Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Tea Addicted Witch

Home
Pagan
Letting Go Of Binary Thinking: Polytheistic, Pagan, And Occult Realities Are Complicated

Letting Go Of Binary Thinking: Polytheistic, Pagan, And Occult Realities Are Complicated

Last updated on: June 11, 2018 at 2:51 pm by River Enodian

Letting Go Of Binary Thinking: Polytheistic, Pagan, And Occult Realities Are Complicated 2018-06-11T14:51:53+00:00 River Enodian

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Image from Pixabay

Good versus evil is a readily accessible trope with a treasure trove of myths and mythology backing it up. Unfortunately a good chunk of that and similar notions of polarity of ideas rests in dual, binary thinking which has no genuine bearing on the actual polytheistic, pagan, and occult worlds. For those worlds are vast, beyond human comprehension, and cannot be boiled down into stereotypes.

Part of the temptation of this black and white approach to analyzing the world around us I feel falls to the fear of a lack of certainty, the desire for readily identifiable approaches to spirituality, to religion, to magic, and to mysticism. But it limits us, our understanding of the actual world we’re in, and ultimately holds us back from evolving as people.

An example of this includes the very gods we honor and work with. The gods are neither all good nor all bad; they rely on a far bigger picture that is not accessible to us humans. It isn’t to say that they do not care or do not love us–far from it. But the reality is that human notions of justice, right, and wrong are not the same as divine justice.

With daimons, it’s no less different. There is no particular daimon which is universally bad or universally good; they come in a wide variety. And like with gods, we should not expect that what is intuitive to us will be intuitive to them and vise versa. I have personally found in my own experience that the more exposure to humanity a particular daimon or deity has, the more likely they are able to understand us and be able to potentially communicate with us on some level that we can comprehend. However, the less manifest to the physical world a being is, the less likely we are to be able to have the remotest understanding as to what they truly are.

People need to take this notion of abandoning binary thinking and absorb it into their own work, practice, and gnosis. It will enable us to best engage in acts of self improvement, personal development, and necessary retrospection. The term “shadow work” has been thrown about often with varying definitions, but I think it can be best described as acknowledging and getting in touch with the parts of yourself that deal with rage, anger, pain, hatred, and other things typically thought of as being “negative”.

We cannot constantly dwell in false notions of purity, “white light”, and all things positive. The ongoing philosophy of black vs white, dark vs light, good vs bad, positive vs negative ultimately holds us back. It encourages spiritual bypassing at best and at worse, turns us into New Age bullies. It prevents us from seeing the bigger picture, from understanding our own spiritual cosmology, and hinders us from doing both the necessary spiritual, mystical, and/or occult pursuits we seek to be involved in.

In addition the binary approach no longer works in a world which is finally beginning to acknowledge gender and sexuality beyond simply male and female, straight and gay. We are evolving and our traditions must evolve with us. It does not mean that we have to either ignore or otherwise refuse to teach our history; I feel that we must educate about our past in order for us to know where we came from and why. But it does mean rethinking long held attitudes about polarity, duality, and other notions some of us may be so used to that we take them from granted.

In a world which must evolve and us with it, we have to continually examine and question in order to maintain pace with the tide. And as time goes on, this will become increasingly crucial for our very survival.

Greek Polytheism

Magic and witchcraft

Paganism and Polytheism

Previous Post

June 8, 2018

Dropping Expectations: What Polytheists & Pagans Need To Relearn About Religion

Next Post

June 13, 2018 Summer Solstice In Ancient Greek And Modern Times

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Book Reviews Class reviews Events Greek Polytheism Initiation and Traditions Magic and witchcraft Paganism and Polytheism Spiritual and Personal Development Tv Show Reviews Uncategorized

Select a Month July 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who saw the vision of the valley of dry bones?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Daniel Isaiah Ezekiel Jeremiah