One of the things that I like about Ásatrú is that it accepts proudly the label "the religion with homework." Practitioners are expected to research and read everything from badly translated poems to sagas to commentaries by researchers on the field. In Wicca we would often see people come along who basically "became Wiccan overnight": they read one book and decided they were Wiccan. The problem with this is that "Wicca is a religion. It is not a club or an organization."
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A Quaker Pagan Day Book: Testimonies and Queries
6 years ago
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You've got it, exactly.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said too many times before, "the Lore" (tm) is like the diving board into a swimming pool of greater understanding. If you stay up on the diving board all day it looks silly and you don't swim. If you jump into the deep end without the diving board you may injure yourself.
I think the primary sources need to be read with a grain of salt, because they were written after the conversion (for the most part) and some things were lost or obfuscated. We don't want to become fossils. But on the other hand, too much UPG and you get "Thor the Moon Goddess".
Things need to make sense, and that's why a balance of both are important.
Thank you for writing this, and for getting it.
-Siggy