I think I'm an oddity in pagan circles, because I don't feel any urge to have a ... I don't know the right words. Casual and friendly? Relationship with my deity. He's a god, I'm not going to chit chat with him or ask him for help. I don't think that's really my place. I worship him and hope if I do service to him well enough, he'll show me some kind of favor -- now or in the after life. But I can't imagine praying to him for help in my life ... I partially think that showing I can deal with problems is part of my worship of him.
I don't claim the above makes any kind of sense. I'm trying to ween myself off coffee.
I abstract the dietys I work with anyway, so I will often just find a complex of diety figures that addresses the issue, give the amalgamation a name (for example Lord Discipline, very handy for dog training and keeping on top of my studies) and ask for an introduction from someone who knows me.
I really see it more of a title like "Judge" that any number of deities with certain habits of "mind" might slip on and use for a while. Lady Passion, with whom I work most often is made up of individual deities (Inanna, Isis, and Venus at least) but is also an addressable entity. Rather like the Supreme Court is nine justices, but you petition the court as a whole and it issues a ruling.
The tendency to (figuratively) sort through Jane's All The World's Deities and Demigods looking for the entity who is, say, best able to help get your car to start on cold mornings seems to be most common among people who, for whatever reason, seem to have no sense of the Gods as being persons. The sort of people who ask questions like "Which gods do you think I should use in this spell?", as if the Gods were simply interchangeable parts in a mechanism.
Those of us who see the Gods as being individuals, on the other hand, tend to address our petitions for assistance only to those Divinities with Whom we already have an existing relationship, or, at the very least, to Whom we have already been introduced. In my own case, while I do not have what I think of as an ongoing relationship with either Tyr or Odin, I have had sufficient contact with both of them in the past that I do not think that I would receive a response of "Who the f#ck are you and why are you bothering me?" if I sought their attention.
The sort of people who ask questions like "Which gods do you think I should use in this spell?", as if the Gods were simply interchangeable parts in a mechanism.
...is this positive or negative, in your opinion? I.e., would you say this is a product of the abstraction of the idea of deity, or the failure to personify?
Oh, it's clearly a negative in my perception of things. There are times that I think people with that perspective on things label themselves as "pagan" in order to give themselves permission to use magic, and then conclude that they have to include invocation of various deities in their workings because "that's how pagans do it," and not because they have any real belief in the deities they are invoking.
There simply doesn't seem to be any sense on their parts that the Gods are living beings able to act sua sponte, as rosefox8 describes Hermes acting in her response to swisscelt below.
You know, that's really my thought about it all. Like when I wanted to make sure my husband could drive to New Mexico from Maryland safely, I got poked by Hermes, who I've never had contact with before. I listened to what he said, thanked him, and we went on our merry ways.
Hm. Well I rarely ask the Gods for things in particular. I make offerings and do devotions regularly to a particular God. I meditate on him and seek any wisdom he would give, mostly because it is a very new relationship. I also give offerings and devotion to the Norse pantheon but that is also fairly new, I've only been doing it for about 6 months
( ... )
The mini-series with Ian Richardson? When I heard his signature House of Cards line, I made squeaking noises at the telly. smarriveurr had no idea what I was on about.
Comments 98
Reply
Reply
I don't claim the above makes any kind of sense. I'm trying to ween myself off coffee.
Reply
Would your faith come into play in problem solving, or are you more secular than that?
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Nifty and Shiny. Thank you.
Reply
Those of us who see the Gods as being individuals, on the other hand, tend to address our petitions for assistance only to those Divinities with Whom we already have an existing relationship, or, at the very least, to Whom we have already been introduced. In my own case, while I do not have what I think of as an ongoing relationship with either Tyr or Odin, I have had sufficient contact with both of them in the past that I do not think that I would receive a response of "Who the f#ck are you and why are you bothering me?" if I sought their attention.
Reply
...is this positive or negative, in your opinion? I.e., would you say this is a product of the abstraction of the idea of deity, or the failure to personify?
Reply
There simply doesn't seem to be any sense on their parts that the Gods are living beings able to act sua sponte, as rosefox8 describes Hermes acting in her response to swisscelt below.
Reply
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Reply
Reply
The mini-series with Ian Richardson? When I heard his signature House of Cards line, I made squeaking noises at the telly. smarriveurr had no idea what I was on about.
Reply
Reply
Enlightening. Thank you.
Reply
Leave a comment