Reconstructionism «vs» Revivalism «vs» Reimaginism

There's an incredibly pervasive misunderstanding of what Reconstructionism and Revivalist traditions are within Paganism, and it frequently leads to hostility (especially towards Reconstructionists in particular); it's existed for as long as I've been Pagan starting in the early 2000's- but in the 2010's I've notice it seems to have really starting coming to the forefront of Pagan dealings with one another.

Over the years I've heard many accusations that Reconstructionism is "stagnant" and "stuck in the past". I've also heard claims that it doesn't modernize its practices- as well as many a complaint about how Reconstructionist practitioners themselves are "snooty and elitist" and "have their nose too far into books to build real religions"; in the 20 years I've been practicing- but especially the 9 years that I was a Reconstructionist myself- I've heard it all a trillion times over.

The mentality itself honestly stems from several places in particular.

Firstly, it's part of the “rebellious toddler” mentality that was established by the second New Age Revival of the 1970's. This has been mixed with an incredibly heavy-handed and ever increasing emphasis on anti-intellectualism within Pagan spaces, and a dire hatred of anything even remotely resembling academia, authority, rules, dogma, and so on (despite these being perfectly normal- if completely misunderstood- parts of forming cohesive religious practices);

Secondly, is both Paganism’s incredibly strange problem with accepting established definitions of any terminology- coupled with their continued insistence that nothing truly has any established definition at all ... Even when presented with the fact that all terminology very clearly has an intended use and meaning, especially to the people coining these terms to begin with (or the communities we borrow them from). Additionally, here, is the penchant for napalming any attempts to establish definitions for anything which terminology does not already exist for.

Both of these have been nicely wrapped up with a dash of the general fact that, historically speaking, Reconstructionist and Revivalist paths are fairly rare comparative to the greater mainstream perception of alternative religion as a whole- even within Pagan spaces. As a result, hardly anyone knows these paths even exist in the first place. And when people do find out about them? They almost never bother going to actual Reconstructionist or Revivalist sources directly for more details. And since little to no mainstream books exist on these topics, it therefore makes finding additional materials even more difficult, especially compared to the more common Pagan paths.

And finally there's also the age old posturing between Reconstructionists and Revivalists themselves, which is something we just can’t seem to get over. And this is despite the fact that not only do both Reconstructionists and Revivalists come from the exact same Pagan movement stemming from the 70's through the 90's ... But they're also ultimately doing the exact same thing- just a little to the left of one another.

Regardless of where they're coming from, though? Fundamentally misunderstanding- or worse, outright refusing to understand- the various methodologies that may be employed in order to build a coherent spiritual or religious practice within Paganism (whether it's for a group, or an individual), doesn’t do any of us any favors ... And make no mistake: These are methodologies. They are not religions in and of themselves.

Furthermore, there are a lot more similarities between the two most misunderstood of them than people seem to think there are. In fact, as mentioned, Reconstructionism and Revivalism both stem from the same line of traditions, and run on adjacent paths to one another thanks to a shared history. And it's high time we sat down and actually parsed it out for real, so that people finally started to understand that appropriately. Especially since Reconstructionism and Revivalism are the two most commonly misunderstood- and most frequently derided by Pagans.

History & Basics First (Always)

First and foremost, it's important to understand that- as mentioned earlier- Reconstructionism and Revivalism are not religions; neither is "Polytheism", for that matter, which many Recons and Revivalists often love to use as a religious identifier. But I digress ... If they're not religions, though, then what are they? It's easiest if you imagine Paganism (or NeoPaganism, depending on your terminological preference; I'm going to use Paganism uniformly for the sake of my sanity since the squabbling about "Pagan vs NeoPagan" is boring, tired, unimaginative, and ultimately both unnecessary and useless) as a tree, rather than the common imagery used of an "umbrella".

See, Paganism has one glaring issue: The vast majority of our Traditions and Religions actually share ... Virtually nothing in common with one another most of the time. We can make things up about our supposed similarities, sure- like how we're all "eco-centric", or how "ancestor veneration is a core component of Paganism". And we can blow smoke up each others' asses all day long about "Animism" being a requirement, and all that nonsense ... But none of this is actually true- and in fact, for nearly every attempted statement of "truth" you can try to make about Pagan similarities, at least 12 Traditions will pop out of the woodworks to put a dent in your fender and say "not us; we don't do that; that's not a part of our tradition". Yet they are no less Pagan than the Tradition next to them.

As a result, using the model of an umbrella doesn't actually work. Not only does it not work, it's too simplistic for how Paganism actually functions when you start digging deeper ... Because we actually are all related; we actually do share exactly one root thing in common. Only one definitive thing, however: We are all rooted- in some way, shape, or form; and to varying degrees and levels of complexity- in the Pre-Christian traditions and practices of Ancient, now Archaeologically extinct cultures (so Indigenous Spiritualities? Don't count; Hinduism? Not Pagan; "Pagan" does not merely mean "Non-Abrahamic" and never actually has. That was always a bad attempt at a "definition" from the start, and we have been saying that for decades now).

In the far more accurate "Tree" model of Paganism (rather than the outdated "Umbrella" model), then, Paganism is the Tree itself to which we all belong. The "roots" of that tree is therefore that shared connection to our collective "Pre-Christian" past which we all draw varying levels of inspiration from, or claim varying levels of connection to in some form.

From there, what Reconstructionism and Revivalism, (and Reimaginism) actually are, more correctly, are the methodologies which can be used to create or construct these Pagan religions from that collective past. And so if that past is the roots from which we draw, then these methodologies can thus be considered the branches of the tree from which each of our various created Traditions extend; Wicca from the Reimaginist Branch. Egyptian Polytheism from the Revivalist Branch. Irish Reconstructionism from the Reconstructionist Branch. And so on.

As methodologies rather than actual religions, they're a series of tools and guidelines for seeking out information, and putting that information together in order to form a coherent practice for one's self (or forming a coherent tradition to pass onto others). And in this regard, both Reconstructionists and Revivalists do the exact same thing as one another- they just do it differently to certain extents. And this is, again, ultimately because they stem from the exact same base movement and ideology within the 21st century Witchcraft Revival, during Paganism's modern formation and growth.

Paganism's history is long and complicated, and it's fraught with a lot of confusion and misinformation, however. I'll spare the majority of the details here, because most of it is ultimately completely irrelevant to the conversation currently at hand in this article. If you'd like to learn about that on an overall level, then I'd suggest reading a few key books such as Victorian Occultism and the Making of Modern Magic by Alison Butler, the book American tabloid media and the satanic panic, 1970 to 2000 by Sarah Hughs- as well as Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon (or, perhaps, the updated Magic and Witchery in the Modern West: Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of 'the Triumph of the Moon'); and maybe Brill's Handbook of Contemporary Paganism for good measure.

To vaguely summarize the relevant bits concerning the origins of Reconstructionism and Revivalism in the 21st century, however: Around the 1970's a group of practitioners eventually became frustrated with the Reimaginist methodology that made up the largest majority of modern Paganism at the time, and wanted something they (erroneously) viewed as "spiritually deeper". So they broke off from the greater Pagan community and began building a series of different methodologies. These new methodologies were far more heavily rooted in academia, and utilized greater amounts of evidence obtained directly from the archaeological and historical (and other) records in order to build practices which were more deeply oriented in legitimately verifiable history compared to what was currently available at that time.

Eventually, however, a portion of that group further disagreed on how exactly this should be achieved, what level of evidence was necessary to achieve it, and to what ends the resulting practices should continue to be modernized. As a result, they later diverged from the original group- thus creating the split into what is known as Reconstructionism and Revivalism respectively by the time the 1990's rolled around and these different methodologies really began "picking up steam" within the greater community.

So What's The Difference?

Now. Contrary to popular belief (and old beefs), both of these methodologies do actually modernize the pieces they use to form their religion. And there's a reason for that, too; several, in fact.

The first is that religious stagnation in general simply isn’t realistic no matter what methodology you're using to form a faith system; even the cultural systems we seek to reconstruct naturally changed and adapted over time when they were still actively practiced by their parent cultures. If they had survived over time, they would have likewise naturally continued to do so. Reconstructed and Revitalized faiths should likewise therefore adapt to their new parent individuals and modern social institutions as a result; these faiths simply can't survive without being updated and modernized.

Secondly, however, is that it's quite literally impossible not to modernize them; even in the most well documented cultures, there’s an incredible amount of information missing for many of their faiths. As a result, you will always inevitably come up against places in the historical record where there are holes and gaps in knowledge. Unfortunately, those gaps still need to be filled with something in order to form a coherent modern practice. 

Furthermore, you will also inevitably hit barriers where old values are outright incompatible with our modern ones. These values and actions will either need to be discarded entirely (leaving yet another gap that must be filled with something) -- or they'll need to be updated and modernized to the best of your ability in order to prevent that gap from forming in the first place.

In every single one of these cases, without question and without fail, absolutely none of these holes can be plugged without either (A) extrapolating something on our own (or, in other words, formulating our own unique Gnosis, Doxa, and Praxis); or (B) borrowing pieces from other similar or related sources wherever relevant. And all of these count, at least to some extent, as some variation of modernization of the faith- or, at least, as some kind of modification or change.

But when it comes to the actual process of building and solidifying those practices- and turning them into functioning modern (and modernized) religions? The difference between Reconstructionism and Revivalism ultimately comes back down to the fact that these are methodologies and not religions. And as methodologies, the thing that distinguishes them from one another is the fact that they rely on two very different primary tools in order to achieve the end goal.

To modify something said by an individual on the /r/pagan subreddit four years ago now:

70% of the time: Reconstructionism is doing as much as possible historically accurately- and Revivalism is doing it however you feel is right.

30% of the time: Reconstructionism is doing it however you feel is right- and Revivalism is doing as much as possible historically accurately.

And people who like do whatever they feel like all the time (especially while still claiming its old or ancient), are just Reimaginists*.

In Other Words: Reconstructionism is a methodology which is history first- while Revivalism is a methodology which is intuition first; Reimaginists, on the other hand, do their own thing “in the vague spirit of” whatever stuff (both old and new) they feel like cobbling together.

It should be quickly noted here, however, that Reimaginism is not necessarily inherently eclectic in nature- nor does it inherently imply appropriation or a complete lack of care about historical authority or integrity. There is certainly far less emphasis placed on "getting things right", historically speaking, in Reimaginist circles, however ... Instead, far more emphasis is often placed on things such as personal gnostic revelation, mythopoeticism, and other concepts which may sometimes receive reduced focus in Reconstructionist and Revivalist methodologies, due to their far heavier emphasis on solid verifiable data.

Unfortunately these differences in methodology do actively affect the pace of the modernization process- with Reconstructionism arguably being far slower to modernize than Revivalism, and Reimaginism being the fastest (a testament to what you can do when you truly decide to chuck the history book out the window altogether). And pace is, unfortunately, where the main community issue with Reconstructionism tends to come into play when the mud starts getting slung.

Because Reconstructionists are much slower paced in their modernization due to their particular methods, people typically don’t see Reconstructionism as being willing to modernize and move forward at all ... Instead they mistakenly see it as “stagnating” and “getting stuck in the past”; the ingrained emphasis on making academically sound and informed decisions during the process likewise leads to this inaccurate stereotype of Reconstructionists as just being "snobby intellectuals"- a permanent black mark in a community with rampant and ever increasing levels of anti-intellectualism.

This view certainly isn’t helped, though, by an incredibly small subsect of Reconstructionists who do indeed seem to think that anything less than absolute perfection is against the rules™ of Reconstructionism. And it's only further made worse by others who mistakenly believe that Gnosis and Doxa "have no place" at all in religion; though both are far more rare an ideology among Reconstructionists than Pagans prefer to pretend, when they are encountered they certainly do nothing but detract from the overall perception.

To see Reconstructionism in either way, however, is ultimately a willful misunderstanding of how both Reconstructionist and Revivalist paths work overall- and especially couldn’t be further from the truth in regards to Reconstructionism in particular.

If a Reconstructionist hasn’t moved from the past into the present and begun attempting to understand these practices in relation to modern culture and landscapes? Then they’re still stuck on the first half of the process- which isn't always a bad thing, necessarily ... But if they outright refuse to do so, they’ve failed to understand the entire purpose of Reconstructionist work in the first place ... And if they act like anything less than absolute historical perfection is against the rules™? They’re just an asshole with an ego problem that needs to get fucked. Because none of that is how Reconstructionism is ultimately meant to work- and it never was.

So to put it short, simple, and sweet: The only real, fundamental difference between a Reconstructionist, a Revivalist, and a Reimaginist, is (1) Their criteria for modernization, (2) What primary tools they use to modernize their materials, and (3) The pace at which they modernize as a result of both 1 and 2. And these really do make all the difference in the end.

A Practical Example

The Problem: The early Irish placed significant cultural and spiritual importance on being “beautiful of face”, “beautiful of form”, and “without blemish”.

Clearly this is an incredibly complex topic that requires an immense amount of nuance; to make an appropriate decision, one would need to not only read the available lore in order to look at mythic and other examples for guidance from the Gods- but also examine the cultural precedents of their originators by researching the beauty ideals of the Irish, Irish medical practices, Irish ideals surrounding Disability, and a host of other topics. It may even require the development of Gnosis and Doxa through prayer, divination, and so on.

Moving forward with this example absolutely requires you understand that neither Reconstructionists nor Revivalists would ever actually make a decision about a topic this deeply nuanced without at least putting forth a significant measure of effort to do all, or at least a significant portion of, these things. It also requires understanding that this process takes a lot of time to do properly, and to ensure you're getting good, verifiable, and currently accurate historical, mythological, scientific (etc), information.

Proceeding with that understanding, however, as a very hypersimplified example of how a decision on a topic like this could play out across all three methodologies within Paganism, only so that you can see each of these methodologies in some kind of practical action:

⇝ Reconstructionism says: This is important but is clearly incompatible with modern ideology… So How can I make this compatible with modern ideology in a way that still retains the original emphasis on the physical characteristics they valued?

Potential result: Reframed as Hygiene, Health, and Wellness.

⇝ Revivalism says: This was important but is clearly incompatible with modern ideology. So what can I incorporate into my practice that’s potentially similar but is more compatible with modern ideals?

Potential result: Reframed as Self Love and Body Positivity.

⇝ Reimaginism says: It really doesn't matter now, but there is still valuable information here we can work with somehow.

Potential result: Could really be anything, honestly; they could keep it, they could chuck it, they could do something else and make up a new myth about it; Reimaginism genuinely has no distinguishing methodology for its decisions in many cases.

Ignoring Reimaginism purely because it has no specific methodology across its traditions: Both Revivalism and Reconstructionism came up against the exact same problem in the historical record. But they approached its modernization and adoption using two different ideological methods (history vs intuition)- resulting in two very different different solutions or spiritual outcomes.

The TL;DR of it All

Personally, I really liked having a strong cultural foundation and legacy to work with and build upon. I don't find that for myself in Reimaginist faiths most times, and so I moved into historically oriented paths instead. And in that regard, I’m often concerned more with historical accuracy for a vast number of reasons, and it became the primary foundation on which I’ve built many of my faiths over the years.

In my opinion, any and all attempts to reconstruct a system should, first and foremost, be based in the correct historical meaning and context that it originated within- as well as any ideologies and practices of the surviving culture, should one still exist. And I don’t feel as if you can genuinely reconstruct or modernize a faith without having an understanding of its historical practice and its context; we have to respect, and place importance on, the words and intents of the parent cultures who created them as much as we're able- even if those words are centuries old or can only be broadly inferred.

All of this personally makes me a Reconstructionist. However, not everyone approaches reconstructionism in the exact same way that I do, let alone for the same reasons ... Even even if they do have the same opinions and reasons, though? That won't automatically make them a Reconstructionist too; there’s frequently quite a lot of overlap between these methods, because people will have differing opinions on not only where and when to modernize, but also how it should be done.

There are plenty of times when a Revivalist may actually choose to use the first method (history) instead of their usual one. And there are definitely plenty of times when Reconstructionists will use the second method (intuition) over the first as well. And both will sometimes employ Reimaginist methods, and vice versa; and whether anyone realizes it or not because of their reputation to the contrary, there are even Reimaginists who are actually quite concerned with history, wo do use Reconstructionist and Revivalist methods quite often.

What matters isn’t that you only stick to just one method, but rather how frequently you tend to choose one method over the other, and the values that make you choose those methods the most often.

If you feel like accuracy to the historical record and the intent of the parent culture is of primary importance, and find yourself taking the first example path (history) more often than not? Then you’re most likely a Reconstructionist.

If you feel like historical accuracy isn't quite as important as the historical spirit behind the thing, and find yourself taking the second example path (intuition) more often than not? Then you’re probably a Revivalist.

And if your main mode is typically to say "It's the spiritual lessons you can gain from it, the mystery of it all, and the way it makes you feel (rather than the actual thing itself and its historical meaning or context) that matters the most"? Then it's very highly likely you'd do better as a Reimaginist instead.