Aidonian's blog

One of the issues of reviving polytheistic religions from ancient cultures is that there is no handtbook on how to do it. At some point, there were people who laid the foundation, had to figure it for themselves on how to do it.

Surprisingly, a lot of hard work goes into being a polytheist. I’m not kidding. For a polytheist who worships the Hellenic Gods, its become somewhat easier the last 20 years or so. With the creation of Hellenion, a religions organisation it has become somewhat easier. Still, a polytheist still has to do research. A polytheists still has to found out how the Gods were worshipped bak then and how it can be done now. A polytheists still needs to read a lot of books on the subject to learn more about it. Like I said, there is no handbook, no sacred text.

Over the course of the last 20 years I read countless books on the subject, both Hellenic and Roman books. Why? Because for me, the Roman Gods are aspects of the Hellenic Gods. At the height of the Roman Empire this was thought to be so. While 500 years earlier, this wasn’t so. Even so, there would have been still people who thought that the Roman Gods are different from the Hellenic Gods. At some point, the Roman Gods had no anthropomorphic forms. This came later, after they met Hellenics from the Hellenic colonies in southern Italy. I’m not saying that all polytheists who worship the Hellenic Gods have a similar view. There are those who do, but most don’t. Most polytheists who worship the Roman Gods will not have this view or some of them might be. Polytheists are free to explore their own path and spirituality.

For polytheists who are worshipping the Gods for more than 20 years and had to do a lot of research, find out books on the subject, all before the rise of the internet. Kudos. I can imagine how hard it could be.

All the books I read on the subject, were in English. Why? Because Dutch versions of specialised books were very rare. I was lucky to find Dutch versions of Carl Kerenyi’s “Heroes of the Greeks” or  “Gods of the Greeks”. There are now good introductory books on Hellenic polytheism out there, written by polytheists themselves: “Old Stones, New Temples”, “Household worship”, “Hellenismos” to name a few.

Why the name of this blogpost. Well, in the beginning, when I first converted to polytheism. I worshipped the Hellenic Gods in the Christian way. Why? Because that’s all what I knew on how to pray. Now, I know better. But more than 20 years ago, I thought that praying to the Gods was how Christians did it. Now I know it was mostly done standing upright, with arms raised and open palms aimed towards the sky if for Olympian Gods and palms faced to the ground when for Chthonic Gods.

Are the Gods humans? 

Polytheisms encourages people to think about the divine and challenges established views. At some point philosophers argued against the use of anthropomorphic view incorporated in worship. They weren’t monotheists or atheists. They still believed in the Gods, but not the established and accepted view that the Gods looked and acted like humans.

This is till true today. Its a question one has to ask themselves? Are the Gods anthropomorphic or not? If you say no, than how do the Gods look like? I think the answer lies in between the two. That is what  like so much about polytheism. Its complex and rich. Its not easy or black and white. For me, the answer is like that the Gods chose to appear to us as humans, but aren’t humans at all. They are Gods, not humans. They chose to manifest themselves as humans to us, to make the interaction easier for humans. Like the myth Semele shows us, viewing the true nature of a God is deadly. We use human structures in our interaction with the Gods, because it helps us, humans to interact with them. The stories told about them are not like the bible. We have to acknowledge the fact that these stories were written between 2000 & 3000 years ago in a patriarchal society, very much different than our modern one Ancient Greece and Rome were patriarchal societies where women had very little to say. There were exceptions but not many. While in some instances, they could divorce, they still had very little to say in who they were going to marry. You see that in mythology as well where women were kidnapped and assaulted.

Is that wrong? Of course so. No question about it. Like I said earlier. These stories were written in a different time period and in a different culture. When viewing these stories in our contemporary eyes, they come off as wrong and they are. But we have to place it in the right context to be able to move forward, because these stories are part of the religion. We have to make the right analysis about these stories. Is it easy? No, it isn’t. It can be hard. Because people will have problems with these stories about women being abducted and raped. Rightfully so. Its hard to defend that. The only defence I can think of is that when its done by Gods, its because Gods aren’t humans and are therefor not subjected to human laws or morality.

I know that monotheists will certainly bring this up. Which is ironic because their God has the same problem. The difference is that most polytheists will not try to convert others. Polytheism is tolerant towards other religions, but that tolerance has a limit. If you attack us, our religion, we will fight back. Polytheism has existed for thousands of years in one form or another. Monotheism in its current form is only 2000-3000 years old: Judaism is. But Christianity is about 2000 years old and Islam around 1300 years old. While polytheism has no problem excepting other Gods from other pantheons, monotheism can not do that. This creates a possibility of conflict between groups of people. As history has shown us, it has done just that. The transition of polytheistic to a monotheistic society was not peaceful but aggressive and violent. Does that mean that monotheists and polytheists can not peacefully coexist today? Of course not. There will always be zealots who try to rile up the masses, but polytheists and monotheists can co-exist so lang as they respect eachothers beliefs.

what about sacrifices?

A good question. I think 9 out of 10 polytheists will say that they don’t approve of killing animals for sacrificial purposes. In the old days, animals were slaughtered during festivals to appease the Gods and most of the meat was distributed among the people. The rest was offered up the Gods. I would suggest reading the myth of how the Titan Prometheus tricked Zeus into the allotted shares.

Today, I think they will go the supermarket, buy their meat, ritually cleanse it and than offer it up to the Gods. Its perfectly fine. It doesn’t matter what kind of meat or how it was offered, so long as it is the intention to honour Them, it will be ok. While the ritual is important, the intention is equally important.

So yeah, I have come a far way from more than 20 years ago and this is true, I think for all polytheists out there who aren’t born into the religion. Most will have to do their own research and be alone in their search except for online support of course. The internet has made it easier to connect with polytheists worldwide who worship the same Gods as you do.