Modern neopaganism is romantic poetry (art) based on an idealized version of history.
All good, I think history is quite horrible and I understand why people want to distance themselves from it. But to them it only counts if the mean people were from Catholic countries.
Modern pagan reconstructionism comes out of academic speculation , and was shaped by misinformation left over from wars between the British and Dutch empires against their economic rival , the Spanish empire, from the early modern era. Huge topic but the stories of "evil and dastardly" Catholics is mostly imperial propaganda from this clash of empires, roughly 1580–1700.
Academia then was high insular and British-coded, so the Anglo atheists took this propaganda as literally true, only to be picked by the same people when they made early modern neopaganism in the 19th century as community theatre re-eenactments. Maypoles, Morriss dancing, Stonehenge, you know the drill.
To be clear, I do not attack and modern neopagans the same way they attack Christians, and happen to like them... good folks. But their incessant and loud use of WitchTok slurs and insults against their boogie-man the "Abrahamists" is tiresome and boring, and usually just derails the discussions of magic to virtue signal and lecture the rest of us. In the States all that is usually just misdirected anger away from their parents who raised them in horrible big-box evangelical churches.
So one of the characteristics of people with a strong Saturn in their natal chart is an interest in history, so this one of my fave topics. Lets look at what the historical records say, summarized below:
Historical pagans varied widely by culture and era, but primary sources actually do confirm high levels of violence as being normal:
Germanic pagans were rapist head-choppers who practiced ritual human sacrifice and widespread raiding/rape as economic strategy. This is usually hand-waved away becasue the written record here is mostly from Tacticus, But it's still self-serving cherry-picking.
Greek pagans practiced slavery, female infanticide, widespread pederasty, with ever more during wartime rape and enslavement.
Roman pagans had gladiatorial death games, mass crucifixions, infanticide of deformed newborns, and routine public executions/torture.
British pagans had a entire culture based on warbands conducting tribute warfare, ritual human sacrifice, mass headhunting, tribal warfare, slave raiding, exposure of unwanted infants, Violence and sacrifice were routine, not exceptional.. with no evidence of a peaceful matriarchy the fantasists dream of.
Let's be clear, the pagan world was a legit hellscape. Yes , we should call out the Church for killing the Cathars, but I guess people being terrible people only counts if they are Christian.
