I am referring to the problem of anonymity to which the individuals in our community are so utterly vulnerable. I’m referring to practices such as cartoon-character profile pictures, mythically sounding pseudonyms, and the paranoid avoidance of revealing any personal details whatsoever. Be warned, this is going to call out some of my fellow pagans, but I say it out of love and for the betterment of our community, even if I put it bluntly.

Now, this problem affects the entire native European faith community, but I am especially focusing on the particular branch I belong to, which is the Platonist community. Having been steeped in the tradition for nearly a decade now, I have also been guilty of using a fake online persona, and so I like to think I understand the motivations for doing so. But I cannot deny that I believe it comes down to a single factor: fear.

Fear, I believe, is the number one driving force behind the decision to veil ourselves with the cloak of anonymity. While I now find this shameful and hypocritical, it is somewhat understandable. There are real risks to putting your name behind what you say online or otherwise. With identity comes the possibility of consequences for what we say and promote. We can’t easily split our public thoughts from our private ones when the veil of anonymity collapses. Nonetheless, if we are to mature as a community, these fears must be overcome.

So what exactly do most people fear about the prospect of operating online under their real identity?

1. Their Real-World Community

People don’t want to be seen as weird or controversial, risking alienation from friends, family, or coworkers. It’s worth noting that this speaks to a deeper underlying problem: explaining our worldview in a way that is both reasonable and approachable. Some of our anonymity is to avoid the awkward conversation at Thanksgiving about how you worship demons. However, anonymity doesn’t solve this problem; it only avoids confronting it.

If your friends think you’re weird and don’t want to associate with you because you’re pagan, then are they really your friends? If your family wants to condemn you for it, then shouldn’t we show them our good intentions and the kind of person it can help you become? Should we not live it fully and strive for excellence? Even if your employer wants to reprimand you for it, we have religious discrimination laws that you can use, or better yet, find a job that doesn’t force you to compromise your character and the principles you live by. This is obviously easier said than done, but courage demands that we face these challenging situations even when the consequences may be negative. If we have the courage of our convictions, we bear the hardship with pride.

2. Inadequacy

We are all familiar with the feeling of impostor syndrome. Who are we to carry the torches of eternal wisdom forward into the future—or even hold them in the present? We are no doubt standing on the backs of giants—better men than us, men whom we can only hope to even faintly emulate. Naturally, we are going to feel inadequate by comparison, but if we allow that to motivate us to either hide from who we really are, full of our shortcomings and faults, how can we ever expect to grow in virtue toward those men we all admire? Just because we project the image of a virtuous sage behind an anonymous account doesn’t mean we are one.

The solution to inadequacy is not to construct an admirable persona, but to strive for excellence. Ashamed of your addictions? Work towards ridding yourself of them. Embarrassed by your poor health? Adorn your body with discipline. Wishing you had more time to devote to study and worship? Turn off the video games and the mindless rabble.

Something special happens when you ditch the online persona. You can no longer delude yourself that you are better than you are. The only PFP you have is the face you see in the mirror, if you want it to be better, you have to make it better. You can’t just replace it with a Chad PFP and hope nobody notices the real you.

Fortunately, we’re not as alone as we may think. We can help one another, but it won’t be an overnight transformation. Taking those first steps toward openness can feel daunting, but it is achievable if we approach it gradually. Start by using your real first name in online discussions or on profiles, or by introducing yourself honestly in smaller community chats. Consider finding or organizing local meetups, even if it means simply meeting for coffee with one or two like-minded individuals. Share small, non-sensitive details about your interests and life with trusted members of the community. Each of these actions helps cultivate real individuals with familiar names and faces, moving us toward the kind of authentic community we claim to seek. And if we don’t start trying to improve ourselves through a community of real individuals, then we need to stop pretending that we care about the world beyond the cave.

3. The Feds

I already know that my suggestion to show your face or say your name means I’m now a suspected fed, but honestly, this is by far the least convincing excuse for anonymity.

First of all, the feds could find you in a heartbeat if they wanted, regardless of all your efforts to mask your true self. Your anonymity is not protecting you from some fed sting operation. If they wanted to take you out, they could do so with ease.

And second of all, why would they feel threatened by some anon with an anime profile picture spewing rhetoric that they are personally unwilling to back up with real action? If you aren’t willing to stake even your first name on these ideas, why would anyone think you have the mettle to actually do anything about the problems you claim to oppose? Don’t delude yourself. Your anonymity signals that you aren’t a threat and aren’t even taking yourself seriously. Why would the feds?

Thirdly, why are you openly talking about big picture problems that warrant attention from government ops? Unless you are actively organizing political action, most of your political posts are screaming into the void. Take some time to turn your efforts and concerns inward before worrying about changing international politics.

4. Being doxxed

Yes, you want to protect yourself and those you love from the psychopaths out there on the internet who are willing to share your home address for the world to see. But what you should be asking is, what are you saying that is eliciting such an extreme response from a random person online? It’s probably something you shouldn’t be saying openly in the first place, and it’s most likely something you wouldn’t say in a public space in real life, so why would it be a good idea in an online public space?

I understand some people have been doxxed for little to no reason, but this is only really a problem if what you say online is so objectionable that your employer, family, and friends would ostracize you if they knew you said it. If you’re staying anonymous because you’re afraid you will be associated with your own thoughts, then that is proof that you lack the conviction of your ideas. You like to pretend you believe in them, but you are not willing to suffer any consequences for them. These aren’t beliefs; they are performative opinions. A person who truly believes in their ideas would face any hardship in pursuit of them—anything less would be self-betrayal.

The internet has made us far too comfortable with sharing anything and everything on our minds indiscriminately with other people. If you’re going to say something inflammatory or highly controversial, then you should expect the response to also be inflammatory and controversial, and you should be willing to face the consequences.

Fear of Accountability

This brings us to the true fear that underlies everything I have said thus far: the fear of accountability. If you are too afraid to stand by what you say, what you practice, and what you believe, then this isn’t the path for you.

What would Socrates say of this? Or Hypatia? Or the Pythagoreans who were hunted down and slain? Is courage only a virtue that we proclaim to revere from the comfort of our homes and behind the safety of an artificial identity? Do we only stand by Truth when it is convenient, easy, and expedient? Is the trial of Socrates not a tale for how a philosopher ought to live? And tell me, what does the philosopher actually have to fear? Surely it is not the loss of comfort and material possessions, nor is it bodily harm or even death. After all, is philosophy not the “art of dying”? The truth is, the only thing the philosopher has to fear is the very thing that the vast majority of us are guilty of doing, which is distancing ourselves from the True, the Real, and the Beautiful out of fear of discomfort for the sake of pleasure.

Let’s call it like it is: the lack of accountability is a serious vice of the soul. Communities function as bodies of people who hold one another accountable and are beholden to that which transcends them. And if we are unwilling to be held accountable, then we are unwilling to form communities and actually walk the very path we spend so much time studying and obsessing over. And that is why fear is responsible for our stagnation, and until we can face that fear and overcome it through the cultivation of courage, then nothing will ever become of our work and effort.

I’m going to put this very bluntly: you are not the reincarnation of whatever ancient sage your flavor of autism prefers, despite what your X handle might say.

This plays heavily into the LARP accusations that are constantly hurled at us by non-pagans. And can you really blame them? How can you take someone seriously who’s crying about Christianity destroying the ancient ways while going by the name “Mystical Wizard of Odin” with an anime girl as their profile picture? For a group of people that have many terminally online individuals, we sure do think pretty highly of ourselves.

And all of these behaviors culminate in a personality plagued by what I’d call “Internet Brain,” which slowly takes root in its host after years of filtering through countless servers, chat rooms, and online fringe groups focused on niche topics and interests. It is an isolating disposition that essentially renders the host socially handicapped and unable to relate to the everyday person and even everyday activities that lie beyond the confines of their digital cloisters, which are comprised of other anime characters with mysterious-sounding esoteric names and cryptic references.

The Future of Pagan Communities

Our communities are at a flashpoint where we can expand into real-life communities or fizzle out in online anonymity. We’ve passed the point of anonymous internet monks—this is a time for the archetype of the knight to emerge. It’s this lack of the warrior ethos that has led us to an overabundance of bookishness and retreat to safe, anonymous chatrooms. The warrior lives on the frontlines, throwing themselves into the fray of public discourse, ultimately fighting to secure a place for their people.

Without holding ourselves accountable by name, we become odd, cringe, and LARPy dweebs who have a hard time distinguishing reality from fantasy. We can spend much of our time buried in books and video games in an attempt to escape the mundanity of the working-class lifestyle.

Thus, paganism, and especially Platonism, seems alien, goofy, and unreachable to the average person who has a family, a job, and hobbies, which means they’re going to attend a church that is more accessible, familiar, and normal instead.

To all those who seek to grow beyond the parameters of your digital displays and establish real-life communities, temples, and networks of families and businesses that work to further the prosperity of our people, I encourage you to draw back the curtains of anonymity and join us under the purifying light of King Sol, so we may work together and establish a brighter future for our progeny. Start small. Consider organizing or attending local meetups in public spaces like cafes or libraries. Offer to host gatherings, workshops, or discussions in your area. Use your real name when engaging in community conversations online or in person, and reach out to others who express interest in building authentic connections. Participate in volunteering or service projects as a visible member of your tradition. Together, by taking concrete steps toward offline engagement, we can build genuine bonds that transform our ideals into living, vibrant communities.

Conduct yourselves in a way that conveys respect, temperance, tact, and discretion. Practice saying what needs to be said without superfluous and pretentious jargon. If you feel like your words online might reflect poorly on you if your name is attached, then don’t say them. Share your faith openly in your day-to-day life rather than shrinking from conversations due to discomfort.

Socrates had the courage to stand trial before his peers and give his life in the service of philosophy. Do you have enough courage to simply take off your mask and reveal the identity of the person who claims to believe in what Socrates died for? Or will you continue to scream your voiceless opinions into the grey abyss of irrelevance and pass away into obscurity, never taking a real part in the shaping of Western culture?

Which way, Anon?

-Julian, Hymn to King Helios

Today, on June 26^th, we celebrate the feast day of a man who died at thirty-one, in a tent in the Mesopotamian desert, during the retreat from a Persian campaign that had not gone as he planned. Julian had ruled the Roman world alone for less than two years when a cavalryman’s spear caught him without his armor and lodged near his liver. Maximus and Priscus, the philosophers who had taught him and followed him east, sat with him through his last hours, and he spent those hours arguing the immortality of the soul; Ammianus Marcellinus, who served on that campaign, wrote that he kept the argument going “while the wound of his pierced side was gaping wide.” Weeping broke out around the bed, and he reproached it, calling grief for him “a humiliating thing to mourn for an emperor who was just united to heaven and the stars.” He asked for cold water, drank, and died near midnight.

Born in Constantinople around 331, he belonged to the family of Constantine, and that family nearly killed him while he was still a child. Constantine’s death in 337 set off a purge of the imperial line; soldiers and heirs put to death almost every adult male who might rival the succession, and Julian survived, with his half-brother Gallus, because the killers did not trouble themselves with small children. Much of his boyhood after that passed in confinement on an estate in Cappadocia called Macellum, watched and isolated, kept from old friends and from anything resembling free conversation. Writing about it years later, he said they had lived there “as though on the estate of a stranger,” guarded “as though we were in some Persian garrison.” Children held like that learn to look for a world more dependable than the one around them, and Julian found his in books; his tutor Mardonius gave him Homer and Hesiod, and those poems opened Julian up to a world greater than the one he was living in; they opened a longing in him for the gods that never closed.

When the watch on him loosened, he moved toward philosophy as fast as he was allowed, studying under various Platonist teachers of Greece at the time. One of them, a cautious man named Eusebius, warned him against a certain Maximus of Ephesus, a theurgist said to make statues smile and temple torches light themselves; what mattered, Eusebius insisted, was the purification of the soul by reason. Julian took the warning as a set of directions. He sought Maximus out, and the meeting passed into legend: in the temple of Hecate, after incense and a hymn, the statue of the goddess smiled and then laughed aloud, and the torches in her hands kindled on their own. Theurgy, the ritual work of drawing the soul upward toward the gods, was what he had been after, and from that point his turn to the old gods was settled, though he kept it hidden for years while he was still a Christian in public and a possible rival to the throne. At Athens he was brought into the Mysteries at Eleusis; Maximus had already led him into the Mysteries of Mithras. None of it could be spoken aloud and it was a secret he kept for many years.

His devotion never settled on Helios alone. Athena he treated as his guardian, and when Constantius summoned him from Athens and he believed he was being called to his death, he turned to her in something close to panic, remembering himself “stretching out my hands to your Acropolis and imploring Athene to save her suppliant and not to abandon me,” even begging her to let him die there rather than face what he feared was coming. Cybele, the Mother of the Gods, he honored with a hymn he claimed to have written in a single night. He saw the gods as one ordered company of light, Helios and Zeus sharing a single rule, Athena standing for the pure intelligence that comes down from the Sun, and he knew them by name the way a man knows the people of his own household.

What pulled at him hardest, from the start, was the Sun, Helios. He traced it to childhood, to a time before he had any philosophy to account for it: “from my childhood an extraordinary longing for the rays of the god penetrated deep into my soul,” he wrote, recalling nights when he slipped outside to look at the sky and lost track of everything else. Years of study gave that longing its shape. In the Hymn to King Helios he set down his understanding of the Sun as the visible offspring of the Good, “the son of what is first and greatest, namely, the Idea of the Good,” the mediating power through whom the goodness of the source reaches the visible world and along whose light souls find their way home. I do not think the doctrine produced the love; the love came first, and the doctrine gave him a way to stay faithful to it.

Philosophy did not keep him in the library. In 355, his cousin Constantius, having run short of relatives he had not already killed, named the bookish young man Caesar, the junior colleague of an emperor, and sent him to Gaul, which was overrun by the Alamanni and half in ruins. Julian had no military training and an obvious preference for books, and he turned out to be good at war regardless. Near Strasbourg in 357, outnumbered, he broke a large Alamannic army under King Chnodomar and drove the survivors back across the Rhine; over the following years, he rebuilt the frontier forts and ransomed Romans the raiders had carried off into slavery. He governed Gaul as carefully as he fought for it, taking the civil administration into his own hands and refusing a tax increase that would have crushed the province. When his soldiers proclaimed him Augustus at Paris in 360, war with Constantius loomed, and only Constantius’s death the next year kept the two armies apart; the dying emperor named Julian his heir, and the boy once held at Macellum now held everything.

Eighteen months as sole emperor were all he got, and he spent them at a run. He declared toleration and recalled the bishops Constantius had driven into exile. Inside the palace he dismissed the crowd of servants he had inherited and lived plainly, closer to a soldier than to the courtiers around him. Temples reopened under his order, and sacrifices that had gone silent began again. His hardest effort went into the priesthood. He had studied the Christians closely enough to understand why they were successful, and he told his own priests to match them in discipline and in their care for the poor, opening hostels and handing out grain to anyone who needed it, since “it is to the humanity in a man that we give, and not to his moral character.”

Underneath the soldier and the administrator was a man who prayed before dawn. Libanius, his friend and a leading orator of the age, remembered the shrine Julian raised in the middle of his own residence, “a temple was built in the centre of the palace to Him who rules the day; and he himself took his part of the Mysteries and communicated thereof to others; being both initiated and initiating.” He sacrificed at first light and gave most of his nights to study and the gods, sleeping little. Ammianus, who admired him and criticized him in the same pages, said he held the four cardinal virtues, “temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude,” and “eagerly cultivated them all as if they had been but one.” He ate plain food on his feet, the way his soldiers did, and after his wife died he lived chastely. He wrote constantly. His hymns to Helios and to the Mother of the Gods belong to those years, along with the letters to his priests that try to say in plain language what a reverent life asks of the person who lives it.

His life leaves us more than a story to admire. Held as a boy and kept under guard, he learned to wait and to keep his own counsel; raised among people who would have punished his faith, he carried it in silence until he was free to live it openly. He went where the argument led even when no one could guide him and the road was dangerous, and he held to the hope of which his faith in the gods provided; even unto his death. Prudence in council, fortitude in the field, fairness toward people who had wronged his family, restraint in his own appetites, and an open hand to anyone who came to him hungry: let us all hope to emulate the Divine Julian and to learn from his life and actions.

Hail to the Divine Julian, philosopher and emperor, lover of the light.

Julian, who longed for the rays of the god from childhood and was gathered into them at the last, look on us who remember you. Let your Genius go before us as it went before you, steadying the mind against fear and the heart against comfort, that we may keep faith as you kept it, give as you gave, and turn our faces, as you turned yours, toward the Sun from which the soul comes and to which it returns. Be near to those who call on you, and lead us along the road you have already walked.

A Simple Devotion for the Feast

This can be done indoors or outdoors, alone or with others; best performed at dawn, midday, or sunset

Wash your hands, set out a candle or oil lamp and frankincense, and light them, saying:

Oh All-Ruling Sun! Spirit of the World! Power of the World! Light of the World!

Pour out wine or water into a bowl, saying: O’ Great King, illuminate our minds and grant unimpaired light to our souls.

Raise your hands towards the sky and pray in Julian’s own words:

“I earnestly entreat the Sun, the King of the Universe, that He will be propitious to me for my affection to His divinity; that He will impart to me a good life; more perfect wisdom; a divine intellect; and a gentle departure from the present state in a convenient time, that I may ascend to His divinity, and abide with Him, if possible, in perpetual conjunction.

Even as also He brought into being my soul from eternity and made it His follower.
All this may He grant; and for myself personally, may He grant that, so long as I am permitted to live, I may prosper in my affairs both human and divine; finally may He grant me to live and serve with my life, so long as is pleasing to Himself and well for me.”

End with a few minutes of silent contemplation/meditation on Julian and Helios.

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We are a community dedicated to the ascent of the soul through philosophy, contemplation, and sacred practice, rooted in the Platonic tradition.

II. Core Convictions

1. Reality has structure. The world is not chaos. It is ordered by intelligible principles, leading back to God.

2. The soul is real. Each of us carries a divine spark, forgotten but not lost.

3. Ascent is possible. Through purification, contemplation, and virtue, the soul can return to its divine origin.

We expect members to respect these truths, not as dogmas but as the foundation of this way of life.

III. How We Seek

1. We contemplate. We study Plato, Plotinus, and the great sages not to accumulate facts but to remember what the soul already knows.

2. We purify. We aim to cultivate virtue (temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice) but as alignment with the real.

3. We honor the sacred. We may use myth, symbol, and ritual, but never as superstition or play. All is directed toward the Good.

IV. Community Expectations

1. Speak with clarity and reverence. Our words should elevate the soul, not indulge the ego.

2. Establish sacred order. We seek true polity in the harmony of the soul and a just community, not alignment with passing political trends.

3. No spiritual performance. This is not a place to showcase identities, blend systems, or sell beliefs. This is a place to ascend.

4. Honor the structure. We welcome pluralism, but we reject relativism and eclecticism that undermine our metaphysical foundation.

5. Respect time and attention. Our spaces, online or in person, should remain focused, thoughtful, and ordered.

V. Who Belongs

You are welcome here if:

• You seek the Divine through contemplation and inner transformation.

• You value reason, myth, and ritual as paths to truth.

• You are willing to listen, reflect, and grow.

VI. What This Is Not

• This is not a belief buffet.

• This is not a therapy group.

• This is not a mystical cosplay circle.

• This is not a political fellowship.

• This is not about self-expression.

It is about self-transcendence.

The philosopher, consorting with what is divine and orderly, becomes as orderly and divine as is possible for a man.

-Plato, Republic 500d

Statement of Principles

1. God

We affirm the existence of God, the absolute source of all things, the One, the Good, beyond being, thought, and name. All things proceed from God and seek return to God through order, beauty, and contemplation.

2. Hierarchy of Being

Reality is structured according to an intelligible hierarchy:

• God

• Intellect (Nous)

• Soul (Psyche)

• Nature and Body (Physis)

All things aspire upward, and each level reflects the Good in its own way.

3. The Soul’s Ascent

The human soul is immortal, rational, and divine in origin. It has fallen into forgetfulness and is called to return through:

• Purification (Catharsis)

• Contemplation (Theoria)

• Union (Henosis)

This return is not metaphorical. It is the transformation of the soul through truth and virtue.

4. Virtue as the Path

All true ascent is grounded in virtue:

• Temperance disciplines desire

• Courage disciplines fear

• Wisdom disciplines thought

• Justice harmonizes the whole soul

These are not mere ethics but cosmic laws embedded in the order of being.

5. Unity in Pluralism

We welcome those from many traditions who affirm the soul’s call to ascend. While we root ourselves in the Greco-Roman spiritual language, we recognize the gods of other traditions as intelligible beings within the divine order.

We reject relativism, but not pluralism. We seek the Good in many voices so long as they point upward. Yet we do not permit an eclectic blending of ideas that would obscure the unity and clarity of our metaphysical foundation.

6. Ritual and Contemplation

Ritual, meditation, and sacred study are not optional; they are the soul’s nourishment and medicine. Our rites aim to recollect the divine order and align our lives to it.

We do not worship for favor, but for transformation.

7. Reason and Revelation

We affirm reason as the soul’s tool for ascent. Revelation may come through myth, symbol, or theurgy, but it must never contradict the eternal Forms discerned by reason.

Where myth and reason meet, there we find wisdom.

8. Guarding the Sacred

Our community is not a place for activism, ego display, or spiritual consumerism. All who enter are called to lay down egoic identity, ideology, and pride to seek that which is eternal.

9. Living Mystery

This is a living path. We are not reconstructing the past, nor inventing the future. We are aligning ourselves to the ever-present truth that has animated the best minds and noblest souls across the ages.

10. Likeness With God

All our efforts (intellectual, ritual, moral) aim at one thing: the soul’s return to its divine source.

This is the final mystery: not escape from the world, but harmony with it. Not annihilation, but illumination. This is what it means to become like God.