[Main Blog Post] [Book] Thoughts on Devotional Polytheism

[jprussell]

This week, a fairly quick rundown of my thoughts on Devotional Polytheism by Galina Krasskova.

As always, let me know what you think!

Comments

[sdi]

I'm always very surprised when people say things like "you can always do better" as if it's an encouragement. Isn't it the same as saying "you're never good enough?" How depressing, to always be a failure by definition, whether one tries one's best or not! If that's the case, why try at all?

Today's MM capsule review is fitting, since I also get the same feeling from Greer's Shoggoth Concerto, Nyogotha Variations, and Hall of Homeless Gods, when he says things like "the universe doesn't have eyes." Greer seems to find encouragement in it, though it reads like an inducement to suicide to me: if nobody cares then nothing matters, and if nothing matters, why try?

Maybe that's why I find the Mysteries compelling: every soul is unique and so needs a unique teaching.

[jprussell]

Well, I certainly agree that "be better!" can be taken that way, which is why sometimes it's not helpful at all. On the other hand, the negative way to look at "you're good how you are" is "you'll never be better." I think this is likely one of those paradoxes that we have to wrestle with, and the answer changes with the situation and as we change.

I also struggle a bit with JMG's indifferentism and how to square it with some of the other spiritual inspiration I've taken from him (or whether to reject it entirely). It seems a bit like getting back to materialistic nihilism with more steps. The only answers that come to mind are the typical existentialist ones, the unsatisfyingness of which was part of what led me to a spiritual path. All of which is to say, I also don't have a good answer here.

This last point, though, I agree with you, and in other places in JMG's writings, he seems to get at something like this - the uniqueness and freedom of each of our souls is the point of the whole complicated mess of incarnate being, with all of its variety and painful lessons and what not, at least from where each of us stand. That appeals to my own overcharged sense of individualism, so I also find it comforting/compelling.

Cheers,
Jeff

[sdi]

Re: JMG's indifferentism, it seems the Pythagoreans would agree with your assessment of "materialistic nihilism," since I ran across this in the Sentences of Sextus (a list of Pythagorean aphorisms): "He who thinks that there is a God, and that nothing is taken care of by him, differs in no respect from him who does not believe that there is a God."

[causticus]

I also am not much of a fan of JMG's (seemingly?) nihilistic metaphysical views. I think at least part of it is motivated by the sort of knee-jerk anti-Christian reaction mentality this is quite commonplace throughout modern paganism. On the other hand, he might just be really cagey about his actual beliefs, as he's stated many times that he doesn't like making absolutist metaphysical statements, out of fear of his readers turning his ideas into dogmas. The fact that he favors The Cosmic Doctrine as his go-to cosmology tells me that he isn't in fact a believer in a nihilistic cosmos, as that doctrine is Monistic to the core and strongly resonates with Platonic/Pythagorean tradition.

[sdi]

Yeah, it would make sense as a reaction to very-entitled people. If that's the case, though, I would have assumed he'd realize its past its pull-by date: younger people seem to me to be more likely emotionally crushed rather than emotionally extravagant.

(That is, if a horse is over-enthusiastic, it makes sense to "rein it in;" but if a horse is under-enthusiastic, it makes sense to "spur it on.")

[jprussell]

Replying here to the overall thread, so I'll tag you causticus, in case it doesn't notify you about replies to replies.

I agree that The Cosmic Doctrine as his go-to metaphysical text doesn't exactly square with "the universe doesn't care about you." I also suspect that his "Weird of Hali" novels might have more to say on how he tries to square cosmic indifferentism with more individual and intermediate meaning than some of his explicitly "spiritual" statements/writings. A tentative thought I've had is that he sees "the whole cosmos" as not caring much about what matters to any one social primate, but in between our admittedly small point of view, and the biggest of big pictures, there's a lot of room for Gods, angels, and so forth, who might partake a bit of both the small and big pictures, and maybe reconcile the seeming contradictions. Or perhaps he's just inconsistent! We humans do tend to do that.

As I said above, I haven't given all of this the thought and meditation it deserves, so I don't have much of an answer yet.

Cheers,
Jeff

[causticus]

Jeff, I think it's mostly inconsistency. One thing he does a lot (that I struggle with greatly) is totally compartmentalizing each of the different systems of teaching he works with. On the contrary, I'm always inclined to try and synthesize every teaching of seeming worth that I come across in my mental travels.

[sdi]

I actually think compartmentalization is good practice.

There's a famous saying in statistics, "all models are wrong, but some models are useful." JMG is swift to point out (following Kant) that models are all we have access to, and Plotinus would say Objective Truth only exists at the level of the Intellect (which we're two hops away from)! Here in the material world, we're merely the blind men and the elephant: any teaching we have access to can only encapsulate one small nugget of Truth, and it isn't possible even in theory to reconcile them all.

It is good to learn to use a tool when it's appropriate, but it must also be kept in mind that no tool can be universal!

[jprussell]

Yeah, I think epistemic/intellectual humility of this sort is useful - maybe a helpful meta-lesson from JMG, even if we might disagree with some of the specific applications. It's a lesson I find especially hard to swallow, since I tend to want to synthesize everything into an intellectually satisfying, comprehensible framework, like causticus mentions - which likely means that learning to get comfortable with such ambiguity is exactly what I need.

[causticus]

SDI, that sounds about right.

I think ideas like cosmic indifferentism, moral relativism, and hard polytheism were/are very appealing to the boomers who delved into alternative spirituality. But it seems like the younger generations are looking for meaning and purpose, not more of the aforementioned. So yeah, giddyup!

[jprussell]

That's another challenge in all of this spirituality stuff - the push-pull between "what is true" and "what is useful." As I mentioned to sdi above, that's further complicated by "what I like" and "what I need."

Whoever said spirituality would be so much work? :)

[(Anonymous)]

I appreciate your view on this book, Jeff. Because I started out Gaelic Polytheist instead of Heathen I did sometimes wonder "well, how do *I* do this?" while reading it. But I think there's an answer to your critique that Galina doesn't give definite instructions--she seems to continually get massive amounts of flak from the Heathen sphere: "Meanie gatekeeper, how dare you make us feel judged, what about Sally No-Hands who can't make offerings because she has no hands but you're obviously saying she can't be a real polytheist and who elected you Asapope, REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" So I presume she was being circumspect and trying to just get the idea of devotion out there, with hopes that readers would be inspired to search out information on How. My best guess, anyway.

--Sister Crow

[jprussell]

Huh, an interesting thought that hadn't occurred to me, so thanks very much for sharing. I guess since I've mostly just caught echoes of this sort of thing in hanging around her blog, rather than seeing it in full force.

It seems somewhat ridiculous to me to even suggest this, but perhaps we need some kind of framework for very clearly articulating something like "here is a right way to do things, which may even be the right way to do things for certain people in certain contexts (like members of a group with its own practices), but that by no means makes it the only right way for all folks." I have an inkling that a useful way of organizing for Heathens would be borrowing the "Haliggild" concept from the Theodish, where groups that want to practice together form "Holy Guilds" with their own bylaws, practices, rules for who can and can't be members, and so forth, allowing lots of local specificity, but then those guilds can band together in larger affiliative groups (or not!) to get more flexibility at higher levels and avoid things like overly strong dogmatism and ultraorthodoxy. I'm not really in a place to take it much beyond an inkling just yet, though, so it doubtless has all kinds of flaws I haven't considered.

Cheers,
Jeff

[thinking_turtle]

Thanks for your new blog! According to "the ancient city" by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges for Romans the state was a religion. Their heaviest punishment was interdiction from fire and water. That is the religious fire that is burning in every Roman house, and the holy water they during for rites.

A commercial transaction was a religious ritual, for example Mancipatio: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancipatio. It was only later that Roman law changed from divine law to human (pretorian) law.

The book is fascinating reading.

[jprussell]

I agree :) But yes, that's an excellent point that further emphasizes that the Romans took religion plenty seriously for most of their history. Jaan Puhvel's Comparative Mythology also points out that Roman religious ritual was extremely conservative, to the point of keeping doing rituals long after any associated myth was forgotten, which also supports the idea that they took religious practice, which you might call "devotion" very seriously.

Thanks for the kind words!
Jeff