/lit/ - Literature

[Traditionfag No.15886474]

How the fuck do I convert to paganism? There's not a single pagan in the island I'm living in.

What should I do?

[Anonymous No.15886487]

>>15886474
Start with the greeks.

[Anonymous No.15886503]

paganism is a dead religion, you can't "convert" to it. You can become a NEOPAGAN however, and this amounts to reading the Eddas and lifting weights. There are books trying to create a more formlized neopagan worldview, such as "asatru" by stephen mcnallen.

imo to get a more sincere worldview than explicit neopaganism is simply mixing nietzscheanism with theosophy, new age concepts and maybe spinoza.

[Anonymous No.15886523]

>>15886474
He loves you.

[Anonymous No.15886537]

just start doing shit in a forest

like

anything

but a lot of times.

[Anonymous No.15886545]

>>15886474
Read the Bible and become Catholic instead.

[Anonymous No.15886552]

>>15886474
>What should I do?
Grow up

[Anonymous No.15886558]

>>15886545
basically this

[Traditionfag No.15886573]

>>15886545
Modern Catholicism is cringe.

[Anonymous No.15886575]

>>15886474
Do shrooms. A lot of them. Spend time in the woods and in nature as well. Also embrace Jesus Christ like all the other people are saying.

[Anonymous No.15886637]

>>15886474
Non-monotheism is syncretic. There is no 'paganism' to be converted to in a relation of exclusivity between faith and faithful. Furthermore, when people talk about converting to paganism they are applying concepts from monotheism to yet another product of monotheism, paganism, the religion monotheism opposes as monotheism defines it. Pagan is sometimes translated as 'rural,' but had roughly the same meaning as 'civilian,' and in either case was used as a slur by self-proclaimed soldiers of the heavenly kingdom of God the Father as championed by Jesus Christ. In that sense, the Taiping rebellion in China is the closest interpretation of Christianity since Christ. The people who were not part of the revolution towards heaven over earth were not to be respected in their bodies and ways. The pagan, as viewed by the monotheist, is a chthonic demon worshipper who idolizes debauched false gods. You need to reframe your entire question of conversion if you are genuinely interested in what the Hellenes, Norsemen, Egyptians, Indians etc believed about the world as opposed to what the monotheistic umwelt framed them as.

[Anonymous No.15886644]

>>15886474
Just convert to any Abrahamic religions, they're not different from pagan ones in any meaningful way.

[Anonymous No.15886670]

>>15886637
>The pagan, as viewed by the monotheist, is a chthonic demon worshipper who idolizes debauched false gods.
Two points:
a) This view is objectively correct.
b) This is the pagan view of his own religion too.

This is why it's so very easy for pagans to convert to Christianity; the pagans are looking for a way out of their lifestyle, they don't really want it by choice.

[Anonymous No.15886672]

>>15886503
You can drop the Nietzcheanism, theosophy, and new age concepts, but Spinoza was expelled from the synagogue for a reason. What he taught was antithetical to Abrahamic monotheism. And what is antithetical to Abrahamic monotheism is quite simply, in their own words, paganism. The idea that all of Nature is one divine substance with non-dual modes of expression is more at home with Plotinus than Moses

[Anonymous No.15886714]

>>15886670
Choice is an interesting word when mobs backed by municipal authorities are smashing your statues, burning your temples, chopping down groves, raising your taxes, etc. And after the Vandals sack Rome, Augustine is so rustled by pagan grumbling that Christianity is to blame that he writes a thousand page book attempting to refute the reactionaries. The gods of polytheism provided an order to reality just as the god of monotheism is said to. The idea that they were less than gods to their believers is the product of monotheistic aniconism

[Anonymous No.15886715]

Just run around the woods, grow out your hair, listen to a lot of black metal (only trve kvlt stuff, not cringe Dimmu Borgir shit) and make sure to tell everyone you know that you're a pagan.

Once you've got that out of your system and have discovered that it isn't going to give you the authentic spirituality you felt was lacking in the modern era, find your local Orthodox Church and take up your cross in the struggle for holiness.

[Anonymous No.15886719]

>>15886670
>objectively correct

[Anonymous No.15886722]

Paganism isn't something you convert to. It's either a part of your culture or you are a cucked mutt, in which case you are fucked either way. Paganism as a faith is very open to syncreticism anyway, meaning that you can convert to an actual organized religion (paganism never was and never can be) and keep your pagan traditions, worldview and rituals. Just don't fall for the neopagan memes and actualy start reading about actual paganism

[Anonymous No.15886726]

>>15886715
Why would the local Ukrainian immigrants or whoever want to deal with an influx of protestantized ex-Catholics who hate the pope?

[Anonymous No.15886728]

>>15886474

Me. Di. Tate. On whatever deities you feel fit you best.

[Anonymous No.15886753]

>>15886726
why not? It ultimately makes them stronger to have more like-minded people involved with their in-group.

[Anonymous No.15886763]

>>15886726
Christianity is by design inclusive, so unless it's one of those ethnic club parishes it's literally their purpose to attract new followers

[Anonymous No.15886772]

>>15886722
Neopaganism is typical modernist nonsense where a trip to the museum is turned into an ideology passing itself off as a culture. The beliefs of ancient pre-Christian peoples varied widely over both space and time and to pick a particular band of history where we have the most evidence for the sake of reconstructing a text-based confessional hyperprotestantism (protestantism without reference to protestantism) is no different than curating an exhibit. Without any sort of spiritual experience or feeling, there is nothing to it. This is not unique to neopagans, the crusader kings Catholics do this too

[Anonymous No.15886790]

>>15886726
They don't, which is why Orthodox churches don't proselytize in America, think that Seraphim Rose was a gay methhead whose works should have been burnt, and are desperately trying to keep the OCA away from as much of their countries as they can.

[Anonymous No.15886791]

>>15886753
>>15886763
Why Orthodoxy? Are the doctrines preferred? The liturgy? The icons? Can't just be 'this church is based and redpilled,' that's not really part of soteriology unless you are some pop-ubermensch sociopath

[Anonymous No.15886806]

>>15886790
Right, an actually healthy community would have gatekeeping leadership that seeks to avoid grifters. People who want to become Orthodox so they can put it on their Twitter bio should be sniffed out and avoided by congregational leadership

[Anonymous No.15886889]

read up on paganism and start believing in it, or believe in your belief in it. there's videos of varg archived on youtube, and his books are still available.

[Anonymous No.15886976]

First, understand that the word "pagan" is a christian term that is often used in a negative way. You should view "pagan" beliefes as traditional beliefes, beliefes of your ancestors or just people who once lived on the land you now occupy.
Traditional beliefes unlike pure abrahamic religions don't deal with what comes after you die as much as they deal what is happening during your lifetime. Meaning if you're interested in afterlife more than what is happening to you why you're alive then stick to Christianity or any other abrahamic religion. Afterlife does exist in many traditional religions, but it's often metaphorical, and very underdeveloped. Of course, lack of info on afterlife in traditional religions can partly be blamed on the fact that we don't have that much info on these religions overall.
Another important thing is that Gods in traditional religions are not actually anthropomorphic. They're only anthropomorphic in mythology, and mythology is a way to preserve tradition, it's not literal. Children learn traditions through mythology, and when they grow up they understand the metaphorical, non-literal meaning of myths. Gods in traditional religions are
processes. For example, let's simplify the position of Zeus in Greek mythology to being just the God of Thunder. He wasn't some guy literally sitting on the Olympus and sending thunder to Earth. He was the thunder itself. Same with war. As the God of war, Ares was the war itself.
The difference between morality in traditional religions and in abrahamic religions is that in abrahamic religions you must follow certain morals to achieve a certain blissfull position in the afterlife, go to Heaven. Morals in traditional beliefes were more obviously of a practical use and not following every moral value wasn't as big of a deal as it is in abrahamic religions. For example in sumerian afterlife Kur people were not punished, but it wasn't a very nice place either.
Another very important aspect of traditional religions is the cult of ancestors. Tradition was a way to honor them, to appease their spirits.
Abrahamic religions often share some ideas with traditional religions since they were obviously influenced by them in many ways. Slavic orthodoxy in common life is highly influenced by traditional religions. There are many non-christian holidays which are celebrated by christians. The tradition of leaving food near the graves of the dead is also very non-chritian but is present in every day life, practical slavic orthodoxy. It's not exclusive to it, since there are many other places in world where people combined their traditional beliefes with christianity. Latin countires for example.
And of course, everything I said is highly debatable since our knowledge of traditional beliefes is not perfect by any means and changes over time. Read up on the traditional beliefes of people who lived on the lands you now live, but avoid fakes. Stuff like slavic Book of Veles is total bullshit.