Free “divine gallery” art sample – OldWorldGods

(2) SHAMANISM

I am a shaman in the tribe of catholicism –

a voice crying for a vision,

animal powers and spirit guides,

true names and song lines,

second sight and third eye.

After paganism, the second of my holy trinity of mythic worlds – the mythos that I playfully refer to as my shaman catholicism.

Also like paganism, as much my ethos as mythos – “but then the awesome mysterious world will open its mouth for you, as it will open for every one of us, and then you will realise that your sure ways were not sure at all”.

And yes – again like paganism, I know shamanism is not so much an individual mythology or religion, but rather an amorphous agglomeration of mythologies or religions, but on on an even potentially larger scale in space and time.

Strictly speaking, shamanism refers to the indigenous religions of Siberia and neighbouring parts of Asia, with the word shaman itself orginating from the language there.

But where’s the fun in speaking strictly? And so shamanism has been used in a very broad sense, arguably the broadest sense of any mythology or religion – ranging through space to tribal religions on every (populated) continent, and even more broadly in time, through so-called deep history to prehistoric or primal religion.

Peter Watson in The Great Divide hypothesizes that the pre-Columbian Americas was essentially shamanic, having remained the most so (since crossing into the Americas from Siberia) and certainly more so than Eurasia, not least because of the high concentration of psychedelic or psychotropic plants.

While Weston La Barre in The Ghost Dance hypothesizes that all religion is essentially shamanic in nature – and all religions are ghost dances at heart.

As for shamanism itself, animism is often asserted as its defining feature – and there is certainly something appealing in an animistic view of the world. Perhaps its primary definitive feature is its focus on states of altered consciousness – archetypally through psychedelic or psychotropic substances – as thresholds to the spirit world or otherworld.

And again, like paganism, I have a soft spot for the nomenclature of paleoshamanism and neoshamanism – with paleoshamanism as the original forms of shamanism, potentially very paleo indeed back to the Paleolithic, and neoshamanism as modern reconstructions.

“When a vision comes into the world…it comes into the world with terror like a thunderstorm…if the vision was true and mighty, I know it is true and mighty yet, for such things are of the spirit and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost”.

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT GREAT SPIRIT TIER?)

Free “divine gallery” art sample – OldWorldGods

(1) PAGANISM

I believe in all the gods –
especially the goddesses

The mythos I call home – which I playfully refer to as my pagan catholicism.

Also the ethos I call home – that classical Greek pagan ethos encapsulated by Weston La Barre, “live valiantly, gloriously and joyously in the world”.

Let’s face it – it’s my mythos, ethos, eros and hieros gamos.
For mine is the passion play, grail quest, ghost dance and mojo rising.

And yes – I know paganism is not in itself a mythology or religion, but rather a loose amorphous agglomeration of mythologies or religions, usually identified with ‘pre-Christian’ Europe, whether prior to the advent of Christianity or their conversion to it.

And not even that to start with –
“It is crucial to stress right from the start that until the 20th century, people did not call themselves pagans to describe the religion they practised. The notion of paganism, as it is generally understood today, was created by the early Christian Church. It was a label that Christians applied to others…as such, throughout history it was generally used in a derogatory sense”.

Pagan apparently originated from Latin paganus – essentially to connote rural (as opposed to the more Christianised urban population of the later Roman empire), or civilian by the Roman army and hence adopted by Christians to distinguish themselves as “soldiers of Christ” (although I seem to recall the Roman army was big on Mithras until late in the piece).

“The adoption of paganus by the Latin Christians as an all-embracing, pejorative term for polytheists represents an unforeseen and singularly long-lasting victory, within a religious group, of a word of Latin slang originally devoid of religious meaning. The evolution occurred only in the Latin west, and in connection with the Latin church”.

Apparently elsewhere and at other times, “Hellene or gentile remained the word for pagan; and paganos continued as a purely secular term, with overtones of the inferior and the commonplace”.

Which suits me as my paganism is essentially a fusion of Hellenism (alternating with Romanitas) and humanism, with Dionysianism thrown in for the fun of it.

“Owing to the history of its nomenclature, paganism traditionally encompasses the collective pre- and non-Christian cultures in and around the classical world; including those of the Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes” – with those of Germanic tribes of course being best known through Norse mythology.

Although I think that overlooks the sphere of Roman Empire beyond Europe, notably in the near East – because I’m determined to get those funky animal-headed Egyptian deities and slinky goddesses in there as well.

“However, modern parlance of folklorists and contemporary pagans in particular has extended the original four millennia scope used by early Christians to include similar religious traditions stretching far into prehistory.”

And some would argue also well beyond Europe, pretty much to all mythologies or religions outside of Christianity, Judaism, Islam or variants of those – with Hinduism, Taoism, Shinto, native American and African diaspora religions looming large in such arguments.

I have a soft spot for the nomenclature of paleopaganism and neopaganism (by neo-pagan Isaac Bonewits), although they are also somewhat amorphous (even more so for his mesopaganism, which largely overlaps with the argument for extending paganism throughout non-Abrahamic mythologies or religions of the world).

Paleopaganism essentially refers to the original ‘paganism’ prior to Christianity – largely unknowable as religious practice, although we come closest with classical Greco-Roman paganism due to the surviving texts.

Neopaganism refers to the modern reconstruction of paganism, which arguably has led to its own distinctive mythology (or synthesis of mythology) – and in the opinion of Ronald Hutton, a distinctively modern religion “and the only religion England has ever given the world” (at least for Wicca or modern ‘witchcraft’, the predominant form of neo-paganism).

I also have a soft spot for polytheism, often asserted as the defining feature of paganism. Monotheism is monopoly! Let the marketplace of gods – and goddesses – decide! A polytheistic view of the world just seems more cheerful and easy-going, where gods can rub shoulders – or other parts – together.

Although paganism is more complex than a straightforward matter of polytheism versus monotheism. Paganism essentially had as many different philosophical variants as Hinduism – including monotheistic or at least henotheistic variants, as well as more outright atheistic, agnostic or humanist variants.

The more popular variants of modern paganism or neopaganism tend more towards either a duotheism of overarching female and male deities, or a goddess monotheism of an overarching sacred feminine or divine female figure. With the emphasis on figure in some cases – but I’m down with that. She is the goddess and this is her body.

I believe in L.A Woman & Mr Mojo Risin’.

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT GODDESS-TIER?)

Free “divine gallery” art sample from Old World Gods

I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

Indeed, I have a top ten of them – and I have a whole host of special mentions for mythological subjects. My usual rule is twenty special mentions for each top ten, where the subject matter is prolific enough, as it is here – which I suppose would usually make each top ten a top thirty if you want to look at it that way. My special mentions are also where I usually have some fun with the subject category and splash out with some wilder entries.

The Creation of Adam – Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. Probably the most famous painting of Biblical imagery – “reproduced in countless imitations and parodies” as “one of the most replicated religious paintings of all time”

(1) BIBLICAL

Or as I like to call it – Babylon and the Beast (featured here in art from a Christian website, which only succeeded in making these two Biblical supervillains look awesome).

This is it. This is the big one – genesis and apocalypse, alpha and omega, allelujah and amen!

Of course, Biblical mythology is helped into top spot in that for many people it is not just mythology but religion, in contrast to classical mythology or other ‘pagan’ mythologies it largely replaced. Although as one historian quipped, from a historical point of view, Christianity is a Greek hero cult devoted to a Jewish messiah.

However, I read the Bible as mythology rather than religion – or as poetry rather than history. That is, as literature for its literary quality. Or in other words, like virtually everyone reads classical mythology or any other mythology shorn of religious belief. And as mythology, it has an enduring resonance – of symbolic narratives that ring true at an emotional level or with the power of story, characters that resonate with us as flawed human protagonists (and that’s including God, who is all too human in his characterization) and language that in its best passages has an enduring lyrical or poetic quality.

And when you look at the mythology under the religious hood, that’s when things become much more interesting with layers of subtext, sex and violence as well as hints or insinuations of competing mythologies

Born again in Babylon and torn apart in Jerusalem…

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – WHAT ELSE?)

Free “divine gallery” art sample – OldWorldGods

(2) CLASSICAL

“What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy!”

I believe in all the gods – especially the goddesses!

And I’m into classical mythology for the nymphs.

Or pining for them. As I said for Egyptian mythology, if there’s one of two things I lament about Christianity, it’s the decline of the Egyptian pantheon. Of course, the other thing – indeed the foremost – is the decline of classical paganism. It’s all I can do to stop myself yelling “This isn’t over! Pan isn’t dead! Julian the Apostate was right!” in churches.

“What ailed us, O gods, to desert you
For creeds that refuse and restrain?
Come down and redeem us from virtue”

If only we continued to follow the gods of classical paganism! If there is any mythology that tempts to me to actual religion within the deepest levels of my psyche, it’s classical mythology. I can see myself as a devotee of Aphrodite or Dionysus.

Classical mythology is of course the combination of Greek mythology and Roman mythology in ancient Greece as well as the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Even as mythology rather than religion, it is one of the major survivals of ‘Greco-Roman’ culture that in turn is one of the two predominant cultural influences in what is often termed as Western civilization. Of course, many devotees prefer to refer to it simply as Greek mythology, seeing Roman mythology as Greek mythology with the serial numbers filed off. Which is somewhat ironic, as prior to the so-called Greek revival of the nineteenth century, Europeans primarily referred to names from classical mythology in their Latinized form. It is also a little unfair, as Roman mythology was not entirely derivative of Greek mythology – more a continuity reboot in the words of TV Tropes.

Anyway, you know it – or should. The gods and goddesses, primarily the twelve Olympian gods, but all the other deities as well as the demi-semi-hemi-gods that pop up because the gods can’t keep it in their pants. There are the heroes – a concept that in its very name actually comes from Greek mythology – primarily the heroes of the Trojan cycle. And there’s all the other beings, notably the various monsters that represent all the chaotic or chthonic forces in classical mythology.

And of course there’s the nymphs…

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

Chris Hemsworth as Thor in the 2013 Marvel film “Thor: The Dark World” – not the most accurate cinematic adaptation of Norse mythology but perhaps the most popular (via the characters in Marvel comics)

(3) NORSE

“We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming”

And now we come to a mythology that is one of the best known, even outside its European continent of origin, thanks to Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the days of the week still named in English for the Norse gods. It is also arguably one of the most hardcore mythologies, with imagery worthy of a metal album cover.

I mean, what else can you say of a mythology that features a ship made entirely of fingernails and toenails (of the dead)? Or its creation myth, in which the world was created from the corpse of a giant. No fluffy let there be light here. Or that the gods are essentially locked into a perpetual cold war (heh) against the giants – complicated by the trickster Loki in their presence, who alternates between getting them into compromising or difficult situations before getting them out of those situations (until he goes one trick too far). And like the historical cold war, the gods are planning for mutually assured destruction – famously gathering slain warriors in Valhalla – when the war turns hot at the end of the world. Or rather, when it turns ice cold at Ragnarok – or Gotterdamerung, the twilight of the gods (in the Fimbulwinter or endless winter).

Of course, Norse is something of a misnomer, as it was a Germanic mythology that extended throughout much of northern Europe, although it is most identified with Scandinavia and Iceland (and Vikings!), also the source of its surviving texts, so hence the epithet Norse.

“The source texts mention numerous gods, such as the hammer-wielding, humanity-protecting thunder-god Thor, who relentlessly fights his foes; the one-eyed, raven-flanked god Odin, who craftily pursues knowledge throughout the worlds and bestowed among humanity the runic alphabet; the beautiful, seer-working, feathered cloak-clad goddess Freyja who rides to battle to choose among the slain; the vengeful, skiing goddess Skadi, who prefers the wolf howls of the winter mountains to the seashore; the powerful god Njord, who may calm both sea and fire and grant wealth and land; the god Freyr, whose weather and farming associations bring peace and pleasure to humanity; the goddess Idunn who keeps apples that grant eternal youthfulness; the mysterious god Heimdall, who is born of nine mothers, can hear grass grow, has gold teeth, and possesses a resounding horn” and of course “Loki, who brings tragedy to the gods by engineering the death of the goddess Frigg’s beautiful son Baldur”

Norse mythology is distinctive in that its gods are not only fallible (even the wily Odin), but also all mortal. They can and do die. And die aplenty on its version of the apocalypse. No foreordained triumph of the gods here – on this day, all gods die, taking their enemies down with them. Well, not all of them, as there are some key survivors to renew the world, but that phrase just has a good ring to it.

That doesn’t stop the Norse gods from being hardcore – from plucking one’s eye out as Odin did for wisdom, or losing one’s hand as security deposit as Tyr did, putting his hand in the mouth of the Fenris Wolf. Which of course brings me to their fearsome adversaries, not just frost and fire giants, led by Loki, but also his three terrible children – the goddess Hel leading the dishonorable dead, the Fenris Wolf leading other monstrous wolves, and the World-Serpent.

Hardcore.

RATING: 5 STARS******
S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Nigel Terry as King Arthur in the 1981 film “Excalibur”, directed by John Boorman – King Arthur in the 1981 film Excalibur – still the best cinematic adaptation of Arthurian legend

(4) CELTIC – ARTHURIAN

For mine is the grail quest –
round table & siege perilous
fisher king & waste land
bleeding lance & dolorous stroke
adventurous bed & questing beast

This entry is essentially for the whole of Celtic mythology in all its diversity, reflecting the diversity of the Celts themselves. The Celts extended through time, from at least the sixth century BCE through various survivals to the present day, and even more substantially through geographical space – from their original homeland in central Europe throughout Europe, most notably to the British isles. The Celts even extended into modern Turkey (where they were known as Galatians) and perhaps most famously as the Gauls threatening Rome in its infancy (before being conquered by Rome in turn).

And I find all Celtic mythology fascinating. The mythology of Gaul – which I particularly know from the gods invoked in Asterix comics by Toutatis! – is mostly from surviving names and images, cited by Roman writers inclined to “transmit any bizarre and negative” information about the people they conquered.

The Wicker Man. Druids. The mysterious horned god Cernunnos and other Gallic gods or goddesses.

Of course, the Celtic mythology that survived most in literary form (mostly as recorded by Christian monks) were for those Celts who maintained their identities – in Brittany or coastal France, in Britain and above all in Ireland with its various mythological cycles. The Tuatha de Danann or the gods of Ireland. The Ulster Cycle and its great hero Cu Chulainn. The Fenian Cycle as well as its great hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill (sometimes awesomely translated as Finn McCool) and his Fianna warrior band. And the Cycle of Kings of historical legend. Much of this mythology in Ireland, Britain and elsewhere was recycled into the fairy folklore of Europe.

However, if I’m to pick the one strand of Celtic mythology that is foremost in familiarity and fascination for me, it’s that strand that moved through to folklore and above all to historical legend – the legend of King Arthur, as part of the so-called Matter of Britain or legendary history of the Kings of Britain.

Arthur Pendragon himself, the once and future king. His father Uther. The wizard Merlin. The Lady in the Lake. The sword in the stone or Excalibur. His queen Guinevere. The enchantress Morgan Le Fay (often conflated with another character, Morgause, as the mother of usurper Mordred). The knights of the Round Table – most famously Lancelot but also Gawain, Galahad, Perceval and Bedivere. The Holy Grail. Avalon – and so on.

And of course its ongoing adaptations – which essentially started from its very inception with medieval literature – including its cinematic adaptations, of which two films remain my favorite, Excalibur, and Monty Python and The Holy Grail (which funnily enough still remains one of the most faithful adaptations to Arthurian legend)

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Free ‘divine gallery’ art sample – OldWorldGods

(5) EGYPTIAN

“I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra…
“Who was that
dog-faced man? they asked, the day I rode
from town”…
Go get my eyelids of red paint.
Hand me my shadow
I’m going into town after Set”

If there’s one of two things I lament about Christianity, it’s the decline of the Egyptian pantheon. If only the Roman Empire could have gone the way of the ankh instead of the cross. Or if only the Egyptian gods had returned out of the desert, as opposed to Islam and swept Christianity out of Egypt!

What’s not to love about those funky animal-headed gods and those slinky goddesses? Especially the goddesses – lithe and svelte in their form-fitting dresses, with their golden skin and painted eyes, they would not look out of place as supermodels on a modern catwalk. Of course, Egypt was, quite frankly, the sexiest ancient civilization – admittedly perhaps not for its population’s vast majority of peasants who farmed the Nile or worked on those useless tombstones known as pyramids, but certainly for its elite, who pretty much invented style. You know it’s true – just look at the figures in their art!

Or what’s not to love how the gods kept shifting and swapping out with each other as they rose and fell within the pantheon? My personal favorite trinity of Egyptian mythology (well apart from Anubis, one of my favorite dog gods of mythology) – Osiris, Isis and Horus as they square off against their adversary Set. O yes – Isis. Goddess of magic who seduced the secret name from the sun god Ra and lover of Osiris who resurrected him after he was dismembered by his evil adversary Set to conceive the divine hero Horus (who then avenges Osiris)

Or what’s not to love about its different and contradictory creation myths? Particularly the one where the god Atum (who swapped out as supreme god from time to time) created the world by, ahem, mastrbating it into existence. Now that’s creationism! Indeed, Egyptian mythology could get downright kinky. Isis essentially s€xes up all her magic, including that briefly reviving Osiris to conceive Horus. Or how Set and Horus essentially strive to, ahem, out-ejculate each other…

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Ganesha – free ‘divine gallery’ art sample from OldWorldGods

(7) HINDU

Another mythology as part of an active religion – indeed, the third largest religion, although it might be more accurately described as mythologies or religions, given the diversity of Hinduism.

It is perhaps the most cheerfully and flamboyantly polytheistic of modern religions, with all its gods and their avatars, although Hinduism itself can be polytheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, pandeistic, henotheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist – depending on how philosophical one is towards it.

The classifications vary, but modern Hinduism is often classified into four major denominations by primary deity – Vaishnavism by Vishnu (or his avatars, often Krisha or Rama), Shaivism by Shiva, Shaktism by Devi (or manifestations of the supreme goddess) or Smartism by a combination of five deities. Of which I obviously prefer Shaktism for worship of the goddess – she is the goddess and this is her body, o yes!

However, it is a mythology or mythologies of which I have only the most basic knowledge – primarily of their literally colorful deities with all their arms, avatars and trinities. The trinity of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer. The supreme goddess Devi or Shakti in all her forms and trinities – most commonly Saraswati, Laskshmi and Parvati, with Kali perhaps as the most distinctive form of Parvati known outside Hinduism. And of course Ganesha, because I have a soft spot for animal-headed deities.

RATING 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Free ‘divine gallery’ sample art – OldWorldGods

(8) AZTEC

I only have the usual superficial knowledge of Aztec mythology characteristic of its lurid image in popular culture – that is to say, the closest mythology comes to a horror film or the Cthulhu mythos, both of itself and of its ritual practice of human sacrifice. Yes – I know that is unfair to the nuances of Aztec mythology, particularly in the context of just how horrific other mythologies can be. I mean – have you read the Bible? Some of that stuff’s straight out of slasher horror.

However, it is hard to resist seeing Aztec mythology as horror film mythology. For one thing, there’s its deities with their tongue-twisting Scrabble-winning names. The messianic plumed serpent Quetzalcoatl might be one of the few good guys (and I have always have a soft spot for love goddesses like Xochiquetzal) but then you have gods like Xipe Totec, the flayed god – whose priests would flay the skin from a sacrificial victim and dance around for days wearing it. Although admittedly I’d go to church to see that.

For another thing, you have its ritual practice, infamous for human sacrifice on a grand scale – with the archetypal image of hearts being torn beating from the chests of thousands of victims on stepped pyramids slippery with blood on sacrificial days.

And finally for yet another thing, there’s that Aztec mythology is a post-apocalyptic mythology – with the present world being the fifth such world, after the apocalyptic destruction of four previous worlds. Indeed, one might even call it a zombie apocalyptic mythology – with the gods continuously, to the point of constantly dying and returning to life, giving their blood and their hearts to power the sun (fuelled in turn by the literal blood and hearts of human sacrifice), while they literally grew humans from bones smuggled out of the underworld. Or one of many underworlds, since the Aztecs had nine levels of its underworld (and thirteen heavens).

Also, I sometimes like to joke my middle initial Q stands for Quetzalcoatl.

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)