Finding your God/Goddess?

[pragon]

I've been searching for meaning, and answers for a long time now. My beliefs always seem to be changing. It's becoming quite the drag, and I was wondering how people stay with one faith/religion. There are times where I want to give up. I thought of becoming an atheist for a short time, but always seem to want to follow something. I guess that makes me an Agnostic. The fact is that I don't understand how some people are so strong, and determined in their faith. Do your Gods/Goddesses, or God/Goddess choose you?

I once heard someone say that you shouldn't necessarily seek the divine. They say to let it come to you. How can you do this? I find countless videos of people saying that their Gods/Goddesses came to them in a dream. Some people say you are born into the religion. Stay with your ancestors religion. I don't get it. Why are there so many different choices? What's up with this confusion?

[Eleanor]

I used to be just as confused as you. And the stories of people about how a God or Goddess came to them in a vision made me frustrated, because I didn't feel that connection and I wanted to feel something. I decided to become an atheist and followed a left hand path for a while, which felt good at the time. Eventually I decided that being a pagan witch was the path for me. It felt most true to myself. I'm still an atheist in a way that I don't believe that Gods and Goddesses are actual living beings. But I do work with them, because I see them as symbols to guide me through my daily life. In that way, I do feel a connection to the divine beings I work with. So I haven’t stayed on one path for most of my life (yet), because I was exploring different ones. It’s part of the process.


A God/Goddess doesn't have to introduce themselves through a dream. It's just one way they tend to do that. Pan for example has always sort of been in my life. I already loved goats as a kid. And when I started reading about different pantheons, I was always more drawn to Pan than to any other God or Goddess. That's how eventually I knew that he was my patron. No vision, dream or whatsoever.


Don't be bummed that things don’t feel as special as you think they should be. Just go with what feels right for you now. Explore, read about different pantheons, Gods/Goddesses, practices and as you learn a path will appear.

[Shahaku]

I'm eclectic and I pull from what calls to me at the time. It's okay for your beliefs to evolve as your education evolves. I know that in the early days, I read this essay on our site and it really helped, even though that wasn't it's purpose: http://www.paganforum.com/content.ph...es-on-Paganism

Especially useful was answering these questions from the end:
1.) Do the Gods/Goddess/Lord and Lady love their followers?
2.) Why do you believe in unspecified Gods as Creators of the world, as opposed to the singular Creator proposed by the Bible?
3.) Are the Gods immanent only, or immanent and transcendent?
4.) Is it possible to reconcile Christianity with a Pagan path?
5.) What happens to non-Pagans after death?
6.) What happens to people who have done bad things after death?
7.) What does honor mean, and how do you live an honorable life?
8.) How do the Gods control natural phenomena outside of the country in which their worship originated? (e.g. Why does a Heathen in the US believe that if they pray to Thor to change the weather that he can do that when he was originally worshipped in Scandinavia?)
9.) Do you believe that the Christian God Yahweh exists?
10.) Do you believe every religion has truth in it? If so, how do you reconcile your religion as truthful with others that contradict it?
11.) Do you believe we evolved, or that there is Intelligent Design?
12.) Are the Gods real entities, faces of a single God and Goddess, or merely symbols through which you focus magical energies?
13.) If the Gods love you, why didn’t they die for you like Jesus did?

A lot of these questions cover the basics, and give you an idea of where to start. Once you can answer most of these, they can help you figure out which path is best for you, or help you develop your own beliefs outside a particular path.

As I got further along my path, I reached out to the local UU and their CUUPs chapter, which helped me immensely with connecting with people and developing an actual practice instead of just a philosophical mold. I know some people go to festivals, look on witchvox, etc to reach out and find covens or other groups they can affiliate with to learn that way.

Once all that learning has happened, once you've been exposed to several different paths, learned of many different deities, then maybe something will come forward. It can be hard to be dedicate to one path, when you haven't explored several (unless you've never known anything else).

As far as particular deities go, I made a habit of focusing my prayers and meditation on whichever deities I happened to have read about most recently. When I actually got a response (which has happened all of three times in nearly a decade) I knew I was onto something and explored it a bit deeper. Some of those relationships bloomed, some didn't.

And none of those situations came close to the experience I had this last summer during the Hunt at PSG which has led to some huge changed in my life. That experience was divine, but not wholly associated with a deity. It wasn't until a couple months later that a specific deity was realized.

In all of these experiences, I had to do the work of reaching out, contemplating, and connecting. But who responded was them choosing me. And frankly, this most recent connection is in line with my heritage and genetic association and it's the deepest I've experienced yet. Which I can't say for the other connections I've experienced. But I know of people who have flourishing relationships outside of their ancestry, so that's totally possible.

[Constantinitus]

I used to be just as confused as you. And the stories of people about how a God or Goddess came to them in a vision made me frustrated, because I didn't feel that connection and I wanted to feel something. I decided to become an atheist and followed a left hand path for a while, which felt good at the time. Eventually I decided that being a pagan witch was the path for me. It felt most true to myself. I'm still an atheist in a way that I don't believe that Gods and Goddesses are actual living beings. But I do work with them, because I see them as symbols to guide me through my daily life. In that way, I do feel a connection to the divine beings I work with. So I haven’t stayed on one path for most of my life (yet), because I was exploring different ones. It’s part of the process.


A God/Goddess doesn't have to introduce themselves through a dream. It's just one way they tend to do that. Pan for example has always sort of been in my life. I already loved goats as a kid. And when I started reading about different pantheons, I was always more drawn to Pan than to any other God or Goddess. That's how eventually I knew that he was my patron. No vision, dream or whatsoever.


Don't be bummed that things don’t feel as special as you think they should be. Just go with what feels right for you now. Explore, read about different pantheons, Gods/Goddesses, practices and as you learn a path will appear.

Do you work with the Gods/Goddesses from a Jungian perspective?

[Corvus]

Faith is a personal choice dependant on your beliefs, goals, and life experiences. There are as numerous different views and religious distinctions as different religions (read: a lot) so it's unsurprising. For a patchwork religion like neopaganism, and to some degree even more purist reconstructionists, there's going to be even more conflicting information. Many will look to historic examples where the gods have contacted humans, dreams are a big one but, also signs in nature like animals or weather, recurring numbers or symbols, all sorts of stuff. Many people find a place among the gods of their ancestors, a belief that their blood offers a greater connection to them, but still others will seek out gods that they find interesting or feel a connection to. The general consensus seems to be do what feels right, or that it will feel right when it comes to it. The gods exist as a manifestation of the nature which surrounds and lives within us- it is all encompassing, chaotic, and varied. Sometimes a divinity approaches a person, many times they do not.

[Rae'ya]

Why are there so many different choices? What's up with this confusion?

Because there is no correct answer when it comes to religion, faith and spirituality. Which can be overwhelming for people who don't like too many choices, or who don't like to be faced with having to do any work to find their path.

It can be difficult to know what to do or what to believe in. I am a big fan of reading and exploring until you find something interesting, then following that. The other way is to research types of belief, types of theism and types of faith and see what fits your worldview. Because at the end of the day, religion or spirituality should a) match your worldview/ethics/personal morals/etc and b) enrich your life.

In terms of the deities themselves... we are not all designed to interface directly with deities and spirits. Some of us work directly with the deities (either in Thisworld or the Otherworlds), others never get past the Divine Answering Machine and others don't focus on deities at all or are not theistic at all. Either way it is okay. Thisworld is influenced by deities to a point, but they are not integral to it's existence. You may never have a god or goddess that calls to you or that you are madly devoted to. It doesn't work that way for all people. And that's okay. There is no correct answer except the one that enriches your life.

[anunitu]

my path has always been from internal feelings,and vision of my connections. I tend NOT to be a follower,but a wanderer on a road to understanding

I do hate dogma a LOT,more a feelings based approach.

[Bartmanhomer]

I was a Christian from a false church so many years ago. Then I converted into Taoism, after that I converted back into Christianity.

[anunitu]

I understand your statement Constantinitus,about the Jungian perspective very clearly,I would agree with that idea. from my own path.

[Constantinitus]

I understand your statement Constantinitus,about the Jungian perspective very clearly,I would agree with that idea. from my own path.

I think I follow the same paradigm, somewhat :-)


And looking at it from that perspective, as for God/Goddesses, there seems to be "classes" or archetypes of deities that manifests themselves in different cultures and share the same overlap in function. Lilith for example seems to share similarities to Kali and the various Mahavidyas of Tantra, who originated from other forms of, chaotic "dark goddesses" who were venerated by the village folk. Therefore, for picking a primary deity to work with, I would think that the approach from this perspective would be to pick a type, archetype first, read up on the lore, see if the background culture that surrounds the deity resonates with your psychic makeup and to go from there. Even if you do not want to go about the Jungian POV, all gods and goddesses are different expressions of the same, "one". Therefore, the aforementioned can be still applied.