SOP for various Pantheons

[causticus]

I seem to recall this requested in a past MM or too. And I do think it might have been shared around, with JMG's blessing. But I can't remember which thread exactly, so I'm going to post here a list of different Sphere of Protection configurations for different Pantheons.

Of course these are just suggestions. I know many people will tweak/customize these to their own liking. Please share yours in the comments if you like.

Anyway, the suggestions from The Way of the Golden Section are as follows, behind the cut:



Druid (Irish)

East: Aengus
South: Brigid
West: Manannan
North: Aine
Below: Danu
Above: Dagda


Druid (Welsh)

East: Hu the Mighty
South: Sul
West: Hesus
North: Elen
Below: Ced
Above: Celi


Egyptian / Kemetic

East: Horus
South: Isis
West: Anubis
North: Nephthys
Below: Osiris
Above: Ra


Heathen (Anglo-Saxon)

East: Woden
South: Thunor
West: Frig
North: Ing
Below: Erce
Above: Tiw


Heathen (Norse)

East: Thor
South: Freya
West: Frey
North: Idun
Below: Frigga
Above: Odin


Hellenic / Greek

East: Athena
South: Apollo
West: Aphrodite
North: Dionysus
Below: Demeter
Above: Zeus


Roman / Cultus Deorum

East: Mavors/Mars
South: Vesta
West: Neptune
North: Ceres
Below: Veiovis
Above: Jupiter


Hindu / Vedic

East: Indra
South: Yama
West: Varuna
North: Kubera
Below: Vishnu
Above: Brahma


Esoteric Buddhist (Sanskrit/Japanese)

East: Aksobhya / Ashuku
South: Ratnasambhava / Hosho Nyorai
West: Amitabha / Amida Nyorai
North: Amoghasiddhi / Fukujoju Nyorai
Below: Sakyamuni / Shaka Nyorai
Above: Vairocana / Dainichi Nyorai

Comments

[jprussell]

I started my SOP practice using an older version of the Norse pantheon that JMG listed, but with names "translated" to Old English where available (I am aware that there are problems with assuming a 1:1 correspondence and am happy to discuss if anyone is interested) that went like this:

JPR's Heathen (Anglo-Saxon-ized Old Norse) - v1
East: Thunor
South: Frige (Freyja)
West: Njord
North: Frig (Frigg/Frigga)
Below: Nerthus
Above: Woden

But recently (one change in the past week and some others today, based on an intuition that's been building and "confirmed" through prayer, but I reckon I ought to do a divination to be sure), I'm now getting ready to work with the below:

JPR's Heathen (Anglo-Saxon-ized Old Norse) - v2
East: Woden
South: Frige (Freyja)
West: Njord
North: Frig (Frigg/Frigga)
Below: Erce
Above: Tiw

Of the above, Erce and Tiw for Below and Above were the ones that most stood out as "you should likely make this change". I considered Idun for North, and it seemed like that would work fine, but Frig seemed a better fit for me. The position that I feel the least sure on is West, in part because I haven't really found a good candidate for a documented watery Anglo-Saxon God (Ingwy Frey has the association of going away over the sea, but at least so far, he hasn't struck me as the right way to go in my case).

Possibly also of interest: I currently use the opening given in the DMH, rather than that in the Way of the Golden Section which calls for an older male God at the "third eye" position, a younger male God at the solar plexus, an older female Goddess to the right, and a younger female Goddess to the left. For me, this sequence goes Woden, Baldaeg (Baldr), Frig, Idun.

[causticus]

Interesting. Mine is a bit of a mess right now but it seems to work.

btw, do you have any materials on Erce? I can't seem to find much of anything besides a stray mention or two in very scant Anglo-Saxon sources.

[lp9]

I also started with one of the older JMG Norse suggestions (maybe his first?) and use:

East: Thor
South: Freya
West: Njord
North: Frigga
Below: Fjorgyn
Above: Odin

Seems to work (been doing it since summer 2019) though, on a devotional level, I'm not especially connected to a couple of the divinities here. I use the simple SOP instructions from the Dreamwidth posts, but still experience positive effects. I'm interested in the Norse version you posted here though; I may think about trying that out.

[causticus]

This is quite similar to mine. Except I have Idunn for North and Frigga for Below. Those are bound to be updated/tweaked though.

[jprussell]

So, there's not really much documented on Erce, and my current use of that name for invocation is more due to some intuitions I got during prayer and meditation (so, pure gnosis, basically). The sense I've gotten is that this is the "same" Goddess as I was previously addressing as Nerthus, but that for whatever reason, this name is now more appropriate. I'm certainly not making any definitive theological statements here, as navigating the whole tangle of "is this Anglo-Saxon/Germanic/Saxon God the same as the Norse one?" seems to be the special joy of this flavor of polytheism. Anyhow, below are some sources along with a bit of commentary on what I've done with them:

- Dictionary of Northern Mythology by Rudolf Simek: Simek has very little to say on Erce (pg. 75), except that it's not even clear if it's a Goddess's proper name and pointing out that a connection with Frau Herke/Harke of Saxon legend has been suggested on not very strongly-supported grounds (this appears to be a summary of Grimm below).
- The Elder Gods by Stephen Pollington: This is my go-to book by my go-to author on Anglo-Saxon religion. He gives the full Aecerbot charm (our only documentary evidence for Erce) in both Old English and a modern translation of his own. He also gives a lot of sources and discusses possible connections with other fertility/earth mother Goddesses and their myths. He especially calls attention to Nerthus and the well-known Tacitus passage on her, along with the evidence that elements of her cult may have persisted in the Njordh/Frey/Freyja complex, and that the known importance of cognate Gods and Goddesses in Old English might suggest some relevance to Anglo-Saxons. pgs 226-231 for Erce, 259-266 for Nerthus
- Teutonic Mythology by Jacob Grimm: This is a new source for me, as I just received my copy (hooray gift cards for my birthday!). It is quickly becoming evident to me how much of any kind of Germanic religious/mythological study is footnotes to Grimm. He talks about some of the reflexes in other Germanic cultures and also makes the connection with Nerthus, whom he connects with a description of a Phrygian religious rite. He also makes connections between the specific Aecerbot charm and other similar charms, even potentially relevant references in early law codes. As I said, I have not even begun to digest this, but it sure looks promising! pgs 253, 1238

On that last source, I had a bit of trouble tracking down an English translation of Grimm's magnum opus. Apparently, almost anyone who cares enough about the field to read his book just learns German (on the list, someday). The good news, is you can find good quality pdfs online (Volume 1 here, for example: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.191102). If you want print, the "Cambridge Library Collection" has a set of reasonably good quality POD paperbacks (that's what I just got).

For myself, I've had a fairly strong experience of some kind of "Earth Mother" Goddess, and there is a lot of evidence that from earliest times, this was an important part of the divine for Germanic folks of all stripes (along with basically every agricultural people ever, of course). That evidence, though, has a lot of different ways to come at it and a lot of different threads to untangle. Early on, my tendency was to try to simplify/collapse Goddesses that seemed to be "the same", but however logically satisfying it may seem, my own spiritual practice has suggested against it more than once now.

That's likely way more than you were looking for, but obviously something I'm happy to get into if you'd like to discuss more.

[causticus]

Thank you for this! This is definitely what I was looking for.

btw, I just started thumbing through that Grimm PDF (probably the same exact link) the other day. Great stuff! I tend to give much greater weight to older academic sources like him than the sort of reductionistic nonsense that present day academia tends to churn out by the metric ton. Also, I'd treat your personal gnosis as being more authoritative than those academics too.

Having said that, how do I pronounce Erce? Is it like, "Air-kuh"?

[jprussell]

Yeah, isn't it great? I suspect that a lot of pre-WWII Germanic scholarship has been de-emphasized for fear of proto-Nazism and that a lot of babies have been thrown out with the bathwater.

And I'm glad you asked, because apparently I've been doing it wrong! English's tradition of confusing orthography apparently goes back pretty far - "c" is sometimes a 'k' sound and sometimes a 'ch' sound, and I had thought it was pronounced "Air-chuh", but apparently you are correct, and it's "Air-kuh". Apparently the rules are pretty consistent, there's just a lot of context you have to learn to take into account, and I haven't gotten there yet.

[jprussell]

Oh, and one more quick note on Grimm: here's how the four volumes of the Fourth Edition shake out, I had trouble figuring this out until I actually had them in my hands:
- Volume 1: Part 1 of the main text
- Volume 2: Part 2 of the main text
- Volume 3: Preface to the 2nd Edition, Part 3 of the main text, index (it's a pretty great index)
- Volume 4: Additional material gathered by Grimm but not incorporated into his work before his death, published posthumously at his request and at the direction of his estate by another scholar. Basically, it works as an appendix of further possible clues in folklore, comparative myth, and ancient laws.

[(Anonymous)]

For the west, JPR, you could try Rán who personified the sea - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rán

Regards

Kerry A Nitz

[(Anonymous)]

I do the Irish one, but with Boann as Earth instead of Aine, which is the attribution I learned from the Druid Magic Handbook. Boann is the goddess of the river Boyne, but she's also associated with cattle, which of course were wealth to the ancient Celts. One of the reasons I prefer that version of the SOP is because of the family ties: Boann is mother of Aengus by An Dagda, who is also the father of Brigid--Sister Crow

[causticus]

Thanks for this!

Polish pantheon

[randomactsofkarmasc]

JMG, in one of the recent Magic Mondays, posted SOP suggestions for the Polish pantheon. I do not work with the Polish pantheon, but wanted to add it here, so if people are looking for deities for the SOP, it is one more they can consider.

(This is a copy/paste from JMG's response.)

1: In the name of Lado...
2: ..and of Lada...
3: ... and of Lel their son...
4: ...may (I/this place/whatever) be blessed.


Air/East: Perun the storm god
Water/West: Welles the cattle god (the enemy of Perun -- that's an old Indo-European duality)
Fire/South: Dwiewanna the crop goddess
Earth/North: Mora the sea goddess (the sea is north of Poland)
Spirit Below: Marzanna the earth goddess
Spirit Above: Swiatowit the high god

[randomactsofkarmasc]

On MM, someone asked JMG about the SOP with planets. His response:

East: Sun
West: Mercury
South: Mars
North: Venus
Below: Saturn
Above: Jupiter
Within: Moon

https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/230217.html?thread=40645193#cmt40645193