UPG, Divine Revelation and Mystical Experiences

UK author Sorita D’Este is a fascinating woman, and yesterday she posted a video on UPG that I found very interesting.

I find Sorita’s argument compelling, because it touches on an interest of mine: divine revelation.

There is this idea that Pagan religions are not revealed religions. It is true that our prophets are few and far between, and often lost in antiquity, but divine revelation was most definitely a component of ancient Paganism, and has it’s place in modern forms of Paganism as well. In Wicca the priestess, and sometimes the priest, embodies the Gods. Sometimes this is symbolic, but sometimes can take the form of an actual possession. I have witnessed a God speaking through a human vessel, I have read about such revelations in modern Pagan religions, and I have received both personal revelations, and revelations for others in my spiritual work.

I think we are resistant to the concept of divine revelation because we perceive it to be a product of manipulation or dogma. This isn’t necessarily so. We are also watchful of those who would spread misinformation and outright lies about our religions for their own gain. I know I am concerned about that, and there are a few Pagan authors you will never see mentioned here for that very reason. But there is a difference between chicanery and divine revelation, and if we shut out divine revelation to protect ourselves from snake oil salesmen, then we condemn our religions to stagnation.

I think we need to rethink our relationship to divine revelation, to develop a healthier attitude towards it than dismissal and to create the kind of culture in which this kind of spiritual evolution has a place.

We should consider that the Gods still speak to us, and how would we react to a modern day Pheidippides?

According to the account he gave the Athenians on his return, Pheidippides met the god Pan on Mount Parthenium, above Tegea. Pan, he said, called him by name and told him to ask the Athenians why they paid him no attention, in spite of his friendliness towards them and the fact that he had often been useful to them in the past, and would be so again in the future. The Athenians believed Pheidippides’s story, and when their affairs were once more in a prosperous state, they built a shrine to Pan under the Acropolis, and from the time his message was received they held an annual ceremony, with a torch-race and sacrifices, to court his protection.