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2. Old Souls: Pagan Childhood
- NYU Press
- Chapter
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>> 57 2 Old Souls Pagan Childhood Be four years old as long as you can. —Daniel, father of two, to his oldest son Wise Children This chapter examines Pagan perspectives on childhood and parenting and the ways that understandings of these idioms shape the religious and imaginative worlds of Pagan adults, children, and families. I suggest that contemporary Paganism maintains a complicated tension between the valorization of a sort of self-conscious, disingenuous naïveté among Pagan adults and an externally imposed perception of precocious wisdom among Pagan children. Put simply, contemporary Paganism seems to encourage a childlike immaturity in adults and, in some ways, an overly precocious maturity in children. Pagan adults seek to recapture the spontaneity of their lost childhoods (however oxymoronic that may be)—a spontaneity that is often lost as a result of their own disappointing or damaging childhood religious experiences. Likewise, adult Pagans attempt to prevent their own children from experiencing a similar spiritual disconnection by emphasizing, reinforcing, and, at times, inventing this connection themselves. Pagan understandings of the role and nature of the idealized concept of the “child” influence the spiritual imaginations and religious worlds of both Pagan adults and Pagan children. When American Pagans talk about the historical roots of their religious worldviews, few of them mention the roles of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 58 > 59 lack.6 This spiritual “openness” and flexibility is often understood as the natural state of humans before we learn to deny fantasy and spirit in favor of rationality and the physical world. Children are seen as representatives of an undiluted, undenied, innate spiritual awareness. During one of our many conversations, Erin, an eclectic Pagan mother of a sixyear -old, mentioned that she saw children’s spirituality as different from that of adults “because they’re more innocent and creative, and they’re in tune. It’s the adults that kind of wear that away, I think, and the teaching that wears it away.”7 Erin is not alone in her assessment of children’s increased spiritual capacities. Many Pagan adults use similar terms to explain children’s spirituality (suggesting that children are “open” or “in tune,” and that standard education makes children “unlearn” these spiritual proclivities). The sociologist Helen Berger received similar responses during her studies of Pagan families. She noted that many Wiccans believe that children can “more easily access the divine as they have not yet fully developed a rational, talking self.”8 The idea that children ’s pure, untainted spirituality is gradually eroded and corrupted by contact with the adult world is a common theme among adult Pagans. Books with titles like The Wise Child: A Spiritual Guide to Nurturing Your Child’s Intuition, Child Astrology: A Guide to Nurturing Your Child’s Gifts, and Your Magical Child (the latter of which, presumably, includes implicit nurturing as well) are popular among Pagan parents, and references to children’s natural propensity for the spiritual and supernatural occur frequently in everyday conversation. AtoneBeltanefestival,IsatwiththefamiliesofSpiralWindscovenona refreshingly cool early morning, wrapped in blankets and eating pancakes cooked over the campfire. Freya had responded to one of my many questions about the nature of children’s spirituality by observing that children have“verydeepthoughtsthatwedon’tunderstand.”Toillustratethispoint, she told me a story about when her daughter Cricket was very young. As the family drove past a cemetery one day, Cricket said, “My friend Lucy is in there.” Freya told her daughter that the site was a cemetery, but Cricket insisted that her friend was “in there.” They stopped and went into the graveyard, and Cricket walked to a grave, marked “Lucy,” of a child who had died young. Several of the adults murmured expressions of surprise or confirmation at this indication of Cricket’s—what? Psychic powers? Spiritual connection? Evidence of reincarnation? Stroking Cricket’s hair, 60 > 61 children—although how and why this might occur or which children may be less attuned or less spiritually fortunate is not specified. Another author in this newsletter also seems to suggest that some children are more magical than others in an essay titled “The Enchantment of Youth.” Encouraging parents to help their children resist “those unfortunate people ” who refuse to recognize or promote “enchantment” (again, left undefined ) in their lives, she explains that other children may attempt to strip more “magickal” children of their “enchantment and innocence.”13 Again, it seems that some privileged children inhabit a world of “enchantment,” whereas some unfortunate children lack this quality and resent its presence in others (perhaps...