drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
Historian of religion and belief | folklorist | Balticist | indexer | Lay Canon @stedscath.bsky.social | series editor for @universitypress.cambridge.org
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Florida man creates sentient beings with free will, expects success
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I feel this way about talking to people about my interests. Luckily this was why podcasts were invented
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Over half of my Anglican congregation is African too, and that's the section that's growing fastest - this phenomenon extends to the CofE too
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I don't know, tbh. I'm hoping there might be a translation!
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I prefer the analogies from antiquity
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The irony of techbros who fetishise innovation creating an all-devouring slop machine that can only churn out old knowledge
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Thank you!
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Thank you! 😊
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The association with fertility can be explained in Christian terms (John as the son of a barren woman) and even the divination (John as a prophet) but it’s tenuous, I’ll grant you!
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Indeed. That's a wrong-headed approach. Paganism is a long-lost reality, although in countries like Lithuania creolised traditions that emerged in a long period of inadequate Christianisation still hold sway
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And if you're specifically interested in the evidence for pre-Christian Lithuanian ritual practice, I have a book on that as well: www.arc-humanities.org/978180270249...
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The lesson here is that just because stuff is weird, and ritualistic, and emphasises sexuality - doesn't mean it's pagan. It might be, but it also might not. Read more, in nauseating details, in 'Silence of the Gods': www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...
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St John's Night in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia *might* be pagan in origin. I'm not saying it isn't. But the alternative theory that St John's Night bathing began as an overtly Christian commemoration of baptism (and later degenerated) is just as likely tbh
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But it's important to remember that the popular Christianity of times past didn't mesh with today's perception of Christianity as a prudish religion. Church organisation was weak in these countries and barely able to enforce ritual and moral conformity
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The assumption that St John's Night celebrations *must* be pagan arises from their apparent contradiction with Christian ways of behaving - like the sexual licence associated with naked bathing and 'looking for the fern seed' (a euphemism for sex in the woods)
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What is notable, however, is that in all the countries where 'pagan' celebration of St John's Night occur, it's always known as St John's Night (in one form or another). The vestigial association with a Christian saint is always there
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We don't have accounts of the rituals later associated with midsummer (bonfires, ritual bathing) pre-dating the Christian era, and we don't know what significance midsummer had to the pre-Christian Balts. It's likely it was significant - we just don't know how they celebrated
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I agree, this is the winner!
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Very good
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Best yet!
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I think that’s taken by Blueskiers who post *about* monarchy and aristocracy
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That’s the cosmological solstice. The solstice is traditionally celebrated on 23 June because that’s St John’s Eve
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St John’s Eve
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St John’s Eve - 23 June
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There’s seldom definitive evidence for religion in archaeology - it’s one archaeological interpretation. I personally think it’s a pretty strong one. I wrote about it on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/drfranci...
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One possible candidate for one of these unknown martyrs is the bones of the woman buried in a box-like structure under the floor of the apparent Roman church in Colchester
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Moaning about AI is literally the oil that keeps Bluesky running - I get more engagement for my AI-bashing posts than for anything else
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You just had to bring it up, didn’t you? 😆
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Thank you!
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Funding bodies should only accept research into questions to which the answer is yes. And if researchers can already identify these questions at the proposal stage then they already know the answer is yes and don't need funding to research them. Savings all round.
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This is just someone's ancient Bluesky profile pic
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I doubt my book will be THAT popular 😂