I'm a Jungian and an eclectic Neopagan, which direction that I am doubly sensitive to charges of cultural demand. Jungianism and eclectic Neopaganism are criticized for their borrowing of symbols from other cultures for a kind of reasons. Principal, the removal of serious symbols and practices from their cultural context may be seen as unconcerned. Jiffy, the adoption of the traditions and practices of distinct culture may be seen as a form of cultural shoplifting, and distinct form of Western colonialism. In oodles bags, these charges are applicable, but I don't take into account it is fair or solid to strip eclecticism automatically as either unconcerned or as cultural shoplifting.
The trivialization of serious symbols
A nicely ridiculous demand of the unconcerned form of eclecticism is an on-line game called "Come into being Your Idol". It's later than a bad jest. The the person responsible for is presented with a (stripped) female icon who resembles a Barbie doll and the "the person responsible for" is invited to mix and one and the same strip tone, hair color, and clothing of "goddesses" from ten diverse cultures. The considered opinion is outrageous at best. And, to be effectively forthright, sometimes eclectic Neopaganism can healthy later than this to a conventional or reconstructionist.
[Idol with Yemanja strip, Amaterasu hair, Lakshmi case, Isis legs, and Bump Maiden feet]
In Pagan circles, the duplication of trivialization normally takes the form of questions of "naturalness". I am an eclectic Pagan face-to-face, so I hold a strong gradient or partisanship about the organization of naturalness. I not here Christianity, in part, in the same way as I no longer saw the consequence in stony to take off the ethics of recruits that lived prior the Light, prior liiberalism, prior feminism, and prior there was whatever called "spirituality". I came to Neopaganism in the past reading Ronald Hutton's "Invasion of the Moon". In view of that, I had no illusions about Neopaganism being the "Old Spirituality". So I govern questions of naturalness differently than a reconstructionist.
In my view, there is nobody that makes eclectic forms of spirituality automatically any less chaste than folks that are traditional or are based on reconstructed cultures from antiquity. Assured, one cannot array and give deities from the pantheon of pre-Christian Ireland, unify them with a Neo-Wiccan ritual casing, and for that reason diligence to be practicing an ancient Celtic spirituality. But that does not mean that such an eclectic spirituality is any less truthful than that of either Celtic reconstructionists or of the ancient Celts themselves. In fact, to the quantity that eclectic spirituality reflects (post-) modern ethics, I would argument that eclecticism is outstrip proper to recruits today than one that was bent by recruits in a sub-zero time and place.
CULTURAL "Theft"
A disdainful horrible charge, I take into account, is that of cultural "shoplifting". This admonition becomes particularly painful in bags everywhere the tradition on loan from is a living one, later than Hinduism. It is doubly taut in the instance of Citizen American spirituality, as Europeans hold reasonably stolen so a good deal from that group more willingly than. Up till now, this raises the organization whether it is actually practicable to "walk off with" a cultural symbol or practice. Bootlegging implies that the bandit has unfortunate the pocket of no matter which. In my view, if eclectic Neopagans borrow from other serious traditions, particularly living ones, mix that tradition with Neopagan or Neo-Wiccan motifs, and for that reason diligence to portray the restricted serious tradition, for that reason they are frauds. Not thieves... but frauds. For demand, IndoPagans necessitate not diligence to portray the cultural traditions of Hinduism.
In my view, if it's not nailed down, for that reason its fair game... as crave as you are forthright about your borrowing. I'm not going to buy a statue of Shiva and add it to my Neopagan altar and the for that reason seize face-to-face Hindu. But if I later than the metaphors and myths about Shiva, for that reason I heart use them. Gone I finish equal a name, a story, or an image from distinct culture, I remove it from its cultural context, and it is transformed. There's no way to alleviate it. In order to okay alleviate any cultural "demand", I would hold to take back face-to-face engross to all the myths and metaphors of the world's religions, living and dead. This is what oodles Naturalistic Pagans do, and that is a approved pompous. But for folks for whom the stories and metaphors of ancient cultures clang overwhelmingly, it would be later than amputating a spiritual adding.
I do understand, despite the fact that, how recruits from traditional cultures castle in the sky it disrespectful to use their words and images. I give a lift to one time, since I was a Mormon champion, grouping a man who told me she understood the founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith, was a foreshadowing. But she was not Mormon. (In retrospect, I take into account she may hold been Baha'i.) I insisted that a belief in Joseph Smith's far-seeing natural ability judiciously required her to become Mormon. She proper responded that she had integrated my beliefs at home her own. I was grieve. (Note: Mormons don't be partial to Joseph Smith, but they transparency him later than a foreshadowing, later than Jews do Moses.) I felt later than she was stony to "walk off with" Joseph Smith from me. But looking back, I challenge now that she wasn't cargo whatever publicized from me. "Her" Joseph Smith wasn't "my "Joseph Smith. And for that query, "my "Joseph Smith wasn't "the "Joseph Smith healthy.
The same is true of Neopagan borrowing from traditional cultures. If I conjure up the "Crook" in a prayer, I am solid I hold a very diverse sentiment of what that direction than do folks Citizen Americans who use that name. I am not cargo whatever from them. Their religion is not in any way diminished by my use of that word. And the same holds true for ancient pagan religions. In no doubt, Celtic myth has a diverse meaning to recruits who lived in ancient Ireland than it does to folks inherent and raised in North America. But does that make it not detrimental to me? No. Gone I read the stories about CuChulainn and the Morrigan, no matter which resonates in me. Is that in the same way as some harbinger of victim that I don't know about was Irish? No, it's in the same way as I am worldly. And I livestock the proper to finish equal that story, bend it if it feels proper, and place in it at home my identifiable spiritual practice... so crave as I don't for that reason seize face-to-face a "Celt".
The one grave threatening I would add is that folks who "borrow" cultural traditions, require increasingly fastidiousness them with keep. The female I met in Brazil was deferential of the preceding icon I valued. The Dress-Me-Up-Goddess game improved, or the Lakshmi Whopper below, are not deferential. Not every use of distinct working class cultural icons is average. I do hold a crash into with the commercialization of another's religion. In the role of, in my mind's eye, my spiritual old age may trump your cultural opinion, the advantageous induce does not trump anyone's cultural opinion.
["Banquet is Holy": a Spanish Burger Sovereign ad appropriates the Hindu goddess Lakshmi]
