Gus diZerega - God Is Dead, Long Live the Gods: A Case for Polytheism

Introduction

The moon is full above Californias soaring redwoods as the coven meets beneath them to honor the goddess and do magick. The circle has been cast, the directions called, and the High Priest approaches the High Priestess to invoke the goddess, calling out I call upon Thee o mighty mother of us all At the invocations conclusion, she enters into the woman, to teach and bless those gathered in her name. One of the coven members has a request for the group to help her find an affordable place to live. Aided by her presence, a chant is created and, at its height, the High Priestess sends the energy raised off to help achieve the members request.

At a signal from the Mae de Santo, the bat drummers begin pounding out a complex rhythm. Within the temple, men and women dressed in white begin singing and clapping to honor and call upon an orisha, an African deity, one of many. Soon one of the participants, a woman, shudders and begins to shake, and then dance, and whirl, as Ochossi arrives to join the celebration. As she better integrates with the divine arrival, her movements shift into the stylized dance associated with that particular orisha. As the ritual progresses, other orishas may arrive as well, each choosing a member with whom to join, dance, and heal.

Within a tent from which all light has been blocked, the Medicine person has been bound tightly. As he lies on the ground, the rest of the space tightly packed with guests and the main person to be healed, drums begin beating a steady rhythm, like the beating of a heart. Soon tiny lights begin to flash overhead in the otherwise total darkness, and people feel feather fans brushing against their heads as they receive healings along with the person for which the Yu Wipi Ceremony has been called. In time the drums cease, the lights and fans vanish, and when the space is illuminated again, the Medicine person is sitting quietly, his bindings neatly placed at his feet.

These examples come from very different cultures: Western Europe, East Africa, and North America. These particular ceremonies occurred in Northern California, but they could have occurred anywhere. What they share is a common experience of participants directly encountering the world of Spirit. Those participating are a varied lot, from construction workers to scientists; from doctors to students; and indeed, just about any other way of life. They usually leave feeling much better than when they arrived, and often personally enriched with new insights for living their lives.

This is polytheism in action as a part of peoples reality, American style.

But American culture is usually described as a combination of Christianity and secularism, a society deeply divided by the spiritual and scientific tensions between them. If polytheism is considered at all, it is treated as a way station most have long since passed in humanitys journey toward worshiping one god, or alternatively, none at all.

I will argue here that both perspectives are mistaken, and that what we loosely call polytheism is the natural experience human beings have always had of the world of Spirit, and that it is a much more accurate understanding of the world within which we live than the secularism usually considered the alternative to monotheism.