Deity Confusion

As an Eclectic Pagan I will literally mix and match deities and beliefs from various cultures and civilisations with only a touch of second thoughts.  I know there are some who see this as a disgusting practice and disrespectful to the gods, but I am pretty much past the point where I care about whether my internal beliefs offend someone.  My eclectic practice does not mean I have no idea who each deity is.  I have done my studying and continue to do so.  I haven’t read every myth that exists, probably never will, but I know more than some would assume.

Today I have been thinking about the way our deities are used.  When I say used, I mean in the way we use them in their correspondence to one another, to the planets, the days of the week and other such things.

Most of us know that the days of the week have been named after certain deities, mostly Norse deities but also one Roman and of course the sun and moon.  The planets too have been named after the Roman Gods.  We also know that certain deities from various cultures are seen as corrseponding with other similar deities from other cultures.  Brigid, Hestia and Vesta; Mars, Ares and Tiw; Aphrodite, Freya, Venus, Hathor and Inana.

We see these correspondences and we make some pretty big assumptions about them.  I wonder how many Pagans, especially newcomers and Eclectic Pagans, have actually studied these correspondences properly.  I am going to use the love goddesses as my example in this post.

We all know that the deities Aphrodite, Venus, Freya, Hathor and Inana all seemingly correspond with each other.  They are considered counterparts, some will even say they are simply different names for one goddess.  They all bear similarities to each other, namely the love and beauty aspects.  They are considered goddesses of fertility, marriage and even motherhood.  You can read any generic book on Paganism or Witchcraft and learn that these goddesses correspond with the day of Friday and the planet of Venus.  Their colours are usually pink and/or green.

However if you dig deeper, this is incorrect.

Venus, Aphrodite, Inana and Hathor are said to be the goddesses of the planet Venus.  Freya however is not.  Freya is an Earth goddess to many people and the Norse goddess who is applied to the planet of Venus is in fact Sif.  I bet you have never heard her name in the same breath as Aphrodite.

Venus, Aphrodite and Freya are given to the day of Friday.  It was named after Freya after all.  Hathor however does not fit this day.  Why?  The Egyptians had a ten day long week!  We cannot actually apply the same things to their days of the week.  I can’t say about Inana though.

What happens is pretty simple really.  We say these deities are almost exactly the same as each other, and since four of them correspond with the planet Venus, and at least three of them correspond with the day of Friday, then we must assume that they all fit Venus and Friday.  If we look at other ancient religions we’ll also find goddesses who will correspond to the others and apply the planet and day to them as well, whether we should or not.

Whilst it doesn’t matter too much to the Eclectic Pagan, I still think it is important to understand the differences, understand that just because some book applies a goddess to a planet, that doesn’t make it so in the ancient cultures of that goddess.  Before we choose to “use” our deities in certain ways, we should try to know how they were originally used.  We may choose to do things differently, but we should at least KNOW that we are doing it differently instead of thinking we are doing it the same as the ancients once did.

It works in another way as well. If you are not eclectic but are working with a single pantheon, say the Egyptian pantheon, you should make sure that it is okay to use the day of Friday in reference to Hathor.  Since our week cannot be compared to the Ancient Egyptian week, we cannot make the assumption that Friday is a good correspondence to Hathor.  Indeed, I would think that it wouldn’t be right to use daily correspondence to deities at all when using the Egyptian gods, because our week cannot match theirs, cannot compare, we perhaps should not try to use our modern week and modern day names and types in Egyptian magic or religion.

Be careful of the assumptions you make in regards to deities and anything within religion and magic.  Just because it seems to be right and fitting, doesn’t make it so.  Although I stand by what I always say, no matter how the ancients did it or how people do it today, if it works for you then who really cares?  Just be sure you don’t spout something as truth when it may not actually be so.  Your truth perhaps it is, but not the truth according to history and mythology.