The Problem With Theistic Privilege

In most religions, both monotheistic and polytheistic, there is a prejudice against atheistic adherents. Often because of orthodoxy, which means one's beliefs must be correct. Considering it is often impossible to change one's own beliefs, the very idea of orthodoxy is ridiculous.

There are also paths which claim to be orthopraxic, which means they are defined according to correct practice as opposed to correct belief. Wicca is one of these paths. However, many Wiccans refuse to accept atheistic Wiccans as one of them. It is one thing to not be accepted as an atheistic Catholic. Since Catholicism is an orthodox path, it could be said to be a contradiction in terms. However, since Wicca is an orthopraxic religion (not an orthodox one) any set of beliefs is compatible with it. The idea that an atheist can't be Wiccan is bigotry, plain and simple.

Since Wicca claims to honor a god and goddess, one might think that an atheistic Wiccan is a contradiction in terms. However, it is perfectly possible to honor the idea of a god without literally believing in it.

Since every part of the universe can be explained without God except perhaps its beginning/creation, every theistic belief system is ridiculous except deism (which posits a creator that does not intervene in its creation). Since this means that all religious beliefs are presumably false, it is ridiculous that theism would have higher status than atheism in any religion in this day and age.

The Problem with Wiccanate Privilege

Wiccanate privilege refers to the dominance of Wicca at pagan events at the expense of other pagan paths. Pagan events aren't the only settings where this is a problem though. Online, the number of Wiccan groups far outnumber the number of eclectic and general pagan groups, which are more difficult to find. The Wiccan groups are also more vibrant and interesting. It's enough to make me tempted to become Wiccan just to feel like "one of them".

Of all the paths to dominate modern paganism, Wicca seems like a very odd choice. It is a combination of the worst possible worlds, in the sense that it has a degree of orthopraxy and even orthodoxy (if you don't do certain practices, or hold certain beliefs, you aren't "Wiccan" enough), yet lacks the history behind reconstructionist paths. Ideally, pagan groups and events would either be would be a perfect balance of paths. If one path had to dominate, I'd have it be eclectic paganism, since people of that path can draw from any tradition.

The biggest problem with Wicca is the poor view many Wiccans have towards atheistic Wicca. Since Wicca is orthopraxic, not orthodox, it makes no sense to frown on different beliefs. It is possible to honor the idea of a god without literally believing in a god, but hardly anyone seems to understand this. In my Reform Jewish upbringing, this was a more accepted idea. I suspect that too few Wiccans hold this idea because they come from Christianity, which holds faith as a requirement. To me, the requirement of faith in religion is a completely and utterly ridiculous idea, especially considering that religions usually preach very ridiculous ideas.

Even so, I find Wicca superior to many reconstructionist paths because of how ridiculous many reconstructionist paths are. Hellenismos has an excessive fear of hubris and offending the gods, frowning on Wicca's positive, more egalitarian relationship with them. Some people within Asatru think of Wiccan pantheism as "cultural appropriation" and "spiritual rape". People overreact to cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is never a problem unless it somehow hurts the culture borrowed from (which does sometimes happen). If one person privately prays to someone else's god, no one is harmed. Considering there is no evidence that any one culture's deities exist, I think it is safe to say that reconstructionists are overreacting.

I'll try out Wiccan ritual on the next Sabbats to see what it's like. My lack of ritual during Sabbats has seemed insufficient in observing them anyway. However, I'm not sure I'd be so anxious to conform my practice to Wiccan ritual if not for the dominance of Wicca in the pagan community.

Would the Gods Approve of Neo-Pagans?

In my exploration of modern pagan paths, I have found two main types of path: neo-pagan, and re-constructionist pagan.

Neo-paganism is any path that invents its own rites instead of trying to reconstruct ancient ones, while reconstructionist paganism is a path that tries to reconstruct ancient rites.

People of reconstructionist paths often dislike neo-pagan paths, because they feel people of these paths do not worship the gods correctly or think of them the right way (I saw an article in which an Asatru person bashed Wiccan pantheism).

Recently, I started reading the book "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. In it, Odin disapproves of neo-pagan paths, accusing them of being "pretenders" with inadequate worship. (He wants more ancient rituals, I've heard, but don't quote me, I haven't gotten to that part of the book yet.)

Even though I'm not a theist, I like to keep my mythologies and characterizations of the gods consistent. If reconstructionists don't feel that the gods would approve of neo-pagan paths, but neo-pagans do, are these people worshiping the same gods? Might it be more accurate to say that they are worshiping two different gods with two different characterizations? Are Wiccans worshiping the "Wiccan" aspects of the gods?

I prefer not to think so, because many neo-pagans take a more pious attitude than reconstructionists will give them credit for, saying things like 'Apollo will not let you forget he is a god'.

I like to characterize the gods as follows: They prefer ancient rites, but as long as reconstructionist paganism is a minority religion, they are willing to settle with anything, since every bit of thought or belief helps. (This is based on the "clap your hands if you believe" trope, which says that gods become stronger or weaker based on how many people believe in or think of them). I also characterize the gods as drawing power from their domains, so "inadequate levels of belief" can be replaced by participation in the domain (you could serve Thalia, the muse of comedy, by being funny).

Pantheism vs. Hard Polytheism

In neo-pagan traditions there are a couple of ways of viewing the gods. Soft polytheism views the gods as symbols or energies that effect the human mind. This is my personal view. Hard polytheism views the gods as real and distinct. Supernatural pantheistic polytheism views the gods as real but aspects of the same force.

I am inclined towards pantheism. However, I do not view the gods as real personalities. Even if I did, I would reconcile hard polytheism with pantheism as follows:

The gods are all aspects of the same universe, but so are we. They are no more identifiable with each other than you or I (an exception could be made for gods that are traditionally identified with each other).

I hold this view even though I am not a literal polytheist by regarding the gods as fictional/archetypal aspects of the universe rather than sentient aspects. I am inclined towards regarding the gods as distinct for two main reasons:

For one thing, although it is tempting to apply a gendered duo-theist model to the gods (the goddesses are all  aspects of one goddess and the gods are all aspects of one god), this model fails where split-gendered deities are concerned (is Hermaphroditus an aspect of the god or the goddess?)

More importantly, the gods were never viewed as synonymous with each other by the original cultures that created them. If we view them as such, are we worshiping the same gods?

Curses Are Impossible (Mostly)

In an earlier post I mentioned that it was impossible to effectively curse someone without risking negative consequences. I don't believe this because of the "threefold law". I don't believe in the threefold law. It wasn't originally a real part of Wicca and only exists because of a misinterpretation of a passage in a book written by Gerald Gardner. However, I still believe that a person causing harm can cause harm to come to that person, if only because society has a taste for justice and revenge.

I don't believe in instrumental magic. This means I don't believe there is a force called "magic" that causes spells to work. Rather I think that magic reprograms a person's conscious and unconscious mind so that they pursue their goal more single-mindedly (especially if they believe that the spell will work).

Since every spell requires mundane actions in order to work, you can't curse someone from a distance, unless that curse makes you more single-minded in your intentions to harm that person. There is no way to deliberately harm a person that does not risk some form of justice or revenge, so I feel such an action would be foolish.

Another way to curse someone might be to utter a curse to their face. This wouldn't necessarily work unless the person believed in instrumental magic though.

You can't just write a curse down, and then consider someone cursed. Magick doesn't work like that. It requires mundane actions in order to work. There may be no threefold law, but people don't take kindly to being harmed. This is why I do not curse.

Can I Call Myself Wiccan?

Although many of my practices are inspired by Wicca, there are a couple of reasons why someone might object to me calling myself a Wiccan.

For one thing, I am not part of a coven, so Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wiccans don't think of me as Wiccan for that reason. However, I could still be accepted as Wiccan by eclectic solitary Wiccans without being part of a coven.

One thing that more Wiccans would object to, is the fact that I am an atheist. However, I could still get away with calling myself a Wiccan among atheistic Wiccans (yes those exist).

However, one potentially more convincing argument against calling myself a Wiccan is the fact that I freely ignore traditions in Wicca that do not work for me. Although I write "an' it harm none" into my spells, I find harming none to be impossible in practice. I don't set out to harm or curse people though, as I don't believe there's any way to curse someone that doesn't also cause bad consequences for the person casting the curse (but that's another article).

Even so, the Wiccan Rede is just that, a rede, which means "advice", so if I don't follow it strictly, that might not be an issue.

A more convincing argument might be the fact that my rituals are never specifically Wiccan. I never invoke the elements, as I am more interested in gods. I suppose I could remedy this by doing Wiccan rituals during Sabbats (which I do celebrate by honoring specific season-themed gods).

The biggest reason why I am reluctant to choose Wicca as my path is that I have trouble with the gender duality. Wiccans often imagine gods and goddesses as being aspects of the Wiccan God and Goddess, with the gods being aspect of the God and the goddesses being aspects of the Goddess respectively. However, if this is the case, how do you arrange hermaphroditic deities into this scheme? Is Hermaphroditus an aspect of the God or the Goddess? For that matter, what about Phanes? Could it be decided based on whether they conform more to the yin or yang principle? Hermaphroditus is the god of androgyny. Which principle does he fit best? (You could say "yang" because of his association with sexuality, but if yang=god, this would make Aphrodite (who is also associated with sexuality) an aspect of the God, and she is usually seen as an aspect of the Goddess.

I think I'll ask a Wiccan about this last question. The answer might be fascinating.

Update: I did a bit more research on Wiccan views of divinity. It turns out some Wiccans view the gods as distinct from each other rather than being aspects of the same two gods. I hold a pantheistic viewpoint in which the gods are distinct from each other, and so are we, but we are all aspects of the same pantheistic universe (the gods are probably fictional/archetypal aspects though).

Death Gods and Mediumship Without An Afterlife

I do not believe there is an afterlife. I do not pretend to know this for sure, but I imagine being dead is an identical state to being unborn.

However, a cosmology without an afterlife can still have mediumship of sorts and here's why: Plato wrote dialogues with Socrates that may never have occurred (as Socrates was dead by then). If these dialogues never did occur, Plato might have said he was describing what Socrates would have said. It is the same thing with mediumship. It is possible to give one's best guess of what someone would have said if they were alive even if they are not alive to say it.

Lacking a belief in the afterlife also calls into question how to integrate death gods into my system of pantheism. In this system, gods are archetypes representing certain aspects of the universe. However, death gods do not fit this system well, as they do not describe a part of the universe that I believe exists. Jung dealt with this by making them "gods of the unconscious" but this does not fit well with how they were originally conceived.

I have also "rewrote" the gods of death, but not in the same way. Rather I write that the "underworld" is a series of memories of people. The collective mind of humanity is always trying to gather data, and this data takes the form of an "afterlife" filled with ghosts that are, not having a brain to support them, presumed non-sentient. They are philosophical zombies, beings who behave as if they have a mind, but don't have a mind... probably.

This worldview leaves room for agnosticism where life after death is concerned, because of what's known as the "teleportation paradox", which questions whether a teleported person, having been broken down and re-constituted, is still the same person with the same consciousness. In this system, the death gods transport a being that appears outside the body to the underworld. This being is composed of everything that person was, but it is impossible to tell if they are truly conscious, or were just programmed to give that impression, particularly since they have a habit of not behaving like a conscious being unless being observed by a living consciousness.

Therefore, in my pantheistic system, mediumship is talking to one of these "memory ghosts". It probably isn't real mediumship, but could still be useful for calculating what someone "would have said if they were alive".

Even with this replacement for the afterlife, gods of death still lose some of their perceived power. That's why my system increases the importance of these gods' powers over dreams, making them gods of fiction as a consequence of such power (stories and dreams are after all, the same thing).

Can an Archetype be Offended?

Many religions, pagan included, believe their gods can be offended the same way a human might be. I disagree. However, I would say they can in a sense, take "offense" metaphorically speaking.

There are many stories in Greek mythology illustrating the horrors of what happens when you do not give a god their due worship. Aphrodite and Dionysus are good examples of this.

I believe these stories can be seen as allegories for the fact that each domain of life must be given its due respect and attention lest someone find they cannot work with that domain properly. Aphrodite is powerful because love can be both a blessing and a curse, and Dionysus' punishments of those who refuse to worship him illustrate the dangers in trying to suppress madness.

Luckily this also means that there is absolutely no risk of offending the gods for trite reasons such as doing a ritual wrongly, as this has zero real natural consequences. There are no sentient gods to get offended at this. Even the metaphorical "offense" listed above, is just that, metaphorical.

The advantage of atheism is that you don't have to worry about doing rituals wrong, although everyone, religious and non-religious alike, could be affected by the forces represented by Aphrodite and Dionysus.

Are There Any Good Gods?

In many of my previous posts, I explore whether or not certain gods are evil, and in a story I posted earlier, I contrasted the gods invented by a child with better-established gods invented by adults. It seems no matter what mythology you look at, gods are evil. This arguably includes the Abrahamic God as well, since his mythology includes flooding the world, among other things.

The closest thing I have found to a perfectly innocent mythological being are beings who fight for just causes. Hermes, for example, kills the monster guarding Io, because she was being held captive by Hera. The angels of the Abrahamic religions deliver messages of God and deliver people from demons. I therefore saw fit to do the same thing with my own gods, not giving them anything dark until they were themselves attacked. This is a tradition in modern fiction. People want to see strong heroes, but have a low-view on attack without reason, so enjoy watching heroes defend their loved ones against evil antagonists.

However, in religious mythologies, gods are either morally justified by divine command theory (good is a synonym for godly so anything God does is good) or not morally justified at all (gods are more powerful than humans but not more moral). I actually like gods who have a bad side, since it makes the mythology more descriptive of the world as it is, as opposed to the world as it should be. Mythologies that have unambiguously good beings, such as angels, tend to create evil demons to explain evil, and I'd rather have a more realistic situation such as Greek mythology (where, as in real life, there is no all-good or all-evil being).

However, perhaps due to dissonance between ancient and modern values, certain gods have worse reputations than others, due to certain modern biases.

People, women especially, often have a more idealized view of gods who do not commit rape, even if they are not otherwise moral (Ares being an example). This is an inverse of what happened in Ancient times, where Zeus, a serial rapist, was idealized and Ares was demonized.

This might be explained by the fact that ancient views of the gods varied, and the people didn't necessarily believe all of the myths about them. The story of Apollo's rape of Creusa for example, was likely an invention of Euripides (Ion was originally said to be fathered by Xuthus). Some myths are closely associated with a god's religious cult, but others were designed more for entertainment purposes.

Often in modern fiction, villains have "standards" and will not cross certain lines (like Ares). However, the main reason for mythological rape is procreation. The act is "justified" by the fact that it creates a hero.

In both real life and mythology, this is bullshit. Gods have celebrity status among their own peoples. If they wanted children so badly, they could easily find a mistress that would consent to them. An especially glaring example of this is Odin's rape of Rindr to create Vali. He chose Rindr because of a prophecy. This is the worst example of self-fulfilling prophecy I've ever heard, although the murder of Baldr comes close. It seems Norse mythology is filled with misplaced fatalism.

Often I hear about Odin and Zeus still being honored today with the justification, among theists, that "the gods are real but their myths are not". As an atheist, there isn't really anything more to the gods but their mythologies, so the ideas of gods without myths seem like secondary mythological copies whose mythologies have been wiped clean to make them seem more palatable. This begs the question, what have these mythless gods done? Aren't they ever bored?

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Little Red Box: Part 3

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Apollo

Loki

How to Invent an Atheistic Religion

Loki vs. Mordechai: How My Gods Met the Establishment

In an earlier post, I talked about how I invented my own gods as a child. These gods weren't like traditional gods in the sense that they didn't go around committing blatantly evil acts. However, I can't remember giving them any mythology, so I decided I would give them a mythology that integrated preexisting gods, and showed the similarities and differences between my heroes and the villains of past pantheons. Here is their first story:

Mordechai was a god of magic who could warp reality to his will. One day he met a young man and asked what he called himself.

"Teacher" the man responded simply.

"Try showing this in your lessons" Mordechai replied. "I'm going to restart the universe."

"I don't believe that." the teacher replied.

"What?" Mordechai asked. No one had ever doubted him before.

"I don't believe you can do it. I think it's impossible."

"Oh really? Well, watch this!" Mordechai snapped his fingers, but nothing happened.

"Damn it..." Mordechai muttered. "You broke my confidence!"

"Did I? Are you sure it just so happened to not be possible? Magic can't do everything you know."

"Yes it can!" Mordechai insisted.

"How?" the teacher asked.

"Belief." Mordechai replied. "You can do anything if you believe you can. You broke my belief and therefore the spell."

"Bullshit..." the teacher muttered.

"I'll prove it!" Mordechai exclaimed. He swiftly proved his words by conjuring a duck out of thin air. "That wasn't a magic trick. Nothing up my sleeve, see?"

"Perhaps magic can do some things, but it rarely does everything." the teacher responded.

"Rarely?"

"Oh yes. In my universe, it can do a lot, but it can't resurrect the dead usually. Not without my daughter's permission anyway. She's Queen of the Dead."

"Oh interesting." Mordechai replied. "Me and Myriadne don't deal with death. We've never met a dead person."

"No death? No war? Nothing negative?" the teacher asked.

"Why should we? What's the good in that?"

"You can't solve problems unless you're willing to deal with negative things. Doesn't it get boring here, all alone in your own plane?"

"Plane?"

"There are others. Other worlds I mean. That's where I come from."

"I can assure you that this "plane" as you call it isn't just me. I also have my sister, Myriadne, and the rest of our family. We deal with pleasant things, like love. No negativity necessary."

"I doubt you deal with real love at all. Real love has a huge dark side."

"If what you call love has a dark side I doubt it's worth dealing with then. Nothing negative is."

"Even if you do have a family, doesn't it get boring just dealing with them? Wouldn't you like to meet some other gods?"

"Certainly." Mordechai replied.

The teacher opened a portal took Mordechai and his sister Myriadne to another plane, where he introduced him to a god named Dionysus. Dionysus introduced Myriadne to wine, and she went mad immediately. She hadn't even had that much. She must have had some kind of allergy.

"Can you do something?!" Mordechai asked the teacher and Dionysus alarmed.

The teacher just shrugged. "Seems to be enjoying herself." Dionysus said.

"You've turned my beautiful sister into a wreck!" Mordechai shouted. "I should have known better than to deal with the two of you!"

"The effects will wear off." Dionysus assured him.

Wear off they did, but not before Mordechai led Myriadne back to their own plane. The teacher accompanied them, letting them back into their own plane by opening another portal.

"That was quite an adventure, but I desire no more such excitement." Mordechai said curtly. "I think you best be going."

"Fine." the teacher replied, shrugging. He opened another portal and left.

Things in Mordechai's world went swimmingly until Myriadne suddenly went mad again, trying to propose marriage to Mordechai and not taking no for an answer. Mordechai set out to hunt down whoever was responsible, and found it was Cupid.

"How did you get in here?" Mordechai snarled.

"There was an open portal." Cupid replied simply.

The teacher had apparently not bothered to close the portals he'd opened. Mordechai ordered Cupid out of his plane, and closed the portals with magic. All was well.

But Myriadne wasn't satisfied. She missed Cupid and Dionysus and wanted to invite them back in. Mordechai gave her a firm no. She continued to complain until Mordechai promised to marry her if she shut up. This satisfied her.

One day, Mordechai spotted the teacher walking among some flowers.

"I thought I got rid of you." Mordechai grumbled.

"I decided to come back." the teacher replied casually. "There isn't a law against that, is there?"

"Perhaps I'll make one."

"Are you the god of law?"

"Laws haven't been necessary thus far, but perhaps I'll have to make some." Mordechai replied. "What's your business here today?"

"I came to warn you about Ares." the teacher replied. "He's invading with his armies. Came through the portal I just opened."

"Don't you ever close portals?"

The teacher just shrugged.

With the teacher's help, Mordechai and Myriadne created an action plan to stop the armies. Mordechai and Myriadne birthed an army of their own, and with the help of the teacher's war strategy, drove Ares' armies back into their own plane.

"Next time, close the portal behind you." Mordechai snapped at the teacher when it was all over. "Thank you for helping us."

"Any time." the teacher replied. He was about to open another portal to leave, one that Mordechai most definitely planned on closing, when Mordechai asked "Oh, by the way, do you have a name?"

"Loki." the teacher replied.

After Loki left, Mordechai and Myriadne decided that to defend themselves against gods from other realms, they had no choice but to deal with the negative. Their gods of love incorporated darker aspects of love into their domain, such as possessiveness, and Mordechai added war strategy to his own portfolio. Myriadne, previously a generic queen, became a goddess of ecstasy and madness akin to Dionysus. The family of Mordechai and Myriadne figured that if they took over negative domains first, they'd stand a better chance of defending themselves against gods from other worlds.

END

Apollo 13

The following story is a Camp Half Blood fan-fiction set in a hypothetical future after the Trials of Apollo series. It takes place in 2056, shortly after Dionysus has been released from Camp Half Blood. Apollo has become a god again. All rights to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus, and Trials of Apollo series belong to Rick Riordan.

I was woken up in the middle of the night by a strange light.

“Whoa man, you just got claimed” said a Hermes kid.

“By who?”

“Apollo.”

“Alright...”

“Aren’t you happy? Apollo is awesome.”

“Uh, yeah… right. Yes. Happy.”

“You don’t sound happy.”

“Are you?”

“Of course not. My Dad’s the god of thieves and liars. Do you have any idea what that has done to my reputation?”

“Do you deserve that reputation?”

The kid looked offended. “Of course not.” I’m honest. I don’t steal anything. I just happen to look like an elf!”

“Have you even been claimed?”

“No, I don’t have to be, it’s obvious.”

Hermes suddenly appeared. “Claimed.”

“I am nothing like you, though!”

“No, you are everything like me.”

“But...”

“Give it time...”

The daughter of Hermes looked enraged. Hermes vanished.

I went over to my bed and packed my things.

A few weeks later, I dreamed an entire day. The day seemed to go by in fast motion, but when I woke up, I had the weirdest attack of de ja vu, because the actual day seemed to be my dream in slow motion.

The next day, there was a kit on my bed entitled. “So you have the gift of prophecy”. The note attached to it referred to Hermes’ mail company. The information in the kit said to never tell anyone my predictions or interfere in their fulfillment. To do so would be to interfere with the will of the gods.

Reading this, I realized that fate was rigged, and that it didn’t work as I had suspected. The kit contained information on other people who’d had the gift of prophecy including an old man named “Halcyon Green”. This man had been severely punished for telling others his predictions so that they could avert their fate. Avert fate? This I hadn’t thought possible. I had somehow assumed that either all or some of the future was a “fixed point in time” like in Doctor Who, as soon as I learned that the Fates were real. It didn’t occur to me that the system was not only rigged, but rigged so weakly that a prophet like me could even interfere. Well… I shouldn’t consider myself a prophet. Not when I’m not allowed to tell anyone my predictions ever.

It was ages before we got a quest, but when we finally did, my boyfriend Peter and I (my boyfriend being my cousin or possible half-brother, he hadn’t been claimed), were asked to go on a ship called the “Glory of Hera”.

“Eh? Why is it called that?” I asked.

“Have you not heard of Hercules?” Chiron asked.

We got on the ship.

Our quest was to go fetch Hercules, who’d been sulking. Personally, I suspected there was more to it than that.

“What do they need Hercules for right now any way?” I asked Peter.

“No idea. I’ve heard strange things about him.” Peter replied.

“Oh?” I responded.

“He hates being a god.” Peter replied.

“Even with all his power?” I responded.

“He doesn’t have much power relative to the other gods, and possibly has PTSD because he’s trapped with his own memories of murdering his first wife.” Peter responded.

“That must be why he’s gone missing.” I said.

“Maybe...” Peter replied.

“You don’t think he’s been kidnapped, do you?” I asked.

“Doubtful. He’s very difficult to capture.” Peter replied.

“Maybe he committed suicide.” I responded.

“Impossible.” Peter said.

“Can’t the gods fade?” I asked.

“Hercules can’t. Too many people are maintaining him through belief.” Peter responded.

“But almost no one believes in him.” I said.

“His domain is over-powered though. The gods draw power through their domains as well. As long as he is needed, worship of him will continue. Also, worship isn’t even necessary to keep him alive. All that is necessary is that someone thinks of him, and mortals think of him all the time without even believing in him.” Peter replied.

“This logic implies Santa Claus is real, but if Santa were real, then parents wouldn’t have to buy gifts for their children.” I said.

“Perhaps Santa is simultaneously real and lazy.” Peter joked.

“Heh.”

“Not every ‘belief-being’, as I have decided to call them, is real, but I can’t figure out why.” Peter said.

“I can’t either.” I responded.

“Maybe magic is involved. Maybe Hecate has to bless the “belief operation” or something.” Peter said.

“Or it has to do with the domains. Since there is no domain for Santa to control, seeing as everyone buys the gifts themselves, he has no power to manifest.” I replied. Then I got an idea.

“There was a certain Doctor Who episode though… yeah, I know… that implied that Santa may nevertheless have power over dreams.” I said.

“How?” Peter asked.

“Possibly by manipulating monsters, or by being an archetype of the human subconscious, or being a real person that can only manifest within people’s dreams. In that episode he was said to be real and gift-giving though.” I replied.

“Maybe he only gives gifts to people who actually need them.” Peter said.

“Or maybe he’s not real, and magic really is involved in creating gods.” I replied.

“No, you can’t just “invent” a god. The only gods I heard of either started life as immortals or real mortals.” Peter responded.

“Right, but I think they were originally perceived through visions, which mortals don’t credit with any validity. Maybe all gods start life as archetypes.” I said.

“Then what is to stop every single imaginary friend from becoming real?” Peter said.

“Perhaps they are?” I replied.

“I doubt it.” Peter responded.

“Gods without enough belief sustaining them can’t take physical form anyway.” I said.

“Maybe no god is “invented”, but you could create one with a blessing from Hecate, or magical powers or something.” said Peter.

“Maybe.” I replied.

“I doubt it.” said Peter.

“Oh, but it’s too beautiful not to be true.” I replied. “In theory, Hecate shouldn’t even be necessary if the idea gains enough power. Honestly, I think the Doctor might be real.”

“I doubt he’s real in our universe.” Peter responded. “You know what? Even so, I find “false gods” significant. I’m Jewish and so are you. Our God and angels may be false gods, but they are nevertheless important to me.”

“To me as well.” I replied.

“Really?”

“Yes.” I said.

“But you sacrifice to the Greek gods all the time. You violate the First Commandment.” Peter pointed out.

“Oh contraire. That commandment says no gods “before Me”. I hold no gods in my heart before Adonai.” I replied.

“In theory, you would only worship the Greek gods to save your own life.” Peter pointed out.

“Since finding out I was a demigod who would get chased by monsters, I’ve found it wiser to pray to them.” I replied. “Besides, monsters isn’t the only problem, if not given their due honor, gods can tear your entire world down.”

“That makes sense.” Peter agreed.

“Do you think God is mad at me for worshiping them?” I asked.

“I doubt it. He knows us all intimately and is merciful. Also he probably isn’t real in the same sense the gods are.” Peter responded.

“That’s just it. Our God is not a physical being, and therefore wouldn’t exist physically anyway.” I pointed out.

“Maybe God is the author of our story.” Peter mused.

“Maybe that author is not Jewish, but Christian… or an atheist.” I wondered.

“Maybe.” Peter said.

“But couldn’t you conjure the God of our universe the same way?” I asked.

“Perhaps that’s what prophets have done.” Peter replied.

“Even so, the cosmology of our universe doesn’t allow for...” I started.

“God as the author would be beyond space and time.” Peter replied, cutting me off mid-sentence.

“True. Perhaps there is no God except Chaos, and “God” is just a metaphor for the morality principle.” I said.

“We have a titan for that though. Themis.” Peter pointed out.

“True.” I said.

That night, I had a dream that a shiny blob attacked Peter. He died, and I woke up with a start.

On the way to Hercules’ island we came upon another island that we’d have to cross (the waters around it were too turbulent to sail through. While walking on that island I kept noticing a shiny blob. In my mind’s eye, this blob had an appearance, he looked like a dragon with the skin of a crusty brown toad.

Peter noticed it too, but we both kept walking, deciding not to draw it out in the open, fearing that doing so would lead it to attack us directly.

All of a sudden, the shiny blob ambushed Peter. I felt as if time slowed down. In a flash, I grabbed two arrows from my quiver and stabbed the dragon in both its eyes.

The dragon exploded into dust.

“Thanks man!” Peter said.

Suddenly my father appeared. He looked livid.

“You dare defy fate?” he asked calmly, his eyes flashing blue murder.

“Yes.” I replied with equal calmness. I was surprised at my own composure. “I defied fate to save Peter’s life.”

“Were you not warned?” Apollo asked. “You have the gift of prophecy. All of your predictions must come true.”

“This one mustn’t. Peter is my boyfriend.”

“That’s irrelevant. You can’t defy fate.” His face was an impassive stone.

“What did I just do then?” I asked with a smirk.

My father got even angrier. It was at that point that I had an idea:

“Hey Dad, why don’t you just kill me?”

“What.”

“Why don’t you just kill me, so I can become a god?”

“What makes you think you’ll become a god if you die?”

“That’s how it works in Greek myths, isn’t it? When a god kills he deifies, always.”

“Not always. That’s just the myths you’ve heard. It doesn’t always happen that way.”

“No?”

“What makes you think you even deserve to be a god?”

“Nothing. But someone needs to be the god of what I want to be the god of. Someone needs to be the god of free will.”

“You heroes already have free will! You can challenge anyone--”

“But we prophets don’t! Every time you have a child with the gift of prophecy, they die horribly! And it’s always because they couldn’t change fate! They are always punished for speaking their predictions or entrapped by destiny! There may be a god of prophecy but there is no patron of prophets!”

“Hercules is a god of oracles...” Peter said, cutting in.

“But not the god of the prophets who must keep silent! I was shown the story of Halcyon Green. A person with the gift of prophecy can only talk if they are the chosen Oracle. Otherwise they must keep silent, and can’t even save their friends! That is a free will violation! We heroes must have the free will to be heroes whether we have the gift of prophecy or not! It is unfair otherwise!”

“Life is unfair” Apollo muttered.

“Look, if you’re not going to deify me, then at least deify Halcyon Green! He deserves it more than I do anyway.”

Apollo paused. “You are Halcyon Green.”

“What.”

“You’re his reincarnation. That’s the whole reason you have the gift of prophecy. You and he are the exact same soul. I can’t deify Halcyon Green at this stage without deifying you as well.”

“Why would he reincarnate, after all this time?”

“He was on his second incarnation. The first incarnation was Cassandra, princess of Troy. Both lives earned you Elysium, Steven, but you always tried again. If you prove your worth in this life you will earn your right to reside in the Isle of the Blessed.”

“Nice.”

“That means obeying me. That means obeying the will of the gods. I wont tolerate anymore of your nonsense.”

I paused. “Do I have to keep going on quests?”

“No, but if you don’t I don’t see how you’ll end up in the Isle of the Blessed.”

“So I’m just supposed to let my comrades die then.”

“If that is the will of the fates… yes.”

“What happens if I don’t make it into the Isle? Do I go back to Elysium?”

“No, you go to Asphodel Meadows.”

“After all the hard work of my past lives?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Apollo vanished.

After that conversation, I decided that the Isle of Blessed just wasn’t worth it. Not if I ever again had to risk losing Peter or any of the ones I loved. I never thought I could truly love anyone. I mean sure, I love my Mom, but I don’t feel much emotion for her at this stage and could lose her easily. Particularly now that I know there’s an afterlife for her.

But I could never stand to lose my friends.

I didn’t think I could make friends as good as the ones I made when I came here. I was born with nonverbal learning disorder, a hybrid between ADHD and Asperger Syndrome. Though I am not dyslexic, I am mildly autistic. I also have the wrong sort of ADHD. Instead of seeing too much, I really do see too little unless you count my mind’s eye, which is able to see through mist better than anyone. The price of course being that I can’t actually see through mist as well as the other demigods can. I have found that my battle reflexes improve dramatically when I simply see with my spirit instead of my five senses. This isn’t how it works with any of the other demigods and I have no idea why I’m different in this regard. I have no idea why I’m the only Greek demigod without dyslexia.

After this incident I became depressed, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I had found out the hard way that my father wasn’t a safe father to have, that unlike a mortal parent he might literally kill me for misbehaving. Or worse yet, he might fail to protect me from harsh punishments meted out by the other gods. I wasn’t safe here.

I tried to convince myself that this didn’t matter, because you are never really safe. That’s what the Doctor said to Clara when he said goodbye to her: “You’re never safe.”

Even so, my body couldn’t accept it. One night, I woke up in tears, but I couldn’t remember crying.

I tried to tell myself everything would be okay, but I couldn’t remember how to speak. My consciousness was becoming increasingly cloudy. I was very scared but I couldn’t will myself to move. I gradually fell into a trance and started floating through the air. I wasn’t surprised to be floating, I was that out of it, but it was the first time I had done so, and turned out to be a power of mine.

The next thing I remember is that I was on a bus in my a sweater out of the backpack and put it on to cover my pajamas. I pulled shoes out of my backpack and put them on. It seemed that in my trance I had somehow had the presence of mind to pack, but now I had no idea where I was.

“Excuse me?” I asked the bus driver. “Where is this bus going?”

“San Francisco.”

“How close are we?”

“Just a few more miles.”

What.

I squinted and read the bus driver’s aura. Yep. He was a satyr. A hat covered his horns, but the aura of a satyr is obvious. For one thing, their fur smells like barnyard animal. Even if they keep especially clean, they still have that goat aura.

When I got off the bus, I tried to take stock of what to do. I couldn’t remember why I’d come here, perhaps a god had mind-controlled me into going to Camp Jupiter. Perhaps I’d myself wanted to go there, but at this point all I could think of was seeing my mother.

I’d never missed her more.

Oh sure, she wasn’t a perfect mother. She was a narcissist and a space case. She’d conceived me after having a one night stand. It seemed she was smart enough to attract a god, but not a decent enough person to keep one. She wasn’t like Sally Jackson. She was far more human.

Not to say she was negligent or abusive or anything. She was fine. But I’m not sure she made the right judgment calls, when raising me. When I was bullied in school, and I said “I don’t want to go to school anymore” she agreed to take me out and home-school me.

In retrospect, I think that was a mistake. In retrospect, I might have been able to develop better socially while in school.

It’s really hard to tell though, considering I was able to have the advantage of a more manageable workload while studying at home. My mother says if I get good grades at a junior college it won’t matter that I never went to high school. (I left school when I turned twelve).

I was about to go to Camp Jupiter when I remembered what it was like. They tattooed you and had wolves attack you just to get in there. I wasn’t big on being wolf food, so I decided to head back home. I took the Grey Sister’s taxi.

When I returned, I walked into my cabin only to find that my counselor was furious with me.

“Where were you?” We’ve been worried sick!” he yelled.

“Do I know you?” I asked blearily.

“We haven’t been introduced, but don’t think I’m not aware of who lives in this cabin.” he said.

“You’ve been away.” I replied.

“Glad you actually noticed.” he replied sarcastically.

His aura seemed identical to that of my Dad, so for a moment I wondered if it was my Dad in disguise. I put the idea out of my head because it would be embarrassing if I asked and I was wrong.

My boyfriend had also been worried, but he thankfully didn’t give me crap about running away. I explained the situation to him, and he thankfully understood.

“You know what I wish?” I asked him.

“What?” he responded.

“Remember when I told Apollo that Halcyon Green should be made a god who advocated for the rights of prophets, and he told me I literally was Halcyon Green?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, what if I actually managed to become a god?”

A sister of mine named Elizabeth walked up to us.

“What’s this about becoming a god?” she asked.

“I wish I was a god.” I replied. “I wish I was the patron of prophets.”

“Isn’t Dad already the god of prophecy?”

“By ‘patron’ I mean advocate. We need someone to advocate for those with the gift of prophecy. I have it, and so did both of my past lives. Dad forbid my last past life and I from sharing our predictions, lest we “give away too much too soon” and prevent fate from happening has it was originally ordained. I wish I was the god who could advocate for people with the gift and enable them to give away their predictions without fearing the gods’ wrath.”

“Do you really think you’d be able to break the “give nothing away” rule?” Elizabeth asked.

“Perhaps not, but even so, we need an advocate and I think I’m the one to do it.”

“If you say so...” Elizabeth said. She developed a mischievous smile.

“You a legacy of Hermes?” I asked.

“Unfortunately.” she replied. “I’d rather be a legacy of Hecate. That way I’d be able to do real magic instead of all these magic feather spells.”

“Magic feather spells?”

“Casting spells as a mortal. It shouldn’t work in theory.”

“Maybe it works if Hecate wills it to.”

“That isn’t magic, that’s praying. The gods don’t usually respond to the prayers one casts magic for. Magic is about enacting your own will, which doesn’t necessarily conform to the will of the gods.”

“I’m not sure the gods want to be bothered with all your whims and wishes.” Peter quipped.

“I know, that’s the problem! I wish I could cast real magic like the Hecate kids.”

“Any mortal can cast chain reaction magic” I said.

“Eh?”

“Chain reaction magic. Or perhaps I should call it chaos magic. It’s more of a Hermes thing than a Hecate thing, so you might be better at it. It has to do with getting what you want by provoking natural chain reactions.”

“Can those even be tracked?”

“Surprisingly well, actually.”

“Wouldn’t tracking the chain reaction make it seem less magical?” Peter asked.

“It’s sort of like being a magician.” I responded. “You want to be in on your own trick, even if no one else is.”

“Do you keep track?” Elizabeth asked.

“At least some of the time, to make sure it’s working.” I replied.

“I guess that’s what I do.” Elizabeth said. “I guess it’s pretty magical after all!”

“Depends on what you mean by magic. I spell chaos magic ‘magick’ to distinguish it from Hecate’s real magic. It’s not actually the same thing I’m afraid.”

“Maybe Hecate controls both.” Elizabeth replied.

“I doubt it. I think Hermes controls what I described. You being a legacy of Hermes may give you talent at chain reaction magic.”

“I hope so” Elizabeth replied. She looked relieved. Perhaps she was relieved to hear that what she was doing actually meant something.

After that, I went on a few more quests, but I kept having to let people die, which made me feel guilty. Eventually, I stopped going on quests all together, to stop that from happening, but I could still see who would die, and I felt guilty about not being able to warn them. As the time went by, my powers increased. I started floating in more and more places, and my anxiety about not warning people of their fates went down. I suppose that was because I was growing up.

I didn’t feel like I was maturing though, so much as evolving into an alien. The older I got, the less human I felt. When I turned eighteen, I still looked seventeen. I hadn’t grown at all, and was still pretty short. One day, while in the common room of the cabin, I absentmindedly drank some nectar, downing the entire glass without meaning to.

Oops.

I panicked. Demigods weren’t supposed to drink this much nectar. Too much nectar would incinerate us.

I felt my forehead. A small overdose usually caused a fever as opposed to incineration. I didn’t feel I had a fever though. As a matter of fact, I felt fine.

On an impulse, I drank another glass.

Still fine.

Holy shit.

I had become a god. Or at least immortal. I didn’t seem to be shining very brightly though. Perhaps I didn’t yet have enough power to do so.

“Counselor? Counselor?”

“My name is Will.” the counselor said, coming into the room.

“I drank too much nectar but it isn’t affecting me. Am I a Greek God now?”

“Eh? Be careful with that stuff.”

“But it isn’t affecting me!”

“You might have a fever.”

“I swear I don’t! I feel fine! Take my temperature if you don’t believe me.”

Will did so, and was surprised to find that I was correct. “I guess you’re a god now.” he said.

“Are you sure I’m not just a nymph or something? I don’t seem to have an iridescent true form or whatever.”

“I think we have to ask Chiron.” he replied.

We walked to the Big House. Will took the lead.

“Come in.” Chiron said.

We walked into his office.

“Am I god now?” I asked.

“Why would you be a god?”

“Because I drank two glasses of nectar and I feel fine.”

“Why would you do that? You have to be careful… wait what?”

“Yeah.” I responded.

Chiron looked me up and down. “Change shape.” he said.

“I can do that?”

“You can if you’re a god.”

I concentrated. I thought of growing boobs as a lark, and touched my chest, willing them to appear.

To my surprise they did.

Will snickered.

“Wow.” Chiron said. “You really are a god, Steven.”

“Stephanie.” Will corrected, smiling in amusement.

I touched my hair to turn it black, and grew it a bit. I turned my eyes blue. I grew my hair a bit, and curled it.

“Amazing.” Chiron remarked.

“Huh?” I said.

“You’re the spitting image of Thalia Grace.”

I realized that I was a man with breasts, which felt weird to me, so I transformed the rest of my body to female. I was surprised by how good being a woman felt. Mentally speaking, I’d never really had a gender. I was just me.

EPILOGUE:

For a while I was mystified about how I’d become a god. It turned out Elizabeth had started a cult for me online. Few mortals had taken it seriously, but they had nevertheless responded positively, thinking it was a joke. Many demigods had decided to genuinely worship me, not because they thought I was worthy of worship, but because they thought it was worth making me a god for the sake of my “patron of prophets” cause, which Elizabeth had described on my website.

Now that summer was over, I was coming home, which made me nervous. Ever since I had changed into a woman I hadn’t changed back. I hadn’t felt the need to change back, but my family had never seen me like this; they’d never seen me display godly abilities.

When I walked into the parlor I was surprised to see a man there. He bore a strong resemblance to my boyfriend, Peter.

“Oh, hello there.”

“Hello.” the man replied smiling.

“Oh, hello Steven, this is Hercules.” said my mother. She didn’t seem surprised by my new form.

“I told your mother about your transition” Hercules said.

Transition? I hadn’t really considered myself trans.

“I’m not sure I’d call it that.” I replied. “Hercules as in Roman god Hercules?”

“Technically I’m just as Greek as I am Roman. I don’t have any other aspects.”

“I see...” I paused and then realized something.

“Are you two… together?”

“Oh yes.” my mother said. “...Are you alright with that?”

“Oh of course...” I said. “It’s just… I never asked… whatever happened with you and Apollo?”

“We had a one-night stand.”

“Well, yeah I already knew that, but… Did you know who he was at the time?”

“Oh yes, his aura was easy to recognize. We’d been communicating telepathically before meeting, but I was already bored with him by the time we met. All those haikus… He never seemed to consider me any more important than I considered him, but we both think everyone is important.”

“You never loved him then.”

“I wouldn’t say that… I still worship him now. What with my personality, and his personality… you could say I’m too in love with him to have ever fallen head over heels… but… I’m definitely head over heels for you, Hercules… if you don’t mind what I just said.”

“Not at all.” Hercules said smiling.

“Doesn’t Hebe mind you cheating? I mean… are you still married to her?” I was immediately alarmed by my own rudeness.

“Hebe and I have an open marriage.” Hercules responded. “Or at least… we do now. She’s had her own affairs.”

“Oh can we have that?” my mother asked.

“Sure.” Hercules said. “It’s not like I have the right to have anyone exclusively at this stage.”

“So you’re immortal now,” my mother said, changing the subject.

“I told her about that too.” Hercules said.

“We’ve never met.” I said. “How do you know so much about me?”

“I’m the patron of heroes, it’s my job to keep track.” Hercules replied.

“Guess I’m not needed then.” I replied.

“Huh?” my mother said.

“I was going to be the patron of prophetic heroes.”

“The world still needs a patron of prophets.” Hercules said. “You’re still needed.”

“For how long?” I asked. “Thinking of you… I’m a little scared to be immortal.”

“You’ll get used to it. Hercules said. “You’re lucky you became immortal before the onset of adulthood, I mean… can you still forget your pain?”

“Surprisingly… yes.” I replied.

“Then you’re still resilient. I think you’re going to be fine.”

END