Hi guest! As you can see, the new Wizard Forums has been revived, and we are glad to have you visiting our site! However, it would be really helpful, both to you and us, if you registered on our website! Registering allows you to see all posts, and make posts yourself, which would be great if you could share your knowledge and opinions with us! You could also make posts to ask questions!
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
We know absolutely nothing about the Druids that were in the UK before the Romans waded ashore & assumed the freehold in the 1st Century AD. Nada, zip, zilch - nothing at all - because as far as we are aware they did not write anything down. Whether or not this is because it was forbidden or because their libraries did not survive the Roman invasion is unknown, and never will be known because the Romans wiped them out with extreme prejudice wherever they came across them. No writings or Druids survived the Roman pogrom.
Basically, any book, article or personb who tries to tell you what Druids did, believed or represented is feeding you conjecture wrapped up as information.
We know absolutely nothing about the Druids that were in the UK before the Romans waded ashore & assumed the freehold in the 1st Century AD. Nada, zip, zilch - nothing at all - because as far as we are aware they did not write anything down. Whether or not this is because it was forbidden or because their libraries did not survive the Roman invasion is unknown, and never will be known because the Romans wiped them out with extreme prejudice wherever they came across them. No writings or Druids survived the Roman pogrom.
Basically, any book, article or personb who tries to tell you what Druids did, believed or represented is feeding you conjecture wrapped up as information.
This. But some things survived in tales like of King Arthur and similar folk stories. It is the same with germanic and norse paganism. Almost nothing of the original survived. Except what christcuck scholars in the dark ages wrote up and what romans found interesring to write down.
But with norse paganism I can tell you, and it's what I do, is to reverse engineer the vedas. The vedas came from indo aryans in the Ural mountains/ baikal area. Which in turn are descendants of Hyperboreans from the north. These indo aryans are the ones that settled in Mesopotamia and northern europe.
The vedas is unaltered, unedited for at least 4000 years. It is forbidden to even translate it into modern sanskrit, so brahmin have to learn the original sanskrit. Which leads to interesting things like that old sanskrit had terms for things that can not be made sense of today. Like weapons that use water or earth. But that aren't bows or similar. But I digress
The rigveda especially has many parallels to what survived in folk tales and culture of the norse and was even written down in the prose eddas. Some rituals are exactly what we do today still. Even the aspect of cows. With odin having been nursed by a cow. Exactly the same with the Absolute in the Vedas.
The norse creation myst is the exact same as the sumer one. (A god dying and being made into the earth. Humans made out of nature materials and infused with the language of gods)
And the same as one of the Hindu ones. The hindu have multiple creation myths for some reason Though.
And with this you can reverse engineer what norse paganism was like. It's the only thing you can do and build upon it.
Norse had mudra, yantra and tantra like hindu have. Norse have the same aspect of sun worship as hindu have. Both have same patterns of words and terms in their language. Like the term Arya, which denotes lightness or enlightenment, and also white. which is attributed to gods or people that climb high.
In german today still the word "weiß" denotes both the colour white or light and an adjective, where "weise" means "sage" or "well knowing" And "wissen" means knowledge. All these have as root "Weiß". just like in sanskrit.
Celtic or welsh follows a similar pattern however.
As it is believed that Hyperboreans also settled in Albion and hibernia. Modern day britain and eire.
Also needless to mention how runes behave similar like sumer cuneiform and old sanskrit glyphs. Sanskrit has this hanging line on which the letters are drawn from. Runes and cuneiform just have them above and below or next to them, as to box them in. And letters and phrases have multiple meanings that follow a similar patterns.
Best way is to either use whatever occult means to figure out actual paganism or to reverse engineer hinduism and connect them with sumer and Aryan teachings.
My conclusion is that the available information on most traditions is lacking. But since we are dealing with human nature and not just culture (we all have minds, energy meridians (measured electrically), and electric and magnetic fields that influence the psyche, among other things). If you are into Carl Jung, there are archetypes and symbols that transcend culture, even if the latter results in variations on the archetype themes (like the hero's journey expressed in many myths).
Taoism emphasizes energy work. Hinduism emphasizes states of consciousness. Cabala emphasizes contemplation and the power of letters and numbers etc. Some act like there is a taboo against cultural synthesis (it is not appropriation), but ancient peoples have always accepted influences from neighbors. China and India were not isolated from each other, and Tibetan practices incorporate both types of practices, and that is just a prominent example.
If we are too rigid in demands for historical purism, there is not much that can be practiced. Combine this with the notion that resists the option of improving or adapting traditional knowledge to modern sensibilities, both practice and knowledge are stuck in boxes. The problem in my opinion is that eclectic synthesis is done superficially and even frivolously by too many who want quick fixes or a quick paycheck, without much study. If you want to reverse engineer something, you at least need to know what you are reverse engineering. That's not something to be done so easily.
My answer is relatively mundane but: honing in on discernment, critical thinking skills, and always checking the citations. Listen to accredited scholars on historical, scientific, and medical topics. Be weary of absolutes and claims of long lost lineages. It's not uncommon in paganism for the "facts" to be just another person's magical theory. There's something to be said about how easy it is to misconstrue that information in magical spaces all for the sake of the cool factor.
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?
Hello.
Strangely, too much information is worse than too little. And if you consider that artificial intelligence will soon be releasing dozens of such books a day, then this is a real problem. Only practice will help. For example, you intuitively liked the ritual, you performed it and looked at whether there was a result. I don't see any other way out.
And don’t trust all sorts of “gurus”, of which there have become an incredible number in recent years.
This. But some things survived in tales like of King Arthur and similar folk stories. It is the same with germanic and norse paganism. Almost nothing of the original survived. Except what christcuck scholars in the dark ages wrote up and what romans found interesring to write down.
But with norse paganism I can tell you, and it's what I do, is to reverse engineer the vedas. The vedas came from indo aryans in the Ural mountains/ baikal area. Which in turn are descendants of Hyperboreans from the north. These indo aryans are the ones that settled in Mesopotamia and northern europe.
The vedas is unaltered, unedited for at least 4000 years. It is forbidden to even translate it into modern sanskrit, so brahmin have to learn the original sanskrit. Which leads to interesting things like that old sanskrit had terms for things that can not be made sense of today. Like weapons that use water or earth. But that aren't bows or similar. But I digress
The rigveda especially has many parallels to what survived in folk tales and culture of the norse and was even written down in the prose eddas. Some rituals are exactly what we do today still. Even the aspect of cows. With odin having been nursed by a cow. Exactly the same with the Absolute in the Vedas.
The norse creation myst is the exact same as the sumer one. (A god dying and being made into the earth. Humans made out of nature materials and infused with the language of gods)
And the same as one of the Hindu ones. The hindu have multiple creation myths for some reason Though.
And with this you can reverse engineer what norse paganism was like. It's the only thing you can do and build upon it.
Norse had mudra, yantra and tantra like hindu have. Norse have the same aspect of sun worship as hindu have. Both have same patterns of words and terms in their language. Like the term Arya, which denotes lightness or enlightenment, and also white. which is attributed to gods or people that climb high.
In german today still the word "weiß" denotes both the colour white or light and an adjective, where "weise" means "sage" or "well knowing" And "wissen" means knowledge. All these have as root "Weiß". just like in sanskrit.
Celtic or welsh follows a similar pattern however.
As it is believed that Hyperboreans also settled in Albion and hibernia. Modern day britain and eire.
Also needless to mention how runes behave similar like sumer cuneiform and old sanskrit glyphs. Sanskrit has this hanging line on which the letters are drawn from. Runes and cuneiform just have them above and below or next to them, as to box them in. And letters and phrases have multiple meanings that follow a similar patterns.
Best way is to either use whatever occult means to figure out actual paganism or to reverse engineer hinduism and connect them with sumer and Aryan teachings.
A couple of things immediately leap to mind here, specifically the reality iof the Ancient Sanskrit writings.
There is a book that translates into English as 'Aeronautics', and it is all about Vimana.
Would you say that Vimana were a fact or a fiction, please?
A couple of things immediately leap to mind here, specifically the reality iof the Ancient Sanskrit writings.
There is a book that translates into English as 'Aeronautics', and it is all about Vimana.
Would you say that Vimana were a fact or a fiction, please?
You can choose to believe what reputable sources have to say about this phenomenon or join those who believe that those ancient aircraft were real. I for one harbour an aversion to be deceived by any kind of mythologizing and glorifying the ancients which isn't based on solid scholarly and scientific evidence - which doesn't mean I'm any better, more intelligent or special than the believers, mind you. Maybe it's because I read Erich von Dänikens "Chariot of the Gods?" (which was a stunning revelation and made me an ancient astronauts enthusiast for a while) when I was 13 but was gravely frustrated later on when I found out it was all far-fetched humbug. I hate to be disappointed and being lied to, and I'm rather pleased when such outrageous claims are debunked - it's an emotional choice.
A study by aeronautical and mechanical engineering researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1974 concluded that the aircraft described in the text were "poor concoctions" and that the author showed a complete lack of understanding of aeronautics. Regarding the "Rukma Vimana", the study noted, "If the craft is taken to mean what the drawing and the text say, it can be stated that the craft is a decided impossibility" (Wikipedia)
On the other hand, the counterclaim that hitherto unknown mysterious forces were at work here reminds me of that von Däniken baloney I read as a teenager, so I'll always (rather gleefully, I admit) believe the mainstream science debunkers. It's just who I am. I hate rude awakenings, therefore I refuse to dream the blatantly impossible, as far as outlandish theories regarding physical phenomena are concerned. Like I said, it's an emotional choice, and in my opinion that also applies to allegedly sober materialists - they like being materialists, scientific debunking is also fun, not just a stone-cold exercise in reason and common sense, just as pointing out flaws in nonsensical claims and unmasking frauds carries a strong flavour of sadism and schadenfreude.
Personally, I don't feel drawn to any chariots of the gods, I'd rather join those who'll endeavour to shoot them down...
A couple of things immediately leap to mind here, specifically the reality iof the Ancient Sanskrit writings.
There is a book that translates into English as 'Aeronautics', and it is all about Vimana.
Would you say that Vimana were a fact or a fiction, please?
Fact. The vedas also speak of the planets on which the gods live and describes their characteristics. It also mentions how many beings are in the universe that can be inhabited by the soul. You probably know how the vedas also describes weapons of fire, people associate them with like nuclear weapons. But the vedas also mentions weapons of earth and wind. That can likewise not properly be translated.
At some point people must have known this and forgot it. Similar to roman concrete or shipnails that never rust.
Even in modern Italy, they want to dig a metro extension and uncover an entire amphitheatre buried 5m in the ground. A massive one too. At some point everyone know that there was this massive building. But then they forgot. Likewise humans knew of many other things and simply forgot. That's just how it is.
According to mayan and vedic cosmology we are the 5th race currently on earth. There were 4 others before us. Perhaps they also were at a similar technological level as we are now. But got destroyed or destroyed themselves.
'Yada yada hi dharmasya glanirbhavati bharata
Abhythanamadharmasya tadatmanam srijamyaham'
'Paritranaya sadhunang vinashay cha dushkritam
Dharmasangsthapanarthay sambhabami yuge yuge'
"Whenever there is dwindling of dharma, O Bharata,
And there is exaltation of adharma then I manifest myself into existence"
"For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers,
For the sake of firmly establishing dharma, I am born from age to age."
The Absolute in the form of Krsna told us this.
Post automatically merged:
"Science" calls this the great filter.
Whether or not that the gods literally come down to earth to reinstate dharma or that whatever happens and we destroy ourselves doesn't matter. The result is the same. Whatever you are more comfortable to believe in.
Krsna also said that it doesn't matter how you see it (the Absolute). Either personal or unpersonal. As a figure or force. It is both and neither. Some worship its unmanifest form (science, physics etc) some worship its manifest form (Krsna, Vishnu etc). And this is ok and it doesn't matter which one you worhsip. The absolute comes to you in whatever form you need it.
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....
How can one distinguish reality from a common misconception?
Today's versions of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions have changed over time or branched out into things that look very different from their originals. Are they still authentic? If you think they're no longer valid, you can make your own version and start collecting adherents. The only obstacle is the other people who say your new version isn't as good as their old one. Well if you're into Druidism, you're in luck because they've all been dead for centuries and can't complain. Once you make a million dollars and have some real estate, you're on the board as far as religions go.
Fact. The vedas also speak of the planets on which the gods live and describes their characteristics. It also mentions how many beings are in the universe that can be inhabited by the soul. You probably know how the vedas also describes weapons of fire, people associate them with like nuclear weapons. But the vedas also mentions weapons of earth and wind. That can likewise not properly be translated.
So the 1851 translation stating 'it was an iron projectile with the brightness of 10,000 suns' followed by a description of people desperately trying to wash the stuff off them before it killed them by making all their hair fall out is incorrect?
Or the description of the Indraastra that is eerily reminiscent of a multiple warhead system is a myth?
Why is it so hard to believe that given the incredible age of Humanity - at least 250,000 years - with the same size brain we have now had never before climbed technology's perilous ladder before 5,000 years ago? Personally I find that harder to accept than ancient Indian Nukes, especially given the state of Mojendo Daro and some of the other city ruins in the Indus Valley, coupled with building technology in stone thousands of years ago we still cannot reproduce nowadays?
Fascinating.
So the 1851 translation stating 'it was an iron projectile with the brightness of 10,000 suns' followed by a description of people desperately trying to wash the stuff off them before it killed them by making all their hair fall out is incorrect?
Or the description of the Indraastra that is eerily reminiscent of a multiple warhead system is a myth?
Why is it so hard to believe that given the incredible age of Humanity - at least 250,000 years - with the same size brain we have now had never before climbed technology's perilous ladder before 5,000 years ago? Personally I find that harder to accept than ancient Indian Nukes, especially given the state of Mojendo Daro and some of the other city ruins in the Indus Valley, coupled with building technology in stone thousands of years ago we still cannot reproduce nowadays?
Fascinating.
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
“Pagan religion” is just local variations of customs and practices. it’s all variation of popular techniques and imagery in regions.
Pagan religion as you know it doesn’t exist, it’s never been uniform, it’s never been universal. That is organize religion.
Connect to the currents and channel what you need for your goals and create as needed.
