Assignment #1 Photo Mosaic and Word Cloud

The first assignment for the class was to do a photo mosaic of our own personal life and a word cloud using the online websites Big Huge Labs and Wordle. 

For the Photo Mosaic I have chosen four pictures. The two pictures on the left show what Paganism IS NOT, the two pictures on the right reflect what Paganism IS.

Let’s start with the top two pictures and first examine the picture on the left and what Paganism is not. Paganism is not Satanic Black Mass rituals that sacrifice virgins or babies, Pagans are not Devil Worshipers. The picture on the right however depicts an image of what Paganism is to some people. This image shows a Druidic ritual at Stonehenge in England. Though we cannot see much of what the ritual is about by the picture, we can at least see that there is no sacrificial virgin laid out ready for the knife.

The bottom two pictures give us an insight into what the individual pagan is not and is. The picture on the left shows us as the tree-hugging-hippie type that most people think of when they think of pagans, Wiccans, or Druids, however this is not what a pagan is (granted some pagans are the tree-hugging-hippie type), this is not the general idea of what a pagan is. The picture on the right shows a group of everyday people walking down a busy New York street. This is what a pagan really is. They are everyday people who happen to hold different beliefs than someone else. It’s really not that hard to grasp as most everyone holds different beliefs of some sort from the person next to them.

I have also included a readymade photo mosaic that I found by doing a simple Google Pictures search for what is a pagan? The following image shows the many thoughts of what a pagan is; including the perspective of the pagan.

For the Word Cloud portion of this assignment I have made a Word Cloud using various Pagan belief systems known as Traditions.

Eclectic Pagan is someone who takes various beliefs from various traditions to form their own structure.

Asatru is someone who follows a Norse or Germanic pantheon. 

Christo-Pagan is someone who mixes Christian doctrine with forms of Paganism.

Ethnic-Pagan is a person who follows the belief structure of a certain ethnicity or heritage, normally their own.

Reconstructionist is very similar to Ethnic-Pagan but is someone who tries to historically reconstruct a past cultures belief system.

Wiccan and Druid like Asatru are specific traditions though in both there are many variations.

Why a Blog on the Sociology of Paganism?

This Blog, The Pagan Sociologist, was started as a project for a Graduate Level Sociology Class on Multimedia Applications at the University of Texas at San Antonio in the Fall of 2012.

As an Anthropologist and Sociologist I do most of my work in the area of Alternative Religion as well as in Counter Culture Movements. Along with my Academic interest in Alternative Religion, and more specifically the many sub-traditions of Paganism, I am also a congregate of Paganism and an ordained Priest within one of the many Pagan belief structures. So it was only nature that when I was asked to create a blog; that I center it on my own interests and research.

I encourage all readers, whether class colleagues or someone who might of stumbled onto the site, to comment and interact if you feel compelled to do so. 

Please keep in mind that some submissions to this blog will be class assignments that I will try to tailor to the topic of Paganism but this might not always be possible.