Naturalistic Paganism
The HPedia: UPG
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UPG is a term often heard in Contemporary Paganism, especially in Reconstructionist circles, which stands for Unverified Personal Gnosis.
Wikipedia explains:
Unverified personal gnosis (often abbreviated UPG) is the phenomenological concept that an individual’s spiritual insights (or gnosis) may be valid for them without being generalizable to the experience of others. It is primarily a neologism used in polytheistic reconstructionism, to differentiate it from ancient sources of spiritual practices.
Origin
The term appears to have originally appeared in print in Kaatryn MacMorgan‘s book Wicca 333: Advanced Topics in Wiccan Belief, published in March 2003, but seems to have originated in Germano-Scandinavian Reconstructionist groups in the 1970s or 1980s. The same phenomenon has also been referred to as “personal revelation”, or “unverifiable personal gnosis” (in a somewhat derogatory sense).
Importance
As attempts at recreating or restarting ancient religions continue, the difficulty in telling the difference between historically attested sources and modern, personal interpretations grows. All myths and legends started at some point in the human past with one person or group’s experience; thus it would be inappropriate to dismiss out-of-hand a new experience. UPG grew out of the need for a shorthand in differentiating the two.
Usage
Ideally the term is used to label one’s own experience as a new and untested hypothesis, although further verification from the spiritual interactions of others may lead to a certain degree of verifiability. At other times, the term is used in either a value-neutral or disparaging sense, about someone else’s experience.
UPG is sometimes also said to stand for Unsubstantiated Personal Gnosis.
Related terms
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SPG (Shared Personal Gnosis) – indicating a mystical vision shared by a number of unrelated people, preferably, one arrived at independently of one another.
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CG (Confirmed Gnosis) – indicating that substantiating evidence for an incidence of UPG or SPG has later been found in the lore. This is also sometimes referred to as CPG (Confirmed Personal Gnosis).
This term has been useful in navigating a course toward historical accuracy in the Pagan community, by separating historical attestation from personal revelation. From a naturalistic perspective, one may well wonder if a similar feat can be accomplished in navigating a course toward scientific accuracy, by separating evidential support from personal conviction.
Check out other entries in our HPedia.
Cosmic Calendar: First earth rocks formed
On Carl Sagan’s Cosmic Calendar (illustrated as a comic strip here), which maps the entire history of our cosmos onto a single year, September is particularly interesting.
Today, on the 16th (4.0 billion years ago), the oldest known rocks on earth are formed.
Hidden spirits, by Bryan Beard
This week we feature the photography of Bryan Beard, who also happens to be the artist who drew our tree logo.
A long-time photographer of mushrooms, Beard captures the beauty of the ubiquitous but virtually unnoticed.
Defy Superstition Day
Today, September 13th, is Defy Superstition Day. WeekendNotes.com says:
…if you’re one of the many who have superstitions you can’t seem to shake, this is the day you can let go of some or all of them by doing the exact opposite of what you’re told you should do regarding them.
They also give a few superstition-violating suggestions, which you may or may not have heard of:
- volunteer around black cats
- go out the same door you came in
- pass someone on the stairs
- change your sheets on a Friday
The HPedia: Synchronicity
Your help is needed! Please critique this entry from the HPedia: An encyclopedia of key concepts in Naturalistic Paganism. Please leave your constructive criticism in the comments below.
This notion, originated by Carl Jung, indicates an underlying pattern of meaning between events acausally related.
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner. The concept of synchronicity was first described in this terminology by Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s.[1]
The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead it maintains that, just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by meaning. A grouping of events by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of cause and effect. (Wikipedia) Read More
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