Maponus

1. Meaning of Name: In a rare burst of humor, Kondratiev writes that the name Maponus meant “Superboy, essentially!” Green is more pedestrian, translating the name as “Divine Youth”, or “Divine Son”. Mackillop gives us “Great Son”.¹
2. Pronunciation: Map-AWN-us, with the “a” like the “u” in “Gus”, and the “u” like the “u” in “put”.
3. Other Names and Epithets: The Welsh Mabon ap Modron is a later reflection of him. In the Chamaliers Inscription, Maponus Arveriiatis is invoked.²
4. Interpretatio Romana: Apollo.³
5. Irish Equivalent: Angus mac Óg⁴
6. Indo-European Equivalent: None exactly.
7. Realm: Andernados/Underworld God
8. Iconography: He is shown in several guises. In one inscription, he appears as Apollo the cithera player. In another, he is shown with a hunting Goddess. He has some healing springs associated with him.⁵
9. Significance: Maponus is a God of youth, as his name suggests. He appears to have associations with hunting. The Chamaliers Inscription suggests that he is primarily an Underworld figure, who could be invoked for magic. The story of Mabon ap Modron gives us an elaborate story of his birth, in which he is born to a Goddess, probably Eponâ, but then disappears on the third day after his birth. The Gods search for him. During the search, they are advised by a stag, a boar, an eagle, and finally a salmon, who tells them where to find him in the Underworld. So he is rescued and returned to the Gods. Kondratiev regarded him as a Dying and Reborn God, who is born every year at the Winter Solstice, and dies every autumn, thus personifying the cycle of the year. In conversations in the Gaulish Polytheism Community, Christopher Scott Thompson suggested that Maponus may, by virtue of having been raised in the Underworld, serve as an intermediary between humans and the class of unpleasant Underworld spirits known as Anderoi.⁶

Open Roads

The Dionysian Artist in The Dionysian Artist

I’ve been invited to discuss a specific announcement I made earlier in the month on my personal blog. In that I am officially a Dionysian Artist, Orpheotelest and initiate into a kind of Orphic mysteries.

Two things I want to address first:

1. In my announcement I used the words priest and clergy lightly. These terms are used to communicate a concept for my modern audience that is familiar with a certain kind of monotheist language to define: “holy man”. It should be acknowledged that these words are inapplicable to the actual Orpheotelestai, and in my case: Dionysian Artist.

The Orpheotelestai took on more of a shamanic role in Greece, derivative of the northern tribes known as Thracian and Dacian. Their knowledge spread and evolved throughout the Grecian nations and colonies to become what we call Orphic.The Dionysian Artists, Dionysiakoi Technitai¹, were a unique religious organisation that I have discussed extensively in my column on polytheist.com. In short: they were performers, actors and playwrights – anyone dealing with play production. Over time they were granted privileges of free travel through the Greek City States and recognised as holy performers. Naturally these rights lead to alternative careers such as diplomats, negotiators and spies.

I don’t know for sure if the two groups were ever related but both held titles and knowledge in the Dionysian Mysteries. For those unfamiliar with Mystery tradition, they encompass a theatrical aspect with elements that could be considered shamanic.

2. As of writing I am not claiming I’m part of any specific school of Orphic. I believe my Mysteries are related to the Starry Bull strain of Orphism. However I have yet to be physically initiated. There is a problem with distance as it’s foundation is in the US and I’m in Australia. Therefore I am not claiming an official position under the aegis of the Starry Bull tradition.

So what does this mean?

I consider myself a Dionysian Artist and Orpheotelest. I will refer and sign off as Markos Gage – D.A. (ΔT / ΔA, or simply Δ) – Dionysian Artist.

I will also offer services that are divided into two distinct categories. These services are related but differ, so they have variable fees:

1. As a Dionysian Artist I’ll offer tutoring in creating devotional art. Depending on the extent of my services some may be offered for free or a fee, this is negotiable. These services practical artistic skills including:- Help with mediums in: bronze, wax, plastics, mould making, digital art, graphic design, inks, pastels and oils.

Constructive criticism.
Material studies (Example: I can teach how to make paints and pastels.) I also have extensive knowledge of health and safety and what not to do.
General artistic advice.
The philosophy of religious (Dionysian) art.

My expertise as a Dionysian Artist is only visual arts. This does not discount a person pursuing other creative paths like an actor, musician or poet, etc. The concept of this school is the greatest form of devotion is through expression. By mastering an art the artist not only connects to the gods through art but ‘brings the gods into existence’. The mysteries live through art and is a core prerequisite of the Dionysian artists, this leads to the next service I offer.

2. As a self-proclaimed Orpheotelest I offer initiation services into my own mysteries. These services can be partially online, but the end result must be performed in person and must be paid for.

As this requires a physical, in-person, element I may refer you to someone else if students are in another country or interstate.
I expect extensive work and study by the student. Some source books will include works by H. Jeremiah Lewis (Sannion). As he is alive and well, thankfully, I’ll also expect any student to pay for his books and services too, including his own classes.² I will not encroach on his own traditions.
This work is not for the light hearted.
Fees and work are not negotiable.

How have you done this? How can you claim these titles?

I will not divulge any Mystery rites – even to justify my claim. I’d prefer you to call me a fraud before I tell anyone what I’ve seen.

That said, since July 2015 I have undergone – not one – but a series of experiences spiritually, emotionally and physically. At first I was shy of accepting these titles. Even though there has been extensive divination by myself and others, I still refused. Last month there was an accumulated climax which appears that it has to be acknowledged and accepted. So I have finally accepted it and feel better for it.

For prior experience notes: I’ve been creating art since I was a child and now an artist as a profession. I’ve been involved in Hellenic Polytheism since 2000. My interest in Dionysos begun in 2010 – (there around), I’ve been studying mystery rites since 2011. Became a leadership member of the Thiasos of the Starry Bull in 2014. Undergone Sannion’s Toys Course in early 2015 and since been working extensively with these Spirits of Initiation.

So here I am now.

Markos Gage – Dionysian Artist.

I wish to give a very special thank you to Sannion and Emily Kamp.

Mythological Hermeneutics: Pandora

Edward P. Butler in Noēseis

The myth of Pandora is a good one on which to demonstrate aspects of theological exegesis, being relatively self-contained, but also internally complex. The goal of theological exegesis, as explained previously, is to arrive at that reading of the myth which frees divine agency to operate in the widest scope. It does not supplant other modes of interpretation, such as those which focus on the myth’s historical and social conditions of emergence. In the case of Pandora’s myth, it is clear that in Hesiod’s account, at any rate, there is a motive and an action of misogyny; however, the theological approach reads through this misogyny, not in order to reconstruct an hypothetical pre-Hesiodic myth, which would be itself simply another, distinct myth from the perspective of a theological exegesis, but rather to discern that which, in Hesiod’s own account, transcends his all-too-mortal authorial intentions.

In this regard, it is crucial to recognize that inasmuch as Pandora is the first human in the proper sense, and the sole human ancestor of all who follow, that anything the myth attributes to Her cannot be regarded as true only or peculiarly of females, but of males as well, indeed, as being true of mortal humans in general and in principle. Pandora is in this respect prior to gender, insofar as gender as a property of mortal humans is not thinkable before there are multiple mortal humans.

We can begin to discern Pandora’s unique position, and also start to delineate the ontological stratifications in the myth, through the parallel established in it between Prometheus’ action of stealing divine fire concealed within a fennel stalk — the first thyrsos — and the gift of a bride to his brother Epimetheus. Here theft, distribution without consent, on the ‘higher’ plane corresponds to gift, reception without solicitation, on the ‘lower’ plane, a fairly classic inversion of the kind much exploited by structuralist readings of myth, held together by the sibling bond between Prometheus and Epimetheus, which as their names suggest, involves the reckoning (mêtis) of ontological procession (proödos) from the principles, and reversion (epistrophê) upon the principles. It is not a question here of simply finding these Platonic technical terms in these names, but of the myth’s providing the ground, the existential conditions of possibility, for the Platonic epistemology. For we are dealing here, after all, with the real divine actions which make philosophical cognition possible as a kind of craft or technê.

If the creation of Pandora is in fact the creation of the mortal soul qua mortal, then Zeus’ description of Her as a ‘plague’ and an ‘evil’ for humans in Hesiod’s account becomes a rather straightforward description of the mortal condition as perceived in its very mortality, which makes the creation of mortals a ‘wrathful’ production, that is, the constitution of something which is simultaneously and by definition its destruction. This is a mythological formula that can be discerned in many theologies, wherever some class or condition of beings is affirmed to be the product of divine wrath, or as the general mode of causality operated by Gods who are characterized as ‘wrathful’, namely, the production of temporal beings and structures specifically in their temporal aspect. I have discussed this function elsewhere with respect to Egyptian and Hellenic theology.¹

It should not be surprising, in this light, that the scene of the Olympians bestowing their gifts upon Pandora should resemble the scene in the Devī-Māhātmya from the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa in which the Gods each endow Durgā with a portion of their powers that She may perform her wrathful deeds on their behalf (Devī-Māhātmya 2.1-2.33).² Note as well the fiery nature of Durgā’s emergence (2.9-11), which invites comparison both with the fiery wrath belonging to Egyptian Goddesses who are the ‘Eye [Agency] of Re’, as well as with Pandora, whose own emergence parallels the theft of the divine fire by Prometheus, and whose own daughter is Pyrrha, ‘Fire’. Pandora is hence both the ‘all-giver’ that her name denotes, and also a discrete gift, that is, the giver of all things within a delimited domain, that of mortal humanity. Note as well, in this respect, that the episode from the Devī-Māhātmya occurs in the context of the Gods, having been “expelled from heaven by the wicked Mahiṣa,” being forced to “wander on earth like mortals,” (2.6).

It is therefore, properly speaking, their mortal souls “in which all take pleasure in their spirit [kata thymon], embracing their own evil” (Hesiod, Works and Days 57-8), and not females. We should read in this light even the basic statement that Hephaistos is to give her “the form of a maiden [parthenikês]” (63), for it is the Korê who in the first place descends from the immortal realm to that of the shades,³ and that Athena teaches her “to weave the cunningly wrought [polydaidalon] web” (64). Porphyry, in his exegesis of the Cave of the Nymphs from book 13 of the Odyssey, comments upon the Naiads’ weaving (13.107-8) that “the body is a garment with which the soul is clothed … whether we consider its composition, or the bond by which it is knit to the soul. Thus according to Orpheus, Kore, who presides over everything generated from seed, is represented weaving a web.”⁴ English cannot possibly do justice to the connotations of polydaidalon, that which is ‘very or manifoldly of Daidalos’. Evidently symbolic as well are the gifts to Pandora from Hermes of a “canine mind” and “thievish character” (67), where the latter evokes the theft of the divine fire⁵ and the former the dogs of torch-bearing Hekate, witness of Persephone’s abduction—note as well the “spring flowers” with which the Horai crown Pandora (75).

A kosmos is “fitted to her flesh” (76), but it is a cosmos in which Peitho, ‘persuasion’, is master (potnia) (73-4), that is, in which souls will judge the truth based upon its evidence to and for themselves. Truth for us is inescapably a question of appearance, both in the sense that we are liable to be deceived by mere appearances, but also in the sense that we must grasp even eternal truths for ourselves in discrete acts of judgment distributed in time and which implicate ourselves as judges. Moreover, whatever is in its essence true at a particular time (as distinct from eternal truths, which are accidentally or non-essentially true at every particular time) is at every other time false, and hence Pandora is gifted by Hermes with ‘lies’ (78).

Through the importance of time we can understand the significance of the dispersion of goods and evils from Pandora’s jar, as well. Aesop explains that “the good things” in the jar “were too weak to defend themselves from the bad things, so the bad things drove them off to heaven. The good things then asked Zeus how they could reach mankind. Zeus told them that they should not go together all at once, only one at a time. This is why people are constantly besieged by bad things, since they are nearby, while good things come more rarely, since they must descend to us from heaven one by one,” (Fables 525, trans. Gibb). Ignoring the straightforward sentiment here, we can see that goods, because they alone have an ideal or eidetic character, are necessarily for the soul that lives in time schematized, that is, discerned as virtual ideal properties in experience (“one at a time”), while evils have no such eidetic character and are experienced simply as they come. Hence, the Platonist Proclus titled his essay on evil “On the Subsistence of Evils,” where the plural indicates the nonexistence of an integral ‘Evil Itself’. The inherent bilocation, so to speak, of the virtues, the instantiations of which are here among us while their paradigms are among the Gods, is the precondition of philosophy, as we read in Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium.

What remains behind in the jar, however, is ‘hope’ (elpis), which is especially hope of the resurrection, as we see in the tendency for Elpis to be depicted accompanying Dionysos, as in the famous statue at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It naturally, therefore, stays with the individual soul, as represented by the jar or pithos. Not only does hope peculiarly belong to the individual, because hope is unthinkable apart from some particular perspective or position, but this perspectivalism is also the necessary corollary of the experience of truth appropriate to the embodied being.

In the version of Pandora’s myth that Hesiod tells in his Theogony, the cosmos belonging to Pandora is elaborated in the description of the crown Hephaistos fashions for her, on which are wrought, again, “many daidala” (581) or things worthy of Daidalos, namely “all the dangerous creatures nourished by land and sea … like living animals endowed with speech” (582-4). In the reference here to predators, we are reminded once again of Durgā—“The Gods, delighted, cried ‘Victory!’ to her whose mount is a lion” (Devī-Māhātmya 2.33)—and of Sekhmet. But lest we lose sight of the ontological value of this predation as production of the mortal in its very mortality, we should bear in mind that in the Egyptian scribal initiation manual modern scholars have dubbed the ‘Book of Thoth’, writing is symbolically identified with hunting through a web of associations centering on the process by which ideas become corporeal and hence mortal.⁶ It is this same web of associations by which Artemis is both huntress and Goddess of childbirth, for a soul is hunted into mortal life, birth into which is equivalent to death.

Moreover, the animals on Pandora’s crown speak, for her crown is also the crowning point of Hephaistos’ craftsmanship or demiurgy, the intelligent animal. Platonists regard Hephaistos as the craftsman of the physical universe itself, and in Pandora’s crown of speaking animals we see the theological integration of the naturalistic account in which intelligence arises from the pressures of survival upon beings sustaining themselves and reproducing in time.

Toward a Heathen Theology

Galina Krasskova in Wyrd Ways

When I think of the various contemporary Polytheisms actively engaged in reconstruction and restoration today, religions like Hellenismos, Kemetic Orthodoxy, Canaanite Polytheism, Romuva, and the like, it always seems to me as though contemporary Heathenry is a thing aside. I rarely see Heathen voices participating in pan-polytheistic dialogue, and by and large the mainstream Heathen community seems to hold itself aloof from engaging with other types of Polytheism. At times, for all that we have a multitude of Gods, I even question whether Heathenry is actually polytheistic or … theistic at all.

In no other polytheism are atheistic voices quite so loud or so accepted.¹ In no other polytheism do we have a religion where one may gain accolades by reciting medieval literature i.e. the lore, but condemnation for expressing active piety.² I long ago noted within Heathenry a deeply ingrained insularity, a desire to close the tradition off from external influences, cleaving instead to some imagined golden age of Viking prosperity. I also noted a deep discomfort with the idea of theological investigation. This came up as I was talking about my thesis recently, written in 2009, in which I examine various ideological currents within American Heathenry specifically with respect to ritual praxis, and I found myself contemplating over twenty years as a Heathen in a very divisive and divided Heathen community.³ For everything I say here (and admittedly I am speaking broadly based on my own experience and observed interactions), I’m sure there are Heathens who will staunchly argue that I am wrong and yet I maintain that thorough theological investigation is largely absent within this religion.⁴

Part of that is a deep discomfort with the Gods as Gods rather than fictional, literary, or cultural constructs.⁵ Over the years I have heard several reasons to avoid devotional practice or anything that prioritizes the Gods:

The Gods weren’t an important part of pre-Christian Heathen worship. It was all about ancestors and then only at the holy days.
The Gods exist but are far too immense to have anything to do with us.
The Gods only interacted with Heroes from the Saga period. They don’t do that anymore.
They don’t want us bothering them.
It’s not a religion it’s a “folk-way.”
Heathenry is all about the family and community. Only religious specialists bothered with the Gods (followed up by damning contemporary religious specialists I might add as being non-Heathen, perverted, insane, or all of the above. Really, make up your mind, folks).
Devotion and prayer and piety are all just examples of Christian nonsense and a good Heathen doesn’t ever bow his head or bend his knee to the Powers (this, despite having clear examples from antiquity of our “Elder” Heathens doing just that. Again, make up your mind, folks. Is lore only relevant when you can cherry pick?).

What I see really being said here is “the Gods make me uncomfortable and I don’t want to have to deal with Them.”⁶ Well, if we are actually a religion, at some point we need to deal with actual Gods, in theory, in practice, and positioned as an essential part of the religious experience. Religion is a container for the sacred. It’s an expression of a mutual contract between a society, a culture, a tribe, a people, a community and their Gods. At some point, we need to stop being embarrassed to believe and we need to talk openly about what that means for the development of our traditions. In other words, how would we choose to engage in a Yule rite if, for instance, we made the choice to believe that Odin was real – not as a metaphor, not as a psychological construct, not as a force of nature, but as an immortal, terrifying, sentient Holy Power, and that the Hunt was afoot, that magic things, dangerous things, moved in the chilly darkness? What if we put aside our modern skepticism that finds lack of faith more rational than devotion, that in fact pathologizes devotion and instead chose to approach Heathenry with a desire for reverence?⁷ What would that change about our rituals? How would our community priorities change? If we acknowledged that the Gods were real and that They did in fact express Themselves to Their devotees what would that do to the construct that we now call “Heathenry?”

And if you dismiss the idea of that even being possible, why are you calling what you do religion?

We need to begin discussing Heathen theology, and not in the “oh look how much lore I can quote” way. Theological inquiry is a process that allows for pondering the presence of the Gods and Their impact on actual doctrine and practice. It takes the crumbs of religious insight scattered throughout the lore and synthesizes them into a framework upon which we are then able to build.⁸ Some will no doubt argue that this has been done, but it is not something that ever stops, not with a tradition that is living and growing and vitally engaged with the world. It is also not a process that should be done with a goal to exclude the Gods from the result.⁹

For the future of our religion, we need to start engaging with Heathenry as religion and by that, I don’t mean religion as a social construct, but religion as a language and protocol for maintaining right relationships with the Gods. We need to start stepping off the bank of lore into the abyss of the unknown and finding the courage to wrestle with ideas that may take us out of the clear-cut boundaries of inangarđ. We also really need to stop assuming that our ancestors were stupid. This is an idea born of colonization and conquest: first by Christianity and then by a rampantly white, middle class, Protestant pseudo-rational modernity. It’s something called a hierarchy of religions and one can find it in abundance in certain areas of the Humanities, namely the unspoken idea very deeply ingrained, that the most evolved and rational religions are those most like mainstream Protestant Christianity (or now sometimes agnosticism or atheism) and the more polytheistic one becomes on this scale, the more primitive and ignorant a society is. (I mean let’s face it, when engaging in colonization and conquest, as the European powers were during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which saw the rise of certain academic disciplines like religious studies, anthropology, and later sociology, one must give oneself a certain justification for erasing indigenous culture and religion. Adoration of modernity, progress, and the fairy tale that such cultures are primitive and can only benefit from Western interference are as good a mythology as any upon which to build an empire).

Until we deal directly with our discomfort with the very idea of faith, of Gods, of multiple Gods, and of being a minority religion with all that entails, we are going to get nowhere in the process of building an intergenerationally sustainable tradition. We need to stop assuming that religion didn’t play a vital role in the lives of our ancestors simply because it doesn’t play a vital role for us. If we do not see the traditions that we are attempting to salvage and restore as priceless, living treasures, as beyond price, as worth sacrificing for, and our Gods all the more so, we will never move beyond the embarrassment when the question of actual Gods arises.

Essentially, we can choose to look at religion from a modernist, Durkheimian perspective: it’s just culture, an expression of the cohesiveness of a people, a folk way to which the Gods are tangential metaphors and social constructs or we can look at it the way our ancestors actually did: as a necessary, god inspired protocol for engaging with the sacred and illuminating our daily lives. To do the latter requires theology and it requires stepping outside the box of our precious, precious ‘lore.’

Inevitably the question will arise: “how?” Well, firstly, I think we need to confront our own ingrained disbelief. Think of what we have been exposed to from the time we were children: Christians have God, the ancient pagans had “Idols”. That right there alone, for those raised in practicing Christian households has tremendous impact on our psyches and this is the narrative that academia has largely also followed, at least until recently.¹⁰ Language is important and we can’t escape the influence of ongoing micro-aggressions like this, attempts to erase an entire religious history. I think we need to acknowledge and address any shame or discomfort with the idea of having living Gods. It’s one thing to say that we are polytheist after all and quite another to be completely comfortable pouring out offerings and ordering our lives around that statement. Apples and proverbial oranges, I would warrant. We need to work to get to the point where that’s not the case¹¹

Secondly, making a concerted effort to move from a position of belief doesn’t hurt. I think all too often we set up this false dichotomy between praxis and belief (the “ancient Polytheists didn’t really believe, it was all about praxis” argument). Praxis is meaningless without belief. To say that our ancestors had no belief is to say that they had no theology, which is to imply a shallowness of understanding and comprehension on their part that is, at best, hubristic on ours.¹² Let us work from the assumption that praxis flowed as a logical extension from belief.

Then, I think it’s necessary to really think about what this changes. Perhaps we can indulge in a thought experiment of sorts. How would we engage with and conceptualize our religions if it really did revolve around and flow from our Gods? What would it mean? How would we then behave if we knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Gods were at the heart and soul of what we call religion and that all the praxis was a dialect, a language by which we could communicate with Them? What would that change?

Essentially, what would it mean for us as polytheists if none of this were conceptual? What would it mean to wake up one day with eyes and ears and senses attuned to the sacred? That’s what we’re working toward, at least in part and that shift in consciousness is not going to be found solely or even primarily in lore, not the way we use it. In the New Testament, Gospel of John, God is the word.¹³ The written form of the Bible may then be viewed as the actual embodiment of their divinity and thus authoritative if not consciously reified. Our Gods aren’t yoked to scripture. Odin for instance, is the breath, vital, living, flowing, ever-changing. I believe it was the Stoics who believed we all exist and unfold in the belly of Zeus, that we are actually inside our Gods. What does that mean for our religious lives and our praxis?

Ultimately, a good first start would involve ceasing to fixate on the praxis instead of on the Holy Powers behind or at the heart of that praxis. As Heathens, let us consider that once our religious forebears had so vital a religious culture that Tacitus used it as a model against which to compare Rome.¹⁴ The Gods were never an afterthought until we began picking up scraps of lore recorded by Christians with the misguided attitude that this represented the apex of our faith instead of its katabasis. There is a need for complete reorientation in our very conception of what our religion is. Over the next few articles, interspersed with updates on my analysis of our creation story, I will be exploring just this: how to accomplish it, and what it might mean if we do.

Sulis

Segomâros Widugeni in Nemeton Segomâros

1. Meaning of Name: Both Olmsted and Mackillop assert that the name means either “eye” or “sun” or both. Green is content to say that the name is “linked philologically with the sun”.¹
2. Pronounciation: SUL-is, with the “u” like in “put”.
3. Other names and Epithets: Olmsted gives us Solimara, Sulevia, Sulevias, Suleviae, Sulevis, and Idennica. Noémi Beck disputes this association of the Suleviae, asserting that the etymology of their name is not in fact related to Sulis, and that they should not be linked to her.²
4. Interpretatio Romana: Famously Minerva.³
5. Irish Equivalent: Grian, the Sun.⁴
6. Indo-European Equivalent: Sawélyosyo Dhugeter, the Sun Goddess.⁵
7. Realm: Ueronadâ/Upper World Goddess.
8. Iconography: Sulis is depicted as a typical Romano-Celtic Minerva. She is famously worshipped in the healing shrine at Aquae Sulis, modern Bath, England.⁶
9. Significance: Sulis is the Sun Maiden, and also a major healer. As another deity of Fire in Water, hot springs are associated with her. It should be noted that inscriptions to her are very largely found in Britain. It is possible that she is a British deity, and that she was not known on the Continent. If so, this would suggest that the Ancient British had a Sun-Maiden, Sulis, while the Continental Gauls had a Sun-God, Grannus.⁷

Is the Polytheist Movement Inter- or Intra-Faith?

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus in Speaking of Syncretism

One of the difficulties–perhaps not obvious to many, but nonetheless present–that remains to be negotiated within the larger Pagan movement is whether or not different people in that movement, from different groups, getting together constitute an “interfaith” gathering or an “intrafaith” gathering. What do Gardnerian Wiccans, Anderson Feri practitioners, a Dianic, and members of the Unnamed Path have in common with each other, really, that makes them more parts of a “similar-enough” religious movement such that they can be considered intrafaith rather than interfaith? While some might automatically assume that yes, indeed, these are all similar enough and would constitute a situation where intrafaith is the appropriate label, one could just as easily ask whether or not a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Sikh, and a Jain could all get together and suggest that because all of these religious traditions are “dharmic” in origin, that therefore their gathering is likewise an intrafaith gathering. This then brings forward the question of whether or not the label “Pagan,” whether capitalized or not, is actually a religious descriptor at all in any useful way, much less being something which can describe an entire range of religious traditions, many of which are asserting their Pagan identities while simultaneously denying any and all forms of theism.

In the Plutarchian definition of syncretism, which I’ve written about in this column in practical manners on previous occasions, the banding together of people for a common purpose is the definition of syncretism. The general Pagan community does seem to fit that description and definition, even over and above the syncretistic nature of a number of the traditions encompassed by it, including Wicca, Feri, and other groups which draw from a variety of sources, cultures, and elements in creating their individual paths. If we examine these issues along the lines of recognizing their distinctness and differences as being of greater import and significance than their similarities, then we must conclude that each one is its own individual religion, and thus the “Pagan” descriptor is an umbrella term that denotes that all underneath it is a situation of interfaith cooperation rather than intrafaith cooperation.

But, the state and boundaries of Paganism, and the definitions pertaining to it, is not the focus of the present piece, nor of this website in general. Leading into the present discussion, however, by looking at this parallel is important, because it asks some fundamental questions that are often elided or actively sidelined in discussions of modern polytheism. One of the issues that many–including some polytheists–very quickly critique a number of vocal polytheists about is that polytheism itself is not a religion, it is a theological descriptor and a characteristic of a religion. This is certainly true; and yet, with the existence of the modern Polytheist movement and many of the individuals, groups, and practices within it, there has been an active recognition and cultivation of the sense that polytheists and animists of various stripes can all understand and recognize one another’s viewpoints easily, can support and participate in one another’s efforts easily and without any underlying conflicts or any need to compromise one’s own convictions, and that we do have much to gain by maintaining close relationships and alliances with one another in this work. Indeed, it is even relatively common, it would seem by empirical observation, that different Deities, polytheist groups, and individual practitioners find themselves being “loaned out” to do particular work or services, or to learn certain skills, from other Deities, groups, pantheons, and individuals.

Given that such is the case, one must therefore ask: is the modern Polytheist movement a situation of interfaith cooperation, or is it a situation of intrafaith cooperation?

I suspect that depending on the individuals involved, the context in which it is asked, and very likely the time of day (and what day it is!), the answers will vary quite widely. I can easily see that the main four answers–yes it is interfaith (and thus no it isn’t intrafaith); yes it is intrafaith (and thus no it isn’t interfaith); it is both intrafaith and interfaith; and it is neither intrafaith or interfaith–may all have merit in their own ways, and could be potentially viable; I’m quite certain there may be others as well, but these four seem to be the most likely. Let us examine each possibility in turn.

The first potential answer suggested is that the Polytheist movement is an interfaith movement, but not an intrafaith movement. The reasons for stating this would be somewhat obvious: people are different, groups are different, Deities and cultures and pantheons are different, and therefore even some people worshipping the same Deities under the guiding principles and frameworks and practices of different groups will be working within different religions to do so. As someone who is a member of the Ekklesía Antínoou, I worship Antinous differently than a Hellenic reconstructionist would, a member of Nova Roma would, or a Kemetic Orthodox person would, and each of those are appropriate to our own given religious perspectives. Thus, even though we might all get together and worship Antinous on certain occasions, the person running the ritual will have a different manner of approaching him. Thus, even some events in which one particular Deity or group of Deities or pantheon (and the two can be different!) is being worshipped, there might be an interfaith effort in operation, which would only increase when wider forms of polytheistic practice are considered, and thus the wider Polytheist movement is most logically considered an interfaith movement.

The second potential answer would posit that the Polytheist movement is an intrafaith movement, but not an interfaith movement. This premise would base itself in the empirical reality that despite the diversity of practice and belief, cosmology and pantheon, culture and theology which might occur in any given group of polytheists, certain things can be assumed and generalized: reciprocity and offerings are important; individuality of Deities is recognized and valued; devotional acts are worthwhile and are a mainstay of practice; and respect for individuals–human and Divine, and for different varieties within the broad distinction of “Divine Beings”–is the bedrock of these positions. Given that there are these shared experiences and thus there are many shared assumptions which follow from them, it is very easy for a polytheist of one tradition to interact with polytheists of other traditions, and to even enter into ritual with them with little to no preparation or need for basic instructions to occur. Certainly, there may be particularities of practice in each case, certain customs which are kept, certain activities which are avoided, and so forth, but making these mistakes in ignorance, or in the failure on another’s part to indicate they are the stated preferences of the given Divine Beings in the specific contexts, tends not to be disastrous so long as basic ideas of respect and hospitality are maintained. This is the day-to-day experience of many polytheists amongst one another, and was the experience of most people who attended the Opening and Closing Rituals of Many Gods West, for example. That such an event and such rituals could take place at all would indicate that there is a more intrafaith understanding in play than an interfaith one.

Our third possibility emerges when we look at the previous two and realize that both, in their own ways, are valid, and yet neither can be favored entirely because it is such a multi-faceted question. Yes, a polytheist of one tradition can respectfully and effectively participate in another polytheist’s practices and rituals and traditions, and they can even share information and bounce ideas off one another in ways that can be potentially relevant in a more immediate fashion than those who might have vastly different theological positions. Thus, the intrafaith option seems to be quite relevant in daily practices and interactions. And yet, it would be a mistake to assume that just because we’re all polytheists and are affiliated with the Polytheist movement, that therefore Morpheus Ravenna, Rhyd Wildermuth, and Tess Dawson are all therefore members of the Ekklesía Antínoou as well–they’d certainly all be welcome, but that is not the same thing as being a member. I’m sure the same is true of the Coru Cathubodua and Natib Qadesh as well in relation to myself and each of the above-named individuals, even though we’ve all had different affiliations and associations with each of the groups, practices, activities, Deities, and individuals in question. Thus, to not recognize that there are a lot of important distinctions which necessitate recognition and celebration of difference, diversity, and individuality would be against the very grain of what it means to be a modern polytheist, and thus the Polytheist movement must be considered an interfaith movement as an equally important and essential part of the situation as whatever degree of common intrafaith similarities we might share.

The final option, that the Polytheist movement is neither interfaith nor intrafaith, is also entirely possible and valid in the sense that these terms were invented to more accurately nuance the more widely applied notions of “ecumenism” that were often spoken of in Christian circles several decades back. Ecumenism, in its strictest sense, means “worldwide,” but originates from notions conveying “household” and the management thereof. When Christians used it in late antiquity, they meant that councils of various churches (which were considered orthodox/non-heretical) in far-flung locations had come together and convened to determine particular issues. In later periods, the recognition that there were different and separate Christian churches then necessitated the use of the word “ecumenical” to mean inter-Christian denominational efforts and discussions. When other religions began to be involved in some of these, “ecumenism” had its meaning broadened, but eventually it gave way to “interfaith,” which in turn then had to be distinguished from intrafaith (a word that spellcheckers still don’t like or recognize!) as the discussions of issues which take place amongst differing factions within a given religious body. As a result, looking at it in this historical etymological fashion shows that these are terms that were invented for other religions to relate to other religions, as well as themselves, and even if we find that some of them can be applicable to our own situations as modern polytheists, they are not entirely appropriate either, any more than referring to different polytheist groups or organizations as “churches” is appropriate. As a result, these may be semantically null terms as far as a properly polytheistic context is concerned, and thus re-emphasis of terms like alliance, hospitality, intertribal or intercultural, fellowship, and other terms may be more appropriate to emphasize in the future where the Polytheist movement and its interrelatedness, interconnections, and so forth may occur.

In writing each of the above paragraphs, I was thoroughly convinced that each viewpoint was valid, useful, and true as I wrote and reasoned through the explanations. Thus, a fifth possibility might emerge out of that situation: if one and two are true, which likewise means that three is also true since it affirms both, then likewise four would also have to be true because one and two likewise have an element of negation in them. Taking that into account indicates that all of these terms may have some descriptive viability in a variety of cases, but ultimately they might be as inappropriate to application and usage in a polytheist context as the terms “Democrat” and “Republican” would be to describing the full range of political nuance and party affiliations in the U.K.

As the Polytheist movement becomes more and more prominent and admission of its independent existence becomes more current amongst those within it, discussions of these issues will need to take place on a more deliberate and widespread scale. Until then, the terms may have a limited amount of value in terms of their descriptive ability and easy recognition in wider religious contexts. But, likewise, the Plutarchian definition of “syncretism” can also equally apply to the current situation of the Polytheist movement: in certain respects, our common goals are more important to emphasize in this early period of identifying our constituency and organizing ourselves than the necessary departures from shared goals in certain matters will have to be where our very real differences are concerned. (That this has occurred under conditions of an external struggle, while non-ideal, also necessitates some of this banding together.) So long as this can continue to be done in ways that do not compromise individual and group practices–and so far, so good (for the most part)–then the Polytheist movement will not have the situation currently in operation in modern Paganism of the “leaking umbrella.” Those in the Polytheist movement, I don’t think, are suggesting that the leaking Pagan umbrella be thrown away entirely, they’re simply seeking to find a new umbrella that covers them and keeps the rain off more effectively; those who are still dry under the old umbrella, and who are the ones holding it as well as determining when and whether to open or close it, are free to do so.