Contents
Overview
Reconstructionism is an approach taken practicing to older, fragmented religions. It involves using clues from the past to recreate how religion was once practiced during a specific period in history. This is usually accomplished through a cross-disciplinary and comparative approach, pulling from fields such as anthropology, archaeology, cultural studies, linguistics, folklore, psychology, and others.
Heathen reconstructionism is a delicate business because Heathenry was never a centralized religion. Beliefs, customs, superstitions, observances, holidays, and traditions all varied depending on the time and place; practices from 800 BCE Norway looked different from the practices in 500 CE southern Sweden, which looked different from the practices in 1000 CE Iceland, and so on.
Because this level of specificity can be a burden, many reconstructionists opt for a degree of creative anachronism in their approaches. They might choose to source from a very large geographic area, and to only adopt cultural features that were broadly observed in Scandinavia prior to its Christianization.
Due to its historic bent, reconstructionism has a strong overlap with reenactment and LARP, and Heathens sometimes join these groups to share their knowledge through an educational and edutainment setting.
The mate to reconstructionism is Revivalism.
