(no subject)

[hearthstone]

Okay, I have to say it--I do not understand these folks who decide to become heathen or pagan and the first thing they do is look for "a teacher." Seriously, maybe I'm weird, but my impulse would be to do my own research first! Wouldn't it make more sense to try to gain a broader base of information before handing oneself over to some random person? Why would someone think that this random person would be at all knowledgable, or even trustworthy, if they had no exposure to the faith in question ahead of time? How would they be able to tell?

I don't mean folks who ask for information or to be pointed to resources--or who do some work, realize that they've gotten as far as they can on their own, and ask for assistance in going further. That's reasonable. But that's not what you see--what you see is people who are looking for someone to hand them a pre-formed spirituality, whether because they don't want to do the work themselves or because they can't let go of the notion that there must be a single Truth out there--or, I suppose, because they are looking for the secrets of the universe or some such thing, and obviously anyone who happens to be hanging out on an email list would not only possess them but would jump at the chance to hand them out to anyone who asked. I'm not particularly offended by this--caveat emptor and all that--but I just hate to see so many people shutting off their brains before they've even tried to engage them.

Comments

And the congregation shouts "Amen"! ;-)

[sunvenus.livejournal.com]

Agreed; it's as if they want to be "told" rather than to "learn". Sure it's nice to have guidance- and necessary for some things- but to sit and be given it all on a platter, laid out neatly? Even if things *could* be transmitted that way, they would have little to no value in that format- not like knowledge that is fought for and truly learned "from the heart"- “won” or “earned”. I guess that's why "the mysteries" are deemed experiential. I also wonder sometimes if this "need to be told" phenomenon is due to the overall "dumbing down" in the education system that is occurring in most English-speaking countries. (Allen Bloom has a great book about this: "The Closing of the American Mind". It applies here in Oz as well, and from what I hear from my Brit pals, there too.) Or perhaps it is because most "pagan" seekers come from faiths like Christianity, Judaism & Islam that have such a legacy of authoritarian behaviour, and firm orthodoxy. Perhaps most folks aren't accustomed to practices that are orthopraxic.

Re: And the congregation shouts "Amen"! ;-)

[hearthstone.livejournal.com]

Perhaps most folks aren't accustomed to practices that are orthopraxic.

I think you're right on that point, and you're also right about it being habit, learned behavior. Many of the seekers are young people, and the model of learning most are familiar with is the public school system, in which most learning is done via the "remember what the teacher says and tell it back to them on the test" method. It's not a very good model for dealing with the rest of the world, however.

It is a bit amusing-but-sad that people who are seeking an alternative spirituality are so eager to overlay it with a traditional structure.