I sat on an authors’ panel Llewellyn hosted today at Pantheacon.  There were 10 of us taking questions from the audience about our relationship to deities., and we were a diverse lot, from many traditions, youngish to old, gay, straight, bi, and  on the surface anyway, lifestyles.   And yet important themes emerged we shared in common. 

There were striking similarities in our reports of our different encounters with
the divine.  Our vocabularies were different, and superficially often
contrasting, but when a “strong polytheist” explained he believed the
Gods came from an underlying unity, there was really little difference
from panentheists like myself who said when we encountered deities, they seemed more real than our day to day existence. 
Most of the time, whenever anyone mentioned something others before
them had left unsaid, there was a strong nodding of heads.  My belief
that modern Paganism is fundamentally a panentheistic religion was
strengthened.

Also striking were the number of different ways people experienced
spirit and deity with little evidence anyone believed their encounters were somehow superior to those others reported.  Most of us experiencing more than one kind of encounter.  Our experiences ranged from the Nondual to communion with rocks and trees in an animist world.  If I can add a concept none of us thought of during our panel, it is as if there are different levels of the scared, different levels of the [perfect and the sacred rather than the hierarchy of experience described by the monotheistic and enlightenment traditions.  Certainly most of
the kinds of encounter people described have happened to me, and I
doubt I was unusual in that respect. 

One piece of advice someone gave was to simply be attentive to how the
world impacted upon you, listen, rather than expecting it to meet your
expectations.  Given our lack of a sacred text or any explicit
doctrinal unity, the strong over lap among us was striking. 

There were differences of course, but these were mainly second order
things.  One member of the audience asked about the importance of
“inclusiveness” in our groups and activities.  The questioner was deaf,
and so the question probably revolved around physical disabilities,
but was phrased much more open-endedly.  Our answers were accordingly
diverse, with some coming down on the side of trying to accommodate the
needs of any potential participant, others less flexible when that
might get in the way of certain important symbolic themes, such as the
use of wine.  I was on that end of the scale, emphasizing that because
no particular tradition claimed to be the answer on any major point,
there was no need to feel we needed to include everyone.  On the other
hand, no non-inclusive group claimed to be intrinsically better than
others not included.

I have been delighted by the number of you who, recognixing me from my name tag, have introduced yourselves to me.

I  am writing this late at night after returning from a Bardic Circle.  I am tired.

More tomorrow.