characterized Contemporary Paganism as part of an Enlightenment legacy which prizes premodern wisdom as a critique of modern life.[1] The Enlightenment legacy of experimentation is certainly a prominent element of Contemporary Paganisms, particularly the ubiquitous use of 'otherness' as a creative tension which empowers spiritual practices and reenchantment.[2] Indeed, Eilberg-Schwartz acknowledges that Pagan identity formation is 'firmly rooted in the Enlightenment tradition that seeks to deny the differences between various antitypes and ourselves.’[3]
Given this, he sees the attempts of Pagans to valorize their
premodern heritage as a way of 'dismantling otherness'.[4] For example,
Eilberg-Schwartz sees the deliberate adoption of antitypes by Pagans − for
example, the appropriation of the negative term 'witch' by Wiccans, or the
adoption of 'druid' − as a way of dismantling difference.[5] For the MGM,
ritual involves the dismantling of gender differences alongside the
dismantling of normative constructions of modern masculinity. EilbergSchwartz contends that:
The dismantling of such differences is often accompanied by a concomitant process of interiorization, by which the differences that previously marked us off from our antitypes are now treated as differences within ourselves. The traits of the other may be interiorized as characteristics of our psyche or as aspects of our own cultural, social, and religious practices.
The neopagan desire to use the designation Witch is an example of this modern process of rehabilitating and interiorizing our antitypes. Witches are no longer outside Western civilization but members of it. They have the same professions and the same human needs as other members of our society. The witch is among ‘us’ just like the Jew, the black, and the woman.[6]
It is in this way that the masculine antitype (goddesses) is interiorized into the profane psyches of practitioners. The socially marginalized female
becomes the central motif in the spiritual life of these men and ritual
- ↑ Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, ‘Witches of the West: Neopaganism and Goddess Worship as Enlightenment Religions’ in Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5:1 (1989), 77-95.
- ↑ See Dave Green, ‘Opposites Attract: Magical Identity and Social Uncertainty’ in Journal for the Academic Study of Magic 1 (2003), 75-101.
- ↑ Eilberg-Schwartz, ‘Witches of the West’, 85.
- ↑ Adrian Ivakhiv, ‘The Resurgence of Magical Religion as a Response to the Crisis of Modernity: A Postmodern Depth Psychological Perspective’ in James R. Lewis (ed.), Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press 1996, 237-65, 239-40.
- ↑ Eilberg-Schwartz, ‘Witches of the West’.
- ↑ Ibid, 85.
