Firstly, Polytheistic reconstructionism (Reconstructionism) is an approach to paganism first emerging in the late 1960s to early 1970s, and gathered momentum in the 1990s to 2000s, and still going strong today. Reconstructionism attempts to re-establish historical polytheistic religions in the modern world. - Wikipedia, Polytheistic Reconstructionism
The term Reconstruction (Recon) is thrown around a lot in the Hellenic community, however, many do not realize that Polytheistic Recon is a methodology to approach reconstructing ancient religions. It does not simply mean: Do exactly as the ancients did. That would just be re-enactment.
What follows are key excerpts from Bil Linzie's excellent paper "Reconstructionism's Role in Modern Heathenry" found here: http://www.angelfire.com/nm/
This will give us a good grounding on how another tradition is approaching reconstruction and hopefully we can start thinking about how we can apply the methodology ourselves.
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Reconstructionism is a philosophical and theoretical approach to revitalizing Germanic heathenry in the modern era.
The questions should now be clearly defined: ``What exactly is reconstructionism, what differentiates it from any other approach and, lastly, why is it even important?'' Reconstructionism is simply this: Reconstructionism is an experiment pure and simple: "If we take the worldview of XYZ-people, and apply it in our own lives, what is the experience?"
The basis of reconstructionism is to reconstruct the 'worldview' of any group of people and apply to gain experience. The simplest of these reconstructive efforts will be completely physical in nature such as carving a runestone utilizing only the tools which were known to have existed during the period and among the culture which one is studying. Other physical-experiments would be that of baking bread, making cloth, blacksmithing, animal husbandry, gardening, boat-building, preparing and putting on a feast, carving wooden utensils, and so on. There is little difference between such an approach taken by modern heathens and those experiments already being conducted by anthropology students engaging in experiential anthropology.
The next questions should probably be ``Why would anyone have to engage in such activities just to belong to a religion?'' What is the relationship between reconstructing the physical processes of artifact production and religion? The assumption that the reconstructionist is working under, however, is that there is no real religion to be had. For the reconstructionist, 'religion' is something that is culturally independent and self-contained and what the reconstructionist is seeking to experience is not the religion but the worldview, the mindset of the the people in question, which gave birth to certain specific spiritual practices.7 The central spiritual practice of the modern heathen is the blót, for example, a sacrifice the regin (ON), the gods, but the reconstructionist isn't looking to rebuild the ceremony so much as he is trying to experience why the ceremony was even important in the first place. The reconstructionist is looking not for a religion but for that which underlies spiritual practice.
The reconstructionist must always be aware that history is not being relived, nor can it be perfectly duplicated. That is not the point of reconstructionism in modern heathenry; the actual point is the attempt to gain the experience of what life was probably like because it is a collection of experiences and perceptions about the world in a specific way which was the matrix in which heathenry was germinated and grown and, by extension, in which it evolved.
While a 'true believer' may find this situation to be paradoxical, the reconstructionist finds such
a position to be a fertile place worthy of study and research. The 'assumption' is that 'belief' must be a necessary component to modern heathen praxis. The reconstructionist questions the concept of 'belief,' though: What was the Old Norse or the Old High German or the Old Saxon word for 'belief?' Was the word used among heathens or was it created to represent an early Christian concept?
The heathen engaging in reconstructionist research is in a good position, holding to no specific beliefs or dogmas to speak of,8 to question everything: Is such-and-such fact, or are we assuming it to be fact? What is the evidence supporting the alleged fact? Here are some reconstructionist style questions:
1. How much of the eddaic material is Christian interpolation or interpretation?
2. Why doesn't the tribal separation of the Vanir versus the Ásir show up in gothic, Old High German, Old Saxon, and Anglo-Saxon texts?
3. Was Óðínn viewed as 'the High God' in all Germanic linguistic branches?
4. Why does a heathen Afterlife show up only in later (eddaic) poetry while the sagas and heathen period skaldic poetry match the bulk of archaeological evidence that life was
continued in the grave?
Things to note:
1) First, and foremost, it is important to understand that reconstructionism cannot replace adherence to a worldview. 'Adherence' implies that one is operating from the 'inside'; reconstructionism gathers its real power from being on the 'outside' looking in. The paradox is similar to the paradox of quantum physics where one is able investigate the motion of an electron but cannot at the same time know anything about its position and vice versa.
2) Reconstructionism does not imply that one is engaged in reproducing or duplicating history. It is not a time machine where one is able to step back into history and experience it first-hand. It is rather 'a methodical approach to studying those forces and processes which most likely gave rise to heathenry.'10
3) The end-product of reconstructionism is not to re-create early germanic cultures in the 21st century; knowledge only of the ancient processes is the only goal.
4) Reconstructed heathen worldviews will only function as an aid to clearing the mirror of history so that modern adherents will have a chance to experience more fully the picture in a historically accurate fashion, but even at its best, reconstructionism will never be able to completely clear the glass.
5) Reconstructionism is an approach to studying the historical foundations of heathenry; it is not, nor can it be 'an approach to 'living as a heathen.' 'Living as a heathen' must be from within an activated worldview.
6) Our detractors with all their arguments against reconstructionism are absolutely correct. Their arguments come from within an 'activated worldview,' historically accurate or not; our arguments are always from the perspective outside looking at usually more than one worldview in a static fashion.
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Taking all this information and applying it to a Hellenic mind set:
What is the Hellenic worldview? What time period are you looking at?
Are you considering the lives of all peoples? The elite, the writers, the farmers, the women, the children, the slaves?
What did the ancient Hellenes believe "made a good person"?
What were the social, religious, political, etc. conditions that affected such views? We often talk about "Hellenic Ethics". What are these ethics? How did they come to be? Who determined what was considered ethical? Who determined what was seen as good or bad? Did ethics change throughout the course of Hellenic history?
When looking at literature from the time, what was happening in Athens at the time that said piece was written? What were the political events, struggles, attitudes of the time? How did these things affect what the author was writing about? Was the author speaking for all the Hellenic peoples or just the elite?
If the gods were seen as the ultimate authority, did the author use the gods in his play to voice the opinions of the masses? Or the elite? Or himself? Was the play written to criticize the elite, or spread their propaganda to the masses?
These are just a few of the many, many questions that arise when applying the methodology of Polytheistic Reconstructionism. It is not simply about "doing what the ancients did". It's about a deeper understanding about why the practices and beliefs existed, so that we can relive an ancient religion in a modern context.
