International Year Of Polytheism

India: Gods and Corporations

2009-01-15T08:47:00.001+01:00

Most corporates, of course, do both things--swindle the earth as well as invest in religion. And they take care to bribe the auditors in both places. Especially in India, where Hindus actually worship wealth as a goddess called Laxmi, and where the acquiring of vaibhav (worldly stature, replete with wherewithal) is an endorsed spiritual goal. Like religious institutions of the top order the world-over, the Vatican for one, some of India's temple trusts are among the richest corporates going, and the classes and the masses have an appropriately unequal access to their sanctum sanctorums. And those that are out of caste have none, even as many gods that are installed within have not even a human face.

Link

International Year Of Polytheism: "Ein Abend für den Polytheismus"

2008-10-14T12:27:00.002+02:00

A concept on tour!

The International Year of Polytheism will be guest in Amstetten, Lower Austria. We will present an "evening for polytheism".

Thursday, October 16 2008: 8 PM @ Cafe Kuckuck, Amstetten.

Monotheism, Atheism and The You Tube

2008-08-31T10:33:00.001+02:00

We'd like to link to a high-class comment thread on YouTube about the International Year of Polytheism's "Free Bariumnitrate" video.

Enjoy and join!

Link to comments

Syncretism! International Year Of Polytheism -- Call And/Or Contest

2008-08-02T01:30:00.005+02:00

By Adam Flynn

As civilizations bumped into one another in antiquity, they tended to discover that they had many different gods. But since most pantheons break down gods into somewhat similar areas of expertise, the greeks just figured that the barbarians had funny names for their gods, and combined the two. This eventually got to the point where you could slam almost any two gods with similar areas of expertise together to get something subtly new. Some of my favorite gods, like Mithras and Hermes Trismegistus, come from the intercultural mashups (Persio-Roman and Greco-Egyptian, respectively) that were going on at this time.

[Note: One of the meaner intellectual things Christians did in their efforts at cleaning out the old gods was a tactic called Euhemerism. This revolved around the basic assumption that all 'gods' were actually just people who did interesting things which were in turn remembered poorly. Though they were horrified centuries later to have the rationalist interpretation of religion turned against them by serious-minded Germans, they happily spun tales of barbarian kings and tricky sorcerers who passed themselves off as gods. This was their counter to the sprawling pantheons of late antiquity.]

Interestingly enough, a somewhat parallel process was going the other way, taking people and ascribing to them them powers over aspects of daily life...by which I mean canonization. Catholic Saints are a great place to go to look for adaptations of and placeholders for old polytheism, as saints, especially the 14 Holy Helpers, who can intercede on behalf of the petitioner much as the old gods had. Just as feast days were overlaid with Christian holidays and folk traditions were retconned as christian ones, patron saints gradually appeared to offer help in the areas of their expertise. [Note: while there's a lengthy theological explanation of how you actually pray through the saints to god, the subtleties were usually lost on your average illiterate peasant who just wants some hedge against wild pigs eating his crops]. Saints are also a great place to look for 'the weird old christianity,' before it got uptight and Protestant. For example: St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, reportedly stood 18 feet tall and had the head of a dog.

From polytheism saints came and to polytheism they went, especially in many areas of the African diaspora, where slaves hid their gods by disguising them, and sometimes combining them with the saints. Sometimes this could lead to interesting juxtapositions. Shango, for instance, raging god of thunder and sky father in the Yoruba tradition, was identified either with the bookish Saint Jerome or the virginal Saint Barbara. I for one, am all in favor of crazy legends and folk charms.

So I propose that the international year of Polytheism, in the interest of kick-starting the spread of polytheism, hold an open call for syncretism and de-euhemerism. Combine your favorite gods with modern saints or legendary figures of our times. Let a thousand syncretic gods bloom. Say, for instance, one of those sainted old nuns like Mother Teresa or Mother Cabrini...they might make a good match with a hearth goddess like Demeter, or if you want to push a little farther, with Cybele, mother goddess of the wild earth. Or perhaps Saint Stephen (Istvan) of Hungary, the badass magyar warrior king whose severed hand is a national relic, might well be identified with Labraid Lámh Dhearg (Labraid of the Red Hand), the Celtic sun god whose legecy lives on in the red hand of Ulster.

Secondly, while the innermost unifier today might be the corporate anthem, the postmodern popular culture finds its fullest expression in the mashup. Photoshop contests at worth1000 and gizmodo already supply stunning juxtapositions of new and old, not to mention myriad musical creations (some of which are not indicative of regressive listening). So after creating your syncretic deity or reading about someone else's, why not slam together aspects of the sources into something new? Photoshop your god and saint together! Combine their godly images into a new deity for the 21st century.Why stop there? Cut-up their liturgies like a William S. Burroughs novel! Take their sacred songs and get your bootleg on. What could be better?

"Fast Times in the Public Sphere"
(taken at Venice Beach in 2004 by Adam Flynn)

[So, please send your suggestions to polytheism AT monochrom.at ... we will inform Adam about your submissions.]

Favorite Deity #13: ???

2008-07-30T23:50:00.007+02:00

We asked Richie Pettauer of Datenschmutz to write about his favorite deity. He sent us this text...

Johannes asked me to write a review of my favorite god/ess for monochrom's Polytheism blog. The Vienna-based group announced 2007 (ad infinitum) as the year of polytheism: the basic idea is to overcome unnecessary borders drawn by religion and - this is just my personal interpretation - to post-teenage religion.

What do I mean by post-teenage? Once you're in your twenties, you're statistically a lot more likely to rather accept and adopt various styles, be in the field of music or fashion or whatever, than to just hold on to one "scene". Religion in that respect mostly is far behind pop culture, even though during the last decade I sensed a very interesting shift in terms of polytheism, especially amongst economically blessed women in their 40ies who are interested in "esoteric knowledge". Nonetheless, many followers of different gods still don't hesitate to convince others that their own super-being is far superior to the ridiculous error their adversaries refer to as supreme master. Funnily enough just a couple hours before I was asked to write this text I saw a very funny poster at mmoabc.com, which depicts a woman carrying a sign that says: "Says the bible: war is sent by god." The picture is part of series of spoofs of the well-know motivational motives featuring a colorful image and some silly words. The text accompanying this picture says: "Religious War. Killing each other to see who has the better imaginary friend." And this I believe is just what the year of polytheism is all about:
The "International Year of Polytheism" (powered by monochrom) wants to overcome the epoch of the monotheistic worldviews (and its derivatives such as "The West" and "The Arab World") through the reconstruction of a polytheistic multiplicity in which countless gods and goddesses will eventually neutralize each other.
But even though it is easy for me to support the idea and to feel frighteningly in tune with the great polytheist movement, I'm having hell of a hard time answering the question about my favorite god/desse/s, since I worship countless of them. Some live in my flat, some I talk to on a regularly basis, some I had sexual intercourse with and some I have never seen nor even dared to imagine in their full glory. And what exactly does favorite mean in that respect? Is my favorite god the one who brews the coffee just like I like it or is he the engineer who engineered the robot who built my bike? Or the guy who gives me this incredibly self-satisfied feeling when I'm flying high above the clouds in my wildest dream? Or is she the one who made every piece of organic matter live in such a way that we can interpret it as living matter if we want to? Is he the one who gave us freedom or is she the one who enslaved us?

There are many favorite gods, but like in the famous Kung Fu series featuring David Carradine, when the decade of training at the Shaolin monastery is done, only one of the grad students can become the new master. And if all of them surrender their title as their code of honor requires that means they still have to fight. So if I have to give one definite answer I go with the great green frog god, the one who is constantly watching over all frog- and non-frog creatures and makes all other gods tick. Even though Buddha is quite a cuddly roughneck, too...

Polytheism goes Amish?

2008-07-30T17:53:00.004+02:00

July 24, 2008.

A small group of polytheism supporters visits Lancaster county (Pennsylvania) to talk to local members of the Amish community.

The Amish are members of an Anabaptist, Christian denomination. So pretty hardcore. They are best known for simple living, plain dress and resisting modern conveniences such as electricity and automobiles.

Establishing first contact is very hard. Several Amish people flee with horse and carriage.

The polytheistic research team decides to visit "Amish Stuff Etc."...

...and is very astounded by the goods this shop offers.

Very concerning.
Will heretic atheism triumph? Or some Dungeons & Dragons deities?

Massive polytheistic breakthrough

2008-07-30T17:43:00.004+02:00

July 23, 2008.

Polytheism promoter Johannes Grenzfurthner gives a talk in the Sanctuary of St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church (1525 Newton Street NW, Washington DC 20010, USA).

Grenzfurthner is eager to present the concept of polytheistic multiplicity (using sock puppets and a cross word puzzle book).

Grenzfurthner even presents an Ikea rat and reminds people about the Rat Temple of Karni Mata.

'Good fortune and fertility' sought from 'the gods on the structure'

2008-06-04T23:42:00.000+02:00

WorldNetDaily reports:

A former employee of a Tennessee insurance company is objecting to a "ceremony" held at the construction site of a new building because it called on "the gods on the structure" for "good fortune and fertility."

The report on the ceremony came in an e-mail from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, which is constructing a new nearly $300 million office building at Chattanooga.

A spokeswoman for the company told WND the report comes apparently from an employee dispatched by the company to celebrate the "topping" ceremony of the building, with the report then transmitted to the insurance company's e-mail list.

"Upon arriving at the construction site we were greeted by the workers preparing to lift this tree with the crane. Why were they lifting the tree to the top of building one? Well according to the Scandinavian tradition from long ago, after the final foundation is complete you are to raise a tree to the top of a building to bless it. It was to 'bless' the house with fertility. But people still use the tradition to bless the structure with good fortune. It is a request for a blessing from the gods on the structure to provide good fortune and fertility," the company's e-mail said.

The International Year Of Polytheism Will Be Endless

2008-05-16T15:10:00.003+02:00

In 2007 we started a project to honour religions which are not into that blunt one-church-under-one-God-stuff, but hail to the chaotic postmodern multitude of Gods and Goddesses. Religion should be like a swinger club, we believe. A dark room where you worship a God but you don't even know which God you're worshipping. That would be pretty cool we think. Worshipping Gods and Goddesses doesn't need to be some boring and dull and heteronomous thing for bores and squares clinging to whatever bloody tradition they have inherited. It can be a ride to the shopping mall of the unknown. Go out with one God/Goddess, come home with another. Worship one God/Goddess in your living room, while you hide another God's/Goddess's sacrificial altar in the toilet.
Tell everybody you're into Greek Gods/Godesses but actually worship Polynesian ones when nobody's watching. Play off the Norse Gods/Godesses against Hinduism. Let them fight and use their superpowers to entertain you. And so on.

Polytheism is a big party that screams "Bring your own God!" on the invitation. Now you understand why we were so sad about it being over. Damn you, 12/31/2007! Fucking monotheist moderation tricked us again: Fun is an ocean but it ends at the shore! We sat around crying a little and talking bullshit, depressed and weary of life. But then it struck us: If this great polytheism project is about kicking the unhealthy influence of monotheist crap out of our lives, why not kick out the Gregorian calendar which definitely is some Christian nonsense.

Why should polytheists stick to that calendar anyway? Why couldn't the year of polytheism be a somewhat polytheist year of which nobody knows exactly when it will end and when it has started? Nifty! So we went to ask the Gods and Goddesses what they would say at which date the year of polytheism expires. As always they have not come to an unambiguous ordeal yet and they just keep on arguing and arguing. Since they can not notify us, we cannot close the year of polytheism as you will surely understand. So just choose an individual bundle of personal Gods/Goddesses and join us waiting for them to stop their quarrel. You are welcome unless you're a Nazi pagan asshole buying that bullshit of a "true and authentic religion" somehow related to that place in which you were born by chance.

Check us out saying fuck off to Nazi polytheists!

Link

Monotheism Watch: Deities are angry!

2008-02-16T17:52:00.002+01:00

Rio de Janeiro's 130-foot-tall Christ Redeemer statue got hit by lightning!
The Goddesses and Gods are very angry!

Source

Monotheism Watch: Hungarian ectoplasm hunt?

2007-11-06T13:42:00.000+01:00

Polytheism supporter David Fine reports:

On a recent trip to Budapest, I documented proof of paranormal activity at St. Stephen's Basilica.
In this video, we see a ghostbuster cleaning up what appears be some sort of ectoplasm spill. Watch it only if you are a brave soul with an open mind.

Or could the guy even be a monotheistic godsbuster?

René Girard: "What Is Occurring Today Is a Mimetic Rivalry on a Planetary Scale."

2007-09-12T13:29:00.000+02:00

An interview with René Girard, philosopher and anthropologist.

But aren't the monotheisms the bearers of a structural violence because they gave birth to an idea of unique Truth, excluding any competing expression?

One can always interpret the monotheisms as sacrificial archaisms, but the texts don't prove that they are such. It's said that the Psalms of the Bible are violent, but who speak up in the psalms if not the victims of the violence of the myths: "The bulls of Balaam encircle me and are about to lynch me"? The Psalms are like a magnificent lining on the outside, but when turned inside out they show a bloody skin. They are typical of the violence that weighs on humans and on the refuge that they find in their God.
Our intellectual fashions don't want to see anything but violence in these texts, but where does the danger really come from? Today, we live in a dangerous world where all the mob movements are violent. This crowd or mob was already violent in the Psalms. Likewise in the story of Job. It – the "friends" – demanded of Job to acknowledge his guilt; they put him through a real Moscow trial. His is a prophetic trial. Is it not that of Christ, adulated by the crowds, then rejected at the moment of his Passion? These narratives announce the cross, the death of the innocent victim, the victory over all the sacrificial myths of antiquity.
Is it so different in Islam? Islam has also formidable prophetic insights about the relation between the crowd, the myths, victims, and sacrifice. In the Muslim tradition, the ram Abel sacrificed is the same as the one God sent to Abraham so that he could spare his son. Because Abel sacrificed rams, he did not kill his brother. Because Cain did not sacrifice animals, he killed his brother. In other words, the sacrificial animal avoids the murder of the brother and the son. That is, it furnishes an outlet for violence. Thus Mohammed had insights which are on the plane of certain great Jewish prophets, but at the same time we find a concern for antagonism and separation from Judaism and Christianity that may negate our interpretation.

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Keep the airspace free of monotheism!

2007-09-05T13:22:00.001+02:00

Beware!
Airport church, Frankfurt airport!

Door Henge: Finalized

2007-08-22T09:53:00.001+02:00

August 19, 2007.

A great day.

Victory Dance and Police @ Door Henge

2007-08-22T09:47:00.000+02:00

A victory dance. But please notice the police officer riding up on his horse in the background.

Door Henge: Doors Of Polytheistic Perception / Assembly

2007-08-22T09:40:00.000+02:00

Door Henge: Time lapse

2007-08-21T10:38:00.000+02:00

August 19, 2007.

More pictures and info soon!

Door Henge: Doors Of Polytheistic Perception

2007-08-17T12:41:00.000+02:00

Announcement!

Anonymous friends of the movement in San Francisco are erecting a polytheism monument on August 19, 2007 in an undisclosed public location. There is clearly a need for secrecy as a result of religious oppression from the monotheistic mainstream.

We'll keep you updated!

Liechtenstein protests

2007-08-04T16:35:00.000+02:00

August 2, 2007.

A group of Liechtenstein citizens crosses the border to travel to Feldkirch (Austria) to meet with polytheism supporter Johannes Grenzfurthner.

They start a spontaneous demonstration at Poolbar. A wonderful and creative outlet for their anger about the monotheistic majority in their tiny little home country. According to the 2000 census, 87.9% of the population is Christian, of which 76% adhere to the Roman Catholic faith, while about 7% are Protestant. The religious affiliation for most of the remainder is Islam - 4.8%, undeclared - 4.1% and no religion - 2.8%! The horror!

Taskforce British Museum/London

2007-07-01T18:18:00.000+02:00

June 30, 2007.

The British Museum in London (UK) is one of the world's greatest museums of human history and culture. Its collections, which number more than 13 million objects from all continents, illustrate and document the story of human culture from its beginning to the present.

Polytheism supporter Harald Homolka List visits the British Museum and is tremendiously shocked! What could be a gigantic shrine for all the gods and goddesses is in fact a cheerless mausoleum!

"They stare at you, Hoa Hakananai'a! But who is hailing you?"

"They put you into archaeological terms, Nereids! I wanna puke!"

"They listen to bullshit on their audio guides when they should be guided by your powerful voices!"

"Don't cry, Horus! We can help you!"

Stop taking pictures! Start taking action!

Reclaim the "museums"!

Taskforce Riga, Latvia

2007-06-10T15:22:00.001+02:00

June 9, 2007.

A short visit to Latvia scares one of the many hells out of polytheism instructor Günther Friesinger.

"We are surrounded! All sizes! All confessions! Even more than you can find on Wikipedia!"

"Even giant Russian Orthodox Churches! Hidden behind hostile wooden fences! Bleagh!"

"I'm feeling like a wrong pixel in an awful desktop background! But I will fight for my pixeldom! Now!"

We wish him luck. He will need it.

Polytheistic Drinking Culture

2007-05-25T02:30:00.000+02:00

Ben Suter sends us a picture of a purely polythestic spirit.

And it's even bottled in San Jose!

Geeked reports about "Divining Pod"

2007-05-25T01:01:00.000+02:00

Geeked reports about Maker Faire and the "Divining Pod":

[Maker Faire ...] Everyone and their brother who was within driving distance seems to have already reported on the event, but there were a few things I wanted to personally touch on that I found most interesting.

monochrom’s Divining Pod

The Monochrom crew was back in the states on their Internation Year of Polytheism tour this past weekend. Large balloons, a supply of helium, and small children contributed to an attempt at sending one lucky person to the heavens. To quote Johannes, it was a “semi-total success”. There are tons of videos and photos floating around [...]

Link

"The Divining Pod": Aftermath

2007-05-24T02:06:00.001+02:00

Many people uploaded pictures to Flickr.

And Mickipedia blogs a very personal story about the "Divining Pod" and her favorite deity.

"The Divining Pod" team answers email from hostile god

2007-05-22T01:04:00.000+02:00

We decide to answer the email from a hostile god.

Dear hostile deity,

I'm sorry if we offended you, but until you identify which "one true god" you are, we cannot take steps to appease you. We included the names of over 90 deities on our "Divining Pod" including several of you jealous gods. You sign your email "You know who I am", but in fact we do not. Are you one of the monotheistic deities such as Yahweh, Ahura Mazda, Akhenaten?
Or perhaps just one of those egocentric heads of a pantheon, such as Zeus or Ra?

In any case, it is time to stop being a bully. Those other gods are your peers and you need to treat them with some respect. Chances are that many of them have been worshiped by man longer than you, whoever you are. They say jealousy is a sign of low self-esteem.

We have nothing but respect for you, and all deities. You are a great god, I'm sure, but there are so many deities competing for our attention that we simply cannot spend every second worshiping you. Please don't take this as an offense or a slight. We'll always make room for you at the table.
Signed,
monochrom