Erosion of thought by the winds of culture

This is something that thinking Christians should have a look at. Not because it hints at intellectual problems in neo-paganism as felt by its own practitioners, but rather because the kinds of issues are similar to Christians in the West. An indicator in my opinion that there is a cultural dimension to it. So have a look at this article: The North West Passage - The passing of Deo's Shadow. To give you a flavour of why I think it's worth reading is this rather fine paragraph: "Philosophical knowledge is the knowledge of how to separate the real from the unreal, the right from the wrong, the true from the false, the beautiful from the trite. This kind of knowledge is philosophical when it is a product of sustained systematic reason. This kind of knowledge, however, is often specifically rejected by pagans. This happens when, for instance, pagans claim that reliable knowledge can be obtained primarily (or only) through non-rational means such as magical sight, through 'gut intuition', etc. This also happens when someone says that 'head knowledge' or 'book knowledge' is worthless, and that intellectual reasoning about our problems is 'too hard', 'too scary', or 'missing the point', or even 'an obstacle to true spiritual experience'."
I recognise those reactions from some Christian circles.
It's very informative to read Deo's parting comment and also the comments on what he says. For my money he misses the 'obvious' point that his own schooling in certain perspectives in Western society probably informs his sense thet atheism is the natural non-religious 'home' point: that, in effect, he has merely recognised a long-standing conversion to that secular-humianist perspective. He talks of evidence as if it is unproblematic, like Dawkins. Time to brush off Kuhn and Popper, I think (by interesting co-incidence I was reading an article earlier that puts some of this nicely). So it's important for us to note the trajectory's tale in terms of the forces of spirituality, religion and culture more generally: back to plausibility structures. And while we're at it, we should perhaps also recall the attraction Buddhism seems to have for many in the West, and this article could be a good way in. However, it's interesting to note that the post-pagan traffic need not all be towards Prince Siddharta, in this one CS Lewis might feel vindicated.