And in my heart the daemons and the god
Wage an eternal battle ...
-- W.B. Yeats
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Blog posts tagged in Gods
Some time ago, I was asked by a devotional polytheist what "Jungian polytheism" is. In this post, I'm going to try to answer that question without all the psychological jargon and Jung quotes that I usually fall back on.
For me, being Pagan means that I find the divine (1) in myself and (2) in the world around me. These are two aspects of my Paganism that I struggle to bring together: the Self-centric Paganism and the earth-centric Paganism. Anyway, "Jungian polytheism" is (mostly) part of the former, the part of my religion that locates the divine in myself.
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"Don't mix pantheons." I hear this frequently in Pagan circles. I have heard it for as long as I have been Pagan. And I've never heard it challenged. The idea is that we aren't supposed to invoke Kali and Loki in the same ritual, for example, or Zeus and Odin, or ... pick two any deities from any two pantheons.
This injunction is often made by hard polytheists, but is made by some soft-polytheists too. Often they are quite open about their disdain for those who mix pantheons. It is seen as a form of immaturity or ignorance. Others see it as a sign of disrespect. I hear this no-mixing-pantheons talk so often, it seems it must happen a lot, so I wonder why all the pantheon-mixers aren't speaking up in their defense.
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Here's what I might say about the subject. I love Thai food. I mean I really love Thai food. I also love the experience of Thai f -
I took a college class on the History of the Ancient Near East. I remember the teacher telling about a king of Babylon sending a
I'm a storyteller, so in the natural course of things I often find myself telling stories about the gods.
Yikes.
Incest. Murder. Sexual Coercion. To name only some. All the things you're not supposed to do.
The Church Fathers made much of the immorality of the pagan gods. (Considering how their god is said to behave, this strikes me as pretty damned chutzpadik.) But it's no real surprise to hear that the Church Fathers didn't understand gods, not even their own.
They're gods, in another category of being. They don't operate according to human law. They have their own.
"It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living god."-- Hebrews 10:3
Recently, Pan-devotee Jason Mankey stirred some pots by asking whether the current interest of many Pagans in the Morrigan is "just a fad." Jason, who is himself a polytheist, was not suggesting that the Morrigan is not real. After all, he admits, his own patron deity, Pan, was once a "fad" circa 1800-1920. But, nevertheless, the word "fad" is a provocative term. 
Morpheus Ravenna, herself a devotee of the Morrigan, responded that the use of the word "fad" in this context is dismissive and direspectful. More importantly, she says, it's shallow:
“It would be rash to say that we do. One should be content with a reasonable number.”
Ezra Pound, “Religion: Or the Child's Guide to Knowledge”
1885-1972
In Memoriam
“The gods rarely speak to those who are too busy to listen.”
Mary Renault
(1905-1983)
In Memoriam
