The Mystic Pagan: Going Beyond Dualism

Last updated on: May 6, 2020 at 5:32 pm by Rev. Dr Om Prakash Gilmore

The Mystic Pagan: Going Beyond Dualism 2020-05-06T17:32:10+00:00 Rev. Dr Om Prakash Gilmore

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Mystics

Mystics are very interesting people. They go far beyond the understandings of most traditional practitioners of religion, philosophy, and science to the core of reality. They move to a place that is beyond word and symbol, but can also include word and symbol. This includes the mystical Pagan and Earth Based Spirituality practitioner. Yet again, most Pagans are mystics when they practice the understandings of love, transcendence, eminence, and connection, that are found at the heart of Earth Based Spiritualities.

Most practitioners realize that the gods and goddesses that they uphold and call upon are archetypes, or ways for the human mind to connect with powers and energies that they cannot fully understand. They realize that these powers exist. But their ideas about them aren’t necessarily one hundred percent correct because they are being filtered through the lens of the ego. The difference between their view and some of the most violent, patriarchal religions, is that a large number of the practitioners of those religions think that their idea about their god is God and the only god. This can be both dangerous and damaging to the soul.

Goddess Man

I am a Goddess man. I don’t even really know what that means. I just know that my search for a connection and representation of the universe led me to the image of a goddess after I had explored my connection with the male image of God for several years, with many great mystical experiences. I think I needed to reclaim the feminine aspect of myself to heal the masculine aspect. I needed to understand the universe as a whole and complete being. I don’t have a dualistic understanding of the universe anymore. I see Goddess and God and everything as One now, as a result of reclaiming that part of myself.

So the idea of the Goddess that I experience is the Goddess, but is not the Goddess. This doesn’t make sense on the surface. In a world built on the idea that things exist in opposites and it has to be either or, it just doesn’t make sense, but in the world of reality, it makes complete sense. It means that my idea, like everyone else’s, is an extension or icon–a tentacle if you will, reaching out to us and leading us to the true source like a river that leads us to the ocean. The ocean is real, but the idea of the ocean as understood by examining the river is far from complete.

As long as we remember that our understanding of the world is not full and complete, we can all work together to create a new world. When we allow ourselves to accept the fact that we have a collective subconscious with all of gods and goddesses embedded in the very subconscious ideas and stories that make up who we are and our world view, we will realize that our interactions with them are also interactions with the deepest parts of ourselves. We will realize that we are greater than who we think are. Our true Selves are the home of the gods and goddesses and we, like the Greeks ultimately believed, exist within our soul instead of our souls existing within us.

Transcendentalism

The transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson explored this and referred to it in the idea of the soul and oversoul as did the ancient Greeks. We were the soul, the Ultimate was the oversoul. Soul was located outside of the body and surrounding it. Soul was greater than the body. The oversoul surrounded the soul. When we realize this a clearer understanding of Goddess, God, all of existence develops. We take the first step to embrace the power we have to enlarge our ideas of reality right here and now on Earth and merge back into the Ultimate. We are more able to embrace our power to be creators, co-creators and co-leaders instead of those who follow blindly. We participate in creation instead of trying to hide from it, or conquer it. We don’t have to wait. We can embody God and Goddess right here and now in the world in which we live and pour the powers of these beings into a suffering, hurting, Earth and humanity that needs it so much right now.

About Rev. Dr. Om Prakash Gilmore

Rev. Dr. John Gilmore (Om Prakash) was a UU Minister for more than fifteen years and is a retired UU Minister now doing a community based ministry in Health, Wellness, and Healing He served as a Parish Minister for many years, and a Wellness and Social Justice Community Minister at UU Church of Bedford, MA as working as the Director of the MA Chapter of the UUJEC and later the Co-Director and Director of the UUJEC National. Om Prakash was also a JUUST UU Consultant, and Director of Racial and Social Justice for the Joseph Priestley District. He has been a CUUPS member for several years and is now serving on the CUUPS Board in the Ministerial and Right Relations position. You can read more about the author here.

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