Our friend Adam Flynn joins
<http://www.monochrom.at/polytheism/>the
polytheistic movement and posts a call... Call For Syncretism!
As civilizations bumped into one another in
antiquity, they tended to discover that they had
many different gods. But since most pantheons
break down gods into somewhat similar areas of
expertise, the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretatio_graeca>greeks
just figured that the barbarians had funny names
for their gods, and combined the two. This
eventually got to the point where you could slam
almost any two gods with similar areas of
expertise together to get something subtly new.
Some of my favorite gods, like Mithras and Hermes
Trismegistus, come from the intercultural mashups
(Persio-Roman and Greco-Egyptian, respectively)
that were going on at this time.
[...]
So I propose that the international year of
Polytheism, in the interest of kick-starting the
spread of polytheism, hold an open call for
syncretism and de-euhemerism. Combine your
favorite gods with modern saints or legendary
figures of our times. Let a thousand syncretic
gods bloom. Say, for instance, one of those
sainted old nuns like Mother Teresa or Mother
Cabrini...they might make a good match with a
hearth goddess like Demeter, or if you want to
push a little farther, with Cybele, mother
goddess of the wild earth. Or perhaps Saint
Stephen (Istvan) of Hungary, the badass magyar
warrior king whose severed hand is a national
relic, might well be identified with Labraid Lámh
Dhearg (Labraid of the Red Hand), the Celtic sun
god whose legecy lives on in the red hand of Ulster.
Read Adam's entire call
<http://www.monochrom.at/polytheism/2008/08/syncretism-international-year-of.html>here!
And help!
--
Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2008/08/syncretism-international-year-of.htm>monochrom
at 8/02/2008 01:35:00 AM
