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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Ceisiwr Serith

 

First of all, you've really got to love the name: Olympiódorus, “Gift of the Olympian (or Olympians).” Gods, what a name to give your kid. Was this child loved, or what?

The Late Classical neo-Platonist philosopher Olympiodorus (c. 495–570)—known as the Younger to distinguish him from a famous older namesake—was the last pagan to head the School of Alexandria. A number of his writings survive, from which we can tell that he was a deep thinker indeed.

Thinking pagans have long organized their ethical thought around the virtues. (“An it harm none, do what thou wilt” is all very well so far as it goes, but—apart from telling you what not to do—it offers little, if any, guidance on what to do, on how to live well, or—maybe more importantly—on how to interact with others.) The virtues, though, give us ideals to which we can aspire. The Rede is lazy ethics: it doesn't offer much in the way of motivation to better, or surpass, oneself. The virtues, though, do. One can—and should—always become better, more virtuous.

Who can number the virtues? Certainly not me. But I can name some among the Many: Courage. Generosity. Love. Hospitality. Truth. Piety. Loyalty. Beauty. Temperance. (If “Temperance” rubs your fur the wrong way, think “Balance” instead.) Excellence. Responsibility. Duty. Honor. Wisdom.

Well, according to our friend, the well-loved Olympiodorus, the virtues all reciprocally imply one other. Though fully itself, each virtue contains all the others. There's Courage, which is Courage of Courage (Winston Churchill once said that Courage is the chiefest of virtues because it makes all the others possible), but there's also Beauty of Courage, Generosity of Courage, Hospitality of Courage, etc. It's a deep thought, staggering in implication.

Our man takes it further. As the virtues reciprocally imply one another, he says, so too do the gods. Each of the gods implies all the others.

Each of the gods implies all the others. Within each of the gods, all the others are contained. Ye gods. This isn't three-dimensional chess. This is nine-dimensional chess.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
A Pagan Response to the Corona Virus?

India being India, there's an entire genre of Bollywood films known as the “theologicals”: religious movies.

Back in the VHS Era, my friend Stephanie and I used to rent theologicals from our local Indian grocery store. Our shared pool of Hindi being pretty limited, it was always quite an experience to watch an unsubtitled 2½ hour film in a language that you don't understand. After a while, we got pretty good at figuring things out.

One of our favorites was a film called Shitala Ma (SHEE-ta-la Mah): “Mother Smallpox.” Shitala Ma is the goddess, not just of smallpox, but of all infectious diseases. (Stephanie, being something of an amateur epidemiologist, found this pretty engaging.) Those infected with disease are considered to be possessed by Shitala Ma, and are actually worshiped as her vehicles (note the donkey in the image shown above); the goddess is given offerings, and asked kindly to depart, leaving the sufferer unharmed.

Now there's something they don't teach you in Med School.

The heroes of the film are a poor family of farmers, pious worshipers of Shitala Ma. While working in the fields one day, they discover a murti (statue) of Shitala Ma buried in the ground. My memory is that the family dog led them to it.

Naturally, they hold a puja (worship) for the statue. Shitala Ma herself appears—this happens during pujas sometimes—and tells them that she wants a temple built for her in the field where the statue was found. The father of the family goes to tell the local rich man who owns the field of the goddess's apparition and of her request.

The rich man, of course, is loath to lose the field and the income that it brings.

No way,” he says.

(Bollywood being Bollywood, of course, the film is punctuated by mass song-and-dance spectacles, passionate love duets in gardens with fountains, and slapstick comedy routines featuring transvestites, none of which have anything whatsoever to do with the plot. Really, what's not to love?)

Nothing daunted, our pious family sets up a small shrine to Shitala Ma in the field, and soon all the villagers are gathering there to worship the goddess.

Finally the landowner has had enough. He sends his goons to steal the statue, who drop it down a well to get rid of it.

Bad move. Angered, Shitala Ma smites the rich guy's entire family with smallpox.

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Why I Don't Call the Horned God 'Cernunnos'

The Horned God is assuredly one of the preeminent (and, I would contend, patron) gods of the Pagan Revival, and I would be willing to hazard a guess that in English-speaking Pagandom at large, He is named by the majority of His votaries as “Cernunnos.”

(Writer and thinker Ceisiwr Serith once remarked to me that an image search for “Cernunnos” turns up mostly modern, and very little ancient, art.)

But though the Horned is my heart-god and I offer to Him daily, I myself never call Him Cernunnos.

Why not?

To me, names are culture-specific—one could even say culture-bound—material. “Cernunnos” is a specifically Gaulish name, bound to a particular language, place, and people. I'm not a Gaul, I don't live in historic Gaul, and I don't speak Gaulish. Therefore, though I honor the Name and recognize it, I don't use it.

The same with “Herne,” “Pan,” or most other historic Names that you'd care to mention.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Well, of course how you, or anyone else, conduct your spiritual lives, Greybeard, is no business of mine. But if one accepts my pr
  • Greybeard
    Greybeard says #
    Wait. What? We can't say Cernunnos because we aren't Gaulish? Can we say Ishtar if we aren't Babylonian? Can we say Diana if
  • Kile Martz
    Kile Martz says #
    Indeed, I don't think of him as antlered, but horned. I was born under the sign of the ram, was raised around cattle. I see the ho
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Thanks Joanna. Personally, I'm a big fan of precision in language. If that's pedantry, so mote it be. The issue that you raise is
  • Joanna van der Hoeven
    Joanna van der Hoeven says #
    Plus, Cernunnos is an antlered god, not a horned god Am I the only pedantic when it comes to this lol? Great blog post, great b

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