How do you properly practise european paganism?

how do you properly practise european paganism?

Is it inherently ethnocentric?

even worse, you often worship your local spirits and interpretation of deities. spirits are tied to the land, they live in stones, springs, groves, mountains, rivers and lakes.

>Is it inherently ethnocentric
No, there's nothing stopping an Ionian making offerings to a Dorian's hero, or a Roman aristocrat worshiping the same goddess as a Nubian.

>how do you properly practise european paganism?
With sacrifices!

>how do you properly practise european paganism?
As in authentically as some Europeans did ages ago? You can try and do what you can but a lot of information is lost, not to mention that paganism was never monolithic and naturally varied from place to place, so there's the additional headache of that out.
>Is it inherently ethnocentric?
Not necessarily but there tends to attract groups of people practicing for aesthetic reasons as opposed to purely spiritual, wether it be just reactionary Wicca bullshit or "much traditions and ancestors" types.

>is it ethnocentric

Yes. Obviously. Ancestor worship is a cornerstone, and blood-relation between ethnic groups and their gods is commonplace. Germanic peoples particularly traced their lineages from a god, and their leaders often cited Woden as their clan's progenitor. Paganism and animism is the default spiritualism of man - and is by default in accordance with man's innate tribalism.

Modernists who try to whitewash ancient tradition with their universalist ideology are in reality just Christians without a god. Stop forcing Abrahamic universalism on indigenous ethno-faiths.

You could argue that it's not tied genetically, but it's definitely tied to the land. Makes zero sense to worship the Egyptian pantheon in America or the Greek pantheon in Norway.

Tbh I think folk syncretism is more viable than 'pure' paganism due to a lack of sources.

>Ancestor worship
Wasn't practiced by everyone in Pagan Europe. The closest the Greeks had was Hero-Cult. Romans full on had Chinese-tier Ancestor Worship complete with apotheosizing relatives.

This is untrue. Ethnic groups bring their gods with them to newly conquered lands. Tengriists did not adopt European gods when they invaded in the Migration Era. Anglo Saxons kept Germanic gods in Britain.

It doesn't make sense to seat yourself in a religion that puts so much emphasis on ancestry, heritage and folkishness when you are entirely detached from it, by blood. Doubly it is an insult to your own ancestors who kept their own deities, ways and traditions.

>Ethnic groups bring their gods with them to newly conquered lands.
Greeks & Romans said hi.

And they also syncretized new religious figures into their own beliefs, take for example the re-imagining of Christ into a heroic figure more suited to a Germanic mentality like in the dream of the rood or the harrowing of hell.

It makes the most sense to follow the beliefs of my ancestors through the period in which most written record remains, and this is inherently syncretic with pagan traits and a naturalised Christian tradition. Simultaneously praying for the land and for God's intervention. Don't miss the trees for the forest

>Ancestor worship is a cornerstone
Nope. Look at the example of the Greeks, were different ethnically groups worshiped the same heroes because of their cultural and historic importance.

watch Vargs videos on paganism, (ThuleanPerspective)
especially his really early ones. Not as much politics involved in those

you bend over a great deal whilst fellating yourself or your neighbour I would imagine

So why did the Romans worship greek and egyptian deities? Why did heracles and apollo have cults in arabia? Also as someone pointed out ancestor worship was not practiced throughout europe. You need to stop making generalizations of a continent.

>find a 19th century book that imagines what your region's pagan past might have looked like (the romantics loved that shit)
>pretend this work of fiction is historical fact, when someone points out there's no sources just mumble a name of a different book (make up a name if you need to)
>find some people to worship with, preferably frail-looking metalheads with pube-like facial hair (the local larp club is a good place to look)
>find a good spot in a park or something to prance around like the book says (remember, never admit the book is fiction. always insist it's ancient tradition that never went away)
>stage an anemic protest in front of a church or something. you can have a guy mumbling about the christian invaders or you can just stand there awkwardly. if people start handing you money because they think you're collecting for an animal shelter you know you've hit the correct level of intensity.

at least that's how it works where i'm from

There is none of this in Australia (obviously), so I always found it bizarre. Thank you for confirming my suspicion that it was essentially just larping gone spiritual though.

>how do you properly practise european paganism?
Rituals that are part of the tradition that's passed on from parents to their children. Depending on where you're from, those could've been lost or are only saved in fragments in later texts.

>Is it inherently ethnocentric?
In the Mediterranean, beliefs spread thorugh the states/empires but in the more isolated regions, they were far more contained. In western Slovenia, for example, there are records of old believers existing into the 20th century (some even say they exist today). Interestingly enough, their beliefs seemed to have been not those pertaining to Slavic mythology (Triglav, Kresnik, etc) but older, Celtic beliefs. Now, I can't say whether this is a result of assimilated Celtic natives keeping their beliefs or of Slavic settlers taking on Celtic beliefs. But those beliefs originated in a time when people were not as mobile and every region, even every community, had its own different beliefs, legends, mythological figures. Examples of this can be found in actual Slavic beliefs, too; different Slavic tribes worshipped different deities (for example, the aforementioned Kresnik can only be found among Slovenes while Hors - originally an Iranic deity - was worshipped in the East).

He's talking strictly about Germanics, Celts and Slavs. Not Southern """""""""Europeans""""""""""""

You don't

It's a farce

Also "European" paganism?

Europe wasn't a monolith in ancient times

>how do you properly practise european paganism?

1. Fill room with snakes and prostitutes
2. Fuck prostitute in snake filled room
3. The gods have spoken

You mean the G*rmanics who converted to Roman Christianity?

Yeap, sure carried their gods with them.

European paganism is just shintoism for the west. It carries onto every day life in ritual and practice, like building shrines for dead loved ones, and worshiping the spirits of the Earth.

Depending on the stories you follow, it may or may not be ethnocentric.

you're just inviting the righteous anger of a powerfully built Austrian