Local Habitation

This is the final installment of a series of posts on how modern Neopaganism is truly the ‘Old Religion’ because it contains similar tropes and beliefs as the oldest recorded Indo-European religion, in this case, Mesopotamian, which far predates Abrahamic monotheism.

For the Mesopotamians, the characteristics that I’ve written about (Immanence, Name and Form, Intransitiveness, Festivals, Polytheism, and Magick) come together in what Thorkild Jacobson, author of The Treasures of Darkness, terms ‘local habitation.’

For the Mesopotamians, local habitation took on several forms. It included cult drama rituals such as the New Year’s Akitu festival and the Sacred Marriage rite. Magico-religious art such as the Ishtar Vase illustrates the goddess Ishtar surrounded by animals. The Mesopotamians believed in the creative power of words, including poetry, hymns of praise, lamentations, and incantations. Finally, temples provided literal habitation for deities in Mesopotamia. The most dramatic being the giant ziggurats at the heart of each city-state meant to provide a home for the gods.

Ishtar Vase

Neopagans share the practice of local habitation, even though the details are reimagined. We use rituals, magico-religious art, the creative power of words in poetry, praise, and incantations. While we lack temple structures, we build altars for both magick and to bring down the gods to dwell among us.  

I hope this series of blog posts has shown the crucial similarities between Neopaganism and the beliefs of the world’s oldest recorded civilization. The phrase ‘Old Religion’ does not mean a direct and unbroken line of continuation between the Paganism of the ancient world and the Neopaganism of today, as some claim. Neopaganism is the old religion because it shares the tropes and characteristics of humanity’s earliest recorded faith.