I've just been thinking about the number of pagans in Britain who follow foreign cults and pantheons such as African, Egyptian, Norse, Native American et cetera... and wondering why we do it? I'm not so much talking about the people who look into other belief systems to see what they're about and whether they add anything to the home one, but people who have specifically dedicated themselves or make a conscious effort to stick to foreign gods. I mean, most of us have done it at one point or another or are still doing it, and I just wonder why?

I can sort of understand Norse, Roman and Celtic deities as they invaded these lands and hugely shaped the way it developed, but what about Egyptian and African gods? How does it work for people who have never been to those countries or spoken that language?

And why did the main movers and shakers of alternative faiths in this country head abroad? Crowley and Egypt, Gardner and the East, Theosophy and Ritual Magic born of other lands...

Why do we do it? What's the fascination? What does that mean for the gods and spirits of this land?

It's a wide open question without judgement.

Popularisation and imagery! It's hard to ignore all the "pretty" Egyptian images, isn't it?

Othila

We seem to happily ignore all the glorious Christian Saints in their stained-glass robes and sparkly haloes

Yeah, but that's new testament, and they were all goody-goodies! Only in the old testament were there any decend rebel rousers - and they were all Jews and not Christians!

Egyptians were colourful, had marvellous buildings and did an awful lot of killing! Would appeal to anyone really, wouldn't it!

Othila

That Foghorn Leghorn avatar Othila! You've got me thinking about KFC again..
Pikey.

I personally don't see myself living in just the country i am from. I am a from the planet of the apes,oops, earth. So therefore when it comes to religion/beliefs i look all over the world to learn new things . I don't follow any of the beliefs but i love learning about other cultures.

What's that mate, "Killing F***ing Chickens" !

Othila

Maybe it's something to do with wanting to be 'special', like insisting you're a reincarnation of Cleopatra?

Contentious....but can it be argued against....?

Is there an element of 'individualism' crying out from those who follow exotic gods above those of their home turf?

Marion.

I think it's possibly because they are the pantheons we usually come into contact with first - possibly through a school project or something. Therefore when we're older they have a familiarity about them that feels like (and possibly is) a stronger affinity than gods we know nothing about. That is certainly how I feel about the Greek and Roman pantheons.

Personally, I still find an affinity with the christian saints. Why? Probably because of the reasons outlined above. They are familiar to me. I was brought up catholic and to me, the saints are an embodiment of an ideal. Each one has a "speciality", a quality to aspire to.

At the end of the day it's whatever speaks to your own heart. I may want to feel an affinity to a celtic goddess but if I find no resonance in my soul what good would that be?

The attraction of the exotic over the homely of course.

Cheers
Finvarra

I absolutely agree, especially the part about "planet of the apes". Indeed I wish these homo-sapiens-sapiens would stop dragging their nuckles and walk upright like they're supposed to!...as for that "higher reasoning" they keep talking about, I fear its something that went lost with Atlantis by the looks of it.

Now you see I have to dissagree. Or have a variance of oppinion, call it what you will.

I dont see the norse pantheon as foriegn at all. Some of my ancesters were Saxons and Angles and Vikings. To me Heathenry is about discovering my spiritual roots. And I am sure that there are people who follow a celtic path who do so for the same reason.

That's probably why us "guys" would always go for the stripper ahead of the librarian!

Mind you, if you had a librarian who stripped at night … ! Don't go there!

Othila

I've said that before myself about following foriegn gods, Egyptian is so popular when it has no connection to this land at all. My gods are from Gaul which surprised the hell out of me when I discovered who they were. Because as far as I knew these Gods who made me find them the really hard way, were local to here, their connection is very much to this locality so Gaulish Gods made no sense. And then I found that the Romans brought those very Gods here, two dedications have been found to them within 40 miles of here - in opposite directions (this continued research and learning has taken almost four years). In a way my Gods were foreign but yet they have been worshiped in this very area for around 2000 years. Their presence is exceptionally strong here and yet most people have never heard of them. Because of course, they're not fashionable and the 'Pick a God, Any God' mentally that so many 'pagan's seems to have, means that Gods whose names are barely known just simply aren't popular. I mean who wants a God who no-one's ever heard of when Isis or Hecate are so well known - albeit in ways they themselves wouldn't bloody recognise

An issue I've brought up before is why pagans in the UK seem to plump for easy Celtic Gods, Egyptian Gods or Native American ways but never seem to want to worship Aztec Gods. I wonder why that is?

Woow, that's a good one. Probably more than a grain of truth there, what between the classroom and the discovery channel... Good point well made

Marion.

I did concede that one in the original post - that Celtic, Norse and Roman deities are middle-ground on account of shaping the foundations of this Queendom. There is a lot of logic there, although I question how many thrust themselves upon celticism because they want to believe their ancestry is Celtic. I'm sure there are many who can trace a substantial, tangible line back, but I think there may also be many who simply like the idea.

I don't think either of those is a more noble cause actually.

Marion.

See, this is an interesting dichotomy:

Finvarra and Julai are saying that it's about being different and unique, whereas Tilia is suggesting that it's the common ground - the thing that we are most familiar with, the thing that we are more at home with.

Elements of both or is one argument stronger than the other?

Try www.suckmylibrarian.com or www.yob!tchwheresmybookgone.net

Or Blockbuster.

Sorry, was that last one a little unnecessary?

I think there are a few sides to this one....I'll try and explain what I mean but with my tequila addled brain I'm not guaranteeing anything

First of all, it's not just Pagans that look abroad - Christianity, Islam and Judaism all have their roots in the east.

Secondly, with so many waves of immigration and conquest, just what is our 'own'? Just what is 'native' to this country now?


Personally I view this land as being like an onion, with lots of different spiritual layers, different Gods coming with different peoples and all taking their place in the spiritual landscape. Some are linked to people and some are linked to land.

Now I don't have a problem with people that look to foreign rather than their own because in a hundred years time, with immigration, the concept of 'own' will look very different from now. Just as the celts, the norse, the saxons all came here originally as 'foreign' but then became part of 'own'. Nothing is static. The onion just gets more layers.

I'm personally a Norsie type, I have Norse ancestry - strangely enough, from the get go, it has all been familiar to me. I honour the land I'm on, the spirits, my ancestors (all of them) and my Gods. However some people have no genetic link with a culture, but they feel a spiritual pull (ok, some just go for the trendy - admittedly) to whatever culture and you know what? Good luck to them. We all find our own truth.


The only thing I have a problem with is people following certain paths because they seem to be more 'trendy' than others. If a person follows a path (be it foreign or 'native') because of a genunine pull to that path, then fair dos...however if a person just slips into a 'trendy' path because of romantic notions of green clothes and leprechauns and racing fiddle music then it's a different matter.

...Buddhism. I was waiting for someone to make that analogy. Even as a 'Christian Country' we don't have a religion that was ours yet we went to great lengths to believe in it.



Indeed. Memory doesn't go back that far. I think the Celtic myths and legends are the eldest accepted. I have no idea what the Picts believed.

Although fairylaw, now that's questionable as to it's origins?



I'm sorry, do I hear a Shrek quote coming on



But what about the pantheons that never invaded, never came here en mass and are never now likely to?



This is a poignant point. If reincarnation is not restricted by race or geography, who's to say.

Best wishes,

Marion.

When I was very new, I hadn't got a clue what Path to choose - there were so many different ones,it was very confusing. Eventually, it seemed to me that the best way to go was with what I knew. Someone somewhere described it as The Goddess as She is Where You are. Also, when you are adopted, you feel rootless. You don't know where you belong, or who you belong to, or where you came from. Your parents are not your blood, and your 'family' is only borrowed. I felt like a cuckoo in another bird's nest. I needed to belong somewhere. The only thing that I knew was mine was the land of my birth. My spiritual connection is therefore to the Gods of these Islands, known and unknown. I am still on a journey of discovery.

BB

Beantighe

!!! I'm surprised the analogy wasn't made sooner - it's perhaps the most obvious when discussing this topic.



Marion are you talking about now or in the past, I'm sorry, I'm a bit confused by the mixed tenses.







*sings* Hey now, you're an allstar, get yer game on, GO PLAY!!!



Good point, however I think that 'invasion' comes in many forms, in the case of Egyptian pantheon - you mentioned the popularity of that particular pantheon with famous occultists. They wouldn't have been the only ones playing with the Egyptian Gods at that time - what if somehow the Egyptian Gods got brought here through their belief (even though it's a foreign culture)? What if their idea of what the Egyptian Gods were became their own entities - sort of like tuplas, or even other 'versions' of those Gods? What if Roman soldiers 'picked up' the worship of Egyptian deities elsewhere and 'brought them with' when they came here? There's so many possibilities. Anyway, I digress (can you tell I like this topic? ).

Maybe if other people have decided to worship foreign pantheons here before, maybe it 'sows the seed' for others to do so, not only in giving the idea of doing it but in providing a spiritual basis - letting those Gods know that there are interested parties knocking about. If you go off the idea that Gods need worship and belief to survive and gain more power, then it would make sense that Gods forgotten in their own lands would go to where they've got interest. No invasion needed.

I'm going to shut up on that one before I really go off the deep end and start banging on about Gods competing with each other and wyrd. It all gets a little....well....wyrd.



*nods* indeed.

Thanks for sharing that Beantighe. It's interesting how displacement makes you look at what you've got. I wonder if stability makes you look elsewhere?

I was always told that paganism was 'a respect for the land upon which you are born and the spirits which dwell upon that land'. That to me was the very simple, basic tenet.

However, as I was growing up, I did look abroad. I was especially taken by Hinduism, Buddhism and the Yorubaland Orisha, in that order. Hinduism I put down to having attended a mixed school in Leicester and having incredibly fond memories of Diwali down Belgrave road as a child. Hinduism wasn't that foreign to me, it was part of my childhood. Buddhism came through reading about it and through going to a number of Buddhist centres and liking what I found. The latter, I don't know, but I felt such a strong pull to it. It's always been a dream to go and see the Congo River Delta, but in this lifetime I’m not sure it's a hugely wise idea. I started reading a lot about the history and that is where I came across the gods. Maya Deren's work on Haitian Vodoun was also interesting and I read about that and Santaria with as much interest. I had a pen friend in Benin for a long time too, he would send me pictures.

It was a massive pull for me, and still is. But it's the culture and the religion that fascinates me. The gods themselves...I would love to, but I don't feel them in the same way I feel the spirits and the powers of my homeland.

Probably because of the company I kept whilst growing up, I’ve always been in search of the shamanic constants. The uniting factors between global beliefs, the things that were important at the beginning and have remained so. I do believe that looking at other religions and faiths can strengthen our own practices and add something to our own worldview. I think it's important to take the spiritual equivalent of a 'year out' - go travel the mythos and find your zen.

A healthy worldview has to be able to stand up to anything and incorporate everything. When we're too enclosed (*cough-istians*) it can take a feather to shatter a crystal ball - the worldview isn't developed enough to survive a challenge. When your worldview is that fragile you can be headed for a breakdown or serious mental issues. I think looking at other belief systems across the board helps to bolster your worldview, shows you what you don't know and helps you incorporate what you don't know into your own perspective. So in that sense I think the exploration of things other than your own is vastly beneficial.

But still, for many people that exploration helps to reaffirm and enrich what is already at home. It is interesting when any belief system wholly replaces another, like Christianity to Buddhism, Atheism to Christianity and Druid to Egyptian.

Best wishes,

Marion.

Sorry, yes. What I meant was, considering Christianity wasn't a British Inventions, we sure ploughed a lot of blood, money, sweat, tears and man-hours into believing in it and uphold it. Not sure quite where I was going with that, but I think it was supporting the argument that even the major world religions weren't localised.




Is it the onions bringing tears to my eyes or the singing?.... GD&R



That reminded me of the mention of the descovery channel earlier. Television and media are the invading forces now and, as it's been said, it's the things that get greatest coverage and exposure that people feel they know.



So not only do we overlook the home gods, we replace them with bastardised half-breeds of the foreign ones....Sorry, that sounds harsher than I mean it, but it'd be like giving away your Royal Doulton collection, going to China, seeing a Ming vase, bringing home some clay and throwing a pot. Throwing out the old, being enamoured with the new and ending up with something very shallow and uncertain?

Problem is, at what point does something become a deity in it's own right? Does it merely have to be a thought?

Crowley and Gardner though...I can see them (especially Crowley) as doing it by the book. In for a penny, in for a pound - you worship THE great gods you've found and you do it with full gusto and weight of tradition. After all, they lived there, they expirienced the lands of those gods. They wouldn't want to bring back any demi-god, they'd want the real thing. Whether that later evolved into something a bit wishy washy...well, i'd probably agree with you there.

I remember seeing an Egyptian cerimony at a PF regional some years back and I cringed to the inner core. It was a group of mummers trying to invoke the goddess Bast and it was (and i'm going to be harsh here) cringesome. They looked as nervous as hell, ummed, ahhed and tittered about before one of them stepped forward and in a watercolour voice whispered ' I am the goddess Bast'.

I hate to say it, but it was almost insulting. If you think of the life of a great heroe turned into a film, do you want someone strong, powerful, charismatic and up to the challange like Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom, or do you want some wet-behind-the-ears, mummbling am-dram student waiting for his balls to drop? If you're going to claim to be one of the most rightouse and holey gods to ever walk the earth, you've got to believe it; have some conviction.

What's the point? Why do it? Is it pure catharsis for the people involved, or (as I believed) do they really, truly believe that they had captured the essence of the divine in that performance?

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth...but hopefully not our theatres and cinemea screens. (Oh, ouch, everyone's a critic ).



I don't know, it just doesn't quite sit right. The Romans, being hugely under-staffed, tended to adopt the deities of the local area as most of their man-force in foreign lands was made op of the people of those lands. They weren't big on enforcing religious doctrin until they found Christianity and even then they did have to tread a little carefully because they couldn't police the whole Empire.

It's unlikely something like the Egyptian gods would have come back to England entact (which is what you're suggesting, that they didn't come here intact but as a reflection of the original?). Egypt was certainly know about by Shakesperian times and through wars, but not in a factual sense perticularly.

Then you come closer to Crowley's time, to the Victorian archaologists and tomb raiders, the age of reason and science. Crowley and his counterparts (including Rose Kelly) were too self-absorbed, too eccentric to wish to bring those gods to the masses in an altruistic bid for spiritual enlightnement. A few would have hit the bandwagon running, but not your average Joe Blogs.

I think it does boil down largely to TV. I think the comment earlier about people being exposed to so much about Egypt and Africa through television has promoted the growth in foreign gods. Jeez, even Scarey Spice went out to discover her Voodoo roots.

I'm not sure that it provides a spiritual basis. I think it provides colourful mythos around which to build your own spiritual basis, which I think is a big attraction to many. There are already set stories, fables, practices, history to refer to.

It's interesting what Weatherwitch was saying about few people claiming to follow the Aztec pantheon. Why si that? Because the mythos isn't as well known perhaps?



Now that's an original idea Thing is, most great gods were once people. In many cultures, gods were important people or leaders who died and through ancestor worship their legends spread and they become gods. Without that belief and attention they are forgotten and die. I suppose when anything is threatened with inhialation it will try any route not to die out?



No, please, go for it

Best wishes,

Marion.

Meh I don't have time to reply to you properly right now - bloody work

But yes, really interesting points coming up. I really love conversations like this and I will be getting back to it when I get time

It has been said that the Gypsies are decendants of the Egyptian slaves of the Romans in Britain. Given the oral traditions of the travelling people, some of which survive to this day, is it possible that the Egyptian path has a better claim to authenticity on these islands than perhaps the Celtic one?

Although the word 'gypsy' is a (likely Elizabethan) slur of 'Egyptian', it was mainly a misnomer about the way they looked - dark hair, hooked noses. Although some gypsies may well have come from Egypt, the majority are from India, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and the Baltic countries, and Eastern Europe. Whether they got there form Egypt, who knows, but their mythology is somewhat removed from that of ancient Egyptian culture.

Or not?

Best wishes,

Marion.

Are they not Romany as opposed to Gypsy?

Other than the word, I don't know of an actual tribe of travellers originating from Egypt, but I know very little about gypsies. Can anyone enlighten?

Try this site Marion:

http://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/patrin.htm

Thanks, wikipedia has a large amount of information on travelling families. Point about Romani though is that it's mainly Indian and Eastern European in origin, no nearer to the root of 'gypsy' = 'Egyptian', which is the link we need to suggest that Egyptian beliefs came to Britain through travelling families.

Interesting site though. It does say:

"The Roma have been made up of many different groups of people from the very beginning, and have absorbed outsiders throughout their history. Because they arrived in Europe from the East, they were thought by the first Europeans to be from Turkey or Nubia or Egypt, or any number of vaguely acknowledged non-European places, and they were called, among other things, Egyptians or ‘Gyptians, which is where the word "Gypsy" comes from. In some places, this Egyptian identity was taken entirely seriously, and was no doubt borrowed by the early Roma themselves. In the 15th century, James the Fifth of Scotland concluded a treaty with a local Romani leader pledging the support of his armies to help recover "Little Egypt" (an old name for Epirus, on the Greek-Albanian coast) for them."

The map shows only a passing association with Egypt and beyond this I can't find reference to a specific Egyptian travelling tribal group. I think it's a tenuous link but if anyone does have a source it would be interesting to research further.

Best wishes,

Marion.

Surely there must be a connection between 'Romany' and 'Romania'. There are a great many Romanies there now. Their culture was centred around travelling and horses, and they influenced cultures in so many parts of the world. Again, they have been a much-persecuted people. Thousands of them were rounded up and perished in the concentration camps in WW2, and I don't think life has been the same for them since. Nowadays the gorgios (non-gypsies) have forced many of them, if not most, to abandon their travelling lifestyle and stay in one place, and they have gone downhill to a shadow of their former selves. The bad reputation they have now is not all their fault.

Sorry, I've just read some of that link. It says there is no connection between Romani and Romania originally, but I do know Romania has a large population of Roma there now.

Hello Marion

Sorry it's taken a while to get back but I work silly hours at work on this particular week on my rota . I love discussions of this sort (even printed it out and took it to work:lol:) and have a lot to write here so it might come out a bit muddled but I'll just plough on and we can hammer out the muddles later, eh?



Are you calling my singing madam?



I agree. Actually have you ever read Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods'? It's a very interesting take on the whole Gods thing which sees the Gods of old battling the new 'Gods' of media and internet for the belief and worship of people.



No, it doesn't sound harsh, it sounds about right and unfortunately I do think it does happen to some extent. Sounds contentious but that's the way I feel about Christianity.



Ooooh now this is something that has interested me for a while now. A little later on in your post, you mention ancestor worship and how many Gods were originally great Kings or whatever and through ancestor worship gained power. Well, to me a combination of worship and belief is key if you want to DIY-a-Deity. Maybe belief and acts of worship are bread and butter to any deity or object of ancestral worship? So merely a thought? In my opinion, no - however I do think that it would be possible to 'create' our own Gods through acts of worship and making ourselves believe in them.

But that might be an experiment better left for the more 'chaos' minded among us as I think it would be one paradigm shift too far for many.

Or would it?

Many newbies look up deities from books and simply seem to 'get to it' with the making offerings and whatnot. Even without personal experience with deity, people seem to want to believe in deity and in the absence of deity, would more than likely create their own. The example that comes to mind would be the Christian/Jewish biblical story of Moses coming back from getting the ten commandments and finding everyone worshipping some idol they'd invented in the time he'd been away.



I agree with you about Crowley - he really was an 'in for the penny, in for the pound' kind of guy. He wouldn't have wanted cheap imitations. However it wouldn't surprise me if there are wishy washy versions of those Gods knocking about out there. I think some people 'make' deities wishy washy, attribute traits to that deity that have bugger all to do with the original deity but that suit themselves. I once found the website of some woman who claimed that the Morrigan was a sweet old grandmother type!! Is she bollocks, but maybe it suited that woman to see her as such? Now if more than a few people begin to believe in this wishy washy version then who's to say that that version doesn't come into existence?



I agree. But seeing as they obviously weren't really inviting Bast in in a 'being ridden' kind of sense, I have to wonder about the whole 'play acting a deity' thing.





By spiritual basis I mean bringing them here, inviting them in - entirely possible if you're going off the idea that deities require belief in order to keep going. In this way, they 'sow the seed', by inviting them into this spiritual landscape, those deities are already knocking about when others decide to call on them.

Probably after seeing something about those deities on tv :S



That's always a good point. The Aztec argument.

The thing with the Aztec Gods is that they're the ultimate in 'high maintenance' deities, too much is required for modern people to want to get involved with and let's face it...we're much more squeamish a culture than the Aztecs were.




Or do they? Many deities were forgotten for many years but are still knocking about. I mean, what would be the timescale of them dying out?

This is another thing to take into account really, some deities are blatantly linked to places and do not travel well. Others do travel well. From personal experience with living abroad, I know that the Norse Gods travel well, they're not land linked, so what are they linked to, what are 'travelling Gods' linked to? I think this is where you could get into the theory of Gods being carried 'in the blood', sort of like 'racial gods' that remain in existence as long as 'their' people remain. I think that although any suggestion of blood and Gods can provoke violent reactions, it's still an interesting point to consider. I mean, how many Pagans follow approximations of the paths the majority of their pre-Xtian ancestors walked? Would it be a majority? I'm not talking racial suppremacy here or anything, I'm talking about inheritance - do we 'inherit' Gods like we inherit personality traits, talents or eye colour? Sort of like 'ancestral memory' pulling us in whichever direction?

Another thing that interests me is what would be left in terms of deities if we were to finally manage to make this planet uninhabitable and have to move out into space (if possible at that point)? Would some deities 'travel'? Would some stay lurking on the dead earth? What about ghosts and land wights and every other supernatural thing that people have ever believed in? Once in space would we invent new Gods for ourselves and new boogeymen?

I need to shut up now. I'm really going off the deep end now

I'll have to bang on about wyrd another time

Els

[quote]
That reminded me of the mention of the discovery channel earlier. Television and media are the invading forces now and, as it's been said, it's the things that get greatest coverage and exposure that people feel they know. [/quote]
[quote]I agree. Actually have you ever read Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods'? It's a very interesting take on the whole Gods thing which sees the Gods of old battling the new 'Gods' of media and internet for the belief and worship of people.[/quote]

No, not read that Terry Pratchett's Small Gods keeps springing to mind though

[quote]
No, it doesn't sound harsh, it sounds about right and unfortunately I do think it does happen to some extent. Sounds contentious but that's the way I feel about Christianity.[/quote]

I do think there's something to be said for the assertions that people do like to be a little bit different, a little bit quirky. Most people who come to Paganism are not your average cut and they are usually quite imaginative. Perhaps that's why many like to adapt and create gods to their standards, something just for them? Chaos magic actively encourages. Although it says that any religion (for purposes of magic) works, provided you follow the rules of that religion, it also allows for the creation of a whole mythos for magical use. You can create a perfectly valid magical system from Star Wars if you fancy, and have it be as effective as Judaism.

Many pagans also love role playing games and creative writing/stories. I think that often the imaginative qualities that draw them to such activities probably also play a hand in the gods they choose to follow or create.

On the Christianity level...hmmm. See, Catholicism, now there's a religion Centuries of blood, sweat and tears poured into some of the most amazing imagery going. I have to say, I think that although Christianity pinched a lot of it's ideas, it made them stand up and work, I think there is a lot of power there. I think it's misguided, but I do think it's powerful. However, that wasn't one person's idea to change a god. I think, like meditation and hysteria, doing it in groups makes it more than it ever was for the individual

Besides, would you say the Roman gods are lesser because they were pinched from the Greek?

Another interesting analogy would be the Yorubaland slaves of West Africa who were sold in Haiti and South America. They were not allowed to worship their gods (the Orisha) in their African form so they imposed them onto the Christian saints. The reverend thought they were preying to Saint Patrick when they were preying to Dambala Wedo (the ancient serpent - i.e. snakes from Ireland ). Although in those circumstances the gods remained alike just dressed differently, where the Africans met native folk (such as the Native American tribes of Haiti) entirely new gods were born, like the Petro Lwa. These new gods were warrior like and largely credited for the successful slave revolt and liberation of the island. So I suppose horses for causes.

[quote]Ooooh now this is something that has interested me for a while now. A little later on in your post, you mention ancestor worship and how many Gods were originally great Kings or whatever and through ancestor worship gained power. Well, to me a combination of worship and belief is key if you want to DIY-a-Deity. Maybe belief and acts of worship are bread and butter to any deity or object of ancestral worship? So merely a thought? In my opinion, no - however I do think that it would be possible to 'create' our own Gods through acts of worship and making ourselves believe in them. [/quote]

I'd agree. You can create a servitor (a spirit to do bidding) and work it up (like Pokomon ) to be strong and efficient, can a god not be the same? Or does a god need collective worship? Is it merely a spirit until it has the weight of belief and tradition behind it. Could I ever create such a powerful god, on my own, in this lifetime that could rival one of the Catholic Churches pantheon of saints? Be quite a mean feat. Although, I doubt an existentialist would worry about it - if you only exist because you believe you do, then a god would be an afternoon's work

[quote]But that might be an experiment better left for the more 'chaos' minded among us as I think it would be one paradigm shift too far for many.

Or would it?[/quote]

Hey, I’m game for a laugh

[quote]Many newbies look up deities from books and simply seem to 'get to it' with the making offerings and whatnot. [/quote]

I think a lot tend to try it to see whether the god turns up. I think you try things like that to see whether you shift into that headspace where that god resides. Some gods you carry out all the secret hand shakes and prepare the right food but you just don't feel anything, others you so much as think of their name an you're in communion. Whether they realise they're doing that or not, I’m not sure, but people tend to give up after a while if they honestly don't feel anything.

[quote]Even without personal experience with deity, people seem to want to believe in deity and in the absence of deity, would more than likely create their own. The example that comes to mind would be the Christian/Jewish biblical story of Moses coming back from getting the ten commandments and finding everyone worshipping some idol they'd invented in the time he'd been away.[/quote]

And those who don't believe in deity often believe in Luck or Fate, which are god-like concepts when you think of what that actually means and governs.

[quote]I agree with you about Crowley - he really was an 'in for the penny, in for the pound' kind of guy. He wouldn't have wanted cheap imitations. However it wouldn't surprise me if there are wishy washy versions of those Gods knocking about out there. I think some people 'make' deities wishy washy, attribute traits to that deity that have bugger all to do with the original deity but that suit themselves.[/quote]

Or work out the sort of things they want covering and then pick the name they like best.

I suppose it's hard to say whether that would or wouldn't work without knowing the creation process of a god. How did the god (and I do count the Christian saints as deities I’m afraid) get his or her attributions, who gave them it and why? Just because a goddess appeared one night to a bunch of sailors in shallow water and warned them of a rock, does that mean that forever more she is the goddess of sailors? Maybe she was just passing, or maybe she lived in the water, or maybe she's just a goddess of general compassion who didn't want to see a group of blokes drown...or maybe she was working against her evil nemesis who was trying to sink them. But forever more, she has an attributed trait because of where she was seen and what she said.

[quote] I once found the website of some woman who claimed that the Morrigan was a sweet old grandmother type!! Is she bollocks, but maybe it suited that woman to see her as such? Now if more than a few people begin to believe in this wishy washy version then who's to say that that version doesn't come into existence?[/quote]

Yup. I'd say that was a case of the thing I mentioned earlier about people coming up with a list of attributes and picking a name they like.

[quote]
I agree. But seeing as they obviously weren't really inviting Bast in in a 'being ridden' kind of sense, I have to wonder about the whole 'play acting a deity' thing.[/quote]

No, I don't think they intended it as a play, I think she intended to be the horseman for the goddess. It left me a little confused, but I think that's what they were aiming for - calling her down into the priestess.

[quote]It's interesting what Weatherwitch was saying about few people claiming to follow the Aztec pantheon. Why si that? Because the mythos isn't as well known perhaps? [/quote]
[quote]That's always a good point. The Aztec argument.[/quote]

I'd never heard it before

[quote]The thing with the Aztec Gods is that they're the ultimate in 'high maintenance' deities, too much is required for modern people to want to get involved with and let's face it...we're much more squeamish a culture than the Aztecs were.[/quote]

And I thought it was because they all had silly names...pop-a-caterpillar-on-it

But people have done it for the African Orisha. Don't see that many Vodousants sacrificing chickens and goats in their back yard yet you still get caucasian people claiming to be devotees.

[quote] Or do they? Many deities were forgotten for many years but are still knocking about. I mean, what would be the timescale of them dying out? [/quote]

Suppose it depends if they have a name. Wind is just wind, will always be what it is, but there are many gods of the wind in many cultures. If your name isn't remembered then you no longer own the wind. If the wind itself is a spirit or a god then it won't died out because it doesn't have a name yet it is still recognised. If my name was forgotten tomorrow, I’d still exist for what I am, but the second I die, no one has a name to remember me by and because I no longer exist to do the things I’m doing, no one will have cause to remember me. I suppose by that logic, if a god died out without a name it would be irrelevant because no one knew who s/he was in the first place and there are others to take his/her place? I don't know, that's a tough one.

If a thing has spirit simply for being what it is (i.e. a tree, the wind, the ocean, a chair) why do you need gods? If spirit is in everything and what that spirit happens to be in at the time forms it's character, then aren't gods superfluous?

[quote]This is another thing to take into account really, some deities are blatantly linked to places and do not travel well.[/quote]

The genius loci

[quote] Others do travel well. From personal experience with living abroad, I know that the Norse Gods travel well, they're not land linked, so what are they linked to, what are 'travelling Gods' linked to? I think this is where you could get into the theory of Gods being carried 'in the blood'[/quote]

Or in the heart.

Have you travelled these Norse gods far away from Britain and the lands that the Norsemen came to? Did they travel as well there?


[quote]sort of like 'racial gods' that remain in existence as long as 'their' people remain.[/quote]

Jung's 'race memory'?

[quote]I think that although any suggestion of blood and Gods can provoke violent reactions, it's still an interesting point to consider. I mean, how many Pagans follow approximations of the paths the majority of their pre-Xtian ancestors walked?[/quote]

Talking of approximations, how many Christians walk an approximation of the Christianity practiced in these isles 2,000 years ago?

[quote]Would it be a majority? I'm not talking racial supremacy here or anything, I'm talking about inheritance - do we 'inherit' Gods like we inherit personality traits, talents or eye colour? Sort of like 'ancestral memory' pulling us in whichever direction?[/quote]

Happens in other shamanic cultures so yes, I'd say so.

[quote]Another thing that interests me is what would be left in terms of deities if we were to finally manage to make this planet uninhabitable and have to move out into space (if possible at that point)?[/quote]

Then deities would rule the earth, not man Gods of destruction, desert, wind and rain.

[quote]Would some deities 'travel'? Would some stay lurking on the dead earth? What about ghosts and land wights and every other supernatural thing that people have ever believed in? Once in space would we invent new Gods for ourselves and new boogeymen? [/quote]

Wooooow, deep thought

I'm not sure, have to go think about that. It's along the lines of: if a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does it make a noise, and 'does colour still exist in the dark'....

I imagine Earth would be remembered as a supreme mother goddess and we’d find new deities out there, providing science hadn’t poo pooed it all to death by then…as for the ones left here…not sure. I think if energy never dies, only changes, then most would remain or change.

Best wishes,

Marion.

I think it's not just that it's trendy and exotic.. although that may certainly come into it.. especially, perhaps, in the beginning when a person begins to look for a spiritual path to follow. I would hope that as they mature along their path they do garner a true appreciation for the path they have adopted.

I would also hope, that in time it becomes less of a pick and choose scenario... and that they find kinship, if that is the word, with dieties that choose them.

However, the main point I wanted to make, was perhaps some other paths are more attractive because there is more detail regarding the religious practices and magic involved. Take Egyptian, there are many texts regarding the practices and magic.. whereas for Celtic religions, as far as I'm aware, we dont' actually know what the Celts really practised regarding religion, it's mostly conjecture.. afterall look at the Druids, there is no written texts - well from what I understand. In fact if I understand correctly, Heathenism is perhaps the only "native" religion in which the values and practices are written down, via the sagas.

Look at the occult itself, much of it is based around christain/jewish mysticism and that has become entwined within pagan practices, except often xtain saints etc are now replaced with pagan Gods/Goddess.. indeed there is even something of a backlash against any pagan/magic user who use the xtain pantheon.

I was too tired to respond to this last night after work.
[QUOTE]No, not read that Terry Pratchett's Small Gods keeps springing to mind though [/QUOTE]

Also a damn good book It was Pratchett’s book that introduced the idea of Gods requiring worship and belief to me in the first place and being the mind candy that it is – I ran with it

[QUOTE]
I do think there's something to be said for the assertions that people do like to be a little bit different, a little bit quirky. Most people who come to Paganism are not your average cut and they are usually quite imaginative. Perhaps that's why many like to adapt and create gods to their standards, something just for them? Chaos magic actively encourages. Although it says that any religion (for purposes of magic) works, provided you follow the rules of that religion, it also allows for the creation of a whole mythos for magical use. You can create a perfectly valid magical system from Star Wars if you fancy, and have it be as effective as Judaism.[/QUOTE]
Oh yes, I know a Chaote that once did a ritual to papa Smurf! And I can see how it would work too. However it wouldn’t be for me, I couldn’t shift paradigms as completely as is required.

[QUOTE]
Many pagans also love role playing games and creative writing/stories. I think that often the imaginative qualities that draw them to such activities probably also play a hand in the gods they choose to follow or create.[/QUOTE]
Or maybe they were already drawn to certain eras before getting into Paganism and simply follow that on with the Gods they end up with? I’m not making sense…I’ve always been drawn to pre-Christian Scandinavia – particularly Iceland and spent years writing stories and poems set in this time. I could read and write the Elder Futhark when I was 11 (we did about it at school but as usual – I got carried away) and was fascinated with all things ‘Viking’. When I first got into Paganism, it was the Norse Gods I first started to notice and it felt right – even though I went through a Dianic phase and a wicca phase (bloody library books), in the end, I ended up returning to the culture I’d initially been drawn to even as a child.


[QUOTE]
On the Christianity level...hmmm. See, Catholicism, now there's a religion Centuries of blood, sweat and tears poured into some of the most amazing imagery going. I have to say, I think that although Christianity pinched a lot of it's ideas, it made them stand up and work, I think there is a lot of power there. I think it's misguided, but I do think it's powerful. However, that wasn't one person's idea to change a god. I think, like meditation and hysteria, doing it in groups makes it more than it ever was for the individual [/QUOTE]

Yes, I agree that there is a lot of power in Christianity, the uniform prayers said on mass, all accumulating over the years in the stone of churches, ritual after ritual after ritual and not to mention the centuries of blood, sweat and tears of people killed in the name of that religion. Sort of makes me think of sacrifice – only not in a ‘conscious’ sense i.e they didn’t see themselves as sacrificing for their faith. However having said that, I think a lot of it is because Christianity has had to work hard to stay here. It doesn’t really ‘belong’ to these islands.


[QUOTE]
Another interesting analogy would be the Yorubaland slaves of West Africa who were sold in Haiti and South America. They were not allowed to worship their gods (the Orisha) in their African form so they imposed them onto the Christian saints. The reverend thought they were preying to Saint Patrick when they were preying to Dambala Wedo (the ancient serpent - i.e. snakes from Ireland ). Although in those circumstances the gods remained alike just dressed differently, where the Africans met native folk (such as the Native American tribes of Haiti) entirely new gods were born, like the Petro Lwa. These new gods were warrior like and largely credited for the successful slave revolt and liberation of the island. So I suppose horses for causes.[/QUOTE]

Only natural really. If we humans make the Gods, then it makes sense that we make and even adapt them to our needs.


[QUOTE]
I'd agree. You can create a servitor (a spirit to do bidding) and work it up (like Pokomon ) to be strong and efficient, can a god not be the same? Or does a god need collective worship? Is it merely a spirit until it has the weight of belief and tradition behind it. Could I ever create such a powerful god, on my own, in this lifetime that could rival one of the Catholic Churches pantheon of saints? Be quite a mean feat. Although, I doubt an existentialist would worry about it - if you only exist because you believe you do, then a god would be an afternoon's work
[/QUOTE]
Nah, I think you’d need it to be a collective thing and I think it would take time too. It’s interesting though to consider at what point honoured ancestors become considered Gods. I don’t think even an existentialist could create a God on their own. If they truly could believe it and not have the tiniest grain of doubt then yeah…however we’re human and we’re brought up in a scientific age which doesn’t support the validity of such ideas. I think that even the most accomplished would still have that well hidden grain of doubt tucked away over something so potentially daunting. Maybe that’s why it would take a group of people to believe? To assuage each other’s doubts. Also – it’s easier to maintain belief when others around you also believe the same thing.

[QUOTE]
Hey, I’m game for a laugh [/QUOTE]
I tried to rope people into an experiment along those lines a while ago but we couldn’t figure out whether to create a God or whether to raise up a dead celeb that receives massive amounts of adoration that borders on worship (like Elvis) and other conditions for the experiment. However if you can figure out some kind of experiment then I’m up for it

[QUOTE]
I think a lot tend to try it to see whether the god turns up. I think you try things like that to see whether you shift into that headspace where that god resides. Some gods you carry out all the secret hand shakes and prepare the right food but you just don't feel anything, others you so much as think of their name an you're in communion. Whether they realise they're doing that or not, I’m not sure, but people tend to give up after a while if they honestly don't feel anything[/QUOTE]
That’s very true, however after seeing a friend who’d recently got into Paganism looking through a book of Greek myths and trying to see which deity she fancied worshipping – I did wonder :S I think some are arrogant enough to think that they can just ‘pick which deity they want’ but sooner or later are kicked down when the real thing comes knocking.

[QUOTE]
And those who don't believe in deity often believe in Luck or Fate, which are god-like concepts when you think of what that actually means and governs. [/QUOTE]
Ahhh but heaven forbid you then suggest that to them!!! Some people are very threatened by the idea of deity in itself.

[QUOTE]
Or work out the sort of things they want covering and then pick the name they like best. [/QUOTE]

Which is what I was saying about newbies looking up deities in books and getting to it.

[QUOTE]
I suppose it's hard to say whether that would or wouldn't work without knowing the creation process of a god. How did the god (and I do count the Christian saints as deities I’m afraid) get his or her attributions, who gave them it and why? [/QUOTE]
That’s a good point. I mean if we were to do an experiment in raising Elvis up as a God (for example), then would he have the attributes we ‘give’ him or would he veer away and have his own? Which sort of reminds me (in a roundabout way) of the SPR experiment in which a group of people ‘created’ a spirit called ‘Phillip’ and then tried to communicate with him [url] http://www.neopax.com/asatru/pk/index.html[/url]

Mind you, that was about creating something from nothing which to me adds a whole new dimension (or could do) to role playing
[QUOTE]
No, I don't think they intended it as a play, I think she intended to be the horseman for the goddess. It left me a little confused, but I think that's what they were aiming for - calling her down into the priestess.[/QUOTE]
So they didn’t intend it as a play? Blimey. Now I’ve never done the whole ‘being ridden’ thing but I would imagine that a form of trance (possibly through dance and or drum, or substance) would be needed as opposed to a staid ritual? Makes what actually happen seem really half-hearted and well….crap really.

About the Aztec Gods…
[QUOTE]And I thought it was because they all had silly names...pop-a-caterpillar-on-it [/QUOTE]
Yeah, names like that are a bugger to chant

‘Quetzalcoatl…Xipe-Totec…..’

[QUOTE]
But people have done it for the African Orisha. Don't see that many Vodousants sacrificing chickens and goats in their back yard yet you still get caucasian people claiming to be devotees. [/QUOTE]

Yup.Have to wonder about that one.

[QUOTE] Suppose it depends if they have a name. Wind is just wind, will always be what it is, but there are many gods of the wind in many cultures. If your name isn't remembered then you no longer own the wind. If the wind itself is a spirit or a god then it won't died out because it doesn't have a name yet it is still recognised. If my name was forgotten tomorrow, I’d still exist for what I am, but the second I die, no one has a name to remember me by and because I no longer exist to do the things I’m doing, no one will have cause to remember me. I suppose by that logic, if a god died out without a name it would be irrelevant because no one knew who s/he was in the first place and there are others to take his/her place? I don't know, that's a tough one. [/QUOTE]
Yes, it really is!! It’s definitely one to consider after a couple of bottles of wine and debate with friends.

[QUOTE]
If a thing has spirit simply for being what it is (i.e. a tree, the wind, the ocean, a chair) why do you need gods? If spirit is in everything and what that spirit happens to be in at the time forms it's character, then aren't gods superfluous[/QUOTE]

Ahhh maybe, but if they’re ancestors that have been raised up to God status, obviously they served a purpose at that point, or why bother if there isn’t the need? However I do think that Gods, in order to keep from being superfluous ‘add things to their portfolios’ if you will – to keep up with the modern age. Back to that survival thing again. Old Gods doing new jobs.

[QUOTE]
The genius loci [/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t say the genus loci I’ve come across ‘felt’ like Gods to be honest. They definitely do feel more on the ‘nature spirit’/guardian’ side of things. Mind you, the times I come across them is usually when I’m being chased off ‘their’ patch because of my lack of local knowledge and not feeling them until I’d already stepped on their bit and inadvertently peeing them off!! Mind you, this sort of makes me wonder about some genus loci. The local ones do not mind me wandering all over the shop, however as mentioned, I’ve come across some that clearly did not want me there. Now were they already there, guarding their spot or were they created for the purpose? I’ve read of the superstition of the first person buried in an old graveyard being its guardian – there to protect it from the Devil. And also of the old practise of burying a dog before any human is buried – so intentionally leaving a graveyard guardian. It sort of reminds me of that. If something is important to you, of course you’d want to protect it from every Tom, Dick and Harry…or even worse…inept occultists

[QUOTE]
Or in the heart.

Have you travelled these Norse gods far away from Britain and the lands that the Norsemen came to? Did they travel as well there?[/QUOTE]

I used to live in Spain and Portugal. Although some Vikings did embrace Islam and settle in Spain, I’ve never read of any in Portugal. They raided, but never settled and yes, in my opinion, the Gods did travel as well there. Portugal for me, just reverberated Catholicism, its own Gods were very hard to feel about the place but I never felt cut off from mine. They were still there.

[QUOTE]sort of like 'racial gods' that remain in existence as long as 'their' people remain.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE] Jung's 'race memory'?[/QUOTE]

Partly, but also thinking from the point of view of tribal Gods (Gods linked to tribes), do they only exist while the tribe exists? Back to that ‘if a tree falls in the forest’ business really.
[QUOTE]
Talking of approximations, how many Christians walk an approximation of the Christianity practiced in these isles 2,000 years ago?[/QUOTE]

Depends on what is classed as an approximation. I mean all forms of Christianity can be seen as approximations of that original message.


On to ‘what would happen if we messed up the earth and had to leave
[QUOTE] Then deities would rule the earth, not man Gods of destruction, desert, wind and rain.[/QUOTE]
could you imagine that?! Oh well…Yahweh would feel right at home then…ooh bitchy…


[QUOTE]
I'm not sure, have to go think about that. It's along the lines of: if a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does it make a noise, and 'does colour still exist in the dark'....[/QUOTE]

And therein lies the conundrum (and the mind candy )

[QUOTE]
I imagine Earth would be remembered as a supreme mother goddess and we’d find new deities out there, providing science hadn’t poo pooed it all to death by then…as for the ones left here…not sure. I think if energy never dies, only changes, then most would remain or change.[/QUOTE]

Ahh physics energy laws – usually I use that one to argue with sceptics about death not being the definitive end some believe it to be but it works here too. Mind you, even if science were to poo poo Gods to death, I don’t think it would matter, because people have always felt the need to look to something that’s somehow ‘greater’ than them and that also fulfils their needs.

Here’s one you might like. You know all those accounts of mythological creatures like dragons and whatnot from days of yore? Who’s to say they didn’t exist originally purely because people then believed in them more?


Els

[quote]Or maybe they were already drawn to certain eras before getting into Paganism and simply follow that on with the Gods they end up with? I’m not making sense…[/quote]

Yes you are Sort of: did they find paganism or did paganism find them - or the gods, type thing?

[quote] (we did about it at school but as usual – I got carried away)[/quote]

Hey, Tolkin invented an entire language from getting 'carried away'

[quote]Yes, I agree that there is a lot of power in Christianity, the uniform prayers said on mass, all accumulating over the years in the stone of churches, ritual after ritual after ritual and not to mention the centuries of blood, sweat and tears of people killed in the name of that religion. Sort of makes me think of sacrifice – only not in a ‘conscious’ sense[/quote]

Oooooh, now that's a shivery image.

I always get a silly image in my head when I think about the Christian concept of god. I always see a glass of water under a kitchen tap and it's overflowing. I see the glass as being 'god' and the water is the energy of everything. Like they've tried to squish everything into this god and although it takes a form, it can't hold everything and to water overflows. I wonder sometimes (in a very abstract way) whether all spirits are like this: a vessel for energy, the powers and perception of which is dictated by how much energy they can hols and the form that produces. Ermn... (sounds like a weird trip, I know)... a visual aid would help. Kind of like this imagefrom the movie 13th Floor. Like the world is a matrix - one side of the mirror, and the energy and power pushing up is contained within fields, such as the glass. You get big and little ones, and occasionally colossal vessels, like the black-hole of the god world, truly powerful forces but probably unstable.

I like the mirror analogy (from vodoun I think) whereby, when in life, we're skating on one side of a mirror. We can't see through it but everything on the other side (the dead, the spirits et cetera) can see us. I've always seem live as being a lake of water. When you throw a stone in, thousands of little droplets go up into the sky. For a brief moment they are individual, out in an alien world yet all made of the same essential 'stuff'. They go up and eventually they come down and rejoin the lake, the main body of water and everything that they were whilst individual returns to the greater mass. We, as humans, are the little droplets, up in the air.

Sorry rambling...

[QUOTE]
Could I ever create such a powerful god, on my own, in this lifetime that could rival one of the Catholic Churches pantheon of saints?
[/QUOTE]
[quote]Nah, I think you’d need it to be a collective thing and I think it would take time too. [/quote]

*nods* But how united would it need to be. For instance, if five of you agree to go home and feed the spirit with white rice and apples and chant for four days...if three of you did that, but one only had pasta (no rice) and the other forgot what to chant...are we entering the realms of High Ritual Magic there? Is that how you create a god? How exactly does it have to be synchronised? I'd love to know how this began in other countries. I bet the majority of gods we know today were living people to begin with. There tends to be, in many tribal cultures, a belief in the untouchable 'god' (Christian God or Vodoun Olodumare) who is not approachable because s/he/it is everything, the Great Spirit. Then you tend to have the pantheon of ancestral gods and spirits who, even though often forgotten, were originally living people and then 'elemental' gods and spirits who are the raw powers such as the winds and the earth - these are often primordial, ancient spirits that pre-existed man.

[quote]It’s interesting though to consider at what point honoured ancestors become considered Gods.[/quote]

Weight of superstition People remember their dead and their culture says you feed the spirits and you involve them in the family so that their powers grow strong. You do this for all dead. So great people already have a huge cult of people in a localised area who will carry out these tasks. Then it's similar to Western dead - you attribute things to them. 'Aw, did you see that!? That's old Michael that is, he would have laughed at that' or 'mum's smiling on us darling, it's a luck day today'. Like a servitor, the more you attribute to it, the more power it is believed to have and eventually it does become a strong force.

[QUOTE]
Hey, I’m game for a laugh [/QUOTE]
[quote] I tried to rope people into an experiment along those lines a while ago but we couldn’t figure out whether to create a God or whether to raise up a dead celeb that receives massive amounts of adoration that borders on worship (like Elvis) and other conditions for the experiment. However if you can figure out some kind of experiment then I’m up for it [/quote]

Hmmm....I guess the easiest would be to start with a group servitor and work up from there. Take a look at Aspects of Evocation and the GoHu Servitor. How about we try something like that, might take a few of us. Then I say we go for something bigger. I think a celeb is a really interesting idea because they evoke such powerful feelings of identification and admiration. Anyone but Diana, please Could do without that one LOL. Could be an easy spring-board. If we get good at it, lets try something really obscure.

Anyone else in? (Anyone else even still reading )

[QUOTE]
I suppose it's hard to say whether that would or wouldn't work without knowing the creation process of a god. How did the god (and I do count the Christian saints as deities I’m afraid) get his or her attributions, who gave them it and why? [/QUOTE]
[quote]That’s a good point. I mean if we were to do an experiment in raising Elvis up as a God (for example), then would he have the attributes we ‘give’ him or would he veer away and have his own? [/quote]

Dunno. I'd attribute him as the god of guitars and guitar players, rock 'n' roll and fast food. But I bet there'd be a few surprises there.

Thing is, would he be Elvis (would we be channelling the dead-type deity) or would he be an image we had ourselves created and if it's the latter, how do we know our images are the same and that it is a shared vision/experience?

[quote]Which sort of reminds me (in a roundabout way) of the SPR experiment in which a group of people ‘created’ a spirit called ‘Phillip’ [/quote]

Thanks for that! Never heard of it before, fascinating stuff. I can see so many problems though. The obvious one is 'who's to say Philip never existed' - an aristocrat, resembling a portrait. Think how many millions of people have passed through the pearly gates. Maybe spirits identify with things that remind them of them?

Similarly, one of the eight may have been a gifted psychic anyway and possibly could have channelled a similar spirit with or without the other seven.

Completely abstract - possibly the Victorian method of séance, although working, specifically attracts a certain type of spirit which has lived on through the ritual. Maybe the ritual of séance created a living spirit of it's own which can manifest in many forms but is essentially the same?

It gets so complicated I often believe that the best thing in such circumstances if just to believe the account of those present. Some things you just have to experience in order to understand them, to know what they mean. Not that people never lie or get beguiled, but over-analysis and speculation doesn't get you far either.

[quote]Now I’ve never done the whole ‘being ridden’ thing but I would imagine that a form of trance (possibly through dance and or drum, or substance) would be needed as opposed to a staid ritual? Makes what actually happen seem really half-hearted and well….crap really.[/quote]

We're westerners. We have an innate social fear of movement Dance...what's that then? You're not suggesting actual movement are you? Again though, that's something that needs to be done en mass. The power of trance and dance-induced possession or entry to the spirit world is something immensely powerful in groups. Although finding a group of people to do that where there isn't a vein of scepticism or self-consciousness is very difficult. I'm not sure I could do it. You'd have to have a strong bond of trust within the group.

[QUOTE]
If a thing has spirit simply for being what it is (i.e. a tree, the wind, the ocean, a chair) why do you need gods? If spirit is in everything and what that spirit happens to be in at the time forms it's character, then aren't gods superfluous[/QUOTE]
[quote]Ahhh maybe, but if they’re ancestors that have been raised up to God status, obviously they served a purpose at that point, or why bother if there isn’t the need?[/quote]

Ah, like the 'elemental' and 'ancestral' gods earlier. The reason ancestral gods are important in other cultures are like the saints. Because 'god' itself as a being is unapproachable, you have the gods who mediate between man and the divine. The idea behind ancestral gods is that, because they were once human themselves, they have more of a vested interest in the welfare of man and are thus likely to be more sympathetic. They are more 'human' than other gods

[quote]Old Gods doing new jobs.[/quote]

They don't seem to have that problem in Haitian Vodoun and, to some extent, Christianity. The attributes of the gods tend to allow them to take on new jobs - i.e. Ogún, god of metal covers both weapons and machinery, hence god of cars, computers and money. Because of his association with money he can also take on the persona of a stately businessman.

Clare of Assisi is the patron saint of television because, when she was too ill to attend mass, she saw a vision of it as if she were there. Thousands of years later, when the technology was invented to do that, it was attributed to her.

[quote] Now were they [genius loci] already there, guarding their spot or were they created for the purpose? I’ve read of the superstition of the first person buried in an old graveyard being its guardian – there to protect it from the Devil. And also of the old practise of burying a dog before any human is buried – so intentionally leaving a graveyard guardian. It sort of reminds me of that. If something is important to you, of course you’d want to protect it from every Tom, Dick and Harry…or even worse…inept occultists [/quote]

There's a phenomenal book called The Highest Alter by Patrick Tierney. Although it's mainly based in South America, it does throw some interesting light on tribal culture and that of the British Isles. Many ancient sites in Britain have unearthed skeletons in auspicious places. These are the gods of the land. Considering how many sites have been destroyed and lost there must be many of these spirits left lying.

[quote]
I used to live in Spain and Portugal. Although some Vikings did embrace Islam and settle in Spain,[/quote]

I never knew that

[quote] Portugal for me, just reverberated Catholicism, its own Gods were very hard to feel about the place but I never felt cut off from mine. They were still there.[/quote]

It's interesting you say that. May well be in the blood. I often wonder about countries and their ancient gods. Britain and Germany seem to have kept a sense of what was there before, but countries such as France, Spain, Portugal - few people seem to really know what was there before or how it was practiced. there doesn't seem to be the same deep-rooted closeness to ancient times. I know there are a lot of people on witchvox from countries such as Spain who can't find any local groups or information. I mean, when you think about it, most major town in Britain have a moot - that's an extraordinary feat.

[quote]but also thinking from the point of view of tribal Gods (Gods linked to tribes), do they only exist while the tribe exists? [/quote]

Actually, that ties up with the bit before about do gods lose their potency if they travel beyond their localised area - is it still the same god? Most ancestral god were highly localised, their area may have been bigger if they were a king or great leader, but still localised. Then their cults because so popular they spread throughout one or more countries, gaining attributes as they went. The Orisha of Haitian vodoun and those of Yorubaland, Africa, in some cases are unrecognisable. As a god grows in power it transforms. So perhaps the image Crowley brought back with him (for example) is not a different god but part of the transformation of that god. As a baby I was unrecognisable from what I am now, but essentially I was still me - so perhaps all the different things I’ve been are part of the transformation. Some things stick, others don't?

[quote]Depends on what is classed as an approximation. I mean all forms of Christianity can be seen as approximations of that original message.[/quote]

True, and as Christians don't all agree with each other But how different is Catholicism today compared to how it was practiced in these heathen lands so long ago, and what would they make of Anglicism and Protestants now?

[QUOTE]
I'm not sure, have to go think about that. It's along the lines of: if a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does it make a noise, and 'does colour still exist in the dark'....[/QUOTE]
[quote]And therein lies the conundrum (and the mind candy )[/quote]

But I’ve never had a problem answering those questions. An existentialist would say 'no' - 'if I wasn't there, the tree never fell' but I’ve always said 'yes' to all of those. I believe things exist if I’m not there and if I’m not there to hear the tree fall then it still creates disturbances in the air molecules which would be sound if anyone was there. I don't doubt that Phil is upstairs existing whilst I’m down here. I did think about it a lot as a kid (my dad loved conundrums like this) but came to the conclusion that it was overanalysing an essentially simple question.

So, going by that spiel. Yes, the gods must still exist and maybe it's pretentious of us to believe that gods need us in order to exist? Perhaps we're missing the point of what a god is? And what's the difference between a god and a spirit? (that last one is a real question )

[quote]
Here’s one you might like. You know all those accounts of mythological creatures like dragons and whatnot from days of yore? Who’s to say they didn’t exist originally purely because people then believed in them more?[/quote]

Perhaps. There's so many ideas around that - deformed, anomalous creatures (freaks of nature) that went down as mythological creatures, them really having existed....

I think the truth lies somewhere between. For instance, in China, dragons never stopped existing. It's dreamtime mythology, on a par with creation myths. It's thinking in a way that we've forgotten how to think anymore. You remember being a kid - when unicorns and dragons really did exist, the bogie man really did live under your bed and Santa Clause came at Christmas? It was REAL. And nothing anyone says after that should be able to take that away from you, but we laugh at myth - it has no place in our adult, serious culture. We've lost the innocence of dreaming. Back in the days of dragons and monsters, we were closer to a tribal culture that we are today, even 300 years ago we were still looking over out shoulders. They did exist because people believed in them, they lived in the mythos of our collective worldview.

It's a shame, but it's something you don't usually get back once it's been dispelled. It's also the reason we don't often understand tribal/shamanic cultures, why they're often seen as being daft or backwards, because they still walk the worlds in a way that we have long since forgotten how.

Best wishes,

Marion.

I see this as a netherrealm between parallel realities, a displaced Lorentz frame by some sort of disruption of causality (especially a sudden or violent event). A good example of this is around Verdun in France where bombardment was particularly violent in WWI. It seems that in highly quasi-hydrostatic conditions (fogs during spring tides on a full-moon night, etc.), phantom armies can be seem marching in the mists.




Not necessarily true for France, in Bretagne they still speak Bretonic and practice the old traditions (nor is the large number of Pagans there a recent development). France is actually a diasporal of earlier invading cultures much like the UK with numerous pockets of various old traditions still intact. Let us not forget that here in continental Europe boundaries are quite tenuous, especially how often they have changed through the course of history. Thus it is more a question what region.

Or maybe people are just drawn to exotic pantheons by past life experiences.....

Magnetic fault lines have this reputed affect too. The line up between England and Wales (Forest/Gloucester) line is littered with them, hence the reports of so many haunted pubs Also suggested are for earth light phenomenon.



Good point well made. I read somewhere that the South of France is trying to reassert it's language, which is a notably different form of French which was oppressed when the North invaded. Plus they have Carnac I suppose Always meant to go there. Anyone fancy a road trip?

Best wishes,

Marion.

PS - sorry for my aweful typos in the previous post - it just got so long I couldn't be arsed! Will do better next time.

It's a possibility...
Or, to refer to Pikey's Mythos of the Blood thread it could be an unknown heredity that draws people. We don't neccessarily know our true heritage.

Yes Marion, of course magnetic lines, but these as well as many other side-effects are subsequent of "tidal forces" (quasi-hydrostatic phenomena) in Earth's mantle, the oceans, the atmosphere, in continental tectonic interplay and of course Earth's huge magnetic plasma fields. This is also plays a potential part in the sun's plasmic state of hydrogen. This is a transcendental force in the true sense, and how life came into existence on this world and evolved- and especially its transcendence into other dimensional realms in space-time, locally as well as universally. This is what the continuum is all about. This is causality as best defined as the effect of strange attractors in deterministic chaos. You will notice that anything geometrically "continuous" is typically expressed as a fractal or "infinitesimal" mathematically.

As for past lives or genetic connections, I quite agree, after all, it does abide with relativity, does it not? Myself, I have an excellent long term (quite photographic) memory, that also picks up on genetic "imprints" passed on to me by predecessors. It amazes me how many places I found strangely familiar (though I'd never been there before) only to learn a predecessor had been there. This has been the case around Prag and all over England up to Llantwit Major. However, for that I pay dearly having a really bad short term memory (I guess you can't win em all!)

I think you are right there, and this links in with the fact that the uk doesn't really have its own mythology as such, we have integrated from others weather it be from the Romans, French, Norse etc to sucjh an extent that english mythology and therfore the Gods/Goddesses are much harder to find. In History classes at school you learn about the "classics" Greek and Roman mythology and their pantheons, yet there is nothing similar for the Uk or least ways nothing I was taught at school.

If you are interested in visiting Carnac/Le Menec, here are two websites on the subject you may find particularly fascinating Marion-

http://www.atlantisquest.com/Carnac.html

http://www.neara.org/ROS/roscarnac01.htm

Under certain conditions as previously mentioned particular stones will act as a kind of temporal portal to the mind through laying of hands on that stone. Of course it helps to take a magentometer with you to determine which particular one (as there are hundreds of these things over a course of several miles. Mind you, if you can sense these things out without one, all the better!

I appreciate that some might activly seek to look abroad an that dont make much sence to me .


We have plenty fine gods an goddess's in our lands.

Some dont seek though. They just get found, and with the native lands of egyptian diety *just for example* you take a good look at what is going on today.

Egypt is a muslim country ...the ancient ways are long gone , there is no room for the ancient deity. they are defunct in their own native land. If them deity move around the globe with their people then what is the big deal?

My goddess is Isis... i claim her through no birth right, nor no fashion fad, infact i had no spirtuality, nor no firm beliefs afor Isis, I were nothing, i had never heard of a pagan nor aany such belief.

from out o the blue she come...my beloved Isis. From there onwards i found paganism...afor Isis i believe in jack shit an had never heard o her afor...explain that if you may.

In blood i dont know, i can trace no egyption linage, i am english through an through, yet my father got dark looks... but time after time i have complete strangers ( at work ) asking me if i am egyption. Olive skin carries through our offspring. I have egyption looks, egyption eyes an skin,... there is an egytian look about me.

I make no appologise on here, i am 'daughter o Isis'....when i were on me kneez Isis come an wrap her wings around me' as sure as shit is shit i felt her. i dedicate meself to her an although times have been rough i remain stedfast. She is my lady.

I not a fool, i am initiated into my own land, i were born an bred here(England), i have walked a feckin hard path in the name o the land itself and i know where i come from an respect my native deity. I am on their turf an will be their witch.

Dont you call my lady a fashon fad though...im a bit to long in the tooth for them sort o things . I know what i have experianced an feel. Daughter o Isis is fair o face an its not an easy path. I have shed loads o stuff to learn . The art o lower magiks is a skill, an higher magiks is part an parcel o my dedication.. My native land is my power pack. Isis show me the way an pass me over. Afor that i were lost.

Now i dont have to hang on to her skirt strings, now i know what my own land can do for me...you see its not all about being molly codled by some egyption goddess, its about who grabs you first an points you in the right direction...at the end o the day if you dont believe me then who cares......bring it on.

Rain

I totally agree, personnally anything to do with anceint egypt amazes me which is why i encorporate it into my eclectic wiccan path as much as possible same with taosim

I think one of the problems with that one is: 'name them' On the whole, names we no longer have for pre-Celtic periods. We are a land of invading gods which now make up the integral foundations of 'British paganism'. Not saying it's a bad thing, just that it's a very interesting situation. But then how important is the name of a god? Without it, would it still exist (as pondered earlier)?

Best wishes,

Marion.