Polytheism,

I think that many polytheistic religions, here I'm thinking of Roman and Greek especially, do not have a very spiritual nature. They were rather like a contractual exchange system, 'Devotee promises a god a pig, goat, dog etc. sacrifice, or to refurbish the altar in a temple, if the god does something in return. Not a great deal of spiritual depth involved. This is why 'mystery cults', like that of Eleusis neat Athens, became popular and why, later, Christianity gained a huge amount of traction.

We're always told that Greek and Roman religions were sort of skin deep and very transactional and I'm sure for many they were, I think the same can be said of many people who call themselves religious do today too. Rome always had a distrust of "mystery" cults, they were't seen as macho enough I think and something crazy older women did, or crazy young men working themselves up into a frenzy and castrating themselves. But other polytheistic religions did exist and do exist, probably the biggest being Hindhuism, one thats often glossed over when discussions about religions and faith are discussed. 

In the middle ages I'd say that Christianity was very transactional too, paying for masses to be said after your death so as you spent as little time in purgatory as possilble, the trade in relics, indulgences  and building churches, chapels and endowing monastic foundations. But I don't think we should discount personal piety as reasons for doing these things.

One of the things I've noticed of late is the conflation of Paganism with Ancestor Worship in the past, I don't think this is or was the case. I think people honoured their ancestors and saw them as still being a pressence in the lives of the living, but worship, I'm not so sure about. I've heard people say that people worshiped thier ancestors before they invented gods, which is something that makes me think Eh? 

I've been reading about the Aesir and Vanir Gods recenty and I'm finding it really fascinating, there's some cross over between the two, but it would seem that the Vanir are older and have more in common with ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, particularly Innana. Looking at these two sets of dieties seems to show how Bronze Age, more patriarchal peoples tried to impose themselves on Neolithic fertility based deities. You see this in Greece where there are seemingly uncomfortable marriages between Gods and Goddeses, whereas it seem a less complete take over in Northern Europe, maybe because life was agriculturally more precarious in the North? 

Whilst there was a conversion on paper as it were of whole nations, like the Anglo-Saxons, I don't think they took many ordinary people with them and there's evidence of survivals for some hundreds of years after official conversion. Then of course there were those like Raedwald, who's thought to have been buried at Sutton Hoo, who show a right old mix of faiths, he was quite well known for having a Christian alter alongside Pagan ones.

This would seem to show there was some sort of "soul collecting score" being kept, which to me seems an odd concept.

A number of Roman emperors were inducted into the Eleusinian Mysteries, including Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius; Julian the Apostate being the last. Mithraism could be classed as a mystery and it was very prevalent in the Roman army, especially in the 3rd century AD and into the 4th. It was Mithraism's hierarchical and rather 'masonic' nature, together with the extreme marginalisation of women, that gave Christianity the edge in becoming Rome's universal religion. Plus blessed water was much cheaper for baptisms than having to sacrifice a bull for its blood in the Taurobolium!

A number of Roman emperors were inducted into the Eleusinian Mysteries, including Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius; Julian the Apostate being the last. Mithraism could be classed as a mystery and it was very prevalent in the Roman army, especially in the 3rd century AD and into the 4th. It was Mithraism's hierarchical and rather 'masonic' nature, together with the extreme marginalisation of women, that gave Christianity the edge in becoming Rome's universal religion. Plus blessed water was much cheaper for baptisms than having to sacrifice a bull for its blood in the Taurobolium!

Most of the Nativity story is the birth of Mithras rather than Jesus, all that stuff about being born in a stable, the three wise men and the gift of gold, frankinscence and myrrh. There were probably some shepherds washing thier socks too, lol.

I've just found a book I want to read called From Ishtar to Eostre, which looks at the similarities between Mesopotamian worship of Ishtar to Anglo-Saxon Eostre, which should be interesting.