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Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Polytheism

Wicca is a polytheistic religion. Polytheists believe in multiple deities. How Wiccans view these deities can vary from person to person and/or tradition to tradition. Initially Wicca taught hard polytheism (described below). Today there are basically three types of polytheism (though there could potentially be more).

The first kind are soft polytheists. Soft polytheism says that the Gods are essentially all facets of one ethereal, divine being. So think in terms of a woman or man. How many titles can they have in their lifetime?
-Jane/John (name given at birth)
-Daughter/Son
-Sister/Brother
-Aunt/Uncle
-Wife/Husband
-Mother/Father
-Friend
-Co-worker

These two examples are each one single person, yet look at how man different titles/names they have. This is an example of soft polytheism. A God could have many numerous names...Cernunnos, Zeus, Pan, Jupiter, etc. Different names, one entity. Goddesses could be included in this one etheral being, including Athena, Juno, Aphrodite, etc.

The second kind are hard polytheists. Hard polytheism states that the Gods are separate, unique beings. So instead of one entity having millions of names, you have a million entities with one name each. So instead of the divine entity being called Cernunnos and Cerridwen at the same time, you have Cernunnos and Cerridwen being two distinct, separate deities, existing on a separate plane yet able to reach into ours for interaction.

The third kind is archetype or aspects. There are some Wiccans who have difficulty grasping the concept of actual entities, yet want interaction and "worship" of some sort. These people tend to believe the Gods are actually aspects of their own psyche, and are tapping into the areas of their brain that correspond to the concepts the deities represent. So if the Wiccan wants to pray to the Goddess for love...he/she would tap into the consciousness that affects love.

Regardless of there being different types of polytheism, each may still participate in the religion of Wicca. No one really knows or can truly understand the makeup of the Gods, so it's quite difficult to say who is right so for the time being, they are all correct, and all help us to find the fulfillment we look for in religion.


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