This weekend, The Wild Hunt is presenting a collaboration between Luke Babb and Bat Collazo on the topic of the “godspouse” – a person whose Pagan practice includes romantic and/or erotic love between the practitioner and a deity. Yesterday, Luke and Bat began with a conversation about discovering their own romantic and erotic love for deities, and explored how the concept of divine erotic love has been portrayed in other religious traditions. Today, they begin with a history of how the idea of a godspouse has appeared in ancient and contemporary Paganism.
Contexts, II: The Pagan godspouse, from Danae to Urban Dictionary
Turning more directly to Pagan practice, evidence of these connections runs through much of the lore modern Pagans draw from. Mythology is overrun with stories of gods taking mortal lovers, many of whom they care for deeply. The most famous of these stories are difficult for the human involved, but even those – the myths of Danae, Io, Ganymede – end well. While the humans may suffer, it is never because their lover forgets or neglects them, and often gods go to great lengths to ensure that their mortal consorts are honored in their lives and remembered after their deaths.
While Hellenic myths are best known for these relationships, many other mythologies feature similar tales. For instance, Heathen godspouses often point to the post-Christian tale of Ögmundar þáttr dytts (“The Tale of Ogmund Dyttr”) as a hint toward an early Norse understanding of humans and gods in erotic devotional relationships. The story belittles Pagan beliefs – the god Freyr is portrayed as a demon, and the Swedes who believe in Freyr are depicted as foolish for believing that the god himself has impregnated his priestess, rather than a Christian imposter dressed as Freyr. Despite the author’s tone, the tale still speaks to pre-Christian understandings of human-divine sexuality, as well as intriguing hints of a tradition of divine possession. It has a parallel in Eyrbyggja saga (“The Saga of the People of Eyri”), where devotees understand field creatures eating their offerings to Thor as the god’s approval via physical means. In the priestess story, this mindset could indicate an understanding of Freyr’s blessings (and sexual contact) in a tangible, embodied sense, without need for abstract miracles.
Artemisia Gentileschi, “Danae,” oil on copper, 1612 [Wikimedia Commons]
“Ecstatic communion is thus essentially a mystical union,” says I.M. Lewis in his book Ecstatic Religion, “and, as the Song of Solomon and other mystical poetry so abundantly illustrate, experiences of this kind are frequently described in terms borrowed from erotic love. Indeed as Ernest Jones has justly observed, the notion that ‘sexual intercourse can occur between mortals and supernatural beings is one of the most widespread of human beliefs’.”
There is so much history in this, so many examples in other religions, so much lore supporting it in Paganism, that erotic love for the divine seems to be a natural development in contemporary Paganism.
The early history of contemporary Pagan practice certainly holds this out, with the long history of “high magick” practice devoted to summoning a spirit for sexual ends, the explicit sexuality of Crowley’s Gnostic Mass, and the embodied divine in Gardner’s Great Rite. Today, however, Pagans who are open about their erotic connections to the divine, whatever those connections might be, are often disparaged both by the madding crowd and their fellow Witches. Urban Dictionary’s entry for “godspouse” is clear on the matter:
A delusion, possibly related to schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, social anxiety, teenage angst, and/or run-of-the-mill loneliness. Godspouses believe that they’ve been chosen by a god or gods as said god’s love interest. Unfortunately, the relationship is very one-sided as the god does not exist and the only evidence of said relationship only exists on tumblr.
While more atheistic than most, this description is a decent summary of the stereotypes that godspouses face. Often called delusional or arrogant, godspouses are accused of following a trend, of fabricating a relationship for social clout, or of being unsuitably emotional about their connection. Whether directly or subtly, these are all founded in a stereotype of a feminine, socially awkward person who spends more time on the internet than in so-called “legitimate spiritual practice.”
These days, the internet makes it easier to find godspouses refuting these points than people making them. Many of these godspouses talk about struggling with these stereotypes as a part of their discernment process, when first considering whether the path is right for them. Many are surprised, and even alarmed, to encounter these feelings within themselves. They can spend years in meditation, research, and divination to confirm their calling and discern the appropriate next steps. However, these relationships are as individual as the Pagans who pursue them. Some, struck with adoration of their divine lover, pursue their path with enthusiasm and joy, never doubting what they know to be a deep and emphatic connection.
In either case, there are plenty of people who avoid disclosing the nature of their relationships based on one or more of the common critiques of divine relationships. Surely the gods are too busy and too important to want this sort of attention, after all, many seem to think. Surely it is more respectful and reasonable to express love in terms of reverence and ideals than in the messy, dangerous language of the erotic.
Those concerns don’t change the nature of the relationships, though, nor do they stop practitioners from experiencing deep, intimate connections with their gods. What they do, instead, is impose a cold and even archetypal theology that does not always match with individual experiences of the divine. Arguments that the gods are too busy, too important, or too removed to form intimate connections with humans may be simple theological disagreements, coming from a paradigm that does not recognize the divine as individual entities that interact with humans. They may also carry different cultural connotations of divinity, expecting distant or hierarchical personalities who may, at the most, be petitioned for favor. In either case, arguing a point from either side of different theological frameworks is unhelpful, at best.
In Conversation, II: Overcoming the Godspouse Stereotypes
LUKE BABB: It strikes me that many of the other critiques of godspouses are variations on a theme, calling into question the validity of individual experiences and, in turn, the individual themself. While these critiques admit that such a relationship might be possible, they attack people claiming to have such relationships on a variety of fronts – especially gender, tone, and sanity. By using sexist and sanist rhetoric to discredit erotic love for the divine, critics distance themselves from kinds of knowledge that might challenge their comfort. It seems to me like the main function of this pushback is to shore up the community against ecstatic revelation, making sure that authority is located in dogmatism and academia rather than the messiness of direct experience.
On the other hand, I hear some worries about godspouses being harmful to the community, either through being bad influences themselves or because they are being “misled” by spirits pretending to be deities. I’ve had some of those worries myself. I’m still struggling – I’ll probably always be struggling – with the balance between believing others about their spiritual experiences and discerning when someone is lying, or doing something that could be harmful to them. Most major religions have shared understandings of their spiritual truths, but the individual paths of Pagans make it pretty much impossible to know, definitively, that someone is doing something “wrong”.
I think it’s important to watch out for destructive or self-destructive behavior, and I know that behavior exists! But when we start writing off a whole kind of practice, I think we’ve probably gone too far. You’ve been in the godspouse community longer than I have – do you think there really are people who are claiming a relationship for attention, or who are in situations that are bad for them either mentally or spiritually?
BAT COLLAZO: Sure, quite possibly. However, I think it’s important to first debunk some of the faux concerns allegedly expressed by critics who casually toss around language like “delusion,” “schizophrenia,” and other pathologizing terms.
Even for people who’ve been diagnosed with something like schizophrenia – which has roots in extreme trauma – social support and empowering, respectful cultural responses, such as engaging with the voices or beliefs, considering what truth they are trying to communicate, and being present with someone non-judgmentally in their own experience of reality, makes a positive difference in whether someone is actively suffering or merely engaging with the world in a less typical way. Along these lines, groups like the Hearing Voices Network focus on offering support to people who have “unusual perceptions” without pathologizing or belittling them.
I say all this because there’s a danger in trying to debunk any stereotypes. I don’t want to sit here and reassure the crowd that my experience is real because it’s acceptable in multiple cultures and that I’m not like XYZ marginalized groups. The harm of ableist anti-godspouse sentiments first and foremost harms people who’ve been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and have an experience of being pathologized and dehumanized for their mental states. People flinging disparaging labels on the internet are not doing this because they’re genuinely worried about people’s wellbeing.
A lightbulb with a glowing heart inside of it, floating in a starry sea [CDD20, Pixabay]
Real worry gets a little trickier. Interacting closely with Pagan communities, I’ve absolutely seen times when people appear to be engaging in self-harm or harm to others, using spiritual beliefs as a backdrop. This isn’t just godspousery, but any belief system. In these cases, I try to rely on the same tools I use in any complicated situation: I lean on my values of respecting others’ autonomy, paired with empathy and care. When appropriate to do so, I’ll express my own emotions, such as love and concern. I’ll try to listen to what people need, I’ll work with community members to establish accountability, I’ll set my own boundaries when I need to. It really just depends. If it involves godspouses, though, it’s not unique. These situations are much bigger than that.
I have equally complicated views of some of the other godspouse stereotypes. For instance, yes, it’s evidently false that all godspouses are just lonely and can’t find human relationships. For instance, you and I respectively have multiple loving human connections, both romantic and platonic – we’re even in a romantic relationship with each other, and I’ve found great joy in being able to discuss my love for Loki with you and celebrate and support your experiences with Hermes. It amuses me to think that typical insults of romantic loneliness might be thrown at a piece literally written by humans engaged in romance with each other. Perhaps we’ll get folie à deux instead?
This shouldn’t be an insult to begin with. I think it’s an active problem that mainstream society condemns those who don’t have normative romantic or sexual relationships. If people make a joyful choice to focus their attention on the divine, great. Even if someone is genuinely lonely and sad about it, I’m just glad they have spiritual allies to comfort them. What if someone does have trouble connecting with other humans, but finds great self-acceptance as part of their love of a god? Why would I ever want to disparage that?
The thing about stereotypes is I’m not sure debunking them is always useful. We’re a diverse group of complicated people. We will and won’t adhere to stereotypes in various ways. So be it.
LB: I hear you about godspouses not being unique in having stereotypes attached to them. On the other hand, I think the fact that many godspouses have beliefs and experiences that are specifically erotic makes the criticisms leveled against us different, in some ways. Saying that the U.S. has some baggage around sexuality isn’t exactly controversial, and I have spent a lot of time wondering how that baggage shows up in Paganism. After all, so many of us share values of embracing sexuality as a part of the natural order! Still, I think when sexuality gets added to the mix it makes everything more complicated and pushes folks to stronger reactions than they might have otherwise. Have you noticed this?
BC: Yes. Sex is taboo in normative U.S. culture. It’s everywhere, but in many ways it’s also distorted, objectified, criminalized, corrupted through violence, and seen as shameful. Even if we as Pagans have individual and group values about consent, the diversity of sexual expression, the holiness of the physical, the eradication of shame, and so on, just growing up in and existing within systems of oppression is always going to influence the way sexual topics are understood and felt. To be clear, it’s reasonable that people have different levels of comfort hearing about other people’s sexual experiences, and this cannot be conflated to prudishness. People have varying personal boundaries.
LB: Yeah, there are a lot of details about my friends’ sex lives – corporeal and otherwise – that I just don’t want to know. Spare me the details of Odin’s sexual prowess, please.
BC: See, even though the old charmer’s aptitude is well-attested in the Hávamál (“Sayings of the High One”), you prefer not to hear the specifics.
Jokes aside, that’s okay! It’s okay to say to someone, hey, please find someone else to share those experiences with. But I’m not talking about disclosing the juicy deets, I’m talking about the inherent difficulties in even acknowledging the simple existence of any non-normative sexual experiences.
This is also related to difficulties acknowledging the validity of non-normative emotional experiences. Condemning things perceived as emotional or irrational is a major component of colonization. In practice, the people in power decide what is rational or irrational. For example, the United States government disparages Indigenous knowledge and spiritualities as subjective, but considers itself objective, despite the fact that its creation was originally based on subjective, and genocidal, spiritual beliefs. We can’t separate our understanding of rationality from the colonial state that we live in.
Some of the arguments disparaging the emotional and spiritual experiences of godspouses, particularly non-Christian ones, are from the same playbook that colonization has taught for centuries. These should be closely questioned. I think colonizing overculture is one of the reasons why people with no reason to care nonetheless feel particularly offended by other people’s experiences and practices. Godspouses create a perfect storm of emotionality, sex, and religion, and people get uneasy.
LB: I’m not immune to that! While writing this essay, I’ve found myself looking for sources that talk about godspouse relationships in ways that meet certain standards of rationality.
BC: Same. To be honest, I’ve been sitting here attempting a well-reasoned and well-cited article, so that’s ironic, isn’t it? But it’s all about balance- even if I can sometimes talk the “intellectual” talk, I do know there’s more to life.
LB: Sure. I’m just as prone to giving academic and rational arguments more weight as anyone in our culture, but I know that there are some sorts of knowledge that don’t translate into citations and carefully made points. Those are still valuable. I think that wordless knowledge exists intertwined with and inseparable from spirituality. At a certain point, reason breaks.
Bat Collazo is a queer Lokean and Heathen of color, author, handcrafter, ritual leader, instructor, and visual artist. Ze is the editor of the Troth’s Loki devotional book, Blood Unbound. Find zir at batcollazo.com or on Instagram @batcollazo.
Luke Babb is an eclectic polytheist and a magical Jack of All Trades. They are a proud member of the Chicago Temple of the Fellowship of the Phoenix and The Troth.
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