Theism & Religion FAQ
Paganism & Shamanism
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What is Paganism?
A great many pagans identify themselves as pantheists. Like other pantheists, pagans too believe that divinity is manifested everywhere, yet they are distinctive in that they relate to whatever they conceive of as God primarily through nature. They celebrate solstices, equinoxes and other natural passages, and they typically have a strong environmental ethic and a deep love of the natural world.
Many pagans are straight pantheists, using polytheism as a metaphoric way of approaching the cosmic divinity they believe in. Some people feel the need for symbols and personages to mediate their relationship with nature and the cosmos, and most say that there is no harm in this, as long as the symbols help them to connect to reality and do not block or distort their view of the cosmos. Pantheists can, however, also relate directly to the universe and to nature, without the need for any intermediary symbols or deities.
However, many pagans are literal polytheists and believe in magic, reincarnation, and the irrational. Modern pantheists are not generally polytheistic and do not believe in magic or disembodied spirits of any sort. Most of them also do not believe in a personal afterlife, whether through reincarnation or transport to any kind of non-material "heaven."
The core word, etymologically speaking, of shaman is sramaNah, a word from the Siberian Tungusic Language meaning a "religious exercise."
Scholastically the definition is: members of tribal societies who act as doorways between the ordinary world, the totality, and the extraordinary world, the unseen. Such beings practice magic or sorcery for a distinct, well-defined purpose: to heal, to divine or to exert control over natural events.
The first shamanistic enclaves developed in northern Asia, but it is only within the last 300 or so years that shamanism has had a universal usage in spoken language - shamanism came into lexicographic usage in the 1780's.
A contemporary definition of shamanism: "a religion of the Ural-Altaic peoples of northern Asia and Europe that is characterized by the belief that the unseen word of gods, demons and ancestral spirits is responsive only to the Shaman" Or: "a religious practice similar to the shamanism of the Ural-Altaic peoples of northern Asia and Europe followed especially among Indians of North America and characterized by the use of mediumistic trances."
A simpler definition might be: "The animistic religion of certain peoples of northern Asia in which mediation between the visible and spirit worlds is effected by shamans."
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