World Coming Down: The Loss and Regaining of Balance
The Persistence of Organic Religious Traditions, The Spiritual Crisis of the World,
And a Brief Consideration of the Question "Why are there Pagans today?"

By Robin Artisson
Copyright © 2008



The Great Center and the Great Wisdom

I believe that everything happens according to the "structure of things", or the "way of the world". When I use these sorts of terms, I understand their limitations; bear with me for a moment, and I will clarify what I mean.

On one hand, I look to language as a way of expressing things that are formed and experienced long previous to words; these "things", these "experiences" that I consider "primordial" are reflections in us of the basic truths of life and the world. There is something (it seems to me) universal about the idea of the cosmological "center"- the "sacred center" that you hear so much about in primordial religions and worldviews.

There is, in some primal cultures, an expression of a great "world tree" that all things rely upon, that all things rest within or spring from, which acts as a "centralizing element" for the cosmologies of many primal people- if you can mentally, spiritually, or even physically access the tree, and you can access all worlds and conditions. There are similar notions of "world mountains" or a mountain at the center of things in some primal cultures, which has a similar function to the world tree.

I think that humans experienced the idea of "sacred centrality" long before they had words for it- of course, before they had words, one can make the case that they were not "human" in the full sense of the word (no pun intended) because to be "human" and to have use or mastery of the magic of the "word" (of words and language which allow for the particularly human kind of consciousness to arise) are inseparable.

But I do think that the pre-human ancestors are part of the river of power-descent that we now call "human"; we are all tied together in the web of power or Wyrd with all things that have ever existed, and what we call "Man" today relies on his pre-human ancestry, just as those pre-humans relied on the creatures or powers they were in turn descended from, and just as those powers relied on the great sky and ground and elements for their origin. In this sense, we are actually kin to all natural forces- we are deeply and profoundly related to all other things, living creatures and elements alike- a common and important vision of spiritual ecology that all ancient cultures have some notion of.

This vision teaches an important wisdom- a "wholeness creating wisdom", as I call it- and a wisdom that tells each of us "you are in place, right where you belong, in your home the world"- and sadly, we have mostly lost touch with this sort of wisdom in the west.

I think that pre-humans and primordial humans experienced the great truths of their existence in a deeply pervasive, intuitive, and perhaps pre-conscious way; it was the innovation and the sacred gift of language that made us able to express those truths in our own unique way, and to wield the magic of these things in new ways.

There is a real and eternal basis to "organic religion"- and this is it: the truths of our existence are not hidden; they are there for any and all who can be quiet enough to listen. They are there for those who live close to the earth and sky, and who don't create too many artificial divisions between themselves and these ancient powers. Once, we felt and we knew certain truths; later, we spoke of them; we named them, we taught them, and inter-wove them into our cultures, so that the cultures themselves had a primary sacred instructional function: to demonstrate its harmony with these organic truths, to teach new members of the culture how to function in harmony with the world, and with one another.



The Word Game and the Magic of Words

Now, I can sit here and use words to discuss these things. But the word-game has gone on for a very long time; the sorcery of words has created a tangled web of unbelievable power and complexity- and it has become so complex, and different languages and magical powers and worldviews have become so mixed, that few people can make sense of it anymore.

Nowadays, clarity is certainly the exception, and not the rule. Some people say that "times have become complicated", but I say that words have become complicated, and their original sacred function- bolstered by culture and traditional organic pylons of support- has become forgotten and scattered.

In the power-jumble of words, most of us are left wondering any or all of the following things regarding the concepts we encounter daily: "is this a truth? Or is it some foolishness? Is this a power-game, a means of slavery? Is it serious? Is this nonsense? What does this mean? Does it mean anything at all? Do we create meaning? Is the universe meaningless? What's going on?"

The confusion begins to clear up- at least a bit- when you realize that words had and still have a sacred function- indeed, as I have said in my long essay "Power Story", words are more than we imagine today- words are fully magical powers, and language itself is a magical power. That we have forgotten this important, basic fact is why we cause so much harm and run into so many problems.

Words exist, and there are deep truths about our world that exist, but these two things do not "touch" one another. That there is a magical, mystical "center" for all worlds and conditions is certainly true; that we use language and conceptual models to call it "world tree" or "world mountain" is also true. But the words "world tree" and that power we call the "world tree" are not the same thing, and they have no relationship outside of the fact that we know that one refers to the other. The magic of words is just that- we wail out some sounds, and mystically, others who hear them have visions of things and recollections of experiences called instantly into their minds. Neither the sounds nor the words are the things they are pointing to or referring to, however. True magic!

So, language is powerful; a seemingly independent and powerful force for shaping human experience and influencing people and through them, the world.



When We Began...

I began this discussion by saying "I believe that everything happens according to the "structure of things", or the "way of the world". Those terms I used- formed with the magic of language- summoned some ideas to your head, but what ideas they conjured, I have no way of knowing. The "structure of things" may mean something very different to me than it does to you. I can't change what it means to you; but I can clear up (in a limited manner) what it means to me.

The most sacred knowledge we can have is how the world works, or how things are structured. Barney Mitchell (quoted in "The Sacred" by Beck, Walters, and Francisco) said: "The greatest sacred thing is knowing the order and the structure of things." When you know how things are "put together"- when you have insight into the web of power, or the "world tree and its branches and roots" or the layers of the world-mountain and it's tributary powers, or whatever model your sacred conceptions are shaped into, you have a deep power, a deep insight, which is the cornerstone of sacred thinking and acting, and the sacred understanding of world events.

In traditional societies, shamans and other teachers are charged primarily with ensuring that such sacred things are taught and passed on- they are able to see and to mediate the "way of things" to their people, generation after generation. In many cultures- including ancient European ones- the responsibility for this "traditional education" falls not just to a person or persons, but to the very structures within culture that demonstrate the underlying principles of reality- such as rituals of passage, seasonal rituals, and the like.

If a person knows their place in things, and how things work, they will not feel anxiety facing the many powers of the world. They will feel secure, at peace, at home, and feel as though they have some reference for understanding the world. This is the basis for mental and spiritual health- and considering how scattered and wrecked our modern societies are, when it comes to transmitting the sacred knowledge of the working of things to people, it can come as no surprise that we are eaten alive by mental illness, pervasive senses of isolation and angst, and uncertainty.

When people lose the most fundamental sacred understandings about life, it is not just they who are "out of balance"- the world follows along with them, for two reasons: they will act in harmful ways to the world because of their condition of mind and soul, and the world will suffer, and (on a deeper level) the world and the inhabitants of the world are one great power- when the world is sick, we humans and other living beings suffer for it, and when we are sick, the world suffers for it. We cannot meaningfully divide ourselves from the "way of the world" because we are an essential part of the way of the world.

That we have spent millennia considering ourselves strangers to the world, cut off from the world, is the chief sickness that has troubled the world for at least as long- and the sickness that is still eating us, even today. The world is, shortly put, out of balance. It is out of balance because an important and powerful magic has made it so- the magic created daily by humans with their words and understandings. Humans, at several crucial points in their history either lost their own balance- lost the most sacred thing- and then inflicted that misery on others, for this sort of wicked magic is a great devouring power that increases in strength; it does not simply fade unless it is counteracted by a magic that is its opposite.



Two Powerful Words

Now, this is a good bit to think about, so I'll break now and return to where I was going originally. I think everything happens according to the "structure of the world" or the "way of the world". Does this mean that the sickness of the world and its people is also happening according to hidden principles and truths?

Certainly. It could not be otherwise; in fact, crisis and the resolution of crisis is a worldly heartbeat, a constantly repeated pattern of experience that we have encountered countless times in our own lives, in our own brief histories, and which we can see within the greater scope of history.

Crisis and Resolution are just two words, but the magic here is undeniable: these words call to mind the pulse of life, the challenges that the world seemingly sets up, and the way that the world re-shapes itself from challenge. They call to mind the way the world seems to challenge us, each of us individually, and the way that we feel ourselves adapting and overcoming, and becoming better, stronger, wiser, or more wary. The battle of winter and summer is not just fought in the skies and on the hilltops- it is fought within us, too. That shouldn't be a surprising or profound fact; if it is part of the world, it is part of us, and vice versa.

There are many layers of crisis, many intensities, many periods, many durations, many degrees. Let's talk about a crisis that is still going on- the crisis of "humanity bereft of wisdom about the fundamental truths of nature and reality". This is my long, wordy term for something I feel strongly about; I believe that we human beings have lost the sacred knowledge of the "way of things" that we used to have, and which our primordial cultures used to communicate to us and teach us in many ways.

The magic of the words and rites and customs that our ancestors had has become lost, scattered, and confused, and we have become lost, scattered, and confused along with it. That magical power isn't just a good idea for us, or a tool for us; it IS us. It's our power, our magic, our legacy, now broken and scattered around the world, and around the deep places within ourselves.

From those deep places, these scattered bits of magic sometimes become monsters or fears; they become lost maidens and hoped-for and longed-for goals that we can't remember or name; they become angels and demons, they become treasures and pitfalls. They become the strange, surreal nature of our inner lives, pin-points of light that make up the starry sky of the sub-conscious regions of each person, and also the deep places of the world.

If you go for a walk within yourself, or just through the world- for these are, in fact, the same place- you might be lucky enough to collect two or three pieces of this lost power, and make some sense of them, and then, people will call you "magician" or "wise person" or "lucky" or "profound". But really, compared to the old fellows, you're just a man or woman that found three diamonds while out for a walk in a wilderness without a map. That might seem like a lot in these days, but compared to the wholeness, it's just some straw for a small fire. However, it should be said, that in the winter of our exile, even a small fire seems a magnificent thing- so if you can build one, please do.



There is a Wound in the Heart of the World

We are in a crisis, a spiritual crisis. Few people would deny this, though you get a few who actually do deny it- the spiritually vacant of this world love to imagine that things right now are as "great as they ever were" or "better than we've ever had it", and they take exception to people talking like I do. This is their path, and I wish them the best on it- but a path of that sort of denial is not one I can walk, because looking within, and looking to the distant reaches of a mystery we sometimes call the "past", I have seen a hint of what wholeness was like, and what it is like, and let me assure you- there aren't enough bottles of Tylenol, or microwave pizzas, or hospitals, or air conditioners to patch up the gaping wound made by our present spiritual desolation.

No blessing of the modern day can counter-balance what has been lost. What has been lost was never a "physical thing"- it was a deeper thing that granted us meaning and peace.

There are different opinions, but this one is mine: we are in a spiritual crisis, even while we sit in what seems to be a golden age of technological progress. And what caused our current spiritual crisis? Simple. Social, political, and environmental upheaval caused it- the world changed, and it changed radically, in the last two thousand years. When such drastic changes occur, people are left feeling as though they lack the means to affect the world around them anymore, or feeling as though they cannot understand the world anymore. Their traditional worldviews and sacred knowledge becomes compromised in many ways- through war, social disorder, disasters, and unhealthy contact with upstart foreign cultural powers that attack them from within and undermine them.

When such upheavals occur, people are left without their most basic structures of belief and their concepts of the universe (their cosmological visions) are shaken and thrown out of balance. People begin to feel as though their traditional "ways of seeing" or basic understandings of deep matters must be insufficient or flawed, and they seek to address this "imbalance" or this "loss" with new constructions- either created by themselves, or absorbed from other places.

The cultures who experience these kinds of crisis-challenges feel (rightly) as though the "world is coming down" or that the "world is out of balance". And they seek to quickly put it back into balance. But what happens when they either fail to do so, or absorb unwise, untruthful constructions to "heal" the perceived crisis, and take shelter in a resolved sense of seeming peace that is, in reality, simply deception, wishful thinking, or disguised malignancy?

You don't need to look far for the answer, because it has already happened to traditional European cultures, and to many Native American cultures. Social, economic, and cultural upheaval in Europe led to the acceptance and absorption of the structures of a foreign worldview- Christianity- into the sacredness of native beliefs. Many centuries later, some Native Americans would face the exact same sorts of crisis-transformations, and some would embrace the structures of Christianity to "rebalance" their challenged and shaken-up worldviews.



The Unwise Pretender: A Story of Darkness

It is my belief that the "vision" or the "story" told by Christianity about how the world works, is (simply put) wrong. The first few paragraphs of the book of Genesis teaches mankind that he is the pinnacle of creation, not an equal partner to it; it says that animals and natural resources were put here, but a human-looking God, for the "use" of man. Immediately, and from the start, humans are exempted from the sacred duties placed onto them by older animistic worldviews, and given this exemption by a rather pernicious story- a jumble of words on a page, in a book we call the "bible".

If you keep reading, you discover that "God"- the only "true" God, expects his "chosen" people to murder other people, including their men, women, and children (and sometimes their animals) as the consequence of their "unrighteousness" and their daring adherence to their own customs and religions.

It doesn't stop there. And I don't need to go further; most of you already know where this road goes. To sum this up: the anti-animistic teachings of Christianity, it's monotheistic denial of spiritual diversity (and with it, the cultural diversity that inevitably springs up in this beautiful world) and it's denial of the sacredness and goodness of nature itself (nature is fallen, even if it was intended by "God" to be good, and must be destroyed by God at the end of time, before the resurrected bodies of christian men and women get to "inherit it", again, as their possession) leads Christianity to a woefully inadequate view of the truth of things.

In my opinion, (an opinion backed up by a considerable amount of evidence on many fronts) Christianity is a bad story, a false view of how things really are. Christian missionaries to Native America could not take the land of the Natives, nor bring them under their control, without first convincing them that they were spiritually flawed beings, and wicked. They had to discredit the rich and powerful spiritual beauty of the Native American cultures- just as they had done centuries before to native European cultures- before they could bring about the unwise changes they had in store for the people.

Beck, Walters, and Francisco write, in their invaluable book "The Sacred":

"Colonists arriving in the new world from Europe came indoctrinated with a special vocabulary which prevented them from accepting or even perceiving the rich cultures and complex sacred ways of the native people living here. It is therefore useful to examine some of the words that made up the vocabularies of the these colonists, words that have since then dominated the textbooks, history books, and movies on Native Americans.

When the explorers, conquistadores, and other colonists came to this land, they labeled the religions of the native peoples as "pagan". They called The People here "savages" and said that they were "primitive heathens". All these words are apparently negative or derogatory words (though an exploration of the word origins, given later, shows that they were not originally derogatory). In order to change the Native American people, to make them give up their land, the missionaries had to make The People feel pitiful, at the mercy of evil forces, make The People feel backwards and their powers shameful. These words were used to describe The People so that throughout the years their ways of life would lose respect in the eyes of the young people and they would begin to deny all those concepts and ceremonials that were a part of their religious systems, philosophies, and paths of life."


A crisis was caused by the missionary onslaught, as well as by the onslaught of soldiers, and the diseases and environmental catastrophes caused by European land-grabbing and natural waste. The Native Americans were faced with hard choices- and to this day, the great grandsons and daughters of some tribes are still lost souls in this world, because they surrendered to a new story- the Christian story and the White European story- in an attempt to find balance where balance was lost.

Our European ancestors are stumbling around in the same land of lost souls. We suffer under the same wicked power-story that was forced upon us, or desperately accepted by our grandmothers and fathers, when faced with upheaval and crisis. It was so long ago for us, that it is a rather large miracle that any of us still have the ability to sense and feel "what was lost" and to put the whole matter into its proper context. The truth of the matter is simple: we Europeans (and later, many Native Americans) lost our spiritual paths, our unique ancestral visions of the sacred, and our souls.

We lost the most sacred thing- our knowledge of the "structure of things" or the "Way of the world". We lost our knowledge of the world-tree, of Wyrd, of the organic and spiritual connection between all things, of the sacredness of nature, and our just and meaningful existence, right here in a world that is not, by any measure, suffering from the absurd Judeo-Christian notion of "sin".

Our vision of the "structure of the universe" is now a fallen, sinful earth, packed with demons and sinful people, and a high heaven, with a towering, thundering, and angry God who (paradoxically) "loves" everyone and is wonderful- sometimes. He has a go-between, a mediator between himself and humans, his "Jesus", who died for everyone's sins, thus neutralizing the great debt humankind owed to God but could not pay on their own... and yet somehow, if a person refuses to accept this fact and join the church, they'll still have to pay for those supposedly "atoned for" sins in a hell that lasts for all eternity.

That anyone can or would accept such a story is beyond me- far, far beyond me. But people do, and they do it for reasons of confusion- such as the people who are facing the loss of their world-structure due to crisis, and others do it out of fear and a need for conformity to a system and a story that they have no personal power or ability to see through, or escape from.
Here is the real reason, however: those trapped people are entrenched in the imbalance, in the crisis that has not been healed- they have become parts of the imbalance. And the world is still reeling from this particular crisis- the crisis that destroyed Native Europe and Native America, and created the corporate and governmental greed that today dominates the world with financial imperialism and military thuggery. The world is dying under the weight of these things, and yes- the religious story that replaced our sacred worldviews has everything to do with why these things are happening.

Anyone who refuses to see the role religion and spiritual worldview plays in this present crisis is either a person who is fully invested in preserving the current dominant religious worldview (a fully integrated part of the imbalance) or a person who simply can't understand how fundamental ethics and morality are to the outplay of human events, and how ethics and morality are founded on the bedrock of religion and the deeper sacred worldviews created, preserved, and taught by religion.

The world is reeling from this spiritual crisis, which began in the west, but which continues to haunt the entire world today, for technology has now destroyed our last boundaries. Communication across the world is now nearly instantaneous, and we have become one common community of interference, interaction, and impact.



Pagans Not Dead

So why do modern Pagans still exist? All these thousands of years later- or for Native Americans, these centuries later- what are these guys still doing here? How can someone hope to resist the dominant story that makes our world? Why would they resist it? What part does the odd persistence of Paganism and organic religion in the west play in the "way of the world"?
It's obvious to me; I believe that modern Pagans- or any people who maintain traditional worldviews of animistic power and depth- are simply the vestiges who are still trying to re-address the loss of balance. Christianity didn't address it; Christianity presented an alternate but unwise story that didn't solve problems- it programmed people to be elitist, convinced they had the "one right religion", and led them to devalue the lives of Native people and cultures that were "heathen" and "savage".

Christianity's story is the story that leads to crusade and inquisition, to manifest destiny and to the "religious right" of today, who bedevil our nightly news and manipulate our political systems to try and force their morality on others. What goodness was in Christianity's story has always been expressed by an extreme minority of Christians; the fact of its pervasive and larger impact on the world and history is enough reason to condemn it, and to accord it its place as a pretender to the resolution of our current spiritual crisis, and not the real answer.

The real miracle of our times- if indeed, there are miracles in the mysterious and sacred unfolding that we call "this world"- is that there are still hold-outs of people in the west who are holding on to vestiges of Paganism and animistic, traditional religions.

Will these holdouts ever gain some advantage one day, and become the cornerstones of the real resolution to our present darkness? I don't know, and part of me doubts it, but it would be very nice were it so. There was and is a crisis, and, following the way of the world, there must be a resolution- eventually. In this sense, perhaps Paganism or Animistic, Organic truths play an important and unalterable role in the basic unfolding of things. They cannot be denied or stopped.

I can say with confidence that Paganism does not still exist because of the meaningless, empty fancies of some strange people who are sick or bored with "mainstream" spirituality. It exists because it is based on deeper truths, truths that the world needs, and truths that could resolve our current spiritual crisis. This is why it persisted; this is why fire and sword could not destroy it, even over thousands of years; this is why it is still here.

On a deep level, all modern Pagans are trying to re-balance the world, even if they themselves don't realize it. This is why Pagans must be who they are, and cannot be otherwise. What is the thirst that leads the modern Pagan to be what he or she is? It is a thirst of the world, a thirst for the most sacred thing to be known and for humans to live by it again- the true underlying structure of things.




All text is Copyright © 2008 by Robin Artisson
All Rights Reserved

Photo: "Solstice Garden" by strollerdos via Flickr under Creative Commons license.