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endymions_bowerAs usual, my thanks (and apologies, if warranted) to my interlocutors. I make no claim to have done justice to their end of the conversation. Also, I archive selectively; a lot gets left out, not just retweets and links and ephemeral stuff, but also exchanges that I don't judge to have been sufficiently interesting in terms of what I said, or where the discussion went, or that I didn't like something about. (UPDATE 5/8: I've added the tweets from yesterday and today to this archive, instead of waiting until the end of the month.)
2 April
@cole_tucker: Your connection of horses and boats reminded me of a Rune Gild article discussing UPG. Author had visions of Sleipnir as a boat, with the connection found explicitly in lore years later.
The connection is quite explicit in the Dioscuri and the Ashwins; I'm of the opinion that the conjunction of the symbols horse, ship, and twin expresses an early psychological doctrine.
@cole_tucker: So the connection probably has proto-Indo-European roots?
Yes, but I think that focusing on the diffusion aspect obscures the intelligibility of the doctrine. After all, these are insights that could arise independently anywhere with the requisite technologies. The idea is the juxtaposition of the relationship to a vehicle with the relationship to an "identical" (sic) other.
4 April
@Blues_Music: If the King loves music, it is well with the land. (Mencius)
One of the most interesting things about Confucian thought is the concept of "music", which incorporates poetry and ritual.
5 April
Thinking about the two modes of reversion (epistrophê), the eidetic and the theurgic. Both require a complete worldview adequate to all the phenomena. In eidetic reversion, however, since I am dealing with the principles of my being, i.e., myself as substance (ousia), I must arrive at something akin to Rawls' "original position", only ontological—that is, I must arrive at a conception of the cosmos that while fully explanatory of me, does not privilege me at all. The eidetic reversion results in a conception of myself as a part seamlessly integrated into the cosmic whole. Theurgic reversion, on the other hand, is like discovering the Mysteries peculiar to me. However, it is by no means solipsistic for that. It too is intersubjective, and must account for the totality. Theurgic reversion, however, produces a different totality, one composed purely of unique entities; even the forms are individuals there. The grounding function of theurgical determination, however, is evident from the problem of hylomorphism in the eidetic, the problem of a remainder of any formal determination, which in its very positing "bastardizes" reason (Tim. 52b). But from the theurgical perspective, of course, the Gods produce many "bastards", and this is not a metaphor. This grounding relationship, however, must not be taken too far, as Damascius warns when he demands that one not conceive the henads as "riding" and Being as their "mount".
***
@ajnabee: (Quoting Deleuze on Spinoza) "At this moment the whole world is only one single body following the order of relations which are combined."
This is, I would argue, the way to read Stoic ekpyrôsis as well as Empedocles' sphere.
25 April
The Eye-of-Re (ir.t Re, really "agency of Re") function is a fundamental concept of Egyptian theology. The abstract nature of this function has been obscured by insistence upon rendering the commonplace verbal noun ir.t literally as "eye". In reality, it is an example of what the late Platonists call a "source" (pêgê), a concept in a theological matrix, not fully abstracted. A "source" (lit. "spring" or "fountain"), unlike a form (eidos) is not translatable without remainder. "Sources" are thus culturally "thick" concepts, the kind that need a sentence or paragraph, not just a word, to render in another tongue.
The agency-of-Re function is always performed by a Goddess, and it differs significantly according to who performs it. Ir.t Re is the function that primarily holds the cosmos together, and so its declension supplies the key to Egyptian metaphysics. Ir.t Re supplies, in its diversity, the planes of activity into which the Egyptian cosmos is divisible.
It seems as though the highest (most universal) operation of the ir.t Re is by Tefnut. Atum experiences the primary alienation of a potency in perceiving Tefnut's absence from him. As a result, Atum produces the uraeus, which is itself the median plane of the ir.t Re. Tefnut's return is not so much to Atum, as to her brother Shu. This is played out on another plane, that of the "Distant Goddess". That Tefnut's myth operates simultaneously on a primordial plane and another much more concrete, indicates it is the prime instance. The "Distant Goddess" myth is observed with respect to the annual solar cycle as well as the monthly lunar cycle. It is also geographically inscribed as a relationship to an indeterminate symbolic "southland".
The two levels on which the ir.t Re operates after the primary instance are supplied by the "Book of the Celestial Cow": they are operated by Hathor and by Sekhmet, respectively. There is a certain ambiguity assigning the proper "level" to the next hypostasis of the ir.t Re, but it is operated by Wadjet and cognates. Wadjet, the uraeus, operates the defense of the cosmos and the state, but that of the individual mortal only by extension. The uraeus is produced by Atum in and through his felt distancing from Tefnut, whom he experiences as a personal potency. The uraeus does not feature per se in the "Book of the Celestial Cow", however, which makes it seem as though it overlaps it, and is articulated through the dyad of Hathor and Sekhmet in the latter text.
Below this plane the ir.t Re operates in the domain of the mortal, as embodied by all Goddesses who defend Osiris and the Horus child. There is a terminological distinction observed between the "flames" used for cosmic and for mortal defense. Hence this is a primary division in the unified ir.t Re function: defense of the cosmos, defense of the mortal. Many Goddesses operate on both sides of this divide, however, and the readiness of analogy has obscured the structured field. The state's functions can always be expressed as salvific for the citizen, and the individual's vindication salvific for state and cosmos. Regional potencies—justice, hermeneutics, et al.—can always be accorded their universal value through ir.t Re. This is essentially why we find "Hathor drag" (Goddesses in full or partial garb of Hathor) so ubiquitous. Hathor sits right at the center of the system, bridging the planes as daughter of Re, mother of "greater Horus", lover of Horus-son-of-Isis.
We could as easily speak in terms of "Greater Horus" (e.g., Horus of Edfu) as the cosmic, Horus-son-of-Isis the personal/political savior. Horus at once embodies the vindication of the mortal, and the legitimation of the political. Egyptians recognized the difficulty of holding the two together, hence some of the negative actions attributed to Horus. Violence or criminality attributed to Horus expresses that the personal and the social cannot be seamlessly joined. If Horus expresses the at times problematic nature of the transition between the personal, the social and the cosmic, though, the ir.t Re Goddesses express the seamlessness of moving between these planes. For example, Sekhmet, at once defender of the state and patroness of medicine. And this is why spells toggle back and forth all the time between the cosmic and the personal, identifying the function on the two planes.
That the agency of Re is vested in all these Goddesses does make him in effect a "Deus otiosus", but it's also a question of the total decentering and polycentering of the demiurgic function in Egyptian theology. We see this also in the ability to append "-Re" as suffix to any number of Gods, since we can always treat their function as prime.
@cole_tucker: I've been wondering about this, and Heru-Behutet as the Winged Disc Who slays the enemies of Re.
Horus of Edfu performs a similar function, to be sure, but much narrower, and it is never characterized as ir.t Re. Ir.t Re implies, not just the defense of Re and the cosmic order he represents, but the assumption of Re's total agency. An apt comparison, which has been made before, would be to Shakta Tantric theology. Horus of Edfu seems to act in a pretty much strictly collective capacity; note, e.g., that one doesn't see winged disc amulets.
23-25 April
W/@_shrine_ and @cole_tucker, on prayer, UPG (unverified personal gnosis), et al.
@cole_tucker: Was wondering your thoughts on silent prayers and "imagined" offerings. Silent prayers especially seem to be looked down upon by polytheists.
I'm not aware of polytheists looking down on silent prayers, sounds quite churlish to this polytheist. I rarely pray aloud. Some pagans just feel the need to be registering disapproval about something, all the time.
@cole_tucker: From Tibetan tradition I was taught to multiply offerings in mind's eye, which does seem catching.
I like this technique very much. The Tibetan tradition has much to offer in this regard.
@cole_tucker: Some reasoning was that since the Gods aren't considered omniscient, the prayer has to be vocalized and similarly offerings need a physical basis.
Well, Proclus wouldn't be down with that, obviously.
@cole_tucker: In that he does consider the Gods omniscient?
Not only because he regards the Gods as omniscient, but in his Cratylus commentary, he specifically discusses the Gods' mode of silent speech to us, don't see why the reverse wouldn't work.
Offerings without physical basis operate differently, to be sure; but that's not to say that imaginal offerings are not useful or that an imaginal component may not add value to a physical offering.
@cole_tucker: This is reassuring. In the devotional series I'm on, have had to make do with some purely internal repetitions and was concerned.
Don't worry. As Heraclitus said, "There are Gods even here." (He was talking about his kitchen, but like, everywhere, dude.)
@_shrine_: Speaking prayers perhaps puts them into rotation with what the Gods do outside of us, more so than within us, maybe… In my experience they really appreciate singing and asked me to sing for them at my last rehab.
There is definitely a distinct and powerful effect to spoken prayer. Also, some may find it difficult to render an intention sufficiently concrete without vocalization. I can understand wanting to push in the direction of praying aloud to foster a better sense of cause-and-effect, but wish pagans would avoid being so pointlessly categorical, saying x doesn't work or makes the Gods angry etc. Everything that has to do with the relationship between humans and the Gods is exquisitely individualized. The Gods look for different things from different people at different times, makes generalization very difficult. One can't rule out exceptions to any demonstrated preferences in a particular case. This is inherent in any entity having the capacity to deal with the totality of each individual and their circumstances.
@cole_tucker: I've become more skeptical of my own ability to sustain a clear channel in particular, and of UPG in general without some corollary evidence from a spirit-centric culture, especially when it comes to easing my efforts.
One should be skeptical of UPG particularly if something is presented as what one must do. This sense of constraint is likely to come from a personal, neurotic motive. The tone in which the Gods most often speak to us, I believe, is advice. They especially advise us in a direction contrary to something negative we are doing at the time, I think.
@cole_tucker: I think I misunderstood this, initially read as God saying you *must*, not intermediary.
I mean that when you think the Gods are saying you must do something, that's probably your neurosis. There's a lot of competitive hard-ass-itude in the pagan community that's very neurotic.
@_shrine_: Perhaps a mediator, on many levels, on the voices of the Gods. Maybe even a trickster, maybe "I" is a trickster.
"I" is a trickster, I think. Regarding other mediators, the Platonists spoke of angels and daimons who particularize the reception of a God to a certain time and place, or even a particular person.
@_shrine_: I find that asking for mercy helps and ignoring them lead them to become sadistic.
Sadism is something I could never attribute to the Gods. Am I blinded by ideology? Perhaps. Platonists interpret tortures in the underworld as painful processes of separation from corporeal attachments, rather than punishments applied by the Gods.
@cole_tucker: What of sadism of daemonic mediators of the Gods?
I couldn't imagine sadism being true of daimons in a divine series, i.e., homonymous daimons.
@cole_tucker: Did the Platonists address what appear to be direct sadisms, like Hera's campaign against Herakles?
There can be no question of sadism exercised by the Queen of Olympus. What Herakles undergoes is a result of his heroic penetration of torturous planes of existence. Herakles suffers for us, blazing new paths of experience. Hera is the primary formative potency over the most problematic regions of Being, hence she appears "difficult". Hera wields half the Olympian sovereignty, people just don't grasp her methods because hers is not the strictly eidetic half. But the choice is not to form these regions smoothly or in turbulence, but whether to form them at all. This goes for all the "wrathful" Gods and Goddesses.
@cole_tucker: Yes, I've said something along the lines of "They'll happily keep handing you cans of gasoline to pour on your fire."
I'm not sure you're following me. The point is that to create something that will inevitably die some day, for example, is frequently symbolized, not as an act of creation, but as an act of destruction.
The problem implicit in so many myths is, should there be intermittent participation of form? Or should only that partake of form which can partake of it eternally and immutably? If a formative regime is going to extend as far as to the outermost limits of reception, there is going to be turbulence. The deities who operate in and through these turbulent planes of formation are symbolically "wrathful". They are not actually angry or sadistic, but they help to bring things into the world that are inherently flawed and transitory. This mode of creation is symbolized by wrath or punishment. This is especially evident from myths where some negentropic structure, for instance some totemism, is generated punitively.
@_shrine_ : How do you compare this to Orpheus, Osiris?
Osiris is the mortal as such, so similar reading applies. Orpheus is specifically disseminated utterance.
(Dismemberment not actually key to the Osiris mythos in native context. Becomes stronger in syncretism w/Dionysus. Best context for understanding dismemberment motif is spiritwork, rather than myth, I suspect.)
28 Apr
In the 4th c. BCE, Plato had already posited that the cosmos was basically composed of subjectivity, its object, motion and math. It is a great advance that in Plato's cosmogony, there is no role for primitive "stuffs". There is, however, as much as moderns like to wish it away, a major role for originary agents, namely the Gods. One can choose not to trouble oneself with Plato's theology. However, the subject/object relationship is fundamental. That is, there is no attempt to build up from scratch the positions of thinker (demiurge) and intelligible object (paradigm). These need not be Gods, but they must be at a minimum a thinkable idealization of persons, and personhood to that degree irreducible. There is also the receptacle, the ever-receding remainder of the object in its objectification by thought. But Plato does not choose to hypostatize this as a matter-stuff passive to form. Rather, "matter" is treated as the Dyad, i.e., as pure relativity, that which exists only in relation. Pushed to its furthest limits, the basic terms of Platonic ontology are haecceity and relativity.
30 Apr
@t3dy: Can I just be interested in reading the unreadable without having to get committed to all these esoteric hermeneutical metaphysics?
Just paddle through the reeds; you never know when the Cow of Hathor will appear.
@t3dy: That's what I'm saying!
2 May
@cole_tucker: Do we come back around to a kind of Chaos magic if, in a diminished ritual mythos, the wheels still turn?
Unpack this a bit for me.
@cole_tucker: If a ritual frame designed to open the operator to bring forth an expression of particular Gods through them does so, but uses or assumes a weak mythos, like flattening the Gods into an IAO-formula, does that suggest the structure is essentially arbitrary, as long as the conditions (gnosis, link, Deity) are all attended to?
By "diminishing" or "flattening" the mythos, one is essentially impoverishing the intellective mediating structure between oneself and the God. So how it goes depends on how one manages, existentially, this contact. A person can, in principle, contact a deity successfully with nothing more than a name, or an image.
@cole_tucker: So the efficacy would essentially dependent on the horizontal relationship with the henad and unreliable across circumstances?
Not sure what you mean by "horizontal", but I'd say that an intellective structure too impoverished probably becomes an impediment at some point, and one ought rather just follow where the God takes one, within certain broad coordinates.
@cole_tucker: In a previous discussion, you had referred to the ability of henads to interact directly with each level of Being as horizontal, where the reference to "intellective mediating structure" seems to be in vertical terms.
I see, yes. (I've just been immersed in Damascius, where there is a peculiar sense to "horizontal" and "vertical" procession.) Ontologically speaking, it is indeed a question of the henad being able to directly illuminate one's plane of being. The intellective structure of a myth, though, is not "vertical" in the same way as, say, a purely eidetic ascent. This has to do with a certain ambiguous breadth in the Platonic use of the term "intellective". Every intellective structure, however, has a degree of autonomy that though a boon epistemically, is existentially ambivalent. Hence an intellective structure without deep enough theophanic roots may almost obscure a deity more than revealing her. Hence in the example of the "I-A-O" structure, IAO says a lot more about its related concepts than about the Gods named.
3-4 May
One of the areas where where Hellenic and Roman theology clearly diverge is regarding Neptune, who is quite different from Poseidon. This is not to say that one cannot refresh this syncretism, as it were. It would involve infusing Poseidon with certain Neptunian mysteries. Meulder, "Le feu et la source à Rome", Latomus 59 (2000) has some interesting thoughts on the Neptune/Apam Napat connection. Understand, I read Dumézilians as a form of esoteric exegesis, not as science exactly.
***
@cole_tucker: Found one conjuration in PGM calling upon "Wontes", which Betz gives as an epithet of Apophis. [PDM xiv. 239-295 Betz/Col. IX Griffith & Thompson]
"Wontes" is plural; demotic "Wonte" appears to be the God the literature typically calls "Wenty": http://henadology.wordpress.com/theology/netjeru/wenty/
[This entry has been updated as a result of the conversation]
@cole_tucker: Yes, in the translation addressed as a plurality. Were some spirits of the dead considered to belong to Wenty?
Wenty seems to be integral to certain resurrection texts, but beyond that I'd have to hit the books. I'll say that I have a hard time thinking of him as simply identical to Apophis. I mean, he has "to be" (wn) right in his name. It's a very cryptic passage. A mother of Wenty is suggested. It would be one thing if the text simply said, "O fury of her son Wenty, daughter of [X]," but the way "her-son-Wenty" is jumbled together as "Pessiwont" troubles me. I think a different translation might be needed. Found Griffith & Thompson online; text is on p. 72-73. They translate Pessiwont as "Her (whose) son is Wont". Note that "fury" here translates xyt, better understood as "divine inspiration", i.e., prophetic furor. Demotic says py-s s wnte, "her son Wenty"; but then why do the translators treat it as a name, Pessiwont? I'd say there's nothing to stop one from inferring that "the daughter of Arb[…]" is the mother of Wenty and his prophetic fury. "Daughter of arb[…]": wild guess--demotic arbt, "trustee, document holder, keeper of bonds or contracts". If the reading of -b- right before the lacuna is correct, the possibilities for known words are very few. It's odd they choose to translate "daughter of arb[…]", as the text just says tA arb[…]; tA is merely the feminine article. The word I mentioned meaning "trustee", etc. is normally masculine; perhaps the tA is introducing a rare feminine form. That would mean that the mother of Wenty is herself "the trustee".
7 May
One of the key innovations Damascius makes is to see genuine participation among hyparxeis, and not only among beings. When Proclus speaks of participation amongst the Gods, he seems to be equivocating; Damascius will not let equivocations lie. Otherwise put, Proclus is content to account for much that happens on the intellective and subsequent planes through ramified procession. Damascius, on the other hand, wants a proper existential charter for everything that goes on, e.g., with psyche. In this sense, Damascius would clearly be more receptive to something some pagans I respect are quite committed to, but of which I am leery, namely a univocal notion of process that would apply to Gods and beings alike.
***
I see a cluster of related problems in modern pagan belief and practice that could be termed "pathologies of immanence". Feel like I need to start wielding my classical metaphysics like a stick. Isn't that what it's made for?
The necessity for two sorts of transcendence: transcendence of the Gods, and transcendence of the soul. Transcendence of the Gods is about their having objectivity beyond experience of them, and hence objects of belief, not just praxis; but it's also about certain kinds of experience of the Gods involving mediating entities, e.g., daimons in the divine series. A lot of people who are very keen on the objectivity of the Gods, nevertheless want to deny any mediation in their relationship to them.
Transcendence of the soul has to do with a degree of autonomy for this hypostasis, and for the individual soul, such that we recognize that the Gods are not going to turn individuals into puppets. I am tired of one's piety being judged according to the degree to which one receives commands from one's Gods.
I am also tired of the notion that only a conception of the Gods as cruel or capricious is treating them as real, i.e., objective. The individual soul is of value to the Gods, its health, its agency, the relative freedom it possesses.
Moreover, for the Gods to dominate a mortal soul would compromise their own transcendence.
When I spoke of using classical metaphysics like a stick, I meant that if necessary, these principles could be rendered in deductive form. I'm not "post-modern" and I'm not a relativist. I'm not bound to accept unethical practices because I'm not an "insider" of a given culture. If your tradition has made of your Gods cruel and capricious beings, They wish to be freed of it. Being called "fluffy", if it happens, will not be the worst thing that has happened to me.
Dead people don't have the right to make demands of you either. Nobody should be told that they must worship their ancestors. I see people saying that to please their ancestors, they'll do this or that little monotheist obeisance. To me, that's monstrous. It's not surprising that veneration of the dead creates a pull toward more repressive, archaic behaviors, stereotyped gender roles, etc. Part of the problem is the lack of an ontology that adequately distinguishes between Gods and inferior spirits, souls of the dead, et al.
And this how it becomes problematic to say that the Gods are changing along with us. Our mode of worship can change without Them changing. They have always been so vast as to encompass far more than was perceived in them in a given time and place. And I say all this as an absolute hard polytheist—why, according to one recent article, I'm the pagan equivalent of Radical Orthodoxy!
8 May
@cole_tucker: Have you read any of Collin Cleary's essays on polytheism?
No; I'd never heard of him before, in fact. Some of them look rather good, though. What were your thoughts?
@cole_tucker: I thought the same, but it's being advertised directly below a collection of devotional poems to Hitler...
Good Gods, I didn't notice! Feel like I need a shower now.
You know, this is what I meant when I spoke earlier about a "Gigantomachy" in modern paganism, in which certain toxic ideological materials were going to have to be transmuted, as it were, in the fire of pagan fellowship, or destroy the community. It starts from the simple necessity of pagans on the left and the right politically merely being able to stand one another, or not. Many right wing pagans aren't serious about the religion at all: only the racism matters to them. But that's not true of all. Clearly, though pagans on the right are hung up on two concepts badly needing clarification: nationalism and individuality. Pagans need to think through the way in which particular cultures are big-T "True", not merely "true", and yet coexist. Pagans also need to think through how individuals are metaphysically real, but so is the common. These are burning intellectual issues for the world, but they have a clear urgency for pagans. If our fellowship holds, then modern polytheists will, necessarily, have come to some understanding of general value. What distresses me is the way the rightist is allowed to own these notions, because of intellectual laziness on the left. So many on the left are operating out of a completely inadequate metaphysics, or out of a largely unthought rejection of metaphysics. I am understanding of this, to the extent that medieval metaphysics was never properly overcome. But we've waited long enough. "The need … is to find a viable alternative to an atomism which logically involves a denial of connections and an absolutistic block monism which, in behalf of the reality of relations, leaves no place for the discrete, for plurality, and for individuals." (John Dewey)
@cole_tucker: From the perspective of someone probably closer to the latter [i.e., unthought rejection of metaphysics], a coherent metaphysics seems a bit of a leap for a group that can't agree that the Gods actually exist.
You're speaking of the "humanist" pagans. But see, I sense that this move is driven by politics, as well as by the metaphysics on offer from the theologically-indifferent segment of the left. "Humanist" pagans almost always advocate a monistic metaphysics, which leaves no room for distinct divinities, but which seems to them to secure social solidarity, albeit through very blunt means. It also secures them a connection to an amorphous reading of the mystical tradition, and some trendy philosophical positions.
@cole_tucker: There just seems to be a bewildering diversity of investments that come together to form the community.
But if the single investment in the Gods is strong enough, it can actually force people to work out the rest, to some degree.
@cole_tucker: Were you speaking of the left as a whole, or within the pagan/polytheistic community?
Well, I think that the left as a whole needs a stronger metaphysics, one that enables more effective critique and overcomes the unproductive aspects of the post-Hegelian philosophical landscape. Quite aside from theological issues, I believe that the latter requires a reassessment of Platonism.
***
@HorusArtist: What are your thoughts on the Aeon of Horus?
An idea that was farsighted when conceived, nearsighted today. What I mean is, that for me it was a stepping stone to an embrace of radical polytheism, and to a metaphysics at once classical, and radically pluralistic.
2 April
@cole_tucker: Your connection of horses and boats reminded me of a Rune Gild article discussing UPG. Author had visions of Sleipnir as a boat, with the connection found explicitly in lore years later.
The connection is quite explicit in the Dioscuri and the Ashwins; I'm of the opinion that the conjunction of the symbols horse, ship, and twin expresses an early psychological doctrine.
@cole_tucker: So the connection probably has proto-Indo-European roots?
Yes, but I think that focusing on the diffusion aspect obscures the intelligibility of the doctrine. After all, these are insights that could arise independently anywhere with the requisite technologies. The idea is the juxtaposition of the relationship to a vehicle with the relationship to an "identical" (sic) other.
4 April
@Blues_Music: If the King loves music, it is well with the land. (Mencius)
One of the most interesting things about Confucian thought is the concept of "music", which incorporates poetry and ritual.
5 April
Thinking about the two modes of reversion (epistrophê), the eidetic and the theurgic. Both require a complete worldview adequate to all the phenomena. In eidetic reversion, however, since I am dealing with the principles of my being, i.e., myself as substance (ousia), I must arrive at something akin to Rawls' "original position", only ontological—that is, I must arrive at a conception of the cosmos that while fully explanatory of me, does not privilege me at all. The eidetic reversion results in a conception of myself as a part seamlessly integrated into the cosmic whole. Theurgic reversion, on the other hand, is like discovering the Mysteries peculiar to me. However, it is by no means solipsistic for that. It too is intersubjective, and must account for the totality. Theurgic reversion, however, produces a different totality, one composed purely of unique entities; even the forms are individuals there. The grounding function of theurgical determination, however, is evident from the problem of hylomorphism in the eidetic, the problem of a remainder of any formal determination, which in its very positing "bastardizes" reason (Tim. 52b). But from the theurgical perspective, of course, the Gods produce many "bastards", and this is not a metaphor. This grounding relationship, however, must not be taken too far, as Damascius warns when he demands that one not conceive the henads as "riding" and Being as their "mount".
***
@ajnabee: (Quoting Deleuze on Spinoza) "At this moment the whole world is only one single body following the order of relations which are combined."
This is, I would argue, the way to read Stoic ekpyrôsis as well as Empedocles' sphere.
25 April
The Eye-of-Re (ir.t Re, really "agency of Re") function is a fundamental concept of Egyptian theology. The abstract nature of this function has been obscured by insistence upon rendering the commonplace verbal noun ir.t literally as "eye". In reality, it is an example of what the late Platonists call a "source" (pêgê), a concept in a theological matrix, not fully abstracted. A "source" (lit. "spring" or "fountain"), unlike a form (eidos) is not translatable without remainder. "Sources" are thus culturally "thick" concepts, the kind that need a sentence or paragraph, not just a word, to render in another tongue.
The agency-of-Re function is always performed by a Goddess, and it differs significantly according to who performs it. Ir.t Re is the function that primarily holds the cosmos together, and so its declension supplies the key to Egyptian metaphysics. Ir.t Re supplies, in its diversity, the planes of activity into which the Egyptian cosmos is divisible.
It seems as though the highest (most universal) operation of the ir.t Re is by Tefnut. Atum experiences the primary alienation of a potency in perceiving Tefnut's absence from him. As a result, Atum produces the uraeus, which is itself the median plane of the ir.t Re. Tefnut's return is not so much to Atum, as to her brother Shu. This is played out on another plane, that of the "Distant Goddess". That Tefnut's myth operates simultaneously on a primordial plane and another much more concrete, indicates it is the prime instance. The "Distant Goddess" myth is observed with respect to the annual solar cycle as well as the monthly lunar cycle. It is also geographically inscribed as a relationship to an indeterminate symbolic "southland".
The two levels on which the ir.t Re operates after the primary instance are supplied by the "Book of the Celestial Cow": they are operated by Hathor and by Sekhmet, respectively. There is a certain ambiguity assigning the proper "level" to the next hypostasis of the ir.t Re, but it is operated by Wadjet and cognates. Wadjet, the uraeus, operates the defense of the cosmos and the state, but that of the individual mortal only by extension. The uraeus is produced by Atum in and through his felt distancing from Tefnut, whom he experiences as a personal potency. The uraeus does not feature per se in the "Book of the Celestial Cow", however, which makes it seem as though it overlaps it, and is articulated through the dyad of Hathor and Sekhmet in the latter text.
Below this plane the ir.t Re operates in the domain of the mortal, as embodied by all Goddesses who defend Osiris and the Horus child. There is a terminological distinction observed between the "flames" used for cosmic and for mortal defense. Hence this is a primary division in the unified ir.t Re function: defense of the cosmos, defense of the mortal. Many Goddesses operate on both sides of this divide, however, and the readiness of analogy has obscured the structured field. The state's functions can always be expressed as salvific for the citizen, and the individual's vindication salvific for state and cosmos. Regional potencies—justice, hermeneutics, et al.—can always be accorded their universal value through ir.t Re. This is essentially why we find "Hathor drag" (Goddesses in full or partial garb of Hathor) so ubiquitous. Hathor sits right at the center of the system, bridging the planes as daughter of Re, mother of "greater Horus", lover of Horus-son-of-Isis.
We could as easily speak in terms of "Greater Horus" (e.g., Horus of Edfu) as the cosmic, Horus-son-of-Isis the personal/political savior. Horus at once embodies the vindication of the mortal, and the legitimation of the political. Egyptians recognized the difficulty of holding the two together, hence some of the negative actions attributed to Horus. Violence or criminality attributed to Horus expresses that the personal and the social cannot be seamlessly joined. If Horus expresses the at times problematic nature of the transition between the personal, the social and the cosmic, though, the ir.t Re Goddesses express the seamlessness of moving between these planes. For example, Sekhmet, at once defender of the state and patroness of medicine. And this is why spells toggle back and forth all the time between the cosmic and the personal, identifying the function on the two planes.
That the agency of Re is vested in all these Goddesses does make him in effect a "Deus otiosus", but it's also a question of the total decentering and polycentering of the demiurgic function in Egyptian theology. We see this also in the ability to append "-Re" as suffix to any number of Gods, since we can always treat their function as prime.
@cole_tucker: I've been wondering about this, and Heru-Behutet as the Winged Disc Who slays the enemies of Re.
Horus of Edfu performs a similar function, to be sure, but much narrower, and it is never characterized as ir.t Re. Ir.t Re implies, not just the defense of Re and the cosmic order he represents, but the assumption of Re's total agency. An apt comparison, which has been made before, would be to Shakta Tantric theology. Horus of Edfu seems to act in a pretty much strictly collective capacity; note, e.g., that one doesn't see winged disc amulets.
23-25 April
W/@_shrine_ and @cole_tucker, on prayer, UPG (unverified personal gnosis), et al.
@cole_tucker: Was wondering your thoughts on silent prayers and "imagined" offerings. Silent prayers especially seem to be looked down upon by polytheists.
I'm not aware of polytheists looking down on silent prayers, sounds quite churlish to this polytheist. I rarely pray aloud. Some pagans just feel the need to be registering disapproval about something, all the time.
@cole_tucker: From Tibetan tradition I was taught to multiply offerings in mind's eye, which does seem catching.
I like this technique very much. The Tibetan tradition has much to offer in this regard.
@cole_tucker: Some reasoning was that since the Gods aren't considered omniscient, the prayer has to be vocalized and similarly offerings need a physical basis.
Well, Proclus wouldn't be down with that, obviously.
@cole_tucker: In that he does consider the Gods omniscient?
Not only because he regards the Gods as omniscient, but in his Cratylus commentary, he specifically discusses the Gods' mode of silent speech to us, don't see why the reverse wouldn't work.
Offerings without physical basis operate differently, to be sure; but that's not to say that imaginal offerings are not useful or that an imaginal component may not add value to a physical offering.
@cole_tucker: This is reassuring. In the devotional series I'm on, have had to make do with some purely internal repetitions and was concerned.
Don't worry. As Heraclitus said, "There are Gods even here." (He was talking about his kitchen, but like, everywhere, dude.)
@_shrine_: Speaking prayers perhaps puts them into rotation with what the Gods do outside of us, more so than within us, maybe… In my experience they really appreciate singing and asked me to sing for them at my last rehab.
There is definitely a distinct and powerful effect to spoken prayer. Also, some may find it difficult to render an intention sufficiently concrete without vocalization. I can understand wanting to push in the direction of praying aloud to foster a better sense of cause-and-effect, but wish pagans would avoid being so pointlessly categorical, saying x doesn't work or makes the Gods angry etc. Everything that has to do with the relationship between humans and the Gods is exquisitely individualized. The Gods look for different things from different people at different times, makes generalization very difficult. One can't rule out exceptions to any demonstrated preferences in a particular case. This is inherent in any entity having the capacity to deal with the totality of each individual and their circumstances.
@cole_tucker: I've become more skeptical of my own ability to sustain a clear channel in particular, and of UPG in general without some corollary evidence from a spirit-centric culture, especially when it comes to easing my efforts.
One should be skeptical of UPG particularly if something is presented as what one must do. This sense of constraint is likely to come from a personal, neurotic motive. The tone in which the Gods most often speak to us, I believe, is advice. They especially advise us in a direction contrary to something negative we are doing at the time, I think.
@cole_tucker: I think I misunderstood this, initially read as God saying you *must*, not intermediary.
I mean that when you think the Gods are saying you must do something, that's probably your neurosis. There's a lot of competitive hard-ass-itude in the pagan community that's very neurotic.
@_shrine_: Perhaps a mediator, on many levels, on the voices of the Gods. Maybe even a trickster, maybe "I" is a trickster.
"I" is a trickster, I think. Regarding other mediators, the Platonists spoke of angels and daimons who particularize the reception of a God to a certain time and place, or even a particular person.
@_shrine_: I find that asking for mercy helps and ignoring them lead them to become sadistic.
Sadism is something I could never attribute to the Gods. Am I blinded by ideology? Perhaps. Platonists interpret tortures in the underworld as painful processes of separation from corporeal attachments, rather than punishments applied by the Gods.
@cole_tucker: What of sadism of daemonic mediators of the Gods?
I couldn't imagine sadism being true of daimons in a divine series, i.e., homonymous daimons.
@cole_tucker: Did the Platonists address what appear to be direct sadisms, like Hera's campaign against Herakles?
There can be no question of sadism exercised by the Queen of Olympus. What Herakles undergoes is a result of his heroic penetration of torturous planes of existence. Herakles suffers for us, blazing new paths of experience. Hera is the primary formative potency over the most problematic regions of Being, hence she appears "difficult". Hera wields half the Olympian sovereignty, people just don't grasp her methods because hers is not the strictly eidetic half. But the choice is not to form these regions smoothly or in turbulence, but whether to form them at all. This goes for all the "wrathful" Gods and Goddesses.
@cole_tucker: Yes, I've said something along the lines of "They'll happily keep handing you cans of gasoline to pour on your fire."
I'm not sure you're following me. The point is that to create something that will inevitably die some day, for example, is frequently symbolized, not as an act of creation, but as an act of destruction.
The problem implicit in so many myths is, should there be intermittent participation of form? Or should only that partake of form which can partake of it eternally and immutably? If a formative regime is going to extend as far as to the outermost limits of reception, there is going to be turbulence. The deities who operate in and through these turbulent planes of formation are symbolically "wrathful". They are not actually angry or sadistic, but they help to bring things into the world that are inherently flawed and transitory. This mode of creation is symbolized by wrath or punishment. This is especially evident from myths where some negentropic structure, for instance some totemism, is generated punitively.
@_shrine_ : How do you compare this to Orpheus, Osiris?
Osiris is the mortal as such, so similar reading applies. Orpheus is specifically disseminated utterance.
(Dismemberment not actually key to the Osiris mythos in native context. Becomes stronger in syncretism w/Dionysus. Best context for understanding dismemberment motif is spiritwork, rather than myth, I suspect.)
28 Apr
In the 4th c. BCE, Plato had already posited that the cosmos was basically composed of subjectivity, its object, motion and math. It is a great advance that in Plato's cosmogony, there is no role for primitive "stuffs". There is, however, as much as moderns like to wish it away, a major role for originary agents, namely the Gods. One can choose not to trouble oneself with Plato's theology. However, the subject/object relationship is fundamental. That is, there is no attempt to build up from scratch the positions of thinker (demiurge) and intelligible object (paradigm). These need not be Gods, but they must be at a minimum a thinkable idealization of persons, and personhood to that degree irreducible. There is also the receptacle, the ever-receding remainder of the object in its objectification by thought. But Plato does not choose to hypostatize this as a matter-stuff passive to form. Rather, "matter" is treated as the Dyad, i.e., as pure relativity, that which exists only in relation. Pushed to its furthest limits, the basic terms of Platonic ontology are haecceity and relativity.
30 Apr
@t3dy: Can I just be interested in reading the unreadable without having to get committed to all these esoteric hermeneutical metaphysics?
Just paddle through the reeds; you never know when the Cow of Hathor will appear.
@t3dy: That's what I'm saying!
2 May
@cole_tucker: Do we come back around to a kind of Chaos magic if, in a diminished ritual mythos, the wheels still turn?
Unpack this a bit for me.
@cole_tucker: If a ritual frame designed to open the operator to bring forth an expression of particular Gods through them does so, but uses or assumes a weak mythos, like flattening the Gods into an IAO-formula, does that suggest the structure is essentially arbitrary, as long as the conditions (gnosis, link, Deity) are all attended to?
By "diminishing" or "flattening" the mythos, one is essentially impoverishing the intellective mediating structure between oneself and the God. So how it goes depends on how one manages, existentially, this contact. A person can, in principle, contact a deity successfully with nothing more than a name, or an image.
@cole_tucker: So the efficacy would essentially dependent on the horizontal relationship with the henad and unreliable across circumstances?
Not sure what you mean by "horizontal", but I'd say that an intellective structure too impoverished probably becomes an impediment at some point, and one ought rather just follow where the God takes one, within certain broad coordinates.
@cole_tucker: In a previous discussion, you had referred to the ability of henads to interact directly with each level of Being as horizontal, where the reference to "intellective mediating structure" seems to be in vertical terms.
I see, yes. (I've just been immersed in Damascius, where there is a peculiar sense to "horizontal" and "vertical" procession.) Ontologically speaking, it is indeed a question of the henad being able to directly illuminate one's plane of being. The intellective structure of a myth, though, is not "vertical" in the same way as, say, a purely eidetic ascent. This has to do with a certain ambiguous breadth in the Platonic use of the term "intellective". Every intellective structure, however, has a degree of autonomy that though a boon epistemically, is existentially ambivalent. Hence an intellective structure without deep enough theophanic roots may almost obscure a deity more than revealing her. Hence in the example of the "I-A-O" structure, IAO says a lot more about its related concepts than about the Gods named.
3-4 May
One of the areas where where Hellenic and Roman theology clearly diverge is regarding Neptune, who is quite different from Poseidon. This is not to say that one cannot refresh this syncretism, as it were. It would involve infusing Poseidon with certain Neptunian mysteries. Meulder, "Le feu et la source à Rome", Latomus 59 (2000) has some interesting thoughts on the Neptune/Apam Napat connection. Understand, I read Dumézilians as a form of esoteric exegesis, not as science exactly.
But I like the Neptune/Apam Napat connection because it makes us aware of a specific relevance to sovereignty in Neptune. Neptune rules over water as an element, whereas Poseidon is sovereign over the sea as part of a threefold cosmic division. Meulder compares the symbol of fire-in-water in Roman theology to the xvarenah-in-Vourukasha symbol in Persian theology. When there is no legitimate sovereign, Persian theology says the xvarenah, luminous brilliance of sovereignty, hides itself in Vourukasha. So too Neptune, perhaps? And thus a true syncretism with Poseidon would require us to see in Poseidon a role legitimating sovereignty? Platonists think of Poseidon as the demiurge of psyche, his realm the whole domain of change and process. Would the mysteries of sovereignty appropriate to Neptune be accorded to Poseidon, however, or to Okeanos? Okeanos, despite the connotations his name has for us, is the God of fresh waters. We know Okeanos particularly as father of the thousands of Okeanid nymphs. Perhaps it is in the Okeanids that the sovereign function of fire-in-water resides in Hellenic theology. (Apam Napat = "offspring of the waters", cf. English "nephew".)
***
@cole_tucker: Found one conjuration in PGM calling upon "Wontes", which Betz gives as an epithet of Apophis. [PDM xiv. 239-295 Betz/Col. IX Griffith & Thompson]
"Wontes" is plural; demotic "Wonte" appears to be the God the literature typically calls "Wenty": http://henadology.wordpress.com/theology/netjeru/wenty/
[This entry has been updated as a result of the conversation]
@cole_tucker: Yes, in the translation addressed as a plurality. Were some spirits of the dead considered to belong to Wenty?
Wenty seems to be integral to certain resurrection texts, but beyond that I'd have to hit the books. I'll say that I have a hard time thinking of him as simply identical to Apophis. I mean, he has "to be" (wn) right in his name. It's a very cryptic passage. A mother of Wenty is suggested. It would be one thing if the text simply said, "O fury of her son Wenty, daughter of [X]," but the way "her-son-Wenty" is jumbled together as "Pessiwont" troubles me. I think a different translation might be needed. Found Griffith & Thompson online; text is on p. 72-73. They translate Pessiwont as "Her (whose) son is Wont". Note that "fury" here translates xyt, better understood as "divine inspiration", i.e., prophetic furor. Demotic says py-s s wnte, "her son Wenty"; but then why do the translators treat it as a name, Pessiwont? I'd say there's nothing to stop one from inferring that "the daughter of Arb[…]" is the mother of Wenty and his prophetic fury. "Daughter of arb[…]": wild guess--demotic arbt, "trustee, document holder, keeper of bonds or contracts". If the reading of -b- right before the lacuna is correct, the possibilities for known words are very few. It's odd they choose to translate "daughter of arb[…]", as the text just says tA arb[…]; tA is merely the feminine article. The word I mentioned meaning "trustee", etc. is normally masculine; perhaps the tA is introducing a rare feminine form. That would mean that the mother of Wenty is herself "the trustee".
7 May
One of the key innovations Damascius makes is to see genuine participation among hyparxeis, and not only among beings. When Proclus speaks of participation amongst the Gods, he seems to be equivocating; Damascius will not let equivocations lie. Otherwise put, Proclus is content to account for much that happens on the intellective and subsequent planes through ramified procession. Damascius, on the other hand, wants a proper existential charter for everything that goes on, e.g., with psyche. In this sense, Damascius would clearly be more receptive to something some pagans I respect are quite committed to, but of which I am leery, namely a univocal notion of process that would apply to Gods and beings alike.
***
I see a cluster of related problems in modern pagan belief and practice that could be termed "pathologies of immanence". Feel like I need to start wielding my classical metaphysics like a stick. Isn't that what it's made for?
The necessity for two sorts of transcendence: transcendence of the Gods, and transcendence of the soul. Transcendence of the Gods is about their having objectivity beyond experience of them, and hence objects of belief, not just praxis; but it's also about certain kinds of experience of the Gods involving mediating entities, e.g., daimons in the divine series. A lot of people who are very keen on the objectivity of the Gods, nevertheless want to deny any mediation in their relationship to them.
Transcendence of the soul has to do with a degree of autonomy for this hypostasis, and for the individual soul, such that we recognize that the Gods are not going to turn individuals into puppets. I am tired of one's piety being judged according to the degree to which one receives commands from one's Gods.
I am also tired of the notion that only a conception of the Gods as cruel or capricious is treating them as real, i.e., objective. The individual soul is of value to the Gods, its health, its agency, the relative freedom it possesses.
Moreover, for the Gods to dominate a mortal soul would compromise their own transcendence.
When I spoke of using classical metaphysics like a stick, I meant that if necessary, these principles could be rendered in deductive form. I'm not "post-modern" and I'm not a relativist. I'm not bound to accept unethical practices because I'm not an "insider" of a given culture. If your tradition has made of your Gods cruel and capricious beings, They wish to be freed of it. Being called "fluffy", if it happens, will not be the worst thing that has happened to me.
Dead people don't have the right to make demands of you either. Nobody should be told that they must worship their ancestors. I see people saying that to please their ancestors, they'll do this or that little monotheist obeisance. To me, that's monstrous. It's not surprising that veneration of the dead creates a pull toward more repressive, archaic behaviors, stereotyped gender roles, etc. Part of the problem is the lack of an ontology that adequately distinguishes between Gods and inferior spirits, souls of the dead, et al.
And this how it becomes problematic to say that the Gods are changing along with us. Our mode of worship can change without Them changing. They have always been so vast as to encompass far more than was perceived in them in a given time and place. And I say all this as an absolute hard polytheist—why, according to one recent article, I'm the pagan equivalent of Radical Orthodoxy!
8 May
@cole_tucker: Have you read any of Collin Cleary's essays on polytheism?
No; I'd never heard of him before, in fact. Some of them look rather good, though. What were your thoughts?
@cole_tucker: I thought the same, but it's being advertised directly below a collection of devotional poems to Hitler...
Good Gods, I didn't notice! Feel like I need a shower now.
You know, this is what I meant when I spoke earlier about a "Gigantomachy" in modern paganism, in which certain toxic ideological materials were going to have to be transmuted, as it were, in the fire of pagan fellowship, or destroy the community. It starts from the simple necessity of pagans on the left and the right politically merely being able to stand one another, or not. Many right wing pagans aren't serious about the religion at all: only the racism matters to them. But that's not true of all. Clearly, though pagans on the right are hung up on two concepts badly needing clarification: nationalism and individuality. Pagans need to think through the way in which particular cultures are big-T "True", not merely "true", and yet coexist. Pagans also need to think through how individuals are metaphysically real, but so is the common. These are burning intellectual issues for the world, but they have a clear urgency for pagans. If our fellowship holds, then modern polytheists will, necessarily, have come to some understanding of general value. What distresses me is the way the rightist is allowed to own these notions, because of intellectual laziness on the left. So many on the left are operating out of a completely inadequate metaphysics, or out of a largely unthought rejection of metaphysics. I am understanding of this, to the extent that medieval metaphysics was never properly overcome. But we've waited long enough. "The need … is to find a viable alternative to an atomism which logically involves a denial of connections and an absolutistic block monism which, in behalf of the reality of relations, leaves no place for the discrete, for plurality, and for individuals." (John Dewey)
@cole_tucker: From the perspective of someone probably closer to the latter [i.e., unthought rejection of metaphysics], a coherent metaphysics seems a bit of a leap for a group that can't agree that the Gods actually exist.
You're speaking of the "humanist" pagans. But see, I sense that this move is driven by politics, as well as by the metaphysics on offer from the theologically-indifferent segment of the left. "Humanist" pagans almost always advocate a monistic metaphysics, which leaves no room for distinct divinities, but which seems to them to secure social solidarity, albeit through very blunt means. It also secures them a connection to an amorphous reading of the mystical tradition, and some trendy philosophical positions.
@cole_tucker: There just seems to be a bewildering diversity of investments that come together to form the community.
But if the single investment in the Gods is strong enough, it can actually force people to work out the rest, to some degree.
@cole_tucker: Were you speaking of the left as a whole, or within the pagan/polytheistic community?
Well, I think that the left as a whole needs a stronger metaphysics, one that enables more effective critique and overcomes the unproductive aspects of the post-Hegelian philosophical landscape. Quite aside from theological issues, I believe that the latter requires a reassessment of Platonism.
***
@HorusArtist: What are your thoughts on the Aeon of Horus?
An idea that was farsighted when conceived, nearsighted today. What I mean is, that for me it was a stepping stone to an embrace of radical polytheism, and to a metaphysics at once classical, and radically pluralistic.
