• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Hermaphroditus/gender bending gods

EverChanging

EverChanging

Well-Known Member
Do any other neopagans here work with Hermaphroditus or any other gender bending gods? What does that look like for you? I ask because I have been curious about working with gender bending deities and how and what we can work on together.
 
Liu

Liu

Well-Known Member
Not sure whether I can actually count as a pagan, but at least I do work with some gender-bending deities. Well, work with may not be the right label, being a fan of might be more accurate.

Being a transguy myself it isn't really surprising that I also like my deities non-binary. As a pantheist I believe in the divine to be beyond any such dualities anyway.
It seems a bit more common among Satanists than among worshipers of other deities to call their patron deity an it or a she although it's more commonly depicted as a he. At least calling it an it might have to do with many of us believing not in personal deities anyway, but rather conceptualizing it as a force of some kind.

Regarding more traditionally gender-bending deities, I'm especially fond of Baphomet as a symbol of the unification of opposites.

In my youth I also was very much into Loki; nowadays I find Angrboða almost a bit more interesting. She's not actually gender-bending in the traditional sense but she did get him pregnant trice (even if not in any normal way but by being burned and him eating her heart).

I know some others, like Ishtar for example, but I never really connected with them.

Also, do you mean gender-bending only in the actual 'physical' characteristics? Or would someone like Athena as a female warrior also count as gender-bending?

Regarding practical means, one issue is that my native language, German, makes it rather difficult to speak in a gender-neutral way. I prefer using English in prayers anyway, though.
 
EverChanging

EverChanging

Well-Known Member
Liu said:
Not sure whether I can actually count as a pagan, but at least I do work with some gender-bending deities. Well, work with may not be the right label, being a fan of might be more accurate.

Being a transguy myself it isn't really surprising that I also like my deities non-binary. As a pantheist I believe in the divine to be beyond any such dualities anyway.
It seems a bit more common among Satanists than among worshipers of other deities to call their patron deity an it or a she although it's more commonly depicted as a he. At least calling it an it might have to do with many of us believing not in personal deities anyway, but rather conceptualizing it as a force of some kind.

Regarding more traditionally gender-bending deities, I'm especially fond of Baphomet as a symbol of the unification of opposites.

In my youth I also was very much into Loki; nowadays I find Angrboða almost a bit more interesting. She's not actually gender-bending in the traditional sense but she did get him pregnant trice (even if not in any normal way but by being burned and him eating her heart).

I know some others, like Ishtar for example, but I never really connected with them.

Also, do you mean gender-bending only in the actual 'physical' characteristics? Or would someone like Athena as a female warrior also count as gender-bending?

Regarding practical means, one issue is that my native language, German, makes it rather difficult to speak in a gender-neutral way. I prefer using English in prayers anyway, though.
Click to expand...

I think Athena could count.

Have you done work with any such deities? What does that look like for you?
 
Liu

Liu

Well-Known Member
The same as working with other deities/spirits. Which I admittedly don't do very often, at least not in actual ritual or prayer manner. More in a researching or making art of or feeling a connection to sort of way.
The only deity I frequently pray to is Satan, but I also use the names of a bunch of other deities to refer to it, for example Baphomet, whom I mentioned before.


All that reminded me of another basically hermaphrodite phenomenon. In certain kinds of Hinduism, the deities Shiva and Shakti (sometimes also others) are seen as representing consciousness and energy, respectively. And it's the union of these two which is said to make existence possible. Therefore the two of them are sometimes considered actually one entity with two or more aspects. Since its two main aspects are nearly always represented as male and female, the resulting merge at least technically is both.

There even are some contemporary tantra-influenced Ahrimanists who have a similar concept of the union of Angra Manyu and a naga which they equate with specific Hindu concepts like kundalini or the naga goddess Manasa.
 
S

Saint Frankenstein

Gone
Premium Member
A Greased Scotsman said:
@Saint Frankenstein is this thread up your alley?
Click to expand...
Sure.

Focusing primarily on the Norse pantheon, Odin and Loki come to mind as gender bending Gods. Odin was accused of ergi ("effeminancy", basically) and learned seidr, which is a form of shamanism associated with women. Loki transformed himself into a mare, became pregnant and gave birth. (Loki can be seen as an aspect of Odin, as well.) Freyr was said to have cross-dressing priests.

In the Greco-Roman pantheon, there's tons more evidence of LGBT themes and behaviors. Dionysos is gender-bending and Cybele had a transgender priesthood.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top