If indeed there is something I have come to expect in Dr Butler’s writing, it is a style that is somehow both patient and smoothly paced, and this book is no exception. My introduction to comparative religion came through the perennialists, to whom I am still indebted my love for Neoplatonism but from which I am seeking to transform into a more updated and comprehensive understanding of the subjects and objects of that science. The Way of the Gods: Polytheism(s) around the world[1] is perhaps a book I would say should come to be required reading for those into comparative religion, theology, anthropology, and related fields, especially those who want to question the dominant monotheist view of religion that permeates discourse today and is often projected to traditions long gone or still contemporary; this projection reifies a (predominantly Christian) centre around which past and present non-Christian traditions are thought of in supersessionist terms. Personally, I would extend this argument much further, to encompass even the western conception of the natural sciences, which are often seen to be able to supplant traditional cosmologies, at best treating them as “metaphor” or approximations of some modern scientific principles. But then, that is beyond the scope of this review, and is an example of what the methodology of this book can extend to the analysis of our ways of knowing the world in light of the recognition of the “power differentials” between dominant western cultures and the “others”.
The book works through a general introduction to polytheisms from India to Africa to the very diverse religious traditions of Southeast Asia, and even modern traditions like Voudou and Santa Muerte (who, as he argues, is not a saint, but a Goddess in her own right, “Santa” meaning “Holy”, not “Saint”). It includes reading recommendations. The whole book is the fruit of an online course he taught at Indica, named “Introduction to Polytheism” (Preface, pg 1). You will find in this book a history of “experimentation” in divine sciences; the emergence (or better still, revelation) of new Gods; structured, fractal, fluid, and ever-changing pantheons; different words for the classes of deities and their limits. I won’t lie, as a Yoruba man, I really loved his presentation of the Ifa tradition. I’m not as well-read as I should be, but I have a project still being conceptualized in that direction, and his chapter on it has reinvigorated my drive to continue. It’s been hard trying to separate Yoruba traditional religion from what I might term the “monotheist gaze”, and Butler has really done that here, at least to a greater extent than I ever did on my own. You see at least a bit through the Yoruba Christian appropriation of Olodumare that sees him as a sort of banalized Cronus, who leaves no space for his Oriṣa, although even true Cronian sovereignty gives way eventually for the “younger” Gods.
However, what was most enlightening for me in this book were the traditions that were obscure to me. He takes great care describing the Mayan traditions, the Aztecs, a certain number of Indonesian traditions, those from New Zealand, Hawaii, and so on. These are whole multiverses, where the very locality of divinity reveals their perspectival universality. In those traditions that are presumed well known enough to be considered “monotheist” or at least “non-polytheist” in some sense, like the Native Americans, and the Australian traditions, you get your perspectives rearranged. This “perspectivism”, and the corresponding “polycentrism” required is indeed at the heart of the methodology of this book.
“Are the Gods real?”
This is a question that is important – or at least should be important – for studying traditions where Gods are considered real. This question, answered in the affirmative by Butler, takes central stage in how this book is framed. There is no neutral middle ground here. If the Gods are real, then we are not engaging with fossils when attempting to know these traditions, but living evolving organisms. If the Gods aren’t real, then one is engaging with lifeless concepts played around by masses of people. If the Gods are real, then they know we are engaging these traditions and are in some sense engaging these Gods themselves. This is not trivial. It requires respect and a willingness not to let analysis threaten the integrity of these traditions. It means not reducing Gods to the modern western concept of natural phenomena, or to “roles” or “aspects”, even if Gods in some sense incorporate all of these. It means, paradoxically, privileging the names these traditions give these entities, and leaving room for ambiguity and emptiness or “semantic thinness”[2] within the word “God” such that, in this case, the definition Butler gives is that they are “objects of religious regard, and are in some sense the ultimate beings, even if there is something beyond Them in some sense”. This covers the kami as well as the oni; the Olympians and Titans; the Aesir, Vanir, and Jotnar (the Norse “Giants”); the Oriṣa and Olodumare; the Faeries, the Dwarves, the Heroes, the Xapiri, Jesus, YHWH, Allah, and so on and so forth.
This definition is tied to Butler’s Platonism, where “Every god is an independent unity, and every independent unity is a god.” (Prop. 114)[3]. Here, where “Every god is beyond essence, life and intelligence.” (Prop. 115)[4], ontology is revealed as contingent on the Gods themselves, who constitute worlds with their activity, where “worlds” here is a more expansive word than the usual English understanding allows. The basics of this Platonism are pretty simple:
“Gods — as polytheists have always understood them — possess will, agency, and consciousness. These properties, however, reach their zenith in encompassing the world, rather than by excluding it. Similarly, that which is supremely unique is not what distinguishes itself from everything else by increasingly trivial differences, but rather that in which the attributes shared with other things are uniquely its own. This is the kind of existence we recognize in Beings that we call “who” rather than objects we call “what.”… This is exactly how the pagan Platonists saw it, as well: each God has all things and all the other Gods and Goddesses within Her because of Her unity, integrity, or individuality. The Platonists recognized that individuality was so essential to the nature of godhood that they called the Gods henads, or “units.” The Gods are the things most one, not because they are all one thing, but because to be an ultimate individual is to include everything.”[5]
This ultimacy accorded to Gods is what allows Butler to do two things in the book: give an “outside” view of these traditions – since in the end he and many readers are outsiders to these traditions – and still give an idea of what it would be like to be “on the inside”, since it is true knowledge of these traditions we seek.
All in all, this is an introduction, an invitation to more, for those who would be interested in pursuing specific traditions or their interaction. The scope of this book is such that it is not any of the fields mentioned earlier, whether a “comparative theology” or an “ecumenical theology” or an “anthropology”. It is not meant to fit those boxes. It might be a bit frustrating if one is trying to pinpoint the book’s end apart from what is explicitly stated there. It might offend you if you’re a monotheist and will offend you if you’re staunchly exclusivist in your monotheism. For polytheists, this is not supposed to cage how you talk about your Gods, but to help you talk about them, and give some perspective, especially in how you understand the Gods of others. This requires a stance that “does not deny its own underdetermination, but consciously operates with the aim, not so much of “discovering” but of “building” transversal connection points between these diverse worlds.” because “There is no "transcendent unity of religions" beyond the proper names of their Gods and revelations”, but “nothing prevents us from aiming at a certain scale, an immanent and convergent unity of them, a unity that is established through historical struggles that they cross transversally and that can mobilize them together in the effective construction of a fairer society.”[6]
This is pretty much what Butler says, that “we cannot ethically study these traditions in a purely disinterested fashion, with no concern for their continued existence, or reflection upon the power relations which have created the conditions for their adoption as objects of study.” (Conclusion, pg 1). Indeed, we see an analogue to a certain problem in quantum physics; to study a subatomic particle, you have to interact with it, the implication being that measurement changes what is being measured. Similarly, in our study of these traditions, we in fact change them ever so slightly, even if it is just by the reaction of their adherents to our gaze and questions. Faced with this inevitability, and the injustices that ignorance of this fact has fostered, we can say with Dr Butler that “The tolerance and pluralism which is necessary for human survival and flourishing, not to mention for the sake of all the other life on this planet, cannot be achieved on the basis of ignoring these difficult facts, but only by facing them openly and working together for a better future.” (Conclusion, pg 2). Even if isolation is preferred by adherents, the mutual respect of this isolation will be the “transversal bridge” built in the acknowledgement that there are “others” to isolate from. Indeed this is the point of this book, such that in the term “polytheism”, we see “a way of expressing the underlying attitude that makes this sort of mutual recognition possible—not translation, necessarily, by any means, but recognition.” (Introduction and India, pg 20); not a perennialist collapse of each other’s Gods, or an exclusivist sundering, but a recognition, that “all things are full of Gods”, even the Gods of others not our own.
Page numbering is done according to how it is presented in Kobo books.
[1] Edward P. Butler, The Way of the Gods: Polytheism(s) Around the World (Notion Press, 2022).
[2] Edward Butler [@EPButler], “This Is Why I Have Said at Various Times That We Must Regard the Concepts of Platonism as Semantically ‘Thin’, or Even Empty, Because They Cannot Be Allowed to Obscure the Theologies (That Is, the Theophanies).,” Tweet, Twitter, October 31, 2020,
[3] Antonio Vargas, “Proclus’ Elements of Metaphysics,” accessed November 23, 2022, https://www.academia.edu/44841806/Proclus_Elements_of_Metaphysics.
[4] Vargas.
[5] Edward P Butler, “MANY GODS, MANY PATHS,” accessed November 25, 2021, www.witchesandpagans.com.
[6] Oluwaseyi Bello and Petter Hübner, “Some Insights for a Polytheistic Liberation Theology - Oscillations,” accessed December 25, 2022, https://oscillations.one/Assets/Publications/Some+Insights+for+a+Polytheistic+Liberation+Theology.
Thanks very much for this review; I was unaware of this author. And thanks just generally for the effort you put into your essays.
Really interested in reading this now. Thanks for this wonderful review.
A question, and one which you can feel free to answer just with references/articles etc: what is the traditional polytheist understanding of revelation? And, particularly when there are revelations of the Divine that explicitly state they alone are the Most High/One True God? Of course in the Abrahamic “faiths” (Jewish/Christian/Muslim) this claim seems to be central. How would one harmonize or incorporate this revelation to a polytheist worldview?