I touched an elephant once (a real one) and it slammed me with the side of its head. Quite a painful experience, but it taught me that some elephants don't like to be tickled behind their ears. And the Mysteries can be like that, too. 😉
"Multiple views can be held at the same time." THANK YOU! The single hardest aspect of the Mysteries to get across to people has to be the fact that it is possible to experience contradictory expressions of them that are both true.
"fuck you cough I'm gunna make this video" LOL I so relate, I teach and have allergies half the dang year and lecturing while coughing SUCKS! Love your videos BTW, please keep making them
You still did manage to make a nice video! Hope you feel better soon. Marty is a cool cat. I found myself nodding and smiling through most of this, and yes, mixing pantheons isn’t like crossing the beams in Ghostbusters! LOL
Great discussion and lots of the same questions I have asked myself at various times in my life. I think to a large extent (and you touched on this as "teenage Thorn") this is a constantly evolving thought, as she age, and our experiences continually shape and reshape us.
Yes yes yes! I have felt myself to be lacking for not be able to label myself to this level and you sum up so well how I feel, thank you! Equinoctial Blessings and I hope you feel better x
I never knew about "hard" polytheism and "soft" polytheism. Really interesting you brought it up! For a while I pretty much saw the gods as "one" (depending on what they represented), but after reading more about the gods individually from their different traditions, I have also realized that they are not all the same. Since the cultures they originally came from are different, you would expect a degree of difference between them. And true, you do feel yourself more drawn towards certain gods than others. I remember when I first got into witchcraft every source I read would almost always talk about the Celtic and Norse deities, so I felt that the main gods one would work with were the Celtic and Norse ones. The more I read into depth about the gods of other pagan traditions, I felt myself more drawn to the Hellenic ones. At the end of the day, you do you!
Based on what you’ve said about the topic before, I understand "hard polytheism" to be the idea that there are many gods and that they exist independently of what people think about them. “Soft polytheism” is the opposite and so would typically be the idea that all goddesses, for example, are facets of (i.e. different ways of thinking about or perceiving) the one goddess or that the goddesses are archetypes within the minds of human beings. Although you are presenting the idea that Norse Odin is different than American Odin as an extreme form of hard polytheism, it seems to me to be very much within soft polytheism. It implies that there is no real Odin out there; there’s a just what people think about Odin.
Wicca is definitely more soft polytheism. I am not wiccan, but I totally cannot buy this lol. I am a witch and I dont like to worship a female or male energy (the god and goddess), thay makes no sense to me. I believe there is a god and thats all, whether it is a woman or a man, a duck, a cat, idk and we will never know tbh.
Also, hot tea with a bit of lemon and honey should help with the cough. The warmth from the tea will open up your lungs and make breathing easier, while the honey soothes your throat and lemon helps boost your immune system.
Ah, your scholarly perspective always makes me happy - and so do your (at times vicious) jokes! :D Thanks for putting this out there. And yeah, fear-based arguments about right and wrong on an "objective" level annoy the hell out of me, so thanks for mentioning that as well.
I agree with much of what you said, and yet I find myself being a hard Polytheist, because I feel there is a thin line of respect and appropriations. And perhaps that does not matter as mych with European based Gods, but for all others, it seems we would do well to listen to the people where those Gods were created or the story's surrounding them were created. Also I was in a circle where folks just willy nilly called in different gods and let me just say the energies where brutal, one God would be called and it would be bright sunny wonderful someone else would call another and it would just be high stress and feeling of needing to move fast and forward. and then someone called Pele. Now I am not Hawaiian but I am from there and She is not a Goddess you call away from her land and work, she is fiery and tempermental and both wants and deserves respect, and She gets that on the Islands. I pretty much apoligized to her and stepped out of circle, whatever was going to happen in that cirlce at that point could happen without me. It was my first reaffirmation that mixing certain Gods is dangerous, and certain Gods and Goddess are very much of a place.
I started out as a soft polytheist then become more of a hard polytheist after researching and learning more about other religions. Eventually, I became annoyed with the cultural appropriation. One ritual I read invoked Kali in a Wiccan circle. I sat there thinking, Kali already has certain practices and rituals around her in Hinduism. Why not practice Hinduism then? I can understand why you left the circle when Pele was invoked. I'm no longer a practicing pagan and lean more Buddhist, but I still like to see what's going on in the community.
I personally feel you shouldn't attempt to invoke a spirit of a currently living tradition into a practice unrelated to it's home ritual. For example attempting to work with a Lwa into a Wiccan circle.
Interesting! I'm so used to this last decade of "I'm going full hog, hard polytheism ONLY" from the pagan world that I'm surprised to hear someone rethink/reprocess the notion.
Very interesting info. I’ve always avoided working with deities because I don’t know what I believe. I just started working with Hecate because she wouldn’t stop calling to me. I’ll roll with it and see how it goes. Random side note: your facial expressions remind me of Cher Horowitz many times throughout this video.
i think most of us have accepted a long time ago that we will be sitting through grain web cam videos in order to hear what you have to say. personally, i am not mad about it😂😂 hope you feel better soon
In my opinion, our view of Deity has changed as our societal and individual needs have changed over time. The conception of Deity to Assyrians and Babylonians appears quite different from our more modern anthropomorphic view of Deity. So on an intellectual level, why shouldn't my interactions and experience with Deity be unique to my experience? Perhaps this is projection on our part, but it could also be how Deity chooses to present themselves to us. It's probably wise to keep an open mind on this. Just something to chew on...
The same thing happened in Greece with Zues. As the society changed, his image changed. From a more youthful man in his prime that slept with tons of women. To a older wiser figure.
I hope your cough is gone by now but if not a chopped onion mixed with a few tablespoons of honey can help. You just need to let it sit in a closed jar in the fridge for half a day or so and it will create a liquid which you can then swallow a spoon full of a few times a day. It sounds gross but it actually tastes like sweet onion sauce haha. That's what my mom made for me when I was a child. Also ginger helps a lot
You should name the new cat Loki :-) In American Gods the deities exist due to humans worshipping them and fade away when they go out of favour. I think "hard" is more the idea that all deities are seperate entities. I prefere the "all one" idea but seperation is useful to learn the many different aspects of source. Devine truth is beyond human understanding so whatever we believe its going to be good enough for now. (untill we have 7 dimensional thoughts and can see the diamond in all its glory) (I prefere Gaiman's book "the ocean at the end of the lane".) We can't easilly join our being with another because we exits below the level of comprehension of our true nature. Such a binding with another would multiply our awareness, interlect and gifts. We would become instantly enlightened and miss out on any further wisdom gained from pain, struggle and practice. I find the mixing of deities issue amusing. People love to be harbingers of doom, just think about the lake of everlasting fire ! I'm loving your intelligence. Love Deeper.
I find more soft polytheists here in Britian but maybe that's the Catholic Influences or just the people ive talked to. (Probably the later tbh) But i do love this discussion. I do think that many forget the whole all gods are one all goddesses are one was really pushed by Dion Fortune. But also seems pretty Greco-roman/Egyptian with how epiphets combine and change cross culturally.
Initiation changes all conversations whether it is comfortable or not. This is all situational. The diamond philosophy comes from neoplatonism not something new yet very Craft.
I've only heard this from one person Laurie Cabot that says the gods and goddesses are our ancestors.....and they were real humans. she's the only one I hear says this. I wonder?
This was so interesting to me. I'd not come across hard/soft polytheism but I love that you then spoke about mixing them and individual experience. Also "I brushed my hair but then I wrangled a cat" is so relatable! Lol
"That's what the Mysteries are like, touching an elephant" - Thorn Mooney. Words of wisdom to live by. haha!
I touched an elephant once (a real one) and it slammed me with the side of its head. Quite a painful experience, but it taught me that some elephants don't like to be tickled behind their ears. And the Mysteries can be like that, too. 😉
"Multiple views can be held at the same time."
THANK YOU!
The single hardest aspect of the Mysteries to get across to people has to be the fact that it is possible to experience contradictory expressions of them that are both true.
Thanks Thorn, you always bring clarity to muddy water. This was a good one :) Feel better soon.
"fuck you cough I'm gunna make this video" LOL I so relate, I teach and have allergies half the dang year and lecturing while coughing SUCKS! Love your videos BTW, please keep making them
You still did manage to make a nice video! Hope you feel better soon. Marty is a cool cat. I found myself nodding and smiling through most of this, and yes, mixing pantheons isn’t like crossing the beams in Ghostbusters! LOL
Watching a new video of yours is always the highlight of my day.
I love these informative videos so much
Great discussion and lots of the same questions I have asked myself at various times in my life. I think to a large extent (and you touched on this as "teenage Thorn") this is a constantly evolving thought, as she age, and our experiences continually shape and reshape us.
Yes yes yes! I have felt myself to be lacking for not be able to label myself to this level and you sum up so well how I feel, thank you! Equinoctial Blessings and I hope you feel better x
I never knew about "hard" polytheism and "soft" polytheism. Really interesting you brought it up!
For a while I pretty much saw the gods as "one" (depending on what they represented), but after reading more about the gods individually from their different traditions, I have also realized that they are not all the same. Since the cultures they originally came from are different, you would expect a degree of difference between them.
And true, you do feel yourself more drawn towards certain gods than others. I remember when I first got into witchcraft every source I read would almost always talk about the Celtic and Norse deities, so I felt that the main gods one would work with were the Celtic and Norse ones. The more I read into depth about the gods of other pagan traditions, I felt myself more drawn to the Hellenic ones.
At the end of the day, you do you!
Based on what you’ve said about the topic before, I understand "hard polytheism" to be the idea that there are many gods and that they exist independently of what people think about them. “Soft polytheism” is the opposite and so would typically be the idea that all goddesses, for example, are facets of (i.e. different ways of thinking about or perceiving) the one goddess or that the goddesses are archetypes within the minds of human beings. Although you are presenting the idea that Norse Odin is different than American Odin as an extreme form of hard polytheism, it seems to me to be very much within soft polytheism. It implies that there is no real Odin out there; there’s a just what people think about Odin.
Wicca is definitely more soft polytheism. I am not wiccan, but I totally cannot buy this lol. I am a witch and I dont like to worship a female or male energy (the god and goddess), thay makes no sense to me. I believe there is a god and thats all, whether it is a woman or a man, a duck, a cat, idk and we will never know tbh.
Also, hot tea with a bit of lemon and honey should help with the cough. The warmth from the tea will open up your lungs and make breathing easier, while the honey soothes your throat and lemon helps boost your immune system.
Marty is adorable as heck, hooked tail and all.
I'm sorry you're still not well, but thank you for putting in this effort to talk to the internet.💜
Ah, your scholarly perspective always makes me happy - and so do your (at times vicious) jokes! :D Thanks for putting this out there. And yeah, fear-based arguments about right and wrong on an "objective" level annoy the hell out of me, so thanks for mentioning that as well.
I agree with much of what you said, and yet I find myself being a hard Polytheist, because I feel there is a thin line of respect and appropriations. And perhaps that does not matter as mych with European based Gods, but for all others, it seems we would do well to listen to the people where those Gods were created or the story's surrounding them were created. Also I was in a circle where folks just willy nilly called in different gods and let me just say the energies where brutal, one God would be called and it would be bright sunny wonderful someone else would call another and it would just be high stress and feeling of needing to move fast and forward. and then someone called Pele. Now I am not Hawaiian but I am from there and She is not a Goddess you call away from her land and work, she is fiery and tempermental and both wants and deserves respect, and She gets that on the Islands. I pretty much apoligized to her and stepped out of circle, whatever was going to happen in that cirlce at that point could happen without me. It was my first reaffirmation that mixing certain Gods is dangerous, and certain Gods and Goddess are very much of a place.
I started out as a soft polytheist then become more of a hard polytheist after researching and learning more about other religions. Eventually, I became annoyed with the cultural appropriation. One ritual I read invoked Kali in a Wiccan circle. I sat there thinking, Kali already has certain practices and rituals around her in Hinduism. Why not practice Hinduism then?
I can understand why you left the circle when Pele was invoked.
I'm no longer a practicing pagan and lean more Buddhist, but I still like to see what's going on in the community.
I personally feel you shouldn't attempt to invoke a spirit of a currently living tradition into a practice unrelated to it's home ritual. For example attempting to work with a Lwa into a Wiccan circle.
Invoking Bast and Freya to the circle, awww damn it's gonna be a rumble!! Haha Great topic, glad you're on the mend.
Interesting! I'm so used to this last decade of "I'm going full hog, hard polytheism ONLY" from the pagan world that I'm surprised to hear someone rethink/reprocess the notion.
Your video & thought involved here are amazing. Thank you
Awesome and welcomed perspective. Thank you :)
Very interesting info. I’ve always avoided working with deities because I don’t know what I believe. I just started working with Hecate because she wouldn’t stop calling to me. I’ll roll with it and see how it goes. Random side note: your facial expressions remind me of Cher Horowitz many times throughout this video.
Yeah, remembering that personal gnosis is personal is handy 👌🏻 Great vid, thank you!
At 8:52 I was less interested in your finally reaching the point as I was in when you were going to stop coughing lol.
At 20:55--It never did :)
i think most of us have accepted a long time ago that we will be sitting through grain web cam videos in order to hear what you have to say. personally, i am not mad about it😂😂 hope you feel better soon
I am slowly learning about Goddess Diana. But it takes time to do these things.
Bronchitis is the fucking worst. That damn cough lasts what seems like forever. This was great... now go getcha some whiskey and honey.
In my opinion, our view of Deity has changed as our societal and individual needs have changed over time. The conception of Deity to Assyrians and Babylonians appears quite different from our more modern anthropomorphic view of Deity. So on an intellectual level, why shouldn't my interactions and experience with Deity be unique to my experience? Perhaps this is projection on our part, but it could also be how Deity chooses to present themselves to us. It's probably wise to keep an open mind on this.
Just something to chew on...
The same thing happened in Greece with Zues. As the society changed, his image changed. From a more youthful man in his prime that slept with tons of women. To a older wiser figure.
I hope your cough is gone by now but if not a chopped onion mixed with a few tablespoons of honey can help. You just need to let it sit in a closed jar in the fridge for half a day or so and it will create a liquid which you can then swallow a spoon full of a few times a day. It sounds gross but it actually tastes like sweet onion sauce haha. That's what my mom made for me when I was a child. Also ginger helps a lot
Ugh. My Grandmother used to make the onion syrup for me 😅
You should name the new cat Loki :-)
In American Gods the deities exist due to humans worshipping them and fade away when they go out of favour. I think "hard" is more the idea that all deities are seperate entities. I prefere the "all one" idea but seperation is useful to learn the many different aspects of source. Devine truth is beyond human understanding so whatever we believe its going to be good enough for now. (untill we have 7 dimensional thoughts and can see the diamond in all its glory)
(I prefere Gaiman's book "the ocean at the end of the lane".)
We can't easilly join our being with another because we exits below the level of comprehension of our true nature. Such a binding with another would multiply our awareness, interlect and gifts. We would become instantly enlightened and miss out on any further wisdom gained from pain, struggle and practice.
I find the mixing of deities issue amusing. People love to be harbingers of doom, just think about the lake of everlasting fire !
I'm loving your intelligence. Love Deeper.
YAH LOOK AT THE KITTY!! ...oh sory what were you saying? ( I'm kidding of course. I love your videos 👍)
Accurate
Why are the ones that have been so badly treaded the sweetest little people?? xxx
I find more soft polytheists here in Britian but maybe that's the Catholic Influences or just the people ive talked to. (Probably the later tbh)
But i do love this discussion. I do think that many forget the whole all gods are one all goddesses are one was really pushed by Dion Fortune. But also seems pretty Greco-roman/Egyptian with how epiphets combine and change cross culturally.
Great video - interesting topic.
Initiation changes all conversations whether it is comfortable or not. This is all situational. The diamond philosophy comes from neoplatonism not something new yet very Craft.
Brian Cain Also that!
Darling! Elderberry Syrup!!!
Crystalotus *cooough*
Great video
I have the first Temple book on kindle, is this the kind of series that is better as a hard copy?
I've only heard this from one person Laurie Cabot that says the gods and goddesses are our ancestors.....and they were real humans. she's the only one I hear says this. I wonder?
This was so interesting to me. I'd not come across hard/soft polytheism but I love that you then spoke about mixing them and individual experience.
Also "I brushed my hair but then I wrangled a cat" is so relatable! Lol
#teamoliver lol 😂😂🧡🧡🧡
oh my goodness someone get this poor woman a cough drop
Huh
🛋💎🛋
You're a mystic, aren't you? That's so hard to communicate.
Anything that's not monotheistic and is polytheistic is by definition paganism. Feelings don't matter. Lol. Just the facts ma'am. 😁