Re: How did gods and goddesses interact
As a hardcore polytheist and animist, I believe that the gods exist in the Otherworlds, not this one, and so they don't overlap and interact much due to the fact that they live in different realms within the Otherworlds. They obviously are aware of each other though - my personal evidence for that being that those I work with seem to know of each other and that I have been sent off by Skuld to work with other deities from different pantheons. I think that they know of each other, but are rarely relevant to each other due to the fact that they do not share the same world.
I think their presence in THIS world is incumbent on human belief and worship. I'm not sure that our worship effects their power in their own worlds, but it seems to effect their presence in our world. The fact that out mythologies don't tend to overlap much is a reflection on the overlapping (or lack thereof) of human cultures rather than the deities themselves.
I believe that the Otherworlds can rotate close to our world in different areas, hence why certain deities pop up in some countries but not so much in others.
Having said that, if you dig deep enough there are actually some accounts of deities, or at least significant spirits, popping up in adjacent or subsequent cultures. There are several Slavic and Finnish entities who make small appearances in Norse mythology, for example. The Alfar of the Norse Nine Worlds are thought to have migrated there from elsewhere, likely the Celtic Faerie Realms, based on their similarities to the Sidhe. Some deities have several names specifically because they have been traded into another worshipping culture via migration along ancient trade routes.
Some people believe this, but hard polytheists believe that each deity is a distinct and separate deity. I look at it like this... I'm a vet nurse, as are my colleagues. That means that we have certain similar traits and we all do the same job. But that doesn't mean that we are the same person. So while Aphrodite and Frejya may share some traits and duties as Love Goddesses, they are not the same deity, especially when you factor in the extra traits and duties that Frejya has that Aphrodite doesn't. The Roman deities are disputable... my personal opinion is that they are egregores created when the Romans renamed the Greek deities and started worshipping them in their own way. I actually think that the Roman deities have evolved past being simple heiti of the Greek deities and are now separate entities, but that they were created here by concentrated belief rather than being pre-existing in the Otherworlds.
I also have a theory regarding the reason that deities seem to respond to soft polytheists and syncretists even though they don't see them as distinct individuals: The Divine Answering Machine. Plus my belief in an overarching, non-sentient but omnipresent and interpenetrating Divine Source means that I believe some people tap directly into this Source, or into distilled Archetypes rather than individual entities. So in my brain, there's room for everyone's beliefs and I've somehow managed to make it make sense lol
Originally posted by Alienist
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I think their presence in THIS world is incumbent on human belief and worship. I'm not sure that our worship effects their power in their own worlds, but it seems to effect their presence in our world. The fact that out mythologies don't tend to overlap much is a reflection on the overlapping (or lack thereof) of human cultures rather than the deities themselves.
I believe that the Otherworlds can rotate close to our world in different areas, hence why certain deities pop up in some countries but not so much in others.
Having said that, if you dig deep enough there are actually some accounts of deities, or at least significant spirits, popping up in adjacent or subsequent cultures. There are several Slavic and Finnish entities who make small appearances in Norse mythology, for example. The Alfar of the Norse Nine Worlds are thought to have migrated there from elsewhere, likely the Celtic Faerie Realms, based on their similarities to the Sidhe. Some deities have several names specifically because they have been traded into another worshipping culture via migration along ancient trade routes.
Originally posted by Heka
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I also have a theory regarding the reason that deities seem to respond to soft polytheists and syncretists even though they don't see them as distinct individuals: The Divine Answering Machine. Plus my belief in an overarching, non-sentient but omnipresent and interpenetrating Divine Source means that I believe some people tap directly into this Source, or into distilled Archetypes rather than individual entities. So in my brain, there's room for everyone's beliefs and I've somehow managed to make it make sense lol
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