“I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply.” ― Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague De Camp, Queen of the Black Coast
A distinguishing feature of Dark Paganism is that, as a part of the larger Pagan family, it’s a polytheistic philosophy. Polytheism differs from monotheism in that it views the divine in multiplicity rather than as a singularity.
Polytheism doesn’t prohibit an underlying unity to divinity. We can look to nature for guidance. A unity in nature exists in that all biological life has DNA at its core. However, there’s also a glorious diversity of lifeforms. Like nature, while the gods share a unified divinity, there is a multitude of gods with many different attributes.
At this point, Pagans, Dark and otherwise, begin to differ. Pagans are divided into three camps about the nature of the gods. These three views are Archetypal, Soft Polytheist, and Hard Polytheist.
Some Pagans see the gods as archetypes. Some archetypists view the gods as purely psychological manifestations, while others as a phenomenon arising from the collective unconscious and universal forces of nature. For some archetypists, the various gods are Currents that flow like great rivers from a unified Source.
There are Pagans who view the multitude of gods as “masks” of a Divine Masculine (God) and Divine Feminine (Goddess). Known as Soft Polytheism, gods such as Zeus, Marduk, Ra, Odin, and so forth are simply aspects of one God. The same is thought about goddesses, where Inanna, Aphrodite, Hera, and Isis are all considered to be aspects of one Goddess.
Finally, some Pagans are Hard Polytheists. In this view, the gods genuinely exist as autonomous persons. While their nature may not be exactly like ours, humans can have relationships with the gods.
While all three camps have strengths and weaknesses, I consider the Hard Polytheist view to be the most sound. I'll return to this topic in the future. So, watch this space.
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