Endorsement, old gods, and new age

[Volokh, Eugene]

        I wonder whether the Hecate incident might illuminate a broader
problem that's involved with some forms of modern spirituality.

        As I understand it, some people, especially in the new age and
neo-pagan movements, see various deities as having spiritual significance
even if they don't literally "worship" or "believe in" them.  They may
recognize that the stories of these deities are myths, in the sense of not
being factually true, but they use these myths as specifically spiritual
inspirations.  If pressed on this, I can imagine some people saying:

                "I don't actually believe that Hecate exists or existed in
the sense that most Christians believe that Jesus Christ existed, or even
can perform miracles in this world.  But I do believe that going through
certain rituals focused on the Hecate story can make me a spiritually better
person and even can give me greater supranatural control over my own life
and the world around me."

This in fact is not materially different, I think, from people who go to
church -- and especially synagogue -- not because they literally believe in
transsubstantiation, or the divine authorship of the Bible, or *even in the
existence of God*, but because they find the rituals to be spiritually
meaningful experiences.  I have certainly observed this in many of my fellow
Jews.

                Now as to Jews and Christians who don't technically believe
in God practicing the religious rituals, we rarely have any doubt that the
practice is indeed religious; the mass, the bar mitzvah ceremony, and the
like are so traditionally recognized as being religious, and so often
practiced by people who *do* believe that the issue just doesn't come up.
But as to some of the old gods, such as Hecate or Apollo or what have you,
the matter is closer, and it's tempting to say "Well, of course, no-one
believes that those are real, so no reasonable observer should take it as an
endorsement of their reality."  What I'm suggesting is that this may not be
the whole story -- that some people do believe that those deities are, if
not real, still of spiritual and religious significance, and that therefore
a reasonable observer might perceive some depictions of those deities (query
whether this is one) as an endorsement of their spiritual and religious
significance.

                Eugene
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