Spirited (24 page)

Western civilisation is popularly believed to have sprung from the Greek and Roman empires. While these cultures were polytheistic, it is interesting to note that at the head of their pantheons sit Hera/Juno and Zeus/Jupiter—the classical depiction of husband and wife. Hera is the jealous wife who broods over her husband's affairs and always seeks justice. Zeus is the all-loving father who gathers his children in his arms and dotes upon them, while at the same time committing many sexual indiscretions. However, Hesiod hints to an older ditheism in Greek theology that is not unlike the Wiccan version of the birth of the universe. It goes something like this:

In the beginning, in the Time before Time, there was nothing, a void. It was chaos. From this chaos was born Gaia and Eros. In her primal state, Gaia received the flow of energy conducted by Eros, and Life was birthed. For it was the expression of their magnetic love, the connection of a sacred polarity. Gaia and Eros flowed in eternity, and from their breath all things come into being, and in the end of time it is to them that all things shall return.

Gaia and Eros are alike to Shakti and Shiva, who are in turn alike to the Goddess and God.
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What is most striking about Hesiod's description of creation is the fact that Eros seems to be disregarded for a time and the focus is on Gaia, and another partnership occurs. The earth/sky resonance appears once more as Gaia gives birth to Ouranos (the sky) as a protective and complementary covering. From their union comes the race of the Titans (the raw forces of Nature), the Olympian gods (by Kronos and Rhea), and eventually humanity.

As the two powers that fashion life (love and light/form and force), there is a clear line where God and Goddess meet, and it is this line, like the horizon where sky meets earth, which defines both. Without the differentiation, there is once again chaos
(“undifferentiated potential”),
and all reverts; the flow of force from one vessel to the next loses its rhythm and direction. If there was no earth, where would sky stop? How could sky even be called sky, for without the earth in contrast, there can be no sky. The God defines the Goddess, and she the God. She keeps the wheel turning, and he dances the way.

While the facts may be dismissed as spiritually irrelevant, the key point to be aware of is that ditheism is not a modern fancy based on the notion of man and wife. It is the raw and empowering survival of an ancient observation.

Pagan ditheists are not always Wiccan. It is essential when regarding ditheism to look past male and female and to meditate on the spirit. Perhaps ditheism is simply another product of the ego-conscious human mind?

Somehow there is truth at the heart of it all. At the heart of human experience, there lies a truth so subtle that it is only within the moment that we become aware. This truth is a simple one. What it is, I cannot say; I simply
know
, for I have felt it often, and I believe, with the power of my faith and of my mind, that it is the spirit, and that the spirit and I are one.

Reflections on Monism

Love is the fifth Element, it is our spirit, the force
that brings the other four Elements to each other.
For ultimately neither God nor Goddess is Creator.
Instead, it is their union that is the Creator, and that union is love.

—A. J. Drew,
Wicca for Couples: Making Magick Together

Recently, the term
monism
has been used fairly often. It must be made clear that monism is something very different from monotheism.

At the heart of monism lies the doctrine of unity: all things are one. Monism does not preach gender superiority and is of no particular moral persuasion. There is no difference between what is present and here and what lies beyond and perhaps in another dimension.

Many Wiccans tend to regard all deities as faces of the universal Spirit. This belief system is poetically graceful, in the sense that it is not culturally exclusive whilst also causing friction between hard and soft polytheists.

Behind God and Goddess there is the primal catalyst, the underlying presence that infuses the core of all things. Wicca can be seen to be a monist tradition, though its expressive qualities are ditheistic. In fact, one of Wicca's most prominent authors, A. J. Drew, wrote in his book
Wicca for Couples
(New Page Books, 2002):
“To further our relationship with the Creator, it is neither on the Lord or the Lady that we should focus. Instead, it is on their interactions with each other.”

Scientific research at the quantum level has revealed that our physical existence is nothing more than a subatomic façade. Our material personas do have purpose; however, there is a unity that exists beyond this. For those who dare to defy both conventional science and orthodox religion, this “thing” is often regarded as God—not the God of the Bible, the Koran, or the Torah, but the God that is reality, that
is
. God is one, and as Gerald L. Schroeder so eloquently put it in his book
The Hidden Face of God,
“don't think that this is the kind of
one
after which might come the quantities two, three, and four. Nothing as superficial as a number is being revealed in these statements. Rather, the infinite metaphysical as perceived by the physical is an all-encompassing, universal unity.”
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Ditheistic Exercise

Many ditheists often become entrenched in a typified view of female and male. The Goddess is confined to fertility and abundance, and the God is merely a romantic accessory. These things do resonate on an archetypal level; however, there is much more to the masculine and the feminine mysteries, and their sacred union, than agriculture would have us believe.

At your sacred space, ground and centre. Meditate on the balance, polarity, and union of the God and Goddess. Focus on each respectively, and allow yourself to be moved by the traditional symbols associated with them. Now move past this and consider modern examples of male and female. Think of your parents or your grandparents, and focus on the connection between them. Now move past the physical genders and delve further into the masculine and feminine. Focus your energies on two men in love, then two women, and know that there is no end to Love. Open your mind to the infinite, and let images come and go. Feel the energy intensify and rise up above you. When the cone reaches its peak, mentally throw your consciousness outward and behold the All. Suddenly God and Goddess, and their undying love, is everywhere. Flow with the power, and reside completely in the present. If you like, you may chant/sing the following:

God and Goddess

Within and without

Male and female

Around and about

Ecstasy, union

Undying love

Lord and Lady

Below as above

Mother Earth, Father Sky

Womb unto phallus

Weaving the tapestry

The sword and the chalice

Two halves and a whole

To live and to die

With Magick abounding

Hail most high!

Reflect on the exercise, recording your insights in your journal. Leave the God and Goddess an offering in thanks.

The Archetype:
A Universal Model

What is stirred in us is that faraway background,
those immemorial patterns of the human mind,
which we have not acquired but have inherited from the dim ages of the past.

—Carl G. Jung, “The Structure of the Psyche”

The unconscious plays an integral part in our daily lives. It is the underlying motivator that inspires us. Culture is the byproduct of humanity's spiritual exploration; it develops highly symbolic attitudes towards life.

Since as far back as we can know, humanity has perceived the divine. No matter what locale or language, the tribes of earth responded in a similar fashion to the mysteries of life. The primal image of a swollen-breasted, voluptuous woman (e.g., the Venus of Willendorf, 22000 BCE) is believed to personify the very essence of the great goddess cultures of Europe. Many of the unearthed artifacts share distinct commonalities, e.g., the curvaceous representation of the feminine. This is simply one of the many ancient archetypes that unites the great tribe of humanity.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), the late Swiss psychologist, is probably the most influential figure regarding the archetype. He is responsible for the theorising of concepts such as the collective unconscious, individuation, the psyche, and the archetype. His theories propounded the idea that each of us inherits the primal archetypes and symbols of the human experience by virtue of the collective unconscious.

Jung concluded, after identifying successive commonalities in dreams, myths, and “primitive” beliefs, that recurring images and motifs were far too ubiquitous to ignore. Carol Pearson, in her
Hero Within,
analyses six heroic archetypes that can be applied to the individual's life. Pearson argues that the archetypes are reservoirs of eternal truth and are never “beyond our reach.”

In his research concerning dream analysis, Jung discovered that we are each composed of an individual consciousness that mirrors the collective unconscious. The dominant archetypes are conveyed through our dreams in the form of relevant symbols and themes. Carl Jung focussed on what he called “direct association” when working with a patient. Jung was adamant that the greater symbols in dreams equated with the archetypes.

Each of us demonstrates certain traits that relate to universal archetypes. It is here that we come to the theology of the archetype: the innate link that unites us with the collective unconscious. In the preface of
The Hero Within,
Pearson introduces the reader to a working theology in and of itself:
“Writing this book, was, in part, an homage to the archetypes that have helped me grow as a person and a scholar.”

Pearson, through her work with archetypes, has achieved a highly personal relationship with her inner aspects, the archetypes. Archetypes become deified in the sense that they are deeply celebrated aspects of our humanity. It is from these spiritual encounters that we are empowered through relative symbolism to resurrect the Old Ones from the centre of our being.

Jung's psychotherapy aimed at the “psychic wholeness” of the patient. This was achieved through an intimate understanding of the symbols that appear within the patient's dreams. Jung described nine dominant archetypes that appear again and again. These are termed the
dominants
, infused with
mana
(inspiration for personal growth), and are as follows:
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The Wise Old Man:
A figure of foundation, represented as an influential masculine figure, often relating directly to the world of conscious activity (business, organised religion, and learning). The Wise Old Man is often the imparter of knowledge and an advisor.
Popular figures include Merlin (King Arthur and Celtic mythology), Dumbledore (Harry Potter), and Gandalf (
Lord of the Rings
).

The Trickster:
The classical symbol of anarchy, mockery, and paradoxical truth, the Trickster works to diminish the pretensions of the ego. The appearance of creatures such as foxes and hares in myths is believed to embody the principle of the Trickster.
Popular figures include Timon and Pumbaa (
The Lion King
), the White Rabbit (
Alice in Wonderland
), and Dobby (Harry Potter).

The Hero:
While the Hero is essentially a personification of strength, the appearance of such figures within a dream is suggestive of the individual's familiarity with the character in a more worldly sense. This can often lead to self-deception and a desperate desire to perpetuate the Hero within the self.
Popular figures include Aragorn (
Lord of the Rings
), Harry Potter, and Herakles (Greek mythology).

The Persona:
This is a deeply entrenched trait of humanity: escape from society's scrutiny under a mask. This has become a greater problem in our current society, as we are constantly influenced by propaganda. We also suffer from the construction of perfection in today's media. Many of us feel the need to conform to such standards, which leads to compromising the Self. While the Persona is not always such a problem, it has the potential to develop into much more than a label or mask. It is essential that we retain the connection with our true Self.
See chapter 4's section “Out and About: The Downtown Pagan.”

The Shadow:
At the mere mention of the word
shadow
, we immediately think of the darker part of our being. In our world, a shadow is simply the reflection of a physical body blocking the path of light. Metaphorically speaking, this evokes the dual nature of the Self (as society has so generally divided us).

The Shadow generally manifests as one of the same sex as the dreamer and provokes aspects we may see as brutal and uncivilised. The Shadow encourages us to reevaluate and confront the negative traits we repress and to ultimately come to terms with their implications, whilst also appreciating the delicate balance that completes us as human beings. Popular figures include Severus Snape (Harry Potter), Judas (The New Testament), and the ugly stepsisters (
Cinderella
).