Eclecticism: Dilettantism or Way of the World?

Let’s start by saying: eclecticism CAN BE disrespectful, shallow, and even silly. If you could travel back to the 90’s or early aughts, I was often the one in the room saying “slow down, engage only with those traditions you have actually invested time in and have real knowledge of, eclecticism for the sake of eclecticism is not good”. It was not uncommon to run in to people claiming that Jesus and Kali are their God and Goddess in Wicca, while knowing next to nothing about Christianity or Hinduism. It was also not uncommon to find people claiming to be Houngans and Mambos after reading a book or two on Vodou. There were “Thelemic” versions of everything from Shinto to Palo, none of which at all respected the religion that was “Thelemicized”. I suppose silly eclecticism still not that uncommon.

Thankfully there has been a backlash against shallow dilettantism. Over the last 20 years more and more people have been embracing traditional methods on their own basis. Taking the time to get initiated into something and study it in depth. Taking the time to look at Grimoires and old texts from their own base, rather than a hastily constructed pseudo-Kabbalah lens. Sadly like every counter revolution, we ran to the other extreme. The new Traditionalists took it to a place that the ancients that they revere never would: rejecting and ignoring anything and everything that does not fit in that tradition – or what the person fetishizes as being part of that tradition. Anything that ventures beyond one tradition, or sometimes even one Grimoire, is de-facto worthless. Entire ways of looking at the world get written off as “Eastern” and inappropriate for “Westerners”, despite the fact that no one can identify where exactly the dividing line is, or what the real difference is. A view of reality, is after all a view of reality, not just localized to a certain time and place – otherwise, its not a view of reality.

Just as the Wild Eclectics had to go out of their way to fine new and every more exotic food for their fetish, the new traditionalists have to go just as far out of their way to ignore a world that is beating down their door.

The idea that you have to go out and seek out these different and exotic things as a deliberate act is not true at all in this day and age. In an age of jet travel, unprecedented publishing efforts, and instant communication I feel it takes an almost Herculean act of ignorance to ignore everything that does not fit in your bubble? Is this what the knowledge hungry writers of the PGM would do? I don’t think so.  Sadly unlike the pre-social media internet, the web now provides more tools for isolation than connection. We can just double down and double down with a crowd who already agrees with us until we, quite literally in some cases, become insane.

So in my 20’s I was the stodgy traditionalist telling Wiccans, Chaotes, and pretend Houngans to slow their roll, respect tradition and history and go for depth. Now at 47 I engage with roughly the same paths that I did then – mostly the ones I was introduced to before I was 22, but because I engage in more than one tradition and see no real difference between “eastern” and “western” methods I am pegged as the wild eclectic “tradition mixer”. But this is the world that presented itself to me. It’s probably similar to the world that presents itself to you to.

THE WORLD IS ECLECTIC

As a young man without venturing far from the piss-ant central Jersey town I grew up in, I was exposed to the following:

  • At 15 years old: A ceremonial magician who mentored me through my first books and bought me my first Tarot Deck.
  • At 17 years old: A rootworker who taught me how to use anything in the shop
  • At 18 Years Old: A Gardnerian Priestess who ran rituals at her shop and a Santera whose would talk folks magic with me because I babysat her son.
  • At 19 years old: A Ngakpa who was also in the OTO and became my most important teacher.

Which of those people should I ignore? Maybe the ones that came later? Cliff and Misha Pollick who brought me in to the Chthonic Auranian OTO? The cast of Characters at Thelesis who came from all backgrounds. Xanthias who was instrumental in helping me get a handle on my Hekate experience? Bishop Nemesius who helped me get a grip on mystical Christianity? The countless friends and partners in crime that shared their knowledge with me over campfires and coffee tables and altars?

I guess what I am saying is that if there is a gift to living at this time, it is that you will almost certainly be exposed to larger and more full world than ever before. To run wild through this, treating it like a buffet of spirituality is both silly and shallow, but so is ignoring the world as it presents itself to you. The messy, complicated, and interconnected world.

SANE ECLECTICISM

I call my approach Sane Eclecticism. I wrote about it in The Elements of Spellcrafting, but I have also written about it here before.