Syncretism: Some Definitions and Clarifications…

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus in Speaking of Syncretism

One of the most difficult matters facing someone who is attempting to discuss syncretism in a nuanced and useful fashion within modern polytheism is that the term “syncretism” refers to at least two different phenomena as it is commonly used. The second of those phenomena can be further subdivided into (at least) two further categories. What I hope to do at present, however briefly, is to draw out those nuances here in an accessible manner.

But first, it might be worthwhile to have a quick look at the word-origin of syncretism. It comes from the Greek root syn (“with, together with”) added to Kretismos, “as the Cretans do.” It was used first by Plutarch to describe the way in which the Cretans ignored their various local differences in order to band together for common causes. Thus, many things that are positive, and many movements that have done something similar in order to achieve good results for a diversity of individuals, are doing syncretism. In that definition, the modern umbrella movement of Paganism can be considered syncretism, as can the present website, polytheist.com, since it is not seeking to create an orthodoxy of or amongst polytheists, but instead is a resource for bringing many different people and traditions together in conversation and solidarity for the good of all. Even if you do not agree that syncretism applies to all forms of polytheism, thus, you can certainly say that it applies to all the efforts here at polytheist.com!

The use of syncretism in more modern times, however, is quite different. There are two forms of it that are most commonly encountered, and I would like to distinguish these as methodological syncretism and as theological syncretism.

Methodological syncretism occurs when two or more systems (often religious, but also philosophical, or potentially any other form of thought, process, or the like) are combined together into a cohesive whole. This can occur to the degree that the joints and seams between the two (or more) systems are invisible, or it can occur in such a way as to almost (and sometimes inadvertently) highlight those joints and seams. When the term “syncretism” gets applied to entire religions or spiritual practices, this is the way it is being used on most occasions. The Afro-Diasporic traditions, which usually combine one or several West African indigenous religions with ethnic forms of Roman Catholicism (French for Haitian Vodou, Spanish for Cuban Santeria, etc.) as well as potentially incorporating indigenous traditions from the Caribbean Islands and the American Continents, and any number of esoteric practices in addition to these, is one area in which syncretism is often mentioned in this methodological form. However, some religions, including most polytheist traditions, are open to syncretism anyway, and have no problem incorporating deities or practices not indigenous to their own culture into their systems with ease. The Egyptians incorporated many deities from other cultures into their pantheons, like Apedemak and Mandoulis (from Nubia/Ethiopia), Reshef and Hauron (from the Canaanites), and a variety of others. The Roman practice of evocatio was one way in which this could be done on a tactical level, one might say, for military advantages; but, the general Roman tendency toward syncretism allowed a typical Roman in Italy in late antiquity to be able to worship Epona (from the Gauls), Jupiter of Doliche (from the Syrians), Sabazios (from the Thracians), and Isis (from the Egyptians), even though these would be recognized as “foreign” to Rome itself, without any difficulty.

In certain respects, this methodological syncretism can apply to a great deal more in life apart from religion and spiritual activities. The general human tendency to “take what works, ignore the rest” is a form of methodological syncretism in and of itself which can apply to almost anything, from cooking to world views to ethical reasoning to housecleaning, in my opinion.

With the case of Jupiter of Doliche, however, we come to the process which is often involved in religious methodological syncretism, namely theological syncretism. The specific theological dimension of this is when two (though occasionally more) deities are paired together, as with the Roman Jupiter and the Syrian Ba’al of Doliche. What has generally been assumed by many academics (who are either monotheists or are logical positivists who don’t like complicated realities), as well as by those who are inclined toward monism and what is commonly termed “pantheism,” is that these theological syncretisms indicate an underlying unity or synonymity of the deities involved. This leads to the notion that all syncretists are “just soft polytheists” in the view of some single-culture/tradition practitioners of reconstructionist methodologies, for example. If one reads Julius Caesar’s account of the Gaulish deities, he seems to indicate that the “Gaulish Mercury” and the other Roman deities he says are honored amongst the Gauls are simply forms of the familiar Roman gods, to the point that he doesn’t even include their Gaulish names (if, in fact, he knew them at all). However, on closer inspection, he is making distinctions between some of them that are rather important and unique. The “Gaulish Mercury,” for example, is said to be the inventor of all the arts, whereas the Roman Mercury (and the Greek Hermes, himself syncretized to Mercury as well) was not the inventor of more than a few items and practices. One can understand these cases of Interpretatio Romana (in Tacitus’ famous phrase), or Interpretatio Graeca (as occurs when it is said that the “Indian Dionysos” is likely Shiva, and that Osiris is the “Egyptian Dionysos,” etc.), as occasions of seeing a unity in the deities described, or even that the “barbarian” examples are simply localized forms of the more well-known Greek or Roman deities.

Yet, one can also view these occasions not as an equational syncretism, but instead as a translational syncretism, depending on how one understands the stated or implied “is” that occurs with any such instance of Interpretatio-based theological syncretism. If one understands the word “is” to signify that something equals something else, then the common understanding of these sorts of syncretism would then apply: Ba’al of Doliche IS Jupiter, Cocidius IS Mars (or Silvanus), Belenus IS Apollo, Tanit IS Juno, and so forth. However, one can also view the “is” stated or implied in these syncretistic formations as a metaphorical or translational “is,” such that what is being stated is not that the two are interchangeable or are equivalent in an existential sense, but instead are functionally equivalent in context and yet separate. In metaphor (which derives from the Greek metaphore, whose roots are the exact cognates of the Latin translatio, i.e. “translation”!), one does not literally mean that “Bill is a bull in a china shop,” but only that Bill’s actions resemble those of a bull in a china shop under certain circumstances. Likewise with the translational or metaphorical “is” in Interpretatio syncretisms: then Cocidius is Mars in a sense that indicates he is “like Mars” in a given circumstance, or that Belenus is “like Apollo” at a given cult site, and so forth. Translation, between two media or two languages, is never complete, and the same is true of translational syncretism–one deity can never fully stand-in for another beyond certain situational contexts.

In some cases, what particular ancient sources seem to be indicating is that it is an equative syncretistic understanding at play; but in others, it may not be, and that needs to be taken into account where polytheism is concerned. Rather than thinking that Interpretatio theological syncretisms are the first forerunners to a pervasive archetypalism amongst ancient peoples, we have other options to consider. It isn’t that equative syncretism is “wrong,” or that under certain circumstances it can’t exist, it’s only that it isn’t the only nor the best option, nor should its existence in some cases be taken as evidence of the validity of monism or pantheism on a pervasive basis.

With theological syncretism, though, there is a further dimension to be explored, which is that these kinds of syncretism do not necessarily only accompany the instances where methodological syncretism between religions is occurring. There are those types of inter-pantheonic syncretism that do occur, where a deity from one culture is juxtaposed with another, as in the cases given above. But, there are also many examples in which deities also become involved with intra-pantheonic syncretism, and one place where this is particularly prevalent is in the Egyptian pantheon (or, as may be more appropriate, “pantheons”). Re exists on his own, as does Sobek, and Osiris, and Amun, and Atum, and yet there is also Sobek-Re, Osiris-Re, Amun-Re, and Atum-Re. Ptah, Osiris, and Sokar also exist independently of one another, and yet there is also a syncretized form of all three together known as Pataikos, who has characteristics of his own (like being a dwarf) that distinguishes him from the other three. The existence of these new combined forms of the deities does not replace the individual deities or make them redundant, it is instead the phenomenon that Rev. Tamara Siuda refers to as “one plus one equals three” (or, in the case of Pataikos, “one plus one plus one equals four”!). These kinds of theological syncretism can exist both intra- and inter-pantheonically as well, as is the case with Zeus-Ammon, who is very definitely different and separate from both the Egyptian Amun and the Greek Zeus; or, Hermanubis, who is a combination of the Greek Hermes Chthonios and the Egyptian Anubis. In the latter case, there is even an inscription which has Anubis and Hermanubis addressed separately, thus demonstrating this independence of the combined forms vividly!

A pervasive process of intra-pantheonic syncretism likely exists behind the scenes in most of the ancient pantheons reckoned today as well. When the Greek city-states and colonies were independent and often antagonistic toward one another, it seems quite possible that the Spartans would have thought of Artemis Orthia and being quite different from the Athenians’ Artemis of Brauron, and both of these would have been thought different again from the Arcadian Artemis, and different yet again from Artemis of Ephesus, and so forth. But, as polities fought and combined, conquered one another and assimilated their cultures, traded and emigrated between one another, and eventually the larger national groupings we now recognize emerged, there was an underlying unity of “Artemis” understood as existing amongst all of the localized forms, practices, and epithets, which then allowed the Greeks to see a “different side” of Artemis in each of these places. Whether this sense of unity amongst the various local Artemises was a function simply of human politico-religious expediency, or was an example of process theology with the deity herself, or something else altogether, is not as important as realizing that the individual and communal cultic theophanies and epiphanies which occur can be thought of as much as a process of both human and divine adaptation, transposition, translation, and negotiation as they can be direct and purely divine revelations or simple human definitions that gain power and relevance as egregores through repeated and reinforced (and re-enforced) cultural transmission and tradition. The exact dynamics and mechanisms at play are likely not at the full access of and comprehension for everyday mortals, even in their greatest heights of mystical understanding and divinely-inspired insight; but, moderation would suggest that there are both human and divine elements at play in every such occurrence, and thus neither extreme should be entirely discounted nor ignored in any given instance.

So, in attempting to speak further of syncretism, it is important to realize how many different–though often related or intertwined–realities are being spoken of by using that term. There are both methodological and theological versions of syncretism; there are equative and metaphorical possibilities in every Interpretatio-based theological syncretism; and there are both inter- and intra-pantheonic forms of theological syncretism. While the word origins of “syncretism” might suggest that all of these fine distinctions should be swept aside in favor of “banding together” in commonalities for the pursuit of a greater good, in the case of understanding better how these different phenomena function and how modern polytheists would benefit from a such a better understanding, perhaps the mode to follow would not be the Cretan one so much as the Egyptian one, where even “one” might be two or three or more.

Brangelina and Two Mountains

Tess Dawson in Spring and Stone

It’s the kind of early autumn day where the sky is a bland and unremarkable grey, and against this backdrop the leaves slowly reveal their inner fires of crimson and gold. A nearby mountain, what I can see of it beyond a black painted chain link fence and a row of tall black maples, has begun to change its robe from summer emerald to autumn finery. The mountain looks like a many-humped dragon curling in a peculiar crescent shape moving, curving, from east to west. There are some ruins atop one of the humps—the one that is furthest east. There are sheer rusted bare faces on the hump that is westernmost. I was curious recently about the ruins so I looked about on the internet: they are the remains of an old vacation resort which burned down. That interested me, but what interested me more was that these ruins were listed as being on a mountain other than the one I looked up.

Turns out what I thought was one mountain with many undulating humps is actually two separate mountains. There is no fence, no wall, no definitive boundary-carving valley, no river, no major change in the types of trees, no visual marker whatsoever that tells me that this here is one mountain and that there is a different mountain. And yet…they are not the same mountain. Clearly there are ruins on one mountain, and rusted, aged bare cliffs on the other mountain. The mountain with the cliffs does not have the ruins, the mountain with the ruins does not have the cliffs. One mountain is named for an American Indian of long ago, and the other is named for a white man of long ago.

Because there’s no fence, no wall, no definite boundary marking one mountain from the other, it is easiest to tell them apart when I start at either end and work towards the center. It’s that nebulous territory in the center when things get a bit squiffy and it’s not easy to tell which mountain is which. Indeed they’re merged at that point—both mountains at once. But just because a boundary is nebulous, not hard and fast, does not mean that the boundary isn’t there. Just because a boundary is mutable, changeable, and without a line down the middle doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. At some point there is overlap. At some point one mountain and the other mountain have merged. At some point in the middle it is both mountains at the same time. Yet just because there is a point of overlap where a hiker could experience being on both mountains at the same time, it does not mean that they are the same mountain. They are not, and to know this all you have to do is to look, again, at the east end with the ruins and the west end with the cliffs. Points overlap, yet areas of merging do not make two things into the same thing.

Being both things at once does not mean both things must be the same thing. Think of it this way: if I were to ask you if a zebra is black or white, you’d tell me that the zebra is both. If I further try to press you into telling me if the creature is black or white, you’ll only get more frustrated because you know the zebra is both black and white at the same time. Thus it is with these two mountains in the center where they come together.

It is easy to confuse an overlap itself for the beings that are in the association together. The overlap is not the two beings themselves, it is just simply an overlap. It’s not so easy to look at the situation and realize that the two beings are not the same being, and they are not either one being or the other at this merged point. Instead, at this merged point, they are both beings. They are not the same being. They are not one being or the other being. They are both beings. They are both there at the same time. Sometimes an overlap or a relationship is confused, mistaken, as evidence of “oneness” instead of as evidence of an interrelationship between beings, a very local overlap, even a symbiosis, which happens to and with specific beings in specific contexts.

When we see two beings merged in this way, it causes our brains to form painful little exclamation marks in clouds near our heads like what you see in an anime when a character has a rough time accepting something that just happened. It’s difficult for us to resolve in our minds. We want the situation to look like either one mountain or the other mountain with a nice wall down the middle, neat, tidy, not nebulous. Or, in a similar effort to resolve this mental tension, we want to see the mountains as just one mountain—the same mountain—neat, tidy, no longer a need for nebulousness. We want to throw away what appears to us as nebulousness instead of confronting it and dealing with it; problem is we’re supposed to deal with it, we’re supposed to work through it.

Seeing the mountains as the same one mountain, or seeing it as definitively one mountain or the other, seems to cause the little hamsters that power the wheels-of-thinking in our brains to calm down, it causes the little anime exclamation point to evaporate. But it’s a calm based on a forced and erroneous conclusion because it’s not an accurate assessment. We can still have that calm while looking at the situation-as-it-is, it just requires a little bit of flexible mental yoga, thinking in a way we’re often not used to but is not as difficult as we sometimes make it out to be.

The mountains strangely make me think of “Brangelina.” Brangelina is not one person, not the same, and certainly not the same person. Look at the two ends again: at Brad, then at Angelina. Although it’s a nifty to acknowledge Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie together in a relationship with a catchy name of “Brangelina,” it is folly to forget that although they operate in relation together merged as a singular unit sometimes, they also have separate identities that function outside of that unit. They have separate individual identities that function outside of that relationship as well as within it. You can take photographs of Brad separate from photos of Angelina, and you can take photos of them together; you can potentially have conversations with one or the other, or with both at the same time.

If Brad and Angelina were stuffed together in the same very large t-shirt for some media stunt, you couldn’t see where Angelina ended and Brad began. However, you still know that although in a relationship together and although in a t-shirt together where their boundaries appear nebulous, they are both Brad and Angelina—two different beings together. Again, look at Brad, then look at Angelina, and work your way to the center. You can’t see them as completely separate because that big t-shirt obscures your view, but even if you can’t see and don’t know where one person ends and the other begins, it doesn’t mean that Brad and Angelina don’t know. They are individual people together merged in a relationship and merged in a t-shirt, without being the same person and without being obviously one person or the other. They are Brad and Angelina, in the state of being individuals and in the state of being together, and they are in both of these states simultaneously. They are in both of these states without losing their individuality and without being completely separated with an easy-to-see boundary between them.

Also, it almost goes without saying that if Brad Pitt were in a relationship with Nicole Kidman, the relationship they would have together would be totally different, Bracole would not be the same as Brangelina, even though we’re still dealing with Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt would, however, still be Brad Pitt even if he exhibits different personality traits while in a relationship with Nicole. If Angelina Jolie were in a relationship with Ashton Kutcher, Ashelina would be totally different from Brangelina, too, and yet again, it is still the same Angelina Jolie, even if she may exhibit different aspects of her personality with Ashton than she does with Brad.

In a situation of syncretized deities, or perhaps even deities “translated” through interpretatio romana and interpretatio graeca, deities may appear and be as two merged deities. This can also apply to deities merged with localities and local land deities, or deities who have particular idiosyncrasies when they come forth in one locale and different idiosyncrasies when they come forth in another locale. Like Brangelina above, this does not mean that the beings connected are the same deity, and it does not mean that they must be clearly either this deity or that deity. It often means that the deities are in the state of being individuals and in the state of being together. The deities are in both of these states simultaneously, without losing their individuality and without being completely separated with an easy-to-see boundary between them. And like Bracole or Ashelina above, a deity may exhibit different aspects of his or her personality when in a merger or syncretism with a different deity or locale.

This does not mean that everyone’s interpretation and experience of every deity everywhere is always right. It’s not. A hyper-relativistic view which insists that each person’s own viewpoint is automatically “correct” for the reasons that someone has that view and we want to avoid the conflict that comes from trying to sort out differences, understandings, and misunderstandings, misplaces the matter entirely. It’s not about how we view the deities, instead it has to do with how the deities are. Whether or not we view the deities accurately and relay that information accurately are different matters entirely and must be considered and weighed individually from the matter of how the deities are, as well as in relation to how the deities are.

With syncretized deities, or deities that appear one way when merged with one locale and another way in another locale, sometimes it is challenging to know who is whom. In a syncretism, you may not know where one deity ends and another begins because the boundaries are not hard and fast, but this does not mean that the deities are the same one being, and it does not mean that the deities must be either one deity or the other deity clearly separated by a visible wall. It’s like the two mountains with a merged middle ground between them where they are both mountains at once. It’s like Brangelina in a big t-shirt.

Week Two

Gimbal in The Weekly Gimbal

Welcome to the second installment of the Weekly Gimbal!

Our oracular corvid-columnist has had a busy week, so this week’s bibliomantic reading was delayed by a day or two — he’d be very sorry, if he wasn’t currently eating the flesh of a cow, full of delight. And cow.

He was excited by how positively his debut was received (and he listened intently to all pertinent commentary, private and otherwise, sent in, although he would have preferred to hear from more of the community’s insights around the previous reading. Gimbal is very big on community and group doings, and invites the circle of listeners and readers to share their own thoughts about what he has read for us.)

This week’s divination is drawn from a profound work of formative psychology, an important text on social theory, a collection of classic fiction, and a book of philosophy originally written in Koine Greek.

Oh, damn you, how I love the sight of you—

you, who fed at once. That is, do not let

your thoughts range over devouring the

food placed before him by the trembling,

must I finally harbor this unsaved soul in myself?

And is it this nothing to wonder at:

even the sun-god himself will,

with love, fear, contempt, and hate…

and don’t let her out of your sight.

Another stoic concept which furnished

inspiration to the thought not in substance,

yet in form, the struggle as it is able to solve,

since closer examination will always show

that the problem rose to a maddened scream,

and he charged.

Possible interpretation:

This week, be mindful to differentiate your needs from your wants, for both are indeed hungers and a yearning for either can be good and pure, however there is also the risk of mistaking one for the other and driving headlong into a miasmic state requiring cleansing. In fact, regardless, you will probably want to do some extra spiritual cleansings of your self and your space, this week.

Even in the illumination of the day-lit solar powers, do not take for granted that which you may think you perceive: focus clearly on discerning what is, from what may be, as one may hide within its mirrored polarity.

In these parallax states, where one thing folds around another in misdirective concealing embrace, resolution may be a tense gamble: do not lose yourself to the task, or else you will be taken with fury at the all of it.

Please share your own thoughts, musings, interpretations or relevant connections to the above message in the comments below; Gimbal would love to hear them. Next week he will include his own interpretation.

Gimbal’s own interpretation of last week’s oracle is this:

“i88ih8ii87huhi ‘;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;llł./”

Tune in next week, for a different form of divination, and more pictures of the corvidiomancer himself!

Religions of Relation: Dynamics in Modern Polytheism

The Thracian in Featured Voices

Anomalous Thracian, The Irresolute Desk, September 30, 2014

This morning while waking up into my pot of coffee, I watched a video piece showcasing the impact that one species in an ecosystem could have upon the entire system. While the video itself was slightly sensationalist and, indeed, possibly taking a liberal approach to some of the facts it was levying about, it served as a useful starting point for discussions around the importance of understanding the world around us through the relationships that define it. Nothing exists independent of anything else, not because of some philosophical monistic sense of collective one-ness, but specifically because of the diverse many-ness of all… intersecting and networking through complex systems of relation.

Death, for example, is not just an important factor in those relationships, but indeed a partnering figure, a character unto itself.

In polytheist and animist understandings of the world, all things exist in these complex relationships, which are visibly reflected and found in congruent form in physical nature, sciences, and social theory.

A lot of people who are coming into polytheist religions from a dominant parent-culture paradigm of staunch monotheism or secular atheisms struggle at understanding the complex relationship factors. Understanding polytheism as systems of relationship, first and foremost, is an important thing; and, indeed, relationships wherein humans are not at the center (although for obvious reasons, we take a central role in the active execution of our own practices, being the ones developing those practices).

Dualist, monist^¹, or atheist paradigms carry over into many newcomers to polytheism, who struggle with the number of gods, spirits, or relationships, as if they need to “know” them all, in order to “get it” or “do it”.

Relationships do not need to be “known” or “understood”, but merely acknowledged. It is not about “mapping and cataloging” all of the complexities, but instead having space for those complexities, and working to develop a lived awareness around our own part within them. There is a tactile responsiveness that comes from the re-development of this polytheist and animist paradigm, like learning to drive a car or ride a bike: reading and hearing about it is useful up to a point, but in getting on the road, you suddenly realize that you can feel the road beneath your feet, and that split-second learned responses to things like moisture on the asphalt, fog in the air or gusts of wind strong enough to put a little bit of tail-spin into your trajectory are all examples of “things you need to learn on the ground, not in a book”.

These “tactile responses” are not often discussed or understood from a place of intellectual knowing or understanding, and yet we who drive or ride bicycles or unicycles or go-karts or ride atop horses or camels or polar bears, use them every day. To operate any of these without a physical responsiveness to the relationships we hold to the world around us would mean, at the very least, a staggeringly impacted decline in operational efficiency and safety.

The West has done remarkable things with learning, education and cultivating the intellect in the last five hundred years or so, and yet has also done some insidiously terrible things with the same. One such byproduct that does not serve us is “intellectual entitlement”: the idea that we have the right to know or understand a thing, in order for that thing to matter or value on its own. This topic is seen across a wide range of diversity issues^². For example, many cis-gendered^³ individuals who struggle with not understanding the complexities of gender-variance^⁴ are made uncomfortable by the request to use certain pronouns to refer to individuals, whose identities and pronoun preferences they do not understand. In the face of lack of understanding (generally considered “ignorance”) many people feel that it is their right to “resolve” their ignorance by questioning (interrogating and scrutinizing) the people who represent to them a disturbance to their own comfort (e.g. state of understanding). They fail to recognize that their own understandings, or ignorances, are completely irrelevant to the context of another person’s right to be respected, and do not in any way entitle them to an explanation (e.g. socially coerced justification of autonomous value) in order to be expected to render due respect to the persons in question. This intellectual entitlement carries over into -theistic avenues as often as it does issues of gender, race, and sexual orientation, and for individuals venturing into polytheism from a cultural background of atheism or monotheism — or in general 21st century Western secularism — these patterns can indeed become quite pervasive and disruptive, and even self-applied.

In short, the West has taught that a thing only has value if we can feel adequately justified of its value based upon the field of our own onboard value systems or rigid critical faculties, regardless of how (un)developed, (un)skillful or (ir)relevantly informed these things may indeed be. This rigidity, rather than an elastic sense of responsive awareness, gets us in trouble; it gets us in trouble interpersonally and culturally when interfacing with elements from outside of what we feel has justified value, it gets us in trouble when dealing with intellectual concepts that bring discomfort due to a perception that they may threaten our own stances or values (a byproduct of industrial capitalism’s “scarcity model” of human process!), and it gets us in trouble indeed when considering or engaging with religious and spiritual relationships or considerations from outside of a reductionist rigidity.

Polytheism is about relationships. Relationships must be understood in an adaptive fashion, with space left in our own “equations of understanding” for variables that we may never be able to “solve” or “know”. Our inability to “solve X” does not mean that “X” has no value; quite the opposite, in fact, as any middle school algebra student should attest.

Not all relationships in polytheistic religious devotions or practice will be direct and transcendent or descendant or two-way-communicative. Not everyone has to be able to talk to the spirits and have them talk back, or use their well-polished “god-phone”⁵ to dial up every pantheon in the phonebook. Not every lay person needs to be a mystic, and not every priest needs to be a god-spouse^⁶, and so on and so forth. It needs to be clear that just as there is an enormous amount of diversity in the gods themselves — because poly- means many! — there is a huge and myriad selection of ways to be in aware relationship with them… and with ourselves, and our spirits, and the land around us. Sometimes this relationship is literally only one factored into practice at the awareness level, rather than direct interaction. For example, there are neighbors living behind my house whom I have no direct interactions with (by choice, let me tell you!), and yet our yards share a common border and fence between them, with tree-branches connecting them quite literally. If I installed a pit on my property for offerings of the biological and decomposing variety, it would be best to consider my relationship with those neighbors — “indirect” as it is — when finding the correct placement for such, because the overwhelming acrid scent of rotting flesh is amongst the fastest ways to bring yourself into direct relationship with everyone around you. Relationship awareness gives us the elasticity of understanding and factoring variables polynomially^⁷ into the expressions of our dance through the curtained and dramatic stages of this grand theater of a world that we share with a literal countless sum of other actors, agents and elements.

Indeed, this same elasticity must be applied also to our understanding of our own Selves, whose multiplicity of layers and internal relationships must also be accounted for. Self knowledge is incredibly important and powerful, but even more potent is awareness of the spaces that we may never know, the corners we might only glimpse by firelight’s dance-cast illumination for the briefest of instances. Discernment calls for an assessment of what is known, indeed, but also to provide intuitively for the spaces that we cannot know to factor in — variables, like “X” — which nevertheless impact the relation dynamic of Self-with-Self, and Self-with-World, Self-with-Humans, and indeed, Self-with-Gods.

In short, to develop the internal, perceptual, and devotional “muscles” called for in polytheism — and indeed any approach to any relationship — one must practice a thing that many other traditions, philosophies, magical practices and indeed Western parent-cultures have taught them not to do, in word or deed: get over yourself. Do this at least enough to proverbially and spiritually and cognitively develop dancing feet and the “elasticity” that allows a drunk to stumble away unhurt from an automotive wreck on the highway, because let’s face it: our worlds, and the many, many relationships within them, often lead to collision.

And “truth is always sifted from the rubble resulting from the collision”, or however the saying goes.

And no, this isn’t a call for lived relativism — another dangerous form of reductionism, valuable when applied correctly but disastrous when misapplied, as it almost always is — but instead for a radically different and critically savvy approach that accounts both for what is known, and for the space for that which is unknown, which allows for the adaptation of that which is known from one shifting state to another as time and relations continue, or indeed the ephemeral unknown coming into sharpening clarity or momentarily fixed and known state.

In shorter? To be “good” at polytheism requires that one become “good” at relationships, as much with yourself as with the wolves and the waterfalls of the worlds, wonders and wights around you.

Bio

The Thracian is a carnivorous cave-dwelling creature, supplementing a diet of fresh meat with ample intake of whiskey and cigars. Active primarily during the nocturnal hours, this particular figure serves his community as a full-time temple priest, shaman, and spirit-worker. He lives with a young African raven and two score temple serpents. He writes at Constructing Living Tradition and Thracian Exodus.When he is not stalking dinner, wrestling dragons and oracular corvids, the Thracian is known to serve as director and founder of polytheist.com

^{1. Monism is not itself in contest or requisite disagreement with polytheist paradigm, however certain popularized views of}^{substance monism}^{found in post-monotheist theologies and magickal philosophies which affirm the “one-ness” or “same-ness” of “all” indeed find themselves at odds with polytheism. These in fact decay the very foundations upon which relationship must be understood through: the association of differentiated “things”.}

^{2. Diversity issues and topics relevant to social justice, oppression, and erasure are often brought up in conjunction with polytheism. Part of this is because a}^huge^{number of modern polytheists come from under-represented, misunderstood, oppressed, suppressed, or prejudiced communities and demographics. Indeed, the last few years have proven for us again and again that to identify as a polytheist religionist at all is to open oneself up to direct attempts at erasure from many directions, for many reasons, and to face many forms of attack. For many polytheists, awareness and active engagement around a selection of social justice issues is as much a part of their religious identity as direct devotions and offerings, for often it is our very gods who draw us to these causes, or indeed shelter and heal and guide us through our own painful experiences of bigotry, physical violence, and unchecked vitriol from lashing trolls and hate-mongers, as well as neighbors, friends or family that we had previously placed our trust in.}

^{3. Cis-gender is a term used to describe related types of gender identity where individuals’ experiences of their own gender match the sex they were assigned at birth. This term is employed in modern discussions of gender and gender identity, where previously held terms like “normal” or “regular” are understood to be both discriminatingly offensive and expressions of normative oppression, as well as gender privilege. A lot of very good information is available on the internet to understand this term, its usefulness, and history.}

^{4. Gender-variance is a term used here to refer to any person whose gender identity does not conform to the dominant gender expectations of their society (including trans* persons, intersexed persons, gender-queer, gender-fluid, meta-gendered, et al).}

^{5. God-phone” is a colloquial term used in many spirit communities for discussion of various experiences or abilities pertaining to direct communication with the gods or spirits, in either voluntary or involuntary fashions, with a spectrum of clarity ranging from low (e.g. a person with an “unclear signal”) to high (which often involves years of training and practices of discipline to achieve). While many do not like the term, it is useful, and has spread so far as to become fairly universally understood in the applicable communities. Not every polytheist has direct communication in this way with their gods or spirits, and that is okay. Having a “god-phone” is not, and should not be, the expected baseline experience: it is generally considered the realm of dedicated specialists, although there are many non-specialists who enjoy regular communion with their gods and spirits in this way.}

^{6. “God-spouse” is a term for any person who has entered into any one of many different forms of marriage union with a deity, which is a tradition found throughout the world in both ancient and modern religious and spirit traditions.}

^{7. Polynomial, in mathematics, refers to an expression consisting of variables and coefficients, that involves only the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and non-negative integer exponents. Polynomials appear in a wide variety of areas of mathematics and science. For example, they are used to form polynomial equations, which encode a wide range of problems, from elementary word problems to complicated problems in the sciences; they are used to define polynomial functions, which appear in settings ranging from basic chemistry and physics to economics and social science; they are used in calculus and numerical analysis to approximate other functions. In advanced mathematics, polynomials are used to construct polynomial rings and algebraic varieties, central concepts in algebra and algebraic geometry. (Wikipedia contributors, “Polynomial,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Polynomial&oldid=626779316 (accessed September 30, 2014).}

On Household Cults to the Modern Polytheist

Hellfurian Liontari in All Ye Gods

For many modern polytheists it is often hard to maintain and identify a sort of structured and lasting tradition. This ebb and flow in cult practice often leaves something to be desired spiritually, but can easily be rectified and before long, a viable and sustainable tradition will arise. There are several steps that one must take to begin the process, and often it begins with identification and the decluttering of current household cult practices. To start it may be terrifying and uncomfortable, but in the end the result will make the devotee much more spiritually and religiously fulfilled, and the connection with the Divine will be experienced like nothing felt before. One of the biggest challenges we face as polytheists is the lack of polis cult. There are, in most cases, no modern temples to worship in, and no state altars to sacrifice at. That leaves us with only our household cults and that is why it is so important to make sure we have a strong and firm foundation.

Let me first start by sharing my personal experience with household cults. I was raised Catholic in an Irish/Italian home. My father is strict Catholic, while my mother is more occult in interest. From an early age I was exposed to witchcraft, and at 12 I had my first altar which I set up and maintained according to Paul Huston’s “Mastering Witchcraft”, one of the first books I read on the subject. This structure of cult was one I maintained through my early 20’s. At 18 I began studying with an informal Wiccan coven and felt no need to deviate from what I had learned. I felt no need for any other gods as, at that time, I viewed all gods as facets of one god and one goddess. It wasn’t until I met my current partner that my cult radically changed, and it was all because a goddess showed Herself to me and challenged everything I believed.

That goddess is Hekate. When She came to me, I set a shrine for Her in the center of my altar with the Wiccan goddess on the left, and the god on the right. Shortly after, a familiar god from my childhood began to leave signs, the Great God Pan. Now, I had a new god and a new goddess expressing Their individuality to me when previously I would have never even considered it.

This manifested a huge conflict in my household cult. How would each of these gods play a role? How would my worldview accept this new scenario? The short answer, it didn’t. With the help of my partner, I cut all ties with my past cult, and started new. It was uncomfortable, but it needed to be done. I started slow. First, I moved the Wiccan gods off the surface of the altar and created shrines on one of the bottom shelves. That lasted about a week until I sold those statues to someone who would honor Them the way They deserve to be honored. Then I began to read and study how these new gods were, and are, honored and I put that into practice. The more I did this the more my household cult evolved, and before I knew it I was so connected, so fulfilled, and I felt and still feel my gods around me at all times. It is an amazing thing.

The first step is identifying need. This will often be reflected in the gods of the household cult. Each god should typically serve a function within the cult to help you perfect and achieve some aspect of your life. Now, what I am about to get into may seem simple, but it is far too often overlooked, even as some believe they currently fulfill this statement. As a Hellenic Polytheist, I will use my pantheon as an example. Let’s say you are a store owner, or work in the retail or customer service industry. An appropriate god would be Hermes, God of Merchants and Lord of Communication, if you are an artist or craftsman perhaps Heracles, Apollon, or Athena, and so on.

Your profession is not the only thing that can influence your patron and household gods. Of course you have the home itself which can have any number of gods to protect the entrances, certain rooms, etc. For those gods, I would refer you to sources for your individual pantheon. Practices and interests can also influence one’s household gods. If you practice witchcraft or divination, Hekate, Pan, or Apollon may be chosen, if you play sports or go to the gym, Hermes, Heracles, or Apollon would fit. The point in this step is to not just bring in gods at your whim, but to carefully think about how these gods can better your life, and when you feel your gods in what you do, it will create a far greater bond than just picking a god out of a hat or off the internet. Once you do find a god, look for any cult titles or epithets that will further refine your household cult and specify Their function.

Because modern polytheistic cults are broken, more specifically, traditionally unevolved, inherited gods are typically not customary. That said, sometimes you may be called to gods outside your ancestral ethnicity which often creates internal conflicts. I will use myself as an example. While I am fourth generation Southern Italian, a large part of my ethnic background is Irish and German. I maintain shrines to the gods of my Irish ancestors as well as those of the German ones. These are mainly honorary symbols and do not take up a large part of my ritual but I find it helps me connect with my roots and acknowledges the “clay” that has made me who I am today.

While on the subject, if you have a multi-pantheon cult, it is important to differentiate each god’s separate cult. One example I can use is the cults of the Romans. They had their gods, but they also had an interest in several foreign gods and would often bring Them home to Rome. No, they did not simply lump Them all together and call it a day. They maintained the “Roman rites” for their gods, and the “foreign, or Greek rites” for the gods that were outside their pantheon and observed the customs of the gods they imported. The key is to remain as respectful and knowledgeable as you can with each and every god you honor.

Another way of gaining patronage is to dream of or witness an apparition of a specific god. According to many ancient cultures, once you dream of a god, that god has made it known that They belong in your household cult. The same is true for any omens. Let’s say you see images of some obscure god everywhere to the point you find Their symbols or attributes everywhere around you. That may be an indication that you are to honor that god. I once knew someone who constantly saw images of the Madonna and Child everywhere they went. While I considered it coincidence as this image is fairly common, it proved to be an omen when I witnessed them discover a medal of her on the ground directly in their path, only to stand up in a swarm of ladybugs, an insect associated with the Virgin Mary. It is signs like these, very real and unmistakable, that should be considered when bringing gods into your cult.
A very common trend for the modern polytheist is acquiring multiple gods that hold dominion over one purpose. For example, death gods are a popular pick. You must seriously consider what exactly you intend to when doing this. Not only is this counterproductive, but it can confuse and muddy your household cult. For a more mundane example, let us say you have a leak in your sink. You call a plumber to fix it. That plumber arrives only to discover you have called 5 other plumbers for the same job. There is no point to it. We must separate what we are interested in from what we are devoted to.

Part of this problem comes from the accessibility of information in our modern world. We are constantly confronted with new and interesting gods, and, more common in the Western world, we feel the need to devote ourselves to them and experience them without care. My advice with this is to first, wait. Take one complete month off from researching or thinking of these interesting gods. After that month, if you are still interested, research and look for signs or omens that the god wants to be included in your household cult. Make sure you are not getting involved with a god because of trends.

One only need to look at social media to see how gods, saints, and spirits are constantly the rage one moment, and the next abandoned, leaving groups inactive, and altars and shrines dusty and unused. Remember, these are gods. They are not the next great cell phone, or trendy diet plan. They have been around for millennia and have witnessed cult worship for thousands of years. How offensive it must be to a god to be treated like a fad.

Once you have a firm and sure grasp on who your household gods are, it is time to construct Their altars and shrines. Remember, an altar is where sacrifices are performed and rites are held and are typically but not always outdoors, whereas a shrine is a space to honor a god or spirit, to make small ritual offerings. This step is where research comes in. While this is your personal cult, you should always be mindful of creating a space that god(s) is use to, a space that will invite that god to be present. Find a suitable surface, and try to make it a space that can be permanent. This is your first sacrifice to the god, a sacrifice of space. At least one surface should be dedicated as the household altar that will house your patron gods, your household spirits, and or your ancestors (although some keep them separate).

Cleanse the space, typically with incense. One custom of dedication is to bring all valuable family heirlooms to be stored within the altar. This creates a link to your familial history and invites future tradition. Once they are stored, set up the main image or object that will serve as your link to the god(s). This is often a statue or icon. One powerful custom is to create a fetish to house the deity, often in the form of a pot or vessel that will contain attributes associated with that god, often a central stone like a meteor or loadstone surrounded with sacred plants, oils, or other objects.

Another option is to prepare a statue as the fetish with the elements constructed inside it, or in small spaces made for the purpose. Once you have your image and fetish, you can invite or activate it by striking it lightly with a bundle of sacred herbs, or even a leather flail while chanting hymns or prayers of invitation. It is said that the difference between a cult image and a decorative image is the cult image is adorned with gifts of jewelry, cloths or silks, and anointed and prayed to while a decorative image is just that, so keep this in mind when considering cult images.

If you honor the same god under different titles or epithets, you can maintain separate shrines, or simply address that god under both names at the same one. It is personal preference, and has been done both ways authentically. Once these steps are done, it is often acceptable to write a formal dedication to the gods the altars or shrines are dedicated to, placing the document with the family heirlooms.

Here is where it gets tricky. Because modern polytheism in most cases did not have the option of evolving and adapting as time progressed there are several ways you can approach your cult. First, you can adhere to ancient practice through diligent research. This would mean you follow historical texts as a guideline of cult structure and maintain time honored traditions. There are many detailed sources and records of not only how to, but when to, as lists of festivals and customized calendars are readily available online. When you find a calendar that works for you, isolate the important dates and try to get in the habit of celebrating them as true to history as you can. Also, look for communities either online or in your area to help remind you of upcoming festivals, and share ideas on how to celebrate. Keep in mind, festivals were typically state ran events so community is important, even if that community is your family. Maintaining a historically accurate household cult is not always practical since times have changed, and we simply do not have the resources to do some of the things that were done in antiquity, but if you can make it work and it is comfortable, it is a respectable option and it is all about repetition.

Another option is to look to outside, yet similar religions to fill in the gaps on how to incorporate ancient religion and cult in a modern world. For example, the Roman Catholic Church retains much of its polytheistic Roman practices. Someone that honors the Greco-Roman gods could look to this religion and see how it has evolved and incorporate those elements into their cult.

Let’s say you have to maintain a perpetual light for a god. The traditional perpetual lamp was often constructed using an asbestos wick, something we would be hesitant to use today. In the Catholic church we find they are now using electric lights for the purpose. We also find this in Judaism with the ner tamid, and the like. Of course don’t just slap some 60 watt light bulb on an ordinary lamp, it is for a god after all. If you do prefer to maintain a fire, like an oil lamp or even a vigil candle, try to make sure not to let it burn out. This means timing it to transfer the flame, or making sure you have a reliable wick and oil source. Of course there will come a time when oil needs to be refilled and light bulbs need to be changed, but as long as there is always a light source dedicated to the god for such occasions, the continuity is not lost.

The same goes for altar lights. You can either us fire or electricity, or even a combination of both. The same can be said of offerings and sacrifice. Since many of us cannot regularly sacrifice animals or offer in a dug pit, we can pour red wine, and lay offerings out close to the floor dispose of them at appropriate places like a trash can at a crossroads if no other options exist. In regard to throwing sacred offerings in the trash, this is a controversial concept. I have seen circles dispose of the offerings that cannot be left in Nature, or buried, burned, etc. by wrapping them in a natural paper bag, making sure that at the time of disposal, the specially prepared bag did not just get dumped with all the mundane trash. Also, look to any gods that may accept and purify ritual trash to make the offering to. While this option seems self explanatory, I cannot stress enough however, a strong and knowledgeable historical foundation is required.

The last option I will suggest is a more adaptive one. Let us look again to the Greco-Roman religions. While many claim these religions died out long ago, that is not the case. The gods adapted to the new religion and became daemonic. While They are of course still gods, the new generation of devotees calls them “spirits” or similar such terms. This is a marvelous thing to consider, and we can see a continuation of polytheistic religion all over Europe. The goddess Diana is celebrated in Romania as Sanziana on June 24^th, the nativity of John the Baptist. The goddess Hekate (in Italy named Diana Hecate, Trivia, or simply Diana) is celebrated at a walnut tree in Benevento, and flies with specters during Epiphany.

This is to say, your household cult can continue and adapt, almost assimilate into the religions most of us know from our childhood. Let us look at Christmas as an example. Here we can take the opportunity to celebrate Solar gods, or gods we honor during winter, and there is the example of honoring Hekate during Epiphany. Halloween is a great time to honor gods of the dead, any which are chthonic in nature, Easter and May Day, gods of rebirth and fertility (although in Germany, April 30^th, Walpurgisnacht is also a great time to celebrate Infernal witch gods). This method of adaptation does not excuse lack of research and knowledge. To do it correctly, and with respect, you should always learn as much as you can about how cult was historically observed.

This is your household cult, and there is no right or wrong. You can mix and match how you observe your cult, you can add new traditions, all while staying true to the gods you honor. For example, I attended an Easter celebration where a place was set at the end of the table for Jesus, and offerings of food were placed on the plate at the empty seat. This is a great custom that can translate very well into household cult with any deity. You can also delegate tasks to each family member to make sure everyone in the home participates. For example, it is usually the father figure, or the masculine figure that recites prayers or hymns while the motherly figure, or feminine figure hold vigil. You can assign chores for maintaining the household altar to keep it clean and make sure offering are disposed of before they can attract pests. The point is to make it easy and comfortable, yet infused with powerful faith, and sincere devotion.

I can go on and on and write volumes on household cults. I think it is easiest to give a sample outline of how I honor my cult day to day. That coupled with the information about can substantially enhance your household cult.

I always wash my hands before attending the gods. In the morning I will get up and light my “daytime” gods, Zeus, Apollon, Aphrodite, and Hermes Krateros (among other cult titles). After that, I burn incense and greet each god with a simple prayer, and then suffumigate the door and home. I begin to work with a small shrine to Heracles overlooking my desk where I sketch and sculpt. At lunch, about 2pm, I light Pan and Dionysos. Then at night, after the candles of the daytime gods have been put out, I light the Chthonic gods, Hekate, and Hermes Khthonios, leaving Pan and Dionysos lit. I do all of my magical working at night, so I will typically do it at the time I light Their altars.

I observe ritual gestures. I will pour libations with my left palm gestured toward the statue or icon to Chthonic gods, and my right to Ouranic. When I greet Chthonic gods I will kneel and touch the ground bringing my hand to my chest three times, when I greet Ouranic gods I will gesture both hands to the sky and pull the air down and over my head and shoulders. When I pray to a god or petition a god I will gesture left hand toward statue for Chthonic, right for Ouranic, and other hand upon altar, or sometimes left hand palm down, right toward statue for Chthonic, and both hands palm up gestured toward statue for Ouranic.

As far as festivals, I mix. I celebrate relevant dates from antiquity, and I also incorporate my gods in modern holidays. I also celebrate my patrons at my birthday, and the day my household cult was established. I don’t observe the Wiccan Sabbaths, as those have actual history, dedicated already to ancient gods. The Christian holidays however, were borrowed in such a way they almost ask to be taken back. I pour libations whenever I celebrate, or petition the gods or partake of the vine myself. Although it sounds complicated, it is routine, and it has become something I can’t live without. My mundane life, and religious life have fused, and I attribute it to defining my household cult and refining my relationship with my gods.

While this post may seem very “101”, and while many readers may already be very fulfilled with their religious household cult, I hope this was able to help give some new ideas or suggestions to those who may be just starting out, who may be unfulfilled, or perhaps feel as though they do not have a strong relationship or foundation with their household gods. The important thing is make sure you are not only knowledgeable, but sincere and faithful in everything you do. No one has the right to judge you when you are behind your own closed door. What you do is between you and your gods, just make sure you do everything you can to make it fulfilling to you, that truly connects you with your household gods.

What Do We Know When We Know the Gods?

Edward P. Butler in Noēseis

There is a text by Iamblichus, one of the great thinkers of late antiquity, known as ‘On the Mysteries’ (De mysteriis), which has much to recommend it to contemporary polytheists of whatever tradition. It itself sits astride several traditions. It is a series of questions and answers between two Syrians, Porphyry and Iamblichus, both of whom are also, however, steeped in Hellenic culture and especially in Platonic thought, and in addition, Iamblichus writes in the persona of an Egyptian priest, Abamon. The widest importance of this text does not lie in the answers Iamblichus presents to Porphyry’s questions, that is, as a compendium of doctrines. Rather, its widest importance lies in its nature as a dialogue of sorts—Porphyry doesn’t get to talk back here—between two very pious polytheists who are also great intellectuals and who have rather different ideas about how polytheism works. What is not in question between them, however, is that the Gods exist, and the importance they both accord to honoring them: it’s why they’re talking.

I’d like to focus this time on a brief passage in which Iamblichus talks about knowing the Gods. He responds to whatever Porphyry said (we can only reconstruct his questions from the way Iamblichus restates them):

You say first, then, that you “concede the existence of the Gods”: but that is not the right way to put it. For an innate knowledge [gnôsis] about the Gods is coexistent with our substance, and is superior to all judgment and choice, reasoning and proof. This knowledge is united from the outset with its own principle, and exists in tandem with the essential striving of the soul towards the Good. Indeed, to tell the truth, the contact we have with the divine is not to be taken as knowledge [gnôsis]. Knowledge, after all, is separated (from its object) by some degree of otherness. But prior to that knowledge, which knows another as being itself other, there is the uniform intertwining depending from the Gods [… lacuna] We should not accept, then, that this is something that we can either grant or not grant, nor admit to it as ambiguous (for it remains always uniformly in actuality), nor should we examine the question as though we were in a position either to assent to it or to reject it; for it is rather the case that we are enveloped by the divine presence, and we are filled with it, and we possess our very essence by virtue of our knowledge that there are Gods. (DM I.3.8, trans. Clarke, Dillon, and Hershbell, modified)

So we have here in the first place a strong rejection of the entire impulse to argue for the existence of the Gods, to take it as an hypothesis for which there might be evidence pro and con. But the reason for rejecting this impulse isn’t because it’s sinful, or because the Gods need our blind faith, it’s because the impulse misunderstands the kind of thing the Gods are, and the nature of the relationship between our minds and Them.

The term Iamblichus uses for ‘knowledge’ here, gnôsis, already refers to something higher, not only than everyday word-of-mouth, or doxa, but also than the kind of thought proper to philosophy, noös or ‘intellect’. Gnôsis in Iamblichus’ day generally refers to a kind of intuitive knowledge scarcely distinct from revelation, and indeed is often used to refer to just that. So a good deal of what is known about the Gods is indeed the product of gnôsis, but we don’t have a gnôsis that the Gods exist, nor is the contact, synaphê, that we have with Them in itself ‘gnostic’. This is because we are intertwined, sumplokê, with the Gods, and have an experience of them that, on its ultimate level, is dependent upon them, because it is not other than them, but instead is part of Their experience. It is not a case of ‘mystical union’ here, at least not in the hopelessly misleading sense that term has acquired in the hands of monotheistic polemicists. Rather, it is a simple case of acquaintance.

Our experience of the Gods on its most primal level is one with Their experience because we are experiencing one another. They are not mere objects in that encounter any more than the people or other animals whom we know are merely objects of our knowledge. First, of course, they are subjects in their own right; but even in their way of being objects for us, there is a different mode of ‘knowledge’ associated with such things. I could, in theory, compile a list of everything I know about somebody who is a friend of mine, but however complete it was, it would remain a description. Knowledge by acquaintance is irreducible to knowledge by description. Moreover, if all there was to experience could be encompassed by description, then the tissue of description would indeed be the ultimate object, the goal of knowledge as such—in a sense perhaps it is, given the ambiguities concerning the application of the term ‘knowledge’ to knowledge by acquaintance.

It is not a question here of the insufficiency of words to describe something. Let us suppose a completely adequate description, even if such a thing is actually inconceivable—indeed, it may be inconceivable precisely because it must presuppose the operation of acquaintance but cannot reduce it to descriptive terms—nevertheless, there is nothing in acquaintance to describe. (This is why, from another perspective, philosophers have correctly criticized the attempt to ground knowledge in acquaintance in any fashion too straightforward.) This is what Iamblichus means when he describes this experience as ‘uniform’, monoeidês. When I focus on this or that attribute of the person I ‘know’, I can ‘know’ that attribute in the other, objective sense; but knowledge as acquaintance is never of the pieces or parts of something, it is of someone, somebody, a difference we mark in our everday language. We ‘know’ somebody, in this sense, as a unity that transcends anything descriptive. We can even, in a thought experiment that has been carried out in fiction countless times, imagine still recognizing someone as the person whom we know though they be changed beyond recognition. So the answer, in this sense, to what we know in knowing the Gods is, nothing, because it’s a matter, instead, of who.

Iamblichus: On the Mysteries, trans. Emma C. Clarke, John M. Dillon, and Jackson P. Hershbell (Atlanta, GA: Society for Biblical Literature, 2003).