How important is reconstruction?

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[Sylvan]

I think here it's important to draw the line between "reconstruction" and "replication".  We can't exactly replicate what the ancients did.  What we can do is use what information we have as a foundation on which to build (or construct, as it were) a modern religious practice.  Ideally that will include practices and beliefs that are as close in form as possible to their ancient counterparts.  It also means understanding why those things were done so that when necessary you can find a modern practice that is in the same spirit as the ancient one even if it doesn't take exactly the same form.

What you've articulated here is the main attraction that a reconstructionist approach has for me. But I have difficulty with the finding "a modern practice that is in the same spirit as the ancient one" part. My tendency is to get wrapped up in seeking out sources, history, etc. to the self-defeating extent of paralyzing my practice.

This has been a timely thread for me as I'm trying to balance out the role of a recon approach in my spiritual life.

[UlsterYank]

We can't exactly replicate what the ancients did.  What we can do is use what information we have as a foundation on which to build (or construct, as it were) a modern religious practice.  

I think that's important. Now what I don't agree with, is those that exclude modern elements of the culture they're trying to reconstruct.

For example to elaborate into a little rant on an off issue of where I'm coming from, the Irish didn't cease being Irish with the advent of Christianity. I was talking to to a CR whose reasons for not acknowledging the solstices, or equinoxes, is because there is no written accounts of ancient Gaels doing so. Fair enough if that's his choice, but also by that logic, there is very little concrete evidence at all regarding our pre-Christian festivals. There isn't any evidence suggesting Lughnasadh, or the festival of Tailtiu is a harvest festival, and not a seasonal coincidence, as anything else on the Roman influenced Coligny calender. All you run into is theories that owe much to vague mythic references, and Victorian folklorists with their romantic views of harvest gods. There's no concrete evidence indicating that Samhain is the beginning of the year, or even the oldest festival. Even the idea of the year even being divided in halves, sceptics can say is also a theory.

Now Meán Geimhreadh/Samhradh, lá leathach, grianstad, e.t.c all exist in the Irish language for the solstices and equinoxes, days that I've spent many coffee breaks discussing with my Irish teacher from Gort an Choirce over, who didn't start learning English until he was a teenager, ad can attest for all of the current lore and superstitions that still exists in the Gaeltacht around these days.(That I guarantee didn't originate with Roman Catholicism, most of them sound similar toi what you hear about Samhain) Besides that, there's Irish mythic references to the pre-Celtic megaliths built according to these days, and being tombs, there's also still many Irish funeral traditions centred around the setting sun.

Still, this particular recon doesn't acknowledge them because there's no PROOF that the Gaeltacht folk traditions are pre-Christian(although it's so obvious it'l bite you on the @ss), and there's no way to proove the words didn't make it into the language from "Germanic additions."

Now, anyone with a knowledgeable understanding of Irish can tell you most of the modern terms aren't loan words, and anyway, many Goídelc words were even influenced from contact with other cultures like the Greeks. In fact, it's believed the whole Irish belief about Tír na nÓg residing "out west" came from Continental Celtic contact with the Greeks at Massalia. Another thing I don't like to see in reconstructionism is the idea of cultures being "pure."  

When it gets to that stage, it comes off as ignorant for someone that doesn't live in Ireland, to tell those living there that their heritage isn't Irish. In taking what we know know, compared to what we don't, science is weird. Until there is concrete evidence of something, according to Science it doesn't exist. Which is GOOD for a LOT of things, but sometimes, it excludes common sense.  

[Casey]

How do you view the role of reconstruction in your religion (and I suppose non-Asatru people should feel free to answer too!)? Do you think it's important? What do you do in your own practice as reconstruction?

Honestly given the times reconstruction to me seems to be a moot point.  I can take the knowledge that I gain from research and practice it in a more modern sense, but reconstruction is impossible unless I decide to live my life as they did 1000(+) years ago.  A reinterpretation of the religion to fit with modern culture would make sense because given historical evidence that is exactly what was done in the past.

[Hyacinth Belle]

A reinterpretation of the religion to fit with modern culture ...

Isn't that essentially what reconstruction is? I know some people are more hardcore about the details than others, but either way you're reinterpreting research of the past and somehow fitting it into modern culture.

I guess regardless of how specific one wants to define "reconstruction," another question may be why resurrect a dead religion at all? (Dead as in, no longer practiced or having gone through a period it was not practiced.)

[Star]

I guess regardless of how specific one wants to define "reconstruction," another question may be why resurrect a dead religion at all? (Dead as in, no longer practiced or having gone through a period it was not practiced.)

::shrug::  Why not? 

I'm only half-joking here.  This is the form of religion that resonates with me; it's never occurred to me to need to justify it beyond that.

[RandallS]

I guess regardless of how specific one wants to define "reconstruction," another question may be why resurrect a dead religion at all? (Dead as in, no longer practiced or having gone through a period it was not practiced.)

Because it calls you? Because one or more deities associated with the religion want you to? Etc.

[Casey]

Isn't that essentially what reconstruction is? I know some people are more hardcore about the details than others, but either way you're reinterpreting research of the past and somehow fitting it into modern culture.

I guess regardless of how specific one wants to define "reconstruction," another question may be why resurrect a dead religion at all? (Dead as in, no longer practiced or having gone through a period it was not practiced.)

On the first part call me jaded on the term reconstruction due to past run ins with what I would term as "extremists" for reconstruction.  Otherwise I think we are on the same train of thought unless I am mistaken.

As for the second part, I agree with Randall that it calls you. 

[Hyacinth Belle]

::shrug::  Why not? 

I'm only half-joking here.  This is the form of religion that resonates with me; it's never occurred to me to need to justify it beyond that.

lol. Yeah, I agree with you and everyone else. I find it a bit of a curious phenomenon, however... I guess there's just nothing appealing in "modern" or living religions. haha.

[catja6]

lol. Yeah, I agree with you and everyone else. I find it a bit of a curious phenomenon, however... I guess there's just nothing appealing in "modern" or living religions. haha.

This is not exactly new.  Throughout history, there have always been people fascinated with and wanting to revive past religions.  There have *always* been religious revivals that owed a great deal to fantasies of the past.  Sometimes it takes the form of "we need to return to the purer faith of our forefathers" (which is often an attempt to reform an existing religion); but there is also plenty of precedent for the revival of "dead" religions.  There were Etruscan nuts in ancient Rome, a lot of the Renaissance artists and philosophers were sympathetic to classical Paganism, the 18th-century phil-Hellenes loved ancient Greece, the Romantics revived interest in non-classical European mythologies, etc., etc., etc.  Nostalgia for an imagined past religion is very, very well attested.   

[Star]

I guess there's just nothing appealing in "modern" or living religions. haha.

There's plenty of appeal in those religions, and they have many followers.  They just aren't the best fit for me.  ::shrug::

[Hyacinth Belle]

There's plenty of appeal in those religions, and they have many followers.  They just aren't the best fit for me.  ::shrug::

I agree... healthy dose of sarcasm in the part you quoted from me!

[Star]

I agree... healthy dose of sarcasm in the part you quoted from me!

Whoops--sorry about that, then.  My sarcasm detector has been on the fritz lately. 

[Hyacinth Belle]

Whoops--sorry about that, then.  My sarcasm detector has been on the fritz lately. 

Nah, I get it... and if someone didn't "know" me here, they might think I was being serious too!

[treekisser]

I've said this before, but I think there's a huge difference betwen reconstruction as a methodology -- privileging academic sources to recreate a reasonably historically accurate religious experience -- and what can be called the Reconstructionist Belief Community.  The methodology I have no trouble with whatsoever; the RBC, however, is another matter entirely.

Do you think that, for the purposes of religion, reconstructionist methodology will tend to lead towards RBC? Can a meaningful spirituality be maintained if you acknowledge that your practices are always provisional (and provisional upon the works of some academic non-believers, at that...)?

[American Asatruar]

A difficult question. Total reconstruction I think is nigh impossible, but does that mean that it isn't worth the effort to try and get it as close as possible, I think it is. Trying to base ones practices on the available sources is a fairly sensible means of going about it I think. Trying to understand the world view of a given culture from within its own cultural context is something historians and anthropologists have been doing for centuries, so again while it may be difficult, and not wholly correct, getting as close as possible is a laudable goal, imho.

I'm more interested in the mindset of the era and the ideas behind it than proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was done in Iceland in 800AD.  On the other hand, you can't approach it willy nilly and do whatever you like.  Rituals came in a context, and while I think times have changed, you have to take the past into account.

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