Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

[MaskedOne]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

Were classic pantheons made up or are classical gods pre-existing forces that we learned to interact with?

[GabrielWithoutWings]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

Were classic pantheons made up or are classical gods pre-existing forces that we learned to interact with?

Are the classic pantheons ancient humans interpreting the same pre-existing archetypal forces through differing but similar lenses? Are Zeus, Odhinn, and Indra sourced from the same archetypal, pre-existing being?

[Yazichestvo]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

Are the classic pantheons ancient humans interpreting the same pre-existing archetypal forces through differing but similar lenses? Are Zeus, Odhinn, and Indra sourced from the same archetypal, pre-existing being?

Zeus and Indra, one might make a case for that. I think if the ancient Greeks had ever heard of Indra, they would agree wholeheartedly. Odin though? I'm skeptical of the archetypical deity view, although I do agree that many deities are comparable to one another, and embody certain traits. If there are archetypes in the human psyche though, are Gods based on them, or are they based on Gods?

[GabrielWithoutWings]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

Zeus and Indra, one might make a case for that. I think if the ancient Greeks had ever heard of Indra, they would agree wholeheartedly. Odin though? I'm skeptical of the archetypical deity view, although I do agree that many deities are comparable to one another, and embody certain traits. If there are archetypes in the human psyche though, are Gods based on them, or are they based on Gods?

If so, then I would guess both.

[thalassa]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

I think its more a matter of cultural interpretation and relevance of a specific archetype. Perhaps in some cases, the archetype is represented by more than one deity, or the deity may represent more than one archetype, or they might overlap a bit. And sometimes I think some deities *are* because some things just *are*, and the personality is more about the people than the god--for example, Posideon *is* because the ocean exists...how a deity of the sea is seen is dependent on the view of the culture that lives by it and invokes its spirit in their lives.

But then again, I think the gods we see are more about us and less about Deity...and that the names and clothing we give them is only partly what they are. So what god we might choose to name is a matter for two individuals to sort out, not for me to quibble about.

[Omidottir]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

I regularly worship at the altar of Caffeina - She who gives us the elixir of all that does not suck. She is represented as a mermaid with a starry crown. Starbucks is her shrine. Convenient, as there are so many shrines in which to worship.

Asphalta (one of the many traffic gods) helps me to find good parking spaces, but I usually just call on the traffic gods in general... "Please, traffic gods, don't let me hit every red light and be late to work. Traffic gods, be with me."



There is actually a book about this called Pop Culture Magick by Taylor Ellwood. I don't own it, but I like his general style.

[thalassa]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

Asphalta (one of the many traffic gods) helps me to find good parking spaces, but I usually just call on the traffic gods in general... "Please, traffic gods, don't let me hit every red light and be late to work. Traffic gods, be with me."

[quote]

I had a Catholic friend in high school that used to cross herself and say "Hail Mary, full of grace, help me find a parking place, Amen." everytime we pulled into a parking lot...

There is actually a book about this called Pop Culture Magick by Taylor Ellwood. I don't own it, but I like his general style.

I have wanted to read that, ever since I heard about it, years ago at a Pagan festival. I think I was pregnant at the time, and its when I discovered the Great Goddess of Phuut. She is the goddess of smelly things, and her shrine (as I discovered) is a special porcelain bowl...

[anunitu]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

Ahhh,In San Francisco it was the parking fairy that you gave thanks to when by some magic opened up a space for you to park.

[Jembru]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

I don't drive, but an invisible unicorn called Epsilon finds me seats on crowded trains, does that count?

[anunitu]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

If it works,who am I to doubt..getting a seat on a bus is a small miracle most times.

What truly pisses me of on bus's is when I get out of my seat for a woman or a woman with kids,or a pregnant woman,and some jerk tries to jump the seat before said lady.

[Jembru]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

I never realised just how selfish people are with seats until my boyfriend was in a full leg cast. Anyone could see he was on crutches and couldn't walk, yet it was amazing how often he was left standing while perfectly able people sat in the disabled seats.

Sorry, we went off topic there.

[anunitu]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

No worries,we can always just fall down laughing for penance,I mean down is kinda a postulates thing right?

Looking at the posts before this I saw BOB mentioned,would that be Bob Dobbs by any chance,that is my avatar on another site I frequent. May BOB grant you much slack.



Bob Dobbs everybody,from the Church of the SubGenius. Screwing with you head on the internet for generations.

[anunitu]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

I can't help it,I was blinded by all the videos from Whats her handle and the weird alien..take this...Crazy alien...

[Omidottir]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

I asked last night if there was a god of bed. Because bed... is just friggin' awesome. Honestly, is there a better place to be than bed????

Perhaps it is the Goddess Serta and her consort Sealy? Hrm. I'm gonna work on this one.

[Siloh]

Re: Has anyone actually made up their own pantheon?

I really truly can't believe I didn't find this thread when I was looking for exactly this topic.

Sorry to put an abrupt end to the merriment of digression, but I've been going down the rabbit hole of what it means to worship a pantheon of your own invention. What it has told me so far about my beliefs--in case the OP finds this helpful--is this.

-I think that belief in a thing makes it real
-I think that the more prevalent and well-fed the belief, the more real power it holds
-I think the invocation of a believed thing, even if belief has degenerated, changed, or essentially ceased, is a powerful invocation
-I think the practitioner's belief is central to their individual access to a power, for even if millions believe something, the invocation of that belief without your own belief (even if your belief is merely that something is real because it is believed by others!) makes the practice futile
-THEREFORE I think that my belief in a pantheon, self-invented or otherwise, hinges entirely on whether or not I can believe in such deities, which entails at minimum that I believe in the real nature given things by belief alone, which is more like belief by proxy than it is whole and unquestioning devotion

I typed out more of my personal rabbit hole adventure, but then I got lost in myself. So I guess the above is all I got right now for that.

---------- Post added at 04:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------

. IMHO if deities only exist because of us and our belief in them then surely that makes us more powerful than they are.

Food for thought. To very quickly summarize/roughly paraphrase South Park's "Imaginationland" trilogy:
Who are we to say what's real? Haven't Jesus and Harry Potter and Santa Claus affected the world more than any of us have? They were here before we were, and they'll be around long after we're gone. So, in a way, they're more realer than we are.