Polytheistic Religion and Practice Volume One: Essays and Reflections

By Christopher Hubbard, Rev. Amber Doty, Katie Collins and 2 more

Polytheism: from the Greek poly for "many" and theos for "god."

 

While the term itself may be simple enough to define, the traditions, beliefs, and practices that fall under it are complex and diverse. Contemporary Reclaiming Witchcraft, early Medieval Heathenry, the native practices of the Aztecs, Shintoism and Taoism, and present-day Hellenismos — to name just a few — all fall under the wide umbrella of polytheism. Yet they are often radically different in their cosmologies, mythologies, ethics, eschatology, sacred rites, and other practices.

These four essays exemplify that diversity of beliefs and practices. In "The Dawning of the Equinox," Katie Collins delves into the history and theology behind one of the most important rites in Thelema; Reverend Amber Doty examines "The Nature of Evil" in a number of ancient mythologies, and how that influences modern practitioners of those traditions; in "Soul, Felt Experience, and Divinity," Tom Cabot discusses the visible and invisible realms of Nature and the striving of the human soul towards the divine; and Nicholas Mennona Marino delves into the orations of Isocrates in "'Venerate What Relates to the Gods.'"

 

These essays are only a beginning, though. The complexity of polytheism cannot be contained in a single text. We hope that you will find these essays illuminating and thought-provoking — and that they will inspire you to make inquiries of your own into the nature of the Gods, humanity, and our collective relationships with one another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bibliotheca Alexandrina
• Release date: Nov 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201987183

Book preview

Polytheistic Religion

and Practice

Volume One:

Essays and Reflections

Edited by Christopher Hubbard

Polytheistic Religion and Practice

Volume One:

Essays and Reflections

Copyright © 2021 by Neos Alexandria/Bibliotheca Alexandrina Incorporated

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means or in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author(s), except for brief quotations embodied in literary articles or reviews. Copyright reverts to original authors after publication.

All art courtesy of wikimedia commons unless otherwise indicated.

Cover image: The Shrine by John William Waterhouse (1895).

Interior book design by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

Table of Contents

From the Desk of the Editor-in-Chief

The Dawning of the Equinox: An Analysis of The Supreme Ritual

by Katie Collins

The Nature Of Evil

by Rev. Amber Doty

Soul, Felt Experience, and Divinity

by Tom Cabot

Venerate What Relates to the Gods: Piety in the Orations of Isocrates

by Nicholas Mennona Marino

Appendix A: Our Contributors

Appendix B: About Bibliotheca Alexandrina

From the Desk of the Editor-in-Chief

Polytheism, as a term, is relatively simple to define. Derived from the Greek poly for many and theos for god, the term was originally coined by Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher of the early first century. As a monotheist, Philo needed a word to describe … well … everyone else. As a descriptor, polytheism (and polytheist) fell out of favor until the sixteenth century, when it was picked up again by the French legal philosopher and armchair-witch hunter, Jean Bodin. Unfortunately for Bodin, while he meant it as a pejorative, the term was readily adopted by those who embraced Paganism as an aesthetic, a philosophy, and/or a sincere spiritual tradition.

As such, while polytheism may be simple enough to define, the beliefs and practices contained within the word are diverse, to say the least. The Christianity espoused by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the traditions of ancient Egypt, contemporary Reclaiming Witchcraft, the indigenous traditions of the Philippines, and modern Natib Qadish all fall under the wide umbrella of polytheism.

Yet they are different — often radically different — in their cosmologies, mythologies, ethics, eschatology, sacred rites, and other practices.

The four essays herein contained exemplify that diversity of beliefs and practices. In The Dawning of the Equinox, Katie Collins delves into the history and theology behind one of the most important rites in Thelema (an occult/esoteric movement founded in the early 1900s by Aleister Crowley and Rose Edith Kelly). Reverend Amber Doty examines The Nature of Evil in a number of ancient mythologies, and how that influences modern practitioners of those traditions; an undertaking which proved unexpectedly difficult given that so many resources about ancient polytheisms were written by monotheists, who viewed them as inherently evil. In Soul, Felt Experience, and Divinity, Tom Cabot discusses the visible and invisible realms of Nature and the striving of the human soul towards the divine, as understood in several different cosmologies. Finally, in ‘Venerate What Relates to the Gods,’ Nicholas Mennona Marino delves into the orations of Isocrates (circa 436-338 BCE), who wove together mythology, philosophy, rhetoric, and history in his work to examine and epitomize the concept of piety. 

These essays are only a beginning, though. Polytheism as a concept may be simple to define, but it cannot be contained in all its complexities and variety in a single text. An individual could spend a lifetime studying polytheism, and yet not apprehend even a fraction of its multiplicity.

We hope that you will find these essays intriguing, illuminating, and thought-provoking — and that they will inspire you to make inquiries of your own into the nature of the Gods, humanity, and our collective relationships with one another.

Rebecca Buchanan

Editor-in-Chief, Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Summer 2021

The Dawning of the Equinox:

An Analysis of The Supreme Ritual

by Katie Collins

The Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu

(vector art created by AnkhDuck)

In 1904, Rose Crowley received a message for her husband from the Egyptian God Horus. As a response to this encounter, Aleister Crowley tested the veracity of his wife's received message and the spirit initiating it. Upon proof of this transmission and as a challenge to meet Horus, Crowley performed the invocation to Horus which led to the reception of the inspired writings of the Book of the Law. The Book of the Law introduced the sparks of a new era known as the Aeon of Horus, and the birth of modern Thelema.

Currents of Thelema as a philosophical treatise are present in humanistic and Christian writings as far back as Augustine of Hippo. However, in the 20th century, Thelema as a philosophical religion addressed the exploration and understanding of the personal will. In this way it is an expression of polytheistic practice that has incorporated wisdom from many of the Osirian Age traditions that preceded it.

Aleister Crowley, a prolific English poet, playwright, mountaineer, magician, and mystic, provided a glimpse at a current of truth found throughout polytheistic praxis when he channeled the following: All words are sacred in all prophets true save only that they understand a little. What began with the invocation of Horus and the writing of the Book of the Law in 1904 became known over the last century as the supreme ritual. The supreme ritual is a celebration of martial pomp and circumstance that honors the pronouncement of the Aeon of Horus through the act of conquering and ascending the Aeon of Osiris.

The religions of the Osirian Age encompass the last four thousand years of recorded history. Modern scholarship seeks to reconstruct the lessons and techniques of the extant religious experience.

Thelemic exploration of polytheistic religion incorporates and honors the sacred word of each of the major Osirian Age religions. Through the medium of the supreme ritual, the prophets of the Osirian Age religions take their place within a collective framework. This paper endeavors to explore the polytheistic elements of Thelemic ritual with special attention to the symbols and methods employed in the supreme ritual. First, we must explore these symbols within the framework of the collective consciousness.

Collective Consciousness

In his essay The Magic of Chaos, Peter J. Carroll wrote about Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, a collective understanding of symbols, expression, meaning, and the impact that a collective transmission of symbolism has from one culture to another; the collective transmission derived from a process of the acquisition of knowledge and the application of its wisdom. This featured prominently in the alchemical art of the ancient mystery traditions.

Aleister Crowley’s approach, what Carroll describes as religious anti-religion,¹ was to master and absorb the wisdom of the religions of the orient through its symbols, and to deconstruct these symbols in the metaphysical language of the native culture for the purpose of translating them into his own. Examples of this exist in Crowley’s own writings on his experiments with Tantra, Yoga, Taoism, and in his personal writings on Buddhism and Islam.

The study of the relationship between intellectual meaning and its mystical experience shaped Crowley’s worldview. The philosophies of the Osirian Age became key players in the body of the work of Thelemic praxis. Crowley’s approach was religious yet seen as a practice of anti-religion because the goal across the entire body of Thelemic ritual, and in particular the Supreme Ritual, aims to transcend the limitations of these philosophies separately by first incorporating their knowledge and wisdom into a new praxis, followed by conquering, and destroying its former remains. The spiritual or esoteric praxis echoes the alchemical art through the transformation of the soul of Mankind into its purist form: a star, a diamond, a flower of flame. This process of transformation is also known as the great work.

Crowley wrote in The Deadness of Dogma that the accomplishment of this procedure will fail if performed with the purpose of converting it into dry lecture. That it must be infused and enflamed with passion: Without art truth becomes falsehood. Imagine anyone taking the teachings of ‘Blue Bird’, and pounding them into a creed, and writing dull sermons about them!²

Manly P. Hall, an American scholar and mystic in the early 20th century, once wrote: the stages of the alchemical processes can be traced in the lives and activities of nearly all the saviors and teachers, and also among the mythologies of several nations.³ Here Hall addressed that within the great work is the means to transcend the stage of putrefaction, without which the magician fails in his attainment. The accomplishment of this action occurs through the active excitation of mercury or holy fire. The purpose of ecstatic