A long ramble on how my practice evolved through Hellenic Polytheism, godspousing, and mysticism, into whatever I am now. waves hands randomly
How does a scholar manage to ignore historical sources so thoroughly? And end up a godspouse?
Well, I tried to be a proper Hellenic Polytheist. Really, I did.
Five years ago when Pan revealed himself as a god to me, I dove headfirst into researching ancient Hellenic religion. Being respectful was important to me, so I quickly learned tons of historical information and started practicing.
create a shrine to use as an altar
begin observing the monthly holidays of Deipnon, Noumenia, and Agathos Daimon for each moon cycle
learn to calculate the correct time for those religious holidays and many others celebrated for various Greek deities
practice ritual cleansing with freshly made khernips, before making offerings
observe the correct methods of giving offerings to chthonic and ouranic deities
give traditional offerings, many of which I made myself
research the cultural, political, and religious lenses those people used to think about their gods and religion
Once upon a time, people occasionally mistook me for a reconstructionist, because I knew so much about the historical practice of this religion and could quote sources to back it all up. This made my academic brain very happy. I like knowing that I'm doing things right.
Of course, Pan and I regularly argued over sexual offerings...
...(through clairaudience developed from years of spirit work), because the primary sources indicate that human sexual fluids cause lyma and offend the gods.
However, Pan not only didn't seem offended by sex, he appeared (UPG) to want it regularly. This shocked me! How could a god be unrepentantly sexual? Surely deities aren't that way?
So I'd give him all the historical reasons why sex wasn't respectful, and he'd ask (UPG) whose opinions mattered more to me: his or other people's? How much did I care what my god thought?
We'd wrangle for hours sometimes, until I finally got tired and agreed he could have a sexual offering since he seemed to want it so much. I should have known better than to argue. A goat god would enjoy some verbal head-butting!
Later, I'd frantically apply spiritual discernment to those experiences, searching for any place where I might have projected my own libido onto him. After a few decades of spirit work, I had enough discernment skill to be reasonably good at it.
Was I imagining his desire? Hearing him wrong? Did I subconsciously want a god to want sex with me? Did I crave feeling special?
No. I was too terrified for any of that, and not enjoying the fear either.
Day and night I waited for divine punishment...
...thinking surely I must be hubristic somehow, even if I didn't feel arrogant. I trembled, wept, and feared for my life.
I tried to avoid Pan at times, then felt guilty about that since regular worship meant I shouldn't avoid him. And how is avoidance respectful anyhow?
I didn't enjoy feeling chosen, or experience joyful happiness that a god wanted me. Not with so much grinding anxiety and terror of punishment.
Yet Pan (UPG) only seemed happier from receiving sexual offerings. Delighted, even. His emotions and behavior were very different from mine. I couldn't understand why a god would want the very thing everyone said he should find disgusting? It made no sense.
Thankfully, I wasn't involved with social media during that first year of godspousing so I didn't have people calling me names or insisting I must be wrong. However, the sources were clear enough to cause anxiety.
When a formal oath of partnership was proposed...
...I recoiled again. Contended louder. Gods don't marry humans! That simply isn't done. It's unreasonable! Outrageous! Absolutely out of pocket!
With much effort, Pan finally convinced me. I grudgingly agreed. It felt like maybe I was doing a bad thing. Not a joyful "wedding" day, nor was the ritual anything like a human marriage.
I didn't marry him for love. I agreed out of necessity, since I knew it was probably the next thing on my spiritual path. Usually the uncomfortable things are necessary.
We did the mountaintop ritual and went back to my house, where I wept from overwhelm and terror. What had I done? What would happen to me now?
For the next few months, everything seemed okay.
My godspousing operated in parallel to my religious practice. There was what Pan and I did in bed, in the astral. And what the rest of us did at the altar: traditional, formal worship.
I tried to think of the two as completely separate practices. Maybe if my formal worship was observed correctly, I could still consider myself a proper Hellenic Polytheist? Perhaps we could all turn a blind eye to what was going on in the bedroom?
Then my gods started pushing back on tradition.
They proposed (UPG) I should start eating offerings for chthonic deities. What? No! That's not historical. Gave them all the traditional reasons why too, as proof that I understood the seriousness of it.
Pan then asked (UPG) if I thought his chthonic offerings weren't good enough for me? If they were good enough for a god, was I better than a deity? Oof! He wanted to share food and wine with me, like a spouse would. That was an act of love in his eyes, it seemed.
My historical practice unraveled further.
First the offerings changed. Not only for Pan, but for the others also. My gods appeared to want less formality and more sharing, more just giving them casual access to my meals like friends and family.
Then they (UPG) asked me to stop celebrating the monthly cycle of holidays. No Deipnon and the rest. All three celebrations at each lunar month ended.
Then it was no holidays, period. No Elaphebolia for Artemis. No Anthesteria for Dionysus. No Maimakteria for Zeus. No offerings on the sacred days of each lunar month for anyone. No religious holidays at all!
I was sad. Those holidays were important to me. They gave me the feeling that I was doing this religion correctly.
Then I had to stop ritual cleansing with khernips.
I generally bathe daily and wear clean clothes, but I'd increased my cleansing habits out of religious concern. Stop that, they said (UPG). I was making cleansing about my value, as if I could only be good enough for them when I was rigorously clean. Pan (UPG) reminded me of the dirt in his forests and insisted I was already clean enough for him.
These changes caused more anxiety. How could I be sure of pleasing the gods now? Without the guardrails of tradition to keep me on the right path?
Finally they told me to take the shrine down.
This was a little over a year after Pan and I had married. I genuinely thought he had wanted a shrine, so this hurt.
I wept and argued, saying No! In this religion we have shrines! They are traditional so the gods must enjoy them, surely?
They said (UPG) my shrine encouraged too much reverential distance in me, elevating them as deities and lowering my human self in the dust until we were too far apart for close relationship. It reinforced religious trauma from Christianity, which had taught me to grovel because I could never be humble enough to please that deity.
Now my gods wanted familiarity, to be treated like family or friends on more equal footing and welcomed into my life in all its messiness. They seemed to think spiritual intimacy required ceasing formal, arms-length relationships full of traditional rules.
No groveling. No kneeling. No formal worship at an altar.
Reluctantly I took down my shrine, with many tears. It felt like a rejection. Like they didn't appreciate my efforts to honor them. Like nothing I could do was good enough.
It took time to recover from that loss. I had to explore many new questions about my practice and religion, and none were comfortable.
I had worked hard to understand Hellenic Polytheism through the lens of that ancient culture. Primary sources were my bread and butter. I'd learned to interpret myths as symbolic, since that was traditional too. Ancient cultus was a frequent research topic.
All that work seemed useless as Pan rooted my practice deeper in the mystical world of astral travel, channeling, sex magic, and possession work, and my other gods appeared happy to go along for the ride.
There are no reliable sources for that!
Sure, Dionysian enthousiasmos is part of his historical worship, but the wild ass stuff happening in the astral is not historically attested.
Could I still call myself a Hellenic Polytheist if I didn't have a shrine or altar, didn't give formal offerings, didn't ritually cleanse, didn't recite hymns, and didn't celebrate any religious holidays? Furthermore, what if I was fucking a god or two?
This religion is orthopraxic, so what I do or don't do does matter.
I know that giving sexual offerings is taboo in this religion.
I don't pretend godspousing was historically practiced as part of Hellenic Polytheism. I'm pretty sure it wasn't, though perhaps there was some type of spiritual marriage concept whispered about in the ancient mysteries of certain deities.
However, there are no primary sources that explicitly describe godspousing in enough detail so a skeptical academic person could draw an obvious line between that ancient source and modern practice, and say what I am doing is a direct expression of an older thing.
I understand that astral travel probably also wasn't a thing in ancient Athens or Acadia. Certainly not by that modern name anyway. Again, the primary sources aren't explicit enough to draw conclusive evidence.
Therefore, my current spiritual practice doesn't appear to have much historical backing. It's mostly "my gods appear to want this, so I'm doing it their way to please them," which I know doesn't hold much weight in most people's minds.
No, I don't think so. It comes down to this question: what am I doing and who am I doing it for?
If I want to please reconstructionists and make people who value historical practice happy, then obviously I should structure my religious practice to honor their preferences.
If I want to please my gods, then I should listen to them, apply discernment to what I hear, discard any of my own brain's bullshit, and do things the way my gods appear to want. Especially if what they want collides with what everyone says deities prefer, because who knows the gods' desires better than themselves?
(By the way, if your theology says the gods have no desires, remember that theology is just the stories we humans tell ourselves about the gods. It's how we have chosen to define them, but we have no way of proving any theology empirically true. You can believe as you wish, but you cannot be absolutely correct. You can just think you're right. So can I.)
At the end of the day I choose to be a heretic, because I value what I believe my gods say over what other people claim the gods want. I can't be arsed to place some human's words above those of my gods.
However, I no longer know what to call my practice.
In the past few years, much of my theology has shifted away from traditional Hellenic views because of things my gods have taught.
I won't make this post longer by describing my current theology, but astral lessons, channeling, possession, sexual experiences, monasticism, and informal prayer are now staples in my daily practice.
It seems the point is to go into the metaphorical cave system of who Pan is, despite how far that might diverge from traditional Hellenic Polytheism.
To see all of him, I must explore those caves: a chthonic world containing his aspects and mysteries. I must climb the figurative mountain of him also, to examine the crags of his nature, and see the views in his world. I must wander his forest.
It's a steep, difficult, solitary path at times.
There isn't a good word for it, sorry to say. Erotic mystical polytheism with a side of monasticism maybe? Hellenic mysticism + godspousing? I'm still deciding.
Maybe labels aren't as important to the gods as we think they are. Perhaps they'd rather have devotion than strict adherence to religious rules?