“the forbidden color,” by Kadri Sammel
In 1880 a scientist called John Eliot Howard lectured to the Philosophical Society of Great Britain that Druidry has consisted of pantheism, the unity of all nature with deity, which seemed to him ‘the highest effort of the natural mind in religion’. [...] On the one hand, he suggested that, unlike Christianity, ‘it had no remedial feature for the hour of adversity, no consolation against the darkness of the grave.’ On the other, he admitted that he so far shared the Druids’ attitudes that ‘I should prefer the breezy air of the Wiltshire downs to the atmosphere of Westminster Abbey’.
— Hutton, The Druids: A History (emphasis mine)
Strict pantheism is, I think, a difficult outlook to maintain. You find only a few people — even among Pagans — who are truly and purely pantheistic. Polytheism has its multiple gods, goddesses, elementals and other spirits, inhabiting a sacred natural world but also maintaining distinct personalities within it. For polytheists, a local river god, no matter how closely identified with the river, is not just the river, but conceived as “something more,” as possessing some quality of character or personality, some human-like attributes with which we, as human beings, can communicate and interact. Certain monotheistic religions go to the other extreme, conceiving of deity in purely transcendent terms, inherently separate from the “created” world. Usually modern critiques of each of these belief systems focus on the extent to which they deny or imbue sacredness in the natural world. Examples from past cultures show us that polytheism can degenerate into petty bickering among fallible and narrowly anthropomorphized deities, whose capriciousness no longer points to the mysteries of a shifting natural environment but has become entirely self-referential and melodramatic. Likewise, religions based on transcendent conceptions of deity come to rely heavily on abstract revelation (often supposedly only available to religious or political leaders) rather than personal experience of a sacred world, and even the extreme view that nature is inherently “evil” or degraded and must be rejected and escaped.
Why, then, aren’t there more people who are strict pantheists? Given the obvious drawbacks of identifying the Divine as somehow external to or beyond the “world” — and our increasing ability to discover awe and mystery within the material world itself through modern science — why shouldn’t all reasonable people subscribe to a pantheist view, seeking the sacred in the natural world alone? I think the reason has something to do with the quote at the beginning of this post — the “hour of adversity” that each individual faces, whether through personal crisis or community conflict, or simply the fact that, no matter what your beliefs regarding the afterlife, your body itself will, inevitably, die and decay. This “darkness of the grave” is inescapable, and while other spiritualities allow an escape route — into a transcendent heaven or through the reincarnation as a new distinct being, spirit, guide or even god — pantheism offers no such comfort. Indeed, pantheism embraces death and decay as essential aspects of the natural world, making no claims to a continued sense of self separate from the corpse that slowly disintegrates and rejoins the flux and flow of nature.
Pantheism sometimes seems to arise effortlessly in us, as the optimism and joy of a child playing in the green, sunlit field and relishing the “breezy air” as it rushes by, unconcerned with forms and names, in touch with the sacredness of life just as it is. But it can also be just as difficult to hold onto as the wind. When our easy optimism runs up against the violence, pain and suffering which is also a reality of nature, without a kind of faith in something beyond the immediacy of the painful moment, our spirituality may seem to abandon us altogether.
Historian Ronald Hutton argues that we know very little about who the Druids actually were, and that almost everything written or said about them has been more a reflection of historical trends within the society making the commentary. Druids-as-pantheists, for instance, was only one conception in a series, later giving way to the belief that the Druids were polytheists, and eventually opening up to a revival of Druidic religion in a modern form which is widely varied in its conception of deity. But what if the Druids did have strong pantheistic leanings? Is there anything in the Celtic mythology and folk tradition that might address the problem of adversity, and which might be relevant to modern pantheists, animists, panentheists, and people who just find it difficult merely to maintain a blind belief in the eventual justification for their suffering? The answer to the question might just lie in examining the bardic tradition of satire.
It’s no mere coincidence that political satire — shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, for instance — seems to increase and become particularly potent in times when cynicism, doubt, uncertainty, fear, and violence are rampant in a society. During the “Indecision 2000″ coverage twelve years ago, Jon Stewart’s snark and eerily prescient cynicism about the electoral process helped make his fake news program one of the most trusted sources of information and commentary on current events, a reputation that has only increased in the wake of September 11th, the two ensuing wars, presidential and midterm elections and countless scandals and controversies. It’s almost as if satire rushes in to fill the sudden lacuna of faith in one’s leaders and community.
In Celtic mythology, there are numerous tales of bards composing satirical verse about kings who have wronged them or failed in their duties as leaders and protectors. These satirical poems were not merely sarcastic commentary, but held very real power to influence the politics of the time. Scathing satire not only undermined the king’s rule, but was said to cause physical blights and blemishes to appear on his body, a physical manifestation of his incompetency and unsuitability to lead. This use of satire to address (and redress) a community’s lack of faith in the political authority of their leaders may also have some importance in the realm of nature-centered spirituality.
The crisis that a political satirist responds to is the possibility that there is no transcendent authority or power capable of correcting the course of a community, of protecting it from hardships and conflicts, external or internal. The satirist takes on the possibility that we really are just a jumble of individuals, that the supposed “leaders” are incompetent, ineffectual or even dangerous. What is left, when we can no longer rely on an assumed beneficent authority? Nothing but the immediate jumble of people themselves and the emergent patterns of their behavior.
This is the same difficulty that pantheism faces — denying an external, transcendent deity or deities capable of influencing the world, what is left is the jumbled community of life itself, with its births and deaths, its food chain, symbioses and natural selection, its constant flux, its good days and its bad days. In coping with this conception of the world, satire can function spiritually in a way similar to its political function: by embracing a messy existence, by choosing affirmation of reality over the comforts of an imposed, inappropriate pattern. The “sacred deep play” found in the rituals of many modern Pagan communities does not only provide us with an opportunity to revel in chaotic joviality. Such rituals can also emphasize both creativity and humility in the face of seemingly desperate odds, and by doing so, they can transform those moments of adversity themselves into moments of sacredness.
There is a fantastic (and fantastically funny) quote from Terry Pratchett’s and Neil Gaiman’s book, Good Omens:
…God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players (i.e., everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
The “God” of this passage seems strikingly similar to the satirized leaders who, if they are in control at all, seem ineffably obscure in their aims and not necessarily benevolent or trustworthy. And yet, the “other players” in the game — those left in the dark and unsure of the rules — find a certain camaraderie, comfort and kindness in realizing that they are all bumbling along together.
Alison, this is deep and timely and eminently reasonable. It is as good an explanation as I’ve seen as to why satire is currently so popular and so effective.
And yet I remain a polytheist, not a pantheist. How much of that is because my religious experiences are best explained by polytheism, and how much is simply my own “hour of adversity”? I honestly don’t know.
But your argument is very, very reasonable.
John, I go back and forth on the issue of pantheism myself, actually. I’d probably describe myself more as animist with “soft” polytheistic leanings. I believe that all of the various beings of the physical world are imbued with spirit, but I don’t necessarily believe that spirit is identical to the physical world, and my experience with the individual- and community- identities of us mere mortals makes me think identity is inherently somewhat fluid, porous, amorphous… so I tend to shy away from hard polytheism that emphasizes hard-and-fast distinctions between deity (and other spirit) identities.
Thinking about the challenges of particular theologies, though, has always been one of my favorite pastimes.
Even if I don’t consider myself a pantheist, I think the way that pantheists (and others) confront the possibility of there not being anything else “out there” can give us some really interesting insights into how spiritual faith works.
“I’d probably describe myself more as animist with “soft” polytheistic leanings.”
Yup. That describes me perfectly. If I was asked I’d probably describe myself as a panentheist with animist leanings.
Thank you for this intriguing and insightful post! The dilemma of Pantheism is one I face in my own spirituality every day.
I’m really glad you liked the post, Carol!
I’m rather uncomfortable w/the blanket “pantheism offers no visions of life after death” thing here, especially with the lack of citations. I know many poly/pantheistic folks, including myself, who would disagree. There’s WAY too many paths in the pantheistic world to say that none of them offer that. But I very much agree with your points about the celebrations of chaos, & the value of satire. Those things keep us strong in this (and any other!) life.
Thaniel, I was using the common definition of pantheism as the theological concept that God/Spirit/the Divine is identical to nature (i.e. the physical universe). From what I understand, that’s something distinct from polytheism, animism, panentheism and other belief systems that involve a mixture of immanence and transcendence, though there are plenty of people who hold several of these views to one degree or another in combination.
In a purely pantheistic approach, presumably any “life after death” would have to involve a continued existence in the physical, material world somehow, since pure pantheism doesn’t postulate a transcendent heaven or, as far as I’m aware, a separate soul that survives physical death. I’m not saying pantheists don’t have beliefs about what happens to a person after death, but that pantheistic ontology doesn’t include a belief that we can somehow escape from this physical world into a transcendent reality (or that, even if we can’t, there is some transcendent authority or creator deity who can). Whatever happens to a person after death, one way or another they’re still “stuck” in this world.
Religious communities in practice are rarely ever theologically pure, though, so I’m not surprised that there are people who subscribe to pantheism who also hold polytheistic, animistic or even monistic beliefs as well that include a belief in a “life after death” in the more traditional sense. I think that strictly pure pantheism is an incredibly difficult theology to hold to, for a lot of reasons. That’s why exploring the boundaries of spiritual faith and how we cope with and respond to them is so interesting!
I also disagree that pantheism necessarily mitigates against the survival of identity beyond the momentary existence of an object, as none of us has a single cell that we were born with, but we are who we are. The planet is the planet, though it has been stone and now is covered in water. When the body or the known 4+ dimensions of the universe dies, it does not cease to be either. In my worldview, though the entire 4-10+ dimensions of the universe shall all come to an end, that each thing having had existence continues in place, having been witnessed by all other aspects of the collective and retained in the “mind” of God, which chose for itself, for nature, what was possible and what was impossible prior to the existence of any differentiated thing (the first of which were the very laws of nature, or gods). For the average pantheist, I think it equates to Nietzsche’s idea and perspective of eternal recurrence being the response to the *feared* darkness of the grave, with a lot of other perfectly acceptable little delusions for our time in the foxhole, of which satire is certainly one.
Thanks for the link, ABtMS! Your comment is a great example of what I was talking about in my response to Thaniel when I said that pantheism doesn’t necessarily have to believe in a traditional transcendent afterlife like heaven in order to still hold views about what happens to an individual after they die. In my experience, the belief that a person’s actual self-identity and self-awareness continues after their body dies is not a common belief among pantheists, but like I said, there’s a lot of variety and blending of different theological approaches in very nuanced ways. Some people just use the word “pantheism” as a synonym for “nature reverence.” That’s not how I’m using it here, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong to define it that way if they like.
“pantheism as the theological concept that God/Spirit/the Divine is identical to nature (i.e. the physical universe)”
I’m having trouble understanding a difference between that and atheism.
The kind of pantheism I’m referring to here (which is distinct from the rarer use of the word to mean “(tolerance of) the belief in all gods”) is basically a kind of non-theism. Some approaches to Buddhism and Taoism could be described as non-theistic pantheism in this way. It’s distinct from atheism because atheists tend to (though not always) eschew “spiritual” language altogether and do not necessarily identify the physical world as something sacred and worthy of reverence.
In the book Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist, Sharman Apt Russel puts it this way:
“I had decided to believe in a holiness that was not confined to any one thing but immanent in everything. God was in the raven and concrete not as a supernatural being but as the miracle of raven-ness and hydrogen molecules and light waves bouncing off a hard surface to enter my soft receptive eye – an image reflected upside down that my brain instantly turned right, my brain humming with insight, adrenaline in the blood, water vapor in the sky, all of it an amazement, all of it numinous.”
Later, Russel explains that this is not merely atheism because it still retains that sense of the numinous divine, even though that divine is not located in a supernatural or transcendent reality or deity.
Wow, that was a really powerful post; yall do some impressive work here at No Unsacred Places.
Good read and wonderfully thought provoking. Thank you.