Gay Spirituality

For this weeks “Other Voices”, I interviewed Phillupus.  Phillupus self-identifies as a “meta-gendered”, bi-identified, pansexual and definitely “queer”.  We talked about polytheism, about the Ekklesía Antínoou, and a bit about polarity in spiritual paths.

Julian: What spiritual path do you currently follow?  Please tell us a little bit about the core tenets and practices of your path.
Phillupus: If I had to describe it in an all-encompassing manner, I’d say polytheistic syncretism.  There are individual interests and affiliations within this that I have–including Ekklesía Antínoou (queer, Graeco-Roman-Egyptian syncretist reconstructionist polytheism devoted to Antinous); Neos Alexandria (Graeco-Egyptian syncretism); Celtic Reconstructionism, of primarily Irish, Welsh, and Romano-British varieties; Shinto; and Western interactions with Hinduism.  Note that none of these are a “spiritual path” as such in themselves, and ideally never would be so in a definite or narrowly delimited manner; each should be done according to the needs and interests of the individual involved, which of necessity varies greatly.

Since most forms of paganism and polytheism should, at least ideally, be more concerned with practice than with creed, I try to have as few tenets or dogmas as possible in all of this.  I suppose the basic one common to all of these different affiliations, all of which can be defined as pursuing polytheism in a syncretic manner, is that the gods exist, and that doing devotions to them through ritual, prayer, creative expression, meditation, and ethical action are all useful, effective, and productive things to do.  Beyond that (and even with that), it’s all philosophy–in other words, matters which are much debated, open to discussion, and which by nature cannot be objectively proven.  Again, I think that holding particular beliefs, or espousing them in an articulate manner, is nowhere near as important as actually living those beliefs and doing practical actions which uphold them.  There is far too much bluster and emphasis on belief in certain dominant religions, as well as in some forms of paganism, that is to my mind counter-productive, and so I’m trying whenever possible to not indulge my theological scholarship background with a lot of talk, and instead to make sure that my feet and my hands and my demeanor are speaking as loud as possible by their actions and way of being.

Since the Ekklesía Antínoou is probably of most interest in this regard to the readers of your column, the most basic things that could be said are that Antinous is a god (whatever that means–an archetype, an internal psychological reality or symbol, an external and independently volitional entity, etc.), and that divinity is an inherent part of everyone and can be realized and actualized.

Julian:  How does your gender and/or sexual orientation influence your spirituality?
Phillupus: I don’t think it’s possible to not have one’s gender or sexual orientation influencing their spiritual choices, at least in some way.  The way one does spirituality has much to do with experience–and not just the experience of indoctrination or education in a particular religious framework–thus, one’s experience of one’s gender and sexual orientation should have some measurable impact on one’s spiritual practice and approaches.  At this point in my life, I’m not too interested, though, in nailing down exactly what those influences have been, where they are not already obvious.  I’m less concerned with the self-consciousness that so many people in modern alternative spirituality seem to revel in, and more concerned with just doing the work, getting down to business, and making sure that my concrete actions reflect my best intentions and are in line with my ideals; but, the most important bit of that is doing the concrete actions.  Intent and ideals are never enough in themselves.

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