How Eclectic is Too Eclectic

The Cauldron's server is expensive and requires monthly payments. Please become a Bronze, Silver or Gold Donor if you can. Donations are needed every month. Without member support, we can't afford the server.

Or donate directly via Paypal

This message board is The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum's SMF Archive Board. It is closed to new memberships and to posting, but there are over 250,000 messages here that you can still search and read -- many full of interesting and useful information. (This board was open from February 2007 through June 2011).

Our new vBulletin discussion board is located at http://www.ecauldron.com/forum/ -- if you would like to participate in discussions like those you see here, please visit our new vBulletin message board, register an account and join in our discussions. We hope you will find the information in this message archive useful and will consider joining us on our new board.

[TisiphoneSeraph]

This is pretty much exactly what the title asks.

What brought this on is that I have been searching for a cohesive path/religion for years now. The problem is that I find myself unable to believe in a religion wholesale.

For instance, I took the Kemetic Orthodoxy Beginner's class and really connected with the idea of Ma'at. I also really liked Senut. But I couldn't really connect with any of the Netjer besides Nebthet and Anpu. I also couldn't bring myself to recognize the Nisut as the final say.

I guess what it comes back to is that I will always be the Morrigan's girl. And I don't know what to *do* about that because none of the other Celtic gods want to have anything to do with me. Add to that Athena who's been in and out of my life for awhile now has been kind of stepping up her presence and I'm rather confused.

So how eclectic is too eclectic?

[Nomad of Nowhere]

This is pretty much exactly what the title asks.

What brought this on is that I have been searching for a cohesive path/religion for years now. The problem is that I find myself unable to believe in a religion wholesale.

For instance, I took the Kemetic Orthodoxy Beginner's class and really connected with the idea of Ma'at. I also really liked Senut. But I couldn't really connect with any of the Netjer besides Nebthet and Anpu. I also couldn't bring myself to recognize the Nisut as the final say.

I guess what it comes back to is that I will always be the Morrigan's girl. And I don't know what to *do* about that because none of the other Celtic gods want to have anything to do with me. Add to that Athena who's been in and out of my life for awhile now has been kind of stepping up her presence and I'm rather confused.

So how eclectic is too eclectic?

Obviously, people develop their own notions over what is or is not contradictory. Some people find it contradictory to believe in both Zeus and Odin, others do not even think it contradictory to call themselves Christian and Pagan. Personally, while I consider myself a hard polytheist of the Slavic variety, I have no problem silently joining in on a circle with some Wiccan friends. I don't consider it contradictory to suppose that there may be some divinity behind Wicca. I only have a problem with singing songs like "isis, astarte, diana, hekate", because this more a direct contradiction with my beliefs that deities are only themselves. It's all based on what you're personally able to reconcile with other paths or beliefs, and what you just can't.

[SunflowerP]

So how eclectic is too eclectic?

Too eclectic for what?

I don't think it's so much a matter of quantity (which is kind of hard to measure anyway) as of quality:  how well or poorly one handles one's eclecticism.  On that, I will refer for the umpteenth time to Darkhawk's wonderful article On Eclecticism.

I have ongoing working/honoring relationships with deity-type people/mythic figures from many religiocultural backgrounds (Irish, Welsh, British, continental Celtic, Greek, Roman, Sumerian, Egyptian, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, continental Germanic, a couple of FN/NA systems, and a couple of Afro-Diasporic systems), and more casual interactions involving those from an even wider range.   I work with them in a very personal bootstrappy intuitive system, with a basic framework originally derived from Wicca and other neoPagan religious Witchcraft paths (with bits from other parts of the WMT and from fiction), supplemented with historical material about what those beings were/are like and how they were, or might have been, honored in their cultures of origin, and with UPG.  My main guideline is, "does it work?", which can be expanded into, "does it resonate for me?  does it get the results I want?  does it harmonize with, or at least not contradict, other bits, so that it can be seen as a fairly-cohesive whole?  do those I work with find it sufficiently respectful?" and probably other considerations that aren't coming to mind off the top of my head.

Possibly the most common mistake made by would-be eclectics (and the thing that leads to a lot of the bad press eclecticism gets and from there to the idea that someone can be "too" eclectic) is imagining that it's easier than learning and sticking to the requirements of a single system.  It's not.  It's a different kind of hard work, and it might be a kind of hard work that one is better suited to and/or that comes more naturally to one (as it is for me), but I've been constructing this for nearly 40 years, and it's still a WiP.

Was I fluffy?  TC's specific definition of "fluffy" as "wilfully ignorant" is useful here - of course there was a great deal about which I was ignorant earlier on (you can't know what you don't know), and of course I got hold of plenty of misinformation while trying to rectify that ignorance, but I rarely engaged in wilful ignorance; I was more interested in accurate info than in info that conformed to my wishful thinking (though it can be hard to let go of something that's really appealing and/or that one has a strong emotional investment in).  It helped that my very first sources were largely fiction; I knew quite well that much of what's in fiction is invented or dramatized for story purposes, and that I'd have to sort a very little wheat from a great deal of chaff, and I carried that habit on into nonfictional reading.

Sunflower

[Dufonce]

This is pretty much exactly what the title asks.

What brought this on is that I have been searching for a cohesive path/religion for years now. The problem is that I find myself unable to believe in a religion wholesale.

For instance, I took the Kemetic Orthodoxy Beginner's class and really connected with the idea of Ma'at. I also really liked Senut. But I couldn't really connect with any of the Netjer besides Nebthet and Anpu. I also couldn't bring myself to recognize the Nisut as the final say.

I guess what it comes back to is that I will always be the Morrigan's girl. And I don't know what to *do* about that because none of the other Celtic gods want to have anything to do with me. Add to that Athena who's been in and out of my life for awhile now has been kind of stepping up her presence and I'm rather confused.

So how eclectic is too eclectic?

Honestly I believe they are all part of the same Divine, just different aspects, depending on how you see them. I don't think its too farfetched to go grabbing deities from different beliefs. It depends on what you need them for, and a lot of deities are so similar its almost like just another name for the same being.

[Vella Malachite]

This is pretty much exactly what the title asks.
So how eclectic is too eclectic?

I may be coming from the wrong direction here, because I belong to a recon religion, and deeply entrenched in the one culture/set of gods, but if you look at the Romans, they took gods from a lot of different places and made them their own or equated them to their own.  The Greeks did it, too, to an extent - they either made other gods an aspect of one of their own, retrofitted it to an existing aspect, or in some cases, adopted them as an entirely new god (just remembering what I learned in my History course early this semester, if I'm wrong or mistaken, please do correct).  So eclecticism isn't necessarily a new thing.
I'd say that "too eclectic" isn't really a thing.  Gods and systems have been mixing and mingling for a long time.  It's just that, nowadays, we happen to have a wider base from which to mingle them.  As long as you're comfortable with your path, and you feel that you're not contradicting stuff or neglecting some deities or anything like that, then I say you can do what you like, really, with eclecticism.

[Fagan_the_Pagan]

So how eclectic is too eclectic?

The answer is different for everyone.  To me personally, it's too eclectic when the pieces don't fit together to make a picture.   What I mean by that is that it should make sense together.  It needn't be absolutely perfect, but generally, ideas, rituals, philosophies, and so forth taken from one place should complement the ones taken from the other places.

If Morrigan, Athena, and the Netjer come together to create something, then great.  If trying to follow them all is making you feel like you're being drawn and quartered, then something is wrong.

[SatAset]

So how eclectic is too eclectic?

Well, are you eclectic or Dual or Tri path oriented? 

If you say, as an example, worship Nebet Het and Yinepu on Mondays with Senut or another ritual of choice, worship Athena on Tuesdays and the 3rd of every month (I think that's the date using the Orphic calendar on the TC website) and worship Morrigan on Wednesdays and another day since She seems to come first before the others in your practice. 

In other words you can make a weekly schedule to fit everything in to and keep it separate. 

Here is my weekly schedule to give you another example:  Monday and Tuesday are for Aset and possibly doing Senut, Wednesday I honor Oya and Friday I honor Frigga. 

I don't see my practice as eclectic since I keep everything separate and I'm not mixing religions.  Other people may see it as eclectic just because I follow more than one religion or deities from separate pantheons.  So, YMMV. 

You could also keep it compartmentalized with the deity and what Work they have for you to do.   

[EJay]

This is pretty much exactly what the title asks.

What brought this on is that I have been searching for a cohesive path/religion for years now. The problem is that I find myself unable to believe in a religion wholesale.

For instance, I took the Kemetic Orthodoxy Beginner's class and really connected with the idea of Ma'at. I also really liked Senut. But I couldn't really connect with any of the Netjer besides Nebthet and Anpu. I also couldn't bring myself to recognize the Nisut as the final say.

I guess what it comes back to is that I will always be the Morrigan's girl. And I don't know what to *do* about that because none of the other Celtic gods want to have anything to do with me. Add to that Athena who's been in and out of my life for awhile now has been kind of stepping up her presence and I'm rather confused.

So how eclectic is too eclectic?

I used to call myself eclectic, but now I have what I think is a more proper word for myself:  panentheist.  I have relationships with various deities that come and go, but I believe we're all part and parcel or expressions/manifestations of what I call God.  Just like you said you'll always be the Morrigan's girl, Pele is the goddess who is always there when I need her (even when I don't know it!).

To try to use a (rather lame) analogy, just because I like a pair of capris at Old Navy doesn't mean I have to buy my whole wardrobe there.  Yes, the clothes are designed to work well together color-wise and what-not, but that shirt I saw at Marshall's really fits with those capris and suits me better.

Did that make any sense at all??

Even if we don't understand why, I believe people, deities, circumstances come together as we need them and don't require us to accept the "given" whole package.

Personally, I think religion is like cooking--season to taste.

Best~

EJay

[Waldfrau]

So how eclectic is too eclectic?

As others have said something similar, I don't think there's a common rule for what's too or fairly eclectic...

I have been confronted with the accusation of eclectism being randomness. My answer of this is that the deities and practices I connect to do so for a reason. For me it's important to explore that reason and be honest with myself about it. If it's a real connection to the heart it shouldn't be dismissed just because it doesn't easily fit into preexisting systems IMO. If it's just a playful notion or wishful thinking I'd explore it with more scepticism and look if there's a more senseful way to satisfy the underlying needs.

I believe every person searching for a spiritual way has her/his own center and things can connect to this center in a fruitful way - or they don't. For me it doesn't equate with randomness if one looks honestly at that center and cares for the things that connect to it.

To cut it short... I don't think others can fully judge someone's eclectism by just looking at the practices or deity list or other outerior attributes, but whatever path one follows it's depth can be influenced by how well one knows oneself and one's own reasons.

[Tags:]

Jump to: Please select a destination: ----------------------------- About The Cauldron ----------------------------- => Rules and Regulations => Cauldron Announcements ===> Volunteers Needed: Site Assistants and Projects => Introductions => Board Questions, Suggestions, and Feedback => Chat and CauldronMUX Support => Test Board ----------------------------- Religion and Philosophy ----------------------------- => Paganism For Beginners => Books and Other Resources => Pagan Religions => Pagan Spirituality => Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology => Worship and Ritual => Holidays and Festivals => History and Religion => Faith in Everyday Life => Philosophy and Metaphysics => Non-Pagan Religions and Interfaith Discussions => Miscellaneous Religious Discussions ----------------------------- Magic and the Occult ----------------------------- => Magic and the Occult for Beginners => Witchcraft, Hoodoo, and Folk Magic => The Western Magical Tradition => Chaos Magic => Lodges and Other Magic Organizations => Miscellaneous Magical Discussions ----------------------------- Special Interest Groups & Special Discussions ----------------------------- => Special Topic Discussions => Chavi Memorial Chronic Illness SIG => General SIGS ===> College Pagans SIG ===> Cooking SIG ===> Divination SIG ===> Home and Garden SIG ===> Pagan Parents SIG ===> Teen Pagans SIG => Religious SIGS ===> Asatru and Heathenry SIG ===> Cauldron Cill ===> FlameKeeping SIG ===> Hazel and Oak: A Celtic Polytheism SIG ===> Neo-Druidry SIG ===> Reformed Kemeticism SIG ===> Ta Hiera Hellenic Polytheism SIG => Book/Media Discussion Boards ===> Academic Book Discussions ===> Pagan Religion Book Discussions ===> Magick Book Discussions ===> Fiction Book Discussions ===> DVD/Video Discussions ----------------------------- Life, the Universe, and Everything Else ----------------------------- => Pagan Announcements => Prayer and Energy Requests => News and Politics ===> Religious News ===> Non-Religious News ===> Political Discussions => Social Discussion Boards ===> Art, Poetry and Writing ===> Books ===> Computers and the Internet ===> Crafts and Hobbies ===> Family Life ===> Gaming ===> Health and Medicine ===> Humor and Quizzes ===> Music, Television, and Film ===> Pets ===> Science and Technology ===> Sports and Recreation