On Attestation

Personally, I find that many neopagans have too much of a focus on attestation. I understand it as an force that cuts against the worst kinds of superstition and woo, but appealing to the ancient provenance of texts is not a recipe for building a spiritual practice that meets the needs of practicioners today.

I understand why people do this, and I certainly did, as a younger woman. It makes our practices easier to justify, more legible, and a little more socially acceptable. By pointing to texts in which Western culture already places some stock, texts that come from the ancients of Northern and Western Europe, we gain some level of acceptance from Christofascist society, though not much - and we buy that acceptance at the expense of our own clarity of thought.

That is not to say that we should eschew old or ancient practices simply because they are old or ancient. The Heitstrenging and, more particularly, the beot or solstice boasting are traditions I adore and participate in, becuase I think they are more interesting and productive than New Year's resolutions. I also sometimes participate in shabbat, a ritual cessation of work on Friday evening, which dates back to a custom of work cessation, related to celebrations on the full moon or šapattu, based on lunar weeks in ancient Babylon - about as far back as attestation can ever go.