(The original version of this article was published 5/7/2012 on the Practical-Magick Tumblr and can be seen here.)
Something that really bothers me is when newer pagans and wiccans are told that they “have to” choose a singular pantheon to work with. Honestly, I don’t think someone should choose a pantheon. The pantheon should choose them. And when it does, you’ll know. Trust me. And if just one chooses you, Fantastic! But there’s a huge chance that you’ll never be claimed by a whole pantheon. Even if most of the Greek gods are like “Hey, you’re cool. WE want you to work with us”, Dionysus (just for example) may never give a rat’s ass about you. Further more you may decide that you can’t stand an individual deity. Artemis and I do not get along. She likes me just fine, I think she can be a bitch and I don’t work with her for such reasons. It has to be a pretty big emergency for me to call on her. While it’s rare, it’s happened. But that’s just my personal relationship with her. Even more common is that you’ll also be called by members of OTHER pantheons. While I work primarily with the Greek pantheon (and I mean more than just the Olympians because I tend to work with Titans more than Olympians), I’ve also been called by Sekhmet, Bastet and Ma’at from the Egyptian Pantheon. I have a love-hate relationship with Set for some reason. I’d love to work with Anubis but he’s yet to call me to his service. And while he hasn’t called me to his service, Sekhmet’s son Nefertum has made it very clear that he’s more than happy to reassure me and that he has my back (I was having a personal crisis and started seeing the blue lotus everywhere). I’ve also been called by Irish deities including The Morrighan, Brighid, and Scathach. Even more confusing is that I’ve been called into the service of the Virgin Mary and Saint Mary Magdalene and my “ancestors” (I use the older meaning of the word which is along the lines of someone who’s died before you that had an impact on who you’ve become and also anyone related to you) that have actively giving me guidance range from Cleopatra to Anne Boleyn to Elizabeth Howe to Marie Antoinette to Anastasia Romanov.
To tell a person that THEY should choose a pantheon to work with is completely arrogant. To me that’s like telling a god “hey, I’m going to worship you and you get no say whatsoever in this”. And yes, some people do this and it works fantastically in the end and they develop an incredible relationship with their deity. And for those that see all deities being part of the lord and lady/spirit, it’s weird to me that you should think you have to choose one face of the Goddess over another anyway.
My point is that by making people who are just starting out on this path think that they “have to” choose a pantheon causes many of them to try to force a relationship with some deities, and ignore others because they aren’t part of their chosen pantheon. I honestly think the attitude we should be “teaching” is that they should be open to deity in all it’s forms. If a whole pantheon calls you, cool beans. If Aphrodite, Kali, Aset, and Krishna all call you, that’s pretty awesome too. I think this should especially be expressed to people seeking to follow reconstructionist paths because I’ve known many who choose their pantheon, decide the best way to worship them is in their historically accurate form, and then try to force a relationship with a deity who they have a terrible connection with just because “historically” they would have been a main deity and honored every this day or that. Many of us came to Paganism because we were tired of mainstream religions telling us who, how, when, and where to worship. While the “you have to pick a pantheon” attitude isn’t quite the same thing, it’s not to far off to me.
While I received mostly positive reactions to the original post, I also received the following constructive criticism which I appreciate even more seven years later. I will likely rewrite the article with this in mind, and with changes in my thoughts towards the subject in the coming months.
Several points that should be made from traditionalist/reconstructionist perspective:
-
Choosing a pantheon to follow, which is essentially deciding to commit yourself to a specific/religion is not arrogance.
-
Waiting to the Gods themselves, the shapers of the Universe, to personally come to you ask you to honor them, on the other hand, is.
-
Honoring a deity is not a matter of personal connection. It is a matter of recognising their importance in the overall order of things, and giving them proper honor. That doesn’t mean that you have to like their personality, but even the myths tell us, that refusing to pay proper respect to deity is a very unwise choice.
-
Overall, the idea of picking only the bits from a worldview system (i.e. a pantheon) that you like, without even an effort to consider and understand the rest of it prevents from seeing the whole picture. If you want to “tweak” any system, you should better understand first, how it functions.
I responded with:
I realize that my meaning may be misunderstood by some. Essentially what I meant is that if you work with a single pantheon and it works for you, that’s amazing. But for people starting out on either a Wiccan or non specific Pagan (i.e. nothing decided yet), they shouldn’t feel that they “have to” choose a pantheon, especially right off the bat. They should be allowed to explore for the rest of their life should they need to. And if they are able to work with a single pantheon, then they should choose one. But they should have to feel that they should need to ignore deities from other pantheons who are calling them to their service just because they’ve already picked a pantheon. If they want to refuse that deity’s service, that’s fine, but if they think they “have to” then that’s not right and I know many people who have been told such things. Even within reconstructionism, if you have an experience with a deity where it becomes obvious that they do not want your worship, but they are considered a major part of the religion, they shouldn’t have to think they need to continue worshiping them. I have had deities make such things very clear to me. I don’t think the will of the gods should be ignored. Nor should we as humans presume to know what is right for them or what they necessarily want. I’m also not saying that one should completely ignore a whole religion and just pick a pantheon, though in non-reconstructionism (wicca especially), this is generally what people do. I used to be a Irish-Celtic reconstructionist, then a Hellenic. I was actually being called by deities from both, and to me it was like try to choose between sides of a family. It was even more difficult when Sekhmet and the Virgin Mary called me. I now practice a form of Graeco-Kemetism on a daily basis, and honor the Celts on their specific holidays. I’ve studied all three cultures and religions on a spiritual and historical level. The same for Marian devotion, which has been much harder for me to include in my path at all. I think people that are able to work with only one pantheon and haven’t had the gods either call them nor reject them are very very lucky. But such isn’t the case for everyone.