Guest Post: Helio says Polytheist Is More Enlightening

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Helio, who blogs here, has this to say over the usefulness of the label Pagan for polytheists:

By my own experience, I’ve come to realize that calling myself a polytheist can be much more enlightening than pagan. If I say I’m the latter, most people will simply assume I celebrate the equinoxes, cast a circle, use a four elements framework or have a male/female view on ritual and ceremony. The term has a Wiccan baggage that tends to be carried as an assumption into a conversation on my beliefs and practices and no matter how much you try to educate people, largely because for every polytheist trying to explain that they’re not Wiccans there are dozens if not hundreds of books for sale that simply assume the eightfold calendar to be universal (to name just one usual misconception), which then get read by thousands or make up the essential bibliography of covens, courses, bookstores, workshops, and websites that perpetuate those mistakes – including the general public and the mainstream media that happens to do some quick research on modern paganism.

If, however, I say that I’m a polytheist, it immediately puts the conversation on a non-monotheistic tone and easily in relation to more commonly know polytheistic religions, such as Hinduism, Shinto, and even pre-Christian ones from Europe, Africa, or the Middle East. It raises a lot of questions, for sure, and it’s not free of misconceptions: I had a friend of mine who once assumed that it was a Roman “commandment” to kill Christians. But the debate thus generated can be much more enriching and less frustrating, because it puts my practices and beliefs in connection with an historical period from which, to a greater or lesser degree, I actually drawn a lot what I do.

If I say “polytheist”, people are more easily reminded of pre-Christian and modern polytheistic religions and we can build a conversation from there, because it’s the same basis I work from; if I say “pagan”, I’m forced to correct people every few sentences and deconstruct a whole preconceived notion about my beliefs and practices. And that’s something which, after a few years, can be incredibly tiresome and very annoying.

Helio