Polytheism and Fanaticism

[violetcabra]

I'm curious how others think of the difference between inspiring devotion and straight up fanaticism in the polytheist community.  There seems to a subtle distinction between a sincere devotion and the loss of  proportion and perspective that fanaticism entails that many in the polytheist community often conflate, just as their opposite numbers in the monotheist world.  The narratives between fanatic polytheists and fanatic monotheist does differ, especially if we consider the revivalist and reconstructionist polytheisms of the the European peoples and the European diaspora.  Basically, as I see it, fanatical monotheists tend to believe that they have arrived at the truth, with implications of the sort one sees in the inquisitions.  Polytheists --- at least of the revivalist/reconstructionist traditions --- tend to have a more of an underdog approach in which there's an emphasis on valorous fighting to reestablish the faiths.  That said, historical events have demonstrated that polytheism inspired movements can have just as drastically bad outcomes, here I can't help but thing of Nicholas Goodman-Clarke's book on Ariosophy and the rise of the Nazis, although I think of this as tending towards the more occult rather than explicitly polytheist praxis.  Point being, there is recent historical evidence that fanaticism in our sorts of polytheisms can have or at the very least influence outcomes every bit as bad as monotheist fanaticism.

That said, I do think that it's fair to say that the risks of fanaticism in polytheism are at least comparable to the risks of fanaticism in monotheism, especially when either gets involved in politics.  Here I can't help but think of Dion Fortune writing in one of her books --- Applied Magic, I think --- how those who involve themselves magically with politics tend to become fanatics.  Writ large, this would include many of the luminaries of the Nazi party, especially Himmler. Equally, it seems to me that the various Inquisitions of Christian history involved the mixing of religion and politics and created a very similar sort of outcome: from the wholesale eradication and genocide of the Cathars in the Twelfth Century and of course the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, which mostly targeted Jews who had converted to Catholicism.

Point being, one of the more troubling blind spots that I've seen in the modern polytheist revival is the lack of understanding that polytheists can become just as fanatical as their monotheist counterparts, and this appears to happen with comparable regularity as in any other faith.  Furthermore, it seems to me that many modern polytheist revivalists copy the bad ideas of their monotheist counterparts and treat prayer as a substitute for personal consideration.  Basically, along with fanaticism in polytheism I see a large emphasis on quietism, or the renunciation of a personal will or critical faculties in the face of devotion.  Quietism seems to me as often the complimentary theological doctrines that go along with fanaticism, especially in mystical contexts.

My take away is that revivalist polytheisms are no more immune to creating fanaticism than any other sort of religion, and that the bad ideas that correlate with fanaticism in general across tradition seem to be the mixing of magic and politics on the one hand and the doctrine of quietism.  As far as I can tell, the mixing of magic and politics and its polar opposite of quietism both tend to destroy the sense of proportion, with one cutting from the left and the other from the right on the same pillar of sanity.  Of course, it would then be I imagine a sense of proportion that would find the point of balance between extreme fanaticism, on one hand, and irreligion, on the other.  

That said, those are my very human reflections on this and I do not pretend to be any sort of final authority.  I'm curious what others might think on the question of modern polytheism and fanaticism as well as the balance points of sane religious practice, as well.