Some more tweets on agency, choice and the Gods

An exchange from this morning:

@_shrine_ : Sometimes gods whoop up on us more when they think it'll give us more skill to carry out their mission.

If "their mission" isn't our mission, it isn't theirs either, I think.

@_shrine_ : This is troublesome.

Your experience may just not be congruent to mine. You're doing some really deep work that's beyond me. I just don't see what is in it for the Gods to impose anything on us. I don't see them having a plan that is separate from us. I see people lately talking a lot in pagan circles about being "owned" by a God, getting commands. But what use is it to someone eternal to "own" a mortal? What "command" could accomplish a goal the Gods seek, when the highest order of things is precisely the order of choices? But I recognize that things get very complicated when there is a lot of work being done within the psyche.

I claim nothing in the way of practical wisdom; a philosopher, and a scholar of certain traditions, I just suggest alternatives.

@cole_tucker: Do your tweets responding to Galina and Sannion come from sharing a tradition antagonistic to animal sacrifice?

No, because some of the traditions in which I consider myself involved certainly did practice animal sacrifice. I would not do so myself (and yes, I am vegetarian, don't use animal products, etc.) But my issue is with the whole notion of "I check my brain at the door, do what I am commanded". To receive a command from a divinity is something the human craves.

@cole_tucker: And your objection would extend to those who consider themselves godslaves, but does it completely undermine the concept as well?

It's an interpretation of things they've received. I'm suggesting alternatives. I'm not telling them what to do, not saying they need to embrace these alternatives, but I'm expressing some different values.

‎‏@cole_tucker: I think that was completely clear in your responses.

Where I am in complete agreement with Galina and Sannion, of course, is that the Gods are really existing individuals, lest anyone should think that I speak from a belief that the Gods are merely what we make them.

On daimons

I'm finding it somewhat more convenient to pre-archive significant Twitter exchanges.

@cole_tucker: It's exceedingly rare for me to receive a positive request from the Gods. Even with the daimonic, only within certain pacts. The dead more so, but that's hardly a devotional frame.



It's logical that daimons and the deceased, both souls in some respect, would be more likely to seek such things. It gets complicated with the question of daimons in a divine series, because they act on a God's behalf on a lower plane. Porphyry somewhere says that it is daimons that actually metabolize the subtle side of the physical offering. Strengthening the daimons in a divine series reinforces a temporal structure that catalyzes contact with the eternal Gods, but the distinction between the Gods themselves and the daimons in their series is theoretically important, in my view.

@cole_tucker: Honestly, I find it a bit confusing, the Gods interacting with us directly & also through (homonymous) daimons in their series.

Daimons are used to create temporal structures of worship, things that require a soul. Platonists will also say that, for example, a woman has intercourse with a daimon in a divine series to conceive a hero. Or when Aphrodite is injured on the field of battle rescuing Aeneas, this is a Aphrodisian daimon.