Have the Gods Forsaken us?

[causticus]

Something I just jotted down in another discussion area; on the topic of forming new spiritual groups or projects to address the state of acute cultural disintegration we Americans (and Westerners) are experiencing right now. Basically,

I'm kind of black-pilled on there being any religious or spiritual solution for the state of steep cultural decline we're now in. It seems like Americans in particular will corrupt any all types of spirituality and make it either all about money or all about themselves, or all about some stupid serving-up of pop culture blather that happens to be fashionable at the moment. Honestly I think the only real "solution" is for wise individuals to forget about "fixing society" as a whole and just find/form a tribe and try an infuse some basic spiritual principles into that.

I get the impression that the Gods are rather irate at humanity as a whole right now, and for good reason. I, guessing that there won't be until there is a significant population decline that any sort of new spiritual dispensation might come our way. The old ones are mostly worn out and largely irrelevant to our own cultural reality today, but there are tools and insights within those old systems we can adapt to the conditions of today and use to weather the onslaught of storms that are only going to get worse from here on.

Pseudo-Spirituality for Bored Affluenziacs

I've grown quite skeptical toward the usual stories I read/hear in certain circles about people chatting with Gods and Goddess directly in a nonchalant manner as if they're just some long-lost friends from whenever. Now, some of these stories might be altogether made up, or simply exaggerations of some vague dream or momentary flash in the pain brain fart that gets misconstrued as a profound spiritual experience. In other cases I'm inclined to believe there is some sort of spirit contact happening, but not in the way the recipient of such an experience might think. How many people do banishing rituals before chatting with their spirit buddies? (Yes, this is a rhetorical question) I've gotten the impression that the more serious end of Neopaganism is basically just Spiritualism dressed up in various ethnic costumes. Any sufficiently-intelligent spiritual entity (good, bad, or ugly) can appear in whatever shape or form they want via the psychic connection they establish with the human on the other end; it's just too easy to deceive and play tricks on the naïve dabbler who doesn't have much in the way of occult knowledge under their belt. Now of course I don't deny the existence of the Gods, not to I deny that the Gods can and do help individual humans in certain situations. I'm just rather suspicious of those people who like to talk a big game about what they believe to be divine communications. This is probably the same reason why I'm rather dismissive of prophetic religions.

Now onto the next bit of this rant. I'm gonna spout some Neopagan heresy.

Daimones: Say it Ain't So

It's nice to believe the "Gods" we think we are communicating with are in fact THE Gods, and not merely emissaries, angels, or spirit-messengers of those Gods. However, if we're to accept the idea that the Gods are in fact universal to all cultures, as opposed to being neatly divided up by human tribes and ethnic groups, it would then seem sensical to posit that the Gods appear to many different peoples in many different guises. Thus the "ethnic costumes" that are the "Gods" of each pantheon or cultural tradition, are just different expressions of the Divine Powers. Or maybe they are in fact messenger spirits who each have personality types that correspond with the deity-name they answer to. In Greek terms, these spirts are known as Daimones (Latin: Genii). The Northern traditions might call them Elves. There's some hints in Neoplatonic literature that the "Gods" that demand sacrifices are in fact not Gods but Daimones. Some notes from the Greco-Roman (Neoplatonic) philosopher Porphyry, via sdi:

But for the gods within the heaven, the wandering and the fixed (the sun should be taken as leader of them all and the moon second) we should kindle fire which is already kin to them, and we shall do what the theologian says. He says that not a single animate creature should be sacrificed, but offerings should not go beyond barley-grains and honey and the fruits of the earth, including flowers. "Let not the fire burn on a bloodstained altar," and the rest of what he says, for what need is there to copy out the words? Someone concerned for piety knows that no animate creature is sacrificed to the gods, but to other daimones, either good or bad, and knows whose practice it is to sacrifice to them and to what extent these people need to do so.

[..cont.]

One thing especially should be counted among the greatest harm done by the maleficent daimones: they are themselves responsible for the sufferings that occur around the earth (plagues, crop failures, earthquakes, droughts, and the like), but convince us that the responsibility lies with those who are responsible for just the opposite. They evade blame themselves: their primary concern is to do wrong without being detected. Then they prompt us to supplications and sacrifices, as if the beneficent gods were angry. They do such things because they want to dislodge us from a correct concept of the gods and convert us to themselves. They themselves rejoice in everything that is likewise inconsistent and incompatible; slipping on (as it were) the masks of the other gods, they profit from our lack of sense, winning over the masses because they inflame people's appetites with lust and longing for wealth and power and pleasure, and also with empty ambition from which arises civil conflicts and wars and kindred events. Most terrible of all, they move on from there to persuade people that the same applies even to the greatest gods, to the extent that even the best god is made liable to these accusations, for they say it is by him that everything has been thrown topsy-turvy into confusion. It is not only lay people who are victims of this, but even some of those who study philosophy; and each is responsible for the other, for among the students of philosophy those who do not stand clear of the general opinion come to agree with the masses, whereas the masses, hearing from those with a reputation for wisdom opinions which agree with their own, are confirmed in holding even more strongly such beliefs about the gods.

Now it does seem like Porphyry is imposing a type of dualism that was quite fashionable in his time; effectively dividing the "sprit world" into two diametrically opposed camps of "good" and "bad" spirits (Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism were the most guilty of this originally, and this habit trickled down into Christianity). While there are indeed a lot of bad (or at least cruddy) spiritual entities out there, I think there are many that simply aren't very relevant to human existence, nor are really categorizable according to human morality. Their neither malicious or beneficial to us; they simply are their own thing. But the overall takeaway from the above quote is that the object(s) of human worship can very easily become misdirected toward entities that don't exactly have our best interest at heart, or maybe just don't care about us. Where do the Gods come into this? Honestly, this is something I'm exploring and have nothing resembling concrete answers on, other than the fact they do exist and their presence(s) are all-but-ubiquitous. But the Gods are foremost mysteries and that we've lost most of the knowledge we used to have about them, which was probably garbled to begin with.

Personally, I lean toward the position that the "True Gods" are something akin to the Aeons of the Gnostics, and the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the Northern Buddhists. I think the Neoplatonists referred to such entities as "Hypercosmic Gods." Anyway, I think these "pure" entities are so far removed from human experience (and unlikely to meddle in our petty affairs) that we can only experience their mysteries through spiritual intermediaries; again, the Archangels, Angels, Spirit Guides, and other beings well advanced beyond the human level of consciousness, yet not exactly "Gods" in the full sense.

This rant has been excessively long, disjointed, and perhaps contradictory at points. But oh well, I needed to spill this out somewhere. There's likely a fair number of spelling, grammatical, typographical, and punctuation errors in there too. But too bad, I'll get around to fixing those later.

I'll end this with an annoying question:

Is the "Odin" or "Hecate" some bored American suburbanite communicates with before bedtime a Daimon (Spirit) or a God/Goddess?

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

I think you're not entirely off-base about the character of (some) daimones. My view is they act as intercessory beings, so chances are you are never dealing directly with a god, but at best a lesser spirit that answers to a given god (if you're fortunate).

As to your first point, and given that I am not much of a joiner...my sense is that small groups aren't even particularly useful. Best bet, IMHO, is for each to tread the spiritual path alone (as inevitably we must, anyway) with the guidances of our guardian spirit. The more one compares one's experiences with others, the more difficult it perhaps becomes to see one's own path.

Great find by sdi, as well.

Axé...

[causticus]

Yeah, groups seem to be a terrible option right now. When a sizable portion of the culture is going through a psychotic break, there's no guarantee the group won't just end up reflecting that reality real fast.

[violetcabra]

Imma answer your annoying question with another: how could a mere mortal ever discern the difference between the two?

[causticus]

We can't at all, beyond maybe the rough guess that a very high level being probably wouldn't interact with any of us directly.

But yeah, Beyond that it's all theoretical sperging on how this or that categorization might apply.

[violetcabra]

"We can't at all, beyond maybe the rough guess that a very high level being probably wouldn't interact with any of us directly."

My apologies, I don't mean to be contrary for its own sake, and I am sorry if that is how I come across. That said, I have no idea how one would calculate the probabilities! Gods could interact with us all the time and we might just be too dense to realize it. For instance, if we are in a rainstorm, are we not interacting with Zeus directly as he rains? If we plough the earth do we not interact with Demeter? If we perform a tragic part in a theatrical production, might we not interact directly with with Dionysus and the Muses? If I kayak I interact directly with the body of water, and I could imagine a similar scenario with other cosmogonic streams of being.

My point is that it seems to me that you conflate "awareness of direct interaction" with "direct interaction" itself. If we understand the gods as the principles that create the cosmos, one could say without irony that humans interact directly with the gods as much as we interact with the cosmos!

Of course, there is the question then of _conversing_ with a god as a friend. That, though, is a very different question than direct interaction itself.

In this larger conversation, I see that there are a bunch of different mental models going on mostly unstated and unspecific without precise terminology. My larger point is that we humans don't appear to know from direct experience anything much beyond our mental models. We can argue for internal consistency within our mental model, but I tend to think that the living reality of divinity exceeds our human capacity to understand it.

[temporaryreality]

Violet, thank you so much for this comment. Not to derail the conversation too much, but this mental model you present seems to accord with my mostly-underdeveloped underlying sense. I don't personally have conscious awareness of communication from/with divine beings, but I'm alive! There's a relationship with air(!) and water (!) and all the many beings that support my life! Ok, so nobody is whispering in my ear, but that which has created all conditions has done so, and I am inseparable from that. All the luck and all the lessons, the continuous path itself ... If a person is going to allow for the existence of deities, well, it's a bit *small* to assume they are only revealed in certain ways and not grant credit for the incomprehensibly *whole* shebang.

[violetcabra]

You're most welcome! I got this idea in large part from reading ancient authors: for instance, Herodotus telling of the Athenians petitioning Boreas the North Wind to save their city from a naval attack and then a North Wind destroying the invading fleet. There are countless other examples of the gods of nature answering human prayers in the form of the nature that they embody.

[causticus]

"In this larger conversation, I see that there are a bunch of different mental models going on mostly unstated and unspecific without precise terminology."

I think that reflects the very informal nature of this type of group. Everyone's doing their own thing in one way or another.

[violetcabra]

Fair enough and thank you for the response!

[jprussell]

Hmm, an interesting set of questions. I don't think I have any definite answers, but a few thoughts based on my own rather limited experience and reading that I hope contribute something:

1) "By their fruits you shall know them": For me, the single most useful rule-of-thumb for interacting with spiritual beings is to keep an eye on what kind of states they bring about and what kind of things following their advice brings about. Where beings seem to bring about life-affirming, compassionate, and unselfish feelings and actions, whatever they are, it's likely worth keeping in touch with them, with the opposite being true for anything that brings about nihilism, wrath/envy/resentment, and selfishness.

2) Astral Vehicles: So far, I've found the idea that there are various "astral vehicles/bodies" that are ensouled by higher spiritual beings a very interesting and possibly useful one. This may or may not have overlap with your "daimones as emmisaries" theory above, but the idea that what I picture as "Thunor" may largely be culturally-determined, and perhaps much narrower than the spiritual being that animates that imagery, has been a useful one for me, without even getting into cross-cultural comparisons.

3) JMG's Comment About the First Decade Being Mostly Psychological: On an MM a while back, JMG responded to someone's question with something like "pretty much everything you experience for the first decade or so of magical practice, you're mostly experiencing your own psyche". This has given me a lot to chew on, especially since letting go of the idea that the Gods are "just archetypes in my head" was an important step in my spiritual development. Even so, it wouldn't surprise me at all if much of what modern polytheists experience spiritually is dealing with their own subconscious, especially if not paired with a more rigorous program of spiritual development.

4) What Do We Even Mean by "Gods" Anyway?: As a few other folks have alluded to, in discussions like this, we run the risk of getting too caught up in taxonomical terms. To maybe over-simplify, what if every being in all the world's traditional pantheons was "lower" than the kind of universals that you mention coming from Neo-Platonic philosophy, and mankind has never has any kind of direct experience of those universals, only vauge intuitions through philosophy. If that's the case, is it better to call the beings that have interacted with mankind through worship, prayer, miracles, et cetera "Gods" or "daimones" or whatever else? For me, it depends how much you want to emphasize "these beings are mighty and worthy of respect" versus "there are other 'higher' beings, so let's not get too fixated on these ones that are closer to us."

At the end of the day, I'm not sure I come away with very different practical actions: do a regular banishing ritual daily, use the names of deities from long-standing traditions with followers who display positive spiritual traits in prayer, and use a lot of self-reflection to monitor your own ethical behavior vis-a-vis your spiritual practice.

Cheers,
Jeff

[sdi]

I might note that there is a pretty big theological break between Plotinus and Porphyry (who saw the use of magic as an impediment to spiritual progress), and Iamblichus and basically everyone after him (who used theurgy as a matter of course). Indeed, some scholars consider the worldviews espoused by these two groups to be wholly different: I think it was Dodds that makes the point somewhere that Plato is the ultimate authority for the former two, while the Chaldean Oracles have taken that place for the later Neoplatonists.

So if one is themselves practicing banishing rituals and so on, one might reasonably favor a different model of the universe!

[causticus]

The attitude of Plotinus and Porphyry toward magic is so similar to that of most Eastern sages/gurus. I think the commonality in attitude stems from a shared disdain for the material world and thus the tendency to see that the point of spirituality is to break the cycle of rebirth ASAP. From this perspective, magical practice grants people "powers" over the material realm, which can be a lure to remain "trapped" in it longer, by nurturing the sort of desires that keep us trapped here. Of course, if one's worldview isn't so negative/cynical about the material world, then practicing magic isn't so much of a problem, granted it's not abused. It seems like Iamblichus and others after him were champions of this more positive view toward the material.

[jprussell]

Hmm, interesting, I didn't realize that about Plotinus/Porphyry vs Iamblichus (I'm still very early in my (Neo-) Platonic reading).

Possibly an irrelevant aside, but on causticus's comment about similarity with Eastern sages/gurus, I recently finished plodding my way through Spengler's Decline of the West, and in it he argues that Neo-Platonism and late Roman Empire polytheism are better understood as expressions of the religious sensibility of the Magian (Middle Eastern) civilization, along with Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, rather than as a direct continuation of the Classical religious sensibility that began with the Mycenaeans. I find this an intriguing possibility, but I also think Spengler is a little too forceful in arguing against continuity, because continuity was taken for granted by most scholars when he was writing.

What's interesting if we take Spengler's point of view, though, is that arguably Iamblichus would be the most Magian, whereas the attitude of being anti-theurgy seems more consistent with the mainstream of most Magian religions. So I'm not sure what to make of that.

Cheers,
Jeff

[causticus]

Yeah I definitely think there is something there in Spengler's view that Neoplatonism was essentially a Magian reimagination of the older Hellenic religion. The Mithraic mysteries was another great example of this and the initiatory symbolism of that cult IMHO exemplified the core essence of the Magian paradigm, even though its outer clothing was mostly Hellenic (though with a dash of Iranian).

Within the Magian fold there always seems to have been this duality of Esotericism vs. Dogmatism, and this seems to show up among the Neoplatonists along with the others.

I'd say Julian's version of Neoplatonism (which is quite adjacent to Iamblicus) is the most Magian of anything religiously-Hellenic.

[sdi]

This is a very interesting question. I had been treating it as an Age of Aries vs. Age of Pisces thing, but hadn't thought to look at it through other lenses and that one seems a fruitful one...

[boccaderlupo]

I have not read Spengler, but I think this perspective is compelling: the later Platonists' systems seem at least as much about the various mystery cults as about ancient Hellenic practices, if not more so. That said, it seems like the various groups of that period—Pagan Neoplatonists, Gnostics, early Christians, et al.—all seem to be responding to something in the spiritual environment, and, per the passage sdi found, it seems as their responses had some similarity.

I suspect it's possible to overstate the Plotinus-Iamblichus divide, but that said I tend to fall more in the Iamblichus camp. He seems to always be tying the more theoretical aspects back to how they explain real lived "mystical" (for lack of a better term) experiences and ritual. (I will cop to being a simpler person, more concerned with the practical than the abstract, FWIW.) That's what I find so valuable about these writings: not that they are some kind of dogma or doctrine per se, but rather that they represent attempts of other individuals in times past to grapple with profound spiritual experiences—namely, the expression of The Divine in mortal lives—and how to tie that back to a comprehensive way of thinking about the world. A template, perhaps, for individuals of our age not to reproduce exactly, but rather to inform our experiences on the path.

[sdi]

And while I'm at it, I should probably add that Plotinus doesn't really talk about the Olympians at all and Socrates was executed for his conception of the spiritual.

The modern pagans who speak of interacting with Aphrodite directly or whatever are more likely descended from the Olympian religion, and not this Platonist business :)

I enjoyed Gilbert Murray's Five Stages of Greek Religion on the topic: he contextualizes the two as very different impulses within the Greek religious world (among several others).

[causticus]

Thanks for all these resources. That last link looks particularly interesting.

The modern pagans who speak of interacting with Aphrodite directly or whatever are more likely descended from the Olympian religion, and not this Platonist business :)

I've actually seen overt antipathy toward Platonism expressed in those circles. And yeah, going with the above idea, it seems like we're talking about two entirely different religions.

[sdi]

Thank you for saying so, that's actually a very helpful data point to me!

[jprussell]

Thank you for sharing, this looks quite interesting!

And fair enough on the distinction between Platonism and modern Neo-Paganism. Since I'm currently getting a hefty dose of revival Druidry via the Druid Magic Handbook and the Dolmen Arch, I tend to have a lot of Neo-Platonic assumptions baked into how I look at and interpret this business, but it's helpful to remember that very many (likely most) folks reporting their experiences of polytheism do not share those assumptions.

Cheers,
Jeff

[causticus]

Well, I have come across a few Hellenic reconstructionists who are all about Neoplatonism. Not sure how common they are among the other Hellenists though.

From my own observations, it seems JMG walks a middle ground between doctrinal Neoplatonism and more typical Neopagan ideas when it comes to how he sees the Gods. But yeah his Neoplatontic-inspired ideas do show up in his Druidry books.

[causticus]

Jeff, thank you for this thoughtful and thorough (as always, lol) response.

1) I try to follow this whenever I have any kind of "unusual" experience. It's been a good guide thus far!

2) My own thinking process constantly tells me, "Well.. Thunor, Thor, Donar, Taranis, Perun, Perkunas, ect. MUST be the same entity." I think the "different Astral vehicles for each" explanation is quite interesting and might get at the operative reality we're working with. I think the idea that each pantheon has its own egregore is a similar explanation and might well explain how the same deity/entity can manifest in many different outer forms.

3) Hah, this would be outright blasphemy in some polytheist circles ;) I know of one particular blogger who has a textual screaming fit any time someone in that space suggests that people's experiences of the Gods might simply be archetypes or other psychological phenomena manifesting.

4) Yeah this can get beyond confusing if we think about it too much. Another issue is that as civilizations mature they tend to come up with ever-more complex theologies and layers of abstractions which get layered on top of the old primitive religion of their ancestors. Neoplatonism vs. the old Homeric mytho-religion is the most obvious example here.

Totally agree on that last part.

[jprussell]

Hah, "thorough" indeed! If there's one thing I do, it's wordy.

2) Yeah, this is an area that I have in the past found extremely interesting, but have somewhat backed off from more recently, at least for a time. I've always been interested in historical linguistics, archaeology, and other ways of pushing our knowledge back past the fuzzy boundaries of recorded history, and so it was natural to me to apply it to religious questions as well. When I was coming at religion from a more material/archetypal point of view, looking at comparative mythology seemed like a good way to get at what I was "really" trying to get in touch with. One of the main reasons I've backed off is that I intellectually arrived at the notion that Freyja and Frigg were just hypostases of a single earlier Goddess, and so I ought to just worship that Goddess. Well, as I began praying and worshipping, I got the impression that nope, they're different, I really ought to worship two different Goddesses. Now, are these two "really" two different astral vehicles for the same greater spiritual Being? No idea, maybe. Either way, at least at my current point of development, it seems like it's helpful to treat them as different.

3) Heh, I might be able to guess which blogger. My current thinking on this is that it's reductionist to think that religious experience is only manifestations of your subconscious, but that it is naive to think your personal subconscious plays no role such experiences. It seems to take a lot of hard work to even recognize what your subconscious is doing, much less to get it out of the way when you're doing things like praying or meditating. So, at least right now, I think it likely that when you pray or otherwise interact with "the Gods" (or daimones, or emissaries, or astral vehicles of incomprehensible intelligences, or whatever they might truly be), much of what you experience is coming out of your own subconscious, especially early on, but that hopefully your subconscious is getting nudged in certain directions by the Being(s) you are reaching out to. To use another personal example, if I make an offering to Thunor and imagine a burly red-bearded man telling me to be a more responsible family man, did I "really" have a conversation with the God Thunor? Maybe, maybe not. But maybe that Being did nudge me to recognize something I knew deep down.

4) Definitely. I bring this up because too much time with various editions of the D&D Monster Manual has made me a bit taxonomy-happy when it comes to non-mundane beings, and I have to remind myself of that when I get into thinking about the spiritual.

Cheers,
Jeff

[causticus]

2) I think I might be parroting a certain vlogger's pet theory (I forget which vlogger tbh) on this, but it seems to make sense that Frigg and Freya became two distinctive goddesses at some point during the Viking Age. The material explanation for this might be that the Norse may have been borrowing influences from Christianity (on their own terms) before outright converting. A metaphysical explanation might be (incoming UPG, lol) that a certain "beloved mother goddess" entity became very active during the Age of Pisces and made a profound impression on different cultures throughout the world, including the Norse. At some point their priests and mystics started experiencing Her as a distinctive motherly entity, quite distinct from the older love/war goddess. BTW, within modern Heathenry I find Frigg to me one of the most fascinating deities, with her 10 handmaidens seeming to represent Her various functions. She really is a "swiss army knife" type of goddess in that respect, IMHO. And of course Her husband Odin has no shortage of functions too. A perfect pair, one might say.

3) I personally think numinous experiences in general are a mix of both archetypal/psychological and actual interaction with unseen beings. And I think this particular blogger swings too far in one direction on this issue; she experiences the gods in one way and just assumes that's the way everyone else is supposed to (sound familiar? LOL).

[sdi]

I'm pretty sure JMG has made the point somewhere that one's state of consciousness determines the level of beings one is able to interact with. Plotinus made a similar point.

We have a model for the kinds of people who interact with angels and gods: we call them saints. Does that bored American suburbanite give off that calm, that aloofness, that luminousness so characteristic of a saint? What does that say about who they interact with?

[causticus]

This is actually the issue I was thinking about that brought on this entire post. I got the impression that the average "Hey, now I work with Athena, she's totally got my back!" bored suburbanite, if reporting their experience in good faith, has probably interacted with a daimon/spirit, going on JMG's premise.

[violetcabra]

"We have a model for the kinds of people who interact with angels and gods: we call them saints."

What do you mean by the verb "interact"? Could not one say that everyone who prays "interacts" at the level of consciousness that they are capable? In a certain sense, for instance, everyone who prays the rosary might meaningfully interact to some extent with Catholic divinities. Many gangster have extremely passionate interactions with the Blessed Virgin Mary. That does not make a criminal ipso facto into a saint, but that also doesn't negate the fact of the gangster's religious life.

To argue that one must be a saint in order to interact with a divinity to my mind is easily disproved. The term I would use is "practitioner." What's more many, many practitioners who are even rather base characters report divine intercession and miraculous occurrences. For this reason, I don't think that the model given here proves descriptive of the reality on the ground.

[sdi]

Any, but in proportion to how close the contact is. People tend to ascribe particular virtues to divinity—I think here of patience, acceptance, compassion, humility, etc., though I'll grant such a list says as much about me as about the divine!—and I think it's reasonable to expect those who are in close contact with the divine to exhibit these in a far greater degree than those who are in modest contact, and so on.

For standout examples of very close contact with the divine, I think of the likes of Moses, Empedocles, Plotinus, Saint Paul, Jeanne d'Arc, Hakuin, Swedenborg, some fraction of near death experiencers, etc. These are people who undergo a radical change in character, have a "mission" in life, are generally kept apart from the normal ebb and flow of material life, possess an overwhelming serenity and capacity for compassion, etc. These are the prototype of what I'm thinking of as a "saint," here.

If we take the Platonists and the Christians at their word and assume prayer is carried to the divine through intermediaries (dæmons or angels, respectively), then it's still a contact with the divine but to a much lesser degree. I'd expect one who honestly and sincerely prays to exhibit some "saintly" characteristics but not be a full-blown "saint:" perhaps they are more virtuous than average, but don't have the more radical characteristics.

And let me finally state that I'm not trying to be dogmatic or elitist here! I'm trying to get at the same thing jprussell was when he quoted Jesus' Parable of the Tree and Its Fruit. (I should also note my examples are all mystical in character; that's simply because those are what are familiar to me, as I have no experience of the magical side of things. I apologize if I come across as denigrating of those traditions!)

[violetcabra]

Many thanks for your thoughtful response! Personally I would tend to agree that a human can discern the merit of the claims of a human having connection to the divine by the actions of said human. Still, I tend to doubt that the inner side of the experience is quite so simple or linear. For instance, we might consult Luke 15:7 in which Jesus says "I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance." That is, it seems to me that enantiodromia can play an outsized part. Still to be clear, in terms of practical discernment I agree wholeheartedly with what you write and thank you for taking the time to respond, SDI!

Also Causticus I'm sorry for the anonymous post mostly identical to the one here, dreamwidth signed me out.

[causticus]

Ohh no worries at all. It took me like five seconds to size-up and fix.

[sdi]

I get the impression that the Gods are rather irate at humanity as a whole right now, and for good reason. I, guessing that there won't be until there is a significant population decline that any sort of new spiritual dispensation might come our way.

I see this sentiment a lot and I disagree and I would like to push back against it quite forcefully.

First, anger is not a quality that the gods possess. [Sallustius I, Sallustius XIV]

Second, everything dies. The way of the gods is to gracefully accept that change is the way of the world, not to lament the passing of even good things. (And I'd argue our civilization is miserable... why would one lament the passing of the bad?) [Republic X, Enneads I 9, Apollo to Anonymous, Apollo to Julian]

Third, death and depopulation are only apparently bad from the perspective of time. The death of the body is good to the soul, and why should we suppose that is any less true of the soul of a civilization than the soul of a person? [Enneads I 7, Enneads III 2]

Fourth, the gods are the cause of everything that comes to pass. It is the gods that decree that a man should die, but it is up to the man to die gracefully or gracelessly. In the same way, the gods decreed not only the decline of the West, but also the orgy of consumption that preceded it. It was up to the West to choose how to die, and it has chosen to throw a tantrum and make as big a mess as possible. But even if that is what the civilizational soul has chosen, we as individual souls are not bound to it, and we may choose otherwise. It is better for us to stop and consider why the gods have placed so many on the earth, and why they are removing them back again. [Porphyry to Marcella XXIV, XXIX] [JMG has also made the note that he thinks the present disaster may be because Gaia was cold and wanted a warmer atmosphere, which is a cute and mythic way of saying the same thing.]

Finally, it is not those who live easy lives who make the ascent to the divine, but those who have great hardship. We should consider ourselves blessed to live in these times, painful though they are, for we are being given the opportunity to speedrun our karma. [Porphyry to Marcella VI–VII]

This is a topic that I spend rather a lot of meditation time on, and have several other posts on my blog touching on it: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (And I should also note that I am not yet "there", but one must have aspirations!)

(Also, apologies for the long comment, but one good rant deserves another :)

[causticus]

Again, thanks for all these resources!

Regarding the sentence you quoted above, I have to say that I typed this whole thing out in five minutes, and that this post was largely an exercise in channeling a raw emotional state, thus the lack of editing/filtering on my part. Also, lack of emojis to convey the "tongue in cheek" attitude of some of the statements I quickly churned out. Text-only communication can be very lacking in this regard. Having said that, I worded the sentence rather poorly, as far as representing the sentiment I was trying to convey. Let's try again:

I've come across a general impression that the "spirit world" is rather irate at humanity as a whole right now, and for good reason. I, guessing that there won't be any sort of new spiritual dispensation might come our way until there is a significant population decline.

1) Some of this I gleaned from trawling through the "Quaxx" open posts, particularly the speculations on whether it's Gods or demons that are behind all the mess we're experiencing right now. From that, I was going on some of JMG's opinions on how Gods might "curse" people when we're especially up to no good.

2) It is here that I believe that the more primitive polytheisms generally regard the whole "spirit world" as constituting "the Gods" or their pantheon or whatever. This includes everything from lofty cosmic powers, down to demigods, celestial spirit guides, deified ancestors, and intelligent nature spirits. If we include here different classes of terrestrial demigods and nature spirts, measured up against what humans (at least certain groups of humans) have done to Earth's environment/biosphere over the past several centuries, then I think it's quite logical to figure that some or many of our local spirit entities would indeed be rather displeased (to put it lightly) with out conduct. We're not talking about "Gods" in the Neoplatonic sense, but rather spirit entities that are more intelligent/advanced than humans, but still have egos, opinions, inclinations, karma, ect. Essentially, Daimones. Like it or not, we share a planet with them and will have to deal with them in one way or another.

***

No apologies necessary! I love these lengthily exchanges.

[sdi]

With regards to the feelings of earthbound spirits, you'll get no argument from me!—merely the rueful suspicion that we'll have as much cause to be upset with them over the next 400 years as they have had with us over the last 400! One imagines that there are particularly philosophical dæmons trying to urge their peers to be patient and gentle...

With regards to the vaccine posts, I stopped following them long ago, but from my perspective, karma seems a wholly adequate explanation of the whole phenomenon (whoever the messenger of that karma may happen to be).