Modern paths may also seem to be a symptom of the modern restlessness: we seem to be constantly craving new fashions, ideas, and housewares. So isn't the thirst for spiritual novelty just a symptom of the same impulse?

In many cases, of course it is; and it is also true that many "new religions" are little more than the result of someone's desire to be head of the herd or make a buck. All the same, I think it would be foolish to dismiss "modern paths" too hastily.

In one sense there is nothing really new about the notion of a "modern path." If you look back over the course of history, you can see that each age, each generation even, has seen new religious impulses arise. In ancient Rome there were the mystery schools, Mithraism, and Manichaeism; in medieval times, there were the Bogomils and the Cathars. Today these are little more than names in encyclopedias of religion; but in their day they commanded the allegiance, sometimes, of whole nations. Why they perished where other religions survived is often unclear even to the best of scholars. Similarly today we really have no idea of which of the religions that are flourishing today will be gone in a hundred or a thousand years.

The only lesson, I think, that we can draw from this evidence is twofold. On the one hand, the human spiritual impulse is universal. Not only does it exist in all times and places, but the best in spiritual thought is accessible to anyone today who makes the effort to encounter it. (That's why one can read an ancient text like the Tao Te Ching or the Upanishads and find that it strikes so close to home.) On the other hand, we too want to try our hand at expressing the truths of the universe as we understand them. It's not so much that we can do it better than the ancients did; it's more that we ourselves can only learn by restating and reformulating this knowledge. This, of course, explains why children in school are asked to phrase an idea in their own words rather than simply parroting what the textbook says.

There is another aspect to this question of modern paths, however. Whatever the books may say, the divine is as accessible to us now as it has ever been. That means that there are always people who can catch a glimpse of a higher reality and will want to express and apply it in their own times. These are the prophets of any age. Some of them are truly great beings, the towering figures of history; others are little more than petty bigots who, having grabbed hold of some insight, use it as a means of mental enslavement for themselves and others. In the wake of events like Jonestown, Waco, the Solar Temple, and the Heaven's Gate episode, we would be foolish to ignore this possibility.

But at their best, modern reformulations of spiritual truths have a great deal to offer. One comparatively modern faith that stresses this point is Baha'i, which was founded in nineteenth-century Persia. Baha'i not only teaches the fundamental truth of all religions, but espouses the idea of continuous revelation — the idea that the truth is never delivered once and for all, but must constantly be restated and reintroduced. All "modern paths," of whatever era, are expressions of this truth.

Some modern paths are in many ways continuations of old ones. The most fascinating case is Wicca, Witchcraft, and Neopaganism (names that apply to a bundle of closely interwoven movements). These claim to be revivals of the "Old Religion" of paganism that existed in Europe before the coming of Christianity. Many forms of Neopaganism point back to Neolithic times, when, they say, the presence of enormous numbers of naked female figurines attest to the worship of the Great Goddess. This "Old Religion," which was more life-affirming and female-centered, had to go underground during centuries of Christian dominance, but the weakening of the institutional Church and the end of persecution for Witchcraft has made it possible for the Old Religion to raise its head again. (Incidentally, persecution of Witchcraft did not vanish as long ago as you may think: in Britain, an anti-Witch law was on the books until 1951.)

Scholars are not quite as convinced of this historical picture as many Neopagans seem to be. But the revival, real or imagined, of the "Old Religion" points up some of the main functions a modern path can serve. Wicca is in many ways the opposite of Christianity as it is usually perceived. Wicca is hedonistic, life-affirming; "Behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals," says the Neopagan Charge of the Goddess. Wicca also lays heavy stress on the feminine face of the divine. And it is highly individualistic and decentralized. The individual Wiccan is often a solitary practitioner or works only in a small group. He or she often has to make up rituals and must carve a new spiritual path where none existed.

Wicca is thus in many ways a counterbalance to the Christianity of the twentieth century. "Witches tend to be pretty good ritualists, but pretty poor theologians," as one well-informed Wiccan once told me. They have little trust in institutions, officialdom, and doctrines. Most of all, they repudiate the picture of a male Father God removed from all creation.

I am not saying that the Wiccans are right and that the Christians are wrong. I am simply saying that a religion sometimes becomes overbalanced in one direction. And new religious movements often arise as a reaction to these overbalances. In conventional religions today, these overbalances tend to be in the direction of intellectuality, reason, and doctrine rather than direct spiritual experience. Until extremely recently, most Western religion have also excluded women from any but the most minor roles in the hierarchy. Starhawk, one of the most visible leaders of the Neopagan movement in the U.S., once told me that she might not have become a Witch if at the time (in the 1960s) she could have become a rabbi in the Jewish tradition in which she had been raised.

A modern path, then, apart from being a legitimate and valuable expression of religious experience in its own right, is also a way of giving feedback to the larger institutional religions. As we can see today, some branches of Christianity and Judaism are becoming more open to the ordination of women, to values that affirm physical life on earth, and to personal spiritual experience instead of rigid doctrine. Is this because Wicca has prodded them into it? Perhaps not primarily. But I am sure it has had an impact.

There is one last point to make. We live in an age of freedom. Certainly not every person on earth enjoys religious liberty at present, but the trend has been moving in that direction for some centuries, and now in many parts of the world (fortunately including our own), freedom of faith and practice is taken for granted. And freedom implies that you have the power to make your own decisions and take responsibility for your own actions, both good and bad. The modern paths are an attempt to put this ideal into practice. And in them all, I believe, there is something deserving of our attention and, very often, of our respect.




Copyright © 1999 by Richard Smoley