods tell us and show through example social ideals we must strive for. Their stories are to be meditated upon so we may gleam this wisdom and better ourselves. Now, one objection that might arise from this is the following: "How can the Gods serve as ideals, if in myth they so often act in contradiction with my worldview?" This, and the general nature of the Gods would require an article of their own, which will be written at a later date. However, through the stories of the Gods we see examples of morality for how we as humans are to ascend to and, in some cases, the repercussions of actions taken against this morality.

(4) Family through Blood

The Gods are our family. This fact has remained as perennial knowledge through myths from all branches of Indo-European religion. The Germanic branch in particular outlines how the Gods created humans from Ash and Elm trees while through Heimdallr’s blood created hierarchy. These acts of the Gods link us spiritually to them which is unshakable in our race. Furthermore, many European tribes or city states claimed a deity as an ancestor or a patron. Some well known examples are the city-state of Athens claimed Pallas Athena as their patron, the Romans having descended from Mars, and the Anglo-Saxons being descended from Yngvi-Freyr. 

(5) The Self and its Parts

In the Traditional sense, the Soul is comprised of several elements, the lowest of which is the 'Form'. The ‘Form’ or desire which is attached to the physical body, associated with false ego, and is connected to the personal name of the individual. An example of the form would be the desire to eat foods that do not directly benefit our health or development, desire to have sex for the sake of having sex, earthly desire for wealth, or even the nostalgic feeling one gets when one thinks of the cartoons one watched as a child.

The second part of the soul, one echelon higher in this hierarchy, is the familial soul. It is associated with the desire of honor, victory and glory. It is also associated with one's familial, tribal, national or even racial inheritance. In the Roman tradition this is called genius, in the Greek tradition it is called daemon or thumoeides, and in the Germanic tradition it is called Fylgja. The Germanic tradition also has a concept of familial luck, called Hamingja, which is likewise associated with the second part of the soul.

The third part, which the Germanic tradition calls Hugr, and Plato calls Logistikon (or Logos, though it means something a bit different from the Christian Logos) is also the highest part of the soul. It is associated with the desire to seek wisdom and the divine. It is also associated with the highest order of things which precedes existence itself, with the Monad and the highest state of Being.

(6) The Divine and the Material

Earlier in this article we mentioned how the gods are not mere nature, but the ultimate cause behind it. Primordial man unburdened by modernism, the 'hustle and bustle' of the city, not self imprisoned in soulless megaliths of concrete and glass, and yet still on this material plane best experiences the divine when in nature. In our modern eyes nature is merely something that has a certain scientifically describable structure, a structure, which we as the superior man can manipulate and shift it into something better or more usable. We have given ourselves the role of the gods but all we have done pales when compared to nature itself. The creation and manifestation of the divine in this lower realm. The Gods are supreme and their will is immense. This is why we, as their kin, strive to their ideals and give thanks by way of ritual. Nature shows us the Gods through their will and we abide by its glory.