Spirits, Gods, and Helpers
This week’s prompt from Trace gets into some of my favorite theology questions:
What is the distinction between gods and spirits? Can one become the other? How do gods and spirits cooperate, and when do they come into conflict? Are there spirits that regularly work with a god for commonly shared goals and interests? How does this relationship compare to subservient beings like angels?
Needless to say, there’s a lot here, and I could go very deep into each one of those questions. I think I will start with some general thoughts, and then go deeper into specific questions in other posts, if folks are interested.
To really answer the first question, I want to first acknowledge that the word “spirit” is very broad to me. I’m an animist, so I believe everything has a “spirit” in some sense, which broadens out the scope of the discussion in a very complex way. When I say everything has a spirit in that sense, I’m basically saying that everything has (or has the potential to have) its own subjective experience of the world; the experience of an animal or tree or rock might be different from yours or mine, but it’s hard for me to say for sure that they don’t have one. And, for the purposes of gods and mysticism, it’s important to note that one does not need a physical form to have that sort of subjective experience. A concept could have a sense of the world, interacting in terms of how it is thought about and acted upon by other beings. Finally, another important point to raise about spirits is that I think those subjective experiences can really only be understood in relationship to each other, it’s how something else’s subjective experience interacts with mine (how our stories cross, if you’d like) that makes us meaningful to each other.
To me, what distinguishes a god from another spirit has to do with the shape of those relationships, specifically in terms of their scope and their role.
By ‘scope’ I mean that gods have a conceptual relationship to something in the world that’s broader than most other spirits. Gods are usually aligned with concepts like ‘love’ or ‘creativity’ or ‘liminality’, whereas other spirits might be tied to a particular body, or aligned with a particular place or object.
By role I mean that gods are interested in forming mutualistic relationships with people like me (that is, those of us in human or human-like corporeal bodies, going about our business in worlds like this one). Those doesn’t need to be a traditionally worshipful relationship, but one where they are interested in folks who are interested in them, and willing to apply that scope in ways that affect us (hopefully beneficially).
To me, this differentiates gods from other sorts of non-corporeal spirits in a useful way. For instance, the elemental power of Fire certainly has a significant scope, but it’s not usually experienced as an entity forming a mutual relationship with devotees. Conversely, one’s relationship with a family ancestor is one of mutual support and interest, but that ancestor might not have the broad scope of action that would make them feel divine. Of course, all of this is also a bit fluid and subjective; powerful ancestor can become divine, and nothing says a working relationship with Fire couldn’t lead to something more devotional. Beings and relationships can evolve to take on more divine characteristics. In that sense, divinity is sort of a continuum, and sort of relative; a god to one person might be something else entirely to another.
To an extent then, that also answers the question of how gods and other spirits might relate to each other. Those who work in the same realms will come in contact a lot, and they might work well together if their goals align, or oppose each other when they don’t. The answer here is the one that I find myself saying a lot when talking from an animist context: “People gonna people”. Gods and spirits are, in their own way, people, and will have all the relationship complexities that any people do.
The question of specific spirit helpers is actually not one that I had considered much before getting this prompt, and I think it’s a really good one. The example of angels is certainly one way this could go, though that suggests a pretty rigid hierarchy and defined duties that fits well in a monotheistic framework and not so well in my own. As I alluded to above, a god is likely to have lots of encounters with other spirits that share part of their scope, and I can see this becoming a working relationship of sorts, when their values align as well. Additionally, it’s certainly possible to craft or create spirits. If everything has a spirit, every act of creation makes a new one (or changes one into a new form). Gods, with their expanded scopes, could do this to help make their work happen.
I do have some direct experience with spirits who are definitionally “helpers” of the Wanderers, since I have a few guides and teachers who I work with in trance and journeywork. However, to me they’re not members of a divine host; instead I understand them as priests or devotee of specific gods. To me they’re people, living in their own worlds, who take on a sort of counseling or teaching job on behalf of the deity that we’re both connected to.
That’s not to say those are the only kind of divine helpers I think exist, even for the Wanderers. This question got me thinking about other sorts of helpers for them in a way I never have before. I find it varies a lot from one deity to another. The Writer-in-Flames is a being of creation and words, and I could see them having a host of fiery avians to perch in the hearts of folks who need a little extra spark to transform themselves. The Swimmer-Within has so many connections to all sorts of life, and it feels like they would have a good relationship with the spirits of various herbs and other medicinal agents, and ‘referring’ them to a petitioner as a way to do the Singer’s work, or empowering them to greater efficiency within the body. However, the Singer-in-Silence feels like a more solitary deity, their personality less inclined toward directing others. Certainly, they feel like one who’s not at all interested in having others carry their messages for them, instead speaking directly. A lot of this is speculation so far though, and this is something that I’m interested in delving into much more deeply to better understand the complexities and potential of divine relationships.