The relevant part:
@Metheus Northmochi.icecream wrote: ↑Wed Jan 05, 2022 9:11 pm
I've had a deity push me to buy a book about Hedge Druidry, and when I got to a specific passage, the urge to read the book vanished. It turned out he was answering a question I had (I can elaborate on this story of anybody wants me to).
Basically what happened was I had started deity work with Lucifer (and was thinking of working with Lilith as well), and as I was researching his mythology, I came to find that Lucifer in the Bible was actually a mistranslation when being translated to Latin.
See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer
I, being the open-minded and curious individual that I am, wondered how it was that so many people were able to make contact with Goetic Lucifer, when his background was based in a translation error? Was he a Egregore? Some kind of multi-dimensional entity that was brought to us through our collective imaginations to fulfill a role that existed in his Universe but not in ours? Maybe there was an alternate timeline out there for an alternate Earth in which Lucifer actually was a part of the original Hebrew texts that became our modern Bible?
It so happened that I decided, on a whim, to go to a pagan store with my friends on a whim with a hole burning in my pocket and an urge to get my hands on some reading material to help me learn more about my spiritual path. I browsed and paced back and forth trying to select the perfect book to help me understand my new deity better, but all I could find were books about the Goetia or Satanism. I flipped through these hoping to see if any of them talked about the anthropological history of Lucifer, but I had no luck. I wanted to understand the Lucifer who was son of Aurora and Cephalus, who the Greeks referred to as Phosophoros and Heosphoros.
I think, perhaps, this mythology I was researching may have been too obscure! The books about Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses tended to focus on more well-known mythologies and stories.
All else failing, I decided to take a look at some other titles and see if there was anything else interesting to read. That day, I came across The Book of Hedge Druidry by Joanna Van Der Hoeven. It didn't have anything at all to do with what I was trying to find, but something in me felt satisfied, so I bought it.
As I mentioned at the start of this story, I was also curious to learn more about Lilith, who also was based on something of an inexact translation, which she and Lucifer have in common. Her mythology was more easily studied. I found information about lilitu, female demons that originated in the mythologies of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith). Again, I had to wonder, was she an Egregore? How is it that so many have come into contact with her, and that she has come up in my own readings, when the popular mythology we have today doesn't seem to have strong historical evidence? She's out there. She's helped me before. Who were she and Lucifer, really?
I put these thoughts aside and got ready to dive into a new book and learn some fun new things. I had had another witch suggest my spiritual path may be that of a Hedge Witch, so there was a good reason to read about Hedge Druidry. I chugged along as best as my ADHD would allow, trying to absorb as much information as I was able. When I got to Chapter 3, on page 26, there was a passage that really grabbed my attention.
The entire chapter was very informative, but this passage in particular stood out to me, given my recent research and ponderings. This is what it said:
"The named gods of mythology and folklore are, combined, the collective energy of ancestral stories, tales that have been passed down from generation to generation, shared among tribes and peoples. This energy might originally started as a collective energy of nature or human nature and become something that now represents the concept -to be passed down along the lineage of human beings and encompassing a broad spectrum of associations. Brighid may have once started as a goddess of fire or of sacred springs or of healing and has since developed into an anthropomorphised goddess who shares all these atributes and more, with her own stories of how she came about with her powers and of bestowing them upon others. These tales are told, spread from tribe to tribe, eventually creating a deity that is recognized widely, but perhaps having different names."
Now, to me, this does come across as a little agnostic, but the urge I had been feeling to understand these two deities, Lucifer and Lilith, eased a little. I read a little more, but without feeling quite so compelled, I put the book down after a while and never finished it lol
So, what did I take from this? I incorporated it into some prior beliefs I already had. I believe the Universe and all its dimensions, are physical manifestations of The Collective Unconsciousness, a great, fractal mind living a multitude of countless individual conscious experiences. I don't know if Lilith was once a regular Lilitu that gained power and stepped into the role of Lilith as the mythologies describe. I don't know if Goetic Lucifer is an Egregore we all created through collective belief.
I have met Shakti in a vision and seen her as a timeless being who came to help exert her divine influence to help shape world cultures and spiritualities. I have my very own Cosmic Deity friend who allowed me to watch as she worked directly with a nebula the way an artist might sculpt clay to one day become something magnificent and beautiful. An angel showed me his mentor, The Great Grandfather, who helps bring order to the chaos of humanity. I've met the Great Mother and worked with her directly to have an influence on my lived experiences.
Deities are not so easily defined and categorized, and each has their own unique story of how they came to be born. There is still so much to learn, and I will never have all the answers, but I'm always having fun trying to find them.