Across cultures and religions, humans have sought to understand the nature of deities and the extent to which our actions may draw their favour or ire.
This blog entry is a salty response to an online conversation I recently read. A practitioner said they had failed to perform an important ritual a few times and asked whether their goddess might get mad. There were various responses, some of which were remarkably arrogant. Those replies went something like this:
- When will people learn that deities are external reflections of ourselves and our inner divinity?
- When will people learn that deities are archetypes?
- When will people learn that deities have more to worry about than our trivial concerns?
- When will people learn that these insignificant human emotions do not affect deities?
- When will people learn that they’re suffering from Christian trauma?
I wanted to respond, “When will people learn not to be judgemental and condescending jerks?” I opted to be more productive and explore the original question here.
Do the gods get mad at us?
This is a good question. The dismissive responses above are from small people. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you are the expert on your relationship with your deities and spirits. Your concerns are not trivial, nor are your emotions insignificant.
Do goddesses and gods get mad at us? The answer to this question depends on whether you’re a theist and, if you are, your view of the nature of deity.
Theism is the belief in the existence of at least one deity. You may be a monotheist or a polytheist, and, as a polytheist, you may view deities as personified forces of nature, ancestral principles, autonomous figures, or aspects of another deity, a creator deity, or an absolute principle. There are a lot of academic words in the study of religion to describe various types and sub-types of theism, including henotheism, pantheism, and kathenotheism.
These labels can sometimes be helpful, especially when looking to meet like-minded people. Still, they don’t have a lot of practical, daily applications, and it isn’t necessary to adopt one. However, if you’re a theist, it’s worth reflecting on your beliefs and, more importantly, how your practice flows from them.
I’m a polytheist. I believe in multiple deities and spirits, though I don’t worship them all. I view deities as distinct individuals. For example, the Christian God and Dionysus are not the same. Oshun and Aphrodite are not the same. It gets a little blurry sometimes. Athena and Minerva are not the same, but they’ve become very similar. The Aphrodite of Aphrodisias is not the Aphrodite of Athens, but they are both still Aphrodite.
In my practice, I treat deities as individuals. They have unique origins, places, and symbols associated with them, though deities may share divine duties, epithets, and attributes. For example, Themis is associated with the scales, divine justice, and the assembly; Hekate with torches, keys, and liminal spaces such as the crossroads. My altars dedicated to Themis and Hekate look very different, and the work that I dedicate to them is very different, too.
If you’re not a theist and believe that deities are symbols, then there’s no reason to think they can be mad at you because there is no ‘they’ in the first place.
In the hands of angry gods
In 1741, American theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote and delivered a sermon titled “Sinners in the Hands of Angry God” that emphasised God’s wrath upon unbelievers after death to a horrific, fiery Hell. This sermon was the catalyst for the Christian revival movement that swept Britain and the North American colonies and has endured as evangelicalism.
Religious trauma is real. The most easily identifiable form of it is physical and sexual abuse, but religious trauma doesn’t have to be associated with a specific event; it can accumulate over a long period through lifelong harmful messaging. For example, some LGBTQIA+ people grow up in authoritarian religious communities who believe their identity is sinful or evil.
Most of us live in Christian societies, and there’s plenty to untangle there, but we don’t all come from Christian backgrounds, and we don’t all carry religious trauma. So, let’s be careful about our assumptions. It also has to be noted that Christians didn’t invent the Angry God.
The concept of deities experiencing emotions is deeply rooted in religious traditions. Many ancient mythologies depict deities as beings who created the world and actively participated in mortals’ affairs. They exhibit various emotions, from love and compassion to anger and jealousy. The idea that deities can feel anger suggests a moral dimension to their interactions with humans, a belief that certain actions could invoke their wrath.
Greek mythology has many stories of the gods punishing mortals. After Actaeon stumbled upon Artemis bathing and saw her naked, the goddess turned him into a stag, and his hounds tore him apart. For her affair with Zeus, Hera punished Leto by ordering all the lands to shun her and prolonging her childbirth labour. After Odysseus angered Poseidon, the god of the sea delayed his return home from Troy for ten years. Apollo cursed his prophetess Cassandra so that nobody would believe her after she refused him sexual favours. In the Afro-Cuban religion Lukumi, there is a broad belief that we have an obligation to the orishas and other spirits and they can be generous and vengeful. Divine retribution may also be nontheistic in the form of karma. Divine wrath and retribution are not unique to Christianity.
While some Pagans are quick to characterise the idea that Pagan gods could become angry as a traumatic effect of Christianity (the Angry God), they fail to notice that the belief in Pagan deities as wholly patient, gentle, compassionate, forgiving, and loving may also be a long-term effect of Christianity. Those are the qualities Christians ascribe to Jesus. For some Christians, accepting Jesus “in your heart” is all one needs. They are saved by faith alone.
Many practitioners talk about being blessed by deities. If our deities can bless us, why can’t they also punish us?
The defiant people of faith
Pagans are defiant people of faith. I borrowed that phrase from 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and his knight of faith.
Patriarchal religion taught people to submit and obey. If we don’t, we are punished. It creates innocent gods and guilty victims. But modern Pagans refuse to be subservient. We stand up straight and reject the demand for blind obedience. We are ready to wrestle with our deities. Our human concerns are not trivial, nor are our emotions insignificant. Still, the purpose of my religion isn’t salvation or release from this world, nor is it just to be happy and manifest basic needs. The purpose of my religion is right living and manifesting a better world. What is the purpose of yours?
While writing this, I remembered an old blog entry by Morpheus Ravenna titled Theurgic binding: or, S#!t just got real. Morpheus is an artist, writer, and a dedicant of the MorrÃgan. In 2014, Morpheus was committed to writing a book on the MorrÃgan but hadn’t started. She suffered a severe ankle sprain that required surgery and kept her off her feet for months. Morpheus wrote:
“My friends are still teasing me: “Boy, She’s not kidding about getting you to finish that book on time!” I still laugh, but I will admit to you that my laughter has a little touch of grim today. I will admit to feeling a little exposed. The realization that the Goddess you’ve dedicated yourself to has chosen to break your body to ensure the results She wants… is a weighty one. This is not a surprise to me. I knew what I was doing when I dedicated myself to Her fully and gave her guardianship of my destiny and my death. I just didn’t know specifically when or how She might collect on that commitment, and it’s a pretty profound thing to be experiencing. I don’t in the least bit regret it. I’m just telling you this story because it’s a good example of shit just got real around here. So when people are asking me why they shouldn’t dedicate themselves to Her early in a devotional relationship, this is what I want to say. Magic is deadly real. And, um, theurgic binding magic? With a war Goddess? Really-deadly-not-fucking-around-seriously real. I feel like I should maybe say that again. The Gods are not fucking around. When you hand yourself over to Them, They can break your bones, end your life or alter it completely, send you down pathways that foreclose other avenues of choice and ability, and perhaps what should be most sobering of all, transform and sculpt you from the person you were into the person They feel would be most useful to Them.”
I have not dedicated myself to any deity, much less bound myself to one, but my Pagan religion includes work and commitments. It isn’t always easy, comfortable, or pleasant. Do my deities need my devotion and worship? No, probably not. I suspect that I need to offer it more than they need to receive it. When I don’t live up to my promises, I reckon I disappoint myself more than my deities. While we can negotiate our relationships with our gonds, as a Priestess, I am also a vehicle for them. When I build a website, Ogun works through me. When I cook a delicious and nourishing meal, my ancestors and Yemaya work through me. When I lead a workshop on Hekate, she works through me.
I say “my religion” because I understand we have different approaches to spirituality. We are not all interested in having these relationships with our deities. We may not be capable or called to action. The purpose of your Pagan spirituality may be very different from mine. That’s fine; there’s room for all of us.
A salty conclusion
I’ve never felt like my deities were angry with me. I have felt them tug at me more, wait quietly, or withdraw, though not entirely abandon me. In one divination, an Oba Oriate told me I had a debt to pay Yemaya; I took that seriously. When I show up for my deities, my life is better–happier, healthier, and more abundant.
I began this blog entry saltily and will conclude it the same way. Ultimately, you’re the only person who can determine if your goddess or god is angry or upset with you. If you can’t tell, consider that you may need to nurture that relationship more. Can you tell if your loved one was upset with you? If so, why can’t you tell that your goddess is? If the answer is no or you need more clarification, then ask.
This was a great read and one that I can relate to, namely in terms of religious abuse. I was raised “in the church” but all of my life always felt more drawn to my cultural Hawaiian religion and belief. We are polytheistic as well, and also, it is part of our history to create the gods, in our own image, and then when they are not doing what we ask for on our behalf, we also have been, for many generations, the ones who retire them, as well. I have never really felt anything other than disdain for this very angry god who my mother used to threaten me with as though he were some sort of junk yard dog or something. When I would make this statement to her, she would get very angry with me, sometimes to the point that I would be grounded for defying her beliefs. I suppose that showed me the truth, which is that when you tell someone else that you do not believe the same things that they do, they start to question why we do not believe rather than questioning why they believe so hard, and to the point that another human being could make it happen that their house of cards would fall.