Some of my 'other' favorite deities

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Decided to make a list of some of my favorite benevolent Gods and Goddesses. Ones I really admire and look up to for what they represent. I will also post some old statues and artworks of them to give an idea of how the ancients might have viewed them.

(And I'm not including Lilith this time. I've had enough of that darkness for awhile!)

Anyways...



Inanna/Ishtar. Goddess of Love and War who is linked to Mesopotamian culture. I read that she was considered by scholars to be the "first goddess". From what I read about her she had some very interesting stories for a woman in ancient times. Very willful, very independent, not afraid to express her emotions, and not confined to the traps of marriage and family. She loved whoever she wanted and did whatever she wanted. She was also the inspiration for the Greek Goddess Aphrodite from what I've read.





Hestia/Vesta

The Virgin Goddess of the Hearth and protector of the Home and Family. In Greece she was considered one of their most wholesome deities and yet despite not being popular in their myths she was probably one of their most important Goddesses. Her story was basically of a woman who chose not to marry any suitor and remain a virgin forever to keep the Gods from fighting another war over her. Her brother Zeus granted her her wish and she was allowed to remain in the palace of the gods where she spent her days tending the hearth and making the home of the gods a comfortable place to rest. She was the deity who avoided drama at all times which might be why there are so few myths about her? In Ancient Greece there were no temples dedicated to her but the hearth of every home was her sacred altar where her worshippers would offer her a piece of their meal every morning and every night as an offering (she waa both the oldest and the youngest of the Olympian Gods). In Rome however where she was known as Vesta she actually had temples dedicated to her that wer tended to by priestesses known as the Vestal Virgins whose duty was to keep the sacred fire burning at all times and to take a vow of chasity for 30 years of service to their Goddess.





Benzaiten/Benten of the Shichifukujin (7 Gods of Luck)

Of the 7 Shichifukujin in Japanese folklore, my favorite is the only female Goddess of this group known as Benzaiten. Known as the Goddess of "All That Flows" who has a strong connection to water and her shrines are always built near a water source. She is mostly seen as a Goddess of Art and Beauty linked to geisha, poets, and musicians. But she is also linked to wisdom and knowledge and in ancient times she was also seen as a War Goddess worshipped by samurai (however this aspect of who she originally was as a Goddess was washed down over the years). She is often seen carrying a musical instrument and in the company of a white dragon whom she tamed with her music to keep the beast from attacking a fishing village. She is also linked to the Indian Hindu Goddess Saraswati and like every Shichifukujin except Ebisu she was created as a result of religious synchronization mixing different East Asian religions together in Japan.


Here are some interesting websites about my top three favorite Goddesses.

Inanna

https://www.worldhistory.org/Inanna/

Hestia

https://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Hestia.html

Benzaiten

https://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/benzaiten.shtml

Thanks! This is interesting and informative.

Glad you enjoyed it

Here's a couple of videos on Inanna and Hestia. Unfortunately I could not find any good videos in this style on Benzaiten...

https://youtu.be/9tjaZy4gAb8



https://youtu.be/3XlLTbsF6iM

Some more deities I find interesting.


Pele the Hawaiian Volcano Goddess.

https://www.hawaii.com/culture-historic ... s-of-fire/



I have a bit of an interest in Pele because I have Hawaiian ancestry (despite sadly having never gotten to visit Hawaii in my life ).

Anyways from what I understand Pele was one of the most popular deities in Hawaiian culture and despite the fact that many Hawaiians have now converted to Christianity she is still a popular figure to them. She was believed to be responsible for the creation of the islands and was viewed as both a creator and a destroyer deity with a connection to fire and dance. She was known for her violent and explosive temper and was feared by villagers who tried to keep her appeased so she would not rain fire and lava down on their homes. Legends say she appears around Hawaii to this day as either a beautiful young woman or an elderly woman who will ask for favors or try to warn people of incoming danger. Those who dismissed her would suffer disaster. However as mean as Pele could be she was also known to have a compassionate side.

Columbia The Goddess of the New World (personification of the USA)

https://www.obscurehistories.com/columbia







I find Columbia fascinating from an esotetic standpoint. While never a true Goddess in the sense of being worshipped like the others I listed she was at one point a popular personfication symbol of America before Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam came along.

Everything about her history feels so... uniquely American to me. For both good and bad. She has her roots in the sins of the racist colonization and the whitewashing of our history, and yet she was also at times drawn as a popular political cartoon figure for depicting how America SHOULD be. Welcoming towards immigrants who come here to seek a better life and making up for the sins of our past by honoring the African Americans who have contributed to our society but were largely ignored and oppressed. Two of my favorite political cartoons of Columbia from the 1800's was one that depicts her defending a Chinese immigrant from an angry white lynch mob saying with a furious look on her face "Back off gentlemen! America means fair play for ALL men!" And another where she presents an amputee African American Union Soldier on crutches before a great hall of honor and says "and not this man?"

I feel like she was a perfect symbol of everything very imperfect yet idealistic in a human way about my country as the US has grown into its own over time. Like any other real Goddess she had her good side and bad side, just like my country or any country in this world and just like all people do in real life.

Nice thread! Hestia is also one of my favorites, also Hecate and Morrigan!

Yeah Hecate and Morrigan are fascinating too.

As for my admiration of Hestia, God Bless the Goddess of keeping homes warm during the cold winters.

Some of my favorite 'dark' deities.

And I know I said I would not include Lilith but... What the Hell? Literally





https://www.deliriumsrealm.com/lilith/

Lilith: The Mother of Demons and First Wife of Adam in Jewish Folklore.

Lilith's story and origins is kind of hard to explain because there isn't a lot of concrete historical information about her. The two main sources of historical evidence that prove her importance as a part of folklore, the Burney Relief and The Alphabet of Ben Sira, have both been disproven by modern scholars and are only treated as serious by occultists who frankly refuse to do any real research into her. The Burney Relief that depicts a nude goddess with bird wings and bird feet is now believed to most likely represent the Mesopotamian Goddess Inanna, and the Alphabet of Ben Sira that was written in the middle ages by an unknown author and depicts Lilith origins as the first wife of Adam who left Eden angry after they basically argued about who should take the dominant position during sex is now believed by both scholars and even rabbis to be the work of clever satire that people unfortunately took way too seriously over the centuries (almost like the Book of Judith).

But regardless despite knowing this I believe that Lilith exists in her own right. She is very much a part of Jewish oral tradition and there have been other artifacts found like bowls and amulets used to protect children from Lilith. She is also linked to the ancient Sumerian Demon-Goddess known as Lamashtu whom the Israelites most likely adopted into their own culture and Lilith's heir was most likely the Greek Monster known as Lamia. Lamashtu, Lilith, and Lamia were all known as demons who sexually seduced/preyed on men as they slept and would murder young children and even pregnant mothers while they birth.

Some pictures of Lamashtu and Lamia

Lamashtu





Lamia







Today Lilith has evolved into a feminist icon for women who identify with the unfair way she was treated in The Alphabet of Ben Sira by both Adam and God, but they either ignore the part about how she murders children and mothers or they whitewash that part of her mythology by claiming these were 'lies' invented by the patriarchy.

I personally find her to be a very fascinating demon or dark goddess, but I do not view her as a good example of what feminists should aspire to be like everyone else seems to do. I believe she holds some kind of grudge against humanity, both male and female, and serves a role in nature as that which preys on us in order to keep us humans in check. She is the Covid pandemic (power over disease), the climate change bringing us floods and fires (power over nature) and that burning rage and anxiety inside of every one of us that turns people against each other and makes us destroy our own kind in war and rioting (power of temptation and manipulation as well as corruption).

Lilith has never been what most people in the world imagine her to be in my opinion. That in itself is within her dark nature as a primordial she-demon who changes forms and names over the centuries.

Pluto aka Hades the God of the Underworld

https://mythopedia.com/topics/pluto





I'm sure everyone is familar with his greek counterpart Hades and the story of how he abducted the Goddess of Spring Persephone and made her his bride and Queen of the Underworld.

But there is another interesting aspect to his Roman counterpart known as "Pluto". The name Pluto means "The Wealthy One", or "Giver of Wealth". He ruled not only the dead souls of the Underworld but all the material wealth that came directly from the earth itself. Everything from precious metals to gems and minerals to crops to even oil. While he wasn't a very popular deity to worship due to his connection to the gloominess of death itself (plus it was believed he had no real interest in the affairs of humans), I just find it fascinating that he ruled over material wealth itself. Plus I dont know how it was in Rome but the Greeks used to bury their dead with two coins to pay a ferryman named Charon to take them to the Underworld. Like that old saying: "The only two things garunteed in life are death and taxes", and his name sounds an awful lot like the term Plutocrat or Plutocracy (a government ruled by the extremly wealthy pretty much like Capitalism).

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Ho ... Apocalypse





Not exactly deities, but I have felt drawn to these four terrifying figures in Apocalyptic Writings and Artwork.

The White Horse of Conquer

The Red Horse of War

The Black Horse of Famine

The Pale Horse of Pestilence

I have read countless interesting theories about them, and to me these figures represent not just the eventual end of our entire world but as a metaphor for the things that have contributed to the collapse of every civilization and empire throughout history that ever collapsed. Pretty fascinating.

Video explaining the origins mythology and history of Lilith

Gods… Baldur and Apollo. The common link is that they are both powerful and considered to be good looking.

Goddesses? That would require the judgment of Paris, but I’d go for Athena personally. Paris would have saved himself (and others) a lot of pain if he’d gone for Athena too, except Homer wouldn’t have had much to write about.

Heroes… Cuchullainn aka Dearg Doom, pronounced c’hullan and jarrag doom (or something like that)
“You speak in whispers of the devils I have slain.”
No messing with him, then…

Though they arent really my favorite deities, I found the way that the twins Apollo and Artemis represented in the male/female dynamic very subverted and fascinating.

To me Artemis the Moon Goddess of Wildlife seemed very much the tomboy given her love for hunting, while her brother Apollo the Sun God of music and poetry seemed more... flamboyant.

Flamboyant is good. So is the music and poetry. Apollo also used to join in the fighting at Troy. He may have had an unfair advantage.

Yeah plus his sister Artemis also had a warrior's spirit, at least when it came to protecting her girls from harm. I read somewhere that she was thought to be the protector of young girls until they reached a certain age, and despite being a virgin goddess she was also a Goddess of Childbirth who aided midwives in delivering babies. Pretty interesting.

Here's a couple of articles from theoi.com about both Apollo and Artemis for anybody interested?

Artemis:

https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Artemis.html

Apollo:

https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Apollon.html

Some more frightening female monsters I find fascinating.


Tamamo-no-Mae the infamous Kitsune (9 tailed fox) and one of the most powerful and evil Yokai according to Japanese folklore.

https://yokai.com/tamamonomae/








Tamamo-no-Mae was a powerful and destructive female figure in Japanese folklore who was believed to have travelled around parts of Asia such as China and India before landing in Japan. She was a Kitsune (9-tailed fox) who disguised as a beautiful young woman and was one of the most infamous Yokai (mischievous monsters and spirits, some who were almost demon-like in appearance).

The legend goes that she became the favorite concubine of Japan's emperor at the time. She was not only beautiful and charming but highly intelligent and gifted in the arts. But as she grew close with the emperor he started to become gravely ill with a mysterious illness that couldn't be diagnosed. But some of the emperor's priests suspected that something was up with his favorite concubine and they made her recite some sort of religious texts to prove her innocense, when she attempted to do this she transformed into her true form of a 9 tailed fox and fled the palace. The emperor sent his best warriors to track her down and kill her and they sealed her evil spirit inside a giant boulder, but unfortunately even after her death the evil she unleashed on Japan could not be undone. The Emperor soon died of his illness and Japan was thrown into a bloody civil war that nearly tore the country apart.

Interesting enough the giant boulder believed to house her evil spirit was found split in half a few months ago. Perhaps with all the craziness going on in our world right now her evil has been unleashed once again?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... index.html

Ammit the Egyptian Underworld Goddess who devours the unworthy dead.

https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/ammit/





Ammit was a frightening figure in the Egyptian pantheon who had the head of a crocodile, the middle body of a lion, and the back legs of a hippopotamus. Three wild beasts that inspired fear in mortals.

She dwelled in the Underworld and whenever people died and were brought before the Gods to be judged as worthy of the Afterlife, she was the one who essentially devoured those who were deemed too wicked or unworthy by the judgement of these Gods who would weigh their good deeds and bad deeds on a scale. Luckily the Gods were very understanding and realized no human was perfect, so most souls were spared such a horrific fate.

Despite being a Goddess she had no place of worship and no priests or temples to serve her. And yet she was never viewed as a malevolent being because she served her role as a punisher of true evil.

If I decide to dedicate myself a shrine to Inanna in her role as an all-powerful female deity who travels the world under many names like Ishtar, Aphrodite, Venus, and others and represents the many faces of love itself (unlike Lilith/Lamashtu/Lamia who frankly I feel represents a kind of all-powerful feminine hatred and is like Inanna's polar opposite), I will dedicate crystal objects to her as tributes to this Universal Goddess.

A rose quartz goddess body

A tiger's eye winged 'angel'

And a Venus of Willendorf figure made of sandstone

Plus I will order me a wooden Inanna statue from Ukraine to support the side that deserves to win in this war.

The prophecy of Babd

I shall not see a world
Which will be dear to me:
Summer without blossoms,
Cattle will be without milk,
Women without modesty,
Men without valor.
Conquests without a king . . .
Woods without mast.
Sea without produce. . . .
False judgments of old men.
False precedents of lawyers,
Every man a betrayer.
Every son a reaver.
The son will go to the bed of his father,
The father will go to the bed of his son.
Each his brother’s brother-in-law.
He will not seek any woman outside his house…
An evil time,
Son will deceive his father,
Daughter will deceive the mother.

Ive never heard of this before. That's some interesting writing.

I personally like the poem "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale about the concept of nature continuing on after humans perish from their own extinction.



There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.