Polytheism doesn’t need saving – that should be evident by the way its ideas survived through 1600 years of official monotheism in the West. The multiplicity of the Gods is intuitive – monotheists have to stay constantly vigilant to keep polytheist concepts and practices from creeping into their religions. Our Gods certainly don’t need saving – They’re older, stronger, and wiser than any of us.

Polytheism needs practicing. It needs polytheists to step away from our computers and step in front of our altars and shrines. It needs us to make sacrifices and offerings – not because the Gods need to receive them, but because we need to give them. It needs us to tell the stories of the Gods, to let dissatisfied monotheists and atheists know they have another choice, and to continually remind ourselves of who They are. It needs us to invite Them into our rituals and experience Their presence for ourselves. It needs us to meditate on the virtues and values of the Gods, and then figure out how best to embody them in our ordinary lives.

[…] We’re trying to revive, re-create, and re-imagine them for our time. This is the benefit of the polytheist internet – we can learn from each other’s successes and mistakes.

This won’t lead to One Grand Universal Polytheism. As some like to remind me, polytheism isn’t a religion – it’s a collection of many religions.

We live in the most religiously diverse and religiously open society in the history of humanity. We have good scholarship that just keeps getting better. We have devoted priests who serve our Gods and our communities. We have mystics and seers who experience the Gods intimately and who can teach those who will how to have the same kind of experiences. We have Gods, ancestors, and spirits who are moving in our world, seeking people to help promote their values and virtues.

We have everything we need to restore polytheism and our many polytheist religions to a prominence they haven’t seen in almost 2000 years. We just have to stop trying to save polytheism and start practicing polytheism.