{"id":422,"date":"2009-11-22T11:19:47","date_gmt":"2009-11-22T11:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/11\/polytheism-and-monism.html"},"modified":"2009-11-22T11:19:47","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T11:19:47","slug":"polytheism-and-monism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/11\/polytheism-and-monism.html","title":{"rendered":"Polytheism and Monism"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the nicest things about Pagans is that in
\ngeneral we do not get into hot arguments about theology.  <\/span>What unites our smaller communities are
\ncommon practices, not common beliefs. 
\n<\/span>We are little worried if others are not Wiccans or Heathens or Celtic
\nReconstructionists or devotees to Orishas or whatever, because we do not believe our own tradition is
\nnecessary for salvation.  <\/span>Indeed,
\nwe do not believe in the need for salvation at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n“Getting the theology right” simply isn’t an issue for
\nnearly all Pagans.  <\/span>Thank the Gods.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But some of us like theology any way – trying to make a
\nreliable road map of how our own world fits into spiritual reality.  <\/span>It is this vein that I want to make
\nsome arguments as to why Monism is likely a more satisfactory picture of
\nspiritual reality than hard polytheism, as a dear friend who is one put it.<\/p>\n

But before I get into this issue, I want to make two
\npreliminary points.  <\/span>First, and
\nmost importantly, in my view it does not matter in terms of our practice or
\nrelations with our Gods whether we are hard, soft, variegated, or simply
\nconfused polytheists.  <\/span>Second, that
\nis a Really Good Thing.  <\/span>Really
\nGood.<\/p>\n

As a practice, I think hard polytheism is just fine.  <\/span>Whether a person is or is not a monist
\nor hard polytheist is simply irrelevant on this most important dimension,  <\/span>No one can attend to all dimensions of
\nthe super human.  <\/span>My own practice
\nis somewhere between 99% and 100% polytheistic.  <\/span>But as a philosophy I think it suffers from two serious
\ndrawbacks. <\/span><\/p>\n

The first drawback is that any spiritual philosophy that
\nfocuses on our experience of the divine in the world needs to be able to take
\ninto consideration all reasonably reliable experiences of that reality.  <\/span>Throughout history, at least when
\npeople began thinking about these issues and writing their thoughts down,
\npeople have reported mystical experiences of a One that is the Source of all
\nthings or a NonDual more real than the world of “illusion.”  <\/span>This has been true of Pagan thought
\nfrom at least the time of Greece. 
\n<\/span>Similar experiences have been reported world wide, and over
\nmillennia.    <\/span>This is the
\nbiggest drawback – it seems as arbitrary as the hard monotheists, if not quite
\nso lethal in its implications for nonconformists.<\/p>\n

And this leads to the second drawback.  <\/span>Putting it broadly, almost all the
\nworld’s spiritual traditions fall into three categories: Polytheist,
\nMonotheist, and NonDual.  <\/span>The
\nmonistic framework makes it possible to respect all these dimensions of
\npractice<\/i> on their own terms while denying
\nany one of them ultimate validity or a theological last word.  <\/span>This is more than simply good
\nneighborliness, although it is that. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There is one issue that will give many Pagans pause.  <\/span>Doesn’t Monism subtly devalue our Gods
\nand our world?  <\/span>Certainly some
\nphilosophies have taken that view. 
\n<\/span>But I think this does not follow.<\/p>\n

We know a photon can appear as a particle or a wave,
\ndepending on the questions asked through experiments.  <\/span>Why should we expect Spiritual reality to be less
\nparadoxical to our minds than a photon? 
\n<\/span>It can manifest to us in one way, another person with a different make
\nup would find it manifesting another way. 
\n<\/span>Ultimate Reality is not Polytheistic or NonDual or One, it is all of
\nthem<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the nicest things about Pagans is that in general we do not get into hot arguments about theology.  What unites our smaller communities are common practices, not common beliefs.  We are little worried if others are not Wiccans or Heathens or Celtic Reconstructionists or devotees to Orishas or whatever, because we do not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pagan-spirituality","category-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nPolytheism and Monism - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/11\/polytheism-and-monism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Polytheism and Monism - 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