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i wrote this a while ago on facebook. since this is the 'stupid' thread, i hope we wont mind if i crosspost it.
the old deities have taken new forms, not just new names. but still, they touch our world from many directions in many dimensions: behind and inside as well as facing us. ubiquitous in obvious places, they can be seen by application of magic or during particular moments of syzygy (if you think there is a difference).
GODS are deep structures of brains or dna that create human values and dreams. they arose to prominence during the process of civilization, subjugating an older competing set of values based on nonhuman nature spirits. gods are a semiotic duality, in which a symbol and its reference can exchange features, thus making gods dynamic and alive. likely to have begun through chronic public invokation of an egregore, such as ritual reverence for a dead leader along with a physical symbol of his/her power-- for example, a skull, a weapon or tool, a likeness, a flag or emblem, or even a totem animal.
ANGELS are mathematical and selective principles of the universe in which we live. they can be conjured, interpreted, and exploited though not confined directly by a human mind. however, they can be confined by larger angels, which may be the basis of demon creation. those attached to the material world-- such as with a tree-- will present a face that we call a SPIRIT, which is part angel and part material. angels are perfect, since the machine of existence runs on their consensus. however, angels who are tied to the material can develop flaws, since that is the basis of material existence (there is a crack in everything, thats how the light gets in).
DEMONS are principles that humans use to control the world. are they tortured angels? are they forbidden spawn? are they imprisoned by the angel lucifer at our command? technology is the means used by humans to exploit demons. demons are imperfect: in addition to consuming psychic energy as fuel, each demon has a fatal flaw that will eventually lead to its messy doom, which often undoes the benefit the demon brought (leading to the necessity of the next demon). demons are entropic, and thus they contribute to the human metanarrative rather than providing a setting in which the story unfolds (as angels do).
ANIMALS are animals. those with relevance to human civilization have godly allies who often share a distinctive characteristic, but each animal specimen is a manifestation of its own animal deities. as a different species, it is usually difficult for humans to distinguish pluralism in the deity of each animal. canis lupus (and its familiaris variant) certainly has the most complex pantheon, but equus and ursus have decent genus-level pantheons, and class aves is mostly represented by order, with suborder distinction probably locally determined-- raptors and fowl to me, and of course passerines. animal deities vary by area, but their relevance to humans is mostly a matter of filling roles prescribed by the human brain. so one cultures wolf-myth is similar to another cultures tiger-myth, but not identical, because the roles are distributed across the spectrum of observed animals rather than assigned one-to-one. non-urban cultures may have gods who are mostly animal. if cities become political entities in such a culture, its gods will become progressively more humanish (my prediction).
sorry for going into such detail on animals, i was studying behaviour and taxonomy at that time. it made me wink that id just used the crack/light line in another thread here. clearly time to commune with the spirit known as leonard cohen (maybe hes on his way to godhood/head).
just to clarify in light of this thread...a car would be a demon, gruesomely patched together from tortured spirits of metal, the children of the rubber tree, rotating angels, and some kind of upholstery imp, and filled with the power of the oil djini...an oak tree would be a spirit that can act as a messenger to the 'oak' office in the bureaucracy of tree angels...jesus is a god who lives in a particular complex of thoughts and images which activate an electrical pattern in our brains, which inspire us to create particular thoughts and images.
and remember, i want you to tell me im wrong. so much that i will probably forgive you for not being nice about it. |
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