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Pagans, Neo-Pagans, Wiccans – Let’s Sort It Out! · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and we both have antlers on our head and
0:16
Speaker 2: this is stuff you.
0:17
Speaker 1: Should Just a couple of wooded pagans.
0:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited about this one man.
0:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we'll reference some previous episodes. We covered
0:29
Speaker 1: WICCA and our witchcraft up and there's some Alistair Crowley
0:32
Speaker 1: in here, of course. Yeah, for sure, you knew he
0:35
Speaker 1: was going to make an appearance, and it seems like
0:37
Speaker 1: there was something else too. But well, if you want
0:40
Speaker 1: the full picture, you know, go back and listen to
0:42
Speaker 1: all those together. Just for a spooky Why don't I
0:44
Speaker 1: say spooky? This is not even spooky. That's the whole problem.
0:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
0:49
Speaker 1: Conception.
0:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's so ingrained that even have to know
0:52
Speaker 2: about it. You know, it's hard not to just shake that.
0:55
Speaker 1: I was a church kid, I was raised Baptist Pagans.
0:58
Speaker 1: We're spooky, they killed the sacrifice things.
1:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. I ran across a couple of websites, Christian websites
1:05
Speaker 2: that essentially still think all of the same things that
1:09
Speaker 2: the church originally said about pagan's back. You know, fifteen
1:13
Speaker 2: hundred years ago.
1:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's still alive and well it's cool to
1:17
Speaker 1: know the story now, having you know, left the Baptist
1:21
Speaker 1: Church many many years ago to finally understand like, oh,
1:24
Speaker 1: at a certain point in history, they were just like
1:27
Speaker 1: this is the religion and everything else is the devil.
1:30
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And in retrospect looking at this now, it's like, gosh,
1:34
Speaker 2: talk about getting your wires crossed.
1:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny.
1:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we're talking about paganism everybody, And hats off
1:44
Speaker 2: to Dave two first of all for helping us with this.
1:47
Speaker 2: This is a huge, big lump of a topic that
1:52
Speaker 2: almost every one of the things we're going to talk
1:54
Speaker 2: about could be broken out into its own episode. Yeah,
1:58
Speaker 2: so we're gonna have to summarize in a lot of ways.
2:01
Speaker 2: We're going to get a lot of stuff wrong. So
2:03
Speaker 2: apologies already to all of our pagan listeners out there,
2:07
Speaker 2: and let us know, correct us about what we do
2:09
Speaker 2: get wrong. But we're going to try our best not
2:11
Speaker 2: to get stuff wrong because it's a really interesting set
2:16
Speaker 2: of religions. We should say, that's what paganism is. It's
2:18
Speaker 2: not a religion, it's a set of typically nature based
2:23
Speaker 2: religions that before the original ancient paganism predated any of
2:30
Speaker 2: what we call the Abrahamic religions, the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity,
2:36
Speaker 2: and Islam. And that's my definition of paganism.
2:40
Speaker 1: Can we stop there.
2:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, we haven't gotten anything wrong so far.
2:44
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, Well you mentioned those religions, and it's
2:47
Speaker 1: pretty key to mention the Abrahamic religions because basically anything
2:51
Speaker 1: else outside of that was considered pagan. Historically, the word
2:55
Speaker 1: pagan actually was pretty much an insultant firs first, when
3:00
Speaker 1: Christianity was on the rise, and we'll talk a lot
3:03
Speaker 1: about that here in a second. In the Roman Empire,
3:06
Speaker 1: if you did not convert to Christianity Christianity, you were
3:09
Speaker 1: called paganas, which is Latin for country dweller, which is
3:12
Speaker 1: basically like, hey, if you're not a Christian, you're a
3:15
Speaker 1: bumpkin aka pagan which is interesting.
3:20
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's definitely interesting. It's funny because that means
3:23
Speaker 2: that at some point in time, and we'll talk about
3:25
Speaker 2: when that happened, Christianity suddenly leapt forward as like a
3:30
Speaker 2: sophisticated thing, which is so the tables basically turned because
3:36
Speaker 2: originally some of the Greek or actually Roman pagans were
3:42
Speaker 2: very suspicious of Christianity and said all sorts of libelist
3:45
Speaker 2: things against them, and then as Christianity rose to prominence,
3:48
Speaker 2: it used that same playbook against pagans. But yeah, it
3:52
Speaker 2: makes sense that it's like you were considered a hick
3:55
Speaker 2: or not up to date if you were still a
3:59
Speaker 2: pagan once Christianity became a thing in the Roman Empire.
4:02
Speaker 1: I think Bumpkin summed it up nicely.
4:04
Speaker 2: I thought so too. I like Bumpkin, cause it's like
4:07
Speaker 2: it's an insult, but it's just so round and happy
4:11
Speaker 2: that it's hard to be angered by it if somebody
4:14
Speaker 2: calls you a bumpkin.
4:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, for some reason, Bumpkin does have just sort of
4:18
Speaker 1: a like, I feel like bumpkins are.
4:20
Speaker 2: Happy, right, they don't care what you think of them.
4:24
Speaker 1: All right, So should we talk a little bit about
4:29
Speaker 1: you know, there's kind of two parts of this. There's
4:30
Speaker 1: ancient paganism, which is one thing that we're going to
4:35
Speaker 1: speak about now, and then later we're going to talk
4:37
Speaker 1: a little bit about modern paganism. But the kind of
4:39
Speaker 1: key distinction here is modern paganism isn't like, hey, we
4:44
Speaker 1: just brought back everything they were doing back then because
4:47
Speaker 1: it went away for a long time, and now we're
4:48
Speaker 1: going to do that same stuff. It was, you know,
4:51
Speaker 1: inspired by some of this stuff. But as you'll see,
4:53
Speaker 1: not a lot of text survived. So modern paganism is
4:57
Speaker 1: basically its own new thing.
4:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll talk about where it came from. But
5:02
Speaker 2: there's a lot of well just incorrect facts on the
5:06
Speaker 2: Internet that basically says this tradition has continued uninterrupted. Yeah,
5:11
Speaker 2: in secret. It had to be driven into secret by
5:14
Speaker 2: the rise of Christianity. That just does not seem to
5:16
Speaker 2: be true.
5:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if we're going to go back to ancient paganism,
5:21
Speaker 1: we can talk about some of the different elements of because,
5:23
Speaker 1: like you said, this is a lot of different things
5:25
Speaker 1: that they're wrapped up under the term paganism. But animism
5:29
Speaker 1: is the first one, and that is the belief that
5:32
Speaker 1: every object on the planet basically has a spirit. People do,
5:37
Speaker 1: my dog does, your dog does, which I totally believe,
5:42
Speaker 1: the rivers, trees, everything in nature does, animate or inanimate,
5:46
Speaker 1: which is why it's called animism. And they thought that
5:50
Speaker 1: nature can be like a great thing, it can help
5:51
Speaker 1: protect us or it can be a dangerous thing. It
5:53
Speaker 1: can cause us harm, and it's up to us to
5:56
Speaker 1: influence that through sacrifice and these rituals that we perform.
6:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, A good example of this, just real quick, is
6:03
Speaker 2: there's no absolute good and evil. That's one of those
6:07
Speaker 2: Abrahamic religious ideas, and paganism does not believe in that. So,
6:12
Speaker 2: for example, if you are crossing a raging river, that
6:16
Speaker 2: river might kill you and drown you, but it's not
6:18
Speaker 2: like the river is evil and wants to do that.
6:21
Speaker 2: It just can happen. So there's a risk, but it
6:24
Speaker 2: can also be a neutral thing. You can increase your
6:27
Speaker 2: chances of successfully crossing that river by maybe praying to
6:30
Speaker 2: it the spirit or the god of that river, or
6:33
Speaker 2: maybe offering a sacrifice. But it's not there's no evil
6:37
Speaker 2: rivers in any of the pagan religions except for the
6:40
Speaker 2: river sticks. Yeah. I guess maybe, but I think even
6:45
Speaker 2: then it's not necessarily absolutely evil.
6:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, We've got shamanism, which is sort of like animism
6:52
Speaker 1: plus animism with a mascot, and that the shaman is
6:56
Speaker 1: the person who steps forward and says, all right, we've
6:59
Speaker 1: got all these objects that have spirits and I'm the
7:02
Speaker 1: person that can communicate with them. I will enter a trance,
7:06
Speaker 1: may take some drugs, maybe a little singing and dancing
7:09
Speaker 1: to get there, don't you worry about that. But I'll
7:11
Speaker 1: get there in that trance state, and I'll be able
7:13
Speaker 1: to communicate with these spirits like go through me.
7:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the singing and dancing is subsequent to
7:20
Speaker 2: taking the drugs.
7:21
Speaker 1: Hey, I went to a raver two in my day.
7:24
Speaker 2: Exactly every single person there was a shaman at that moment.
7:27
Speaker 1: At this is what it felt like at the time,
7:29
Speaker 1: probably right.
7:30
Speaker 2: So there's a couple of things just from the ancient
7:32
Speaker 2: pagan religions that are still carried on today. Ancestor worship
7:37
Speaker 2: is another big one, Yeah, especially as we'll see in
7:40
Speaker 2: the neo pagan Norse traditions. But it's essentially you can
7:45
Speaker 2: see evidence of this and the fact that we buried
7:47
Speaker 2: people in the way that we started burying people as
7:51
Speaker 2: if they're venerated, as if we understand that they need
7:54
Speaker 2: grave goods because there's an afterlife, and so it's not
7:57
Speaker 2: like a hard leap to the idea that those ancestors
8:01
Speaker 2: can help us out now that they're in the spirit world.
8:03
Speaker 2: And so you can worship them. That's a big part
8:06
Speaker 2: of it too.
8:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, then we're going to get into this
8:09
Speaker 1: whole idea that and something I found that looking through
8:13
Speaker 1: a lot of these pagan rights and religions is that
8:19
Speaker 1: they looked at women very differently than early Christian and
8:22
Speaker 1: some might even argue late Christian religions do, and that
8:28
Speaker 1: women were worshiped and venerated. The earth Mother was a
8:31
Speaker 1: big part of the early deities and worshiped. And they
8:35
Speaker 1: found venus figurines, these clay and stone figures from like
8:39
Speaker 1: thirty five thousand years ago that are clearly like probably
8:44
Speaker 1: used in fertility rights because they have you know, exaggerated
8:48
Speaker 1: breasts on these figures and wide hips, and so the
8:52
Speaker 1: whole idea of the earth Mother has been around for
8:54
Speaker 1: a long long time.
8:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you can pretty clearly demonstrate that the
8:58
Speaker 2: earth Mother eventually evolved into Gaia from the Greek pantheon.
9:04
Speaker 2: Guya is the mom of all the other gods, which
9:08
Speaker 2: brings up to another point polytheism. It's not monotheistic. There
9:12
Speaker 2: is not one single god. Even if there's a head
9:14
Speaker 2: of the gods like say Zeus or Odin or something
9:17
Speaker 2: like that. There's still plenty of other gods who are gods.
9:20
Speaker 2: They're not saints, they're not angels, they're not assistants, they
9:24
Speaker 2: are gods in and of themselves. And so Polytheism is
9:28
Speaker 2: a huge, huge part of any pagan religion, ancient or
9:31
Speaker 2: modern too.
9:32
Speaker 1: And I've never looked into this, but I mean, the
9:35
Speaker 1: idea of Mother Nature that probably kind is kind of
9:37
Speaker 1: a trickle down from goddess Mother Earth Mother, right.
9:41
Speaker 2: I would think so too, Yeah, for sure.
9:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just taking a stab at that though.
9:45
Speaker 2: So you gotta be right, you know. I mean, it's
9:48
Speaker 2: not like that was just coincidental. Somebody came up with
9:50
Speaker 2: that in the sixties or something.
9:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
9:53
Speaker 2: What about sacrifice, the stuff that Pagans don't like to
9:56
Speaker 2: talk about.
9:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is a can of worms that
10:01
Speaker 1: you know, we can't fully open because there's a lot
10:03
Speaker 1: of debate about how much sacrifice there has been in
10:08
Speaker 1: all religions throughout ancient world history. A lot of times
10:12
Speaker 1: these the people that say, like, oh, they were just
10:15
Speaker 1: killing babies left and right, are written by the enemies
10:17
Speaker 1: of these people, in this case, Christian and Roman accounts
10:22
Speaker 1: about how widespread it would be because they're trying to
10:24
Speaker 1: paint them in a certain way. But there definitely has
10:26
Speaker 1: been sacrifice, whether it was human or your finest crop
10:31
Speaker 1: or your best sheep.
10:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we know for a fact that Germanic
10:35
Speaker 2: and Celtic tribes sacrificed humans. Just from the presence of
10:38
Speaker 2: bog bodies in the state that they were, the way
10:41
Speaker 2: that they died, they're pretty much proof positive that there
10:45
Speaker 2: was sacrifice. And even outside of Europe. I mean, you
10:48
Speaker 2: know the Inca Maiden, the lu Laya, you know, lou
10:52
Speaker 2: Lailo lu Layelo.
10:54
Speaker 1: I think you mean Leilani the maiden.
10:57
Speaker 2: You remember the Inca maiden that has like your knees
10:59
Speaker 2: pulled up her chest and she looks sleeping. But she
11:02
Speaker 2: was sacrificed five hundred years ago. I mean, like it
11:05
Speaker 2: did happen, but the idea that it was widespread, or
11:08
Speaker 2: that they like drank baby's blood or that kind of stuff,
11:11
Speaker 2: that was the exaggeration that really kind of were smears.
11:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you know, I finally watched it the other day.
11:19
Speaker 1: It was about a month ago, I guess, the mel Gibson.
11:23
Speaker 2: Apocalypto.
11:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd never seen that. For some reason, I finally
11:27
Speaker 1: watched it.
11:28
Speaker 2: How was it?
11:28
Speaker 1: Did you see it?
11:29
Speaker 2: No, but I've seen the scene that made you think
11:31
Speaker 2: of that.
11:34
Speaker 1: You know, it was pretty good. You know. I'm not
11:37
Speaker 1: like championing Mel Gibson, of course, but I just hadn't
11:40
Speaker 1: seen that movie. And I had a I guess Emily
11:43
Speaker 1: was clearly not with me, and I was like, oh,
11:46
Speaker 1: I've got a window and it popped up and I
11:47
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, I never saw that. Let
11:48
Speaker 1: me check it out. Very gross in gory in its depictions,
11:53
Speaker 1: but you know it was okay.
11:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, mel Gibson is basically into snuff porn, like, he
12:01
Speaker 2: loves that stuff. Have you ever seen We Were Soldiers?
12:04
Speaker 1: I did not see that, But that's supposed to be
12:06
Speaker 1: pretty gory too, right.
12:07
Speaker 2: It's one of the most violent, yeah, glorious war movies
12:10
Speaker 2: I've ever seen in my life.
12:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.
12:12
Speaker 2: Now I've seen The Guns of Navarone.
12:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh was that Telly Sabalis?
12:19
Speaker 2: Now he was in the Dirty Dozen, that's what you think.
12:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a good or forced in from Navarone
12:26
Speaker 1: was seeing that one too.
12:27
Speaker 2: I don't know if he was one, he was definitely
12:29
Speaker 2: in the Dirty Dozen. That was a great one.
12:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, We're getting away from off topic here though,
12:34
Speaker 1: because we need to talk about idol worship and tree worship.
12:37
Speaker 1: That's another pretty common element and a lot of different
12:40
Speaker 1: pagan religions. You know, it's right there in the Ten Commandments,
12:43
Speaker 1: do not worship false idols. Idolatry was a big no
12:46
Speaker 1: no to Christians, and that's basically any physical representation of
12:49
Speaker 1: a God or a spirit. We usually, you know, growing
12:53
Speaker 1: up Baptist thought him of his like statues and stuff
12:55
Speaker 1: from biblical stories, but it can be a rock or something.
12:59
Speaker 1: And then trees. Trees are big in many, many, most
13:03
Speaker 1: pagan religions. They love their trees.
13:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, they love them for sure. So yeah, those are
13:10
Speaker 2: some high points or basics, I guess is a better
13:13
Speaker 2: way to put it, of ancient pagan religions. And because
13:17
Speaker 2: as we said before, there's not really a lot that
13:20
Speaker 2: survived from the ancients to today, a lot of that
13:24
Speaker 2: stuff has been gleaned by archaeologists anthropologists, and it's from
13:30
Speaker 2: that base of knowledge that modern Pagans draw from to
13:33
Speaker 2: create the newer versions of the pagan religions.
13:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like a break time, right, yeah, I guess.
13:40
Speaker 1: So all right, we'll take a break, and we'll come
13:42
Speaker 1: back and talk about when Christianity decided that's it. We're
13:46
Speaker 1: going to change the narrative right after this, all right,
14:14
Speaker 1: So we promised talk of Christianity stamping out Paganism, or
14:17
Speaker 1: trying to at least, and that started with Constantine, who
14:21
Speaker 1: was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity officially.
14:25
Speaker 1: I think you sort of hinted earlier that Christianity was
14:29
Speaker 1: a pretty smallish persecuted sect of people at first, until
14:34
Speaker 1: Constantine came along and said, actually, I'm Christian now, and
14:40
Speaker 1: all the other Roman elites were like, well, off, Constantine
14:43
Speaker 1: the Emperor's Christian, then maybe we should look into this
14:45
Speaker 1: a little more.
14:46
Speaker 2: Right, And so the tide turned on Pagans basically right
14:50
Speaker 2: out of the gate. But Constantine himself didn't do anything
14:53
Speaker 2: to persecute He didn't use his official position as emperor
14:56
Speaker 2: to persecute pagans.
14:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did his to in the pool publicly.
15:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So actually I think he was fully
15:05
Speaker 2: immersed in the baptismal font instead. Well yeah, his son, though,
15:09
Speaker 2: went full boar after Pagan's and outlawed Paganism. He passed
15:16
Speaker 2: the first Laws Constantineous Constantius, not Constantinople Constantius. Yes. Yeah,
15:25
Speaker 2: he passed the first laws that made paganism and practices
15:29
Speaker 2: of paganism illegal. It was basically amounted to any public
15:34
Speaker 2: displays of paganism were outlawed. But not too long after
15:37
Speaker 2: a couple of decades his successor, Theodosius, he said, Christianity's
15:43
Speaker 2: the state religion of the Roman Empire, and if you
15:46
Speaker 2: do anything pagan, including in your own home, like your
15:51
Speaker 2: your toast, don't let us see you go anywhere near chicken,
15:55
Speaker 2: or you're in big trouble.
15:57
Speaker 1: And they said, what is toast? When your bread gets
16:00
Speaker 1: too close to the fire and it tastes better, that's doped.
16:03
Speaker 2: I hadn't tried that.
16:06
Speaker 1: So Christianity is on the rise. And they started to
16:11
Speaker 1: stamp out pagan religions all over the Roman Empire through
16:13
Speaker 1: the laws that you mentioned and through a pretty brilliant plan,
16:18
Speaker 1: which was literally demonizing them. I never really have thought
16:22
Speaker 1: about that word much until this is like, you know
16:26
Speaker 1: that demon is the root there, but that's literally what
16:29
Speaker 1: they did. They were like, you know what everyone that
16:32
Speaker 1: you're have been worshiping, they are the devil in disguise, right,
16:37
Speaker 1: like the literal devil Satan.
16:39
Speaker 2: Yes, And they actually took some of the existing gods
16:44
Speaker 2: and just basically copy pasted them into the conception of
16:48
Speaker 2: the devil of Satan. And again keep in mind here,
16:52
Speaker 2: these these pagan religions, they don't have anything even approximating Satan.
16:58
Speaker 2: Like gods can be good or protective or dangerous, but
17:03
Speaker 2: there's no like one evil polar foil to God, because
17:09
Speaker 2: there is no one God. It's not dual, it's plural.
17:12
Speaker 2: That's that's part of pagan religion, right, So it's ironic
17:16
Speaker 2: that they're like, your god is Satan, and they're like
17:18
Speaker 2: which one. They're like, the one with the horns, the
17:20
Speaker 2: one with the antlers, right, And so that's that's basically
17:23
Speaker 2: how the modern conception of Satan came along. And so
17:27
Speaker 2: basically any god would just be equated with evil, with
17:30
Speaker 2: a demon, with Satan himself. And if you were caught
17:34
Speaker 2: practicing this, now you started to risk being killed by
17:37
Speaker 2: the people in charge.
17:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, they found this one pretty prominent Celtic gods. Yeah yeah, okay,
17:47
Speaker 1: ce r In you in in.
17:51
Speaker 2: It's like it's a yeah, it's like a mashup of
17:54
Speaker 2: Michael Sarah, John Cena, and John Sanunu.
18:01
Speaker 1: Yes, Man, I almost said it wrong again. Sir Nunas was,
18:04
Speaker 1: like I said, a prominent Celtic god and had it
18:07
Speaker 1: was the antler god had antlers. And they basically look
18:11
Speaker 1: back now and say between Sir Nunos and the Greek
18:14
Speaker 1: god Pan, like, it's not a far leap to go
18:18
Speaker 1: from antlers to horns. And that was basically the probably
18:22
Speaker 1: the model for the Christian devil that you know, once
18:25
Speaker 1: they decided, hey, we're just going to be binary from.
18:28
Speaker 2: Now on, right, But the Sir Nunos is wearing antlers
18:31
Speaker 2: because they were They indicated protectiveness, not necessarily of humans,
18:35
Speaker 2: but of the forest and the countryside. And you could
18:40
Speaker 2: be in Sir Nunosi's good graces by taking care of
18:43
Speaker 2: those things, or you could run a foul of Sir Nunos.
18:46
Speaker 2: And if you say, just stepped on a bunch of
18:49
Speaker 2: docks for no good reason. Yeah, but that he became
18:53
Speaker 2: Satan eventually, or he was one of the ones. I
18:56
Speaker 2: think they went basically local religion by local religion and
19:00
Speaker 2: then identified who could be Satan and then demonized them
19:04
Speaker 2: and all the others.
19:05
Speaker 1: Yes, that makes sense. Like who do they identify with, Like,
19:08
Speaker 1: who's going to scare them?
19:09
Speaker 2: Exactly? So, now, because your god, your ancient pagan god,
19:13
Speaker 2: is Satan. If you are caught worshiping that god, or
19:17
Speaker 2: any god or any kind of polytheistic pagan religion, you're
19:21
Speaker 2: now in league with the devil. And again you can
19:24
Speaker 2: be put to death for that kind of thing. And
19:26
Speaker 2: that developed into which trials, the Inquisition, all sorts of
19:30
Speaker 2: terrible stuff that was essentially the Christian Church persecuting in
19:34
Speaker 2: an effort to stamp out it's like any local rival religions.
19:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, stamp out is one thing they did, and
19:42
Speaker 1: you know, with the Christian armies and colonialism and missionaries,
19:45
Speaker 1: that was what they were doing all over the West.
19:48
Speaker 1: And then what they couldn't stamp out or I don't
19:51
Speaker 1: know if it was what they couldn't stamp out, but
19:52
Speaker 1: they were stamping out everything they wanted to. And then
19:55
Speaker 1: they also said, but actually this Halloween and Christmas Easter
20:00
Speaker 1: are pretty fun, and those are pagan you know based,
20:04
Speaker 1: So we're just gonna tweak those and make them our own.
20:08
Speaker 1: Because who doesn't like Halloween?
20:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody likes Halloween. Which started out as Sowin as
20:16
Speaker 2: we'll see. I think we've talked about that probably fifteen times. Yeah.
20:20
Speaker 2: You know what I think actually triggered this me thinking
20:22
Speaker 2: of this topic.
20:24
Speaker 1: What movie?
20:25
Speaker 2: No, it was Easter I was thinking about. I happened
20:28
Speaker 2: to be up and out around sunrise on Easter and
20:32
Speaker 2: it reminded me, as a kid, being raised Catholic, of
20:35
Speaker 2: going to Sunrise mass in Eastern Yeah, and I was like, dude,
20:40
Speaker 2: you're standing there celebrating a religious service, watching the sun
20:44
Speaker 2: rise on a specific day in the spring. Like it
20:48
Speaker 2: is so pagan based, and it's like in every single way,
20:52
Speaker 2: I think even Easter is like a shift or an
20:55
Speaker 2: adaptation of like oh Stare, which I believe was one
20:58
Speaker 2: of the Polytheiets pagan gods.
21:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it was.
21:02
Speaker 2: It's just there out in the open basically, and that
21:06
Speaker 2: made me wonder about the whole thing.
21:08
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, growing up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, the
21:12
Speaker 1: most dedicated would hike up Stone Mountain in the in
21:15
Speaker 1: the dead of night to go to the sunrise service
21:18
Speaker 1: on top of Stone Mountain.
21:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. Pretty cool.
21:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:21
Speaker 2: So they were basically stamping with one foot, giving back
21:24
Speaker 2: rubs with the other other with their hands stamp stamp
21:27
Speaker 2: rub rob That's what the Christians did to basically win
21:31
Speaker 2: the pr war of the religions and take over. Essentially.
21:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're looking at the pagan comeback, which we're
21:40
Speaker 1: going to get into now, you can go back to
21:42
Speaker 1: the Renaissance when they said, Hey, the Greek and Roman
21:46
Speaker 1: philosophers and all those books they were writing, it's like
21:49
Speaker 1: super interesting, we're into that stuff again. And we have
21:51
Speaker 1: the printing press now, so we can really print this
21:54
Speaker 1: stuff up and disseminate it. And there were Renaissance painters
21:58
Speaker 1: painting all these amazing romantic paintings of like mythological creatures
22:03
Speaker 1: and gods. And then the Enlightenment came along and said Renaissance,
22:07
Speaker 1: hold my meed.
22:09
Speaker 2: So yeah, the Enlightenment was like, in a couple of
22:12
Speaker 2: strange ways, it was really fertile ground for like an
22:16
Speaker 2: interest in paganism to come along. For one, the Enlightenment
22:21
Speaker 2: thinkers just essentially as a first step, just rejected Christianity
22:26
Speaker 2: and monotheism in particular. And they also were like, I
22:31
Speaker 2: really like the philosophy of these ancient Greeks and ancient Romans.
22:35
Speaker 2: They were polytheistic. Maybe I could be too, So it
22:38
Speaker 2: kind of aroused like an intellectual interest in that.
22:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:41
Speaker 2: But it also it created an interest in paganism in
22:47
Speaker 2: a different way too, because the Enlightenment created such rational
22:52
Speaker 2: thinking that some people were kind of repelled by it
22:55
Speaker 2: and they're like, I'm going to go seek answers and
22:57
Speaker 2: purpose in nature instead. And yeah, probably more than anything,
23:01
Speaker 2: is how the Enlightenment led to an interest in paganism.
23:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also I thought it was super interesting how
23:07
Speaker 1: much the arts played into all this. You know, I
23:09
Speaker 1: mentioned the Renaissance painters, but also Romantic poets like you
23:14
Speaker 1: can't read Wordsworth and Keats and Shelley without like wanting
23:19
Speaker 1: to go out into the woods and like be among nature.
23:22
Speaker 1: There were very just very moving poems about the world,
23:26
Speaker 1: the natural world around us, and the sort of unseen
23:30
Speaker 1: magic in nature.
23:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've never wanted to take your clothes off in
23:33
Speaker 2: the woods? Read some Keats, right, See how you feel
23:38
Speaker 2: after that?
23:39
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm not a big naked in the I'm not
23:41
Speaker 1: a big naked guy period. I think it's been established,
23:44
Speaker 1: but probably because of the Baptist upbringing. But I feel
23:47
Speaker 1: too vulnerable out there in the woods.
23:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I get that there's mosquitoes and beetles
23:52
Speaker 2: and those worms that crawl up your pehle.
23:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll just you can find me in my skivvies
23:58
Speaker 1: at least are you a never nude? Yeah? I shower
24:01
Speaker 1: in a bathing suit in cut off gene. Yeah, to
24:05
Speaker 1: cut off. So man, it's so great.
24:07
Speaker 2: What else?
24:08
Speaker 1: Oh?
24:08
Speaker 2: Oh, there was another thing that kind of created it
24:11
Speaker 2: might it might have grown out of this interest essentially,
24:15
Speaker 2: like kind of scholarship on paganism. Yeah, some was good.
24:20
Speaker 2: Some was the kind of stuff that you would equate
24:23
Speaker 2: with finding on the History Channel today. You know.
24:27
Speaker 1: That was in the article and we talked about it
24:29
Speaker 1: a little bit offline. I did not know. I don't
24:32
Speaker 1: watch enough History Channel. I thought the History Channel was
24:34
Speaker 1: just like we used to call it the War Channel
24:37
Speaker 1: because it was always just black and white World War
24:39
Speaker 1: Two documentaries. But I know there is another side of
24:42
Speaker 1: the History Channel where with the alien sky, like did
24:45
Speaker 1: they have a lot of that kind of stuff?
24:47
Speaker 2: I think it's pretty much all Yeah, that is it?
24:51
Speaker 1: Really okay?
24:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much, And I think it has been that
24:54
Speaker 2: way for a really long time. And I mean not
24:56
Speaker 2: to bag on the History Channel. It's interesting, but I
25:00
Speaker 2: guess what I'm equating it to is really interesting unsupported
25:05
Speaker 2: theories that like, if you're an actual scientist and you
25:08
Speaker 2: look into it, you're like, this is just made up.
25:11
Speaker 1: They're trying to make the entertaining television basically.
25:14
Speaker 2: Yes, but the problem is is they present it factually
25:16
Speaker 2: and it gets taken factually by a lot of people.
25:20
Speaker 2: So they've caused a lot of problems. They essentially have
25:22
Speaker 2: ruined the world single handedly.
25:23
Speaker 1: The History Channel has well I'm glad I know this
25:26
Speaker 1: because I'm going to stop saying, well, the History Channel,
25:28
Speaker 1: I said.
25:29
Speaker 2: Its top that.
25:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah. There were a couple of key people
25:33
Speaker 1: that came out of this that you kind of referenced.
25:36
Speaker 1: One was a guy named James Fraser. He was an
25:38
Speaker 1: anthropologist who wrote a book, very influential book in eighteen
25:42
Speaker 1: ninety called The Golden Bow. Bo I'm sorry, yeah, you
25:46
Speaker 1: w jesus, what's going on with me? B o U
25:50
Speaker 1: g H.
25:52
Speaker 2: I'm going with boo.
25:54
Speaker 1: It's pronounced bo.
25:56
Speaker 2: I think that's a History Channel type.
26:02
Speaker 1: Okay, we're not gonna argue with this because who cares.
26:04
Speaker 1: But that's the way it's spelled. And his argument was
26:07
Speaker 1: that you know, all religions basically go back to this
26:12
Speaker 1: one pagan myth about a king that was sacrificed to
26:16
Speaker 1: bless the land with fertility, and you can kind of
26:19
Speaker 1: trace them all back to this.
26:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so modern historians have said it's a great
26:24
Speaker 2: theory Fraser, but it's not correct. Fraser is not a
26:29
Speaker 2: history channel type. He was a legitimate anthropologist. And one
26:32
Speaker 2: of the reasons the Golden Bow Bow figures in is
26:36
Speaker 2: that he did an amazing amount of exhaustive research that
26:41
Speaker 2: in the book he describes a lot of ancient pagan
26:43
Speaker 2: traditions and beliefs and stuff. So The Golden Bow became
26:47
Speaker 2: kind of like a handbook for the modern pagan movements
26:50
Speaker 2: that followed.
26:51
Speaker 1: Do you know what I feel like concerning here? What
26:55
Speaker 1: the way that you pronounce the word be? Like? Why
26:59
Speaker 1: did they get count Dracula to Who is that guy?
27:02
Speaker 2: I don't know? What was this like a book on tape?
27:05
Speaker 2: You heard once? No?
27:05
Speaker 1: No, no, no, this is the YouTube guy when you
27:07
Speaker 1: look up pronunciations. Oh oh, one, gentleman, that dogs he
27:11
Speaker 1: came from Thrensylvan.
27:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really does, doesn't he? I never thought about it.
27:15
Speaker 2: He's great.
27:15
Speaker 1: Well, now this is saying bo. But I looked at
27:18
Speaker 1: up earlier and it said bo.
27:20
Speaker 2: Okay, boo boo.
27:24
Speaker 1: I don't know if I believe that, lady.
27:25
Speaker 2: Like when the bow breaks, wouldn't you just sit up
27:28
Speaker 2: and tell your mom that she got it wrong if
27:30
Speaker 2: she's saying when the bow breaks.
27:32
Speaker 1: I've always said bow, But you know, maybe I'm wrong
27:35
Speaker 1: or maybe the internet's wrong. That'd be a first How
27:37
Speaker 1: about boh, yeah, when the book breaks?
27:44
Speaker 2: Uh.
27:44
Speaker 1: And then there is a History Channel type person that
27:47
Speaker 1: we should talk about, the Egyptologist Margaret Murray. She was
27:52
Speaker 1: She's definitely on that side of things, right.
27:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. She came up in the Bella and the Witch
27:56
Speaker 2: Elm episode because she was saying, like Bella was murdered
27:59
Speaker 2: by a witch right And she's one of the people
28:02
Speaker 2: who argued that the modern European witches trace their lineage
28:09
Speaker 2: unbroken back to fertility feminist cult that's been in the
28:13
Speaker 2: British Isles ever since time immemorial, and that that's one
28:18
Speaker 2: of the things that's been debunked, is that it's just
28:20
Speaker 2: not true. Like the Christian Church and in their turn,
28:24
Speaker 2: Judaism in Islam as well, did such a thorough job
28:29
Speaker 2: of interrupting the transmission from the ancient world to the
28:32
Speaker 2: modern world that it's just like that's just not really possible. Now,
28:38
Speaker 2: that's not to say that like in certain like super
28:41
Speaker 2: you know, rural local areas, there's like not folk traditions
28:46
Speaker 2: that actually do date back really far. I mean, everybody's
28:50
Speaker 2: seen wicker Man, right, But the thing is, like, like
28:54
Speaker 2: Wickerman would be actually a bad example because that like
28:58
Speaker 2: is an actual ritual. They knew exactly what they were doing,
29:01
Speaker 2: they were performing rites that kind of stuff. This would
29:04
Speaker 2: be more like, hey, we're dancing around the may pole,
29:06
Speaker 2: but we don't necessarily know every single thing that's going on.
29:11
Speaker 2: We're not performing every single aspect of this ancient ritual.
29:15
Speaker 2: Even though the ritual in some form or fashion still
29:18
Speaker 2: survive today, it's not the full the full Monty, it's
29:25
Speaker 2: not the full manty of the actual pagan folk religion
29:28
Speaker 2: that they're they're kind of venerating. Still, yeah, does that
29:31
Speaker 2: make sense?
29:32
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely? Okay, should we take our second break?
29:35
Speaker 2: Yeah?
29:35
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna take that break and we're gonna
29:37
Speaker 1: move into the world of modern paganism right after this.
30:06
Speaker 2: Well, by the way, Chuck, you, me and I have
30:08
Speaker 2: a friend named Alex Mary who's an artist and she
30:11
Speaker 2: does something called Morris dancing, and a lot of the
30:16
Speaker 2: Morris dances like resemble paganism, like there's sometimes there's antlers
30:21
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. But also, more than anything, reminds
30:25
Speaker 2: me of stuff they would have done in that A
30:26
Speaker 2: twenty four movie Midsommer, and it's basically like folk dancing
30:32
Speaker 2: that dates back to like the fifteenth century and probably before,
30:36
Speaker 2: but they can definitely trace it back that far. I
30:38
Speaker 2: was asking her about paganism. She's like, Nope, not a
30:41
Speaker 2: pagan I'm a Morris dancer.
30:43
Speaker 1: That's super cool. Yeah, And not to get off topic,
30:46
Speaker 1: but since you brought up a twenty four I just
30:48
Speaker 1: have to shout out their newest weird comedy from Tim Robinson.
30:53
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, actually not from Tim Robinson, he's in it.
30:55
Speaker 1: But the movie Friendship I can highly recommend. And I
30:59
Speaker 1: went to the opening eleven am screening in Atlanta and
31:03
Speaker 1: my friend, because you love Tim Robinson, you'll be glad
31:05
Speaker 1: to know. At Phipps Plaza at eleven am on a Friday,
31:09
Speaker 1: there were probably twenty five to thirty like Tim Robinson
31:13
Speaker 1: fans in there. Nice at that first showing.
31:15
Speaker 2: Was it rowdy?
31:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's been a long time since I've
31:19
Speaker 1: seen a crowded and it was crowded because it was
31:21
Speaker 1: probably a fifty person theater, so it was seventy percent full.
31:25
Speaker 1: A crowded like movie with other people, like a comedy
31:28
Speaker 1: where just a bunch of people are laughing at once,
31:31
Speaker 1: and it was so much fun.
31:32
Speaker 2: That's awesome, man, it was great. I wish I could
31:35
Speaker 2: have gone.
31:36
Speaker 1: I wish you could have gone too.
31:38
Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah, are talking about what modern paganism.
31:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we mentioned, you know, in several different ways
31:45
Speaker 1: that modern paganism is its own thing. One of the
31:48
Speaker 1: reasons why it's its own thing is because they just
31:51
Speaker 1: didn't write down a lot of stuff back then. And
31:54
Speaker 1: stuff that was written down, it wasn't like the literal,
31:57
Speaker 1: detailed handbook of how to do this ritual this right,
32:00
Speaker 1: that's pretty rare. Yeah, So that's one of the reasons,
32:03
Speaker 1: and it was all stamped out. Some of the stuff
32:06
Speaker 1: that we've gotten modern wise comes from these Icelandic or
32:09
Speaker 1: maybe all of it, these Icelandic texts called the Eda's,
32:12
Speaker 1: Is that right.
32:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. As far as Norse religions, Norse pagan religions that
32:17
Speaker 2: fall under the umbrella term Heathenism. This is where they
32:19
Speaker 2: get all their stuff. Yeah, I don't know if it's
32:22
Speaker 2: Das or Eda's. I think I agreed too soon. Okay, Okay,
32:27
Speaker 2: maybe as that and then the Viking sagas, and so
32:30
Speaker 2: the Viking sagas aren't like you said, it's not a
32:32
Speaker 2: handbook of how to worship Norse gods, but just mentions
32:36
Speaker 2: of it, like incidental references to stuff like that. The
32:42
Speaker 2: neo Pagans who worship Norse gods have kind of taken that,
32:46
Speaker 2: glean from that what some of these rituals and thoughts
32:49
Speaker 2: and mythologies were.
32:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're not going to talk about all modern
32:54
Speaker 1: pagan religions, but we're gonna mention if you know, we're
32:56
Speaker 1: going to highlight a few. We have to talk briefly
32:59
Speaker 1: at least about their medic Order of the Golden Dawn.
33:01
Speaker 1: But again, if you want to hear a lot about that,
33:04
Speaker 1: listen to our Alistair, a really good episode, I think
33:06
Speaker 1: Alistair Crowley episode. Yeah, this was the secret society that
33:09
Speaker 1: Aleister Crowley was a member of. He was never the leader,
33:13
Speaker 1: right or was he just sort of a.
33:15
Speaker 2: I think he did break off and try to become
33:17
Speaker 2: a leader at some point.
33:19
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Yeah, maybe I should go back and
33:21
Speaker 1: listen to it.
33:21
Speaker 2: I don't remember either. But their whole thing, the reason
33:24
Speaker 2: we mentioned them is they were probably the first what
33:27
Speaker 2: you could consider modern pagan religion. They practiced magic and
33:31
Speaker 2: they were into the Egyptian cult stuff. Yeah, so that's
33:35
Speaker 2: why we bring them up there. I don't think there's
33:38
Speaker 2: too many Golden Dawn people running around, but I guarantee
33:41
Speaker 2: there are some.
33:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's got to be.
33:44
Speaker 2: What about Wicca.
33:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about wick and our Witchcraft episode that
33:50
Speaker 1: was from a long time and ago, though, so it
33:52
Speaker 1: may not be our best.
33:53
Speaker 2: Work, No, I would. That's one that would probably be
33:56
Speaker 2: pretty good to redo someday.
33:59
Speaker 1: We're not going to read this stuf't fine Modern Witchcraft
34:04
Speaker 1: or wicka Wicca. Originally it was Wica as named by
34:08
Speaker 1: a guy named Gerald Gardner, who was a British customs
34:12
Speaker 1: official who worked in Malaysia then came back to England
34:15
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty six, wrote a bunch of Golden Dawn stuff,
34:18
Speaker 1: a bunch of Alistair Crowley stuff, a bunch of Margaret
34:20
Speaker 1: Murray stuff, our History Channel lady. And he said, you
34:24
Speaker 1: know what, one night in nineteen thirty nine, a covin
34:27
Speaker 1: of witches initiated me, and they were members of this
34:32
Speaker 1: ancient fertility cult that I read about from Margaret Murray.
34:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it depends on who you talk to. Gardner
34:41
Speaker 2: might either be described as a huckster who made all
34:45
Speaker 2: this up, or a very gentle man. I saw somebody
34:49
Speaker 2: describe him who knew him as utterly without malice, may
34:53
Speaker 2: have made all this up. But he was known for
34:57
Speaker 2: writing what's called the Book of Shadows, which has become
34:59
Speaker 2: a big part of the wick and religion, which is
35:04
Speaker 2: essentially a personal recipe book of spells and rituals that
35:10
Speaker 2: has worked for a particular witch or coven, and sometimes
35:13
Speaker 2: it's shared and people can borrow from it and add
35:16
Speaker 2: to it and they create their own Book of Shadows,
35:18
Speaker 2: but having your own basically, you know in those Bugs
35:21
Speaker 2: Bunny cartoons where that witch is like looking through her
35:23
Speaker 2: book that would technically be a book of shadows that
35:27
Speaker 2: she's looking through to find like the ingredients for her
35:30
Speaker 2: potions or whatever. That's a pretty literally cartoonish depiction of it,
35:35
Speaker 2: but that's, you know, essentially what she was doing.
35:39
Speaker 1: My favorite part is when she would leave the frame
35:41
Speaker 1: very quickly, and her hairpins would fall out, her hair
35:44
Speaker 1: float in the air.
35:45
Speaker 2: She was one of the most disturbing cartoon characters of
35:48
Speaker 2: all time if you ask me, man, Yeah, like she was.
35:54
Speaker 2: She had the high pitched voice, and didn't she have
35:55
Speaker 2: like kind of a red cousin it type who wore
35:59
Speaker 2: like tennis shoes. He was a little off putting as well.
36:02
Speaker 1: I don't remember that, but if I saw it, I'd
36:04
Speaker 1: probably know it.
36:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, yeah, the witch from Bugs Bunny.
36:09
Speaker 1: That's right. But back to Wickens. They became very popular
36:12
Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies with the feminist set and
36:16
Speaker 1: the environmentalist set, and there's still the Gerald Gardner focused.
36:22
Speaker 1: They call it gardenerian wicca. But if you're out at
36:26
Speaker 1: the seven eleven and you meet a modern Wickan, she's
36:31
Speaker 1: probably practicing what's called dianic wicca, which is small woman centered.
36:36
Speaker 1: It came around in nineteen seventy one by wicked activist
36:39
Speaker 1: name not Susannah but Susanna Budapest. Great name.
36:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it wasn't until twenty I think fifteen that
36:47
Speaker 2: Susanna Budapest indoctrined her first male clergy member into dianic
36:53
Speaker 2: wicca and other Dianic Wicca temples split off, and so
36:57
Speaker 2: it's it's rare to find a man. And in this religion,
37:02
Speaker 2: like it's all women. And I read that they're anti patriarchy.
37:07
Speaker 2: They actually try to use their magic against the patriarchy.
37:10
Speaker 2: But they're not anti male. The reason that they exclude
37:13
Speaker 2: males is because their religion is created to celebrate and
37:18
Speaker 2: honor the life cycles, the biological cycles in a lot
37:23
Speaker 2: of cases of a woman as she's born and then
37:26
Speaker 2: ages and then dies, and that essentially there's not a
37:30
Speaker 2: lot of role for men in that religion. But yeah,
37:33
Speaker 2: you know, you guys, go form your own stuff. Go
37:35
Speaker 2: become druids, I think is their motto.
37:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, And here's a little dinner party factoid. If someone
37:41
Speaker 1: brings up wicking it around the table, you can say, hey,
37:43
Speaker 1: did you know that it was actually first recognized as
37:47
Speaker 1: a true religion in nineteen eighty six in the United
37:49
Speaker 1: States when the Supreme Court ruled and debtmer v. Landen.
37:53
Speaker 1: You don't have to know that part, but you could
37:55
Speaker 1: really knock their socks off if you do. It was
37:58
Speaker 1: where a prisoner was denied the use of ritual ritual
38:01
Speaker 1: Wiccan objects and they're like, hey, this is my religious
38:05
Speaker 1: stuff and the First Amendment protects this, and the Supreme
38:08
Speaker 1: Court said, you know what, you're right.
38:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably a liberal court.
38:12
Speaker 1: Right.
38:14
Speaker 2: One other thing I gotta say, I ran across the
38:17
Speaker 2: UK finally suspended their witchcraft laws. They're bans against practicing
38:23
Speaker 2: witchcraft in nineteen fifty one, which is why Gerald Gardner's
38:28
Speaker 2: books start popping up in the fifties, even though he'd
38:30
Speaker 2: been doing this since the late thirties.
38:32
Speaker 1: Mile isn't that interesting, Like he.
38:34
Speaker 2: Could have been arrested and thrown in prison for practicing
38:38
Speaker 2: witchcraft before nineteen fifty one.
38:40
Speaker 1: Wow. All right, So those were sort of the big
38:43
Speaker 1: heavy hitters that were the first big ones that of
38:47
Speaker 1: modern paganism when it staged its comeback. But there are
38:50
Speaker 1: dozens of other smaller, much smaller modern pagan movements. Wick
38:55
Speaker 1: is definitely the largest, but heathenry is one of them,
38:58
Speaker 1: which is basically a umbrella term for people who, like
39:03
Speaker 1: you mentioned the Norse and Germanic deities. They're really into Marvel, I.
39:08
Speaker 2: Guess Marvel and Lord of the Rings. Like if you
39:13
Speaker 2: thought led Zeppelin was into Lord of the Rings, may
39:16
Speaker 2: introduce yourself to a heathen like, they are into that stuff. Yeah,
39:21
Speaker 2: and I think the two biggest Germanic Heathen religions actually,
39:28
Speaker 2: I guess I don't even think they're sex but one
39:31
Speaker 2: is true. They worship the Acr gods, who would be
39:36
Speaker 2: the highest of the pantheon of Norse mythology, like Odin
39:41
Speaker 2: and Thor, and so people who are into Asatru are
39:44
Speaker 2: very much into honor and valor and getting into Valhalla.
39:48
Speaker 2: And then there's the Vanatru, which they're concerned with the
39:52
Speaker 2: Veneer gods, who are the rest of the gods who
39:55
Speaker 2: are more earthy, more nature based. They're into prosperity, that
39:59
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. And I think there's way more Asatru
40:02
Speaker 2: than Vanatru right now. And then one other thing about Heathenism.
40:08
Speaker 2: There's a really interesting kind of side history that you
40:11
Speaker 2: can go look up about the black metal scene, specifically
40:16
Speaker 2: the Norwegian black metal scene that essentially turned into turned
40:20
Speaker 2: their focus from satanism like traditional metal to heathenry, and
40:26
Speaker 2: so you've got like folk metal, Viking metal, like they
40:30
Speaker 2: essentially just became heathens but metal, and it just got
40:35
Speaker 2: really out of hand in the early nineties. It was
40:37
Speaker 2: really interesting stuff.
40:39
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and I don't know if we could get
40:41
Speaker 1: a whole episode out of this. We probably could, or
40:43
Speaker 1: maybe a short stuff. But there was the very famous
40:45
Speaker 1: case of well, there were there were these series of arsons,
40:50
Speaker 1: these church arsens, like twenty of them, these very very
40:55
Speaker 1: old wooden medieval churches in Norway that were burned down.
40:58
Speaker 1: I think twenty of them were attributed. These arsens were
41:01
Speaker 1: attributed to black metal fans, and a couple of the
41:04
Speaker 1: arsonists were very prominent in the early Norwegian black metal scene.
41:10
Speaker 1: These guys there were bandmates at first in this band Mayhem,
41:13
Speaker 1: but I think Vargu Vicranese, sure he left Mayhem at
41:20
Speaker 1: a certain point, but Uronymous is how this guy's known
41:25
Speaker 1: ostein Arseth no aka Uronymous, I think stayed in this
41:30
Speaker 1: black metal group Mayhem for the run until he was
41:33
Speaker 1: murdered by varg.
41:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they didn't exactly like set paganism's general public
41:39
Speaker 2: image on fire. Well actually they kind of did. Y. Yeah,
41:43
Speaker 2: Arsith was a Satanist. Vickernese is in addition to being
41:47
Speaker 2: a murderer, he's avowed neo Nazi, and the whole scene
41:52
Speaker 2: in particular kind of gets caught up with nationalism a lot.
41:55
Speaker 2: So it's not a very representative make sure of paganism
42:01
Speaker 2: as a whole or neo paganism as a whole, but
42:03
Speaker 2: it's still I mean, it's just ridiculously interesting. What happened there?
42:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally mentioning, I guess, yeah, I remember when this happened,
42:11
Speaker 1: and I just I didn't know much about I still
42:13
Speaker 1: don't know much about that whole music scene, but it's
42:15
Speaker 1: it's super interesting. My cousin is into it.
42:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was checking a lot of it out and
42:21
Speaker 2: some of it's really good. I'm not into folk metal
42:24
Speaker 2: though at all.
42:26
Speaker 1: What is that? What does it sound like?
42:29
Speaker 2: It's you know, that kind of like super proud Irish
42:34
Speaker 2: music that's like rock from like Boston. Imagine that is
42:39
Speaker 2: like metal or almost almost yeah or no, I'm the
42:44
Speaker 2: so yes that that Irish like rock does from Boston.
42:49
Speaker 2: This is like the Norwegian metal version of that.
42:52
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I'll listen to something, see see what it
42:55
Speaker 1: does to me.
42:56
Speaker 2: Okay, just look up folk metal and you'll see. But
42:59
Speaker 2: some of the other stuff was really good, like Mayhem's
43:02
Speaker 2: stuff was pretty interesting.
43:03
Speaker 1: What if this changed my life and set me on?
43:05
Speaker 1: Of course that one would never have expected, right, here
43:08
Speaker 1: fifty four years old.
43:09
Speaker 2: He still wearing corpse makeup.
43:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe get some antlers.
43:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, why not? Man? Why not, like really ask yourself,
43:16
Speaker 2: why not do that?
43:18
Speaker 1: I mean, no, no, it's no crazier than any of the
43:20
Speaker 1: rest of them if you ask me. Yeah, uh, you
43:23
Speaker 1: mentioned druids earlier. Kind of been passing. But that is
43:27
Speaker 1: a modern belief system that is tied to pre Christian
43:32
Speaker 1: British Isle sort of religion. That's where the Druids came from.
43:35
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And I saw that Druids are a big
43:39
Speaker 2: difference between them and others is that the nature itself
43:43
Speaker 2: is the divine. It's not like a manifestation of God
43:46
Speaker 2: or the goddesses or anything like. It's nature. And I
43:49
Speaker 2: also saw that the practitioners don't really consider it a religion.
43:52
Speaker 2: They consider it more of philosophy or a way of life.
43:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it was modern Druidry was started. I
44:00
Speaker 1: got named Ross Nichols, and I don't know why. I
44:02
Speaker 1: just find it funny that, like the modern Druids and
44:06
Speaker 1: modern Wickens were started by a guys named Ross and Gerald.
44:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:11
Speaker 1: Is that a little weird?
44:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, they sound like a couple of guys who might
44:14
Speaker 2: live in a van together.
44:15
Speaker 1: They might who knows.
44:17
Speaker 2: There's also ceremonial magic, which would trace itself to I
44:20
Speaker 2: guess the Golden Dawn. There's neopaganism, which we should talk
44:25
Speaker 2: about because a lot of people use neopaganism as a
44:29
Speaker 2: term incorrectly to describe modern paganism, which is what we've
44:32
Speaker 2: been talking about this whole time. Neopaganism itself is a
44:36
Speaker 2: specific kind of pagan religion. So all neopagans are pagan,
44:42
Speaker 2: but all pagans aren't neopagans. And if you basically want
44:46
Speaker 2: to just come at this by saying I like a
44:49
Speaker 2: little of this, I like a little of that. Oh,
44:51
Speaker 2: I would like to do a little bit of ritual magic. Yes,
44:54
Speaker 2: I want to go out in the woods and practice
44:56
Speaker 2: all this stuff, then neopaganism is for you. It is
45:00
Speaker 2: wide open. They believe that everybody's beliefs are equal. They're
45:04
Speaker 2: very much opposed to the idea of absolute good and evil.
45:08
Speaker 2: They're very into nature. It's pretty much, I think what
45:12
Speaker 2: people think about when they think about modern pagan religions.
45:16
Speaker 1: And that's neopaganism.
45:17
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, And if you want to know more
45:20
Speaker 2: about that, there's a great site called neo paganism dot org.
45:24
Speaker 2: They seem to be pretty authoritative on it.
45:27
Speaker 1: They should be with that website. That'd be a real
45:29
Speaker 1: shame if they weren't.
45:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's in comic sane. And just one other thing
45:34
Speaker 2: about neopaganism. I think I said that a lot of
45:37
Speaker 2: people that's what they think of, but they might be
45:41
Speaker 2: saying WICKA when they're talking about neopaganism. There's big differences
45:45
Speaker 2: between those two. Wicka is very magical based. The intent
45:49
Speaker 2: is to harness the power of nature to get something done,
45:52
Speaker 2: like get a job successfully, or make someone fall in
45:55
Speaker 2: love with you, whatever. And WICKA is very very much esoteric.
46:01
Speaker 2: So that means that there's a set amount of knowledge
46:04
Speaker 2: out there. There's hidden mystery knowledge in the universe that
46:07
Speaker 2: if you are an initiate into wika, like you have
46:10
Speaker 2: to be initiated into a coven, and you apply yourself
46:15
Speaker 2: in work and study, and you can have these mysteries
46:18
Speaker 2: of the universe revealed to you. Not at all what
46:21
Speaker 2: neo pagans believe. There's just a ton of differences. But
46:26
Speaker 2: I mean, if any of this has floated your boat
46:28
Speaker 2: and you're like, I really want to check this out.
46:30
Speaker 2: There's a lot of stuff on the internet that you
46:34
Speaker 2: can go read up on. I would just say use
46:36
Speaker 2: your you're just general common sense to decide what site
46:40
Speaker 2: you're on is, whether it's legitimate or authoritative, or if
46:43
Speaker 2: it's just some dude making stuff up.
46:46
Speaker 1: You got to have the right font where you know
46:48
Speaker 1: you're in.
46:48
Speaker 2: Trouble exactly giveaway.
46:51
Speaker 1: You also mentioned a great band name in there, hidden
46:53
Speaker 1: Mystery Knowledge.
46:54
Speaker 2: That's a good one. I feel like that's more an
46:56
Speaker 2: album though, Okay, and you better believe they're gonna have
47:00
Speaker 2: some Lord of the Rings character? Was the illustration true? Well,
47:04
Speaker 2: if you want to know more about that stuff, like
47:07
Speaker 2: I said, go out on the internet. And since I
47:09
Speaker 2: said that and Chuck had just said true, that means
47:12
Speaker 2: that it's time for a listener, ma'am.
47:17
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this popcorn cooking tip. I'm surprised I
47:20
Speaker 1: haven't thought of. Oh okay, hey, guys, writing because I
47:23
Speaker 1: want to tell you about my favorite way to cook
47:24
Speaker 1: popcorn and bacon grease.
47:27
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've heard of that.
47:28
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard of it. It's just right there in
47:30
Speaker 1: front of my face too.
47:32
Speaker 2: You got bacon grease in front of your face.
47:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. My aunt taught me her tried and
47:38
Speaker 1: true method for cooking popcorn in the soap top. She
47:40
Speaker 1: puts a spoonful of bacon grease in a skillet, pours
47:42
Speaker 1: a popcorn salt over the grease. Oh boy, plops a
47:45
Speaker 1: couple of kernels in there and heats the whole thing up,
47:47
Speaker 1: And when the grease is the right temperature, those kernels
47:49
Speaker 1: are going to pop and alert you you can start
47:51
Speaker 1: cooking for in the rest of the kernels, cover your
47:53
Speaker 1: skillet and let it pop away. The bacon grease gives
47:55
Speaker 1: a popcorn a little extra flavor. It really makes it
47:58
Speaker 1: even more delicious. You should give it a try sometime.
48:00
Speaker 1: Just don't forget to cover your skillet.
48:02
Speaker 2: Okay.
48:03
Speaker 1: Thanks for all the years of podcasting listening pleasure you
48:06
Speaker 1: provided for me. I wish you both the best. That
48:07
Speaker 1: is from Randy with an Eye.
48:09
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Randy with an Eye. Did Randy sign
48:12
Speaker 2: the eye with a little heart instead of a dot,
48:14
Speaker 2: because I'd be fantastic. Yeah, thanks a lot, Randy. That
48:18
Speaker 2: was a great tip. We appreciate it. I'm quite sure
48:20
Speaker 2: everybody who loves popcorn and bacon that's listening appreciated that.
48:24
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Randy and send us
48:26
Speaker 2: a tip that everybody can appreciate, you can send it
48:29
Speaker 2: off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
48:35
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
48:38
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
48:42
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.