'Godspousing' and the problem with polytheism of the now
The revival of polytheism is a revival of the ancient truths of our ancestors. This is doubtless. However we have taken the polytheism of our ancestors, and we have forgotten all of the rites and rituals which made it work and an actual belief system.
Instead, we have replaced it with hedonistic views of the Gods, a completely unfounded method of ritual and a lack of morality. This is a complete violation of the natural order and the honor of those gone before us.
A place in particular where this is increasingly common is in the phenomenon of 'Godspousing', where someone will, due to some type of 'mystical' experience, proclaim that they are in a relationship with a deity. They will do things like treat the deity as they would their husband or wife, and act as if the deity is on the same level as them due to their 'mystical' experience. I have even seen people who will 'offer' their own sexual pleasures to the deity they are 'espoused' with and their bodily releases.
It's shocking how distasteful and downright disrespectful this is. This completely anthropomorphises the Gods as simply beings made of some type of "spiritual matter" whom have debaucherous desires when they are the SUSTAINERS OF THE COSMOS. Having a deep connection to a certain deity is fine, but when you begin to just blatantly perform transgressions like offering your bodily products to the deity, and be delusional by romanticising the deity as someone with whom there is mutual feelings between you and them, or having inappropriate thoughts of them, you just crossed the line and have begun to just simply disrespect the Gods.
And quite simply, this is the problem with modern day polytheism. So many people going into it are going into it without ANY knowledge of the religion itself and are seeing it as some sort of antinomian counterculture to Christianity where you can practice and believe however and whatever you want, when it is an incredibly ancient set of belief systems whom never even interacted with Christianity for most of their history. They are failing to deconstruct their views on a personal, completely immanent and human god for the actual belief and due to their want for things which would be against Christianity, this lack of deconstruction manifests in sexualisation of the Gods.
Not only this, but the only interaction or education they will have had with Polytheism prior would be their 10th grade studies of religion textbooks and Percy Jackson, which obviously are unreliable sources that don't explain things properly.
This is why we, as people who are reconstructing Paganism and are actively promoting it, must educate these people on their errors and give them sources and things to read, so that they do not approach the faith wrongly and end up giving us all a bad name, because if we do not, Polytheism will not advance, our work to bring these faiths back into the realm of serious world religions will be effortless, and really, the 'religion' which supplants the culture, rites and rituals of our ancestors and which MADE polytheism what it was will simply be another gentrified, sensationalised trend which will die out in a matter of a few decades like we are seeing with multiple other religious revivals.
Please, comment on this. Our religions have a right to being taken seriously, they must be rekindled and roar like they did during the lives of our ancestors in antiquity, and the lack of education in some spheres is damaging to us all, no matter how much you distance yourself from it and claim it isn't our problem because we're doing it right. It's because of the fact we do it right, that it is our obligation to treat it as our problem.
