Thursday, November 21, 2013

I am only in the prologue to Pagan Visions for a Sustainable Future and it is already very apparent that what they mean by "pagan" in this is text is British oriented, modern revival paganism. Although there is an Egyptian oriented author mentioned in the "Contributors" section, the fact that this statement was mentioned on one of the first pages has me worried:

"The book, like Paganism itself, is as full of potential and paradox as life itself. For example, this is a new religion, but is inspired by the ancient knowledges. It evolved in Britain but is unmistakably similar to many indigenous religions around the world." 
This is not off to a good start for me, especially since it is using paganism with a captial P, but yet  seems to be only using it to refer to Wicca and Neo-Wicca (and all of it's offspring). That definitely marginalizes other forms of paganism that are not originally from Britain, and are not necessarily interested in magic as it is defined by Wicca, or magic at all. If the book had started off with something like, "Yes, paganism in Britain has led to a revival of paganism in many places" I don't think I would feel as put off by this. But for a book that seems to try to lay out a platform for discussing how paganism can contribute to sustainable living, it definitely marginalizes from the get go traditions and religions that are not originally British.

Some of the reviews on amazon seem to be replicating this feeling as well.

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