Arguments for Paganism

A Rational Framework for Pagan Belief and Practice

The Order of the Ritual

Arguments for Paganism aims to be a work of serious pagan philosophy. It aims to provide a logical framework for contemporary pagan belief and practice. It provides an alternative to those paganisms which are irrational, anti-scientific, anti-natural, and trapped in the margins of monotheism. If paganism wants to flourish today, it needs to gain philosophical maturity. Arguments for Paganism offers one path to that maturity.

Arguments for Paganism is structured as a ritual.


0. Preface

1. Concentrating

  • 1. From Ancient to Modern Paganisms
  • 2. We Welcome Everybody
  • 3. Concentrating Rituals
  • 4. The Progression of Elements

2. Water: The Zero is Non-Being

  • 1. Ouroboros
  • 2. The Self-Negation of Non-Being
  • 3. The Abyss of Non-Being
  • 4. Materiality and Evil
  • 5. Fathomless Depths of Power

3. Earth: The Ground of Being

  • 1. The One is Being-Itself
  • 2. The Ontic and the Ontological
  • 3. The Logical Analysis of Being-Itself
  • 4. The Two Ways of Negation
  • 5. The Earth Emerges from the Sea

4. The Priority of the One

  • 1. The Lowest One
  • 2. The Wiccan Ultimate Source
  • 3. Altars and Sacrifices
  • 4. Self-Transcendent Pain

5. From the One to the Two

  • 1. The Androgynous Dyad
  • 2. Reasoning without any Reasoner
  • 3. Emanating the First Beings
  • 4. All the Air in the Abstract Sky

6. Air: The Logic of Existence

  • 1. The Laws of Logic
  • 2. Propositions Emanate Objects
  • 3. Reasons For and Reasons Against
  • 4. The Rational Ordering of Existence

7. From Simplicity to Sets

  • 1. The Simple Initial Object
  • 2. Distinct Copies Do Not Exist
  • 3. Reasons Against Regressions
  • 4. Every Many has its One
  • 5. The Iterations of Objects

8. The Axis of the World

  • 1. The Axis Mundi
  • 2. The Evolution of Numbers
  • 3. From the Finite to the Infinite
  • 4. The Incantation for Numbers
  • 5. The Ecstasy of Numbers

9. The Sky of Sets

  • 1. Selections and Rejections
  • 2. The Stack of Power Sets
  • 3. The Incantation for Sets
  • 4. The Axioms of Set Theory

10. Greatness Ever Growing

  • 1. The Unfolding of the One
  • 2. From the One to the Platonic Atoms
  • 3. Value is Distance from the One
  • 4. Sacred Arithmetic and Sacred Geometry

11. The Thicket

  • 1. The Incantation for Strings
  • 2. The Axioms of Unfolding
  • 3. All Mathematically Possible Universes
  • 4. Cosmic and Biological Programs

12. The Sapwood

  • 1. Arguments for Animation
  • 2. From Intrinsic Value to Complexity
  • 3. The Comparative Values of Programs
  • 4. Seeds and Skulls
  • 5. The Incantation for Seeds

13. Fire: The One Animates the Seeds

  • 1. The Animation of Programs
  • 2. The Sources of Animating Reasons
  • 3. The Logic of Animation
  • 4. The Incantation for Animations
  • 5. The Worlds and their Blazes
  • 6. Fire Fills the Abstract Sky

14. The World Tree

  • 1. The Stoic Conception of Fire-Energy
  • 2. Animated Seeds Manifest Cosmic Computers
  • 3. The Incantation for Demiurges
  • 4. The Biocosmic Analogy

15. The Sexual Aspects of Fire-Energy

  • 1. The Hierogamy of Zeus and Hera
  • 2. The Closing and Opening Powers
  • 3. The Gynomic and Andromic Powers
  • 4. The Wiccan God and Goddess

16. Fire-Energy at Work

  • 1. Networks of Connected Dots
  • 2. The Emergence of Physical Presence
  • 3. The Incantation for Universes
  • 4. This Tree Stands in Flames
  • 5. Universes are Agents

17. The Counterparts

  • 1. Things Surpass Themselves
  • 2. Plotinus: The Lower and Higher Universes
  • 3. Little Trees inside the Big World Tree
  • 4. The Incantation for Things
  • 5. Possible Futures

18. The First Universes

  • 1. A Modernized Great Chain
  • 2. The Simple Universes
  • 3. The Natural Obligation to Self-Organize

19. Physical Complexity

  • 1. The Physical Universes
  • 2. The Emergence of Wholes
  • 3. The Emergence of Atoms
  • 4. The Sun has Beliefs about the Planets

20. Chemical Complexity

  • 1. The Emergence of Molecules
  • 2. The Thermodynamics of Self-Organization
  • 3. Self-Adaptive Systems
  • 4. The Emergence of Biochemistry

21. Biological Complexity

  • 1. Ancient Evolutionary Theories
  • 2. Unicellular Organisms
  • 3. Multicellular Organisms
  • 4. Better Parts Make Better Wholes
  • 5. How Optimization Permits Conflicts

22. Social Complexity

  • 1. Societies with Cooperating Plants
  • 2. Societies with Cooperating Animals
  • 3. Virtuous and Vicious Conflicts
  • 4. The Triumph of Goodness over Evil
  • 5. Humans and their Many Communities

23. On Casting Spells

  • 1. How Organisms Communicate Messages
  • 2. How Things Throw Charms
  • 3. Textures Spirits Ghosts
  • 4. Sentences in Magical Languages
  • 5. The Grimoires at Universes

24. Birth and Fate

  • 1. Welcome to Our Universe
  • 2. Genetic Determinism
  • 3. Beyond Natal Determinism
  • 4. Living in a Network of Signs

25. The Body and the Soul

  • 1. The Soul is the Form of the Body
  • 2. Matter is Functional Impairment
  • 3. Two Kinds of Impairment

26. Alchemy

  • 1. Telestic Technology
  • 2. Techno-Alchemy Heals Bodies
  • 3. Techno-Alchemy Enhances Bodies

27. Mind-Craft: Stoicism

  • 1. Solving the Problems of Life
  • 2. The Stoic Spiritual Exercises
  • 3. The Stoic Sage

28. Mind-Craft: Stoic Exercises

  • 1. The Stoic Workout
  • 2. Sources of Adversity for Stoic Training
  • 3. Stoic Mind-Craft Practices

29. Sign-Craft: Magic

  • 1. How Magic Produces
  • 2. Some Implications of Spell-Casting
  • 3. Magically Programming Physical Systems
  • 4. An Illustration of Magic
  • 5. The Rationality of Magic

30. Benefactors

  • 1. Exchanges of Food and Grooming
  • 2. Reciprocate Food with Grooming Avatars
  • 3. Teleonomic Benefactors

31. Giving Thanks

  • 1. Giving Thanks to Evolution
  • 2. Giving Thanks to the Sun
  • 3. Giving Thanks to the Universe
  • 4. Giving Thanks to Deep Natural Forces
  • 5. Giving Thanks to the One

32. The Wheel of the Year

  • 1. The Solar Holidays
  • 2. Celebrating the Solar Holidays
  • 3. The Common Liturgy
  • 4. The Great Cycles of Nature

33. Fire-Craft: Sacrifices

  • 1. Sacrificial Offerings to the Good
  • 2. Simulating Personal Rebirth
  • 3. Simulating Cosmic Rebirth

34. Ancient Reincarnation

  • 1. Ancient Arguments for Reincarnation
  • 2. Retributive Karma
  • 3. Problems with Retributive Karma
  • 4. Wiccan Reincarnation

35. Naturalizing Reincarnation

  • 1. Arguments for Rebirth
  • 2. The Emergence of Karmic Laws
  • 3. Karmic Laws for Humans
  • 4. Rituals for Accelerating Your Ascent
  • 5. The Incantation for Your Lives

36. The Divine Animals

  • 1. The Deities are Superhuman Animals
  • 2. Past Superhuman Animals
  • 3. Present Superhuman Animals
  • 4. Future Superhuman Animals
  • 4. Maximal Divine Diversity

37. Ranks of Bodies

  • 1. Sagacious Bodies
  • 2. Heroic Bodies
  • 3. Tellurian Bodies
  • 4. Olympian Bodies
  • 5. Celestial Bodies
  • 6. Infinite Bodies

37. Shape-Craft: Theosis

  • 1. Humans Becoming Divine Animals
  • 2. The Way of Theurgy
  • 3. The Way of Cosmological Evolution
  • 4. Humans Rising through the Divine Ranks

39. Shape-Craft: Shifting

  • 1. Simulating Greater Selves
  • 2. Shifting via Theurgical Rituals
  • 3. Shifting via Ecstatic Dancing

40. The Transcendental Bodies

  • 1. How Universes Become Cosmic Organisms
  • 2. The Emergence of Infinite Cosmic Organisms
  • 3. Plotinus: Infinite Holographic Bodies
  • 4. The Ecosystem of Stars
  • 5. With Your Arms Upstretched

41. Light: The Good

  • 1. The Good is Not the One
  • 2. The Holy Light of an Unsurpassable Fire
  • 3. The Sun Illuminates the Earth
  • 4. The Sky is Filled with Ecstasies
  • 5. Mystical Experience

42. Light-Craft: Psychedelic Shifting

  • 1. Modernizing the Mysteries
  • 2. A Network Enchanted by Fire-Energy
  • 3. Hallucinatory Journeys through Logical Space
  • 4. Purging and Ego Dissolution
  • 5. Transformational Experience

43. The Sun and the Stars

  • 1. Striving for Divinity
  • 2. The Plurality of Perfections
  • 3. The Pentacle

44. Releasing


References

Index