In many ways, the gods of polytheism and monotheism are a projection of how the firmware of the brain; operating system of the brain, that defines human nature, is organized. Polytheism is more about looking at all the various firmware parts, whereas monotheism is more conscious of the inner self, which controls and integrates the firmware. It is the same thing from two angles.
The easiest way for me to explain my polytheistic mindset, and how I explained it to my Christian wife; there is a plurality apparent within life and the universe, so how are there not multiple Gods, like there are trees, or grasses?
In terms of a biological parallel, the scientific cataloging of life, starts with a larger classification, such as trees. It then breaks this down into the various types of trees. Polytheism looks at the various subclasses, within the class, whereas monotheism focuses on the class, itself. Both are looking at the same thing, but from a different angle.
As a parallel in science, the various orientations of psychology are analogous to rational polytheism. Each orientation targets an aspect of human nature; motivation, but few orientations deal with all aspects, at the same time. For example, Freud fixated on sex, which is only one of many motivations behind humans. Jung dealt with the archetypes of collective unconscious; firmware. His approach was closer to rational monotheism. However, this is less popular compared to rational polytheism.
The philosophical problem in Psychology is connected to there being no single consensus definition for consciousness, causing this central concept to remain a dissociated concept; rational polytheism. Freud would have worshiped Aphrodite; goddess of love and sex. Others; clients, who also worship this same goddess; obsessed with sex, but whose felt the goddess was not with them, would seek council from one of her priests or priestesses.
The way the two are connected is via the left and right sides of the brain. The left brain is differential and differentiates the details of reality. The right brain is more spatial and integrates reality. Polytheism was useful to help early humans develop the left brain. Polytheism helped everyone notice the details of nature; via the nature spirits. This was needed for civilization. Once the left brain details were set; gathering data, then it was time, for some cultures, to integrated the data. This was a return to the right brain. Science is not yet right brain, but still remains left brain; rational polytheism. It has collected more data, than it has right brain ways to integrate this data with single unified theory.
When I first became interested in psychology and started to explore my own brain, so I could observe the firmware and its details, the left brain process of differentiation, unknowingly broke up the integration, in favor of looking at the parts. This caused a dissociative affect to my personalty. An analogy is walking while thinking in terms of all the muscle groups used to walk. What would happen is the natural fluid motion would start to get jerky; robotic, due to ego consciousness impacting the smooth integrated operation by trying to think about it and thereby sequence it to the pace of the conscious thought.
It is sort of like taking a motor apart to see who it works. The result was a bunch of parts; polytheism, with a motor that no longer worked properly as a unit. I could see all the parts, but they were no longer meshed as before I began. This is the pitfall of going to polytheism, if one already started with monotheism.
Luckily, the brain; inner self, will self assemble the parts, creating a new type of motor assembly. If one is interested in the integration of parts, the union of parts is outlined is in a very complex book, by Carl Jung, called Mysterious Conjunctions or the mystical union. The symbolism of polytheism; archetypes, help to reassemble itself in terms of a natural hierarchy. This took months and was a lot of work.
