Religion Systems.

[trix]

Hey all!

I've been working on the religion aspect of my world (it's the one that most appeals to me at the moment) and I've hit a minor snag. I was wondering if anyone had any mythology websites or books they would recommend? I'd also like to hear how about your religion and which belief systems you used as inspiration.

 

[San Cidolfus]

Well, I'm old-fashioned, and I use a college course book for religious reference when I need some guidelines, and I don't think that'll be much help to you. I had to design quite a few religions for a work some years back and I'm tempted to unload an excessive checklist on how to design a belief structure from the ground up, but that's just me liking to type. Instead I'll try to be useful.

You say you've hit a minor snag, so what's your snag?

 

[Ravana]

Awfully broad question. If the snag is "minor," details would probably help.

In general, though… for primary sources, try:

Internet Sacred Text Archive Home

or possibly:
Project Gutenberg - free ebooks

For general mythology, my favorite resource is Turner and Coulter's Dictionary of Ancient Deities. Articles can be a bit on the skimpy side (even the longer ones are mostly summary in nature), but it's unsurpassed in breadth of coverage. Not to mention surprisingly inexpensive for such a sweeping resource, and easily available from Amazon, if not your local store. The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology also makes a good choice for most people's purposes—a colorful, coffee-table sized book about as thick as an average "college" dictionary; less breadth, greater depth, and likely to be available in most libraries in some edition or other.

Online, you could try:
Encyclopedia Mythica: mythology, folklore, and religion.

—better for those seeking something unusual or obscure than something specific; the articles here are shorter than those in T&C. (On the other hand, you don't have to seek it out.) I haven't really delved too deeply into online mythology resources, since I already own better than 99% of what I'm likely to find, though. (Yes, they will be going onto the resource list… was the first part I started working on, in fact.)

There are already several discussions of user-designed religion/mythology in the World Building section of the forum; a browse through it would, I think, be more useful than repeating any of their information here.

 

[WilliamElse]

I'd recommend 'The Golden Branch' by Sir James Frazer. It's one of the great foundation works of anthropology and comparative religious studies. Also, a very enjoyable read in its own right if you're into the subject. Essentially, it's an exhaustive compendium of the symbols and practices which have been common to all religions throughout history, and the variations thereof. I'd think that if you were looking to build up a fictional religion from scratch, it would give you a lot of good ideas.

 

[Steerpike]

You could also do worse than to look up some seminal works on myth and magic, by Claude Levi-Strauss, and even some works on the same subject by Joseph Campbell (keeping in mind that the conclusions are open to debate, of course).

Frazer's "Golden Bough" (which is the title of my version) is excellent and I second the recommendation.

 

[WilliamElse]

Frazer's "Golden Bough" (which is the title of my version) is excellent and I second the recommendation.

Hehe - yes, I think that's the title of every version except the one in my head!

 

[Ravana]

You could also do worse than to look up some seminal works on myth and magic, by Claude Levi-Strauss, and even some works on the same subject by Joseph Campbell (keeping in mind that the conclusions are open to debate, of course).

Frazer's "Golden Bough" (which is the title of my version) is excellent and I second the recommendation.

I was about to say you couldn't do worse than Levi-Strauss… until I saw you mentioned Campbell.

Seriously, however: Levi-Strauss and Frazer are foundational to much of Western religious study, yes. They are probably best reserved for people who want to delve deeply into the background of the field–which, if you are, great. (I always encourage doing so. ) Not sure I'd recommend either for casual perusal; just thought I'd mention that caution, for anyone more interested in some surface detail or other. Frazer (in abridged form) would be the most useful for someone who wanted some guidance in comparative mythology/religion, while avoiding being overwhelmed.

Levi-Strauss had some influence on linguistics, by the by, though he was more influenced by the structural linguistics of Saussure. It's still something of an open question in anthropology whether the structuralist approach is appropriate to the field (and the trend is away from rather than towards it). (And while structuralism strongly influenced the development of linguistics as a field, it is largely considered to have been superseded there… while most other places I've seen people try to apply structuralism, it's resulted in outright idiocy.)

I think I'd class Levi-Strauss similarly to how I'd class someone like Freud–seminal to the development of the field, even if often wrong. (Freud's writings on anthropology and religion, by the way, are among his wrongest. Hmm… spell checker accepts the word "wrongest".…) Frazer still enjoys a somewhat better reception; like many others, he tried to overgeneralize from a limited set of examples. Or else his followers did. At the worst, where he was wrong, he was wrong first: those who came afterward didn't have that excuse.

Then there's Campbell, who borrowed Frazer's weaker points, blended them with often-dubious interpretations of Jung, attempted to impose structuralism on the result, ignored any data which might prove inconvenient to his desired conclusions, and then overgeneralized with a vengeance. Honestly, had he not been embraced by pop culture, I think he would have probably already been forgotten. While I can't regard popularizing mythological studies as a bad thing, I'm not sure how many people practicing in the field (or in anthropology) are all that thrilled to have him as a flagship representative. Oh, well.…

 

[Hans]

I'd recommend Mircea Eliade, History of Religious Ideas. I found that very inspirational for my own religions. The old folks had some crazy ideas with lots of twists.

 

[trix]

Oh, I am so sorry, I thought I had specified. I want to make it a quite large pantheon, but I want to use something other than Greek or Roman pantheons as inspiration.

San Cidolfus: I actually enjoy typing and a textbook would be most helpful actually.

As to everyone else, thank you for the input I am headed to the library right now

 

[Ravana]

Eliade is another one who doesn't carry much weight in the fields he worked in: as with many working throughout the middle of the last century (in nearly every field of the humanities), he was trying to find "universals" in areas where their existence must be considered suspect at best, and as with anyone else engaged in their pursuit, he overgeneralized his positive data and ignored negative data.

On the other hand, reading his works may be more inspirational to fantasy authors than some of the other "scholarly" works suggested: what little I've read from him seems to carry a more immediate, engaging tone. His body of work is vast compared to the others, so it may also be possible to find sources that more directly address some specific aspect the writer is interested in. (He wrote books on shamanism, initiation, symbolism, and quests, for instance, in addition to his broader survey works.)

Another possibly "useful" aspect of his corpus is that he began as a fantasy fiction writer (something I did not know until just now)–published his first story at age 14–and continued writing fiction throughout his life. Probably why I find the tone of his scholarly works more engaging: he never lost that connection. Gonna have to try tracking some of his fiction down.

 

[Ravana]

If you want an example of a "large," well-documented pantheon, look at Hinduism. Great stuff, and easy to find extensive material on… since the religion is still practiced today.

 

[trix]

Please excuse my answer before, I was in class and didn't want all of you to think I had gotten the information and disappeared. I also don't really know how to properly word my "snag" because it's not so minor anymore. Anyway, what I am trying to accomplish is an element-based pantheon lightly infused with Wicca because I am familiar with that belief system. The problem is I don't really know what to blend it with.

I want it to be a universal religion in the world, but everyone worships different elements (but are associated to all of them) based on their geographical locations. For example, people in the forest worship the earth god, people living near a volcano or in a desert revere the fire god, etc. The problem that I have run into is this: Is it believable? And what religion would be good to infuse with Wicca and its rituals?

This would be my first con-everything from scratch so anything suitable for beginners would be wonderful. My local library and bookstore are working on acquiring some of the titles all of you offered here, so I will be reading whatever I can get. Thanks!

 

[Queshire]

So, I'm going to try and give you some suggestions without just sending you looking for a book.

Now, first and foremost, religion serves to answer questions. It tells you WHY something is like it is. Why is there winter? Because Demeter is sad her daughter's in the underworld.

It isn't limited to questions about the physical world but questions about behavior and morals. Why be good? Because otherwise you're going to hell.

Religion is also often used to teach lessons to children in the same vein as fairy tales or other childern tales. By using the gods as archtypical figures, the children learn their lesson without needing to resort to real life examples.

Futhermore, religion reflects it's culture. Viking culture was a harsh struggle to survive, and their gods were likewise preoccupied with survivng Ragnarok.

Having certain regions revere certain gods as their patrons is fine, after all, Athen's patron goddess was Athena, there's nothing wrong with having gods based off the purely physical elements, but I suggest making them human-like so your characters can relate to them. I don't suggest just mixing different real life belief systems, but taking inspiration from all of them.

I suggest having different aspects or avatars for each of the gods, after all any element can be used for any purpose, fire just as much creates as it destroys, and earth could be the tamed fields or the wild beasts.

Anyways, I hope this helps!

 

[trix]

It definitely does, Queshire. It definitely answered a lot of questions and I definitely agree that the gods should be relate-able (is that even a real word?). I was intending on having the gods be very active among the people using avatars.
I only intend to borrow things from 1-3 religions just to make it easy on me, and I am thinking that perhaps I should stick with what I know for now which is Ancient Greek Pantheon, the Ancient Egyptian gods, and the rituals and worship of pagan belief systems. I never really thought on how difficult inventing a religion from scratch would be! It's very daunting.

 

[Ravana]

That's the beauty of the Hindu pantheon: aspects and avatars come built-in. That's where the word "avatar"–and the concept–is from, in fact. Most gods have multiple different, sometimes even contradictory aspects (and, unsurprisingly, some aspects are claimed for more than a single god). The same god who is in one aspect called "the Destroyer" is called the "Lord of Dance" in another, for example (in which he is commonly depicted dancing on the back of the demon of ignorance he's just crushed…); he is also the god most heavily associated with meditation and yoga, is the patron and benefactor of ascetics, is held by some to represent the "male creative principle"… and is often depicted as a hermaphrodite.

In addition to any number of more general references, there are numerous translations of varying length of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the two most important "mythic" (as opposed to "doctrinal") works of Hinduism. As well as various dramatic presentations of both. The former is one of the longest single works in existence in any language–a bit under two million words–so you'd probably want to start with an abridged version; or, to get an ultra-basic summary, the Peter Brook film (ideally, the 6-hour miniseries version: the 3-hour feature film culled from it is a bit too abridged). (Or, at the other end of the audiovisual scale, and if you don't mind somewhat erratic subtitles, you could get the Indian television version, which breaks the story into 45-minute episodes… ninety-four of them. Personally, I loved the episodes I was able to catch, Bollywood production values notwithstanding, and plan to get the whole thing on DVD some day.) Really, an abridgement of around 300 pages is probably more than sufficient for most people's needs, and will relate the complete core story: the "full" version contains extensive asides, covering most of Hindu myth and folklore, told by one or another character to illustrate some point… even the massive TV project omitted many of those. The far more concise Ramayana is, in its unabridged form, still more than twice the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined, so an abridged version is probably in order for most people there as well.

While this may be more a matter of personal preference than impartial assessment, I find both Hindu epics far more entertaining than Homer. Take that for whatever it's worth.

-

While the following is more appropriate for the "World Building" forum (and has appeared there in various forms), I'll risk my own wrath ( ) to mention it here.…

I would agree with Queshire's characterization of what a "religion" is like in the real world, but I would point out one important point on which I would demur with it:

If the gods are real, and active in the affairs of their religion, everything else goes out the window.

- Religion isn't needed to "explain" anything: all explanations come direct from the gods… or if they don't, and they contradict anything the gods want believed, they get quashed. Explanations will get promulgated by religion, of course–but if the gods elect not to give an explanation, or, worse, tell their followers not to seek one, the religion will not make one up.
- Morals are as dictated by the gods. Which isn't true in our world, no matter what some groups would like to think: very few myths exist where detailed moral codes (or even isolated proscriptions) are laid out… the only ones I'm aware of possessing long lists of "thou shalt/shalt nots" are actually previously-existing legal codes that got co-opted wholesale into "divine pronouncement." Conversely, nearly all broadly-accepted moral principles can just as easily be motivated by pragmatic consideration of what is required for any group of people to exist for any length of time… which is where they did come from. Religion and law predictably got welded over time–after all, if they hadn't, people would have either not followed the laws (claiming the absence of divine mandate showed they were invalid… sadly, there are those out there who believe this), or they would not have adhered to the religion (the existence of valid laws not overtly endorsed by the divine exhibiting at a minimum negligence on the part of the gods, and possibly rendering the gods irrelevant altogether). Or both. But you will find in nearly all cultures that there are far more laws and/or moral dictates than you can locate divine mandate–or even indirect justification–for. Whereas the bulk of moral conduct is the same in all human cultures, no matter what god or gods they followed.
- The function of instruction can be performed, as noted, without the involvement of religion: fairy tales and so on. Where it is performed by religion, it will conform to what the gods wish to be taught–and may potentially involve some rather significant omissions which will have to be covered by cautionary tales anyway.
- Religion will no longer "reflect its culture." It will be whatever the gods wish it to be, thereby making the opposite true: culture will reflect the will of the gods… sometimes, possibly, no matter how inappropriate that will may be.

Additionally, where the gods are real and take an active part in their religions, you should never find schisms–not lasting ones, at least: the side the god favors wins. Period. Only where the god doesn't care will this ever be possible. Likewise, followers of the same god in different cultures will never engage in violent conflict with one another, even if they have different names for the god, follow different aspects of the god, or have different religious practices regarding which the god has no opinion or preference. In any case where conflict arises for other reasons, the god will straighten his followers out on matters right quick. And they'll listen: go ahead, tell me you wouldn't if you had your god in your face, fistfuls of your toga in his grasp, yelling at you about something you've just done.

Much of this, of course, may depend on other factors: how powerful the gods genuinely are, the extent of the interest they take in the lives, practices and conduct of their followers, or what their motivations are–and the last of these could be as remote from anything humans find comprehensible as you care to make them. But the fundamental and overriding fact remains: if your gods are real, you have to start from them, and not from any human considerations.

 

[Stari Bogovi]

It's hard for me to imagine it being "universal" throughout the world if by that you mean "uniform" or "centralized."

However, in the ancient world there was significant blending. In 'Conquest of Gaul', Caesar routinely referred to Celtic gods with Latin names, for example referring to Cirrninoss as "Mercury." At the same time, the Romans did balk at much of Celtic religious practice, and probably freaked out about (alleged?) human sacrifice in much the same way that the Spaniards did about the Aztecs. Also, I remember reading one anecdote where, after Gaul had been assimilated, a "druidic egg" fell out of the toga of a Gaulish senator, much to the alarm and consternation of his colleagues.

But I think the routine thing was for the Romans to tell a conquered group "just sacrifice to Jupiter now and then, call Caesar a god, and we're good." (The Jews got a pass because the Romans revered anything they considered to be very old.) It was universal in that sense. Also, there's the whole thing about the patriarchal gods of the Indo-European invaders superseding the matriarchal goddesses of Old Europe, but others say it's more likely that the pantheons simply blended together.

So, in that sense, there was "universality" but not really "uniformity." The boundaries and divisions were ambiguous and shifting, but they were there. Not as hard-and-fast as with Judeo-Christianity, of course.

How much internal diversity, fragmentation, and conflict is there within this universal belief system? Is there a foreign belief system on another continent that it might come into conflict with?

 

[Hans]

However, in the ancient world there was significant blending. In 'Conquest of Gaul', Caesar routinely referred to Celtic gods with Latin names, for example referring to Cirrninoss as "Mercury."

'De bello Gallico' was a work of propaganda. Caesar had to convince the senate to support his campaigns in Gaul. Thus he had to use terms these guys understood.
Of course the same can be done whenever someone of one culture/religion talks a to his people about an other culture/religion.

But I think the routine thing was for the Romans to tell a conquered group "just sacrifice to Jupiter now and then, call Caesar a god, and we're good." (The Jews got a pass because the Romans revered anything they considered to be very old.) It was universal in that sense.

It is not uncommon to add other gods to the own religion. Hinduism did a lot of this. Even Buddha and Jesus are (minor) Hindu gods.

Also, there's the whole thing about the patriarchal gods of the Indo-European invaders superseding the matriarchal goddesses of Old Europe, but others say it's more likely that the pantheons simply blended together.

Most things somebody says about European culture before the Indo-Europeans conquered it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Nothing contemporaneous is written about it and stone figures are very open to interpretation. So everyone can project his own cultural wishes into that phase.

 

[studentofrhythm]

You see this in Herodotus too: the Greeks look at the Egyptian gods and give them their own names: Thoth-Hermes being the most enduring example.

I heartily endorse Ravana's advice to research Hinduism. You may also want to look at M.A.R. Barker's Tékumel world, which has a large and interesting pantheon. I've only read The Man of Gold so far myself.