How to Start Pop Culture Deity Research
So you’ve figured out that you want to work with a pop culture deity in your foray into pop culture magic and/or paganism (PCM or PCP). Firstly, congratulations! Choosing to work with a deity first instead of waiting for them to reach out is always nerve-wracking, and I’m proud of you for getting this far!
“Thank you, Jasper. But how do I do research into the pop culture deity?” you may ask. Pop culture deities tend to get little press, and you’re not alone in your struggle to find information on offerings, associations, or even domain. As I only work with pop culture deities at this time, that’s what I’m covering here. I’m also not going to cover picking the deity, as that’s a deeply personal process and is honestly just like picking a non-pop culture deity to work with or worship.
Luckily, there are six basic steps that you can take:
1: Scour canon and supplemental materials.
Checking the canon material is kinda self-explanatory for pop culture magic. While non-canon materials can often contradict canon, they can also provide some further insight into a character (when written well). If you’re working with a deity from supplemental material, I wish you luck, because this is going to be more irritating.
If you don’t have access to the canon/supplemental material, fandom wikis are a good backup. They are sources of knowledge that are absolutely dedicated to a piece of media and can help you learn more about a specific pop culture deity without making you play through a series of 60+ hour games or spending a small fortune on books if you don’t have a library or your library doesn’t have the series.
3: See if anyone else has covered the deity in a PCP context.
For more popular series such as the Elder Scrolls or the Legend of Zelda, their deities may already be worked with by other pop culture pagans online. Trying to find PCP spaces (Tumblr tags, Discord servers, etc) can help you learn others’ perspectives on the deity you’re trying to study for.
4: Check fandom writing blogs.
Headcanon and fandom writing blogs are a pop culture pagan’s best friend. These fine folks put endless hours, often for free, into some top notch stuff. Many take requests or commissions, and you can tip them for their help. Really, go befriend a writing blog right now.
5: Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG) and personal headcanons.
I consider these two things to be the same but some other magic practitioners say that UPG comes from experience and headcanons are just “there”, so take whatever definition you’d like. They’re essentially the same in a PCP context because non-pop culture practitioners are going to treat everything you ever say as UPG and fandom blogs (because you will inevitably get those unless you make a point of saying “this is a religious post, fandom blogs do not interact”) will think they’re just weird headcanons written from an in-universe perspective. You really can’t win here.
Anyway, through personal experience and associations, you can learn more and more what a pop culture deity is associated with. This is an important step in the process of any form of deity relationships, not just with pop culture deities.
At this point, you’ve decided that you want to work with this deity. You’ve done your deep-dive into canon. You’ve reached out and learned a few initial things. Now, you’re talking to the PCP deity in some manner, so any questions you have about them...you can just ask.
This ties back into number 5, in that whatever you find out with be UPG/a headcanon because you can’t point to something in canon.
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
stormborns
pixelskylines
