God radios: How to live with one, how to live without one. What happens if the reception is bad, or the gods quit responding?
I wrote about this one recently in The Voices In My Head which talks about how to balance deific communications versus natural skepticism, and how to try to tease out important communications from idle chatter. In other words, having a godphone doesn’t instantly make you a pope. There’s more gray area involved here than you’d find on an overweight circus elephant.
I’ve talked to gods for about as long as I can remember. I’m not sure what it’s like not to at this point. There is no such thing as honing it until it’s perfect and static free. It just is what it is, static and all. I often go to secondary divination methods to make sure I’ve got the message straight and ask for clarification. Most of the time I just do a quick online tarot read from here or here. Sometimes an answer can come from a random music shuffle. I’m often amused by what the “shuffle demons” come up with. I’ve gotten messages from feathers found in a parking lot and from unusual animals showing up. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a gut feeling where you are drawn toward, or pushed away, from something.
The main requirement for getting these things to work is allowing them to work. Give yourself permission to be wrong. Lighten up. Play with it. I think that the fear of being wrong is the number one reason why people claim that they can’t talk to, or listen to, gods. There’s a fear of making things up, or playing with imaginary friends or sock puppets. You know what? It’s exactly like playing with imaginary friends. The big, deep, dark secret is that this is simply how it works. If you’re expecting something more profound, you probably won’t hear anything at all because you’re too worried about messing it up.
Be open to receive first. You can interpret and pick it apart later. Don’t make it into a huge important thing. Don’t crush it under the weight of expectations. Most people find it easier to talk with the gods about subjects that don’t really make any difference. What kind of offering does the god prefer? Chocolate or cinnamon? That kind of answer has no real importance, so there’s no need to stress over it. Once you get used to talking about nothing, you may find that the god will start to slip bigger things into the conversation when you’re not paying attention. When this happens, remember to take all information under advisement. Think about it. Research it. Weigh it against ma’at. Don’t go looking for that stone chisel just yet.
What if that still doesn’t work and you’re just not cut out for the godphone idea? Then don’t worry about it. On the most basic level, you probably have some idea about the difference between right and wrong, however subjective that idea may be. Follow your ethics and morals. If you need to make a decision, then do your homework, but don’t forget to take personal feelings into account. Those do matter. There are also various methods of divination, as I mentioned earlier. Pay attention to dreams and random occurrences. Talk to your friends and family. All of these methods require interpretation and thought.
A godphone is no different. It also requires interpretation and thought. Mostly I use mine because I like the companionship. I don’t really expect to learn the great unknowable secrets of the universe. What good would those do me anyway? It doesn’t make me better or more holy than anyone else. It just means I’m more of a pain in the gods’s butts with my constant questions and complaints. It makes it easier for them to tell me what to do and annoy me too. Our conversations aren’t particularly holy to tell the truth.
Dawn of the Two Feathers 