On the Pagan Worldview

In the Abrahamic traditions, divine intervention happened only once - a radical historic event with no precursors or antecedents. God sent his son down to earth, only once (not considering the awaited second coming), and spoke to a desert nomad inside a cave - only once.

This is quite different to the pagan life, where divinity intervenes in myriad ways on a daily basis. Life is replete with divine intervention, and divinity can be directly experienced by anyone.

This difference of views shows up in all cultural, mythological, phenomenological studies, which despite a coating of neutrality/secularism inevitably fall back on their Abrahamic base - a world with no divine interventions, or only a singular one way back in history. As a result, all such studies examine the gods as distinctly human products and imaginations, making them flawed at outset. For the pagan view is the reverse - the gods are ontologically real.

Therefore, as example, when we study the evolution of Rudra/Shiva, we think it to represent either “Aryans vs. Indigenous populations” or “Old gods vs. New gods” etc. In reality, if we understand divinity as the pagan does, we know that the gods are elemental and multi-formed. They manifest according to the needs of the time, and the receptivities of those that invoke them. The same god may appear as a protector of cattle to pastoralists, a vanquisher of demons to the warrior, and an ender of worlds to the devout sadhaka.

Consider this quote from the book The Indian Theogony by Sukumari Bhattacharji-

A god seeking the command of an entire community—its worship, devotion and ritual ceremonies—has to have certain exploits to his credit, exploits which make manifest his power in a way that will raise him indisputably over other gods.

Would an emic pagan view not reframe this more like-

A god growing in prominence among a community will manifest in various ways, engaging with the community through the many activities of their existence. And in doing so the community will come closer to the god, even raising it above others.

The difference is in thinking gods to be human cults that elevate their totem to a higher plane of mythology, vs. gods being higher realities that descend into human affairs in several dimensions.