To know the Gods by name

In retrospect, I believe the Gods have always spoken to me.

When I was a child, I was passionate about mythology. I was very proud that, by the age of 8, I knew the names of all planets and the Gods they represented. I loved shows and cartoons that had to do with Greek Mythology – Xena, the Warrior Princess, Saint Seiya, Disney's Hercules (and even back then, I knew that the mythology in that particular film was completely warped). If it had the Ancient Greek Gods in it, I was in.

Then in my teenage years I learnt about Wicca, which gave shape to this inherent love of Paganism I already had within myself. But it also put me in touch is other people's perception of what it meant to "hear the Gods". And that's when the self-doubt started.

I will never forget the day I joined a group of Wicca enthusiasts, and one of the older participants, who was very respected for being more experienced, completely invalidated a ritual experience that I had just described, in which the face of the Green Man came to me as I played with some leaves. He said it wasn't the God – it was probably just a spirit of nature making itself known. Well, I was young, unexperienced and insecure, like any teenager, so I just believed in him. And never again I dared to share my own experiences with the Deities, lest they be shot down again by someone more knowledgeable. 

In time, it turned into a complete distrust of my own experiences. Because the Gods did not seem to speak to me as it was usually described by others, I felt like they did not speak to me at all. 

In my post The voices in the desert, I described how I realised the emptiness and the pain in my soul were, in fact, the Gods reaching out to me. Now, I am reading the book Mythologems: Incarnations of the Invisible World (2004) by Jungian analyst James Hollis, and his description of how the Gods act in our current world has made me sure that, indeed, I have been listening to the Gods my entire life.

But how, M.? You ask me. Isn't that good ol' hubris?

I do not think so, because I believe the Gods speak to everyone. I am no one special, except in that fact, unlike many, I could never really rationalise my way out of it. Denying or ignoring the Gods has always plunged me into great emptiness and depression. The Deities speak to everyone and act through us all, the only difference being that some of us are called to heed and listen, and we cannot ignore this calling without making ourselves ill.

And yes, I do believe the Gods speak and act through even the most radical of unbelievers. The difference is that they do not recognise the force that is acting inside and outside them as the Deities. They do not know the Gods by name and, therefore, cannot understand their way of speaking. And, many times, they also cannot come to terms with these Gods, which is the source of many diseases. 

I believe – no, I know – that the Gods have been speaking to me since childhood, because they were constantly making themselves known to me. They taught me Their names. They taught me Their legends and they gave Themselves faces I could see, through TV shows or books, because They wanted me to see Them. And to listen. And looking back I can see, heck, feel in my bones, the times one God or another have walked by my side, thrusting me into situations that brought me both joy and suffering, because such is the way in which They work through me. 

Those who have not yet been called to see, they simply do not see. That it why it is stupid to speak of numinosity with a hard atheist, or with someone who is too attached to the dogma of a religious institution (as opposed to the experience of the Deities in itself) – they will not understand. They cannot, not yet and, perhaps, not ever.

I should make clear here that I do not say this things because I am "spiritually superior" to anyone in any way. I do not believe that experiencing what I did makes one happier, more enlightened or more powerful. On the contrary, I have found that being called to "know the Gods by name" is a paradoxical path. It's filled with both awe and suffering, faith and uncertainty. Sometimes it's joyful, and sometimes it feels like a violation, shredding our egoic comforts. Most of all, it's a path of humility before the Great Mystery that, no matter what, our physical minds are unable to embrace completely. 

Jung once said that he did not need to believe in the Gods, because he knew. I am finally reaching in a point in my lifelong spiritual journey in which I too find that I don't believe – I know. I know the Gods, because They have made Themselves known to me throughout my life, even in my moments of denial and renunciation, and now there is no aspect of existence to which I can look at without seeing Their trail.

I would like to leave Jung's complete quote here, because I like the way he explains his own knowledge of the Gods:

The God-image is the expression of an underlying experience of something which I cannot attain to by intellectual means, i.e., by scientific cognition, unless I commit an unwarrantable transgression.

When I say that I don't need to believe in God because I "know", I mean I know of the existence of God-images in general and in particular. I know it is matter of a universal experience and, in so far as I am no exception, I know that I have such experience also, which I call God. It is the experience of my will over against another and very often stronger will, crossing my path often with seemingly disastrous results, putting strange ideas into my head and manoeuvring my fate sometimes into most undesirable corners or giving it unexpected favourable twists, outside my knowledge and my intention. The strange force against or for my conscious tendencies is well known to me. So I say: "I know Him". But why should you call this something "God"? I would ask: "Why not?". It had always been called "God". An excellent and very suitable name indeed. Who could say in earnest that his fate and life have been the result of his conscious planning alone? 

(from Letters of C. G. Jung: Volume 2 (1951-1961), p. 522)