Agnostic Polytheism and the nature of the gods

As of late I have been giving some thought to the split of contemporary paganism into so-called hard and soft polytheists, i.e. such pagans who understand their gods as personal distinct entities with separate personalities (hard polytheism) and those who regard their deities as transpersonal forms of energy, archetypes or aspects of a higher supreme deity (soft polytheism). The fronts of either party have been stagnating for many years now with the hard polies predominantly coming from the reconstructionist camp and accusing their counterparts of „historical distortion“ as well as of „new age esotericism“, whereas the soft polies tend to wholesale dismiss their theological antagonists as literalists and theologically illiterate dogmatists with an inferior understanding of esoteric symbolism.

As a pagan adherent to a primarily monistic world view who does not necessarily regard the aforementioned positions as entirely incompatible I would like to take a rather neutral stance on the topic, hoping to be able to offer a dialectic perspective on this inner-pagan conflict.

Since most pre-christian polytheistic religions where lacking an all-comprising dogmatically stipulated theological framework which could give us some general insights into the way historical pagans viewed divinity and reality I found it quite reasonable to first take a look at the traditional creation myths in order to gain some understanding of how our ancestors thought of the beginning of the world, the most supreme principle of being, the very ground of all existence. For only one who has a thorough understanding of how the concept of ultimate reality was perceived in the ancient world can also reliably comment on how a particular religious culture related to the nature of the gods and personality in general.

And as I started to reflect upon those myths and legends which were used by the pagan world to symbolically transmit their understanding of the creation of universe to future generations my attention was drawn to a central motife which appears to be almost omni-present among the ancient polytheisms:

Practically all pagan creation myths start off with a concept of primordial unity, an all-encompassing undivided cosmic whole from which the totality of all things worldly and individual arise but which in itself transcends individuality and distinction by far. Basically, there is NO SINGLE polytheistic mythology of my knowledge which would describe and acknowledge a pantheon of gods as its highest spiritual principle. There is NO SINGLE creation myth which opens with „in the beginning there were the gods and the gods created the universe“.

In Germanic mythology everything starts with Ginnungagap, the great gap, the primordial void which contains the whole potentiality of being within itself. For the ancient Greeks all things evolve from an original chaos while the Egyptians had a concept of creation out the all-encompassing primordial waters. As we can see the idea of a transpersonal and all-comprising unity as origin of the world is a very common theme, almost omni-present, in pagan creation myths.

Then, in a second emanationary step, duality is introduced: Muspelheim the realm of fire and Niflheim the realm of ice, both constituting the „shores“ of Ginnungagap, Uranos and Gaia, representing heaven and earth, evolving out the primordial chaos, and so on. Now, following the manifestation of polarity, the two poles of duality start to interact with each other: the fires of Muspelheim melt the ice of Niflheim, Uranos impregnates Gaia etc. thus paving the ground for the manifestation of further individual phenomena, the further evolution from one into many.

This process of manifestation, out of the primordial void and into plurality, is highly characteristic among all cultures commonly named „pagan“ nowadays and even more, it is one of the main differences between paganism and those streams of monotheistic religion which hold a separate personal and distinct creator god to be the origin of all things. Anyone possessing even a tiny glimpse of knowledge in the field religious symbolism should be able to trace and identify this golden thread of an emanationary process within an impressive number of polytheistic religions.

However, a lot more interesting and relevant to the topic of this essay are the consequences for the pagan concept of deity inevitably occurring from this view of creation: the gods are never regarded as the highest principle of existence (the alpha et omega of ecclesial and popular monotheism). Always and without exception the gods are something which appears on the stage relatively late in the process of emanation and just as all other things and individual phenomena also the gods are embedded within the greater context of the all-encompassing one, i.e. within a framework which is bigger than the gods themselves and which easily relavates all individuality and distinct personality they might possess.

Germanic mythology, for instance, explicitly describes the gods as mortal and even subject to the process of aging and also among the Celts and ancient Egyptians deities could be slain and vanish despite all their otherworldly power. I can hardly imagine a more vivid and unmistakable way of expressing that cosmic law is something profoundly transpersonal to which ultimately even the gods are subjected. No matter what the gods are or what their true nature is at the end of the day there is always something higher than the gods themselves, there are always laws and principles which exceed even the most exalted of pagan deities, consequently casting a light of relativity on the whole way personality was viewed within pagan culture.

Does it truly make any sense within such a cosmological framework to indulge in silly quarrels about the personality or non-personality of divine beings? Does the contemporary distinction between hard and soft polytheism truly have any realistic connection to those religious ideas which were actually circulating in the ancient pagan world? Or is it much rather an expression of immature separationist games, accounting more for the inflated egos of some postmodern philosopher-wannabes than resembling any historical view of deity and reality among actual pagan cultures?

I shall certainly not go so far as to claim that the average Teutonic farmer used to be some sort of mystical monist or that everyday spirituality among the Celts was characterized by meditative practice with the aim of ego transcendence. The traditional myths and archeological findings from the pre-christian era certainly suggest that the devotional worship of personal deities in combination with folkloristic healing practices and fertility magic did indeed play a central part among the pagan population of ancient Europe.

However, what I do say is that someone who regards such „hard-polytheistic“ believes and practices as incompatible with an ultimately monistic and transpersonal view of reality is certainly not even close to understanding the complex world view of our ancestors. The contemporary quarrels between hard and soft polies reflect back on a lot of things, e.g. hostility and separationism within modern neo-paganism, a preference of psychological identity games over authentic spirituality etc. Sometimes it might even reveal a shocking lack of understanding of essential cosmological and theological concepts. A connection to the actual world view of our ancestors, however, does not seem to exist here.

In an understanding of reality which assumes the creation of the world out of the undifferentiated primordial void there is no place for such an egocentric dualism. Within in world view which does not acknowledge a personal creator god as origin of the world but much rather regards the transpersonal principle of unity as ground of all being the line between personality and non-personality will inevitably and necessarily become blurred at the end of the day.

So, what conclusion do I draw from this?

Well, first of all, that the popular division into hard and soft polytheism which is so common nowadays does certainly not do any justice to the sheer complexity of ancient pagan thought. In fact, it what it does is taking a dynamic cosmology in which individuality and the transpersonal are both equally accounted for and reducing it to a playground where simple-minded theological illiterates can give in to their idiotic identity quarrels.

Secondly, it makes me wonder whether the honest acknowledgement of our profound incapacity to truly comprehend the paradox nature of divinity would not be a much better starting point for an authentic pagan spirituality. Who gives a bloody damn about whether the gods are personal and strictly distinct entities, transpersonal forms of energy or cultural archetypes when they could easily be all of this at the same time? How could we possibly pay them greater reverence but in a way of approaching the mystery of their true nature with an attitude of humble agnosticism?

Personally, I think a good example of how this respectful form of „not-knowing“ may be cultived is given by the practice of shamanism (traditional as well as neo-shamanism) where contact and interaction with the spirit world is sought after without granting philosophical interpretations as to the true nature of those worlds all-too-much room within the overall practice. For the modern shamanic practitioner as well as for the indigenous shaman only results are relevant. The relationship with the spirits, actual healing success, learning processes...all this is essential to the neo-shamanic practitioner and likewise plays the dominant part within traditional shamanic cultures. Pseudo-theological debates, philosophical interpretations of the shaman´s experiences and similar forms of intellectual masturbation can be saved for a lazy sunday afternoon.

I made a decision to call this approach „Agnostic Polytheism“ and whatever names and labels you may find suitable:

Please do not allow childish separationist maneouvering to further alienate the neo-pagan movement and, in doing so, impede the authentic rebirth of pagan spirituality in the modern world!

The gods will be grateful.