Conversions Away from the Gods

When I was in college, one of the women in my social group called herself pagan, but she would not come to the events that the campus pagan group — which I ran for a few years — organized. She was adopted, she went to Catholic school, and she was raised by a traditional WASP family. A few years after college, she had let the pagan “phase” slide in favor of atheism. (I had had a crush on her in college, and in retrospect, I am grateful that nothing ever actually happened with that.) She had landed there as a holding place while figuring herself out because she had a lot of challenges she was sorting through. Over the years, as I have watched several “big-name pagans” and others check out, I’ve had other opportunities to reflect on this again and again.

A major conceptual challenge I experience is how anyone who has been in a religion that is classified as part of the pagan movement by scholars — regardless of whether or not we actually would use the term for ourselves — would convert out to monotheism. Once someone has prayed to the Gods with fondness, and especially once one has experienced something transformative and has really wrestled with theological questions, it seems impossible to me that this person could feel anything but love at shrine, even on those days when one wants to scream and cry because the world can sometimes be a f–ed up place or on days that are simply exhausting. There’s something fine that comes in the silence after the prayers are uttered, when the incense is fragrant and light upon the air, and a confident stillness and beauty breathes open within like a flower that has found the morning light.

The only recourse that I have with this question is to wonder how common what I had thought was a fairly normal thing actually is.

I think back to my experiences going from the Circle where I grew up to interacting with pagans my age in college: How many of them were doing this on their own, who had not been drawn in by their parents. How many of them had experienced religious trauma and were deflecting to something else. How many were not in it because the Gods are beautiful and who were instead in it because they had seen The Craft or something and had a lust for power. It becomes a holding place like an airport in many cases, not a home where their actions matter to them in the future.

I think back to what I have pondered about religious injustices, long-ago and recent: How many people in the ancient world converted to Christianity because they saw a hope of increasing their stability and sense of dignity only for it to stab them in the back in favor of the wealthy. How many people after the 2004 tsunami converted because the religious groups hoarding aid water required that as a condition for receiving help. How many people do things because they are desperate to leave the situation they are in and believe they can always take it back. How many people in those reports about conversions today worldwide are supervised by church members to check for hidden idols because they know apostasy is rampant once a family’s situation improves. How many people are pious until they fall in love with someone who does not accept their religion, and instead of leaving, they submit to their beloved’s spiritual control and abuse. How many people are just lonely and want a convenient way to hang out with people once a week.

I think about the books being offered by publishers.

Spells sell.

Curses, regrettably, sell.

Vague eco-spirituality sells.

Cultivating a sense of trust in the Gods does not sell.

What we are left is transience and impermanence and and lonely disconnection and uncontrolled pain that is disguised as freedom. A wound which, left unhealed, abrades itself with occulture and commercialized spirituality and merch until it is unbearable.

I rarely wonder at this long enough to vex myself from puzzlement. I have a feeling that I could go on for hours of scenario-diagramming to figure it out. In the end, though, I do not think that this line of thinking is productive, as it circles back to challenges that we all already know are issues, and who knows if those challenges are what actually precipitates all of this on their own.

However.

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For Anyone Who Wants Steady Roots

This might sound a bit pop-Zen, but the core of polytheism is coming to that place of trust and love. That is something that can never be taken away, no matter what one’s external circumstances become. It is not reliant on the specific rituals we do or which Influencer polytheists we follow or who we hang out with or how edgy we feel compelled to be (or not). You come to the place where you have set up a divine image, no matter how simple (it can be the name of a God on paper or an image on your phone), in a spirit of curiosity, and you explore that connection. This is open to anyone. There is nothing to prove to anyone at shrine, nobody to get back at. The God is a refuge. The ritual is like a feather drifting upon air, noting and acknowledging the traces of relationship that interweave in one’s life, all already here. When I chant “Οἴκοι θεοί, φωτεροί και πανσοφοί, / Σεβόμεθα ὑμᾶς, φύλακες τῆς οἰκίας. / Κρατήσατε τὰ πυλώρια τῆς ψυχῆς, / Φυλάττοντες τὴν ἁγίαν πυράν, / Ἑστῐ́ᾱ, πρωτοθρόνη, παρὰ τῷ κρατερῷ Ζηνί” in the morning for the household Gods, it is a welcoming into awareness of that which has always been present in my home. When I offer the words to Apollon that I speak every day, I am rhythming myself into receptivity to nourishing light.

Over time, you cultivate an open and light heart.

The garments of polytheism that nestle that core are the theological teachings of whichever school you belong to, not just as a static text or as an intellectual exercise, but as something explored in contemplation. Damascius wrote about the delights and frustrations of this in his Life of Isidore — true commentary is an experience, not a set of intellectual arguments. It must be felt, like stepping into a stream. A course on the Gorgias can have two lecture series with completely different content from each other, and both can express something true as long as that contact is there. A technically-accurate commentary on something else can be worthless without the spark. Going step-by-step through Proclus’ Elements of Theology over a year is one example, for the Platonizing people in the room, of a contemplation worth doing. Learning the theologies brings one out of a place of reactivity, and it allows one to rest in focus on the Gods in a different sort of depth from the private contemplations. The more experienced I become, the more I am convinced that the best way to unfold theological teachings is in a live, face-to-face or on-vid small group setting.

I also believe that anyone dealing with religious trauma or spiritual ennui needs to take a deep breath and reflect. Go to therapy if you can afford it. Commit to the fanciest and most evidence-based self-help if you cannot. Do not, above all, attempt to do any initiations, and do not make irrevocable promises to any deities or spirits, until what was harmed has healed enough that you are of sound mind about what you are doing. We are each responsible for our own development. Nobody can develop a person’s spiritual self for them, and we must treat ourselves with the kindness and seriousness that this responsibility entails.

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Note on “spiritual ennui”: I am currently experiencing the infamous 2015 audiobook Witches of America by Alex Mar. I suspected that the word exotic would come up at least 5,000 times in this book based on my experience of the first chapter, and 30% of the way in, I am still oscillating between, “huh, that’s interesting,” and, “oh my word … did she really write that.” (My anticipated review is oscillating between 2 and 3 stars. Who knows where we will land.) Mar’s disclosed personal history and her motivations seem to be driven by something that should really be addressed in therapy, and I hope that she has found the help she needed in the decade since she wrote this. I would classify some of what she has going on (but not all) under spiritual ennui.