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Polytheist Monasticism
Apr. 1st, 2022 12:56 pm
I'm delighted to announce that Polytheist Monasticism: Voices from Pagan Cloisters is now in print. It's an anthology, edited by Janet Munin, of essays by people involved in one way or another in the emerging world of polytheist and animist monastic life.Yes, there are monks and nuns in polytheist traditions; there were monastic traditions in polytheism long before Johnny-come-lately faiths such as Christianity and Buddhism were born; and the revival of polytheism in recent years has inspired a significant number of people to take up a vocation as polytheist monks and nuns. The essays in this book were written by some of the people involved in that movement. I've got a piece in there, about the process by which the Ancient Order of Druids in America organized its own monastic system, but there are other essays in the collection that are much more interesting!
(All this is timely for another reason. One of the tasks on the horizon as I sort out the legacy of my late teacher John Gilbert is the revival of the Universal Gnostic Church, the religious tradition he inherited from his teachers and passed on to a handful of successors. The UGC had, among other things, its own monastic orders, the Order of the Universal Monk and the Order of the Universal Nun, and those will need to be reactivated as well in due time.)
If you're interested in the anthology, why, it's now in print and hitting bookstore shelves. You can order a copy here if you live in the United States (they're temporarily backordered but should have more copies soon) and here if you live anywhere else in the world.
Yesterday I fielded an intriguing call for papers, which I've attached below. It didn't come as a complete surprise -- I know the editor -- and I've also heard a fair amount from various corners of the modern polytheist revival about explorations of monastic spirituality. Still, it strikes me as a very good sign. Perhaps the most serious of the many weaknesses of the Neopagan movement is the extent to which it focuses on a purely social, outer-directed model of spirituality; the turn toward a more inner-directed spirituality on the part of contemporary polytheists, I think, is a much needed balancing factor. 
