of the operation of certain principles of socio-economic behaviour, which
are analogous in their stringency to the laws of physics and which can be
expressed as a series of universally valid propositions (1997, 21–27, 45–46).
What is sauce, then, for the Christian goose must also be sauce for the
pagan gander. But the paradigms of pagan behaviour which Stark advances
are a travesty of actual paganism: witness the trivial array of private reli-
gious goods, cited above, which are said to typify the product lines of its
characteristic firms, or their modern equivalents. Real, actually existing
paganism was an altogether more formidable and complex thing. As we
shall see when we come to look at the public cults, it cannot readily be
accommodated to the model of free market religious competition, which
Stark propounds. So the model itself, as would-be universal theory, falls seri-
ously into question.
PAGANISM OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR:
THE ASSOCIATIVE CULTS
Stark’s paradigm of pagan religion, as we have seen, is the client cult. Cer-
tainly, paganism frequently operated in this mode, as so-called votive reli-
gion. One contracted with the chosen god for a service (e.g., recovery of
health) at a cost (typically an animal sacrifice or dedicated artifact); if the
god delivered, so did you. A crisp transaction for religious services took
place, with no ongoing relationship with priest or god or cult community.
It is non-exclusive (one may patronize any relevant and accessible firm),
and it is aimed at a private good. If this were all there was to paganism, then
paganism would indeed fit with Stark’s model of the religious market.
There were, however, pagan firms that were both non-exclusive and
aimed at the collective production of religious goods. In Stark’s model, this
ought not to be, for it is a contradiction: “nonexclusive firms cannot sus-
tain collective production and therefore specialize in privately producedreli-
gious goods” (1997, 204; Stark’s italics). Theory, however, must yield to
fact; and fact it is that numerous pagan firms engaged—and engaged suc-
cessfully—in collective religious production, sustaining thereby high lev-
els of enduring commitment among their members. Yet these were all
instances of non-exclusive religion, which placed no impediment on hon-
ouring deities external to the particular cult.
Far from exhibiting an “inability...to generate belonging” (Stark 1997,
206; his italics), the pagan cults demonstrate, time and again, that form-
ing and maintaining groups for the achievement of common goals, whether
narrowly religious or more broadly social, was precisely their purpose and
modus operandi.Before reviewing some of these groups, let me first cheer-