Veiled Pagans?

[Kishiria]

I'm pagan, and I was following the "veiled pagans" thing with some interest. The common denominator, I observed, was that almost all the veiled pagans worship Hestia/Vesta, goddess of the hearth, who is invariably shown wearing a veil on her head. They usually mention that they cover their heads to be like their goddess. Some Frigga worshipers cover their heads like a medieval Scandinavian housewife, since Frigga was the patroness of Scandinavian housewives.

Nova Roma male priests veil their heads during worship, because that is what the Romans did.

[kunoichi66]

Exactly my thoughts, Glass Cowcatcher!

QFT.

[pixydust]

Neo-paganism is not Paganism. Paganism pretty much covers any non-monotheistic religion with tribal roots.

Within modern paganism there is neo-Paganism (Wicca, "eclectic pagans," ect) as well as traditional Paganism (living tribal religions) and Reconstructionist Paganism (reconstructing ancient tribal beliefs such as Semetic, Asatru, Theodism, Romantic, Hellenic, Kemetic)

There are huge differences in all three subcategories.

Thanks Alecto and the others who covered this while I was dealing with backed up plumbing.

[NjoyingNsanity]

I've wondered myself about the whole speshul snowflake theory, but these people are otherwise sane and nomal and only bring up their god related restrictions if directly asked about them. There are a few though who I'd accuse of speshul snowflake behavior, but let's face it all religions have their nuts, fundies and users. I could direct you to a few Pagan blogs that are just as nutty and snark worthy as the fundie Christian ones. Where do the sane ones get their ideas usually from prayer or some kind of communication from their god much like the typical Christian fundie.

Believe it or not I'm considered a heretic in the Asatru\Heathenry community because I'm a Lokean (Loki is my patron diety) I've had Pagan fundies threaten me with physical violence if I were to hail Loki or any of his kin at a blot or sumbel. Some of them are what I call Pagan fundies who replaced God and Jesus with Odin, Balder or Thor and Lucifer with Loki. I have been accused by some of them of worshipping the Norse Satan even though historically there was no such thing.

[MamaJunebug]

I've wondered myself about the whole speshul snowflake theory, but these people are otherwise sane and nomal and only bring up their god related restrictions if directly asked about them. There are a few though who I'd accuse of speshul snowflake behavior, but let's face it all religions have their nuts, fundies and users. I could direct you to a few Pagan blogs that are just as nutty and snark worthy as the fundie Christian ones. Where do the sane ones get their ideas usually from prayer or some kind of communication from their god much like the typical Christian fundie.

Believe it or not I'm considered a heretic in the Asatru\Heathenry community because I'm a Lokean (Loki is my patron diety) I've had Pagan fundies threaten me with physical violence if I were to hail Loki or any of his kin at a blot or sumbel. Some of them are what I call Pagan fundies who replaced God and Jesus with Odin, Balder or Thor and Lucifer with Loki. I have been accused by some of them of worshipping the Norse Satan even though historically there was no such thing.

Hey, Njoying Nsanity! I felt a real interest in my Germanic ancestors' oldtime religion a few years back and really read up on Asatru. It was some of the community members that cooled me off on any plans I had to follow up, heh! Isn't that the truth with any organized religion?

Back on topic specifically about the headcovering pagan lady, a lot of her perception will have to do with what she wears from the earlobes on down. Shorts and t's, or skinny jeans and a tank top under a blouse, will give a whole different impression than a jacket buttoned up to the neck and down to the wrists and shapelessly covering the bummal area. Flowing boho skirts and big earrings and a colorful top will give another impression altogether.

I need to get out more, see what people are wearing. Especially lady-people. The topic of self-adornment and faith is endlessly interesitng ...well, to me, anyway! ;)

[Deleted03]

There are a whole truckload of religions as old or older than the ones based on the god of the Torah, Bible, Koran and book of Mormon. The Jewish faith the oldest of the religions based on belief in this god stole plenty from surrounding cultures thats why the story of Noah sounds suspiciously like the Epic of Gilgamish. There is some evidence that the Egyptians beat the Hebrews to monotheism, and that Moses got the idea for monotheism from the Amarna hearesy started by pharoah Amenhotep who briefly changed the religion of Egyptian to Atenism.

Christianity is an even bigger thief and in reality is far more Pagan than most Christians would care to admit. The names of the week come the Norse and Roman gods. The word hell actually comes from the Norse goddess of death Hel and her land of the dead known as Helheim. To go to Hel once simply meant to die. The true name for the fiery abyss most Christians believe in is actually Gehenna. Even Jesus, birth, death and resurrection is borrowed from paganism. The Virgin Mother and Queen of Heaven ideas also borrowed look up Isis and Osiris, Simiramis/Tammuz Hertha, Disa, Fortuna and Jupiter, Shing Moo and many, many others. Paganism is honestly far older than Christianity and before the forced Christianization of many countries Pagan gods were worshiped just as legitimately as God/Allah and Jesus.

Let's not confuse Christianity and the English language. Sorry but pet-peeve of mine.

[AtroposHeart]

I am a Pagan whose patron is Hestia and I have considered veiling for rituals in honor to her.

However, I would never consider doing it full time.

[NjoyingNsanity]

Sorry Sophie, but I once knew a preacher who would argue with you that Sunday had originally been Sonsday in honor of Jesus being the son of God and that the Pagans stole it and changed it to Sunday in honor of the sun. Admitedly he was a complete idiot who would argue with a brick wall, but he actually managed to convince quite a few members of his congregation that this was a real historical fact.

I also can't help it that I have to force myself not to laugh when Christians start talking about a fiery pit called Hell when Jesus was talking about a dump where they burned trash outside of Jerusalem called Gehenna. It wasn't until hundreds of years later when trying to convert the Germanic peoples of the north that priests started calling the place of eternal torment Hell. The irony in it is that Helheim was a cold misty realm ruled over by the goddess Hel who took the souls of women, children and all those who didn't die a warriors death in battle. The original Hel wasn't a hot fiery place of torment at all but a cold, dreary place of rest.

[keen23]

I've wondered myself about the whole speshul snowflake theory, but these people are otherwise sane and nomal and only bring up their god related restrictions if directly asked about them. There are a few though who I'd accuse of speshul snowflake behavior, but let's face it all religions have their nuts, fundies and users. I could direct you to a few Pagan blogs that are just as nutty and snark worthy as the fundie Christian ones. Where do the sane ones get their ideas usually from prayer or some kind of communication from their god much like the typical Christian fundie.

Believe it or not I'm considered a heretic in the Asatru\Heathenry community because I'm a Lokean (Loki is my patron diety) I've had Pagan fundies threaten me with physical violence if I were to hail Loki or any of his kin at a blot or sumbel. Some of them are what I call Pagan fundies who replaced God and Jesus with Odin, Balder or Thor and Lucifer with Loki. I have been accused by some of them of worshipping the Norse Satan even though historically there was no such thing.

Are you familiar with Miss Graveyard Dirt? She's, to put it mildly, AMAZING. Truly one of a kind in her worshiping.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

QFT.

I like the sentiment of wearing something odd, to build up her confidence.

@margiebargie- I don't think it will be automatically as associated as you think, because she seems to not be wearing any ethnic clothes beyond her veils. But, honestly, so what if other people think so? I think "fundy" every time I see a women in a denim skirt now, FJ makes me wonder if people think I'm religious if I wear a bandanna outside the house. Just because something is associated with the patriarchy doesn't automatically mean it is a part of it.

[mockingbird]

Are you familiar with Miss Graveyard Dirt? She's, to put it mildly, AMAZING. Truly one of a kind in her worshiping.

No no no no no!!! I don't ever want to remember her. :snooty:

[NjoyingNsanity]

I'm not familiar with Miss Graveyard Dirt but if you want some pagan fundie conspiracy theory nuttiness check out the Odinic Rite. Replace the typical Illuminati conspiracy theory cray cray with Loki and his followers and you have the bulk of thier insane rambling posts, the Lokean weather device is my favorite bit of crazy. I could also link you to the blog of one ex-Lokean who quit blogging after claiming that Loki sexually assualted her girlfriend in a dream therefore as far as she was concerned he was a rapist. The sad part was the number of people too afraid of victim blaming to call BS on her crazy. Most sane normal people would assume that they'd just had a nightmare, but no she wad raped in her sleep by a god. There is also the couple who claim to be the avatars of several gods/goddesses from several different pantheons, but are always broke, homeless and begging for money. Oh and the lady who has been pregnant by one of the Greek gods for the last decade or so still no kid, but apparently demigod pregnancies just take longer... allot longer.

[emmiedahl]

From a theological perspective, I think it is valid and even lovely to follow a practice because you feel a special call from your deity. So many religions see things as a "one size fits all" proposition but any God worth worshipping knows we all are different. I suspect that many of the misunderstood rules in the Bible were actually due to one person feeling a conviction to do a certain thing, enjoying it, and thus feeling that it should be extended to all people. You can see the same behavior in modern times with the extreme modesty movement and other aspects of fundamentalist Christianity. But life is not like that. There are very few absolutes.

If Wiccans are making it up, then we all are. I belong to the oldest of the Old Testament-based religions and most forms of paganism pre-date mine.

[LucySnowe]

Druidism, for one.

All existing evidence of druidic practices has been filtered through Christian interpreters/sources. There's no way to know what actually was going on back then. The modern versions stem from 18th/19th century Romantic interpretations remixed by hippies.

As mentioned, all religions have issues over authenticity and interpretation (my own religion somehow managed to stretch from 'don't boil a calf in the milk of its mother' to 'halachic differences between Pyrex and Corningware'), so there are few if any absolutes, and personally I don't care what or who anyone worships so long as they aren't poking me in the eye during rituals. But there's no such thing as an unbroken chain of druidism from pre-Christian times to now. So yes, lots of it has been made up along the way.

[girlwind]

Yeah, well, my deity says I can only smoke certain weed out of a certain bong. Neither the green nor the glass are of the cheap variety. Don't worry, though, God says everyone else is fine smoking schwag in rolling papers.

Something seems "speshul snowflakey" about those who claim their god requires something specific and extra-obviously-devout of them, but doesn't expect the same of anyone else.

Actually, that's kind of the whole point. :-) Many modern-day pagans base their practices and beliefs on UPG: unsubstantiated personal gnosis. Unsubstantiated, meaning you don't claim to have a concrete reference you can point to to say "this is how it's done;" personal, meaning it is part of your personal theology and spiritual practice and does/should not apply to anyone else; gnosis, meaning spiritual knowledge. In daily life, you might have practices that you perform with your trad (i.e. your denomination) as well as your private devotions that you cobbled together because it felt right, you felt drawn to it, you felt spiritually guided toward it.

The hair-covering thing sounds like the latter to me. It squicks me out because of its associations with varied repressive faiths, but there you are.

There's actual a mini-controversy regarding the Patheos blog coverage of this topic (see also http://paganwiccan.about.com/b/2012/03/ ... eiling.htm) because Star Foster, the blogger who wrote about it (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/pantheon/2 ... womanhood/), did so by joining the group for a month, not revealing her journalistic intent, and then writing about it without first asking any of the group's participants if they particularly wanted to be exposed that way.

http://tpoaic.blogspot.com/2012/03/hodg ... s-and.html

[Alecto]

I'm not familiar with Miss Graveyard Dirt but if you want some pagan fundie conspiracy theory nuttiness check out the Odinic Rite. Replace the typical Illuminati conspiracy theory cray cray with Loki and his followers and you have the bulk of thier insane rambling posts, the Lokean weather device is my favorite bit of crazy. I could also link you to the blog of one ex-Lokean who quit blogging after claiming that Loki sexually assualted her girlfriend in a dream therefore as far as she was concerned he was a rapist. The sad part was the number of people too afraid of victim blaming to call BS on her crazy. Most sane normal people would assume that they'd just had a nightmare, but no she wad raped in her sleep by a god. There is also the couple who claim to be the avatars of several gods/goddesses from several different pantheons, but are always broke, homeless and begging for money. Oh and the lady who has been pregnant by one of the Greek gods for the last decade or so still no kid, but apparently demigod pregnancies just take longer... allot longer.

The most frightening thing about the OR is they have the most active and organized Pagan prison ministries, which are drawing in people to their racist beliefs.

[NjoyingNsanity]

Yeah they are pretty much the fundies of Norse Paganism they're racist, anti-feminist, anti-abortion and contraception and anti-LBGTQ.

[Alecto]

Yeah they are pretty much the fundies of Norse Paganism they're racist, anti-feminist, anti-abortion and contraception and anti-LBGTQ.

Eh, AFA and AA can be just as bad.