Mucking about in Pantheons

[myk]

In the Chaos - Voodoo thread there was a suggestion about how Chaos magicians muck about with Gods of various pantheons and seem to do so casually and with no ill effect - and how the Voudon pantheon might be different.

To begin with, remember 'there is no truth'. So the idea that gods exist in our minds and are empowered from our minds, while the idea has usefulness it is not the truth. Gods do have reality beyond ourselves just as people have reality beyond ourselves, egrigores are 'servitors' meant to have reality beyond any one person.

There is also the concept of the 'collective unconscious. If you want you can work a paradigm of human being as the source for God, in which case the belief of others and the belief of those that came before us can and will manifest 'gods' with objective reality of a kind. But understand there is no knowing gods come from our intelligence any more than there is knowing ours is the only intelligence so capable.

As for how gods of pantheons seem safe and others seem less than safe - there's no reason Gods can't be as diverse as human beings - especially if you're crediting humans with the origin of Gods.

In the case of Vodoun, and really, any Pantheon - it serves you well to do the research and really work the paradigm. Being a paradigm pirate doesn't mean meddling with things you don't understand, it means letting go of what you know now to let in the understanding of something new and different. It's once that process is complete mixing and matching is reasonable and safe. No God is entirely the product of your mind, the God may be 'real' (and that idea is to be encouraged as it is empowering to the God and your work both) and if the God is to be interpreted as an egrigore, the beliefs of those that created the egrigore determine how it works,not you.

That said, many people work with Yoruba Gods and get good results with them. Respect for the tradition of the God makes all the difference.