Posted by Not because I’m inexperienced, but because I don’t know absolutely everything, I need clergy. Everyone needs something different, of course, and I’ve decided to express my own needs, somewhat jokingly, as a job posting.
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Magick From Scratch is looking for honest, reliable Polytheist clergy with excellent social skills, to be paid on an hourly basis.
Clergy Job Responsibilities:
Live, in-person or online sessions, discussing spiritual issues, performing evocations, doing divinations, and familiarity with spiritual issues common to Polytheists.
Clergy Job Requirements:
- Fluent in several ways of expressing the same concept
- Understands religious dogmas and beliefs as languages
- Understands emotions as being the responsibility of the human or deity having said emotions
- Familiarity with Greek and Roman Pantheons — knows the differences between them
- Understands what deities value, rather than having memorized the favorite food or hat size of each one
- Passionately supports a culture of consent
- Has had at least one negative encounter with a deity, and has peacefully resolved said encounter in some way that did not involve either submission or calling a higher authority as the main tactic for conflict resolution.
- Ability to understand not just which techniques do what, but what makes them tick
- Values humans as sacred beings in their own right
- Values Hospitality as a sacred virtue, and sees Hospitality and Inclusion as being deeply related.
Clergy Qualifications:
Kindness, empathy, psychic acuity, sense of humor, problem solving skills
Magick From Scratch 
Good luck.
:: nods ::
Thanks. I’ll need it.
Your posts are all useful and it leaves me kind of amazed.
🙂 Thanks!
Lol – if YOU need it imagine what shape the rest of us are in! You’re one of the most together people on here. What’s a ‘culture of consent’ mean? I thought it a given.
Thanks. 🙂
I think that there are plenty of very experienced people out there, but their perspectives, values and aims are just too different from mine to be helpful. Like I said, everyone needs something different.
A culture of consent is a culture wherein intimacy of any kind is never given without asking. You don’t hug people unless you get consent. You don’t touch people’s bodies, at all, ever, without asking. The philosophy behind it is that a person both needs and deserves personal autonomy. You are the sole authority on what you need, and decisions regarding intimacy should not be made for you by another person. Intimacy, where it is unwanted, is a manifestation of ignorance and lack of empathy on the part of whoever is doing the forcing.
It’s one thing to forget to ask. It says something very different about a person’s character when they are told “no” and continue anyway. Certain practitioners take it as a given that deities don’t ask, don’t need to ask, before engaging in intimacy of a psychic nature. That’s not the manifestation of deity I’m looking to commune with, so those people aren’t who I’m going to look to to help me connect to deity.
Loved this post – made me think of something I wrote a few years ago:
Instructions for the Care and Feeding of a Mortal 08-21-12
First of all, know your breed
Not everyone that looks like a Maenad is a Maenad
One may be marked with the taste for ecstasy
Have passion and love as well
But like an ex-showgirl
Those are simply marks of a past she has survived
I, for example, would have been dead on the streets
In my youth were it not for the protective force looking after me
Which we will call Hermes
Secondly, you can break them
If you want a willing partner in the Great Work
You have to understand that they have limitations
Their circuitry is more fragile than yours
and if you are used to working with the advanced models
You may have to be patient with the beginner ones
If broken, the odds are that you will not be able to reassemble
To the same specs as the original
Or the rebuilt will not work as well
Thirdly, try a little tenderness
You may think that it is good to test and retest
To bring out their strength
To see their boundaries
To test their wisdom
Though these methods may work with some
Others will close up and look
For a more tender and responsive Deity
See above regarding breaking
Fourth and last,
Not every model that you find will be designed for you
These matches were made a long time ago
and though there is improvement over time
and they are evolving creatures
You will generally have those you can work with full time
as they were designed specifically for you
And those who happily will work with you part of the time
Under the guidance of their keeper
Please be aware that there is one unique Dorothea
She multitasks and is multifaceted like no other
Do not expect any other human to come up to those standards
Or you will end up with too many broken ones
For the supplier to keep sending you more.
This sounds like… a poem written to explain to Dionysos how to deity.
Hm. I’d offer to help, but I’m not sure I qualify by this standard:
> Has had at least one negative encounter with a deity, and has peacefully resolved said encounter in some way that did not involve either submission or calling a higher authority as the main tactic for conflict resolution.
Unless you count “had a shift in perspective that allowed significant resolution at their own end which did not require the god to be other than they are”.
All of my other negative encounters with gods have included conflict resolution with the aid of other gods.
Of course, most of my serious conflict resolution with fellow humans has involved third party humans as mediators too…
-E-
By higher authority, I mostly mean “Call The Great Goddess” Calling another deity with a differing perspective is fine. It doesn’t ask me to leave Polytheism in the middle of a conversation with a deity who rightly belongs in that context.
Ahhh, I see. Yeah, no, I’m used to polytheistic contexts that include things like a Celestial Court or other group of judgement you might appeal to, Gatekeeper relationships where a deity we’re closer to can intervene with any others on our behalf, and/or deity interrelationships such that we can appeal to, say, Frigga, for help dealing with Her husband Odin.
I have found those models very effective.
-E-
With Hellenic deities, when I know a deity very well, I find that appealing to their values can be very helpful. Greek deities like to see themselves as upholding and defending certain virtues for humankind. Zeus, for example )and often Hermes), would wander about disguised as humans and test people’s hospitality, because how humans treated one another was extremely important to them.
Saying to Zeus, “I am wondering if I am hearing you correctly, or even if you are Zeus at all. Could this be the deity who went to Arkadia, to defend the people from the Tyranny of Lycaoon, who put his impiety to the test? No. Zeus is a God of Hospitality. Sure, Zeus would never enter into my home, receive honors from his hostess, then threaten to do her harm? Surely, had I entered into his domain, he would see to my needs, as a good host would.” for example.
Usually, this tactic is met with a deity’s response… punting a lower manifestation out of the way, so as to show me that, yes, Zeus is the really real Zeus, and he does value Hospitality. Each Olympian (and a few who are not Olympian) has a similar sort of axe to grind. With Apollon it is Truth, with Hera it is Fidelity, with Ares it is Honor, and so on.
But you need to know a deity’s mythology very well to pull that off. And you also need to not already have an afflicted relationship with the deity. And maybe also not find what they deeply value to be trite or irritating. Athena has a thing with Purity. I will just never be able to help anyone out with that.
Heh, yes, I know what you’re talking about, and there are ways in which those work, although I daresay the Northern methods are less wordy? Actually the methods employed with the Heathen gods that I’ve heard tell are sometimes downright combative in attitude, but that’s cultural of course. Most of the time, though, a simple “You are in my home, and partaking of my hospitality. I would appreciate if you respected that.”
I have one memory of Freyja admonishing an overstepping Freyr with “My brother, are you not a king?”
To which He replied, “Yes.”
“Then ACT LIKE ONE.”
Instant change. But I’m not sure I could pull that quite the same way without Her there.
The only times I’ve had *serious* problems with gods it was quite clear They were indeed Themselves and no amount of “Is this truly Odin before me!?” would have helped in the slightest. Other resolutions were sorted, over time. Apologies were obtained where applicable. Life is painful sometimes.
*sigh*
-E-
Also, the whole “might makes right” thing. Just no.
Sure. There’s a huge difference between “We may not have sufficient power on our own to stop this” and “Therefore it’s acceptable.”
-E-