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Author Topic: Worship of Gods or Spirits with little/no lore  (Read 1943 times)

EclecticWheel

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Worship of Gods or Spirits with little/no lore
« on: October 21, 2020, 05:30:47 pm »
There is something that used to bother me, but not so much today.

I have expressed before that I've remained devoted to Jesus and Mary in both traditional and eclectic religious contexts.

I tend to look to experience, intuition, and non-canonical or unorthodox material for insight into Jesus and Mary, and sometimes that means I don't accept much of the dominant Christian narrative of them.

In the meantime I am starting to hand on some of my practices and beliefs within a family, my dear great grandmother's family (the great grandmother is deceased.)  I don't have a lot to say about Jesus other than in the form of prayers or poetry.

As to the Four gods or spirits I worship, I have no lore or material on them whatsoever.  I only have my experiences and interpretations of who and what they are.

I think this is an advantage in that I can relate to them intuitively and naturally without any cultural barrier like what I'm working through with Hekate, but it is more difficult to perpetuate their worship since I have no myth, and my attempts at myth writing for them have failed.

Do you see any advantages or disadvantages to worshipping or cooperating with spirits or gods with little or no outside information or lore?  Is there anything I can do to help introduce the Four to others without lore, since I am now passing on ideas and rituals?
My personal moral code:

Love wisely, and do what thou wilt.

EclecticWheel

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Re: Worship of Gods or Spirits with little/no lore
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2020, 08:38:54 pm »
As to the Four gods or spirits I worship, I have no lore or material on them whatsoever.  I only have my experiences and interpretations of who and what they are.

I overlooked something here: I do have prayers, mantras, some other materials, and written experiences that could be passed down, related to the Four.
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Sefiru

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Re: Worship of Gods or Spirits with little/no lore
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2020, 06:52:05 pm »
Do you see any advantages or disadvantages to worshipping or cooperating with spirits or gods with little or no outside information or lore? 

Well, for one thing, you won't have any lore pedants telling you that you're Doing It Wrong.  :P

Two of my primary deities have very little lore (Sokar is mostly Old Kingdom, so very little written material that's not about a syncretized form, and Ma'at is often discussed as a concept, but less so as a goddess). I feel like there's more room for UPG and maybe less pressure to formalize spiritual practices around them. Like, maybe it's OK to not have masses of lore and elaborate rituals, and just having a figurine here and there is enough.
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Yei

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Re: Worship of Gods or Spirits with little/no lore
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2020, 10:13:13 pm »
There is something that used to bother me, but not so much today.

I have expressed before that I've remained devoted to Jesus and Mary in both traditional and eclectic religious contexts.

I tend to look to experience, intuition, and non-canonical or unorthodox material for insight into Jesus and Mary, and sometimes that means I don't accept much of the dominant Christian narrative of them.

In the meantime I am starting to hand on some of my practices and beliefs within a family, my dear great grandmother's family (the great grandmother is deceased.)  I don't have a lot to say about Jesus other than in the form of prayers or poetry.

As to the Four gods or spirits I worship, I have no lore or material on them whatsoever.  I only have my experiences and interpretations of who and what they are.

I think this is an advantage in that I can relate to them intuitively and naturally without any cultural barrier like what I'm working through with Hekate, but it is more difficult to perpetuate their worship since I have no myth, and my attempts at myth writing for them have failed.

Do you see any advantages or disadvantages to worshipping or cooperating with spirits or gods with little or no outside information or lore?  Is there anything I can do to help introduce the Four to others without lore, since I am now passing on ideas and rituals?

An all too familiar situation. When dealing with 'historical' gods however, you do have a few options, even if exact lore isn't all that widely available. I have a few strategies for dealing with this problem.

1) The comparative strategy. Sometimes, if two cultures have interacted together for some time they may share gods, although under a different name, and looking at one culture's interpretation can provide insight into another's. Obviously, there is a risk of accidentally conflating two, similar, but different, gods. Even in such cases though there is still some benefit, as figuring out how two, seemingly similar things, are different can be instructive in its own right.
2) Contextualise within the culture. Generally, I view each 'cultural pantheon' as having a core sent of values, beliefs, or principles that echo throughout the entire pantheon. These 'rules' are not usually explicit, but discovering what they are can help clarify how worship is supposed to occur without any specific source of evidence. This can also help you to validate gnosis. If one has a ...err... gnostic event, you can check it against information known about worship within the relevant culture, and if it fits it is likely to have some merit.
3) The use of non-literary sources. I include this one because non-literary sources can be overlooked. I'm referring to things like art, sculpture, architecture, even archaeological remains. In some cases, that might be all one has to go on. However, it can be very informative, because it can reveal information that is otherwise easy to overlook, or impossible to convey in any other way.

Of course, if you are not following a historical pantheon, then you might find these strategies difficult to implement. Not exactly sure what to do there.

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