An Interview with Sannion

As I’m certain it’s no secret to avid readers of this blog, I’m a fan of the San’. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him in-person on several occasions (I’m thinking about four times total), and of being in rituals with him during PantheaCon ’07–I helped out with part of the Dionysos ritual that he and Dver put on, and they in turn helped me out in the ritual for Antinous that was done on that occasion (which included Lupercalia, and in which Sannion was the first modern Lupercus Primus, in the grand tradition of one of his heroes, Mark Anthony!). As syncretists and polytheists with strong interests in reconstruction and consultation of original ancient sources, and likewise with great overlap in some of our cultures of interest and deities of choice, of course we have a great deal to bond over and discuss and agree about. However, we are also very different in our approaches to some things, and would outright disagree in a variety of areas. Friendship does not mean agreement on every matter, and never has, and I expect the same is true of every friend that I have. Sannion’s work is always interesting to me, though, and his oracular services are, in my opinion, unimpeachable.

Because his latest book, Ecstatic, just came out, and he’s done some other interviews in relation to this recently, I thought I’d get in on the action and help to promote his book through doing an interview likewise. I’ve wanted to start a series of interviews periodically on this blog, and so this seemed a perfectly good way to start off doing so.

The two drafts of the interview responses that I got in return were interesting in themselves. Below, I sometimes give two of Sannion’s answers to the same question, when I think that both answers have an interesting insight or draw out a particular point. Sometimes, he answered the same thing on both drafts, so those questions end up having singular responses. And, there’s one that I am debating over to this very moment…But for now (unless he asks me to do otherwise very specifically!), I’m going to withhold one of his answers, lest Thoth and Hanuman perhaps find it distasteful to their sensibilities.

So, without further ado, here it is…

1. What was the definitive moment in your life that told you “Yes, indeed, the gods exist”? Was your first such experience with Dionysos, or another deity?

Honestly I never really had one of those moments. From early childhood on I was pretty sensitive to the presence of the numinous. Although my mother was a devout Christian she had a great fondness for Classical mythology and fantastic literature in general and spent many wonderful hours regaling me with these stories. And when I had prophetic dreams or talked about seeing things that others couldn’t, she never discouraged that or made me feel like I was crazy. I suppose it helped that we were only a couple generations separated from rural Italian peasant stock who took stuff like folk magic, encounters with the dead, visitations from saints, etc. very seriously. Eventually I parted ways with the Christianity of my upbringing but it wasn’t because I felt that the Pagan gods were truer than Jesus. It’s just that I’d always had a polytheistic mentality and wanted to explore gods other than him, especially since I’d met Dionysos in adolescence and he had a huge impact on me. I wanted to discover everything I could about him and I haven’t looked back since.

2. You are devoted to a variety of deities, including Dionysos, Hermes, Aphrodite, Spider, and others. Are there any deities you’ve never been involved with, or are no longer involved with on a regular basis, that you are interested in having cultic relationships with in the future?

Nope. If I feel an attraction to a deity I just go with it. It’s always struck me as absurd – and bordering on impious – when a person refuses to have anything to do with a god or spirit because they exist outside of the narrow culturally-defined contours of their religious tradition. Gods are gods – it doesn’t matter what color skin they’ve got. For the most part, though, I’m quite content with the smallish family of divinities that I honor. They meet my needs and keep me plenty busy, so I don’t really have any desire to court others. But if, for some reason, I did I wouldn’t let anything hold me back from doing so.

3. What, in your opinion, is the best thing about polytheism? What is the worst thing about polytheism?

I’d have to say its polyvalence. Polytheism isn’t just the recognition of a multitude of gods and spirits (though that’s certainly the most important element!) it’s also the acknowledgment that these beings can reveal themselves to us in a variety of ways, that there are plenty of different acceptable methods of honoring them and that there are always multiple ways to look at any given situation or there isn’t just one kind of value in the world. Conversely, I think this is also the thing that makes polytheism so difficult for a lot of people, because there are plenty of situations where doing something that’s pleasing to one god is going to end up offending another. So you’ve really got to work hard to navigate all of these mutually contradictory demands. Assuming you desire to have a rich and dynamic relationship with a pantheon and not just focus on a single deity or small group of them, which is certainly one option within the realm of polytheism. It’s also, for the most part, the approach that I take. To me Dionysos and his crew are my top priority. Because I am so locked in on them it’s cut me off to many of the others on anything more than a casual level. I’m okay with that at this point, but it definitely has its drawbacks.

AND/OR

Choice. Polytheism insists on multiple options, values and perspectives on all things. We must choose which to follow and struggle to maintain a balance between mutually contradictory obligations. This is both the best and worst thing about it.

4. Have you always been a writer, or did your writing expand in its importance as a result of your various polytheistic involvements? (If the latter, what importance does it have for you devotionally and cultic-ly?)

I’m a writer? I thought I was an orthodontist.

Absolutely. My earliest childhood memory is sitting on my mother’s lap listening to her tell or read me stories and then going off to make my own. I’ve never had a desire to be anything other than a writer – except for my equal calling to serve the gods in a priestly capacity. I’ve actually managed to find a nice way of balancing the two and these days pretty much everything I write has a religious dimension or is intended to share the wonders of the gods with my audience.

5. A great deal of modern pagan ethics focuses–as well it should!–on virtue as a basic concept. What, in your opinion, is the most important but maligned virtue which one should cultivate? What is the most over-rated virtue that gets far more attention than it should?

I’m really not the best person to turn to for that subject since I consider it my chief virtue that I have none. Well, that’s not entirely true – like the Ptolemies before me I aim for excellence and the extraordinary in all I do. If you don’t have it in you to be a decent man then you should aspire to be the most depraved and monstrous creature you can, whose exploits will still be spoken of long after you’ve passed from this world. The greatest sin, as far as I’m concerned, is mediocrity.

6. As you have become more involved in local-focus polytheism, what differences do you notice between local heroes and more widespread heroes, local spirits/deities and more widely revered ones, and so forth?

I haven’t noticed much of a difference, actually. Though I pay cultus to some of the local heroes around here I don’t have an intimate relationship with them, certainly nothing like I do with the Ptolemies. As for the land spirits – there’s nothing really to compare them to. I’ve only cultivated this type of intense, serious relationship with the ones near where I live and there are huge differences between, say, the nymphs along the Willamette, those who call Skinner’s Butte their home and the ones who dwell in the wetlands off of 11th. But I don’t know how their personalities and preferences and the ways that they make their presences felt compares to, say, the nymphs of the Korykian cave at Delphi or comparable beings you might find in Ireland, Norway or Japan. I’ve certainly never attempted to offer cultus to those beings long distance. I used to have relationships with the land spirits in Las Vegas and the Bronx – who were indeed very different from what you find here Eugene – but those relationships ended when I moved away.

7. What in your practice of polytheism do you find most difficult or challenging?

There’s not much about the practice itself that’s difficult. Challenging, certainly. But everything of value in life challenges us in one way or another. The most difficult thing is actually doing the practice because, let’s face it, I’m a fickle, lazy and undisciplined bastard. But when I actually get past my own resistance and inertia and actually do what I’m supposed to be doing – everything is right and smooth because that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. Which, again, isn’t to say that it’s easy – trance-work and the like take a hell of a lot out of you and you’ve constantly got to walk the edge of madness which, let me tell you, isn’t fun or glamorous in the least. The work itself can be hard and it’s daunting to try and live up to the standards and expectations that both the gods and I have set for me – but I wouldn’t have it any other way, and besides, this shit is awesome and I feel incredibly blessed to be doing it. I mean, how many people in the world today get to talk with DIONYSOS on a semi-regular basis? That blows my mind every time I think about it. Compared to that the challenges are miniscule and meaningless.

8. Do you have any particular hopes or dreams for the future of polytheism in the modern world? If so, what are they?

I’d like to see a shift from the situation we see now, where a lot of people – especially in the recon communities – only interact with co-religionists online to more real-world stuff, like the formation of small, local religious groups, regional gatherings, direct face-to-face networking and socializing, etc. The internet is a great tool, but it has a tendency to keep people isolated and ghettoized and I think its relative anonymity brings out the worst in us. People treat each other with such casual cruelty and disdain online, which fosters an environment of constant competitiveness and hostility. Everything is so immediate and seems so important and black-and-white in the moment that it doesn’t give us time or room for thoughtful reflection or to appreciate nuance and complexity in the arguments of others. I’d like to think that we’d act differently if we were all together in the same place. So there are many, many reasons why I think it’s important to make this shift – but the really big one is that absolutely nothing compares to the feeling of worshiping the gods with a large group of people. It takes a lot of hard work to get something like that together, to go out and find people that you are spiritually compatible with – but boy is it worth it!

9. Syncretism gets a varying rap in different religious communities–pagan, polytheist, and otherwise–in the modern world. Do you view syncretism as more of an “option” or a “necessity” for polytheism in the modern world?

I consider syncretism to be the only legitimate religious expression because it’s predicated on the realistic recognition that that we live in a complex, multicultural world. Someone who slavishly adheres to only one tradition and worldview is a deluded fool with their head in the clouds. “Look at me, I have a horned viking helmet on and I drink mead. The only gods that exist live on Asgard and everyone I see is blond-haired and blue-eyed. Weee!” As soon as the ancients went forth from their ancestral homes they encountered people of different races, with different cultural traditions and different sets of gods. All kinds of mixing resulted from these meetings, to the mutual benefit of everyone involved. It’s been that way pretty much from the beginning of time and will continue to be despite the best efforts of those who wish to keep their faith pristine and uncontaminated like an insect trapped in amber.

AND/OR

My feeling is that syncretism should be a concern only for the syncretists. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to figure out how it works and fits in with more mainstream approaches – and that always makes me laugh. Why do you care unless it’s directly relevant to your practice? I mean if you only worship Aphrodite in the conventional Hellenic manner and she’s only ever presented herself to you in the form made familiar by Greek art and literature – then why do you need to understand how she relates to Venus, Inanna, Ishtar, Hathor, Freyja or any of her other cognates from around the globe? Why should it matter to you if someone else employs different rites and symbolism? Obviously if you have an experience of a goddess that seems to be a fusion of Hathor and Aphrodite or you’re not getting as much out of your worship as you’d like and want to spice things up a bit – then, yeah, that changes things. But a lot of folks are engaged in needless speculation which often devolves into stupid controversy and conflict. Syncretism is a perfectly valid theological and religious methodology – and it’s pretty much been universally present since mankind began migrating and encountering different ethnic and cultural groups. In fact even Hellenismos itself is syncretic, being a fusion of Ionian, Aeolian, Doric, Cretan, etc. myths, rites, iconography and other cultural traditions. (And that’s not even getting into the debt the Greeks owed to Egypt, Asia Minor, the Levant and their neighbors to the West and North.) So the notion of purity and isolation is really a chimera – everyone is syncretic to a certain degree, some just to a greater degree than others. But I think that obsessing over the details is best left to the intentionally syncretic.

10. Your sixth book, Ecstatic, has just been released. What moment in your preparation of that book was the most unexpectedly wonderful, illuminating, or positive for you?

The whole process was pretty spectacular, actually. I mean it gave me a chance to go back and read some of the pieces that I hadn’t even thought about for the better part of a decade, to explore new areas and concepts I hadn’t touched upon in order to give as complete a picture of Dionysos and his worship as possible, to chart the evolution of my ideas and which themes I’ve returned to over and over again throughout the last twenty years or so. And when it was over I had an awesome body of devotional writing to offer my god.

11. What process do you undergo when working on your larger-scale writing projects? Do you have specific rituals or exercises that you do before, during, or after you sit down to write? Do you have more “mundane” procedural concerns that you feel are essential to good writing on your part?

I’m afraid I don’t really have a “process.” I just go to the park, sit down with my pencil and notebook and start writing whatever comes into my mind. I often have only the vaguest sense of what I want to write about, perhaps with a few notes and some source material I’d like to include – but the rest is pretty spontaneous and free-flowing. There’s no ritual or invocations involved unless I’m writing something purely devotional in nature – then I might do a little something beforehand. But that’s pretty much it. I wish I had something more flashy or important-sounding to share – but I believe that it is absolutely essential to always, in every instance, tell the truth, without omission or exaggeration.

12. What projects do you have planned that you’re looking forward to working on in the near future?

I don’t really have any projects planned. It’s kind of a sore subject, actually, so thanks for bringing it up. I’ve had a nasty bout of writer’s block ever since I finished work on Ecstatic. I’ve tried strange drugs, debaucheries of every description, hardcore Aghori asceticism, talking to random vagrants on the street and nothing seems to rekindle that lovely flame of inspiration. I just feel sad and empty and directionless. If this persists much longer I may end up tossing myself off the tallest building here in town. Unfortunately most of our buildings are pretty small so I doubt that would truly put an end to my misery.

In the near future I’m mostly going to be focused on promoting Ecstatic. But after that I’ve got a couple ideas that are bouncing around in my brain – a novel about a group of contemporary Dionysos-worshipers, a “how to” guide on local-focus polytheism, maybe something on Tarantism or the archetype of the Holy Fool. The field is pretty wide open at this point – hell, I could even end up doing that Hitler and My Little Pony slash fanfic I’ve been talking about for a while now.

13. Describe, in as great detail as possible, the best Dionysian celebration you can imagine putting on according to the present means available to you.

Ever see the video for Amanda Palmer and Tristan Allen’s “János vs Wonderland” or the Sufi video by The Good, the Bad and the Queen? I think either of those would be a pretty damn good start. But if I had enough willing participants – and unlimited funds – I’d aim for something out of Party Monster or a Fellini flick.

AND/OR

Okay. For this I will need twenty beautiful young men in gold lamé speedos and fluorescent glow-in-the-dark body paint blowing kazoos as they march through the street with baskets spilling over with bunches of ripe grapes that they throw at the awe-struck spectators. I will lead them bearing aloft a giant phallus and singing an obscene hymn. And the procession will end with a dancing bear and an old, drunken gypsy organ grinder who is too inebriated to play his instrument.

14. What is your opinion on dedicated temple spaces in the modern polytheistic world? Are they a necessity now? If they aren’t, do you think they should be?

I think anyone who proposes the idea should be dragged out in the street and flogged for their stupidity. I mean do these people have any idea what it would take to construct such buildings, to properly staff them with knowledgeable and dedicated priests capable of performing the proper ceremonies – let alone the fact that we don’t even have enough people to make use of a temple even if it were built. I mean most of us are lucky if we can find a community larger than a dozen people – the majority worship as solitaries – and pretty much every effort to organize a religious gathering on even a humble level has ended in frustration and failure. Why don’t we work on building up our communities, getting lots of people together to celebrate the festivals of the gods, people who are in it for the long haul and not going to go chasing the next shiny thing that catches their interest, people doing their regular ritual routine and raising their kids in the faith, etc. Then, maybe, in a couple generations we can talk about building a temple. Until then it’s just putting the cart before the horse.

AND/OR

I don’t have an opinion on that matter, because it isn’t work that I’m called to do. My job is to help build a community of worshipers for the gods. Hold festivals, organize gatherings, teach and produce great art. If someone else feels a calling to build a temple and they have the resources, knowledge and manpower to make proper use of it – well, then, blessings upon them and may their efforts meet with success!

15. Name one document from the ancient world that you wish every modern polytheist would read and understand. Also, name one modern book (let’s say from 1900 onwards) that you think should be required reading for polytheists of all stripes.

Really there’s only one book produced over the last two thousand years that I think everyone, polytheist and otherwise, should read – and that’s Ecstatic by H. Jeremiah Lewis!

This single book contains everything you need to know about the gods and the world and how to live a happy, successful life. It’ll completely blow your fucking mind, man. And it’s magic. It’ll bring you luck and wealth and kill all of your enemies for you. You shouldn’t own just one copy but rather get a dozen for yourself. Who am I kidding? Two or three dozen is more like it! Make all of your friends and family members read it. Hand it out to strangers on the street. Anonymously mail copies to celebrities and influential public figures. If every person on earth reads this book it will initiate a new phase of human evolution, allowing us to shuck off our smelly fleshy bodies and travel among the stars. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself and the rest of humanity to read this book? I do.

Also, every time a copy of Ecstatic is sold a panda dies. Even if you don’t care about the rest I’d think that’d be incentive enough to buy this thing.

16. If you could give one message to readers that would sum up the benefits of your experiences with your various deities, heroes, and spirits, what would it be?

In the words of Publilius Syrus, “Male vivunt, qui se semper victuros putant.”