Changing of the Guard: Old Gods and New Facets

I don't like to think of myself as a "purist" in the literal sense. While I appreciate some form of order and historical verification to back up my claims of divine connection, UPG (unverified personal gnosis) plays heavily in almost ALL religious traditions, as the gods interact with different people in different ways.

I guess, in a way, my thumb becomes a little pricked when I'm confronted with someone who claims to "know" a certain god or goddess and this god or goddess is nothing like that deity has ever been. Granted, deities change with the times- Hermes is considered by many modern Hellenes to govern over the newer forms of written correspondence, emails, faxes, etc- but that doesn't change essentially WHO he is, and when Hermes goes from being messenger of the gods, divine trickster, bringer of messengers and protector of travellers- to say a god of "Air" (when there were already spirits for that) who bathes the children of men in the heavenly light of the eastern winds, it just seems a bit dubious to me.

I feel like one of those old women, sitting on her porch while muttering "back in my day...", but I wonder if this new press to create new faces for the old gods, if we're not just creating new gods and trying to put them on a template that seems more "legitimate."

The gods, to me, aren't "archetypes" or "symbols, but real immortal entities. Out of my perception and understanding unless they wish me to know them, they change of their own accord, not whenI want them to change. I'm only a mortal, I don't have that kind of power.

So do I think it's blasphemy? I don't know.

I do sometimes find the way the gods are approached to be somewhat disrespectful.

Is it the stigma against "new religions" that causes so many in the pagan community to clutch straws in already established pantheons and attempt to rewrite the gods in whatever image they wish?

Am I a fuddy-duddy for not agreeing with the notion that a god can be changed into what ever one wants it to be?

Where is the line drawn between UPG and plain fantasizing and misinformation?

*sigh* I don't know the answer to any of my own questions.

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Comment by Aikaterine Nekyia on November 15, 2009 at 6:55pm: I agree with you. Too many people take the deities completely out of context. Personally, I am ticked at Wiccan 101 books treating the Greek Gods with a "divine spice rack" approach. Where it says something like, "Add mint here, chant there, invoke Hermes, and stir it three times and then you have a spell for academics!"

UPG is not something I am entirely familiar with as a term. But, I agree with liquidquick. If one misconstrues deity to the point that you could practically have them audition to be Jesus in a pagent play then that is the drawing point for me.

Half of the deity is what you know from your relationship and what you can read about them historically. Granted the delicate nature of both, there is no surefire way to discern who is incorrect about their deity versus who isn't. But I do think that it is wrong to suddenly make Hermes an Air god when He never was in times past.

The gods, to me, aren't "archetypes" or "symbols", but real immortal entities. Out of my perception and understanding unless they wish me to know them, they change of their own accord, not when I want them to change.

I agree with you. And I would say that someone who changes a god because they feel like it is a heretic unless they have valid proof. Proof to me being defined as historical script. (I can already hear the Eleusinians grinding their axes >>.)

I hope I was able to help you a little bit.

BB

Aikaterine Nekyia

Comment by liquidquick on November 14, 2009 at 10:06pm: i'm okay with giving old gods new jobs, putting new masks on old faces, and even creating god from scratch. i'm less okay with retrofitting 'tradition' with new interpretation. newness isn't a dealbreaker... but newness being passed off as oldness is.

Where is the line drawn between UPG and plain fantasizing and misinformation?

the difference between upg and fantasizing is sincerity. the difference between upg and misinformation is willful ignorance.

Am I a fuddy-duddy for not agreeing with the notion that a god can be changed into what ever one wants it to be?

given a particular deity and a particular practitioner, the possibility exists that you may be mistaken. but unless you are intimately familiar with the practitioner, deity, and the relationship between the two, you would have no way of knowing one way or the other.

is that enough to make for a fuddy-duddy? perhaps if you are cavalierly dismissive about another person's vision of deity. but there's nothing wrong with critical discernment and placing value judgement.

namaste,
lq