#gen resource

[winterborn-ironboned]

UPG vs. SPG

Christmas in the Pagan tag of Tumblr leads to a notorious mass of confusion and irritation as the groups of recons clash with the “new age” who have a bone to pick with the Christopagans/witches and are being defended by the Abrahamic magicians and some such types. This is a gross underestimation of the absolute insanity that happened, but I’m just pointing out the obvious.

Not even a month away from that, and we’re already back to the normal bickery bullshit and snipping. There was a massive battle about Lillith, and one of the things that continued to be brought up was UPG.

There are a lot of words that are in common usage on Tumblr that wouldn’t be used in a face to face pagan community. Some of this is for good reasons. Because it would be silly to use them, some of them are just because in general, concentrated pagan communities tend to be more New Age in influence and the terms don’t have a welcome home. One of these is UPG.

UPG is short hand for “Unverified Personal Gnosis,” a fancy series of words to describe the things that happen to you personally in your day to day practice. It was coined within the Reconstructionist communities to describe things that were adapted into a practice that didn’t have any sort of mention or description in the history and lore. This is an important term there, because it automatically alerts that the practitioner is not claiming a place of authority or leadership on the specific subject.

SPG is a more expanded term, “Shared Personal Gnosis,”  which is what you would begin to call a belief when more than one person shares it with you, having come out of an independent line of thought and experience.

At the end of the day, neither of these things have any basis in the lore, but they are valid to a single or small group of people, and so they are denoted as UPG or SPG.

Say that I, as a practitioner who works with The Morrigan Goddess group, has found that offerings of dark chocolate seem to be more well received than other offerings I give. There is absolutely ZERO in any of the available lore and mythology to suggest such. Chocolate wouldn’t have been available in Ancient Ireland. This. Is UPG.

Say that another four practitioners hear about this and let me know that they have found the same thing to be true. It is now classified as SPG. Because a group of people independently came to the same conclusion.

Got that?

Good.

What happens on Tumblr, is that there is a tendency for people to use UPG as a “get out of jail free card.” It’s the catch all phrase to excuse a practice that is opposing to the lore and mythos, or an excusal to being problematic or appropriative. Even used as a way to promote their validity as a “High Priestess” who was chosen specifically by a deity to be their mouthpiece on the face of the earth.

This is not okay. If I stood up and told every pagan who worked with the Morrigan that I was their vessel on earth and that everything I did and said was exactly what they wanted me to do, I would be ridiculous. I don’t have that kind of authority. And the only thing that I have to hold on to is that it’s my “UPG” that I’m of such status. Basically I’m being an asshole. And deserve to be called out as one.

UPG is not a pass to treat deities in any way that you want. It is not an excuse to make claims of authority that are in direct opposition to the lore and mythology, even modern historical and archaeological evidence. It is used to fill in gaps of places where lore does not have a defined thesis or practice.

Does this mean that you can’t have UPG that opposes the lore? No, not really. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. But if you have UPG that contradicts the lore and historical practices of those that came before you, you had better damn well keep it to yourself until you can find a valid reason to do otherwise. UPG is not to be used as a way to excuse problematic practices and behaviors.

And if you run a blog, then yes, you are entitled to post your opinions and beliefs on your own blog. It’s your space. But if you tag them, then be prepared for them to be commented on and challenged if they do not operate as UPG should.

[winterborn-ironboned]

Some Thoughts on Christmas

Since it’s the season of the year, I figure that we have a discussion about world history and the way things actually work. And lets just remember to check our attitudes at the door and sit down for five minutes, because sometimes you have to learn a thing.

The pagan tag likes to erupt into moments of “Guize people killed pagans, the Christians stole everything, why so mean and persecuted!!“ I tend to air on the side of most of these statements coming from places of ignorance and therefore in need of education. People like Edain McCoy and Silver Ravenwolf are not good people to be learning things from.

FIRST we’re going to talk about syncretism. It’s kind of a weird word, so bear with me. It is the combining and unifying of different beliefs, practices, philosophies, theologies, cultural influences into something individual. In the cases of cultural appropriation, it’s really a terrible thing and isn’t actually syncretism, it’s appropriation. The Romans are excellent examples of syncretics. They moved into an area, saw a thing that they liked, and included it within whatever they were already doing. Let’s look at the Roman version of the Hellenic pantheon. Isis. Syncretism. It happens.

It also happens when different cultures meld together, or another culture comes to power where an older culture once stood. Again, not necessarily a bad thing. War and conquest happen, it’s a product of human condition, and it’s a big part of history. We aren’t allowed to get angry about wars that happened over a thousand years ago. Sorry.

The Winter Solstice generally falls around the 20th of December. There are a number of winter festivals like Yule, Saturnalia, plain old Solstice stuff and a plethora of other things that this post isn’t about.

Christmas is a modernized shortening of Christ’s Mass, which was the service dedicated to the celebration of the birth of Jesus. It is the culmination of Advent, which is a four week process leading up to the birth of Christ. If you have questions about that, I know some wonderful Catholics to recommend to you.

Christmas was placed on December 25 by the Western Christian Church, which is the Catholic church and (more contemporarily) includes various other forms of Protestantism that really formed in Western Europe. We’re talking England, Ireland, Germany, France. Those areas, it was put there around the 4th century CE, so really before St. Patrick converted Ireland, therefore had very very little to do with “stealing” anything from the Gaelic cultures (which I see a lot.)

It has been theorized that this was done because it fell nine months after the accepted period of time for Mary to have conceived (mentioned in the Vulgate.) Culturally speaking, it could have been arbitrarily placed here because there were already other festivals in place at the Winter Solstice and so it was easier to place, making converts able to continue important cultural calendars and practices with the insertion of a new religion.

This is where that syncretism part comes in. Regardless of the manner in which a person converted to a religion, they would have brought the older traditions with them Christmas trees, Mistletoe, Yule logs, certain kinds of foods, traditions and superstitions. Culturals are affected and changed by each other, so it was only natural for people to bring the traditions they have had their entire lives to a new religion.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t an overarching plot to “kill the pagan faith,” it was really more of a matter of people keeping the influences of how they were raised and adapting them to what they were doing. Syncretism.