Author Topic: Practicing more than one religion -- questions (Read 1930 times)

EclecticWheel · « **on:** December 08, 2016, 01:55:48 am »

So I have some questions about this.

I am practicing two different religious paths, but the one is basically a re-interpretation of the other and overlaps a lot and grows out of the other, so I do not have to worry much about differences in the cosmologies (view of the universe) with each one.

But I have been mulling a while now on some other kind of inner work I want to do, and I think it might be helpful as well as enjoyable for me to do this in a different context than my Anglican or somewhat esoteric heretical Christian practice.

I have a lot of ideas about Who I could reach out to, and I know I would like to do this in the context of an approach that is polytheistic in practice. But what I am struggling with in getting started is the cosmology.

So I wonder how others practicing multiple religious paths that are more or less separate do this. Do you more or less have one cosmology that the different religions fit into? Or do you switch mindsets for different practices, sort of like traveling to parallel universes?

I might need to do some thinking about the world the MyOwnRituals part of my path could imply for a polytheistic practice even if the two are kept in separate spaces so to speak because they are probably compatible.

Faemon · « **Reply #1 on:** December 08, 2016, 06:26:19 am »

Quote from: EclecticWheel;199850

I wonder how others practicing multiple religious paths that are more or less separate do this. Do you more or less have one cosmology that the different religions fit into? Or do you switch mindsets for different practices, sort of like traveling to parallel universes?

I do have one approach and one cosmology, but I do also notice that sometimes the stuff of it doesn't gel. I have one sort of node of cosmology/practice/metaphysics that are very Neverland, and another that's aesthetically and nominally Arthurian, and they've never met. But I don't consciously make it separate. Then there's when I explain it to people, how I talk about it here might be different than when I talk about it to my therapist...unless I've just been talking with my therapist, in which case the language kind of still hangs there. And for all somebody else could care, my Neverland pirates are contingent with the Lady of Shalott.

I guess symbolic language comprehension has a similar code-switching as linguistic language comprehension (this conjecture brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department). I don't have the citation topping my head, but apparently if you're multilingual and can keep the speaking of each thing apart, then you take on a different mindset and even personality depending on the language you speak...not the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, I forgot. But if that's true, then I think that performativity of separation and the ensuing integrity of each separate node, or the performativity of crossovers and having one approach...could have something to do with each other?

Darkhawk · « **Reply #2 on:** December 08, 2016, 10:14:59 am »

Quote from: EclecticWheel;199850

So I wonder how others practicing multiple religious paths that are more or less separate do this. Do you more or less have one cosmology that the different religions fit into? Or do you switch mindsets for different practices, sort of like traveling to parallel universes?

Yes? No? Mu.

I've long said that multiple religious practices works best when the Venn diagrams behave. Roughly speaking: Any religion has fourish zones of stuff (one can make more, but simplified): the stuff you must do, the stuff that some to many people do, the stuff that's irrelevant, and the stuff that's forbidden.

The more the "must do"s overlap, the easier it is; the more the "must do"s that don't overlap fall into the "some people do this" category, the easier it is. (And of course, if some of the "must" of one falls into the "forbidden" of the other it's not really possible to do, or at least not without a lot of mental gymnastics.) When the core stuff for one falls into the irrelevant stuff for the other, well, that's just "more homework", not anything of significance.

So what happens here?

Well, the aesthetics of each thing in the bubbles influence decisions about the other. I can - and do - give entire lectures about matters of reconstruction that have absolutely nothing to do with my Craft practice. At the same time, though, some of my choices in interpretation and many of my choices in emphasis are influenced by the fact that I also have those specific other practices. The practices of each are whole and complete of themselves, but they are in communication, not hermetically sealed off from each other.