Free Will and Neo-Paganism ( Wicca/Druidism etc)

Post Reply New Topic

I find some aspects of neo-paganism very attractive, principally the interconnectedness of everything which is its foundation, and its use of archetypes/symbols/complex systems of correspondences.

but

I am finding the belief in/assumption of or, even worse, celebration of contra-causal free will which crops up everywhere in discussion of it really difficult to understand. It doesn't seem to make sense.

How can such a belief exist in combination with the belief in the web/weave of everything, in which everything that happens has a cause, and in which the existence of something, anything, outside the system would surely break that total connectedness?

After all the ancient ( pagan) greeks didn't make this mistake, or if they did there were people writing about the disastrous consequences of believing it. In Oedipus for instance the error of thinking that could choose to do anything outside the system was clearly presented.

I think that the very choice, already arising from a multitude of factors beforehand, to do/obtain a "reading", ( of tarot or whatever) , the experience itself, of an analysis of your life based on looking at cards or planetary positions etc, creates/triggers a change in attitude towards the universe which goes on to have its own repercussions.

Witchcraft's/Wicca's/pagan belief in interconnectedness, the understanding that all actions have consequences, and that our every thought, word, and deed can affect other people, seems to make it obvious that we can have an effect on others. We are data in other people's lives with a powerful influence on what they do, even if genes and environment will continue to be the biggest ones.

How could witchcraft work if there were ( contra-causal) free will? That is precisely what can be so frightening about it; the recognition that what we do, what we encourage others to do, what we give others to eat and drink, changes lives.

So AS people, pagan or not, do you have an explanation for this impossible/incomprehensible combination of beliefs? Please!

.

I'm not sure I entirely understood what you said, (it's late, I'm tired) but the problem of providence vs. free will is very clear in Christianity as well. We talked about that considerably in my religion class. Anyway, I don't really understand it. Personally, I believe free will exists, and that everything has a cause. I don't believe in fate or purpose. Just choice and causality.

Right, the issue in Christianity is that not all Christians have the philosophical issue. The issue is mostly found in Arminianism. Calvinism can potentially escape(not that most people who call themselves Calvinists do), with Calvinist Charles Haddon Spurgeon even considering free will a philosophical fallacy. As well, open theists can escape this problem as well by denying the meticulously ordained future.

The issue of free will existing and everything having a cause is that this means that choices have causes, which means that choosers cannot choose otherwise, which is considered a problem with free will. After all, how do you consider it free if there is no ability to do otherwise.

Yes, this is a bit of a problem. I think we have evolved free will. We have free will due to what we are. Our choices become the cause for other things. Although, free will doesn't exist in a vacuum. Things influence our choices. It's a rather confusing issue. I still think about it a lot, by no means have I come to an irrefutable conclusion.

I thought about it this way. Brain chemistry causes you to think and feel in certain ways, right? But cognitive therapy is thinking your way to changing your brain chemistry. If you can think yourself to be different, then thought is the cause and brain chemistry is the effect. This is the greatly simplified version of my musings, as the paper was I think 8 pages long.

The issue with that is that thought changing chemistry does not prove independence of thought. Only that chemistry changes over time as expressed through thought and caused by interaction(such as found with the initial cause of therapy).

Which is why I'm still grappling with the issue.

When I think about it, I make decisions. I make decisions based on things. I choose the Wii over the 360 because I like the games better, I like the controller better, and other things. The Wii did not force me to choose it. The Wii did not cause me to choose it. Factors led me to the decision, but the decision ultimately was mine.

It feels like I have free will. I don't feel like I'm trapped doing things. I kind of hate philosophy for this reason. We can't ever have good, concrete answers like in science.

Rawr, I'm not making sense. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. Free will is a sticky issue.

Nobody is denying that you make decisions, nobody is denying that the decision was yours.


Well, ok, there is no problem with that. I like philosophy because it is very broad, and if you look down to the bare bones, there are clear answers, you just have to be clear enough. Heck, philosophical answers can theoretically be clearer than scientific ones, for there is only logic and no messy empirics.


Somewhat so, it becomes less of one the more you study of it, the same with everything else I'd imagine.

The celebration of/emphasis on "free will" in neo-paganism might actually be something that in the past, for pagans, was exactly what qualified something as dark arts/black magic/destructive practice of "magic", whereas the healing, ( making whole/remaking the balance) and divining arts of old paganism may have involved teaching precisely the understanding that we are all part of the system and however free we feel making our decisions/choices we are a strand being woven by forces already in place. Believing that had power over the system would have been the ultimate mistake/wrong.

Was remembering how after one massive/life-changing enlightenment/illumination/raising of consciousness I thought I was thinking freely, after two I thought that this time I had finally penetrated the mists of illusion, but after three I began to wonder whether in fact all thought is equally deluded/unfree/conditioned. Each time I thought that my thought was free, each time I discovered that it was not.

Maybe the notion of free will is a product of monotheistic religions. Under a dictatorship; necessary for relative mental health.

The emphasis on free will, and "self-improvement/transformation", in much of modern/neo-paganism seems to encourage just such unecessary acts, especially consumption, as go against the ancient rules; don't wizards etc in stories say that the trick is to do as little as is necessary/only what must be done?

.

Last edited by ouinon on 26 Jul 2008, 11:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Which witch is which? topic

Wicca and neo-paganism are now two separate beliefs, though they have shared roots. What attracted me to Wicca as a teen was that I could manipulate a number of herbs and spices in order to have power over someone/something else. I did not like the group atmosphere; I have always preferred religion to be a solitary effort.

To me, 'religion' is a world view I hold incorporating ideas about how to live well and justly with my fellow humans, involving sometimes evolving notions of ethics and morals. Therefore it is not static, and resembles humanism. There is no worship involved and it is very private/personal.

I don't accept the word "neo-paganism". We either honour our traditional religion, or do not.
By the way, could anyone be so kind to tell me what is "Wicca"?

Neo-paganism; word for the modern blends of "the old religion" with christianity and other more recent spiritual or psychological developments, or any paganism revived after an interruption.

There are very few if any "pagans" practising what their ancestors did, either because coloured/transformed by later belief systems, or because it is difficult in most cases even to know what the ancestors did because Christianity and other religious and political movements so thoroughly wiped out the traces, burning, demolishing, etc in order to erase the practices. Thus unless you one of the unusual/rare few whose pagan religion has been practised uninterrupted until very recently it is virtually impossible to know if what you are honouring is in fact what your ancestors practised.


A good basic overview can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca

There are several Wikipedia pages looking at pagan/neo-pagan religions, including the issue of why most modern paganism is most accurately termed neo-paganism.

.