syncretism in action!

[synesis]

The linked article that follows raised a number of interesting questions for me, particularly with the sometimes-rabid anti-syncretic, hard polytheist discourse of intelligent contemporary paganism - a perhaps understandable stance in light of some of the more wildly appropriative forms of neopaganism. Particularly interesting is the contrast

Comments

[brock_tn]

There are days when I think syncretism is simply another response within the sheaf of possibilities inherent in human nature. Look at the Cao Dai, an odd combination of Buddhism, Catholicism, and native animism centered in the city of Tay Ninh in Vietnam. The only religious body I'm aware of to revere Victor Hugo as a saint.

[smarriveurr]

What questions would they be?

[dbmyrrha]

I revere Victor Hugo as a saint

[alfrecht]

There is a difference between syncretism and non-hard-polytheism (for lack of a better term). There are people who are both hard polytheists and syncretists nowadays, and very likely there always have been

[caelum_rainieri]

I think there's a distinction to be made between the syncretism that might be found within a culture (as Alfrecht pointed out in his reply) and the New Age syncretism that follows the "mix and match" school of ritual and worship. Your quote from the Guardian is a fairly well-known example of the former. Mixing Roman Catholic saints and demi-gods with an indigenous pantheon has been going on in Haiti and Mexico for many years.

What I found more interesting was your use of the phrase "intelligent contemporary paganism", which implies the existence of opposite - stupid contemporary paganism. Indeed!