Concepts of the Divine in Neopaganism
¡§As to who or what our deities are, you will get nearly as many answers as there are Witches,¡¨ spoke Ilyana Moonfire who led the Samhain ritual at the Onion. Consensus opinion seems to be that there is a transcendent Divine, the sum of what is what was, and what will be. However this divinity is more than the mind can conceive. Therefore, the idea of divinity has been broken down into many pieces. These pieces are conceived of in many forms.
One of the primary forms Divinity takes is the Goddess or the Divine Feminine. She can have many names and many functions. Some Neopagans even worship only the nameless single Goddess, others worship her under all the names by which she has been known to other ancient faiths: Ishtar, Diana, Ceridwen, Athena, Venus, Hecate, Isis, Demeter, Brigantia and more. Although there are many Goddesses and not all worship the same ones, they can usually be seen in three aspects: the Maiden, who is representative of youth, self sufficiency, and often love, the Mother who is nurturing and provides fulfillment, and the Crone or the Wise Woman who is responsible for wisdom, mystery, initiation, and death and rebirth. The Crone was a center of focus for Ilyana Moonfire who is a part of the Reweaving group of Neopagans, and she wore a small Crone pendant on her neck. It seems that the Goddesses are chosen according to personal need or developed through the elements of nature. There is also a representation of the female divine in the directions. In ritual, practitioners do what is called ¡§casting a circle,¡¨ which ensures a safe and whole worshiping area. They invoke the energies of the North, East, South and West. Each of these directions represents a human em...
... middle of paper ...
...th one another, and the ritual was finished.
„o
It was apparent that deities were present in their Samhain ritual and yet it was said that the deities are present at all times. There are deities to represent every function, every emotion and every element of nature in Neopaganism. There is no separation between the sacred and the people. The underlying theme in the tradition is that the universe is a cycle of constant death and rebirth and everything within the universe is sacred. Divinity lies in all things and all things lie in Divinity. For outsiders, it is difficult to understand such different and not concrete explanations of divinity. And yet for the people of Neopaganism, they are as close to divinity and they are close to themselves.
Bibliography:
21st Century Wicca: a Young Witch¡¦s Guide to Living the Magickal life. Citadel Publishing. 1998
Many authors have employed the religious beliefs of their cultures in literature. The deities contained in Homer’s Odyssey and in the Biblical book of Exodus reflect the nature of the gods in their respective societies. Upon examination of these two works, there are three major areas where the gods of the Greek epic seem to directly contrast the nature of the God of the Israelites: the way problems are solved, the prestige and status that separates the divine from the masses, and the extent of power among the immortal beings.
The growing practice of Neo-Paganism in America has caused many to turn their heads. The misunderstanding of the religion has caused many to equate the practitioners with the popular conception of typical "witches," that perform black magic rituals, satanic sacrifices, and engage in devil-inspired orgies. After many years, the Neo-Pagan community has cleared up many misconceptions through the showing that many of them do not engage in activities, and are rather participating in a religion, just as those would that participate in a Christian community. It's unacceptance continues, perhaps due to its non-conformity to the ideal of worshipping a Christian God. Through the use of ethnography, anthropologists and sociologists are able to present the public with a much different view than what we are bombarded with in popular media.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. “Wicca.” The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft & Wicca. 3rd ed. 2012. Print.
Wicca is a spiritual path, a way of seeing the world and Divinity, and our relationship to it. They believe that Goddess is imminent in the world around us. Goddess permeates every living thing, and most of them define rocks, soil, water, air, fire, and the plant herself as living things. "The God of Wicca is the Horned God, the ancient God of Fertility: the God of the forest, flock, and field and also of the hunt." He is Lord of Life, and the Giver of Life, yet he is also Lord of Death and Resurrection. http://www.interlog.com/~spawn/gods.html
They have been called "gods." These almighty, powerful beings that are far too superior for us to understand; or so most of us have been made to believe. Some may say he is a Great Examiner, others could say he is the Creator. Some could even say he doesn't exist. Frankly, what I want to emphasize is how such beliefs could reduce even the bravest and strongest of us all to a whimpering child. Something that we ar...
The general thems is gods are not as good as they are supposed to be.
4.]Internet Book of Shadows at sacred-texts.com,Beltane: Its History and Modern Celebration in Wicca in America,Rowan Moonstone,http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos032.htm
The Wiccan religion is one of the fastest growing religions in the United States as well one of the most misunderstood due to the controversies surrounding its history and mystery shrouding its beliefs and doctrines. Due to a series of popular TV series that have shown Witchcraft in a positive light, such as Sabrina, the Teen-aged Witch and Charmed, the popularity of Wicca has grown, especially amongst teenagers; but sadly this popularity has not been partnered with a growth in understanding and respect (Kaminer). Although Wicca offers a nature-oriented, egalitarian belief system with a rich collection of customs and rituals, ignorance and historically-rooted misconceptions still dominate public opinion.
Every culture has some form of higher being, to be a model for their behaviour, as well as to look up to. In Greek times, these were the gods and goddesses who made their home on Mount Olympus. Women identified with the goddesses because they shared some feminine attributes. Goddesses were a “symbol of motherhood and fertility, but also of strength, wisdom, caring, nuturing, temperance, chastity, cunning, trickery, jealousy, and lasciviousness” (Clarke, 1999). However, not all of the goddesses possessed all of these attributes. The goddess Aphrodite, for instance, was not nurturing, nor was she very caring.
Yardley, Meg. "Social Work Practice With Pagans, Witches, And Wiccans: Guidelines For Practice With Children And Youths." Social Work 53.4 (2008): 329-336. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
The world of Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods is a place where gods are brought into existence by the belief of humankind but also where they fade away into nothingness if that belief dies. All the deities from human myth and religion are able to exist, but only if there are people who are around who truly worship them. In the words of Wednesday, one of the gods of the story, “That’s what it’s like for my kind of people…we feed on belief, on prayers, on love” (Gaiman 225). In American Gods, Gaiman emphasizes America’s position as a place without any unique religious culture to call its own. Instead, it is country filled with the religions and myths of the many ethnic groups who carried their own culture with them when they arrived to the New World. American Gods is not just a novel about gods in America, however. This is also a story about how the gods reflect the best and worst attributes of American society. American Gods explores America’s lack of original religious traditions and analyzes the nature of religious belief in America.
People of the ancient world often had questions about their existence and how life and people came to be on earth. Most ancient people answered these questions through religion. The Sumerians were the first important group of people to inhabit Mesopotamia and they were known to practice a form of worship called polytheism, which is the worship of several gods. Mesopotamians associated different gods with natural events, emotions, and other occurrences. Their main deities included An (the god of the heavens), Enlil (Lord Storm), Enki (god of wisdom), and Nihursaga (the mother of all living things)(p.22). The Mesopotamians believed that the gods controlled all of the events and occurrences in life. An ancient text called “Creation of Man by the Mother Goddess” (p.34) helps us understand how the M...
The idea of gods and goddesses began as far back as the ancient Egyptians, but the ancient Greeks were the first group to form a religion based on gods and goddesses. They believed that the gods and goddesses were not different from humans. Some of the few ways humans were different from gods were that the gods were stronger and lived forever. Since the Greeks believe in many gods, they are Polytheists.
Lehmann A. C. & Myers J. E. Magic, Witchcraft and Religion – An anthropological Study of the Supernatural (Fourth Edition) (Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997)
How did people revere their gods differently among three civilizations? Did they worship with the same general intent? What were gods’ role(s) in people’s lives? A brief exploration into the religions of Egypt, Greece, and the Hebrew people may bring insight to these questions. Although the main idea of higher beings remains constant throughout societies’ religion, their form of presence in people’s lives varies. I will present the relationship between the leaders and the gods, as well as resemblance to monotheism and systems of government.