These Gods are off limits.

[Namikikyo]

I was looking around on the internet today again; Looking for what might be my Matron/Patron.

And it came to my attention that these websites will not tell you what is off limits and what is open to worship.

So does anyone know, Which pantheons are opened and which ones are closed?

All words are appreciated and Thanked.

Opened- anyone called can worship them

Closed- Only certian people can woship them

 

[Beautiful Propaganda]

I'm pretty sure the Roman and Greek pantheons are open. Celtic is closed, I'm not sure about Egyptian yet.  

[Morgandria]

Namikikyo

I was looking around on the internet today again; Looking for what might be my Matron/Patron.

And it came to my attention that these websites will not tell you what is off limits and what is open to worship.

So does anyone know, Which pantheons are opened and which ones are closed?

All words are appreciated and Thanked.

Opened- anyone called can worship them

Closed- Only certian people can woship them

Open:
Kemetic (Egyptian)
Hellenic (Greek)
Roman
Norse

Closed:
Most Native American religions
Wicca
Irish

-------------------------------------
I'm not certain about how closed the Welsh pantheon is, or the Scots (there's precious little out there about them).

I'm sure there's a bunch of things I'm missing here.  

[doistu]

I imagine Gaulish is open too. Though there is very very little on them that I can find.  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

This is the deal on the Celtic thing, as I understand it:

All Celtic cultures are closed. This means you can't call yourself Celtic without participating in the culture, and you can't take elements of the culture, put them in a different context, and assume they are still Celtic.

But the only pantheon I know of that is closed is the Irish one. No one has confirmed to me one way or the other whether the Welsh, Scottish or Gaulish pantheons have taken similar oaths to those of the Gael. So until told otherwise, I shall assume worship of those deities is allowed.

Some of the pantheons Morg missed, but that I don't know about either way:

Slavic
Baltic (is this the same as Slavic or not?)
Basque (I'm only just aware that this one exists, so...)
Siberian, or something.... some guy on PoG the other day was talking about how he worshipped this god I can't remember the name of... A sky deity, and the religion is like Mongolian and Turkish and kinda Russian. Sorta. There are different forms of it.
The Vodou loas
Um.... Aboriginie? I don't know anything about their belief system, tbh.
Chinese ancestral deities
Are various Eskimo deities included under "siberian" and "native american"?*
Mesopotamian
Goddamnit... um.... Sumerian
Finnish
......I think that's all I got.


Maori is open as far as I know. All the Maori I've seen who are religious are big Christians, and I've never met a Maori who still honours Rangi and Papa. Which actually has depressed me for a while. So I don't really know either way. No one's ever mentioned it to me.

Shinto is more closed than it is open. Ditto for Hindu. I suspect the Santeria and Vodou pantheons are closed if you're not initiated into those religions or groups in some way.  

[Artistic Genocide]

There's two more that i know of that no body's mentioned.

Aztec and Mayan

In the case of Aztec religion, no one really follows it anymore.
As for mayan, some natives of mexico and centeral america still practice the religion today, but some mix it in with roman catholicism.

Though, I believe both are open to outsiders.... or at least the mayan one is. Not to sure about the aztec.  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

I thought we were lumping them in with various native American pantheons. What with them being Native and American. xd

There's the Incas, too. And another lot wot I can't remember the name of.  

[Artistic Genocide]

Lol. xD
I didn't know we were lumping them together.xD
cause they aren't exactly Native American, They're more like Native South/Centeral American.
=3
ah, I forgot about the Incans.-_-'
Also, i had a teacher in high school that mixed roman Catholicism with Mayan beliefs. It was interesting, to say in the least.xD  

[Namikikyo]

Sanguina Cruenta

This is the deal on the Celtic thing, as I understand it:

All Celtic cultures are closed. This means you can't call yourself Celtic without participating in the culture, and you can't take elements of the culture, put them in a different context, and assume they are still Celtic.

Oh! So it would be like someone taking the outer court teachings of Wicca.

It's never going to be Wicca or make you wiccan, But it gives your path some Wicca flavoring. Right?

 

[Starlock]

Technically, if the information is available, you can worship from whatever pantheon you want. Nobody can stop you. The question is if it resembles what the practice once was or if it takes it out of context (answers likely "not exactly" and "probably" respectively). Another question is "is it respectful" to which one will only receive opinionated answers to. I could go either way on that one, personally; depends on the specific case example.

Because it's been driving me nuts, what's the deal with this "open" and "closed" terminology? I don't know who around here started the usage of these terms, but as far as I know, they are not used in the academic study of religion or of culture. I have only ever heard of this sort of phenomena being described as "universal" versus "tribal" religion.  

[Violet Song jat Shariff]

Starlock

Technically, if the information is available, you can worship from whatever pantheon you want.

No, not really.
The information is available to me on how to cook up crystal meth or build a bomb. It would NOT be a very convincing argument to authorities to say "Well the information is freely available! I'm allowed to do this!!"
Or, even, there are a vast number of books out there dealing with medicine and the human body; however, even though that information is openly available, one can NOT sit and call themselves a doctor after reading a few of them.

Quote:

Nobody can stop you.

Except for well, the gods neutral
Gods are free to tell someone "We don't like you and we don't want your attentions. Go away."

Quote:

The question is if it resembles what the practice once was or if it takes it out of context (answers likely "not exactly" and "probably" respectively).

I don't think there's any faith, Recon or otherwise, that does things 100% in context of the way it was before (except maybe Wicca). We try to recreate the context, or at the very least, try to tie older practices to similar, modern context. But it's not quite the same, and most folks realize this.

Quote:

Another question is "is it respectful" to which one will only receive opinionated answers to. I could go either way on that one, personally; depends on the specific case example.

I find a better question is "Am I encroaching on an area where I do not belong or am not welcome?"
Might one be acting respectfully praying to Morrigan? Perhaps. Is one stepping into territory that they are not welcome in regardless of how they are acting? Yep.

Quote:

Because it's been driving me nuts, what's the deal with this "open" and "closed" terminology? I don't know who around here started the usage of these terms, but as far as I know, they are not used in the academic study of religion or of culture.

Really? Because I"m pretty sure in the Irish-Celt myths they talk of a geas to those people. It's not straight forward as saying "We're closed and only want worship from these people" but it doesn't take too much thinking to realize what a geas from gods to a certain people implies.

Quote:

I have only ever heard of this sort of phenomena being described as "universal" versus "tribal" religion.

So you have heard of the concept of open v. closed, just not with that particular terminology.  

[Namikikyo]

So..

I'm not sure if really anyone knows, But I just want to clear the fog here;

Is Welsh or Scottish open? Or closed off?

And if not, then what do you make of this?

Quote:

British, Scottish, Irish, Welsh Gods & Goddesses
Amaethon (Welsh) - God of Agriculture, Master of Magic
Arawn (Welsh) - God of the Hunt and the Underworld
Arianrhod (Welsh) - Star and Sky Goddess, Goddess of Beauty, Full Moon and Magical Spells
Badb (Irish) - Goddess of War, Death and Rebirth
Caillech (Scottish, Irish, Welsh) - Goddess of Weather, Earth, Sky, Seasons, Moon and Sun
Cliodna (Irish, Scottish) - Goddess of Beauty and of Other Realms
Creide (Irish, Scottish) - Goddess of Women and Fairies
The Green Man (Welsh) - God of the Woodlands, of Life Energy and Fertility
Morgan LeFay (Welsh) - Goddess of Death, Fate, the Sea and of Curses
Oghma (Scottish, Irish) - God of Communication and Writing, and of Poets
Rhiannon (Welsh) - Goddess of Birds, Horses, Enchantments, Fertility and the Underworld
Skatha (Welsh) - Goddess of the Underworld, Darkness, Magic, Prophecy and Martial Arts

From: http://folkloreandmyth.netfirms.com/gods_goddesses.html

If Welsh and Scottish are open, then do we just stay away from the ones that are Welsh/Irish or Scottish/Irish, etc?

EDIT: And what about the Gods of the Gaul and British Gods?

 

[Violet Song jat Shariff]

Namikikyo

So..

I'm not sure if really anyone knows, But I just want to clear the fog here;

Is Welsh or Scottish open? Or closed off?

Morgandria

I'm not certain about how closed the Welsh pantheon is, or the Scots (there's precious little out there about them).

I don't really know either, TBH.
I don't know of any Welsh or Scottish-based worshipers.  

[[ Nicolette ]]

Sanguina Cruenta

Shinto is more closed than it is open.

I'm glad you offered this tidbit of information! I've been looking into this religion a lot lately and now have more reason to be cautious before getting my heart set on it. I personally think that it's more of a regional thing more than anything, though, right? I mean, it's not as though you hear many stories about kitsune or anything over in the States (or anywhere other than China, Japan, and Korea for that matter), or how Izanagi and Izanami regarded other bodies of land before they created/found the self-forming island of Japan. XD Plus, I would imagine the Japanese people (if not the gods) might be a little offended, though I've forgotten the reason I had for that...

Anyway, about Nami's Irish problem. I don't really understand why the Irish pantheon would take such an oath, I mean, most of the country is Catholic now, not to mention NI is Protestant. I should think the gods would have more foresight about that... I mean, the pantheon appears to be going a bit out of style (not that I've got experience--just mere speculation!). The most popular faction I've heard of is Ar Draocht Fein (or something close to that) and time might even erode that! So once their worshipers turn elsewhere, they're pretty much screwed. That's why I'm more into that Norse belief (at least I think it's Norse... XD) that you should rarely, if ever, make an oath unless you're absolutely sure of what you're agreeing to.
But, well, not like I'm an expert on the situation--I hadn't even heard of the oath. I kinda lost whatever interest I may have had in the pantheon once I learned they were closed--I didn't even care about the reason. XD

The British Gods? Do you mean the Anglo-Saxon ones? If those are the ones you mean, then yes, they're open, being that they're derived mostly from the Norse pantheon.  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

[ Nicolette ]

I'm glad you offered this tidbit of information! I've been looking into this religion a lot lately and now have more reason to be cautious before getting my heart set on it. I personally think that it's more of a regional thing more than anything, though, right? I mean, it's not as though you hear many stories about kitsune or anything over in the States (or anywhere other than China, Japan, and Korea for that matter), or how Izanagi and Izanami regarded other bodies of land before they created/found the self-forming island of Japan. XD Plus, I would imagine the Japanese people (if not the gods) might be a little offended, though I've forgotten the reason I had for that...

I don't know enough about it to know for reasons why. It has to do with how tied the kami are to the land, and the ancestors and so on. It's all very inter-related, in that ancestors and land-spirits are kami as well as the bigger deities like Amatseru and so on.

Quote:

I don't really understand why the Irish pantheon would take such an oath,

As I understand it, they didn't necessarily want to. It was part of some sort of bargain. But you'd have to ask Cu about that.

Quote:

I mean, most of the country is Catholic now, not to mention NI is Protestant. I should think the gods would have more foresight about that... I mean, the pantheon appears to be going a bit out of style (not that I've got experience--just mere speculation!).

I suppose it doesn't really matter to them whether or not many people worship them, but that their people - that is, the Gael - survive. And they do - but only just.

Quote:

The most popular faction I've heard of is Ar Draocht Fein (or something close to that) and time might even erode that!

Ar nDraiocht Fein? They're not Celtic, let alone Gael. It's a neo-"druid" group. Members can choose to worship any indo-european pantheon. So as a result, you have people worshipping Hellenic deities and calling themselves druids! It's spectacularly odd.

At any rate, they're not a Celtic group, from a cultural perspective, and they're not Celtic from a religious perspective either - they're not, for example, CR. There are, as far as I know, very few vocal members of the Gael, and no established groups like ADF.

Quote:

The British Gods? Do you mean the Anglo-Saxon ones? If those are the ones you mean, then yes, they're open, being that they're derived mostly from the Norse pantheon.

I said Baltic and Basque, but not British. The only gods I've heard described as "British" are the Lord and Lady of the Isles. "British" is not a culture... it just describes the island of Britain. The gods of the original Britons - that is, pre-Roman, pre-Celt - are far too lost in the mists of time for us to know (unless they are the gods of Wicca, of course, which is theoretically possible).