Battle of the Religious Models

Some time ago, there was a discussion on a now-extinct email group for Mesoamerican Paganism that inspired this writing. While the original discussion revolved around what approach would be best in regards to Mesoamerican spirituality, the question that started it all was one that I feel is of universal importance in the climate of today's Paganism. The original post was a question as to which religious model is "better": temple/priest/religion or tribe/shaman/spirituality. I thought that the nature of the post highlighted one of the major issues in Paganism today: the tendency to reject the idea of spiritual validity being possible in more structured or formal religions in favor of romanticizing the "primitive" or the unstructured as being more pure, spiritual, and incorruptible. This began as an answer to the question, and evolved into a larger writing.

(Note: This was originally written during the whole child-molesting Catholic priests craze, and the Catholic Church had been given as an example of why organized religion is "bad.")
Temple/Priest/Religion vs. Tribe/Shaman/Spirituality

Which model is better? Which is more fulfilling? This is a good question. For me at least, it is not so cut and dry as choosing one or the other. What I resonate with more, at least structurally, is the "temple, priest, religion" model, however... there is a lot more to it than that. I think that over time, people have lost much of the meaning of all of these terms, and as a result these words have come to be something other than what they once were. At one time, much of the meaning of both sets of terms went hand in hand. For example, a temple may be an organized place of worship run by a hierarchy of people, while a tribe also has organization and a hierarchy, though it isn't based purely around spiritual/religious traditions, as a temple would be. As people become disillusioned by the modern world, it becomes easy to idealize tribes and other more "primitive" (although I hate that word) concepts as places of equality and freedom. In truth, tribes (like any society) have their own laws, customs, social structure, and potential for dogma. It may or may not be less complicated and less corrupt; but whatever the case, in the end it will always be there.

Before I talk about shamans vs. priests, I would like to address the spirituality vs. religion question, as I think this is the most important and influences the outcome of all other answers. Spirituality and religion were once one and the same. Ideally, the two should go hand in hand. Religion started from spiritual inspirations. From these inspirations, the gods and spirits told the people about them, how to worship them, what to offer them, how to pray to them, etc. From these models, religions are made. Religions are merely meant to be more organized forms of spirituality; using the original spiritual inspiration of a people to guide and assist their worship and interaction with the gods and the spirit world. However, all people have faults, and because of this, there will always be at least a few faults in any human endeavor. As modern society has become more and more impersonal and focused on the mundane, the spirituality dies out in society as a whole. And when spirituality dies out in a people, it will also suffer a slow and painful death within their religion, which at one time kept their spirituality quite well.

I also believe that conversion, which has happened all over the world, has done a great deal to kill spirituality in religion: if people are forced into following something which is not within them, then not only does their original religion die, but also the conquering religion as well, as people not spiritually attuned to it go through the motions.

What is the difference between a shaman and a priest? I've seen a few people who believe they are the same, but personally I feel there is a difference in mindset and duties, though I can't really verbalize this difference, but rather sense it. In general, shamans are usually seen as people who can talk to and interact with the spirits. In the modern day, few believe in such things. Even some deeply spiritual people have a hard time believing someone when they say a god speaks to them. Because of the spiritual lethargy in this culture, many people don't listen to the gods and spirits very often anymore. It would be easy in this environment to see priests as merely religious goons who go through the motions while having no real connection to their deity; after all, that seems to be what happened to some of the Catholics. However, previous to the loss of a widespread sense of spirituality, priests had connections to the gods just as deep as shamans have connections to the spirit world. Ideally, a priest should be the servant of a god and the emissary between the god and their people. Ideally, a priest should be willing to understand a person's individual needs and assist them. However, true calling and dedication is needed for these things, and as spirituality dies, so do the numbers of priests who are genuine to their spiritual purpose. Replace priests with shamans, and you'll find the same thing (truthfully, how many pseudo-shamans have you already seen running around in the Pagan community today?) In the world of dying spirituality, the wound must be truly healed: simply replacing the band-aid isn't going to help it.

I do see many people moving into the "tribe, shaman, spirituality" mindset as culture has become more self-oriented; this has its own drawbacks. As stated earlier, it's easy to idealize the less organized, more "primitive" things; but tribes still make war, shamans can still be charlatans. Despite the romantic freedom and purity that people imagine such a model will give them, the fact is that people as a whole need organization in some form or their spirituality will die in other ways. In this case, rather than being strangled to death by dogma or a worldview focused on the mundane, it will die a chaotic death. Too many people playing with their "liberated" spirituality may find it running away from them and not realizing why, like the child who plays too rough with a kitten. A person might become spiritually fulfilled, but people will not unless organization happens on some scale. And until people on a large scale feel spirituality in their lives, society will not be bettered, things will not change, and the next group of people will be thinking of going back to "temple, priest, religion" model.

In a nutshell, what I am trying to say here is that one or the other is not inherently deeper, more meaningful, or more fulfilling. Instead of these words and the concepts which define them being at odds, they should be connected, and originally were. Unless we endeavor to make a large-scale improvement to the way people approach spirituality in general, any spiritual "model" we choose to base our belief system on, or spiritual title we choose to give to those who would be our teachers and guides, will soon prove just as hollow and misused as the previous one.