The
"International Year Of Polytheism”
(powered by monochrom) wants to overcome the epoch of the monotheistic
worldviews (and its derivatives such as "The West"
and "The Arab World") through the reconstruction of
a polytheistic multiplicity in which countless gods and goddesses
will eventually neutralize each other. Polytheism is democracy,
Monotheism a dictatorship, even in its pseudo-secular form.
Freed from the servitude of monotheism and the fraternal strife
of the trinity, the world would be redeemed in a chaotic baptism
of multiplicity. Besides, we believe that polytheism is the
most suitable form of religion for a modern, dynamic and cosmopolitan
young culture. Improve your C.V. with polytheism. Create your
own heavens and hells. Or try it out yourself with our special
Gods/Goddesses trial subscription. Our qualified operators are
standing by to take your calls!
Fifth event:
Door Henge: Doors Of Polytheistic Perception:
Anonymous friends of the movement in San Francisco are erecting a polytheism monument on August 19, 2007 in an undisclosed public location. There is clearly a need for secrecy as a result of religious oppression from the monotheistic mainstream.
San Francisco, California.
Fourth event:
The Divining Pod
A balloon is a type of aircraft that remains aloft due to its buoyancy. A balloon travels by moving with the wind. The balloon is ONE BIG fabric envelope filled with a gas that is lighter than the surrounding atmosphere. A SINGLE balloon that is less dense than its surroundings, it rises, taking along with it a basket, attached underneath, that carries passengers or payload.
Cluster ballooning is an uncommon form of ballooning in which a balloonist is attached by a harness to a cluster of MANY SMALL rubber balloons.
Cluster ballooning is a perfect metaphor for the plurality and democracy of polytheism. Fight the concept of monotheistic single-balloon ballooning!
At Maker Faire San Francisco 2007 we want to present the world with the "Divining Pod".
Join our effort to fill ballons with helium, tag the balloons with names of air goddesses and air gods, and lift a human being into the skies of diversity! We want to see the heavens open!
San Francisco, California. Maker Faire @ San Mateo Fairgrounds. May 20, 2007.
Third event:
Eating A Persimmon For Zeus
A Persimmon is variety of species of trees of the genus Diospyros, and the edible fruit borne by them. The most widely cultivated species is Diospyros kaki. The fruit is very sweet to the taste with a soft to occasionally fibrous texture. Cultivation of the fruit started in parts of East Asia, and was later introduced to California.
Diospyros kaki translates as "The Fruit of Zeus".
Zeus, is (or was) the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus, and god of the sky and thunder, in Greek mythology. His symbols are (or were) the thunderbolt, bull, eagle and the oak. When the world was divided in three, Hades received the underworld, Poseidon the sea, and Zeus the sky.
We want to honor Zeus! We want to moan about the dreadful non-divisional monotheistic singularity! Long enough we were dominated by the concept of the God of the Abrahamic religions and/or the Platonic concept of God as put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite! We want to eat persimmons for Zeus! In anger!
Join the force! Eat his fruit! Get a certificate!
Los Angeles, California. Sidewalk @ 4810 Sunset Boulevard. February 23, 2007; 1 PM- 1:30 PM.
Second event:
Premature Burial As A Field Trial For Near Death Activities
The people present will have an opportunity to be buried alive
in a coffin for fifteen minutes. Volunteers will be able to
experience a semi-traumatic situation and possibly get in close
contact with various gods and/or afterlives.
As a framework program there will be lectures about the history
of the science of determining death and the medical cultural
history of "buried alive". People buried alive not only populate
the horror stories of past centuries, but also countless reports
in specialized medical literature. The theme of unintentional
resurrection by grave robbers also runs through forensic protocols.
Even in the 19th century it was said that every tenth person
was buried alive.
February 7, 2007. Blackwood
Gallery, Mississauga/University Toronto, Canada.
Grand Opening:
Free
Barium Nitrate!
The symbolic liberation of Barium Nitrate will signal the opening
of this "International Year of Polytheism". We would like to
invite you to join with us in igniting 10.000 bound sparklers,
free of any judaeo-christian intent. Nothing but a wonderfully
powerful fire signal, whose representational vacuity and lack
of otherwise traditional symbolic meaning might just wake some
of the ignoble gods exiled by monotheistic McKinseyism. We welcome
the gods back from their second-class beyond(s).
January 26, 2007. Symposion
Lindabrunn, Lindabrunn, Lower Austria.
Further
events are planned.
And never forget: One is the number of the beast!
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| Syncretism! International Year Of Polytheism -- Call And/Or Contest |
By Adam FlynnAs civilizations bumped into one another in antiquity, they tended to discover that they had many different gods. But since most pantheons break down gods into somewhat similar areas of expertise, the greeks just figured that the barbarians had funny names for their gods, and combined the two. This eventually got to the point where you could slam almost any two gods with similar areas of expertise together to get something subtly new. Some of my favorite gods, like Mithras and Hermes Trismegistus, come from the intercultural mashups (Persio-Roman and Greco-Egyptian, respectively) that were going on at this time.
[Note: One of the meaner intellectual things Christians did in their efforts at cleaning out the old gods was a tactic called Euhemerism. This revolved around the basic assumption that all 'gods' were actually just people who did interesting things which were in turn remembered poorly. Though they were horrified centuries later to have the rationalist interpretation of religion turned against them by serious-minded Germans, they happily spun tales of barbarian kings and tricky sorcerers who passed themselves off as gods. This was their counter to the sprawling pantheons of late antiquity.]
Interestingly enough, a somewhat parallel process was going the other way, taking people and ascribing to them them powers over aspects of daily life...by which I mean canonization. Catholic Saints are a great place to go to look for adaptations of and placeholders for old polytheism, as saints, especially the 14 Holy Helpers, who can intercede on behalf of the petitioner much as the old gods had. Just as feast days were overlaid with Christian holidays and folk traditions were retconned as christian ones, patron saints gradually appeared to offer help in the areas of their expertise. [Note: while there's a lengthy theological explanation of how you actually pray through the saints to god, the subtleties were usually lost on your average illiterate peasant who just wants some hedge against wild pigs eating his crops]. Saints are also a great place to look for 'the weird old christianity,' before it got uptight and Protestant. For example: St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, reportedly stood 18 feet tall and had the head of a dog.
From polytheism saints came and to polytheism they went, especially in many areas of the African diaspora, where slaves hid their gods by disguising them, and sometimes combining them with the saints. Sometimes this could lead to interesting juxtapositions. Shango, for instance, raging god of thunder and sky father in the Yoruba tradition, was identified either with the bookish Saint Jerome or the virginal Saint Barbara. I for one, am all in favor of crazy legends and folk charms.
So I propose that the international year of Polytheism, in the interest of kick-starting the spread of polytheism, hold an open call for syncretism and de-euhemerism. Combine your favorite gods with modern saints or legendary figures of our times. Let a thousand syncretic gods bloom. Say, for instance, one of those sainted old nuns like Mother Teresa or Mother Cabrini...they might make a good match with a hearth goddess like Demeter, or if you want to push a little farther, with Cybele, mother goddess of the wild earth. Or perhaps Saint Stephen (Istvan) of Hungary, the badass magyar warrior king whose severed hand is a national relic, might well be identified with Labraid Lámh Dhearg (Labraid of the Red Hand), the Celtic sun god whose legecy lives on in the red hand of Ulster.
Secondly, while the innermost unifier today might be the corporate anthem, the postmodern popular culture finds its fullest expression in the mashup. Photoshop contests at worth1000 and gizmodo already supply stunning juxtapositions of new and old, not to mention myriad musical creations (some of which are not indicative of regressive listening). So after creating your syncretic deity or reading about someone else's, why not slam together aspects of the sources into something new? Photoshop your god and saint together! Combine their godly images into a new deity for the 21st century.Why stop there? Cut-up their liturgies like a William S. Burroughs novel! Take their sacred songs and get your bootleg on. What could be better? 
"Fast Times in the Public Sphere"
(taken at Venice Beach in 2004 by Adam Flynn)
[So, please send your suggestions to polytheism AT monochrom.at ... we will inform Adam about your submissions.]
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