Polytheology: Syncretism, Process Theology, and "Polyamorotheism"

August 02, 2010

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However, the traditions within which I practice are syncretistic traditions, where things like Interpretatio Romana occurred in the past. This was a situation in which a deity from one culture was paired with that of another: Jupiter-Taranis, for example, or Zeus-Ammon. This type of syncretism occurs when two cultures come into contact with each other, and commonalities are sought between their diverse religious expressions. Polytheistic societies tend to be much better at doing this than are insistently and exclusively creedal monotheistic societies (and yet Christianity was quite good at syncretism at various points when it encountered non-Mediterranean cultures). But, given polytheistic cultures have also done it within their own cultures, it is not just an intercultural activity, it is intracultural.

Amun-Re and Re-Harakhte are both syncretized forms of the Egyptian solar deity Re, and yet the individual cults and these syncretized versions all continued to exist, no matter how much the popularity of some of them eclipsed others. The same is true of Greek culture: the Artemis of Sparta (Artemis Orthia), the Artemis of Athens (Artemis Brauron), and Artemis of Ephesus are not all the same deity initially, but whatever underlies all of them that defined "Artemis" to the wider Greek culture eventually was agreed upon, and in each of those locations, the particularities of the local tradition persisted even despite knowledge of the wider Artemisian context. The same is true of many other deities within many polytheistic cultures.

The syncretized forms of deities, however, often did become separate from their "source" deities. The Graeco-Egyptian deity Hermanubis was a combination of Hermes Psychopompos and Anubis, and yet in certain Roman Imperial period inscriptions, Hermanubis and Anubis are not taken as synonymous, but as separate deities. But, Hermanubis went on to have a "career" of his own. Another popular Hermes syncretism, Hermes Trismegistos ("Thrice-Great"), was a combination with the Egyptian god Djehuty/Thoth, who had a wide-ranging importance in later Hermetic tradition, Renaissance magic, and general esoteric and occult practice. The various deities who contributed to the imagery and iconography of Serapis all continued after his introduction, but Serapis himself went on to have a truly international career across the late Roman Empire. The same is true of Zeus-Ammon, the "pantheistic" version of Isis, and a variety of others.

These types of syncretism, which arise when cultures come into contact and effectively "new" deities emerge from the mix, is an example of what the Christian theologian Alfred North Whitehead called "process theology." This view of theology is, actually, quite in accord with evolution, and argues against ideas like predestination and determinism. Process theology suggests that deities change just as much as humans do, and that we all meet the continuously unfolding wave-front of creative existence on the same footing, as it were.

The gods are evolving, developing, and becoming just as much as we are. Osiris, Dionysos, and Jupiter never knew they had as much in common until a bunch of Greeks (and later Romans) started to worship Serapis. Then aspects of these various individual deities emerged as a further individual deity, which did not replace any of the individuals, but instead proliferated on his own (though sometimes in close connection or in concert with these other divine beings). The gods are not unchangeable and eternal in their being, they are dynamic and expanding, just as equally as humans are, in this process theological view. The syncretism of ages past is yet another way of understanding process theology; the concept was working equally well twenty centuries back, even though the name would not come about until relatively recently. It is not a "sign of degeneracy" in a culture to have flourishing syncretism, it is a sign of its vitality.

The type of syncretism in which one deity is identified with another, further, does not necessarily negate this. Modern neoplatonic scholar/philosopher Edward Butler has explained this phenomenon as "polycentric polytheism." This encompasses (and in many ways surpasses) both the concepts of "hard polytheism" and "soft polytheism" by the idea that any deity can be any other deity in that particular deity's particular manner. So, Persephone-Ereshkigal would be Persephone acting in the role or manner of Ereshkigal, but in a definitely Persephone fashion. The same role in a play as interpreted by two different actors is an analogous concept: Guinness' Obi-Wan Kenobi is different than McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi, for example.

If each ritual or act of devotion -- represented by ancient religious texts and inscriptions or by any festival or spiritual observance of modern Pagans -- can be understood as a performance, then this sort of syncretism can continue to occur: if two deities can be invited to participate, great, but sometimes one deity may be doing so in the role of another. This is theoretically possible for any two deities -- Loki and Coyote could end up playing each other, for example -- and by understanding things in this way, issues of cultural appropriation can be defused. The utmost respect should be observed at all times in calling upon and attempting to honor the deities of another culture. No one should present themselves as "authentically" practicing any tradition in which they have not been properly and officially trained (especially if it is not one's own familiar culture); this level of integrity is definitely within human hands, and depends on human consistency and honesty.

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