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Started by: Glade Sent: 16/01/2001 23:16 5 Replies
Hi ok as a fairly new beginner (about 3 or four months) im still a little baffled on the God and Goddess concept. How come Dianic followers tend to concentrate on the Goddess as do a lot of people when surely the God is equally as important. Also do you choose to worship a single God and Goddess for life and call upon others in ritual etc as you need them or what its all very confusing also is there anywhere i can find a list of Gods and Goddess's so i can choose thanks everone
BB

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From: Akasha Sent: 17/01/2001 10:13 1 of 5
check out the principles of belief set out by the american council of witches, its printed in silver raven wolfs to ride a silver broomstick. i think that sums it up best.
basically it says that we believe in a great power, an etheric energy or the 5th element, call it aether, spirit, akasha,call it fred if you like cos thats not important. like all things this has two sides, which are equal and opposite, male and female, god and goddess, am i makin sense yet?
the rest of it is down to your own judgement, if it helps i will tell you what i believe:
the deities, and elementals and all that stuff are archetypes, that is they are images of something i do not believe exists in that image but as a tpe of energy in the astral .i use the image as a focus to channel the correct type of energy for whatever im working on. this is a lot like hinduism.
i belive that the energy is not in the form of a community of deities floating around in the astral plane who come and visit when you ask (i feel this is a bit too close to christianity and i spent years breaking free of that).
i believe that the energy is within me and the living environment around me, and to use this energy i have to access it in my etheric body , or draw it up from my surroundings. now this is where the old deities come in. lets say for a laugh that i was casting a spell to bring love to me(never done this though i probably should, ahhh), i would want to draw up and find within myself the right sort of energy to do with lovey dovey stuff! that is hard to describe let alone define and extract from all the astral baggage i carry, and that of my environment, i have all sorts of different energies all mixed up into this one big flowy mess. so i imagine a woman who posesses all the desirable qualities i need for the spell and carries, purely the right sort of energy. i can call her aphrodite astarte venus or even ethel. but when i invoke her and draw her energy into my body i become that perfect woman carrying just the right energy, its a hell of a lot easier that way. does that help at all?
obviously everyone sees it differently but that doesnt matter, its each to there own, an it harm none. through practise, ritual and meditation in time you will find what is right for you.

sorry this is so long winded but it aint an easy question.

Akasha

ps if anyone is wondering about my name, read over again. as your magical name is the name by which the gods know you, i had difficulty imagining what they would know me as other than the energy i carry and the way it flows thru me so i left it at that. ( and also the queen of the vampires in ann rices books is called akasha, she is all powerful but abuses it and pays the price, its a useful reminder)
must go and be really silly now, being this deep is bad for me!!

From: vicco Sent: 19/01/2001 20:54 2 of 5
This is a question that is complicated, and maybe there is not no single answer. I would like to share a few things with you on this subject, so bare with me. Many woman come to the goddess through feminism, and for them, it is an issue of identity. Woman have had to suffer the wrath and scorn of male dominated religious doctrine for a long time, and for them, the goddess is an answer connected with their new identity as woman, woman who need nor think of themselves as inferior to a male god any longer, their new spirituality unconnected with male domination. for them, the goddess is the primary motivation for them. they may or may not come to realise the importance of the loard and his lady, not just the goddess.
As for the answer to multiple goddess worship, it is confusing as there are so many. For me, at least, these multitude of representations mean that the goddess is multi facited, all things to all woman. So, if you identify with the neolithic goddess, for instance, my representation would be the Venus of Wellendourf. If I was dealing with matters of the heart, or love, I might prey to Venus. They are all the one, just different versions of the same thing. You can identify with your patron goddess, or call on the most suitable goddess for the need uppermost.
anyway, I hope that makes things a bit clearer.

From: seabhac Sent: 22/01/2001 13:07 3 of 5
You often discover that no matter which gods you "choose" to work with, at the end of the day the god or goddess who wants to work with you will choose you as their priest/ess. You often don't have a say in the matter! If you want to research different deities and pantheons, two very good books on the subject are The Witches' God and The Witches' Goddess, written by Janet and Suart Farrarr. These give details of literally hundreds of deities.

From: Ebonyriver Sent: 22/01/2001 16:13 4 of 5
Well, just incase that isn't enough information for you, i'm gonna add my ha'penny's worth!
All witches/wiccans worship the god and goddess in their own way, and you'd be hard pushed to find two who agree on every detail. Some choose pantheons to dedicate themselves to (a pantheon is a group of gods and goddesses who come from the same culture & period in time), others choose one or two god/dess to be their patron, and while they turn to these god/dess most often, it doesn't stop them from turning to other deities if the energy of a different deity is more appropriate. (Have i spelt deity righty? Or is it Diety?!) Any way, back to the subject. Still more witches never name a specific diety in all their years of worship and spell casting, instead they worship a god and a goddess who encompases all aspects of divinity. Sometimes the goddess is split in to three aspects: the maiden, the mother and the crone. Until recently i thought the god was split into two aspects, the young sun god and the old lord of shadows. However, i was told that some wiccans also worship a third aspect of the god, the sacrafice king.
Well, the choice is yours!
Didn't mean this post to be so long, normally keep mine short and sweet!
Luv Eb xx

From: Akasha Sent: 29/01/2001 11:36 5 of 5
sorry, didnt mention this though i believe i should of, if only for the sake of clarity.
in, "this is what i believe" mode again folks
There is a very useful passage in vivien crowley's. wicca, the old religeon in the new millenium, generally this book is a bit coveny, but this is a good bit.
she uses a diagram of the yin/yang sign. she says that the white segment is your conciousness, and the black ure subconcious, the white dot is self, your true inner self hidden in the depths of your subconcious (at leastr i think thats how it went) she says that wicca is a way of tunneling through your subconcious to find your true self, in wicca through meditation we try to find and know the god and goddess,. in otherr words the god and goddess are in fact your true self, some may say your etheric self (see how this links in with what i said before, at least i hope you do, it is a bit complicated to explain).
so basically the god and goddess are archetypes to represent your inner self, the person within your subconcious you are trying to find (in male and female aspects, your anima and animus)
is that a bit clearer than my first installment or are you even more confused?
the book explains it better, i might scan it in for you.
Kash