- ‘Offering to Molech’, 1897 (Foster, Charles)
Each distinction of heathenry formalizes itself as an affront to another, performing perfect mimesis of the same abomination yet claiming noble legitimacy over the other. The Roman Empire did see its pigsty of a pantheon as preferable to the Kemetic theos and assimilated their Egyptian subject accordingly. Whence one worshipped Anubis, an index soonly came to gate the flood of word and foreign a voice exclaim “‘Tis Pluto as of, sirrah. Or Hades, if Ptolemy grant thee.”
“By the dog!” The Egyptian may stir. And as they part their vale’s (one converted from a certain spoken papryi), each would solemnize in meditation of the baseness of the other. “Sooth, to dedicate word of praise to a god dog-headed? Then certainly the essence in itself, capped alike to mine own is better.”
Why is essence-worship, which we may dub animism, faulty an abomination? I may reproofed by one, saying animism is the matter of fetishistic shaman cults, and what I speak of is paganism. This reproof is guilty by the same logic of the Roman to the Egyptian, to believe that one form of the same is more brutish than the other. The old priests of Inca, Greece, Kongo each dealt with the premise of spirits of deeds and things. Every faith past Zoroaster, each that compassed civilizations were in deep practice of essence-worship of different codex but ultimately the same. For it is evident that disregarding the individual mythology of each, the worship is of the same manner and subject. Of all pagans or animists saw not just a hunter treading through a river, but Dian’s man-nymph in full act of worship. Thus, no difference shall be made of the two. Animism is more apt to describe this form of faith than pagan. Trite has the word been debased to mean any religion that isn’t commonly accepted; not so long ago was Islam deemed a pagan religion by Europe. Animism purports in etymology the belief of animation of all things by spirits, and the veneration of it; whilst ‘pagan’ means nothing. Concluding, “animist”, and “animism” are the terms I will use.
What only denotes or supervenes the sects is mythology, and the manner of its determination is cause for baseness of the faith. Specifically, the mythology of each individual cast was molded from the geography of the region. Why would the Hellene put much importance besides a glance to the fields of Albion? Or the viking to Kypre? This mediates for the practicant an elevated worth in his pure localization. For it is said that in the gilded age of whence gods and men communed, Apollo catered to the Doric; and each of a certain hamlet were distant kin, or favored by their worshipped. What arises from this is a puerile game of favorites. When Alexander set foot on Ptolomeia he certainly scoffed a sigh of pride, knowing that Ares had blessed him and not the onslaught of defenders.
Of every polytheism requires a certain devolution, or federation. That is to say that despite the ubiquitous importance of a chief or supreme god-head, each domain of life (of which there are many) is the dominion ruled by its own essence. Thus, whence a prayer of devotion is called, the supplicant doth utter solely the name of the ruler of the specified realm. For asking Dionysus, chief drunkard and glutton to bless thine fasting is reason for disaster for more than one cause. This is another cause of baseness to the faith for in the divestment of power does turn from the station of god to mere bailiff; which is perilous once combined with the fraudulence of the divestment. It is no true divestment of power for Zeus or whichever god-head did not merely allocate resources of power according to each necessary responsibility; but a fiat currency of ‘power’ circulates the system and endows of nothing to each god or goddess.
I have started to draw out of its quiver the iniquity of animism: indiscriminate deification. In the maw of this beast is held the extolling of immorality withal to morality (the Platonic sense of Good, if thou will’st it). To Hermes are thieves patron to; yet just Pallas coincides in pantheon with the messenger and miscreant. Since every domain of life and each deed subject to it are cause for veneration to the animist, the principle of misdeeds and noble deeds derive solely from the laws established by society. The elimination of classes of “good” or “evil” deeds by the animists who only see deeds as doings (in the sense of object rather than subject) is what riveted Nietzche’s haphazardly hidden Grecophilia. For by this faith, both the thief and soldier arresting are in act of worship, but only one is punished and that is decreed by law writ of man. This lack of law and doctrine is hence why this religion form dominated every civilization past, and continues to have its merits in remnants of original culture and foreign revivalism.
The most famed of original remnance is the formal syncretism of Santeria where every ritual of animism and divination is kept whilst icons of the Virgin Mary are exogenously added after the matter. Beyond this, each of us are aware of remnants of animism in each of our nations; and the religious day typical to this fashion may be mapped along the lines of a morning prayer, one to Jesus; then a day’s fare concluded by a vesper of a shaman or witch doctor. This is unusual of course to the majority of full-converts, but may be noted too oft. Needless to say, Christianity is incompatible with animism, witchcraft, and an array of iniquitous behaviors deemed natural to many.
The persistence of these heathenries are signs of the unfaithful rather than an expressed desire of keeping a deprecated tradition. Much like a burgher buying equal share of rivaling companies, hoping to prevail in whichever outcome, minimizing losses by maximizing presence in each; the syncretic is performing the ultimate form of a Pascalian Calculus. For the full heathen, believing himself only fraction of heretic, has neither full faith in his own works of iniquity or God. As said, there is no dilemma of either God or one’s culture, for although a covenant of Israel formed from Moses; twice available is the option of forming a personal covenant with God Himself.
The revivalism of these practices by those without an ounce of connection to the mythologized land of the sect of animism results from the dreaded lack of dogma. A veritable cargo cult has formed against this feared demon of Dogma, and for the worship of nothing. For a religion without dogma is auspicious to all without cause; since neither sin nor virtue reigns over the other, one may continue with one’s continuous mischief of past and forget if any beliefs are even held. To take on dogma is much to abide one’s house on rock, tempests haileth but not one pillar quivers. By this virtue, one is consecrated to stand, with the provision that the virtue itself remain unmoveable.
Dogma itself in etymology means “thought” and “tenet”, and so oft encountered are movements fashioned with neither dogma or thought. For it has been a displeasure to encounter the Unitarian Universalists, a Ba’ha’ism anglicized from a desire to unite all sects of Christianity by a few protestants which then sloped to form a nothingness of everything. They pray in a combined utterances of voids, vaguely reminiscing of dogmatic faiths, saying “the Almighty”, which could be alias to Christ, Muhammad, or selfishly their very own self which follows from their ego.
As to reiterate, whence dogma is uprooted, the self before society becomes purveyor of virtuous and sinful. The atheist is in better faith than these syncretics. For he examines his deck, and surrenders with conscience, whilst the syncretic models an equation of what flush of cards exalts him in baptism with title of believer, whilst permits him to be idle of thought, dejected from virtue. In essence, the syncretic bloats his belly by the inhalation of a chasm of nothing (this is his ritual and faith), the expansion deriving from the conjured pride of a cock as his sham appends to his abject and insufficient profile; yet not a morsel of matter significant found. The animist believes himself always full, as by every deed is he virtuous; the atheist starves on his own terms; the faithful cultivates in devotion.