Aidonian's blog

The theological worldview of the ancient Greeks and Romans was very, very different than from the theology that dominates the world today. Even the Ancient Greeks and Romans had different views on the divine. Different cults had different views. The Orphics had different views, than the philosophers or the Dionysians or any other cults. 

I use the term Olympic because using Hellenic polytheistic would confuse to much. Today you have Wiccans worshipping the Gods in a dualistic setting, meaning that they worship the male and female deities as pairs. Most Hellenic polytheists do not worship the Gods in this fashion. They try to emulate the worship of the ancient Greeks as much as possible. But this is always done in a modern day setting, through a modern view. A view influenced by 1600 years of monotheistic domination. 

The ancient Greeks had this view that the cosmos was created, one being came into being – no pun intended- called Khaos. Not the same definition it means now. Back than it meant; void, the void of air, space. From Khaos comes the Protogenoi, the First Born Gods which includes Gaia, Ouranos, Khronos, Thetys, Nyx, Erebos, Pontos. From these Protogenoi came the Titans, than the Olympian Gods. Each group represents a different stage in how mankind came to perceive the Gods. Better to say how the Gods presented themselves to mankind. 

No matter what theory we come up with how the Gods are like, in the end. It is how about they represent themselves to us. 

We like to come up with ways on how it all began. Because to people, everything needs to have a beginning. I think it is more psychological than religious. The Gods are never the way people imagine them to be. If we were to ever grasp what a God truly is? I think either our heads will explode or we won’t even remember that we did? I mean, the Gods are so complex beings that understanding them will make us insane. I think a example lies within the cult of Dionysos. Understanding the divine means for me walking a very fine line between sanity and insanity, between rational and irrational. I believe the Gods know this. I believe the Gods will not have go through stuff we aren’t capable of dealing with or harming us deliberately. When Hera tricked Semele, the mother of Dionysos into having Zeus revealing his true form, it killed her and almost killed the infant Dionysos, who Zeus saved. The Gods know that revealing their true self to a mortal is in almost all cases deadly for the mortal. So, They will not reveal their true selves to people fully knowing it might kill them. In a way, the ancient Greeks like any other culture on Earth was aware of this. The Gods are beings so complex, so alien to us, the only way for us to relate to them was to anthropomorphised them.  We like to think that we are superior than our ancestors, but in reality most of our ancestors were smarter than we are. They knew things we starting to only rediscover ourselves. 

Although the Gods are universal, even hyper-cosmic. Each culture on Earth had a different view on who the Gods are. One can even imagine that all animal life, past and present had a pantheon of Gods. In my opinion even those Gods are the same Gods everyone else worships, but only were viewed different by those who were contacted by the Gods.

For me, the Gods have come to me in the form of the Olympian Gods: Zeus, Poseidon, Aidoneos, Apollon, Artemis, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hermes, Athena, Aphrodite, Herakles, …

It is easy to conclude that the Titans and the Protogenoi were the cultural predecessors of the present Gods. Since most of these Gods were considered abstract deities. I chose not to dwell to much on which deity correspond with which deity. I feel it becomes more of structuring every little detail and not been able to let things open for interpretation, even later on. It seemed a bit pointless to chase my own tail on this, if I somehow in the near future change my point of view on the matter. I doubt even the philosophers gave it much thought?

If there is a hierarchy, you could say it looked somewhat like this: first come the Gods, than the intermediaries like Angeloi and Daimones, souls, mortals, etc… The Gods are the highest up in the foodchain, simply because they are Gods. Powerful, omnipotent, omniscience all-knowing. I am the first to admit my thinking is influenced by monotheism. Its pointless and futile to say otherwise. Even though we gave them domains, they themselves chose to honor those and not meddle in the domains of their fellow Gods. Their domains can overlapse, but it does not mean that they will clash over it. Their morals are different than ours. While we may argue and fight over trivial things, I somewhat doubt that they will do that as well. They are not humans and never will be. So to compare our moral compas to theirs is quit futile.

What about the Titanomachy or Gigantomachy? I think those clashes were the result of the Gods evolving, changing into something else. While they may be unaffected by something like evolution, they can not dye. They grow, evolve, but no death. While we might that fascinating and tempting, the Gods might have a different opinion on it. I am not going to pretend to even know what they are thinking.

We mortals look at death as the end of if all, but it is not. It is the beginning of something new. A life in Elysium if you are lucky enough, or unfortunate to land in Tartaros like Ixios, Sisyfos or Tantalos or the 50  daughters of Daneos. I gave a few mythical examples, because no one really knows what happens after death.  We can only speculate on it. Whenever a deity does something, we view it through the eyes of a mortal with a moral compas that changes with society. Who is to say that when a deity does something it is not to our benefit later on? The same can be said of the Judeo-Christian- Islamic deity. The main difference between them is that the Gods do not feel threatened by the worship of other Gods. Even if mankind chose to follow a false god(s), it will not matter to them. They are eternal and have the entire Universe, while we make up a very small percentage of that Universe. So even the Gods would care, they could easily abide their time for it, when the right time comes along again like in our present age. So why worship them if they do not really care about us?

Well since we like to think we are so important. Which species does not think of itself like that? I think they do care, because for them they get something out of it. They get honored, receive praise, sacrifice, libation. In return, they have the power to help us, to watch us grow and mold our potential that they can see. They do care, like a parent with a child. It is sometimes hard to let us go and do our own thing, but it needs to be done. We need to venture on our own and find out things for ourselves. So the possibility to become a deity ourselves in human form, I fear is a pointless hope. I fear we have to die to in order to become a god. Herakles had to do it. It was on a funeral that he ascended to join the Gods as one of them. That only happened because it was already there from the beginning. A ordinary mortal can achieve this too, but not on his own. He needs the help of a god to pull it off. After death, he can easily become a Daimon or even a Angelos.

Hellenic daemonology revolves around spirits, because that is the real meaning of the word: Daimone. The Hellenes thought that there were spirits everywhere. They didn’t have any household spirits like the Romans did, but still. The Hellenes believed that if you weren’t properly buried, your spirit might come back to haunt to living. Daimone means spirit, but the context where this word is found might differ from what it means. Theos and Daimone were used interchangeably to address minor Gods. Even Homeros uses the term Daimon, but the context is different from what is actually means. Daimon is used to define spirits (good and evil, nature spirits like Satyrs, Nymphs), but it is also used to define minor Gods but also the physical appearances of a deity like that one of Athena in the Odyssey might be one. This means that minor Gods are Daimones, but that the Gods who show up on Earth might be daimones as well as in their physical appearances. Daimones are also considered to be guardian spirits, kind of like the Genii and the Juno in the Religio Romana. They were attached to a person from the moment this person was born and may guide them as well to the Underworld when they die. It was Plato who said that some Daimones where guardians. He also addressed the fact that there were good demons (Agathos Daimones) and bad demons (Caco- Daimones) who were avoided at all times, or were tried to avoid them.

Many of the Daimones who are on Earth where once humans. The use of the coinage in funerals come into Hellenic religion around 5th century B.C., but it said that if you didn’t have a coin under your tongue when you came before Kharon, he wouldn’t let you cross over the river Styx using his boat. It is said that that spirit had to wait about 100 years or so when Kharon was ready to let him enter his boat. So this person who didn’t pay had to wait 100 years or so, but until than he had to live on Earth, to haunt the living. There were many encounters between the living and the dead. In the Illiad as in the Odyssey there is mentioned of the practice of necromancy. It was forbidding to practice this magical arts, because it was believed that this would disturb the spirits of the dead. Here Odysseus calls upon a spirit of the Underworld by sacrificing an animal. The view of the afterlife and the Underworld changes from town to town, city to city and family to family. The Hellenes knew their Gods were dualistic, as did most cultures, as so were the daimones. The Caco- Daimon or Dysdaimon was avoided like the Gods Haides and Thanatos. This attitude is somewhat hypocritical to me. If you honor one side and avoid the other, this will anger the other side. The saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” is applicable here. Most daimons were put into groups and to my knowledge there aren’t that many Agathos- Daimones or Eudaimones, but there were allot of groups made of Caco- daimones like the Lamiae, etc…

You had the Erinyes, the Alastores. The Erinyes are the embodiment curses, but the Alastores were the embodiment forces of vengeance for bloodshed.

Plato also said that every person who dies for his country is a daimon and should be honored accordingly. In the work of Aeschylos called the Persians we see how the magus (referring tot he priests of the Persian religion) summons the dead king Darius as a daimon. In this context we are to look at the original meaning of the word daimon as in spirit of the dead. It is said that Daimones have the power to see the future and because of it, it is presumed that the Oracles of Delphi and other Oracles contained a Oracle Daimon. During the Theban Cycle, some of the warriors became Oracle daimones like Trophonios. According to Burkert in his book Greek Religion, the belief in daimones is older than any belief in Gods. The belief in demons probably originated in Mesopotamia (George Luck: Arcana Mundi). It is obvious that in there were beings of a higher level and a lower level. Another theology developed by Plato and Xenokrates who were the founders of the current meaning of the word demon. Before they thought that daimones were part of nature.

It was believed that when somebody got ill, they were under attack by a Kako- daimon, but this is however open for interpretation. In the 5th century doctors told people that they sometimes imagined that they were under attack by daimones, while they were just sick. Not all cases of demonic activities can be described to daimones, but to diseases as well. This is also true for the demonic activity during the dark ages. It is believed that a daimon could never posses a human being, but that a deity can only do this. daimones, were considered divine, they were not however Gods. Upon summoning they tend to fool the magician by letting them think they were a God. Only a Theurgist could tell the difference between a spirit and a God. Daimones can assume a corporeal form as a non-corporeal form. Legends tell of this that daimones can have a physical form as well. Kharon could be one example of a daimone who could do this. He was depicted as a grumpy old man who charges money to cross people of the river Styx. He could have done this while he was alive. On the other hand, he is a proof that few mythological figures can survive Christianity and rise in status, because for most farmers he became the God of Death. He became Thanatos.

The term Angelos is like Daimon a confusing one. It means messenger, but can apply to a seperate group of entities and even Gods like Hermes or Hekate or Iris. These messengers are intermediaries who can cross the distance between Olympos and Earth, carry our prayers to the Gods and their answers back to us.

I did not go into detail on the individual Gods, because than it takes to long and I’m planning on covering this anyway later. So for now I want to leave it with this.