Distinction between fake info and truth

[Wise Owl]

I've seen hundreds of things related to Paganism and some of them are not based on any historical evidence but rather a lie being spread around and slowly becoming accepted as the truth. I have a feeling that the desire to review pagan practices into some neopaganism pushed people into thinking how things probably happened in the past without proof and then spreading their ideas around.

One of the common things I see is related to Druidry. We know so little about them and even that is known from Julius Cesar who described them in negative light.
How can one distinguish reality from a common misconception?

 

[SkullTraill]

Read more, hone your bullshit senses, and decide for yourself if something is BS. It's true, the occult, like many other fields is riddles with bullshit and fake guru info designed to sell you something (or literally just rot your brain). The only way to gain a sense of what's real and what's shit is to spend more time reading the literature (ideally the more authoritative ones - but again it's hard to tell at first).

You gotta sort though garbage to get good at sorting through garbage.

I have to say, if you ask for book recommendations on WF, or check someones recommended reading list, you're much less likely to find bullshit pedalled here on WF than a random discord or subreddit, let's say.

 

[Wise Owl]

Read more, hone your bullshit senses, and decide for yourself if something is BS. It's true, the occult, like many other fields is riddles with bullshit and fake guru info designed to sell you something (or literally just rot your brain). The only way to gain a sense of what's real and what's shit is to spend more time reading the literature (ideally the more authoritative ones - but again it's hard to tell at first).

You gotta sort though garbage to get good at sorting through garbage.

I have to say, if you ask for book recommendations on WF, or check someones recommended reading list, you're much less likely to find bullshit pedalled here on WF than a random discord or subreddit, let's say.

Thanks for the reply. I recently started reading a book "The Green Witch's Guide to Herbal Magick A Handbook of - Annabel Margaret" and so far it seems okay, but I don't know how good it actually is in terms of validity.

 

[HoldAll]

Here is a

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from the website of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, and I quote:

"Celtic Reconstuctionism: this is the attempt to use archaeological data, records of the time and known history in order to reconstruct ancient Celtic beliefs and practices, to be followed as a religion or spirituality today. This practitioner wishes to resurrect ancient Celtic religion.
Celtic Revivalism: this is an attempt to practise a Celtic religion or spirituality within the context of the modern world, often cherry-picking the ‘best bits’ of ancient belief and merging it with traditions that are not Celtic. This practitioner wishes to embrace the (perceived) spirit of ancient Celtic religion."

It's all relative, of course. As far as ancient Greece is concerned, the textual and archeological evidence is of course incomperably better than in the case of the druids but I read somewhere that the common folk in ancient Greece had a superstitious fear of, not awe or admiration for, all those noble gods so gloriously described by Homer, the ancient Greek philosophers, playwrights and poets. And for that matter, how exactly did the early Christian worship when the Bible was not even compiled or widely disseminated yet? We just don't know. Religions are a man-made thing, and that becomes even more obvious as soon as people turn their back on firmly codified monotheism and call themselves '(Neo)Pagans' - they believe what they want to believe. Karma? Like the idea, into NeoPaganism it goes. Reincarnation? Cool, let's throw it into the mix as well! Dress up in robes made out of fabrics that weren't even available in ancient 'barbarian' lands at that time? Love it, after all, that more authentic coarse wool feels so scratchy on the skin... and not even chieftains then would have been able to afford all that shiny jewelry.

I think that thanks to the internet, you cannot base a successful religion or cult on fake historical evidence anymore. Up to the 1980ies or so, every book on Wicca typically contained tearful description of those terrible Burning Times

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as inaccurate or even mythical; however, the readers of those books sat alone in their rooms fuming at the atrocious injustice of it all while the academics on their part published their findings in specialized journal, without those two groups ever coming into contact with each other. Nowadays you can look up anybody's historical claims with a few minutes of googling, and the only strategy left to cult leaders or NewAge authors now is to claim 'privileged information' through (unverifiable) personal revelation. There are still deluded innocents who'll go along with this because as I said: people will believe what they want to believe.

 

[Wise Owl]

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I think I read about this before however they speak their view on it. They didn't provide any evidence for it, just stated that. I am not disputing what is written because it is a common logic that most likely it was like that. I was thinking more of a real evidence, some articles (studies) on this. I can make a blog and write the same way they did. Just saying.

It's all relative, of course. As far as ancient Greece is concerned, the textual and archeological evidence is of course incomperably better than in the case of the druids but I read somewhere that the common folk in ancient Greece had a superstitious fear of, not awe or admiration for, all those noble gods so gloriously described by Homer, the ancient Greek philosophers, playwrights and poets. And for that matter, how exactly did the early Christian worship when the Bible was not even compiled or widely disseminated yet? We just don't know. Religions are a man-made thing, and that becomes even more obvious as soon as people turn their back on firmly codified monotheism and call themselves '(Neo)Pagans' - they believe what they want to believe. Karma? Like the idea, into NeoPaganism it goes. Reincarnation? Cool, let's throw it into the mix as well! Dress up in robes made out of fabrics that weren't even available in ancient 'barbarian' lands at that time? Love it, after all, that more authentic coarse wool feels so scratchy on the skin... and not even chieftains then would have been able to afford all that shiny jewelry.

This is so well written. I love this.