Modern vs. Traditional Paganism

Historians do great disservice when they lump northern Europe into western civilization, as the north never was a part of western civilization. The north had its own culture(s) long before the southerners/westerners arrived, and in many ways the Scandinavian and Baltic groups are still culturally different from the rest of Europe. One recent Swedish TV series had the black character calling the Swedes "a bunch of savages", just ask anyone who knows someone with real viking blood what they are like: reading writing poetry one minute, ready to kill someone the next.

Most contemporary pagans are fully modern, seeing no discrepancy between honoring ancient deities and participation in modern economies and states. They are conditioned to think of religion as beliefs, with maybe some ritual included. They do not see paganism as a cultural entity all its own, a complete system of practice, thought, and relationship all in one. Rather, like western Christianity, they see religion as just one aspect of life, an aspect that is separate from their economic and political life. Traditionalists are more holistic, receiving and accepting the whole ancestral package.

Traditionalists are not so compliant, being devoted to ancient ideas and practices more than modern ones. Some even trace their ancestry and paganism back in unbroken lines. While modern humans are conditioned from childhood to obey and revere our modern economic and government institutions, traditionalists mostly follow their own inner compass without regard to the potential threats of violence from capitalists, nation-states, or some delusional notion of "society". Many traditionalists find modernity to be everything except what it claims to be, mostly it is a living nightmare, a multi-century holocaust.

Traditionalists are few and far between, but they are out there. You won't find them in groups, as they tend to live on the margins of society, kind of like one might keep their distance from insane, violent sociopaths. The current wars in the Middle East and Central Asia are all about moderns attempting to wipe out any last vestige of traditionalism, wiping the cultural slate clean so that imperial western civilization can rear its demonic ugly head by imposing capitalism and nation-states on unsuspecting populations. Indigenous peoples know firsthand what western civilization brings: first the Bible then the gun.