Mixing

Written by thehouseofvines

Hmm. I just realized something that sets us apart from pretty much all other forms of Heathenry – and possibly makes us unique among contemporary polytheisms.

And it’s not the mixing of Greek with Norse, Slavic, Baltic and related elements. 

You see, our pantheon doesn’t exist yet. 

It is a consequence of Ragnarök and what comes after. Specifically our pantheon constitutes the collective of Gods and Spirits who band together under the rule of Dionysos when the present world-order collapses. Now, most of these relationships were forged in the remote past, when he went by the name Óðr and wandered through the Hyperborean lands, but some of them – and indeed the Gods and Spirits themselves – will be profoundly altered by the coming ekpýrōsis. I’m particularly thinking about the ones who won’t be around post-battle, or who will be reborn into different forms and functions.

So, that begs the question: do we honor the Gods as they are or as they will be? Especially since the future is like a river, constantly shifting its shape and course. What we glimpse may never come to be. 

Fuck, that sounds crazy even to me.

And yet the notion that Dionysos will one day be the Successor of Zeus is straight out of the Rhapsodic Theogony, according to Otto Kern’s Orphicorum Fragmenta, which you can find bits of here.

This line in particular stands out:

Proklos. Zeus the Father ruled all things, but Bakchos ruled after him.

,,

14 thoughts on “Mixing”

  2. Dude! You hurt my brain just thinking about it!

    t will be interesting to see what will happen to Mani and Sunna. Will They really be eaten by Hati and Skoll? Or have They made a deal with the wolves? Or will They be reborn? Inquiring minds want to know!

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    1. Or will others step in to take on those roles, perhaps even deities who have different functions now? And if those two are revived, what other roles might they take on having been replaced?

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    2. Or, They could even be sitting in the bellies of the wolves waiting for something to happen to them that may end up freeing Them…and They may then retire, or who knows what else…

      Or, in that “you are what you eat” line, perhaps Skoll and Hati will in some sense “become” Them, and some form of Them may pursue the next Deities in those roles…

      Which brings up what happens to Odin after the Fenrisulfr eats him and the latter gets killed? (Are killers of Skoll and Hati specified in extant lore?)

      These would all be great questions to take to divination, certainly–not for definitive, once-and-for-all answers for everyone into the future forever, but for one’s own particular localized traditions, perhaps…at least that’s how I’d approach it, but I’m a bit of a weirdo. ;)

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      1. In the series Odin makes a deal so Dionysos will reanimate him after the conclusion of the Great War. Young Odin has no interest in resuming his kingship over the Gods, and so decides to wander the worlds for a while to observe how things have changed and generally enjoy existence without the burden of having to forestall/alter the course of Ragnarök. How long that’ll last is anyone’s guess.

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  3. [I wrote this comment once and it didn’t post…should learn my lesson by now and copy it before I hit “post” in case this sort of thing happens, which it does far more often than it should to me…!?!]

    I think there’s two things that your questions depend on, from my viewpoint, and they are a question and a comment that are not directly related to one another, but pertain to this general area of inquiry, which is of tremendous interest to me as well for reasons similar to what you’ve stated above.

    First, the question. Which Deities does this pre- and post-eschaton situation pertain beyond Dionysos and the ones mentioned in comments above? Do you have a list in the various pantheons of Them, or are they just “the usual suspects” in the Norse pantheon, plus a few others? I’m curious to know this, as I’d like to see if they cross-over with the ones on my own list at the moment and that match my own speculations on such things.

    Next, the comment. So, I wonder if one is looking at this from the correct viewpoint. For the Deities, from what many have speculated, things like time don’t work the same way for Them as it does for us, and while we have past, present, and future, They kind of exist in an “eternal now” in which all of these things may be happening at once from Their perspective. Thus, Loki can be moving about freely working His wiles, and also be bound and suffering, and also be once again freed and leading His band on a certain ship as the final battle approaches, etc. Thus, it may be appropriate to revere Them in both ways currently, or to dedicate some festivals or times of day to Them in one state and others to Them in the other, etc. From my own practice, even though the “official” periods of Antinous the Lover, Antinous the Liberator, and Antinous the Navigator are designated to different times of the year, it isn’t as if the other two are inaccessible or “on holiday” when the other one is in His period, as it were. Perhaps the same pertains to the Deities to Whom you are referring, then…

    It would be worth divining on in relation to the latter, perhaps…

    But I’d be very curious indeed to speak further about this with you, whether publicly or privately, since it very much crosses over with my own interests in a variety of things related to the Antinoan Pantheon(s).

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    1. From what I’ve seen it’s not just the remnants of the Greek or Norse pantheons who make up this new divine assembly – there are Slavic, Kemetic, Hindu, Iranian, Canaanite, Celtic, etc. members too. I do not get the sense that this is the only assembly but the majority of beings, divine and otherwise, are annihilated during the conflagration. While I’ve detailed some of this in my books (and also instances where old Gods are reborn in new forms) I haven’t come up with anything like a detailed list. Partly because, as you say, time functions differently for them – and Dionysos’ forces are traveling back through time to take out some of the powers allied with the nothing before they can actually become a threat. Obviously this is going to set in motion ripples whose effects cannot be fully anticipated, even by the Gods. Which is what one of the upcoming books in the series will detail.

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      1. I look forward to that tremendously!

        I am reminded, now that you mention it, of the Vaishnava Hindu idea of the current cosmic cycle’s Hanuman becomes the next cosmic cycle’s Brahma, Who then goes on to create the new cosmos from the only remnant of it left, which is the Shesha-Naag…which in itself is very interesting, because the avatar of the Shesha-Naag that incarnated during the Ramayana was Lakshman, the brother of Ram, who was very close to Hanuman (at least in one version…in some versions of the Vaishnava cosmology, Ram and Lakshman are co-incarnations of Vishnu, but in any case Shesha is closely connected to Vishnu no matter what!), which may be why they are such good friends during the Ramayana…they are building the relationship which will then result in the harmonious creation of the next cosmos already in this one, so to speak!

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        1. Now that sure makes the head spin!

          I don’t know if I’ll ever write that book, however. I got something like 68 pages in, decided I didn’t care for the direction it was going, and deleted the manuscript and all of my notes.

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          1. In Dream’s library, then, it sits…

            But, I hope you do treat of it in some fashion in one of the books that may come out this year (or next, depending if that sentence was the lie or not!).

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        2. Also keep in mind, Hanuman was the one who went out to search for the herb needed to heal Lakshman when Lakshman was injured during the battle between Rama’s and Ravana’s forces. While at the time it was to serve His master Rama, Hanuman may have also done it to foster that relationship for when He re-creates the universe. It will never cease to amaze me how laden with meaning the doings of the Gods are.

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