Pagan Idolatry & Material Religion

What is it about?

The concept of idolatry is something long ridiculed and disparaged but no less legitimate and fully pagan. For paganism, its implicit theology is its recognition of material physicality as spiritually sacred. Most comprehensively, this position is delineated within the school of thought known as pantheism.. The ‘agnosticism’ of secular, telluric and ‘deep’ paganism is, in fact, at home with the ‘not knowing’ that is intrinsic to material existence and its beyond, namely, the mystery inherent in nature as a fundamental given and not simply a covering for some pre-existent gnosis. At heart, paganism entertains the possibility that matter possesses an innate desire to become conscious – with the evolution of organic life as a result of that desire and, with it, the emergence of mind and consciousness. Consequently, a pagan comprehension does not consider the transcendental as an *a priori* creator but instead as an evolutionary product of the matter-energy continuum itself. The understanding of this whole process is one of pantheism - everything that is is divine - and this includes the tangible dimension of the cosmos and any hologramic part - including the idol as representational but also holy in itself as well.

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Photo by Alexander Wark Feeney on Unsplash

Photo by Alexander Wark Feeney on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Paganism is a notoriously difficult spirituality to articulate clearly – to the extent that the British-based Pagan Federation is still struggling after several decades to be recognised by the Charity Commission as a legal trust. This is one reason why the concept of idolatry is important. But beyond the merely legalistic, an understanding of the reverence for the physical - from the statue of Tirupati Balaji in India, the oak of Dodona & the Parthenon Athena of Greece and the Goddess of Liberty off Manhattan to the earth and/or Mother Nature herself - allows the rationale and worshipping bliss of pagan expression and legitimacy.