Images of the Gods as Transpersonal Gifts from Humanity
I've been known for believing humans give the deities their form. This belief is met with mixed reactions from other polytheists. Granted, I am cautious about anthropomorphizing the divine, but this doesn't mean I reject it entirely. It is useful when dealing with specific aspects of humanity. For example, representing musical, literary, and artistic creativity in human form. What I mean when I say we give deities form, is that these forms are gifts, offerings, of ourselves and culture to the deities. These gifts of form symbolize the intimate and interconnected relationship humans have with the living world. I find these forms are useful conduits to the transpersonal through ceremony, meditation, trance, and prayer. The deities are not these forms themselves.
Instead, these forms are the guide to experience the divine in the living world through transpersonal means. Imagine, a young disciple asks his mentor “what is the moon?” and the mentor silently point to the moon with her finger. The disciple doesn't understand and mistakes the mentor's finger for being the moon. The disciple’s mistake is discovered one day when his mentor asks him to paint the moon. he is then left to himself. When his mentor returns and sees a painting of her finger. “What is this?” she asks. He replies, “It is the moon, is it not?.” The mentor laughs, “No, it isn't. That is my finger. Foolish man!”
I do not to think of a deity as the god of this or that, but for being this or that. For example, Thor is the thunder of Northern Europe. The images of Thor as human are gifts from a place and people given to thunder. Through narrative, a relationship of thunder to the people and the rest of the living world is described through human form as a metaphor which allows us to transpersonal the human experience to better understand thunder's role in the living world. I also think of them as map markers of our human relationship with the vast aspects of the living world. The map is not the living world but a representation of it created by humans to understand their surroundings (think of this map as religion or cultural traditions) and the markers indicating landmarks (the deities) are not the landmarks themselves.
Giving the deities form, or accessing forms given to them in different times and places to communicate and connect with deities is a sacred act which facilitates the transpersonal in our lives. This is what forms religious and cultural traditions surrounding the deities. In this regard, the deities are not supernatural. In our post-modern times, science is another tool to allow us to understand the deities. If one studies the weather patterns of Northern Europe and how they are formed from its distinctive ecology, one can gain a new understanding of Thor.
The naturalistic polytheism I practice is an alternative to the literalism of hard polytheism. Such as liberal Christians view Biblical narratives as contextual metaphor contrasts with the strict literalism of Christian fundamentalism. Where fundamentalism is ridged and resists change, liberal religion is flexible and fluid continuing to grow with the needs of time, place, and people. For polytheism to continue to be relevant it has to adapt a fluid and flexible interpretation to meet the needs of our time, the places we live, and the cultural environment that influence us daily.
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The point I was trying to make is to not get stuck on or fixated with the image of deities for that is not the form of the deities. To, me deities are multiple creative evolutionary processes which play out in the living world. Because I see them as processes doesn't mean they are not persons. Quite the contrary, at the essence I think every person is a processes.
Its a reciprocal relationship between humanity and the deities. In order for them to choose forms, since they are formless in and of themselves, their has to be something there for them to choose. And yes people will have experiences of a deity and initially not know who it is. However, it is the cultural imagery that we can come to an understanding of who we are relating with.
I am not saying humans create the deities. We cloth the deities so they may be known to us. As our relationship to the deities changes throughout time so does their wardrobe, but the clothing always reflects their personality.
Perhaps the moon/finger analogy is not the best. It could use filling out by having the mentor point to various things with different fingers? No, maybe not. Your right that it is a poor choice of analogy. I like the map analogy a little better but still doesn't quite get at the point I am trying to get across, (and not doing a good job of).
I typical use the word trans-personal, but since I have been studying the transcendentalists (Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman) some of their language sneaks into my writing lately. It is in the context of their philosophy I use the term. Like many words in English there are different meanings depending upon context and often those meanings can be contradictory. In Latin, transcendere means to climb over or beyond, or to surmount, or move beyond. In the language of the transcendentalists it moving beyond human experience to better understand or experience the natural world in which humans are a part. In this context it has nothing to do with being beyond the natural world. Like you and me, transcendentalism rejects the idea of anything beyond the natural. In philosophical and literary circles this is the accepted definition. (I have since, changed all references to transcendent to transperonal.).
As for the supernatural bit, perhaps I am being overly critical. Yet there are some rather flimsy arguments used to place deities within the natural world. Talk of deities can drift into the realm of fantasy easily and makes me uncomfortable. This is probably more reflecting my own bias with terminology of gods which I attempt (and not very well) to distance myself from. I will succeed that perhaps there is a difference in language between me and hard polytheism that leads to me misunderstanding their perspective. However, I do believe there are forms of fundamentalism in neopaganism and contemporary polytheism which interpret hard polytheism literarly.
In your welcomed criticism, you have stated exactly the point I've attempted to make. The deities do exist outside our understanding (e.g. transcendent in the philosophical (not religious) sense) they are not dependent upon us in any way. It was never my intent to deny them their personhood. Quite the contrary it was my attempt to explain the human/deity relationship – a relationship that forces us to transcend our human experience, but to do that there has to be a connecting point. I feel that connecting point is the imagery of the deities within the cultural narratives – a human attempt at using human imagery, symbolism, and language to explain the deities so that we can no when a particular deities influence is at hand and to know who we are relating to. I am merely trying to work out the complexities of relationships which transcend human experience. I am willing to admit, I may not have done a good job at that.
As for pan, I have yet to work than out to a point I want to share on the blog. Actually, this was an exercise in helping me wrap my head around it a little better so that I can explore it more fully and deeply.
FOURTH TRY - captcha hates disabled people.
tell me that you are not saying that my relatiosnhip with Freyja is impossible because I am not in Scandanavia 900 CE.
my emotional ear plugs may be in, but i feel like you are saying that you who have no history of relationship with Gods, shun the word, and struggle with how they do not fit in the bioregional box anymore in the age of globalization, are like an anthrophologist decides what the stupid natives think, without having not experienced it.
and then eliade will read this and other secondhand writing and make it fit what he needs it to be and create something like shamanism. iguess i feel like you are telling me whothe Gods are and how I should see them when I know you have never met one.
which is like me explaining UFOs, calculus and ghosts.
say it aint so.
does trans-personal mean across personal? if so across personal what? I want Glen Glossary.
language ruins all our conversations, love, have you noticed?
I fear you are saying that the Gods are given form by humans when the Gods are Persons enough to choose their own forms,using what they have seen about the humans then and there. I cannot image Thor would allow humans to see Him how he is not. It is too humancentric for me.
Also I think one problem is that we no longer live in a bioregional world. Gods and traditions come with their followers like seeds in a trans Atlantic migrating bird's claw. Right now when you read this is not right now when I wrote it.
All the books you read were not about HereNow. When we are engrossed in a movie or play or book, what bioregional HereNow are we in? What role does mindfulness play in bioregionalism?
When I dreamt I was with you at Snake River, what bioregion was I in? I perfectly described where you grew up. But I was asleep in VT. How does bioregional animsim explain that?
I fear that in trying to force the world to conform to bioregional animism, we have become closed minded to the More that is. Hence More World.
Words really are bioregional. My knowledge of transcendent comes from the 1980s when Witchcraft (not Wicca) said that instead of transcending the flesh and sex and pleasure of the natural world like Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity were doing in the New Age scene, Witchcraft (Neopaganism today) said that the Divine is within all that is, not transcending it. It was discussed to death about how that makes us different, makes us Nature based. (Let's not pick that term apart anymore, we know it is lip service like compassionate, loving, forgiving Christians)
I am interested to see how the word is used in that particular literary culture you speak of.
Also at the time transcendental meditation was HUGE and was involved with that termonology's new meaning - and the rejection of it.
Then ADF cool guy Ian Corrigan said "Hey the Divine is both - immanent in all, also transcending human comprehension."
I like when things become seen as both/and without compromising the intrgrety of diference in the truth of either/or.
Also what modern polytheists' writing are you basing this on?Is it just a few newbies' blogs who are in the middle of Neopaganism's newest bell curve? Or serious scholars? I am not sure you can have an opinion of hard polytheism until you reads the people who explain it best. It sounds like an ADF Dedicant, a Heathen frat boy, and a scholarly geek who has never done more than read books all parroting the most dumbed down stuff that is the Truth is all you have read which is a shame since they ruin it for everyone. I'd love for you to read the books on the edge of the bell curve,not the watered down mainstream shit for the American masses.
And of indigenous polytheists, what of their world have you studied? Shinto for example, animism and polytheism both.
And what are your firsthand experiences with Deities? Or is the word such a block for you you cannot have them? Like how I react to the word ascend. Just stops my brain.
I just don't think this explains what many humans are experiencing. And since you have never experienced it, I am not sure why you need to make sense of it.
Unless you are going to go into your experiences? Hint hint. The questions they bring up are fascinating for me, especially since they don't fit into what I know of your own belief system. This is where the fun resides.
Again I am glad you broadened the scope of polytheism, but it felt like this was not a "what if?" but a new "what is."And when it comes to the mysteries, they will stymie any attempt to catagorize and explain them. They just must be appreciated.
PS HUGE toxic expsoure so I am not trying to be bitchy. If I am I am sorry and blame Dupont, BP, and GE. :)
basically, are you saying what i have experienced is wrong? sad hurt scared emotions, fear that since you do not understand, you have judged it. and by extension ME. see, i am aware of this being a sensitive issue for me so i do have emotional filters. i worry that you disrespect and won't validate such a huge part of my life. and since we're such good friends and i am inTOXICated by poisoning i just want reassurance because i hate language.
also as we have learned repeatedly, your writing is geared to people who don't get what we get (we don't get a lot of things, but we get somethings and we get them together too). since i did not grow up in mainstream American culture,i often have no clue what the hell you are saying when trying to speak to the mainstream American culture. the common reference points are not there. i know that is a major flaw in language.
I'm not saying that all. What I am trying to say, is not working and its not just you. You make the assumption I've not experienced the gods, which isn't true. I have experienced gods before and worked with them, however my relationship and the ways I understand them have changed. However, I do not experience them with form . . . it is hard to explain. I experience them existing both within me and without me. I experience them through my relationship with others human and other-than human. My experience of them transcend my sense of identity. It transcends my sense of me and them and other. When I speak of deity I am speaking of a relationship to something, not about that something directly. I am not trying to invalidate your experiences. I am trying to validate my own experiences. I'm frustrated I am not expressing myself well at all!
I don't agree with this because so many meet the same Gods without knowing who they are, but all have the same images and experiences, and later learn who it was. Unless that is collective unconscious, but you and I aren't big on Jung's self centered "everyone is just like me!" I'd like you to explain how this is so common, humans meeting Gods they knew nothing about and later learning who They are.
Also, this gives too much power to humans. I believe that the Gods choose the forms that will help them relate to a people. It is like me learning what to wear, what language to speak, what manners to have, etc so as to be accepted by a culture where I am new,so they understand me. As it is a relationship, I don't think humans have the power to create the Gods. I think the Gods have lives that do not involve in humans. I do think they are Persons and not figments of human need to understand the world. I would not as an animist rob them of their personhood.
Also this does not explain why you are being called by Pan, a backwoods pastoral God from one part of Greece worshiped long ago. How does Pan fit into this then?
The finger pointing to the moon story is used to defend pluralistic monotheism. Each religion is a path to the same God, but the fingers are not that same God. Or the path/religion is not God and everyone's finger gets them to God so be nice to all the fingers as they all are leading to the exact same God. Which I don't think you believe.
I am looking forward to how you explain your relationship with Pan in this paradigm.
Also, I do not believe in transcendent, because I believe in only One World. Nothing can transcend this world, only be More of it, hence my More World thing. Transcendent religion places the divine far fro this world, immanent religion is the divine is in the form of this world. I would like this term further explained, what you mean by transcending, since I don't think it's the usual usage when describing religious thought. I think you might be saying "transcends humans ability to comprehend"?
I have never met a pagan who believes in the supernatural since all these things are natural. In fact I had that drilled into me for decades from all neopagan sources. No one thinks of the Gods are supernatural, they just are like gravity and apples. Nothing exists but nature, so if it exists it is nature. It appears to be a term used by Evangelical Christians. But we are coming from different educational references about words like transcend and supernatural. Some Neopagans who are more into Ceremonial Magick might say there are the different planes of existance or dimensions but I am not sure if they think they are super natural.
I think the Gods exist outside of our understanding. They are More than we can know. Until recently you haven't had a call from a Deity that was not a land form where you live. I really want to see how Pan relates to this.
I think naturalistic and hard polytheism can easily exist side by side. Neither cancels the other out at all. In fact that add new understand to both, flexibilty, which is necessary for survival. Today's understanding ofhard polytheism I don't think we that of the Ye Olde times,but what the Ye Olde times understanding was I am not sure,as it was tribal identity and not individual salvation/give me stuff. I think you are getting to the core but please do not throw the babies out with the bath water. This is a good explanation of where Gods come from, but denies them their own Personhood in deciding what the humans know and see about them, thus it is humancentric, which is what you were trying to avoid.
And although it gives an understanding of how humans and the Gods may have met, it doesn't explain the Gods today and the relationships humans like me have with Them.
A much needed part of the puzzle, but not the whole picture.
Heather who woke up with exposure to chemicals so she's trying to not be a bitch.
this article is a rambling mess of thoughts and that is primarily why it isn't making sense - it doesn't make sense to me. in short the article isn't very good. Its poorly written, mixes metaphors and analogies, I'm not defining myself well, I have made to broad of assumptions . . . etc. I'm half tempted to take it down.
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