Blog Series: Should I Worship An Entire Pantheon? An Important Conversation on Being Called by the Theoi, ‘Level-up’ Gods, and the Differences between Veneration, Worship, and Work
Hello lovelies,
*PLEASE NOTE: This is from a purely hellenic perspective (I’m not a true recon but I am majoring in Classical Studies and apply my knowledge of ancient Greece to my practice)--This does not necessarily apply cross-culturally and I encourage anyone who does not operate within the hellenic pantheon to conduct their own research on this topic. I personally find these questions immensely important. By no means I am trying to say you cannot work with a single/several gods primarily--quite the contrary. My aim is to break through the issue of hellenic polytheists attacking deities they don’t primarily work with, why we need to debunk the gatekeeping of the ‘level-up’ gods system (I can’t believe this is even necessary), talk about terminology issues, and much more!
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I was speaking with a dear friend of mine yesterday about online pagan and witchcraft communities and the topic of gods (in polytheistic faiths), and specifically the theoi was brought up.
Several questions that arose were:
- Should you devote yourself to a god? What about ‘being called’ by deities? How much does it correlate with historical fact and how much is modern construction?
- Who can worship the gods and to what extent? Are there ‘beginner gods’? Should neo-pagan ideas of a deity ‘level-up’ system be implicated? Should we try to dismantle it? Is it a form of gatekeeping and how does it affect new community members?
- What even is worship? How are veneration and worship different? What does it mean to ‘work’ with the theoi? Should we?
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And perhaps the question that most interested me:
- Looking back at Greek religion, should we, and can we, worship the entire hellenic pantheon? Should we worship one or two gods? Can we worship too many gods? How do modern ideas impact ideas about multi-god worship? Do presumptions about only worshipping specific deities harm the hellenic community? How can we help resolve inter-community attack and slander about the theoi?
Over the next week or so, I will do my best to respond to these questions in the order they are presented (preemptively crediting my friend’s ideas which may come out in my posts). Keep in mind this is from my research and conceptions of the theoi and does not reflect the hellenic community as a whole. It may reflect certain well-known pantheons to an extent, but once again, I am not imposing anything on them. I leave that conversation to members in those communities. But hopefully my posts will spark some conversation about these important topics in both hellenic and other polytheistic circles.
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If you would like me to add any other questions on the theoi to this segment please let me know! I will likely continue to do this with other topics: let me know if you have any ideas!
May the gods smile upon you!
☀️Aurelia☀️
