Kaldera Raven Dealing With Deities Practical Polytheism
Kaldera Raven Dealing With Deities Practical Polytheism
Kaldera Raven Dealing With Deities Practical Polytheism
Theology
Raven Kaldera
Hubbardston, Massachusetts
Asphodel Press
12 Simond Hill Road
Hubbardston, MA 01452
Introduction:
The Uncharted Wilderness of Pagan Theology
A Pagan friend of mine told me the tale: she was meeting a
new person for a date, someone intelligent, thoughtful, and
politically progressive. Someone not mired in the bigotries of
conservative mainstream religions, someone whom she hoped
would share her world view enough not to call her a devil-
worshiper. Inevitably, the question of religion came up, and she
told him that she was Pagan. He had heard of, and had even read
some things about, her faith. However, his response to her was:
“I’m surprised. You seem like such an intelligent and thoughtful
person.”
To him, Paganism wasn’t a hive of evil demon-worship, which
is what I hear most Pagans going on about when they talk about
people thinking less of their religion. It was a childish, clumsy,
unsophisticated practice that it didn’t pay to look too hard at; a
feel-good faith that was half unquestioned juvenile superstition and
half rock-concert ecstasy. One might not even consider it a “faith”
at all so much as a subculture, with more emphasis put on cultural
activities than on any kind of real worship. It certainly wasn’t a
religion for mature and thoughtful adults who wanted to wrestle
with tough spiritual questions within their religious framework.
This view of my faith is one that I’m increasingly coming up
against within interfaith circles, and most modern Pagans that I’ve
spoken to have few answers as to how to fix the problem. The few
that do have answers tend to start with changing the subculture to
be more palatable to other religious subcultures, which I believe is
missing the point. The fact that we are fixated on the subculture(s)
in Neo-Paganism―and I include, sadly, the very important issues
of ethics, values, and politics in that term―is part of why we aren’t
taken seriously as a religion. Instead, we need to be asking each
other hard questions about our religion itself. Even arguing about
it―and yes, I am aware that arguing will be inevitable―is better
than simply ignoring the whole question. If we can’t explain the
deeper understandings of our religion (or perhaps that should be
“religions”; I’m well aware of the fragmented differences between
our sects) to outsiders, it means that we do not really understand
them ourselves.
Animism: The belief that not only all living things, but all
natural things, and some man-made things, have an
indwelling spirit/soul of their own. Animism can be
polytheistic (the spirits are all separate and have their own
specific identities) or pantheistic (the spirits are all part of
the universal energy, and merely have their own flavor).
DEALING WITH DEITIES 13
While not all polytheists are animists as well, a great many
of them are, especially ones who follow older indigenous
faiths and/or work with a wide array of non-divine spirits
as well as Gods.
1
Pagan Deism: Three Views, Bridger and Hergest, The Pomegranate:
The International Journal of Pagan Studies, Volume #1, February, 1997,
pp. 37-42.
16 RAVEN KALDERA
Beginnings
How are Gods born? Some of them are born of other Gods,
just as we are born of personal parents. Others seem to come into
being out of the stuff of the Universe, perhaps a coalescence of
Being-ness that eventually develops a more complex self-
awareness. Some may have started out as elementals or other not-
quite-Gods and gained a “higher” aspect over time; this can even
happen to dead human beings, on rare occasions. This is not to
say that the euhemerization of Gods is always accurate; trying to
claim that they are all simply the lost legends of mere human
beings whose stories were passed down and changed beyond
DEALING WITH DEITIES 17
recognition ignores (perhaps deliberately) ancestral accounts of
the existence of Otherworlds and the many millennia that humans
have been walking in and out of them. However, in some cases an
ancestor can―with the help of the Gods and, one would assume,
a great deal of spiritual development on their part―become one
of their junior members. It is attested to in so many mythologies
that it would be unwise to discount the idea.
One example of this would be the worship of Antinous, who
is―as his modern devotees call him―the youngest member of
the Roman pantheon of Gods. Antinous was a young man, said to
be “wise beyond his years”, who was loved by an Emperor. When
he died in his early twenties, the grief-stricken Emperor Hadrian
had him deified―an entirely unprecedented move for someone
who had been of non-Imperial origin―and encouraged a cult
around worshiping him. The cult of Antinous flourished for some
years until Christianity took it down with all the other Roman
religions, but modern devotees have taken it up again … and
report that Antinous is just as divine and present for them as he
was to his ancient devotees.
There is also the question of human beings creating an
idea―perhaps in literature or media―and that if enough people
worship that idea, it will become an entity and then a deity. While
I am not utterly opposed to the idea that this could happen, it
would probably take a lot of people a very long time. It is also
possible that some other deity, perhaps one whose name we have
forgotten, might step forth and take on that created role as an
aspect of itself. Many polytheists have theorized that when a
pantheist calls on a nonspecific deity such as The Love Goddess,
rather than getting a general undifferentiated higher entity, they get
instead a differentiated love goddess who chooses to come
forward, answer the “phone”, and step into the “Great Love
Goddess” role. It’s not so much of a far stretch to imagine that a
deity might step up and don the image of a popular archetype
once people begin actually worshiping it.
However, it is also clear from many accounts that the
direction of such evolution is not only in the direction of
transcendence. It is important to remember that in this world view,
everything goes in circles. There is no one-way linear perfection.
We may not see much of the other side of that cycle, but we can
be assured that it exists. Lesser spirits may evolve toward Gods,
and Gods may evolve toward higher impersonal transcendence
(perhaps over a period of time that our minds are completely
unable to grasp with any meaning) but at some point there has to
be a re-collapse and a rotting down, in order for there to be new
18 RAVEN KALDERA
growth. It may be that parts of the impersonal All are continually
separating off and becoming the most barely self-aware of Being-
ness, eventually to grow up to be something much more complex
and self-aware, and then slowly evolve up to lose their self-ness
and merge back into the All, and restart the cycle. It is also
possible that Gods can fall back down, over time and with the
vagaries of whatever passes for “age” for a God, to simple
elemental forms, and further still. We don’t know exactly how that
works for them, but perhaps it is because we have been too fixated
on the idea of Gods as eternal and unchanging, and haven’t
actually been looking.
Divine Essentials
One way to comprehend the nature of the Gods―and how
their nature is different from ours―is to understand that they are
more fully themselves than we are. By this I mean that even the
most complex deities (and some of them can be awfully complex)
are more wholly monolithic as entities than we humans are. We
tend to be much more muddled up with outside influences, and
our various aspects are rarely wholly clear in and of themselves.
Gods are much more precisely and purely what they are, without
extraneous matter in their personalities. Yes, some deities have
what seem to be contradictions in their natures … but in every case
I’ve personally investigated, when I spoke with a human being
who was devoted to such a deity, they have spoken to me about
part of that deity’s Mystery being about revealing the underlying
truth that unites those supposed contradictions.
What makes a God, in essence, is that they are a pure
embodiment of some part of universal essence (or could easily be
in a heartbeat, if they were deciding to act from their highest self)
and, beyond that, they hold full knowledge of that piece of
essence and the implications of all its results. Those two qualities
could be considered the “markers” of divinity, and we’ll discuss
them separately.
Gods are, as we will discuss in the chapter on vertical aspects
of deity, capable of instantly moving up and down the scale from
personal to transpersonal consciousness in a way that is
heartbreakingly difficult for us mortals, and even their most
human aspects have the “feel” of that universal essence, like a light
shining through a translucent filter that could be pulled aside at a
moment’s notice. One could say―as many religious theorists
have―that all human beings are also pure embodiments of some
part of universal essence, which would make us all just mini-gods.
DEALING WITH DEITIES 19
While that theory may make us feel better, there is still the very
real difference of scale. If we and the Gods are all just lights
shining through, we have been placed here to manifest that light
through a very, very dense material. Saint-types and avatar-types
may have a thinner material, but Gods have only the sheerest of
veils, and they can whisk them aside if need be. While it’s a point
of hope to theorize about the divine within all of us, it does not
eradicate the gap between us and Them. Nor does claiming that
we are just like the Gods actually help us to get any closer to our
higher selves.
Trying one’s best to walk the path that one’s Gods have
pointed out, and listening to their advice on how best to
accomplish this path, even when it is difficult. This is
perhaps the most intimate form of worship―trusting
them with the direction of your life.
Personal To Transpersonal
“Vertical” aspects of deity are more difficult to describe. For
this, I often have to make a little diagram in my head, which I am
aware is pitifully inadequate to describe the multifaceted reality of
the Divine. However, it helps my mortal meat-brain to get some
idea of the concept. Deities have aspects that are more human
and less human. We sometimes refer to these as “higher” or
“lower” aspects, but the value judgment inherent in those terms
makes me reluctant to use them. These aspects are not better or
worse than each other; they are solely about how personal and
close to human, or how impersonal and close to the
undifferentiated divine, an aspect of Deity may be.
Personal aspects―which always get pictured in my head as
the little end of a stalactite―are the places where the Gods are
closest to human. They argue, they fight, they make mistakes, they
are short-sighted and do not access the full truth of their divine
abilities. (Although when they err, they do that also on a grand
scale.) They also love, with personal fervor as opposed to
impersonal distance; they love each other in this way, and
sometimes mortals as well.
This is not the kind of love that we think of as in “God loves
me,” it is a deeply personal and passionate interest in someone,
not a transpersonal “Yes, I love your divine spark gently from afar.”
This is the kind of love offered when a God or Goddess comes to
a worshiper and becomes an intimate companion who is always
there for you when you need them, offering a shoulder to cry on
without judgment for the justice of your pain. The shape of the
relationship can still take many forms, which we will discuss in a
38 RAVEN KALDERA
further chapter, but the key is that you can feel their subjective
attention, close up, and you give them yours as well.
As we move up the symbolic stalactite, the aspects become
less personal―and less interested in you personally. The higher
aspect of a given deity is more emotionally distant, more
archetypal, still recognizably them, but less human and more
godlike. One could imagine it as that deity’s “higher self”. From
the perspective of this aspect, they may still love you, but it is your
own higher self that they love, and that love is more impersonal,
transpersonal, loving your divine spark rather than your human
frailties. From this point, their main interactions with you will have
the end-goal of your own self-improvement―bringing you closer
to that higher self by any means necessary―and your use in the
improvement of the world. From this point, they see high and far
and do not make the mistakes that their more human aspects
make.
It is hard to describe the qualitative feeling between a
humanlike or more godlike aspect of the Divine; it may be one of
those many situations common to these interactions where we can
only give a frustrating “I know it when I feel it.” The quality of the
interaction is very different, and the humanlike eye-to-eye intensity
is replaced with a sense of overwhelming awe. The gulf between
us and them seems much more uncrossable with a higher-self
aspect, whereas we are often amazed at how close they seem when
they come to us in a humanlike aspect.
Human Choices
However, there is another Rule that we have found to be true,
again and again: You, the mortal, get to choose the vertical aspect
in which a deity first appears to you. Moreover, you do choose,
whether you know it or not. Before God X shows up in your life,
God X reaches out to you, and your unconscious―the part of
ourselves that we must harness in order to have these
experiences―tells them what you want and need. (The
unconscious does not lie, as the conscious often does.) They will
then appear to you in that aspect, and will continue to make that
the main aspect of your dealings with them, unless you
consciously choose otherwise. And yes, you can do that as well. If
you want, you can consciously choose to interact with a more
human or less human aspect, and you don’t even have to use an
epithet to do that. You can simply ask; they understand your
words and your intent. Then you have to pay for whatever you get.
DEALING WITH DEITIES 39
There are gifts and drawbacks to interacting with these
different aspects of Deity. The “little” end of a God, the more
humanlike side, has a lot of charm for many people. To serve a
more human aspect is to bask in the ecstasy of direct emotional
attention from a God. It is also this aspect that can make mistakes
with people, can overestimate or underestimate them, can lie to
them (if it’s in that God/dess’s inherent nature to do so), and can
be less than perfectly ethical with them. This aspect loves them
passionately, and gives them personal attention, lays their own
prejudices and pettinesses on them, and can be blinded to their
long-term Wyrd (although even a deity in a personal relationship
with you knows better what you should be doing than any mortal,
including yourself; they are still Gods). To choose this is to choose
the ecstasy and terror of yielding to the “imperfect” aspect of a
deity. It is to love them and be loved by them in a way that those
of us who don’t have such a relationship cannot even imagine.
It is also to trust them even when you know that they are not
acting from their highest selves … an act of radical spiritual trust.
This is the price that they ask for that relationship: that you love
them wholly and unconditionally in spite of their flaws and
imperfections, and in return they will do the same for you, with an
all-consuming love that does not care how messed up you
are―and may not attempt to make you any less messed up,
because that is the nature of radical acceptance and unconditional
love. A deity with whom you have a personal, human-like
relationship will put up with a lot more error from you. They will
let you wander around and ignore your ideal spiritual path for a
much longer time, possibly your whole life … so long as you love
them passionately, in the way that the Hindus refer to as “bhakti”.
You are expected to be tolerant of their faults, and trust them
anyway … and they will extend that tolerance to you. They will
love you passionately no matter how much you continue to screw
up, so long as you love them back with equal fervor. You can be
petty, and they don’t care, because you are giving them the
freedom to do the same. While they will endeavor to push you to
evolve, it’s not the first priority of the relationship. If you can give
that deep trust in the face of all else, you can get it reflected back
to you with divine intensity, and that is an amazing gift.
On the other side, to serve the higher-self aspect of a Deity is
to know that they have your best long-term developmental
interest―and the best interest of the world―in the forefront of
your dealings with them. It is to know that you can trust them to
be Right, to see further than their own desires (and yours) and to
act for the greatest good. It is to know that they will never damage
40 RAVEN KALDERA
you without a reason that is meant for the best long-term outcome,
even if it is painful in the moment. You can trust in their unerring
judgment with regard to your path and purpose. You can trust that
if they send you into the world to work―and with these less
human aspects, that is often part of the deal―that they will guide
you as part of a vision larger than you can completely
comprehend.
As a price, however, they will expect you to also behave as
often as possible from the perspective of your higher self, and they
will push you toward that place every time you interact with them,
both actively (by setting up lessons for you to learn and be
improved) and by the pull of their very presence. be pushed hard
and mercilessly, and for there to be swift, immediate, and
unpleasant consequences when you act in unworthy ways. It’s the
faster and more spiritually ascetic track, not the track of personal
connection. You hold them to their highest standards (and, yes,
this is something that we are all allowed to do, regardless of our
relationship with them) and in turn they hold you to the highest
standards possible given your mortal nature. They will not make
mistakes with you, and neither will they surround you with ecstatic
love or tell you that you’re special. You will be part of their greater
purpose, and you will burn off your karmic debts, clean up your
personal power, and die a very different person from the one that
you began.
This is a choice that we all have, and we are allowed to make
and remake that choice again and again. It’s something for people
who are dissatisfied with the nature of the relationship with their
God to think about. You have the power and right to change it, to
move it up or down that axis … if you’re willing to pay the price.
Of course, some people deal with different aspects of their
Gods, depending on the situation and the deity. You may relate to
your “patron” deity, if you have one, in one way, and other Gods
in a different way. You may have a personal relationship with one
special deity, but sometimes they may switch over to a less human
aspect if there is serious work to be done, and its necessity is
larger than either of your personal desires. (Where is the consent
in that? It occurs because your higher self consents, and deities
can talk to that part of you even if you’re not consciously listening.)
For example, sometimes a divine Spouse can suddenly turn
around and be an impersonal Boss for a week or month if it’s
needed. However, there is generally one aspect/relationship that
was chosen first and which both parties revert to … because it’s
generally the one that the mortal in question desires and needs the
most. Usually there will be some discomfort when there is a
DEALING WITH DEITIES 41
temporary shift, and usually it’s only done because there is an
overriding need having to do with the mortal’s well-being. “If I
don’t get Joe off drugs, he won’t be around to have this
connection with me any longer.”
Why would someone want to choose the “little end” of the
divine stalactite, when it requires that dizzying trust in an imperfect
but very powerful being? Perhaps because they want and need an
aspect of the divine that takes a personal interest in them and their
problems. Perhaps because they want an erotic relationship with
the Divine, either in order to heal their sexuality, or because
relating in that way is part of their spiritual path. Perhaps because
they want a love more unconditional than they could ever get from
another human being. Perhaps because they need to learn to
unconditionally love flawed beings themselves, and starting with a
God is a good way to learn that.
Why would someone want to choose a deep, committed
relationship with the less human aspect of a deity, when it is
impersonal and pushes you constantly to be better, even inflicting
painful lessons in order to hurry your process? Perhaps because
they need to have a less flawed aspect in order to trust. Perhaps
because they crave honorable work and purpose, or want to
change the world. Perhaps because their higher self cries out for
progress, and they can’t seem to move on their own. Perhaps
because it is time for them to transform, and they can’t do it alone.
A friend of mine who is a priestess and Pagan nun took my
stalactite metaphor, clumsy as it is, and went further with it. She
pointed out that we humans are the stalagmites, reaching up from
the floor of the cave, and sometimes―eventually, in rare
cases―we touch the most humanlike end of the divine stalactite
that reaches down, and the two join together. In caves, these
become pillars of stone from floor to ceiling; in entities, these
become Gods with the full understanding of what it is to be
human, and also what it is to be undifferentiated-Divine, and every
point in between. This suggests the Irminsul, the World-Pillar, the
full joining of earth and sky. Perhaps, during our highest moments,
we create that pillar if only for a short and ephemeral flutter of
time.
Binary Ambivalences
At this point, I have to talk about binaries, and I have to
apologize for having used terms like “higher” and “lower” to
discuss the nature of the Gods. We are impoverished when it
comes to language for talking about these concepts; so many of
our terms have connotations that lead us back into the very world-
hating attitude that we are trying desperately to scramble out of in
the first place. When I refer to the impersonal aspects of the
Gods as “higher” and the personal aspects as “lower”, I am aware
that for many people, this will automatically be overlaid with
another binary, the one labeled Good/Bad, or
Desirable/Undesirable. We humans do this, over and over; it’s
one of our most crippling flaws. It’s not just found in more
modern cultures either; even ones that do not have their very
deities enacting that binary literally do have aspects of that very
human flaw in their cultural customs (especially around In The
Tribe/Not In The Tribe and similar situations). Somehow,
whenever we see a binary, we automatically try to decide which
side has more intrinsic value (thereby lessening the value of the
other one), perhaps so we will have some scale on which to
choose for ourselves. It’s not easy to choose from a place of
“What will be right for me personally?” If we don’t have a sense
DEALING WITH DEITIES 47
of that yet, we revert to attempts to find intrinsic value even when
it’s slightly ridiculous.
Sunrise/sunset. Summer/winter. Dark/light. Up/down.
Male/female. I could go on, but these are easy examples of binary
pairs we have imbued with arbitrary Good/Bad connotations.
Looked at objectively, there is no such judgment, and that is the
view we need to take if we are to fully live this immanent Pagan
life. Even binaries like yin/yang, which were created in a system
that was originally meant to show that both sides were sacred,
eventually gained a value judgment. (You don’t think so? Poll
twenty random people as to which they think makes up more of
their nature, and listen to their tone of voice when they answer.)
I don’t believe that we need to throw out binaries, as some
would suggest. Binaries are sacred things as well, perfect opposites
in eternal balance of beauty and harmony. Even when they
oppose each other, they can often see things in the other that the
other does not see, and that kind of perspective is needed. Both
sides of every binary are valuable. Instead of eliminating them, I
believe that we need to make a personal discipline of excising the
habit of laying a Good/Bad binary over them, and consciously
preventing ourselves from doing it when faced with all the binaries
in our life.
Here’s the exercise: Say “higher Gods” and “lower Gods”.
Right now, say those words. Did your mind put a desirable/less
desirable connotation on them? That’s what you need to work on.
How can you change your thinking so that you can say those
words aloud, and they will be full of meaning and image but will
be entirely without that connotation?
The first step to do this is to bombard your mind with
alternative images. Does “down” always have to be bad? When is
it just as beautiful as up, or more so? What’s the danger in being
“high”, in every sense? Now, in your mind see them both as their
best possible connotation together, at the same time. Now see
them together as their worst connotation, at the same time. From
this point on, don’t ever let yourself see one as good and the other
as merely problematic. Insert a mental footnote, a tripwire to
reroute your thoughts and concentrate them on the two points of
the binary in perfectly opposed harmony, both equally valuable
(or problematic, if it works better that way for you). Work on that.
When you get it right with this binary, pick another one and keep
going.
Part of why this is important is that there’s a deeper truth we
must fully understand: every binary is actually a spectrum. We
know this, although we don’t always talk about it, and part of why
48 RAVEN KALDERA
we ignore it is the overlaid judgmental binary. When one end is
Valued and the other end is Devalued, our emotional responses
to observing the spectrum of liminal points in between becomes
much more emotionally volatile. We have to decide, perhaps
unconsciously, where the point of value stops. If “light” is good
and “dark” is bad, at what point does a shade in between become
negative? You can bet that humans have already had huge
arguments over that point, when it’s really so irrelevant. If you
remove the value judgment from the binary, it becomes much
easier to switch from binary to spectrum and back again without a
negative emotional reaction. As someone who was born both male
and female, it’s crucially important to me that we as human beings
learn to do this, as soon as possible, one human being at a time if
necessary.
So from here, let’s reexamine the title of this chapter: Going
Higher. Without a value judgment, that simply means moving into
the realm where the Gods begin to blur and become less distinct,
less human, less involved in our world, and less interested in us
personally. While some people are called to work largely with
these aspects―and perhaps with the point where they blur
altogether―it is not the calling for everyone, or even most people.
It doesn’t make one more evolved, either. It may just be about
balance. Perhaps those who are legitimately called to a pantheistic,
panentheistic, or even higher henotheistic relationship with the
Gods are the people who tend to cut things up into little pieces
too often, to refuse to see the forest for the trees, to concentrate
on petty details instead of looking at the big picture. Perhaps those
who are called to work with more specific aspects are the people
who think big and vague, and forget their own humanness.
Perhaps there are a multitude of reasons more subtle and
personal than this, but each aimed at making someone more
evolved through their relationship to the Gods. Because even at
their most human and faulty end, they still see and know more
than we do. Trust me on that point. Better yet, trust them.
DEALING WITH DEITIES 49
Chains of Command
As we discussed in prior chapters, the closer a deity’s aspect is
to our level of existence―and the closer a “smaller-than-a-deity”
spirit is to our level of existence―the less likely they are to be able
to fully see that long-range balance and to naturally flow with it. As
we also discussed, one can always call upon the higher aspect of a
deity―and, similarly, one can call upon the “spiritual superior” of
a smaller spirit. The spirit of that oak tree is subject to the wisdom
of Grandfather Oak, the overarching spirit of that species of tree.
Grandfather Oak is subject to the wisdom of a higher, much more
impersonal power that I can only call the Green One, the spirit of
all plants. We have honored that spirit as the Green Man in
ancient times―little more than a personification for most of us,
because most humans cannot fully attune to a deity who really has
no human aspect―but some see that deity as the Green Mother.
Similarly, the spirit of that dog is subject to the wisdom of the
Great Dog Spirit, who is subject to the wisdom of the Lord or
Lady of Animals. We are genetically a little closer to animals than
to plants, so the Lord or Lady of Animals shares some essence
with the higher aspects of some of our Gods―Herne, Diana, etc.
The point of all this is that you always have the option of taking an
issue with a particular spirit (or even a deity) to a higher court, as it
were―but do keep in mind that the higher you call, the less likely
the spirit will be to humor your human-convenience-centered
perspective, and may require a great deal of widening of that
perspective before they will consider assisting you.
Human Influences
Another intriguing question is that of our ability to influence
the Gods. While I do not believe that we created the Gods, nor
that we can kill them by ignoring them (or most ancient western
deities would no longer be around to worship), it cannot be
denied that we have some kind of influence on them, just as they
affect us. If nothing else we can honestly say that we have an effect
on their connection to this world. If we ignore them, they may not
cease to exist, but their “phone line” to our world does seem to go
down after a time. They still carry on with their own lives, but we
are not a part of their sphere. They may be saddened by this, but
their core being does not center around our needs.
Another way in which we affect Gods over time is by
pressuring them to change in order to suit our needs. A colleague
of mine (Linda Demissy of Montreal, priestess of Lokabrenna
Kindred) pointed out that Gods often take on attributes and
specialties over the centuries as humans beg for it; she used the
Japanese deity Inari as an example. In Shinto, Inari began as a
deity of rice agriculture and kitsune (shapeshifting spirit-foxes),
and was depicted sometimes as an old man, sometimes as a young
woman, and sometimes as an androgynous bodhisattva. Inari’s
66 RAVEN KALDERA
specialty was agricultural prosperity, but then coastal people began
to honor him for prosperous fishing as well. Soon other industries
such as blacksmithing and warfare were added to his portfolio,
and since Inari’s shrines tended to get set up near the “pleasure
quarter” of cities, she became a patroness of actors and whores.
Modernly, she is prayed to for any aspect of prosperity, industry
and finance; a number of Japanese corporations (including a
major cosmetics company) have a shrine to Inari at their
corporate headquarters and consider him their patron. Nearly a
third of Shinto shrines honor Inari, a deity who is not even
accounted for in any Shinto text, and has no history written about
most of her “newer” talents.
One could speculate that if enough people pray to a small-
time rice deity, sending energy for a wider range of purposes, that
deity will eventually expand their sphere of influence to those
purposes. At the very least, it would be a matter of trial and error
on our part; certainly centuries of human beings experimented
with praying to Gods A, B, and C for Cause X and noted what got
results. The ancients were nothing if not practical, because they
had to be.
Gods can also change their behavioral characteristics over
time in order to fit in with changing human mores. One example
of this is the differences in cultural behavior between the orisha of
African tribes, who have either been influenced by Islam or are
still practicing the unadulterated rites of their tradition, and the
orisha of various African-diaspora religions, which had to adapt to
Catholic values, sometimes taking on saint-names, in order to
survive. Even if they are the same beings, they have had to adjust
to very different cultural rules for their trans-continental
worshipers. The African form of an orisha may uphold the rules
of one culture’s ideas about their specialty just as firmly as their
African-diaspora aspect will uphold the very different rules of their
adopted culture. (This is another example of how Gods are really
more about values than rules, a concept which we will delve into
in another chapter.)
DEALING WITH DEITIES 67
Pantheon Protocols
Few of us were raised in a polytheistic worldview, and so it can
take us a while to get used to the idea. Our minds still drift toward
assuming that there is a one true way, somewhere; a rulebook full
of detailed assumptions that are true for every God and spirit out
there … and there aren’t, except in a very general way. How do
human beings want to be treated? We can make generalities, but
if we grabbed ten people from radically different places and times,
we’d have trouble doing more than that. Culture, past experience,
and personalities are just too diverse. That’s true for Gods and
spirits, too.
Now I have to make a small detour into the matter of human
culture and Gods, and how they affect each other. While the
indigenous spirits of earth and fire and water, etc., have been with
us since the beginning of life on this Earth, the Gods with their
own cosmologies and Otherworlds seem to have made contact
with us somewhere in the Paleolithic era. There is a point in the
archaeology where we see the appearance of shamans,
“specialized” human beings with the neurological ability to
connect and communicate with noncorporeal entities. We don’t
know exactly what happened, but in spirit-aided glimpses of our
collective ancestry I’ve seen the vague panorama of a possible past.
Someone with just that extra edge of psychic talent connects with
the natural spirits of this world, and they help to breed more of
that talent into the line. (We’ll discuss how that works at a later
point in the book.) Their descendants forge relationships with the
spirits in order to help their people to survive better, and
somewhere along the line someone gets good enough to break the
barrier not just between the perceptible world and the non-
perceptible world in this place, but into another place … and
attracts attention.
This begins the long and complicated relationship of
humanity and deities. I won’t go into how those connections were
forged and made stronger―perhaps only our ancestors can tell
that tale―but it follows the cosmic principle of Like Attracts Like.
Prehistoric humans were not identical, and neither were their
tribes. Each small group of human beings was different, shaped by
its geography and climate, genetics, sustenance, local flora and
fauna, and the legacy of its strongest and best ancestors. This
evolving uniqueness of culture called to a specific group of entities
on the other side of the Veil, who made contact based on affinity.
We did not create them, nor they us, and the fact that Norse
72 RAVEN KALDERA
Gods live in a cold, snowy place while Maori Gods live in a rocky
desert is not because we mentally placed them there, but because
the universal forces that shaped us, shaped them as well in similar
ways, and drew like to like.
Of course, the question remains: How much did we affect
each other? It’s certain that we allied first with local spirits and
then with alien Gods out of survival. It was an evolutionary
advantage to have access to forces who had knowledge and power
that we didn’t. It’s quite likely that they affected our cultures with
their own, although there is no way to know how, exactly. Did
we―and do we―affect them? It’s even harder to nail down proof
for that, but modern dealings with deities do seem to reveal that
they understand, at least, our current time and customs, even if
they have grown far apart from their own. It might be speculated
that our move away from the Gods allowed our culture to change
radically from ones that had an affinity to, and had been partly
shaped by, their own.
More specifically, this means that each ancient and/or
indigenous culture is working with a different set of Gods and
spirits, and their methods of spirit-handling will be similarly
culture-specific. As an example of how this makes things
frustrating for non-polytheists, we can look at the aggravation of
anthropologists (and some modern spiritual practitioners) when
they try to find one single set of tools and protocols for shamans
and spirit-workers all over the world. Why do spirit-workers from
one culture develop certain practices and not others, when a spirit-
worker on the other side of the world works with all the practices
that the first one ignores?
The answer is that the protocols for dealing with
noncorporeal entities will be determined by the preferences of the
particular entities that the shaman or spirit-worker has been
dealing with for thousands of years. As those preferences will
differ―sometimes drastically―from those of another pantheon,
so will the protocols and methods that their human interface will
adopt. One pantheon of spirits may be fine with “their” human
beings railing at them and perhaps even threatening them to help;
that may not work out well at all with another pantheon. Some are
high-courtesy; some are more rough and direct. Some are gentler
and some are more brutal, as a group. In fact, it’s really
impossible to understand why shamanic practices are so different
the world over unless you fully accept how different spirits are
from each other … which requires fully understanding polytheism.
This is why the practice of a Maori matakite will be different from
mine, and we're both different from a Korean mudang or an Inuit
DEALING WITH DEITIES 73
angakok or a Siberian shaman―because we’re working with
different entities.
Some cultures still have detailed rules about what it is
appropriate to offer any specific deity or spirit in their cosmology,
not to mention how it is appropriate to show them, or how they
manifest their personalities. Many others, however, have lost this
information. Those of us with spiritually impoverished traditions
need to do what we can to recover that knowledge, as well as
making modern connections that may do just as well to fill in the
gaps.
The truth is that where the influence of the Gods does affect
our morality―and sometimes fairly drastically―is not in their
personal codes of behavior, but in their values. For us, it is not so
much that our Gods tell all their worshipers how to behave so
much as they ask us to value what they value, and act accordingly.
For example, one of the Gods that I love deeply is an agricultural
deity, and in honor of him I have become invested in eating food
that is grown in a more ecologically and spiritually correct way,
and supporting organic farming. I serve a Death Goddess, and for
her I give aid to the dying and the survivors, and I support green
burial. I honor a number of earth deities, and ecology is important
to me. I love and revere a God of the outcasts, and I speak and
write for them. Each of these values, chosen mindfully, helps to
shape my code of ethics. When we ask the Gods “What morals
should we hold?” they do not answer with “You must do this,” so
much as “This way of being is important.”
This reflects the fact that the Gods are in harmony with their
Universe. That includes the Gods who are troublemakers, whose
sacred job is pointing out flaws to battle complacency, or doing the
necessary but unpleasant deeds to move a situation out of
stagnation. Harmony does not equal stagnation, even though we
mortals who so value our convenience would like to see it that way.
In Nature, there are continual challenges―to life, to territory, to
nourishment, to general future prospects―and their purpose is to
strengthen life, not merely to unfairly harass it. A God/dess’s
concept of harmony is broad enough―and insightful enough―to
include challenges and oppositions within it. They are aware that
DEALING WITH DEITIES 83
the Web of Life (and that includes not just life in this material
Universe, but existence everywhere) depends on its own checks
and balances to continually pull toward the middle of all
oppositions, all binaries. Yet the two ends of any binary are sacred
as well, even in their extremity, just as the middle points are as
well. We are all born of parents, after all. The middle ground
could not be sacred unless its pre-existing “progenitors” were as
well, and sacred progenitors cannot do other than create a sacred
union-point.
On a practical level, this brings us back once again to the fact
that having multiple Gods can be as much of a strength as a
weakness in developing a moral code. Polytheism gives us the
chance to honor multiple sets of values―simultaneously, or in
turn, as we choose―rather than simply giving us a list of moral
actions and inactions. Ancient polytheistic pantheons usually
included a wide variety of worthy sets of overlapping but not
identical values, embodied by those Gods. In order for a sense of
sacred balance to occur, that wide variety needed to exist.
Modernly, it is expected that we will go about integrating these
various sets of values into our lives in mindful ways that guide us
in creating our own code of ethics. The whole nature of
polytheism lends itself best to mindfulness rather than blindly
following what is set in front of one to follow.
On the other hand, if this seems to leave the confused seeker
in the lurch―and “Figure it out yourself!” is not a fair or useful
answer to many people―this is where a good priest or minister or
other spiritual leader can help. I should stress that the role of
clergy in polytheistic religion is to aid someone in forming their
own code of ethics, both by example and by teaching and
discussing the various sets of values inherent in the nature of the
Gods. This puts the clergyperson or spiritual leader in a more
delicate place than a religion with a strict set of rules built into its
doctrine, and requires more thought and finesse in helping any
given seeker. Instead of simply saying, “This is what is right to do,
and you must do it or some divine consequence will befall you,”
the polytheistic clergyperson needs to find a way to discern the
interests and innate personality of the seeker and which deities
he/she is attracted to (or who is attracted to him/her); to
communicate the nature and values of the Gods of their pantheon
(or pantheons, if it is an eclectic Pagan); to be honest about what is
missing in the value set of any given deity and offer the viewpoint
of a balancing one; and to walk the seeker through the process of
creating their own ethical rules from this bouquet of divine value-
sets without simply inserting a copy of their own world-view. This
84 RAVEN KALDERA
is a much more challenging ideal than simply laying down a list of
rules which cannot be questioned if the seeker is to stay in the
faith, and it is especially challenging when one considers that both
the seeker and the priest may well both be battling baggage from a
former worldview which requires that very approach.
Indeed, this concept of non-doctrinal morality may seem very
unsatisfying to seekers who hope to be able to pick up a list of
rules and run with it. Some Neo-Pagan groups―notably
Reconstructionists or other groups who focus on one specific
ancient religion―prefer to sidestep the issue of mindfulness and
discernment by attempting to lift the values of the culture in which
their religion was originally embedded. However, as I referenced
above, the circumstances of the ancient world were different
enough from our own that even this approach has yielded no less
of a need to pick and choose, and no fewer arguments, than the
system outlined above. Indeed, it may generate more arguments,
if only because the goal of using ancient cultural values―having
an integral set of rules which one need not question too deeply,
and which fit into a specific ready-made worldview―tends
automatically toward too much rigidity to survive the necessary
discernment process without continual intra-group argument.
To be fair, it’s not as if the ancients did not do several
millennia’s worth of work on the subject of ethics, and we need
not reinvent the wheel when they made so many. If reading about
the philosophies of the ancient culture of your Gods―or any
ancient culture―inspires and influences you in creating your own
code, then give thanks to the Ancestors and take the gifts they
paid so dearly to pass down to us. If the work of picking and
choosing comes easy to you, and seems obvious, then all the Gods
bless you. The problems generally only come when people expect
to be able to live wholly as people in a different and often
conflicting era.
It’s not an easy answer, but then when it comes to the Gods
and the workings of the Universe, there is no such thing. I should
also point out that the Gods love to see us struggle in this
way―not because they are sadistic or enjoy our suffering so much,
but because they take joy in seeing us grow, and conquer difficult
obstacles, and come through it wiser people. They are also quite
willing to reach out and give us aid in this struggle, if we are ready
and open enough to accept it. Perhaps the best action that a
clergyperson can take when it comes to helping a seeker down this
path is to pray with them, often and sincerely, and ask that the
Gods lay the answer before their eyes.
DEALING WITH DEITIES 85
When it comes to sex, it’s clear that most of our Gods are
sexual. Some of them are quite literally Gods of sex. A few, such
as Hestia or Athena, are sexual renunciates, but even these are
such because there is a power in consciously rerouting any strong
energy, not because sex is wrong or even “less” in the value-scale
of activities and energies. Many polytheistic religions have sexual
metaphors for the creation of the world, or graphically sexual
creation myths. Sex, for us, is something wonderful and sacred,
like eating and nourishment, which can be chosen or rerouted
into other paths, as people wish. Sex is something that both
Nature and our Gods do, wildly and joyously and profligately, with
as many different patterns and styles as we ourselves may favor.
Our Gods have sex to create children, or create worlds, or to
express joy, or power, or divine love.
Once in a great while, in rare circumstances, the Gods may
bless their worshipers with sex. This can be as simple as blessing a
couple with particularly wonderful energy in the midst of the act,
or as complex as offering to have sexual congress of some kind
with a worshiper. The experience of this latter situation will vary
depending on the level of human-divine spiritual connection;
some worshipers have simply had vague but moving masturbatory
experiences with a strong sense of the presence of that God or
Goddess, and others have had full-sensory experiences with a
deity and their own energy body. One of the Cosmic Laws that we
are sure of, however, is that sexual congress with a deity must be
consented to. There may be, however, a good deal of grey area
when it comes to conscious and unconscious consent―it has been
documented more than once among people who compare these
experiences that some (not all) Gods will respond to one’s
repressed desire rather than one’s spoken refutation, sometimes
forcefully. This is even rarer, though, and if every part of you is
against the idea, they will not force it on you.
DEALING WITH DEITIES 109
Another Cosmic Law of which we are even more sure is that
no deity can take you in marriage unless you consent, wholly and
willingly. The phenomenon of the “god-spouse” is lightly touched
on in the Relationships chapter, but it can be seen primarily as a
full-time dedication to a specific God as part of an intensely
personal devotional path. The path of the Pagan god-spouse has
been compared to the Hindu concept of bhakti―worshiping a
deity through strong personal romantic love, of the sort that
people usually only think about in relation to other human beings.
It is vaguely like the Christian “Bride of Christ” idea, but far more
personal, and can include a very sexual and passionate way of
relating. However, others may have less committed but no less
ecstatic sexual encounters with a number of Gods over their
lifetimes.
Some Pagan traditions also practice giving sexual energy as an
offering to Gods and spirits. This can involve one or more people
raising sexual energy in themselves and releasing it to the honored
entity, either in ritual or just as an act of general goodwill. It’s not
uncommon for them to feel a sense of presence as they
accomplish the act, and on rare occasions it can lead to the deity
getting involved themselves. In addition to this, some very rare
humans are called to the job of qadishtu, which (for those who
haven’t heard of it) is essentially hands-on sex therapy in sacred
space, usually a temple, under the aegis of whichever love or sex
deity is invoked to help with the work. It is a very selfless service
job, and one which is most definitely not for everyone, as the ego
must be kept very much out of it.
No matter what the sex act, there is probably a legend
somewhere about a deity who did it, or its ancient equivalent, and
will probably approve of you doing it as well. However, as we’ve
said before, even deities are subject to the laws of consequence,
and you even more so. Some sex acts―rape, for instance―may
be mythically appropriate to certain circumstances which you are
not engaged in, and probably never will be, so in your case the act
will most certainly have a negative return for you. Sexual ethics
need to be worked out with an eye to where you are now, not the
fantasy world that you wish you were in. If you are in need of help,
asking Gods of rules and justice can help you work out what it
right. Again, that’s why we are polytheists―no one deity has all
the answers, but if you honor more than one, you get enough
perspectives to balance everything out.
110 RAVEN KALDERA
Epilogue:
Living In the World, Honoring The Worlds
But above all
Always above all else:
How does one act
If one believes what you say?
Above all: how does one act?
– Bertold Brecht, The Doubter