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seasons endemic to each culture and its climate, to divine the future and the mood of the gods, and to perform rites of passage consistent with specific historical precedent, which are all done in a dazzling variety of ways consistent with each religion’s cultural focus. Since each religion derives from its own part of the world, each contains its own set of holidays centered around its own local climate, harvests, and lifestyle, so these all vary, too. There is no shared Wheel of the Year with any proscribed number of holidays- some have four, some have more, and some have less. Ancestor veneration is also common among Reconstructionist traditions, as well, being a major feature of many historical pagan cultures and religions, whereas it is comparatively less common in mainstream paganisms and Wiccan traditions.
Reconstructionist pagans have created organizations dedicated to promoting their religions, some of which we will meet and explore in upcoming issues of Pagan Forest Magazine. Many of them were formed in their religion’s country of origin by citizens wishing to revive the ways of their ancestors. Some of them were formed outside of their religion’s countries of origin, where pockets of fellow adherents have gathered and grown. Some Reconstructionist pagan religions are: Asatru, Religio Romana, Romuva, Hellenismos, Kemeticism, and Celtic Reconstructionism (different from modern Druidism, although a few Druid organizations state they are Reconstructionist).
Some organizations have also been created to serve as umbrella organizations for Reconstructionist pagan religions collectively to encourage awareness of and education about such traditions and to provide mutual fellowship and support among adherents of these religions. These are two such organizations:
APT, or Association of Polytheist Traditions, http://www.manygods.org.uk/
According to its home page, “The Association of Polytheist Traditions [APT] is a non-profit organisation based in the UK. Most of us practise Reconstructed European Pagan Religions. But we welcome all polytheists, including those who adhere to 'world religions' and those who simply have personal relationships with individual gods.” The hyperlink leads to a wonderful essay detailing the nature of Reconstructionist paganisms.
ECER, or European Congress of Ethnic Religions, http://ecer-org.eu/
According to its home page, “The purpose of the ECER is to serve as an international body that will assist Ethnic Religious groups in various countries and will oppose discrimination against such groups. By Ethnic Religion, we mean religion, spirituality, and cosmology that is firmly grounded in a particular people’s traditions. In our view, this does not include modern occult or ariosophic theories/ideologies, nor syncretic neo-religions.”
There is also a recently-created web forum specifically aimed at devotional polytheists and Reconstructionist pagans called Polytheism Without Borders, http://www.polytheismwoborders.com/ , describing itself as “[a] community of people who love their divinities and love other people’s divinities and want to see all divinities being honored properly and abundantly -- who are deeply engaged in worship and want to make that worship as powerful and beautiful as possible.”
So are you intrigued yet? Are you eager to learn more about this stunning array of fascinating pagan traditions? Good- I’ll see you back here in the next issue of Pagan Forest Magazine!