{"id":14,"date":"2016-06-27T00:47:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T14:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/?p=14"},"modified":"2018-01-24T13:32:54","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T03:32:54","slug":"old-gods-dead-gods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2016\/06\/old-gods-dead-gods.html","title":{"rendered":"Old Gods Dead Gods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Back in April when the right wing kerfuffle began, there was a comment on Under the Ancient Oaks<\/a> that got me thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think that the gods can live on a dead planet? Do you think that colonization and imperialism, in exterminating countless cultures and ecosystems, hasn\u2019t also annihilated gods? How many gods have been erased along with the people that worshiped them?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The annihilation of Gods. \u00a0Now there is something to think about.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Firstly, the idea of us destroying the planet is a bit too much for me. \u00a0Even a massive nuclear war isn\u2019t really likely to destroy the planet \u2013 just the current life filled version of it. But some life would survive and new life would grow out of the fallout \u2013 nothing we might recognise or survive with, but humans are not the planet, we just live here.<\/p>\n

But on to the matter at hand. \u00a0Can Gods die?<\/p>\n

This really depends on what you believe. \u00a0If you believe that Gods are not entirely immortal, then\u00a0of course you might believe they can die. \u00a0For many of us though, we do believe the Gods are immortal and therefore, they probably don\u2019t really die \u2013 even when they seem to. \u00a0Even when they seem to disappear completely.<\/p>\n

For those of us who communicate with the Gods, how can this be explained? How can there be missing Gods out there, if they aren\u2019t dead? If they are alive, then why don\u2019t they just contact us? \u00a0The Gods are obviously capable of contacting us if neo-Paganism, Polytheism, Reconstructionism and all the rest are anything to go by.<\/p>\n

So why haven\u2019t they contacted us?<\/p>\n

Who says they haven\u2019t?<\/p>\n

Conflation and Convergence<\/h2>\n

There is this phenomenon, well known throughout history, where a God or Goddess will, over time, become a completely different deity. \u00a0Here we can see what happens to some old Gods, they don\u2019t die or disappear, they merge with another deity \u2013 or perhaps just become known by another name.<\/p>\n

Usually this occurs when one religion encounters another and decides some appropriation is in order, and so a deity of another culture will be merged with the deity of the appropriating culture. \u00a0This was a common aspect of Hellenism\u00a0\u2013 and is how we have Rhea-Kybele and the conflation of Isis\/Aset with Hekate. \u00a0It is extremely common in Hellenism for a single\u00a0deity to have about a million names \u2013 that might be a slight exaggeration, but it might not be.\u00a0 And so Hekate is Hekate Phosphorous, Hekate Enodia, Hekate Brimo, Hekate Soteira and many many more.<\/p>\n

From what we can tell by looking at history, it appears that in a lot of cases these multiple names were not original, they occurred over time. \u00a0Once there was a deity called Brimo, and there was a deity called Hekate. \u00a0Then, one day, there was a deity called Hekate Brimo and Brimo was no more \u2013 though Hekate continued as Her own self.<\/p>\n

So what happened?<\/p>\n

There are several possibilities, but we don\u2019t really know \u2013 I suppose it is not for us to know. \u00a0However\u00a0we can make some guesses.<\/p>\n

It is possible there never was two deities, just two different ways of seeing one deity and over time people learned their mistake and fixed it. \u00a0And so Brimo was always Hekate, there was no Brimo, just a Hekate. \u00a0It could be that the people knew this all along, She just had the two names, but they didn\u2019t communicate that well in the histories.<\/p>\n

It is possible that there were two deities and they literally merged together into one greater deity. \u00a0Like how I like to mix coke with vanilla icecream to create one awesome piece of yumminess (we call that a Spider here in Aus, because we apparently don\u2019t have enough spiders already). \u00a0It\u2019s probably more complicated than that of course, but you get the idea.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that there is no merging, just assumptions. \u00a0Hekate and Brimo remain two separate and distinct entities, and when we pray to Hekate Brimo we are praying to two different deities at once. \u00a0Or perhaps we are only praying to Brimo who simply has a new name, She is now Hekate Brimo, and Hekate Brimo is not that same entity as Hekate or Hekate Phosphorous. \u00a0Just like I am Bekah, but I am not the same person as every Bekah out there, so too the Gods could share names whilst remaining distinct and individual.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that there is no physical merging, just a shift or merging of power and attributes. \u00a0One deity becomes more and the other becomes less, at least to our eyes. \u00a0As Hekate Brimo becomes more, Brimo fades into memory, but She is still there, alone and forgotten.<\/p>\n

Personally I suspect it is either the second last \u2013 when we pray to Hekate Brimo, we are actually praying to two different entities. \u00a0Or it is the first \u2013 there never was two deities, just two names for one deity. \u00a0But that\u2019s just my assumption.<\/p>\n

I think though that there is a good chance of it being the last and for the purpose of this post, we are going to assume it\u2019s the last one \u2013 one deity gets stronger, while the other becomes forgotten, but She is still there, somewhere.<\/p>\n

Old Gods, New Gods<\/h3>\n
\"The
The Goddess Ostara. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is this other phenomenon where people of our not-too-distant past will write out histories that aren\u2019t exactly true or at least are completely unsourced from our perspective \u2013 such as the Venerable Bede who wrote about a Goddess of Easter named Eostre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Was she real? Did she used to have a following back before Bede wrote about her? \u00a0We don\u2019t know for sure, it\u2019s possible, but the historical proof is lacking (you can\u2019t prove a God exists, but you can show they existed as part of a religion of the past). \u00a0So we don\u2019t know if she was real, if she had a cult back then. \u00a0But we do know one thing. \u00a0She is real now, she has a following now. \u00a0Indeed, she is really popular.<\/p>\n

Let us assume for the moment that Eostre was a creation of Bede and never existed, as such, before he wrote about her. \u00a0But now she is real.<\/p>\n

How does this happen?<\/p>\n

There are multiple possibilities. \u00a0One is the power of belief, mass belief essentially creating the Gods. \u00a0So, a whole heap of neo-Pagans read about Eostre and, thinking to one-up Christianity, grasped onto Her with every fibre of their beings. \u00a0And so She came to exist, through that mass surge of power and will.<\/p>\n

Another idea is that She already existed, just not as Bede described her exactly. \u00a0I mean, where did Bede get the idea of Eostre if she didn\u2019t exist? Why would he create Her?<\/p>\n

Perhaps, an old dead Goddess made subtle contact with a man and inserted some tantalising ideas into his head, so that he would write about them. He turns out to be somewhat influential and soon enough this old dead Goddess is being worshipped again. \u00a0Perhaps she has a new name, perhaps it is old. \u00a0Perhaps her mythology is false, perhaps it is not.<\/p>\n

Over time myths and associations have been given to Eostre, ones that have no source that we can find at all. \u00a0Yet they are widely believed and ascribed to. \u00a0Where did these new beliefs come from? \u00a0Some random person I guess. \u00a0And where did that random person get their ideas from?<\/p>\n

Maybe it was an old dead Goddess.<\/p>\n

Maybe some things never die.<\/p>\n

\n

Am I saying Brimo is Eostre? \u00a0Ahaha, no, they are very very very different entities. \u00a0But while Eostre could be the new perception of an old Goddess, so too could Brimo be perceived differently today, with a new name.<\/p>\n

There have been people who have created new deities, or seemed to. \u00a0It\u2019s not impossible that they haven\u2019t created new ones so much as they have revived some old cults to some old forgotten Gods \u2013 even at the subtle behest of that old God. \u00a0The Gods are not always honest with us, They hold secrets from us, it is not our right to know everything about Them.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t accept that every new God is a real God, but we can at least consider the possibilities of these new Gods and just who They might actually be. \u00a0Surely we owe it to those old Gods to seek out the possibility of Their re-emergence.<\/p>\n

Personally, I don\u2019t know if I agree with any\u00a0of this. \u00a0I think it\u2019s worth considering though, for the sake of dead Gods and for our own minds \u2013 considering different possibilities is good for the brain, if nothing else.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

What about you, do you think old Gods can die? Or do you think something else happens, maybe an idea from this post or another idea entirely?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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