Nietzsche says somewhere that one of the cultural benefits of polytheism is that it allows for the development of individuality. Every monotheism tends to post a single human type as universal. Worship of many gods is our first movement toward allowing the proliferation of many *kinds* of people, ideals.
One aspect of Godhood that I, especially, have always been fascinated by is its tendency to devour: the mingled horror and ecstatic joy of sacrifice, of *being* sacrificed. In this, I see a unity between Greek tragedy and the Passion of Christ.
Have you ever read Klages? Your description, or Campagna‘s, of the Technic reminds me of his *Geist*. He, too, conceives it as an invading power, though his picture encompasses both the Technic itself and the philosophical / rational turn that engendered it. And of course he hates *Geist* with a passion.
Well, "Rule Of Law" is such an entity. But then it hurts when some people aren't bound by it. So it's probably not healthy to get attached to it...but how else.
Love this. As a devout atheist, I used to think all religion was dumb. Recently I’ve been discovering how powerful divinity is. The frame of turning towards a specific divinity to shift your state of consciousness really resonates. Much to discover!
I've been thinking in some similar directions too. Well, my investigation started with a question "Why exactly do I, as an atheist recovering addict, need steps 2 and 3 of AA, which are explicitly about god?" Of course, when I was in the middle of it, I just did them as instructed, too urgent to run any deep analysis, but my overall opinion now after seeing how those influenced my life is that using the built-in theory of mind as a way to emotionally relate to the world and make decisions covers most of it.
Interesting post! I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between Buddhism and Christianity, and I think your post provides useful insights. If you posit either that there's only one God or that there are many gods but none of them are really worth your time, you arrive at basically the same place from a functional perspective: don't pay attention to any of the individual forces, but instead look towards the thing that subsumes them all. By turning towards God, you place less value in trying to work with the forces of wealth, nature, etc., and you see these as all impermanent and worthless in comparison to God, and you do the same by simply deciding to turn away from all these forces entirely. Zeus, Isis, Athena, Hayagriva, etc., are all describable and have features that you can focus on, whereas the God of classical theism has no distinct features and neither does Nibbana. The latter both incline towards signless or emptiness meditation, even if they use different words. In some ways, it seems like the Abrahamic religions almost function as tantric versions of Buddhism when approached from this framework (and tantric Buddhism does have Samantabhadra, who comes pretty close to the classical theistic God).
I love how this reframes pagan cultures, from being superstitious and naive, to having a technology for comprehending and potentially steering the collective consciousness.
The anthropomorphisation seems important. The forces/gods are complex and fallible, they can also change and learn.
On our planet, at the moment, we have a lot of new cultural forces/gods due to the relatively recent invention of computers and the internet. “Social media is bad” is one dimensional, instead seeing it as a god that is throwing its weight around carelessly because they are young and overly zealous opens up the potential for working with this god to improve the experience for everyone.
you're cooking lately--what came up for me is gods as "essences", but where most essences are singular, gods allow a certain kind of multivariate essentialism. When doing deity worship in some strains of hinduism & tantric buddhism the aim is to abide in the single-pointed essence of the deity, but the essence itself remains complex. Less like the chime of a single bell and more like a puzzle piece with jagged edges. Much complexity, but still one piece.
Or at least, it *appears* complex to the ego structure after bubbling up through the layers of form. But then we translate it into language we can parse in our human bodyminds--form, iconography, lore. But in actuality gods don't *really* have lore, image, iconography.
Honestly I think it goes deeper than even "cognitive" strategy, even though that's a helpful framing for people to understand. Accessing these forces imprints not simply on the mind but on the subtle structure of the body & the way of being, and one's "energy/vibe/aura".
The gods have a very real "something" that has allowed them to persist for eons. That "something" is in a sense much larger and vaster than you or I as individual human identities. It's only natural that tapping our old man piss streams of being into that raging river offers the promise of reaching a further destination. Excited for the rest of the series!
oo can I quote this in the series? Especially this bit:
Honestly I think it goes deeper than even "cognitive" strategy, even though that's a helpful framing for people to understand. Accessing these forces imprints not simply on the mind but on the subtle structure of the body & the way of being, and one's "energy/vibe/aura".
I strongly resonate with the idea of titan tech consuming sacred architectural forms. It feels as if we’ve engineered minor deities of infrastructure. Even something as banal as hostile fencing becomes almost mythic in its ugliness, like a “fence demon” blocking organic pathways. Similar to how plants manipulate their environment - so do the dead matter of ugly metal security fences - they spread by manipulating humans to place them as form of fake security.
Mega cities sometimes feel governed by emergent trickster energies, not literally supernatural, but systemic forces that extract and hollow the spiritual body the longer one runs inside their Kubrick-like grids. The possession is metaphorical: platform logic and tech concentration shaping psyche.
I also appreciate how Theosophy attempted to weave Christian gnostic thought with Buddhism and Indian mythologies. That comparative richness feels useful when trying to narrate modern systems that operate like gods but lack transcendence.
You may be already familiar that James Hillman emphasized an almost identical position (see, for example, his essay Psychology: Monotheistic or Polytheistic?).
Yet Hillman's most relevant works are somewhat convoluted and academic by today's standards. While his work remains a valuable resource in this domain of consideration, this moment could use a straightforward pragmatic approach stripped of ornateness.
I look forward to your work here in making the powers of the polytheistic pantheon accessible to everyone.
His writing has two very separate tenors, populist books and academic books. Spoken, he is much more straightforward. This may be a relevant talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blF0NdSm1lQ
Rob Burbea’s selection of Hillman books may of interest:
I have rips of my old cassette tapes from the 90’s with James Hillman, Michael Meade and Robert Bly on Initiation and Masculinity which I can send on request.
Nietzsche says somewhere that one of the cultural benefits of polytheism is that it allows for the development of individuality. Every monotheism tends to post a single human type as universal. Worship of many gods is our first movement toward allowing the proliferation of many *kinds* of people, ideals.
One aspect of Godhood that I, especially, have always been fascinated by is its tendency to devour: the mingled horror and ecstatic joy of sacrifice, of *being* sacrificed. In this, I see a unity between Greek tragedy and the Passion of Christ.
Have you ever read Klages? Your description, or Campagna‘s, of the Technic reminds me of his *Geist*. He, too, conceives it as an invading power, though his picture encompasses both the Technic itself and the philosophical / rational turn that engendered it. And of course he hates *Geist* with a passion.
Not yet! I’ll have to check it out. I’m curious how his description differs.
Well, "Rule Of Law" is such an entity. But then it hurts when some people aren't bound by it. So it's probably not healthy to get attached to it...but how else.
Love this. As a devout atheist, I used to think all religion was dumb. Recently I’ve been discovering how powerful divinity is. The frame of turning towards a specific divinity to shift your state of consciousness really resonates. Much to discover!
I've been thinking in some similar directions too. Well, my investigation started with a question "Why exactly do I, as an atheist recovering addict, need steps 2 and 3 of AA, which are explicitly about god?" Of course, when I was in the middle of it, I just did them as instructed, too urgent to run any deep analysis, but my overall opinion now after seeing how those influenced my life is that using the built-in theory of mind as a way to emotionally relate to the world and make decisions covers most of it.
Interesting post! I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between Buddhism and Christianity, and I think your post provides useful insights. If you posit either that there's only one God or that there are many gods but none of them are really worth your time, you arrive at basically the same place from a functional perspective: don't pay attention to any of the individual forces, but instead look towards the thing that subsumes them all. By turning towards God, you place less value in trying to work with the forces of wealth, nature, etc., and you see these as all impermanent and worthless in comparison to God, and you do the same by simply deciding to turn away from all these forces entirely. Zeus, Isis, Athena, Hayagriva, etc., are all describable and have features that you can focus on, whereas the God of classical theism has no distinct features and neither does Nibbana. The latter both incline towards signless or emptiness meditation, even if they use different words. In some ways, it seems like the Abrahamic religions almost function as tantric versions of Buddhism when approached from this framework (and tantric Buddhism does have Samantabhadra, who comes pretty close to the classical theistic God).
inject this into my veins
ok will do
y e s
y e s
Wow, this is brilliant!
I love how this reframes pagan cultures, from being superstitious and naive, to having a technology for comprehending and potentially steering the collective consciousness.
The anthropomorphisation seems important. The forces/gods are complex and fallible, they can also change and learn.
On our planet, at the moment, we have a lot of new cultural forces/gods due to the relatively recent invention of computers and the internet. “Social media is bad” is one dimensional, instead seeing it as a god that is throwing its weight around carelessly because they are young and overly zealous opens up the potential for working with this god to improve the experience for everyone.
“a technology for comprehending and potentially steering the collective consciousness.”
I really like this phrasing!
you're cooking lately--what came up for me is gods as "essences", but where most essences are singular, gods allow a certain kind of multivariate essentialism. When doing deity worship in some strains of hinduism & tantric buddhism the aim is to abide in the single-pointed essence of the deity, but the essence itself remains complex. Less like the chime of a single bell and more like a puzzle piece with jagged edges. Much complexity, but still one piece.
Or at least, it *appears* complex to the ego structure after bubbling up through the layers of form. But then we translate it into language we can parse in our human bodyminds--form, iconography, lore. But in actuality gods don't *really* have lore, image, iconography.
Honestly I think it goes deeper than even "cognitive" strategy, even though that's a helpful framing for people to understand. Accessing these forces imprints not simply on the mind but on the subtle structure of the body & the way of being, and one's "energy/vibe/aura".
The gods have a very real "something" that has allowed them to persist for eons. That "something" is in a sense much larger and vaster than you or I as individual human identities. It's only natural that tapping our old man piss streams of being into that raging river offers the promise of reaching a further destination. Excited for the rest of the series!
oo can I quote this in the series? Especially this bit:
Honestly I think it goes deeper than even "cognitive" strategy, even though that's a helpful framing for people to understand. Accessing these forces imprints not simply on the mind but on the subtle structure of the body & the way of being, and one's "energy/vibe/aura".
quote away brother!
I strongly resonate with the idea of titan tech consuming sacred architectural forms. It feels as if we’ve engineered minor deities of infrastructure. Even something as banal as hostile fencing becomes almost mythic in its ugliness, like a “fence demon” blocking organic pathways. Similar to how plants manipulate their environment - so do the dead matter of ugly metal security fences - they spread by manipulating humans to place them as form of fake security.
Mega cities sometimes feel governed by emergent trickster energies, not literally supernatural, but systemic forces that extract and hollow the spiritual body the longer one runs inside their Kubrick-like grids. The possession is metaphorical: platform logic and tech concentration shaping psyche.
I also appreciate how Theosophy attempted to weave Christian gnostic thought with Buddhism and Indian mythologies. That comparative richness feels useful when trying to narrate modern systems that operate like gods but lack transcendence.
You may be already familiar that James Hillman emphasized an almost identical position (see, for example, his essay Psychology: Monotheistic or Polytheistic?).
Yet Hillman's most relevant works are somewhat convoluted and academic by today's standards. While his work remains a valuable resource in this domain of consideration, this moment could use a straightforward pragmatic approach stripped of ornateness.
I look forward to your work here in making the powers of the polytheistic pantheon accessible to everyone.
Any works in particular of his you recommend?
Start with checking out this Wikipedia entry, feeling into how you are in resonance or not with what is said here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytheistic_myth_as_psychology?utm_source=chatgpt.com
His writing has two very separate tenors, populist books and academic books. Spoken, he is much more straightforward. This may be a relevant talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blF0NdSm1lQ
Rob Burbea’s selection of Hillman books may of interest:
https://www.librarything.com/catalog/HermesAmaraArchive?&deepsearch=hillman
I have rips of my old cassette tapes from the 90’s with James Hillman, Michael Meade and Robert Bly on Initiation and Masculinity which I can send on request.
Thanks! I'll check out these articles first =)