My Gods Are Not Archetypes

(or “How to decay all meaning in language and religion and life altogether”)

Normally I try not to write from a focused, “targeted” place or perspective, and instead take a generalized and broad-stroke approach. (In other words I prefer to drop napalm on a whole region, rather than knife a single person in the skull, in order to not offend any one single person's delicate feelings more than anyone else's. That's how we do in Democratic California, or so I'm told...) However, today is an exception... kind of. I'm going to share a specific exchange (name removed for the respect of that person's privacy) from a Facebook encounter just a short while ago, not to attack the author (or knife her single belief in the skull) but instead to open up a bigger, napalm-esque issue. Here goes:

My Gods Are Not Characters

My religion is not fan-fiction. For some reason this is actually a thing that people are confused by.

There's been some interesting talks about gods, heroes, and superheroes in the blog-o-sphere in the last week or two. This has brought up several topics that I have long been outspoken on in private discussions and dialoging with the colleagues, friends, and family that I engage with ritually, devotionally, and theologically. I have offended a few close to me with my views (though this was not my intention) and I have been misunderstood by some, agreed with by others, and had others merely roll their eyes because they didn't see the issues I was addressing as being as “big” as I was making them out to be. I am going to use the current rise of these topics to jump in – even if a little late to the show, as I've been caught up in other things for what seems like ages and ages – and share my views, because I do find these topics to be very important. The recently discussed worship of fictional super-heroes in either “hero cultus” style or as actual deities is one that I find alarming – both from a theological/devotional perspective and perhaps also a mental-health one. I'm going to be open about that part of my view right in the beginning: I have concerns that the worship of *fictional* characters is a dangerous avenue of engagement for its inherent and fundamental blurring of lines between credible reality (even spiritual, mystic, and transcendent reality!) and intentional fiction.

On the Backs of the Gods, Part IV:

On the "Living" of Theology:

On the Backs of the Gods, Part III

Musings on the Necessities of Spirit:

Religion as Life, Life as Spirit, Spirit as Being

As the debates of Pagan and Polytheistic definitions and theologies continue to rage, with increased discourse on Fundamentalism (which I'll weigh in on later), I can't help but reflect with some amount of amusement -- or cynicism -- how ridiculously privileged some of us must sound. So many of us dabble in intellectual and pseudo-intellectual debate, raging and flame-warring with one another across the internet -- wonder of wonders that it is -- from places of relative luxury, "free" from the burdens of worldly concern. Free from necessity.

On the Backs of the Gods, Part II

In my continuing response to a recent and ongoing trend of discussions revolving around the aim of defining and exploring Pagan and/or Polytheistic theologies, I wanted to talk a little bit about what a theology is, what the theological process is, and what a theologian is. To begin...

On the Backs of the Gods, Part I

Recently there have been some interesting discussions happening in the Pagan blog-sphere around the topic of Pagan theologies. One author addressed admirably the importance of including our gods as one of the central factors of Paganism, especially polytheistic Paganism, while another spoke to warnings of fundamentalism in our developing theologies. Another important voice in our online communities distanced themselves from the term "Pagan", and gave a thoughtful explanation as to why. The responses to all of these, and more, have been a mixed batch: many are responding with heightened encouragement and confirmation, while others have responded less positively. Some have even gone on to call one of these authors a "Nazi Fundamentalist" on another blogger's comments section.

Now, despicable and wrong-headed accusations of fascism not-with-standing -- and I don't want to make light of those accusations or the hurt that they can cause when slung so ignorantly -- there is a very significant piece in all of this that I feel needs to be pointed out, if it hasn't already been somewhere else.

Today I stood in line at the DMV -- as arduous an experience here in in the S.F. Peninsula as it is anywhere else in the country, I'd bet -- to collect the new license plates for my 1978 Cadillac. I had opted while ordering them some months back to both get a set of custom "vanity" plates and donate to a worthwhile charity (so that my license fees went to a good cause). I chose the "Honoring Veterans" license plate because it gave all of the money made in the registration to the state Veteran's Affairs office, which is definitely something that I can stand behind. I chose the name of one of my Thracian gods for the plate, and waited the twelve weeks for them to arrive at the DMV. I was excited for my new plates, as my car -- a retired service-vehicle with over a quarter of a century of time spent in the small fleet of a local funeral company -- is a consecrated Ancestor Shrine on Wheels (with a 425 V8 engine and classic white-wall tires) and I always get excited when I get to give a new item, fitting, or shrine-piece to an active altar or sacred space.

             (This is a column I meant to post about eight days ago, when all the other great ancestor-related readings were being proliferated.. but I suppose this is my “fashionably late” addition to the season.)

             A lot of my time as a spirit-worker and teacher involves helping people to come to a better relationship with their blessed dead – ancestors of both blood and “other-than-blood relation” – and in general addressing many of the issues that arise in the typical 21^st century American “spiritual seeker” around such things. My own religious and spiritual work is deeply entrenched in “theism”, but I tend not to default to deity work with most people whom I am seeing as either clients or students. The reasons for this are various, but the main element is that in my tradition, one must prepare oneself before approaching the gods. Many of these preparations should have been undergone in our developing years – e.g. as children and teens going through a process of enculturation and initiation-based rites of passage – but as most of us in America did not grow up with the benefit of a traditional polytheistic or animist upbringing, we need to return to these basic principles as adults. This process, in my experience and observation, can involve years of developing foundational platforms of spiritual and personal/emotional essentials.

In late September, I received a long-awaited parcel in the mail: my copy of Georgi Mishev’s debut book, Thracian Magic, put out last month by Avalonia Books, translated very diligently to English from its original Bulgarian by Ekaterina Ilieva. Both Georgi and Ekaterina are involved in a Thracian ritual group in Bulgaria called “Threskeia”, through which they lead Thracian-inspired rituals and religious rites on the sacred sites of the Balkan mountains. I first became aware of the publication some time ago, and within the last year succeeded in contacting the author and translator online, and have enjoyed a small bit of dialog with them back and forth over the months. I was excited for the release of the book for a number of reasons, and was thrilled at its arrival.

The main thing to know about this book is this: there is nothing else like it available anywhere, in English or Bulgarian languages. Mishev is closely connected with the leading scholars of the interdisciplinary academic field of Thracology (being the study of Thracians and Thracian culture through archeology and literature) in Sofia and abroad, and this is reflected deeply in his writing. His work draws heavily from their important studies, and in many ways honors their decades of hard scholarly work by bringing these traditions and myths to renewed vigor and life. The book’s introduction is written by celebrated scholar Valeria Fol, widow of the late and immeasurably influential Alexander Fol (who pioneered the study of Thracians in his country and beyond throughout the second half of the 20^th century). As anyone in the English-speaking world who has pursued Thracian studies in their own language can attest, resources available to us are exceedingly limited, frequently hard to obtain, and invariably written for the academic world.

            I am twenty-two hours returned from a trip to Portland, OR where I spent three or four days hanging out with werewolves at the debut “year zero” run of a brand-new convention called Howl Con which is put on by some Pacific Northwest con-vets who generally put together an awesome event which was entirely worth making the time for. I will be returning next year to present once again on Wolf Steppes: Walking with werewolves in Thracian, Scythian and Eurasian Myth, probably also returning to (and expanding on) Werewolves and/as Rites of Passage with my medievalist colleague (who literally holds a Ph.D in werewolf studies!) and whatever else I can cook up in the mean time and con the con into giving me a timeslot for.

            But I digress; next year is a year away, so let me shift the focus to the weekend that has just happened, for those of you who were not able to attend. I was initially going to this as a purely social escape and vacation (my first since December!) from my work here in the Temple, which is full-time and demanding. I was subsequently invited by the organizer to present a panel or two. (“Invited” may be an overstatement: he simply assumed I would be, and asked what it would be on. So I did.) I arranged for capable caretaking support for my animal charges and companions – the Temple serpents, the crazed African raven, and the addle-minded felines – and kicked off for Portland just in time to catch the first rains of the city’s season.

It has been an unexpectedly full month, and so I am behind in my writing. I had intended to have this posted two weeks ago, with a second coming up right around now, but life got a hold of my day-planner and fed it to some horses...

When I left off in my last entry, I promised to share a little bit about the Thracians. As a Thracian Polytheist, I am frequently asked “Huh?” or “Who?”, when introducing my religious practices, beliefs and foundations. Here I’ll share just a little bit to help any not yet “in the know” understand who these influential ancestors were. The writing and addressing of this is somewhat conflictual for me, personally, for at least some reasons entirely my own, which I will address in my next column. For now, though…

I was raised with the understanding that religion is, at its core, a thing that exists in order to facilitate relation between a person and something other than that person. This relation manifests in a myriad set of expressions and forms, from the most obvious and essential of relating to the divine powers, to the (perhaps equally important!) social side of relating to your corporeal community, and a thousand shades of grey between these two polarities. Religion that does not promote, facilitate and structure a person's relation to something which is both bigger than and at least in some way separate from themselves is, by my definitions, not religion at all.

My father, a Protestant Christian preacher, taught me – drawing upon the philosophies of his grandfather, also a preacher – of a "trinity" of religious relational foundations which was altogether a different thing than the usual "trinity" spoken of in Christianity. He taught me about the equal importance of relation with the divine (or invisible) world, relation with the human (social, communal) world, and relation with the natural (physical, visible, non-human) world. This, which in so many ways served as the first three swings of the machete through the heavy brush obscuring the paths of my own polytheistic religious calling, was my first encounter with truly ancestral wisdom.

The inherent requisites of this three-fold paradigm are clear: for relation to the gods, relation to humanity, and relation to the natural world, one must accept that all three of these are real. "Belief" (orthodoxy) is of less importance than practical acknowledgment (orthopraxy,) whether through full submission or reluctant choice to not contest or challenge these things. Belief can certainly be helpful (or even preferable) in many cases, but one does not need to believe in al-Girtas to be in relation with them! A second essential and perhaps more subtle requisite postulation is the suggestion that these three-tiered worlds can indeed relate back to you.