We have spoken of the emotional connection between the worshipper and the worshipped.

The formation of this connection is to be the objective of our rituals. A little part of us enters that mythic reality and in becoming a little more akin to the divinity we seek to awaken, attains communion (*) with it. We hope. But it is true that identification with the other makes for deeper communication between human beings, and the gods often are said to have told us that we were made (however imperfectly) in their own images, so perhaps this experience may serve as a guide to how to reach them, as well.

Our adoration of these greater (albeit imperfect) beings does not mean we embrace their imperfections, but try to see their world (as well as our limitations allow) through their eyes. We would gain a deeper understanding, both for how one could find oneself driven to certain choices and of the needs those imperfections create. Needs which we, as the worshippers, should seek to address, for the deity is as deserving of, and in need of, compassion and basic consideration, as any other living being. Indeed, as it is the imperfections in our nature that give us needs, and the pursuit of those needs which shapes our lives, if the gods were perfect, could we identify with them at all, let alone well enough for our direct communion with them to even be possible?

Another question might be, in saying that the gods are but partially formed, while we are fully awake, are we claiming to be greater than they? The answer is no. Consider a child and a wolf pup, born on the same day. A year from now, the pup will be an adult, providing for pups of its own, while the child will still be relatively helpless, with an unfocused awareness of the world around it. Nevertheless, the child is greater than the wolf. Being a being of greater complexity, it is only natural that it would require more time and experience for its consciousness to fully crystallize, and in the meantime, evolution has allowed its body's development to lag, until its mind is ready to make full use of its body's capacities. (Indeed, how fortune for our kind, that three year olds do not have the strength of adults, and thus, how favored by evolution is this limitation.)

Thus, the lesser divinities grow more slowly, perhaps through the experiences we share with them in the process of communion, as we imagine the Supreme being, who they would worship, as growing through that which they would share with Him. As there is more of a mind to develop, so much more will be needed to develop it, as the lesser seek to awaken the greater. And thus, given this view, in history one would expect to first seek humans awakened through the process of evolution, and then a sequence of beings of ever increasing dignity be awakened, and be worshipped, craving that worship as a needed source of experience. First there would be a worship of spirits, then of divinities of greater wisdom and power (though hardly omnipotent or omniscent), and lastly would hear from the Almighty. As, historically, was the case, the Pagan faiths of the Near East preceding Judaism and Christianity. Given an orthodox view of these faiths, one may well ask why God waited. From our point of view, though, it seems perfectly reasonable - because he was not ready to attain full awareness of our world. But it is His awareness, when it arises, that, while the last, is the deepest, and the one that all others are precursors, and needed links, to.

In time then, as experience accumulated, and the personalities became more solid, the gods would awaken, the more complex the being, the more slowly (all things being equal).

This, then, is the relationship, as we see it, between a god and his worshippers. He is, in a sense, at once as a parent to the worshipper, and a child to the body of the faithful. To the former, he gives aid and insight that the individual would be incapable of, on his own. The whole of his body of worshippers, through communion with his spirit, share their experiences with him, and help him grow to awareness. The worshippers then are not the slaves of the god, nor is the god an expression of the whims of the faithful, but rather, there is a partnership based on love, a marriage of sorts, between deity and congregation. Though some would term the relationship between god (as opposed to God, as in the supreme being) and worshipper, as being more akin to that between a young child, and a caring older brother, who he would do well to listen to, and who he knows will watch out for him, if he is paying attention.

In time, the child grows to become an adult, and so, perhaps, in time, a fuller awakening will come, and the Divine will be ready to be a more active presence in the world. That, then, would in our view, be the Kingdom of God, and if one asks, "if it is right, then why is it not here now", then we might say, "because we are not ready to dwell with in it, and God is not ready to build it, so be patient".

Continuing ...

(*) "Communion" is a state in which psychological barriers fall, or are at least lowered, and one feels the state of mind of the other, and experiences an approximation to his viewpoint, more fully. Each, briefly, in a sense, carries a portion of the other within himself. It is a deeper understanding, and the easier and fuller communication that follows from that understanding. It reflects the difference between the way one might relate to a member of one's immediate family, or one's fiancee, versus the way one might relate to a stranger.