h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the things that makes me chortle when I attend various pagan rituals up and down the country is the lengths that some people go to to achieve a sense of 'authenticity'. Whether they do this for themselves or for their audiences is pretty irrelevant, for it is obvious that they feel that having the right tools and clothing adds a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to the proceedings.

I have spoken frequently to people who surround themselves with thuribles, athames, staves, wands, crystals, robes and other regalia about this. I have also debated it at length online in [oftimes heated] debates with people who feel I am trying to pull the rug out from under their entire belief system. In all of this I have found just two main reasons why people bother with this paraphernalia:
1. It puts the 'in the right mood' to do it,
2. There is some ancient text which says this is the right way to do it.

And by 'to do it' I mean commune with their god/gods.

Well, although I have no problem with the first argument - whatever floats your boat really - the latter gets my goat.

People have used foci since time immemorable to help detach themselves from the real world and enter that state that allows them to commune or journey. The more advanced thinkers and dreamers have found that often less is more. That having lots of paraphernalia actually is actually quite distracting.

From experience I can tell you that the Gods don't give a fig if you call to them dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, or an elaborate robe and wolfskin cap. This opinion is based upon discussions with a considerable number of what are becoming known as 'ferals'. None of these need staves and athames and incense to make their connection with their gods, simply a little peace and quiet. As none of these people consider themselves special or particularly wise or skilled how come they can do it yet the robed majority cannot?

Maybe it is down to the claim that ancient texts say so? Well I cannot speak for Wicca or Heathenry, but the only ancient texts relating to druids were written by observers, not all of whom were favourably disposed to them. In one of these some druids in Gaul were described as wearing white robes and using a golden sickle for one speicifc ritual (the cutting of the mistletoe). By many modern druids, from the more 'traditional' orders, this is taken as gospel and so they turn up to every event in voluminous white robes and weighed down with as much 'celtic' jewellery as they can bear. As a result they are rather deprecatingly known as 'the bedsheet brigade'.

It amuses me that such scholarly men and women should accept the writings of a Roman scholar as doctrine. Surely they have enough theological knowledge to recognise that it makes absolutely no difference to their relationship to the divine. After all has a Catholic Priest in all his magnificence any more claim to a knowledge of the Christian God than a plain-dressed Quaker? I think not.

Another thing that amuses me is that in just about every world religion it is only the priests who wear special clothes and carry all the special kit and caboodle. In modern druidry everyone turns up in this, making each ritual or ceremony look like a pagan general synod or conclave of cardinals. Could anything look more ridiculous?

One of the sources of this confusion may well lie in the small industry that has sprung up in the last twenty years to supply the pagan community with all this junk. Whereas finding a tome on modern paganism was rare in my youth, bookshops are now creaking under the weight of them (never mind all the online specialist outlets). Each tries to differentiate their message in order to maximise sales (and if the author didn't intend to do this the publisher will do their best to).

You now see shops in every major town selling all sorts of tat for the would be pagan claiming that it will enhance their experience of the divine. They breed a sort of aspirational eclecticism where what you have seems more important than what you do. How many pagans do you know with native american dream catchers hanging over an altar covered in hindu incense burners, wiccan athames, pacific cowrie shells, 'celtic' jewellery hanging off a brass statuette of Ganesh, prayer beads, qabbalistic tarot cards etc., etc.?

When we get down to it all our gods really want is for us to sit down, shut up for a minute and listen. Unless a comfy cushion and a gag are on your list of ritual apparatus then everything else is just window dressing. Try being a naked pagan for a change, you might find it enlightening...

3. Formalised rituals give many people a sense of belonging to and being included in a group, being 'in the know'.

What you describe strikes me as quite similar to Catholicism, with its multitade of rituals with mandatory accessories, not to mention the huge market of various junk with pictures of Jesus, Mary or various saints depicted on practically any kind of items.

Group hug eh Titania?

Quite a few of the mainstream religions become burdened by junk as well as the frauds that market it.

And there's no problem with ritual, as long as we keep it in its place.

Don't some varieties of Wicca go in for literal nudity? At least it's cheap, eh?

TRiG.

You don't want to know where you have to put sunblock at summer solstice with that crowd

Naked Sadhus (called gymnosophists by the Greeks) belonged to the non-Vedic religion which flourished long before the Vedic religion was introduced into India.
The Agamas tell us of naked sannyasins as revealing the highest expression of renunciation and suggests that he who wants nothing of the world does not want its rags either.
Gautama the Buddha probably remained naked until the day he died, his followers introduced robes into the Buddhist order.

What would we do without Astro-pedia huh?

Drat and here was me thinking that modern Druidism was invented/shaped by the oh so uptight Victorians.

Wiccans can be skyclad but in this country it is rather on the cold side.

Cloaks are quite practical round a campfire. They wrap into places where a coat leaves gaps. And you can use them to cover the booze when it rains.

A staff is handy when you're out walking. Though having a dirty great stag's horn on it does rather cramp your style as far as getting under trees.

--

And mead tastes better from a horn than it does from a glass, in my opinion.

--

Jez

Hi Rabbit,

Modern druidism has a plethora of influences as explained by Prof. Ronald Hutton in his book 'The Druids' - but basically you are right.

The bedsheet brigade continue to love all their paraphernalia. More modern and open-minded native British polytheists have pretty much abandoned the term 'druid'.

Matholwch .