Adam’s Peace

Jeff Lilly has asked a question that can not be answered objectively.

Oh, I do so enjoy the questions that I can answer both objectively and subjectively.

Yet, there doesn’t seem to be much market in objective questions right now. I suppose that I can just pretend that someone asks why the grass is green so that I can demonstrate that there is a lot of subjectivity in such an objective answer… Maybe later, though.

Jeff’s question is deceptively simple… yet it delves into the inner recesses of the human psyche and the nature of the departmentalization of conscious thought.

Jeff asks,

You know how people say things like “Diana is an aspect of the Goddess”, or “the God appeared in his Trickster aspect“, and so forth? Well, what does that really mean?

Are the “lower” deities like costumes that are worn by the “higher” deities? Or is it more like the slightly different personalities we have at work vs. at home? Or is each “aspect” more like a lens through which we view the higher deity?

And since I’ve got you on the line, let me ask an even deeper question: why do the higher deities even have aspects?

Since I like answering questions out of order, I’ll address the last question first. From what I understand of popular pagan culture, where the most interchangeable aspects of divinity are found, the most obvious answer as to why deities have different aspects is so that the original deities from which modern paganism is based can be seamlessly integrated into a duo-theistic religion.

Most of these assigned aspects come from the vast de-centralization of Wicca, and from tying all of the different traditions together into one cohesive model. More conservative traditions, such as the Alexandrian and Gardnerian traditions, don’t have this separation of aspects, simply because these conservative traditions are what the newer traditions draw their deity base from. The separation didn’t really come until some of the Dianic traditions emphasized a singular Goddess, from which the eclectic traditions inferred a singular God, making Eclectic Wicca a duo-theistic religion.

To confuse matters even more, the vast majority of people who turned to Wicca later in life came from a firm monotheistic background, specifically Christianity. (Some would argue that Christianity is tri-theistic or duo-theistic, with one extremely large and powerful sect being very polytheistic, with the deities they worship directly being duo-theistic, including a Goddess, accepting that everybody has the potential to become deities in their own right.) Perhaps the idea of deities being able to have separate aspects, yet still remain one deity sprang from a common Christian view of the Trinity.

That’s about as much history as I’m going to give, though. Even though the idea of separate aspects of the same deities sprang from relatively mundane roots, these aspects do have a very real spiritual meaning.

Religion is, generally speaking, mankind’s attempt to explain the unknowable. The reason why it is unknowable is because each person views spiritual matters differently… People’s differences in experiences simply do not allow everyone to view even the mundane world the same, much less the highly subjective spiritual world. I have done an experiment in the past where I created a pantheon of gods, and these gods actually started acting in my life… This is an experience which few people share, so naturally the set of symbols that I have in my mind regarding this experience would be difficult to communicate.

This makes religion the language of spirituality. People in the same religion share a common language that is different from other religions, and would be analogous to different dialects when comparing different sects/traditions/denominations. To a pagan who has studied the European pantheons, Diana brings up a whole different set of mental imagery and concepts than it brings up in Eastern or Arabic religions. On the other hand, being immersed in water has a completely different set of symbols associated with it in Arabic religions than it does in European or Asian religions, because of the importance of water in the middle east. In fact, baptism in Arabic religions is roughly analogous to uniting an athame and a chalice in European religions, although I do enjoy the explicitness of Asians, using an actual sex organ such as a flower, or just doing the act outright in Tantric rituals.

People who have studied sympathetic magic(k) know the value of mental symbols. Religion, being a language of spirituality, makes it easy to convey the mental symbols quickly between those who share their religion. Magic(k), at its heart, can be summed up as a slightly different take on the Law of Attraction (LoA). The LoA says that the thoughts that you hold create reality. I would argue that these thoughts need some sort of power behind them in order to manifest, which is most easily generated by getting up and doing what you want done. Clear mental symbols help to add power to your thoughts, which is where sympathetic magic gets its power.

This is where our multiple personality deities come back to the picture. Each deity exists to explain a complex set of human conditions and personalities, encapsulating these complex symbols into an easy to speak package. Rather than telling a story of a god who enjoys playing tricks on everybody and everything, no matter how malicious those tricks become, I could just say the name Loki and those familiar with Norse mythology instantly recall the important personality traits and activities.

What sets Eclectic Wicca apart from religions that share many different and distinctly separate deities is that Eclectic Wicca’s organization is very specific in terms of the purpose of its gods. That purpose is to educate us mortals so that we may one day become deities as well. The different aspects of the God and Goddess in Wicca exist to teach us different lessons. This clear in the typical view of the triple Goddess, Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Maiden teaches us about beauty while the Mother teaches us about compassion and the Crone teaches us how to deal with suffering. They have the same purpose, as do all Goddess aspects, but the lessons are taught in different ways. The God is the same way, with the Oak and Holly King teaching us about bounty and want, and the different life cycles of God as seen through the Wheel of the Year teaches us specific lessons as well.

Is this grouping of divinity into aspects of the same being right or wrong? Well, that only depends on your own point of view and what you want from religion. Is there an all-encompassing purpose to life which a unified divinity can supply, or are there different purposes which are best represented by distinctly separate gods and goddesses? I can’t answer this, only you can.

Here’s a quick list of the abstract archetypes that I promised in the comments section of Abstracts. Feel free to add your own in the comments section, and I’ll be adding a few to this list as time goes on.

This list is intended to be used in exercises to build your own pantheon of abstract personifications, such as was done in the Money Makeover tag that Slade started. The idea is that there are abstract concepts throughout our society, and most other societies, that can be difficult to master. When a person hears the word money, what they most often visualize is the currency of their culture, and not the act of trading. While money makes use of currency to a vast degree, currency is not money, only a physical symbol of value; the act of trading is using money, whether currency is used or not.

If you were given a creative writing assignment to talk with Money as though it were a person, what qualities would it have? What would Money say to you? If, instead of using the version of Money that you had become familiar with, you used a version of Money who you could really get along with, how would that change the conversation? Would you be able to use such a writing assignment to get some of your anxiety about money into the open, and help to understand why money behaves the way that it does?

Most importantly, if you can get positive results from personifying money, then what else could you personify?

That’s what this list is for. It is to ‘hire’ a cast of characters for you to use in understanding the abstract concepts that we’re all presented with daily. If you don’t understand war, then create a character and ask him/her yourself. If your relationship feels like it is crumbling around you, ask the personification of Love what you can do to help things improve again.

The exercise is simple, but it will also be time-consuming. Go through the list and identify abstract areas of your life that you would like to understand better, then personify them. If you find that you can’t tolerate a certain character, then dump him/her and create a new character.

Jeff, Slade, and myself are working on this exercise behind the scenes, and I plan on posting my own fleshed out pantheon when I’m done. I also intend to pry Jeff and Slade’s pantheons out of their heads and share them here or on their own blogs so that everyone can see the differences in our approaches. This isn’t a task in copying each other’s work, it is here to understand what goes on inside of your own head, so seeing how vastly different each person’s pantheon can be is important.

1. Work
2. Money
3. Relationship
4. Home
5. Family
6. Fitness
7. Intelligence
8. Society
9. Emotion
10. Spirituality
11. Character
12. Fun and Adventure
13. War
14. Liberty
15. Mystery

As I said, feel free to suggest additions. I’ll be editing this list as more ideas are available.

Edit: By the way, for those of you reading the feeds only, there’s more information in the comments.

The Tag

Slade has tasked me, as well as several other people, to respond to a tag that he has created.

The tag is designed to get his readers to stop and think about their relationship with money, and to install a healthy relationship.

This is a very object-oriented exercise, but as most people out there don’t program computers, I’ll leave the technical jargon out of it.

The task at hand is to personify your concept of Money, and identify its human qualities, then to create a new concept of money that you can have a healthy relationship with.

Old Money

Several people have already taken part in this tag, and have described their old money as the filthy rich, who care nothing about individuals, only about its own appearances. I can certainly see that as a good description of money, as far as most of society sees it. I tried to visualize Money in an Armani suit, teasing me with the promise of riches if I could just feed his ego, yet never quit delivering.

It didn’t work. That wasn’t my relationship with Money at all. It was close, but not close enough.

Instead of an Armani suit, he wore torn, old rags. Instead of feeding his ego, I had to feed his addiction. Old Money, to me, is a drug addict, and I got as much out of him as anyone can expect to get from a drug addict. He talked cool and made promises, but all too often, I saw him slumped in a corner with a blank stare on his face, with all of his dreams torn and shattered, in peices on the floor around them, as he had to scavenge them to get just one more fix and fight one more craving. He wasn’t even happy to be high anymore, he was just deathly afraid of the withdrawal, and his few lucid moments were spent gathering the resources he needed just to fight off another craving. His addiction was becoming more and more expensive, and he couldn’t function normally any more… I was there to enable him to keep up his addiction, and he loved me for it, but he couldn’t repay me in any way, not even emotionally any more.

New Money

Slade’s experiment really opened my eyes… Who ever thought of personifying an abstract concept like money? After identifying what I saw money as, I began to work on finding a new Money who I could have a relationship with. I don’t care about the gender, or their appearance… What I’m looking for in the personification of money is a person who doesn’t need me, but enjoys my company. I want someone who can teach me, but isn’t too proud to listen to my arguments either. I want someone who can take a joke, but who can also realize the seriousness of any situation. Most of all, I need Money to be responsible, patient, and responsive. I’m tired of the blank stares for extended periods of time, punctuated by panic and chaos… I need someone vibrant and alive, without being excessive.

I found a martial arts teacher. Jujitsu, to be precise.

His Lessons

His first lesson to me was to see money as more than just an abstract concept, which flows through some abstract economy… See it as a force, which I can direct. It flows through me, and it flows through everything around me. I can be stubborn about how it flows, disrupting its currents, and slowing it down, or I can relax, be responsive, and speed up its progress. He told me that money, like water, is stagnant and diseased when it is still, but vibrant and alive when it flows. Hoarding money causes it to go stagnant, but if you let all of it go, then when the lean times come, I won’t have anything to support myself… Keeping it in motion without letting it slip away is a great balancing act, but if we understand how to keep it flowing while in our hands, then it is nearly effortless.

He also used an analogy of opening a door with two knobs. If I pulled on the knob closest to the hinges, then I’m wasting energy just to get the door in motion. If I pull on the knob furthest from the hinge, then I may have to pull further, but the door will be much easier to open. If I seek money closest to the storehouse of money, i.e., the corporations, then I will have a very hard time getting that door open, but if I go away from that storehouse, and find my own unique handle, then the door opens much more easily.

He also told me to program, since that is my strength… but don’t force the programming, let it come. Simply keep myself in the right position, ready to act, comfortable, and when a problem presents itself, sidestep it and push it where it needs to go from behind. If the problem attacks me, move its force, so that it stops being a problem.

It is all a lot to think about, and I have many lessons to learn, but this new Money has promised to give me lessons that are only barely out of my reach, and as I master them, I will have the ability to apply them more thoroughly than I thought possible before.

Physically, New Money is a white male, skinny and toned. He appears to be in his mid-thirties, with smile lines accenting his eyes. He has an air of confidence that comes from within, rather than with what he gains from outside of himself. He never acts out of desperation or fear, but he is always calm, happy, and at peace, even when he is gathering energy and showing off his lightning fast moves and feats of skill.

Other Abstracts

This exercise has prompted me to examine many of the other abstract concepts in my life in greater detail. Reading the comments on Slade’s blog about other people’s experiences in this area has also led to greater thinking, and I’m at the cusp of a decision.

Many years ago, I performed an experiment where I created a pantheon of gods, based partly on my limited understanding of the Greek and Roman systems, with a heavy polarity between good and evil as a throwback from my then-recent experiences with Christianity. The gods began acting on their own accord, after I had named each of them, which leads me to a concept of “Willful Invention.” Many people recognize this as the Law of Attraction, as Intention Manifestation, or as Magick… What if we aren’t limited to influencing things on the physical and spiritual planes, but that we can also create real deities?

My Path

Now, I don’t want to start a new religion… That isn’t my purpose. I could, however, provide a framework for others to work out their own personal pantheons of the abstract entities working within their own lives. Just as with this experiment with Money, we could change our relationships with these abstracts, and even change their basic qualities.

Jung has identified several abstract concepts that are easily personified, in the form of the Anima/Animus, as well as the Shadow. It may not be wise to change the behavior of these integral parts of our own psyche, but we can change our relationships with them, understand them, and learn from them. There are plenty of external abstract entities out there as well, such as corporations and institutions who we can personify so that we can talk with them directly and understand them… Maybe a corporation really isn’t soulless… Its soul simply isn’t listened to.

I’ll continue this experiment in the comments section… Please, join in, because, as Money has told me, a weight carried by many is easier to handle than the same weight carried by only one.