The Personal Approach of Polytheism
Do you want to talk to a mentor or an unlimited being?
Have you had the experience of telling a monotheist that you’re Pagan, Heathen, or Wiccan [usually in relation to some holiday] and watched while they twitch and back away slowly? This can be either depressing or alarming, depending on your personality and state of mind. A blank, confused stare is the response I get most often, but I live in the Northeast where one’s religion isn’t likely to be a matter of social judgment.
When I was first explaining my religion, I eventually developed an elevator speech [a short synopsis that could be told during an elevator ride] to keep myself from rambling. Religion is complex and people are curious. [At least when they aren’t immediately plunging toward negative and incorrect ideas about what we are.]
More often than not, the curious people are secular Christians. People who were raised with Christian values, but who don’t spend much - or any - time praying or attending church. In my experience, Jews haven’t cared, and the one Muslim I met at an interfaith conference [I was representing Cherry Hill Seminary] refused to shake my hand.
Being in a minority religion is difficult:
We’re constantly having to explain ourselves
We don't have the numbers to raise money, create institutions, and get enough volunteers [burnout is a thing]
We’re more vulnerable to institutional abuses
We don’t get services that cover our spiritual needs when in crisis.
[I’ll talk about these issues in other posts.]
The big confusion - when people are open to conversation - is nearly always around how that polytheism thing works. Why would anyone do that? I don't usually try to explain that we don't convert, we just recognize what we are. That’s not meaningful to someone who hasn't experienced it.
One of the classes I took while at CHS was on interfaith. I found it frustrating. The people who were open to new experience were curious and willing to talk. The ones that weren’t, wouldn’t shake my hand. It felt like a hard line. It was the latter people who would be inclined to make Pagan/Heathen/Wiccan lives difficult from either an emotional or legal standpoint.
But you have to start somewhere. Knowing why exactly we prefer/are drawn to a non-monotheistic religious practice is a reasonable place to start.
It has long been an assumption in theological circles that religion exists as an evolution from the primitive animism of tribal living, to the civilized structure of monotheism. However, the idea that animism is less desirable than monotheism is essentially a function of a poor interpretation of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Instead, we might consider that different forms of religion and spirituality have different types of utility in the human psyche. Any such utility should not be construed as a negation of the existence of the unseen world. Our brains are built to perceive and recognize patterns. Even patterns that aren’t immediately perceivable by our five senses. The discovery of chaos theory is used in monotheistic circles as an argument for the existence of god. But there is no argument that it must be one god and one god alone. Pagans don’t tend to question the existence of deity. We know gods/ancestors/etc., are real because we experience them directly in ritual, meditation, or when they hit us with the clue-by-four. [Ouch.]
How would anyone know monotheism is what serves any given human better in that moment, without examining other ways of connecting with the still, quiet voice? Jewish religion is based on a covenant with Yahweh, in which Jews have the responsibility for behaving in a particular way. This covenant allowed a diverse group of tribal peoples to get along with each other by sharing a common value system. This specific expression of behavioral laws has been a great advantage to humanity from an evolutionary standpoint. Shared values in religion allowed our ancestors to thrive and increase their numbers. Undervaluing such an advantage would be terribly foolish.
[It’s worth considering our individual ethics and leading any interfaith conversation with that.]
In my experience as a polytheist, monotheism isn’t how I feel the world. There is both a quantitative and qualitative difference in perception between feeling the animated spirit of a stone or a tree, and feeling the presence of god in all things. Since the average person doesn’t seem to feel any of that, the scope of the problem of spiritual connection is increased. There is a meditation exercise, where one successively brings full awareness to each part of the body. Then one attempts to feel all of the body at once. This is far more difficult than it might seem.
Now imagine trying to feel the presence of the divine, not just in one tree, but in an entire forest. Then within a city or an ecosystem, then within a continent, and within the whole world. There is a reason why the Ten Commandments sets aside an entire day for the contemplation of the divine. Connecting with the unseen world takes practice and the perception of a god that is everywhere isn’t going to available to the average person.
Even though we are built for it, perceiving the divine is a muscle that has been in a state of atrophy for at least the last hundred years. We’re taught that anything we perceive that isn’t in front of our noses and can’t be measured with extant quantifiable means, is a sign of mental ill health, or childishness.
How then is someone with little experience in speaking to something greater than themselves to feel that they are heard?
However, humans already have a window into that connection. It is well-documented in the psychological literature that humans feel better, calmer, and happier when they’ve spent some time outdoors. Sitting with a tree is likely an easier path to access the divine than prayer in a church.
Such feedback isn’t trivial. Our current lack of interpersonal contact in the Western world is already a source of isolation. Loneliness kills us and distorts our perceptions. The intellectual idea that god loves us isn’t the same as feeling a connection with something wiser and stronger, even if it’s a tree. When I was raising a psychologically troubled step-daughter, I felt deeply isolated. Being able to sit by the river and hear its voice was a source of deep solace. Without that connection, I don’t believe I would have survived the experience.
Galina Krasskova recommends that new religious pagans work with an ancestor first before trying to connect with any gods. This is in alignment with Neoplatonic practice which recognizes a hierarchy of the unseen world, with ancestors only partway up the pillar. Ancestors are safer in that they care for our well-being in a personal way, and will protect us in our seeking if we ask them to.
It is counter-intuitive to believe that an omnipotent, omnipresent being would care for us on an individual level [hence, Jesus]. An ancestor or a land spirit feels more like talking to a mentor or respected friend. It is not hearing the still quiet voice of a tree, a river, or a god that is a sign of madness but shouting into the void and hearing nothing but echoes. In connecting to the unseen world, we have to start from where we are.
Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. She has direct communication with her gods and they’ve always given her answers when she asks. Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. Be warned.