Pagan Portals God-Speaking

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Contents

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Part 1

Why me? A history of God-Bothered People

I see visions and hear voices. But this book is not about thepharmacopeia or psychoanalysis of treatment but insteadabout belief; the belief in the Gods that I believe are speakingto me, the belief that They can and do speak to me, and thebelief that our communication has some purpose. All of uslearn in school that the objects (including ourselves) we see assolid are in fact made up of whirling molecules and arelargely emptiness but no one actually falls through their chairwhen they learn this because we continue to believe that thechair is a solid. Or, to put it a different way, science teachersare dreadfully unconvincing priests. Sometimes when I amarguing with science-believers they categorize my peculiarbeliefs as being 'merely perceptual'.

What they mean by this is that my beliefs are 'not real'since the perception and thus the belief is inside my head andnot out there in that world made up of loosely connectedmolecules. But, if you stop to consider it a moment, there isnothing that is not 'merely perceptual' if we are aware of it atall, since none of us are falling through our chairs. Quite a bithas been written about the differences between what weperceive and what the world might be, from the ridiculous("If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it doesit make a sound?") to the difficult philosophy of Wittgenstein(causing my philosophy professor to leap about on thepodium yelling "This!!" "That!!!") but the baseline truth isthat each of us perceives from inside our brains, through ourfaulty senses, and with our preconceptions in place. Whenany of us agrees with another it is not really 'the Truth' or'reality' but merely our agreement with each other,'consensus reality'— that is, what we together have agreed toperceive. There certainly seems to be some outside-of-usrealness that we all share; we all need to eat and sleep.Although we vary on what food is; there are cultures thatperceive slugs as yummy and others that will find themdisgusting unless drenched in garlic butter and named inFrench (escargot). And when it is appropriate to sleep; siestaor sleeping on the job? But trying to define absolute outsidereality is like discussing human instinctual behavior; there isa lot of perceptual reality included and a very scanty amountof unequivocal findings.

The historical way of describing my perceptual reality is tocall me a visionary, a seer, or a mystic. All serious words andgood ones, but the way I think of it is as a conversational two-waystreet; I speak to the Gods and They speak to me (if Theychoose), a process I call 'God-Speaking'. Although the processis less like a telephone conversation and more like a series ofprickly feelings and insistent near-insights that ends withconviction rather than understanding. This whole process Icall 'God-Bothered' because, really, the Gods don't enter intocommunication with us to pat us on the back or congratulateus on a job well done but instead to give us difficult tasks andteach us unpleasant truths. It is somewhat of a process tomake oneself receptive to speaking with the Gods; there needsto be a natural talent or predilection to begin with that mustbe nurtured, fostered, trained by meditative trance or, in somecultures, painful ordeal. I also make the assumption that thereis some effort required on the part of the Gods to participatein the conversation that only a few of Them are willing toundertake, and that there are a vast number who choose not totrouble Themselves.

All of the societies that I am familiar with (which is lots, butI never feel comfortable making the pronouncement 'allsocieties') have a place for the person who troubles hirself tospeak with the Gods and whom the Gods trouble in return.There is always some trouble in the equation. On the humanside, the Gods-Speaker needs to facilitate hir abilities and, itseems, to convince the Gods through some effort that ze isamenable and dedicated. Often and often, the effort isextreme and difficult. As I mentioned, some societies havespecific painful ordeal for the apprentice to undertake toshow willing. Others leave the inception of the ordeal to theGods, and identify sickness or trauma given to the chosen oneas the initiation ordeal. What process the God undergoes whodecides to enter into communication is known only to theGods. Perhaps They, like many human societies, segregate theBothering Gods somewhat away from general society. Humansocieties generally have a way, a place, a tradition, thatvisionary people can isolate themselves into or be isolatedfrom the usual bustle. As well as the detached dwelling of theShaman, Medicine Man, or Wise-Woman who lives slightlysegregated from the village or the completely separate hut ofthe hermit there is also the monastery— Buddhist, Hindu,Anglican, or Catholic— all of which allow the God-Botheredpeople some space to live in that the rest of the communitydoes not enter, both bodily and mentally. Across societies,visionary people generally want to segregate themselves;partly, I find, because the mundane world can be a littleintrusive but also because many people find me and otherseers a little strange and difficult. Our perceptions are notthose of 'normal' people and what we do is troublesome andsometimes dangerous. Indeed, if the society supports the roleof shaman/seer/visionary often the other members of thesociety agree that what the seer is doing can be risky and donot wish to be in too close contact with the processthemselves.

This points up the problem of the conflict of duality. Afour-way problem, actually— general society has the choice toculturally support or to repudiate the seer and the seer has tochoose between seeing hir aptitude as real or delusional. Inmost 'primitive' societies, there is a clear and society-supportedplace for the shaman. If you as a people live closeto the edge of subsistence, then it makes perfect sense toculturally support the person who negotiates with GreaterSpirits for a good outcome for your harvest, hunt, gatheringtrip, disease, season. As well, it is important to know as soonas possible if the Spirits want something or have an opinionabout what the tribe is doing or is contemplating doing and sothe person who has good lines of communication with Spiritis important and necessary. In more complex but still faith-basedsocieties (medieval and Northern Europe are what I ammost familiar with) the church, while also jumping on anyhint of heresy and indulging in a lot of politics, supportedvisionaries and anchorites and their unique and very personalizedcommunications with God. It seems that locally acommunity would support, if not endorse, almost anyharmless crazy-thinker as a God-touched hermit much as localcommunities also supported disabled or differently giftedpeople. When a God-Bothered Thinker attracted a significantfollowing or preached against received doctrine, the Popewould inevitably get involved— sometimes with a goodoutcome (Saint Francis of Assisi) and sometimes with a bad(Pelagius). Even ordinary (non-clerical) people, even peoplewho look to our modern eye as incorporating self-aggrandizingflouncing and self-serving tourism into their trancesand visions (Margery Kempe) were generally given the benefitof the doubt by their contemporaries.

Gradually with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, theforming of the Modern and Post-Modern World, and theDeification of Science the World of Faith in which all of the'primitive' and Pre-Modern peoples lived has faded away.Modern people love to find 'scientific' reasons for actions thatwere previously faith-based. As an example, people explainJewish Kosher Laws thusly, 'In old days plates were quiteporous and putting meat and dairy on the same imperfectlywashed plate resulted in cross-contamination; as peoplegradually noticed this in a trial-and-error way, a Law wasmade to accommodate their findings'. But an equally cogentargument can be made that G-d decreed Kosher Laws inorder to avoid cross-contamination without explaining to Hischosen people the reasoning behind His fiat. The onlydifference between these two explanations is faith, belief inthe presence of G-d and that He cares about and can communicatewith His people. Another example, taken from myexperience, is that science-based people often use the theoryof evolution as an impediment to my belief in a Loving EarthGoddess even in the face of my assertion that Earth made usby means of evolution. I have no problem being both avisionary and a biologist. Not too long ago I was at a PaganBrunch (a restaurant and a day is chosen and anyone whocares to, comes) and was sitting next to someone (not previouslyknown to me) who categorically stated that "Sciencereplaces Superstition", by which she meant that faith wassuperseded. When I argued back that 'science' was actuallyjust a means of ascertaining causality by using repeatableexperimentation and therefore merely replaced a-causalthinking rather than faith, she was bewildered. I explainedfurther that my experimental world-view was 'the Gods exist'and hers was 'the gods do not exist' but in both cases scientificmethod could still apply. Finally, she stated that we could"agree to disagree" which translates in Pagan circles into 'Ithink you are so bat-shit crazy that I no longer wish to discussthe subject with you'.

And that is the crux of the problem for a modern God-Speaker.Being crazy. Actually, being thought to be crazy andbeing crazy for real, which can be two quite different things.The less homogenous our societies become, the morewavering and variable the line between charmingly eccentricand dangerously crazy becomes. Modern cultural diversityand the modern ability to know a little about many more ofthe world's societies than was previously possible, while agood in allowing self-expression, also allows each person toset hir own benchmark of what is real and what is make-believe.People being what they are, this inevitably leads topeople either unthinkingly or with prejudice applying theirown laws to other peoples' beliefs and opinions. We all like toassume that our thoughts are inescapably right and true andthat all we have to do is fully explain them in order toconvince the people who disagree with us of their error. Thisleads to less-than-fun arguments and bafflement. As in theprevious example, the non-believer states that anyone usingthe scientific method must not believe in any Gods rather thanthat she, as a scientist, does not believe in God. So when Icounter that I, a biologist, am an Animist I have stepped notinto the realm of differing opinion but into the more difficultplace of frankly impossible (to her) and we really have difficultyhaving a conversation at all. Since I am the minoritythinker (even at Pagan Brunch the majority of attendees do nothold the profoundly archaic beliefs that I do) I don't have asmuch trouble with disagreement as she does; I acknowledgethat most people don't have as immense and immediateperception of the Gods as I, I'm a little sorry that they lackwhat is a meaningful part of belief to me, I carry on trying toconvince them— not that they should have such belief, I don'tthink belief can be mandated— but that starting from mypoint-of-belief my conclusions are logically consistent.

'Logically consistent' is one of the benchmarks I employ indetermining which side of the visionary/crazy line I am on.And, unlike Post-Moderns, I am continually making thatdistinction. There is a psychological term, 'magical thinking',which is defined as attributing causal effects to a-causalactions. That is, if I rap on the door twice after I lock it uponleaving then my home will not be broken into while I am gone(to make up an example). Or, to use a real example from mybeliefs, if I ask for protection and a Dragon curls herselfaround my yard (in Spirit) to watchfully keep off intrudersthen my home will not be broken into while I am gone(although I do lock the door because I also believe that theGods and the Watch-Dragon expect me to behave responsibly).To a Post-Modern, little consideration is required— bothof those actions are magical thinking. Since neither onecan be shown in repeatable experimentation to keep outintruders they are easily dismissed. For myself and forbelievers like me, the process is more difficult. Not only do Icall up a Dragon, I also use Magical Ward-Runes (made,found, or re-purposed tchotchkes and Magical bric-a-brac) onmy doors. I do not believe that the actual salvaged horseshoeis 'Magic' but instead that the presence of the horseshoereminds me to reference Magic in my daily life and remindsthe Gods that I connect to and rely on Their Power. AlthoughI freely admit that if the horseshoe were to come un-nailedand tip out the luck onto the floor I would be concerned. Thenon-believer makes an easy distinction— all a-causal actionsare make-believe. I, on the other hand, believe in both theexistence of Magic and the human tendency to attributecausality to unconnected events and so I have to examine eachevent and make a case-by-case determination of which it is.On the gripping hand, there are people who believe that allevents are causal and spend an inordinate amount of time andeffort determining every event's causality and insuring thatthey continue to cause their desired outcome by continuingwhatever causal action they have decided on. Those peopleare crazy. There is a perfectly lovely story I have heard aboutCarl Jung (the historical famous father of psychoanalysis) andJames Joyce (the historical famous father of the modernnovel). Joyce was living in Paris after exiling himself fromIreland and he was brought into contact with Jung by thecoterie of intellectuals also residing there. Joyce's daughterwas troubled and underwent analysis by Jung, who diagnosedher as schizophrenic. Here the story becomes possiblyapocryphal, although still deeply satisfying to me. Joyce didnot understand how his daughter could be suffering from amental illness.

"But the way she thinks is the way I think." he said, "And Iam not crazy."

"You are swimming," replied Jung, "She is drowning."

The beauty of this story to me is that there is no absolutedistinction between God-Touched (or Muse-Touched) andinsane; the distinction lies not in the experience but in theeffect of the experience. The crucial question is not 'is this areal experience?' because all experiences are universallydistorted to some measure by our perception. The cogentquestion is 'is this a meaningful and beneficial experience?' Ibelieve that the Gods speak to me, another person believesthat I am delusional; we cannot effectively argue our differingbeliefs. On the side of the atheist is the lack of quantifiableproof; actions that the unbeliever can use to reliablyreproduce my experience. On my side, that of the believer, Ihave a responsibility to examine the findings that result frommy belief. Not to convince the unbeliever (which is demonstrablyimpossible) but to be confidant that I have received anOtherWorldly message, that I have understood/correctlyinterpreted it, and that I am willing to do what is requested.The analogy that I use is the difference between quittingsmoking and dieting. The unbeliever is like a person quittingsmoking— no a-causal events are 'real' and all mind-generatedideas are imaginary— put no more cigarettes intoyour system. I am like a person deciding to diet— every timeI feel the impulse to eat something I have to consider itscaloric weight, its nutritional value, and the sum of what Ihave already eaten. I may be likely to use some externaldocumentation or resource (a diet plan, a famous nutritionist'sbook, a dieting group) but ultimately I eat or not(believe or not) of my own will. To extend the analogy, whenI receive a message from the Gods I compare it to previousmessages for linear comprehension— like a diet plan thatmakes a categorical statement 'do not eat refined sugar' mustthen not advise that stirring some jam into your nutritiousyoghurt will make it more palatable, if my Gods say 'do notuse coercion on adults' (as I believe they do) then They cannotlater say that I can use my scary voice to make a dissidentstop arguing with me. When I receive a message, I canresearch in mythos and lore to see if any other God-Botheredpeople have a similar finding to mine exactly like a dietingperson can look up in diet books to see what well-liked foodthey can safely substitute for an unpalatable one. I can join aworship, research, or discussion group to compare my beliefsand findings with other people's whose opinions I value andto stimulate me in my endeavors just like a dieting person canhave a group or buddy to keep them exercising and makinggood food choices. All of these tools— logic, research, anddiscussion— are useful and I suggest employing them. Thereare also some basic rules that I find helpful:

The Gods rarely, if ever, tell us to do what we want to doand were planning to do anyway; the Gods are logicallyconsistent (They do not change Their minds) and do notabrogate our free will (They do not force us to do Their will);the directives of the Gods are often unpleasant and surprisingalthough not outside our capabilities. To refer back to myexample of dieting: the Gods are not prompting you to eatbirthday cake so as to not offend the birthday person, reallytasty jam is still sugar and not irresistible, if it's Canadianwinter outside you should join a gym rather than give upjogging. Or to use myself as an example, the Gods do not sendme entertaining reading as a means of excusing me fromresearch; the Goddess to Whom I am dedicated keeps askingme to do things that consistently end up with my beingengaged in religious writing; and those requests are persistentlyabout group and public interaction which I find shy-makingand uncomfortable. Although I can always choose tonot do those things and can choose not to write but caninstead choose to read dated low-violence mysteries from thesecond-hand bookstore which were not sent to me by theGods, it is by doing those things asked of me that I graduallysee the meaningfulness and design in the requests andmessages. As well, there is the amassment of a personal bodyof evidence about the messages themselves; the similarity of anew message to other tested and verified messages that givesit additional believability. For example, when I hear/see/thinksomething that is a message it comes with what I describe as'an ethereal clang'. That is, there is a subliminal sense of thereverberations caused by a much larger space than the insideof my head, a sort of mystical echo. So hearing that causes meto pay more attention to the message received even though Istill apply the guidelines of consistency, difficulty, andresearch to it. I also feel that everyone who is God-Bothered,has meaningful belief, or thinks and formulates ideas shouldwelcome the opportunity for intelligent discussion. Theprocess of explaining and delineating ideas and belief issupremely clarifying; it's like reading poetry aloud— onerealizes on the visceral level what doesn't work and needsrevision, where one is skimming over the logical process andsubstituting wishful thinking. Although there are limits andboundaries to be respected— for example I explain to mysister (who is deeply committed to pit-bull rescue) thatalthough I acknowledge abuse I choose not to see photos ofabuse victims so she doesn't send me them. In the same vein,I refuse to discuss my beliefs with people whose bottom lineis that I am going to the Tedious Lake of Fire, just as I willstop explaining evolutionary theory to a person who counterswith the argument, "Mules!". In the end, I ask for and giveacceptance but not suspension of disbelief— if someone tellsme that the Moon is made of blue cheese and eaten awaymonthly by the Mouse in the Moon I will immediately askwhere the new moon comes from. If the Blue-Cheese Believerhas a linear mythos about the Inter-dimensional DairyGoddess I will stop arguing but not start believing. Ifsomeone asks for my help in receiving messages from theGods I will facilitate but if I receive a message that the persondeclines to believe I will not try to convince hir. I accept thatmy World-View is outside 'normal' and I don't ask forendorsement although I relish debate and enjoy agreement.
(Continues...)Excerpted from Pagan Portals God-Speaking by Judith O'Grady. Copyright © 2012 by Judith O'Grady. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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