Pagans

Hippies are the children of Jean Jacques Rousseau. I have often thought that as a counter-cultural "current", they may be traced back way before the sixties through the early days of the New Thought Movement, to certain anxiety-related Romantic reactions against the excesses of the Enlightenment. They were obsessed with issues surrounding higher states of consciousness, organic food and a free sexuality. Their movement was, therefore, destructive, as it stretched above the "merely" rational before its appointed cultural time. With this in mind, there is a distinct danger that Channel Fours recent documentary series Pagans (written and presented by Richard Rudgley) will be identified as a critique of modern social fashion instead of a potential revolution in contemporary spirituality.
From the opening credits, Rudgley sidesteps accepted notions of received history to show his audience that influences from the ancient pagan world never really diminished. He explains how the endless experimentation of early Alchemists actually did pull mineral swords from stones and explores the Astro-Theology of tribal magicians in their seasonal calculations. In homage to their ecological wisdom, one episode even shows him wearing a mysterious golden hat, which seems to have been worn by one of these wizards as a sign of authority over natural processes.
Any theology that rests on reason rather than revelation is, of course, a form of natural religion. In other words, a type of esoteric astronomy, which searches the stars to find the effects and purposes of an otherwise unknowable first cause. Theologically insightful scholars would probably claim that the foundation of all intellectual religions, ancient as well as modern, have this same source. They are also likely to contend that the symbolic scriptures of sophisticated cultures were inspired by the geometrical movements of these heavenly giants. Arguably, even the Revelation of St. John the Divine confirms this opinion. After all, the strange personages populating his Apocalypse are discernable in any celestial atlas; a position demonstrated by the antipodean Speculative Freemason, Henry Melville, whose fascinating book Veritas (1874), details the entire sarcedotal system of stellar bodies and their suggested alignments with occult "inner constellations" mentioned in Medieval Hermetic manuscripts.
Rudgley contextualises these theories, suggesting that the principles behind this psycho-organic totality were laid down by prehistoric pagan astrologers. He adds that later initiates were rarely given access to their fundamental findings, although every now and again astrological records offered tantalising hints concerning the nature of the cosmos. This is especially curious when we recall that some modern researchers say only specific planets and stars were important to our forefathers, who appear to have regarded the universe as a gigantic living organism; a vast sustaining placenta through which the Divine Self-concept incarnated. It would further imply that human beings are not simply constituent parts of the universe, but rather the final summarising product of evolution.
These are complex concepts, which Rudgley expounds with considerable Saviour Faire. As a born communicator, he sees no necessary divide between scholarship and informed public opinion, provided the expert in question is in command of his or her field. He easily meets this criterion himself, due to an impeccable academic background, coupled with an obvious fascination with the material. Indeed, one of his skills as a presenter is to break down abstract theoretical propositions and then describe the exposed fragments with a consummate professional enthusiasm- a talent not always shared by those he interviewed.
This became increasingly evident when watching the second program in the series. Without much assistance, Rudgley guides his viewers through the legacy of Arthurian legend; a topic which unexpectedly caught my attention due to its exegesis of the relation between poetry and physical violence. As a poet myself fascinated with the perennial truths of destruction, conflict and the grotesque, I found this episode gripping. From the outset, he details the development of folk tales around tribal warriors, who constantly perfected formidable martial skills to defend their kith and kin. Enlarging his theme, Rudgley then maps their world of highly codified chivalry, where young male muscle and bone was energetically tested by each of these "knights" against the other for the sheer joy of it. Fascinatingly, such openly erotised rutting rarely degenerated into a free-for-all, because their personal honour prevented them from sinking into a brutish battery. Differences were, nevertheless, inevitable and had to be settled without repression or lasting scars, which is why their ritualised wrestling was never expressed thoughtlessly just for the sake of temporary cathartic relief, but channeled artfully; an aesthetic blend that flowered into martial Epics as well as military Sagas.
In the final analysis, Rudgley's documentary series is a provocative and extraordinarily rich philosophical assertion. Ironically, however, its very opulence may give rise to a variety of conflicting interpretations. His work could easily be seen as a reflexive academic comment, a personal vision, or even a religious prophecy trapped in the distorting lens of cultural relativism. Rudgley, however, intends these programs to be about the present, not the past. His understated ideological challenge to so-called western religious orthodoxy is found in a tacit defence of humanity's need to participate abstractedly with the environmental realities underlying all metaphysical superstructures, which is why Rudgley seems to feel that "Christian civilisation" is both totalitarian in its ethical imperatives and consciously unreflective about its origins. A challenge demanding considerable reflection.