What role does history play in your tradition?

[Gardenia]

Re: What role does history play in your tradition?

I'm not sure exactly where I fall. I guess these days you could say I'm a revivalist who occasionally tends more to reconstructionism in particular areas.

[Torey]

Re: What role does history play in your tradition?

I don't seek to reconstruct or revive past traditions in my path - but I do use what I've learned from the history of Judaism and the Jewish people to a large extent in building upon my beliefs.

[Jera]

Re: What role does history play in your tradition?

I am of Scandinavian descent so I honour the gods of my ancestors, as I feel the greatest affinity to them. As far as practices go, those are mainly sourced from modern writings and a few little made up things of my own. I'm not sure what that makes me?

[loststarshine]

Re: What role does history play in your tradition?

I would say im somewhere in the middle of a reconstruct and revival. I agree one can not completely reconstruct everything the ancients did. However i do continue to learn as much historical fact as i can. I find history in all areas fasinating. The development of written language even more fasinating.

[Louisvillian]

Re: What role does history play in your tradition?

Are you seeking to reconstruct as historically accurate as possible of a religion from an ancient culture in a modern world? (what is commonly called a reconstructionist)

Or, are you seeking to revive the religions of ancient cultures in a modern context, with a nod to history, but without the emphasis of complete historical accuracy? (what I call a revivalist)

Somewhere between these two. I'm eminently aware that I am living in Modernity, and that a historical religion that was intimately tied to a specific culture is difficult to revive or reconstruct while still staying true to the original cultural underpinnings of that religion. Much information is lost, and several practices are balls hard or impossible to perform in modern suburban living.
But while I am going to be worshipping the gods of the ancient Hellenes or the Romans, or the gods of the Britons or the Gaels, I am compelled to do so in a manner that would be recognizable to their ancient worshippers, and in a manner that is as true as I can make it to the historical customs that characterized their worship. It's, in part, my obsessive attention to historical detail and accuracy. But it's also, in part, a sense of respect and reverence towards the gods.
At the same time, you'd be hard-pressed to find a person in the ancient world who worshipped Roman gods in the Roman way, then Greek gods in the Greek way, and Celtic gods and ancestral spirits in the Celtic way, all at the same time and in sequence. I know the ancients got pretty syncretic, but certain things I do are not exactly historically accurate. But I try to do what I can to be respectful to the gods I've chosen to venerate.

[satanic witch]

Re: What role does history play in your tradition?

I don't really try to make my religion historically accurate in really any sense I'm a witch and generally follow my own muse.

[Odahviing]

Re: What role does history play in your tradition?

Exactly what the title says...


Are you seeking to reconstruct as historically accurate as possible of a religion from an ancient culture in a modern world? (what is commonly called a reconstructionist)

Or, are you seeking to revive the religions of ancient cultures in a modern context, with a nod to history, but without the emphasis of complete historical accuracy? (what I call a revivalist)

Or, are you simply inspired by the pantheon and mythology of ancient cultures, but choose to view it in a modern context without much concern for the historical context? (what I, as a sufferer of neolexia, have been calling "inspirationalist")

Or something inbetween, completly different, etc...

To me history is somewhat important. I can't tell you how many times I've stopped reading a book/article because the person writing it has, in my opinion, taken something old and established and just made up something entirely their own with little or no reference to more "scholarly" studies. (Which in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just when one passes it off to others as ultimate truth that I get ticked off.)

But IMO this mostly applies to the practical sides of a tradition. When it comes to the philosophy, mindset or attitude of a historical tradition things get a little more difficult. I'm not sure I agree with the idea that any of these things can be accurately reconstructed. At least not entirely. We are after all not then and there - there is so much that hasn't been recorded for us to study. So when it comes to the ideaology (spelling?) of a tradition I feel like there is a little more room for interpretation.

Still, I like to be as historically correct as I can. I enjoy history anyway and like to study it with triple fact-checking anyhow so I guess it just comes naturally to me to try to be as accurate as possible.