Hi Kullervo

I worship the whole pantheon and have never doubted the existence of the Gods, but I can say that many, in fact most of them I have no actual gnosis on.

That's OK, it doesn't bother me - it's not about having an experience all the time, but worship, practice, living ethically, and so on.  Besides, if we really just take a good look around, evidence of the Gods is everywhere.

I do think it's a wonderful thing when we do receive gnosis, and I appreciate that you wanted to share that. I personally love talking about my son's burgeoning awareness of the Gods.   Many of us don't - or only in closed circles, because it really doesn't effect anything in the way of practice.  And so, for good solid information to be sent out - we have to keep personal gnosis in its perspective, because too many times people grab some gnosis and then think they are the Grand Poobah of somthing.

You know how it is.    Give an inch, they take a mile.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/science/02angier.html

I have always held that we experience form, not just abstractly or figuratively, but even down to our psycho-physiological roots:  the "psychic" is "somatic."  How we do this and the manner and extent to which we do it is largely unknown and, in any case, problematic.

The article illustrates that contemporary psychology is finally beginning to solve the dichotomy between "mind" and "body," between "abstract" and "concrete," between "figurative" and "literal," and thereby open up the discussion in new terms of what we used to consider (among other things) as "ontology" and "phenomenology."  Philosophical dialectics about "existence" have only left us with insoluble questions.

What Cullervo has experienced is the "metaphor" of Athena in his own terms.  An abstraction such as "belief in the existence of..." only confuses and disguises what was how he "felt" that "idea," and I am not about to dispute either his "belief system" or his apprehension of his experience.  I am an atheist, for example, and I had one "mystical" experience and one "Hermes" encounter.  Those had to do with the "experience" of the atheist of whatever "imagery" he had of those ineffable things in his mind, and nothing to do with the body of philosophy that subtends atheism.  Cullervo's "Athena moment" has nothing to do with polytheistic dogmatics about existence or orthopraxy.  You can't shift to those issues directly from his experience or use those issues to qualify it any more than you can use Pythgoras' theorem and the proper use of a protractor to infer a "Bach moment."

To restate matters, if I enter a theater and suspend disbelief and suffer for poor Hecuba, that's an experience that's not qualified by the existence or absence thereof of a "real" Hecuba.  The whole metaphoric cosmos of Hecuba has been experienced in my psychophysiology, and I'm to be grateful for it.

This "do you believe or don't believe" bit, I think, is a poison pill for Hellenismos.  It's miserably monotheistic in flavor, just like the jump from "faith" to rigorously expounded formal doctrine.

I am curious about Cullervo's experience, but I am not and can not be an "authority" on it or what should be made of it.  What matters to me is how my imagery of existence changes following it or how it expresses and interprets what I do.  That may or may not be shared with Hellenismos.  If it is, then there's some community of shared minds and shared actions, and, if it's not, then there's not.

It's only in priestcraft, the sort of stuff that strangles institutional religion, that people stop being curious about the experience and start to wax authoritative on what it is, was, and should be.

Cullervo's experience was one of our "primitive" apprehensions of our symbols.  All the rest is derivative and debatable.

I understand about Athena not being a household god so what can we as Hellenest do to worship her. I was thinking about setting aside a special altar in my room or in the living room. Not worship her as a household God but just to worship her. Also I agree about the Gods not being our buddies. Wiccans think that they are but their not.

I found this program on Youtube about the Secrets of the Parthenon that NOVA did. I'm going to post it here and I hope that's alright.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLCW0zKR4xk&feature=fvw

Don't worry, you weren't rambling.

I ordered Kerenyi's book on Gods of the Greeks... I should have ordered his Athena volume but it seemed slim for the price so I thought I'd get his more general book first... Since then I've discovered that Shrine of Athena site which has a lot of excerpts from the Kerenyi books. I'll probably end up reading everything he's written on Greek Mythology. I also ordered the Lee Hall book. (Has anyone read the book by Susan Deacy? It looks intriguing, but awfully pricey) I found Walter Otto's Dionysus at my local Borders and have been reading that in the meantime. Heady stuff, but interesting. I like the mystical approach of Otto and Kerenyi. I do also want more "straight" background material, including historical context, it seemed like the Hall book would be more along these lines.

One thing I've been realizing is just how important Athena was in Greek mythology. Looking back it's easy to see her as kind of "just another goddess" in the pantheon, but actually Athena was HUGE. In terms of her power she was ranked only behind Zeus. She pretty much left poor Apollo in the dust (sorry, Apollo). By some traditions at least it was Athena who (defying Zeus) breathed the divine spirit into the first human, Prometheus.

And okay, the whole Athena and Zeus thing? Athena is basically Zeus's #1 agent, often explicitly assigned the role of "protector of the patriarchal order" ... Sort of the ultimate Daddy's Girl... But Zeus actually MURDERED HER MOTHER (according to some traditions at least) because he was afraid her offspring might supplant him... Talk about a fraught relationship!!

The Athena/Apollo dichotomy interests me also. To me they seem to represent two different types of knowledge. Athena represent wisdom, which sees things as they truly are in their essence. Apollo represents "knowledge," science, logic, basically a utilitarian kind of knowing which sees things only in terms of their use towards an end. It's pretty obvious which type of knowledge has got the upper hand in our world...

And what is UP with that kid she had (sort of) with Hepheastus? (Weirdest mythological sex scene EVER?) There seems to be some faint whiff of divine child ambience around this enigmatic infant. And it seems to be suggested that the child had to be hidden ... It reminds me, weirdly, of Zeus's own story, when his mother had to hide him from his own devouring father.

The Lee Hall book is pretty good.  It was one of my first books on Athena.  The Deacy book is also rather good.  I'm assuming you're referring to the one in the Gods and Heroes series.  If you're referring to Athena in the Classical World (which is far, far pricier), then I can't give a review because I haven't read it yet.  I do have it, though, and it looks good from what I've seen.

I've got some great news to tell. That ten piece set that has the gods and heroes I've found. I went to every website that stated that they had it, only to find out that it was sold out, and finally found three sites that had it.  They also have a reasonably priced Athena statue that I'm planning on buying. I'm so getting my Athena altar up and running.

I'll check it out or see if the Library has it.