I'm giving a presentation on Paganism next week and I have been desperately trying to work out what to say. So I started of with the simple idea of 'What's a Pagan?'. Simple huh? But then a distant echo of my childhood sounded and I remembered watching Fraggle Rock and Junior Gorg asking 'Daaad? What's a Fraaaaggle?'. So then I had my title sounding in my head as 'What's a Paaaaagan?'.
So. What exactly is a Pagan? Im supposed to give a 25 minute presentation on Paganism and when I asked what kind of thing they were looking for I was told to say 'what Pagans believe in'. Herein lies the first challenge. Pagans are a very diverse set of people. They have similar core roots BUT there are some pretty big differences in how they practice. So how do I cover enough to get a flavour of Paganism without diluting what Paganism is for so many people? The other thing I was asked to talk about what how it might effect dealing with Pagans as employees and as Service Users. There lies the second challenge. If Paganism is so diverse, how can I in less than half an hour convey some guidelines for working with Pagans? This is why I am less than a week away from giving this presentation and still floundering around a fair bit.
But! I have a plan! Or at the very least an outline. Im going to emphasise that Paganism is about a person's own personal spiritual path which is guided by a framework of beliefs. And then give a 2 minute brief intro to the main branches of Pagan. That will be the first 10 minutes taken up :) Add in a bit about the Wheel of the Year and then basically say that they should talk to the Pagan and not make assumptions and suddenly my talk is done! Then brace myself for the Q&A session. I may throw in some of the common myths about Paganism and debunk them BEFORE I get asked the questions about nudity and sacrificing people - and yes I have had those questions in the past.
Doing this talk has really highlighted to me how difficult it can be to get a handle on Paganism. Its no wonder that people who don't practice it get confused. With so many contrasting ideas about Paganism is, its no really surprise that people get the wrong end of the stick (or in some cases, wrong end of the tree!). Yes, the Media don't help with some of their portrayals of Pagans but Paganism itself is so diverse it can throw other religions that we dont always agree on our fundamental beliefs. For example, a Christian (Im using this as an example because it is in the society I grew up with) follows the teachings of Christ. It doesn't matter how they practice their beliefs but they all follow the teachings of Christ. Two Pagans can follow completely different teachings but they are both Pagans. When someone says they are a Christian, you have pretty good idea of what they believe in. When someone says they are Pagan this might not be the case not just because you might not know what Paganism is but because they might practice a different branch to the Paganism you might have learned about.
This, I believe, to be one of the greatest barriers to understanding there is - the expectation that the name of your religion will automatically imply your beliefs. To help people understand Paganism, I first have to change that expectation. And Im sure you can understand that changing a person's expectations based on a lifetime of learning can be a very difficult task. Am I able to sum up all Pagans into a single sentence? No. And this is where Pagans run into trouble. We need a dialogue to be able to communicate our beliefs and building a dialogue is very tricky with people who want a quick explanation before heading for the free lunch.
To return to Fraggle Rock for a moment. Anyone remember Gobo's Uncle Travelling Matt? He would go out into the human world to explore. In many ways the misunderstandings Uncle Matt had about humans is very similar to the misunderstandings that people hold about Pagans. Our way of practicing can be seen as so alien because we work from a different base. As humans watching we could recognise what the humans Uncle Matt talked about were doing but the conclusions Matt came to were, to us, ridiculous because we knew what it really meant. The same holds true for Paganism. Pagans often look at the conclusion drawn about our beliefs with bemusement at how a simple act from our point of view can be interpreted so strangely by others. This in itself creates barriers. So I sort of see myself as a version of Uncle Travelling Matt. I walk among other faiths and try to explain my own while exploring ways to find similarities between them. Time to heft my pack again!
And for the record, my favourite Fraggle was Red.
So. What exactly is a Pagan? Im supposed to give a 25 minute presentation on Paganism and when I asked what kind of thing they were looking for I was told to say 'what Pagans believe in'. Herein lies the first challenge. Pagans are a very diverse set of people. They have similar core roots BUT there are some pretty big differences in how they practice. So how do I cover enough to get a flavour of Paganism without diluting what Paganism is for so many people? The other thing I was asked to talk about what how it might effect dealing with Pagans as employees and as Service Users. There lies the second challenge. If Paganism is so diverse, how can I in less than half an hour convey some guidelines for working with Pagans? This is why I am less than a week away from giving this presentation and still floundering around a fair bit.
But! I have a plan! Or at the very least an outline. Im going to emphasise that Paganism is about a person's own personal spiritual path which is guided by a framework of beliefs. And then give a 2 minute brief intro to the main branches of Pagan. That will be the first 10 minutes taken up :) Add in a bit about the Wheel of the Year and then basically say that they should talk to the Pagan and not make assumptions and suddenly my talk is done! Then brace myself for the Q&A session. I may throw in some of the common myths about Paganism and debunk them BEFORE I get asked the questions about nudity and sacrificing people - and yes I have had those questions in the past.
Doing this talk has really highlighted to me how difficult it can be to get a handle on Paganism. Its no wonder that people who don't practice it get confused. With so many contrasting ideas about Paganism is, its no really surprise that people get the wrong end of the stick (or in some cases, wrong end of the tree!). Yes, the Media don't help with some of their portrayals of Pagans but Paganism itself is so diverse it can throw other religions that we dont always agree on our fundamental beliefs. For example, a Christian (Im using this as an example because it is in the society I grew up with) follows the teachings of Christ. It doesn't matter how they practice their beliefs but they all follow the teachings of Christ. Two Pagans can follow completely different teachings but they are both Pagans. When someone says they are a Christian, you have pretty good idea of what they believe in. When someone says they are Pagan this might not be the case not just because you might not know what Paganism is but because they might practice a different branch to the Paganism you might have learned about.
This, I believe, to be one of the greatest barriers to understanding there is - the expectation that the name of your religion will automatically imply your beliefs. To help people understand Paganism, I first have to change that expectation. And Im sure you can understand that changing a person's expectations based on a lifetime of learning can be a very difficult task. Am I able to sum up all Pagans into a single sentence? No. And this is where Pagans run into trouble. We need a dialogue to be able to communicate our beliefs and building a dialogue is very tricky with people who want a quick explanation before heading for the free lunch.
To return to Fraggle Rock for a moment. Anyone remember Gobo's Uncle Travelling Matt? He would go out into the human world to explore. In many ways the misunderstandings Uncle Matt had about humans is very similar to the misunderstandings that people hold about Pagans. Our way of practicing can be seen as so alien because we work from a different base. As humans watching we could recognise what the humans Uncle Matt talked about were doing but the conclusions Matt came to were, to us, ridiculous because we knew what it really meant. The same holds true for Paganism. Pagans often look at the conclusion drawn about our beliefs with bemusement at how a simple act from our point of view can be interpreted so strangely by others. This in itself creates barriers. So I sort of see myself as a version of Uncle Travelling Matt. I walk among other faiths and try to explain my own while exploring ways to find similarities between them. Time to heft my pack again!
And for the record, my favourite Fraggle was Red.
1 comments:
A very interesting post. I like the line " one of the greatest barriers to understanding there is - the expectation that the name of your religion will automatically imply your beliefs" So true.
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