Deity A
deity ( or ) is a supernatural being considered
divine or
sacred. The
Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as "a god or goddess (in a
polytheistic religion)", or anything revered as divine.
C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new
levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life." A male deity is a
god, while a female deity is a
goddess. Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship.
Monotheistic religions accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as
God),
polytheistic religions accept multiple deities.
Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as equivalent aspects of the same divine principle; and
nontheistic religions deny any supreme eternal
creator deity but accept a
pantheon of deities which live, die and are reborn just like any other being. Various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a
monotheistic God. The monotheistic God, however, does have these
attributes. Monotheistic religions typically refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways – masculine, feminine, androgynous and gender neutral. Historically, many ancient cultures – such as
Ancient India,
Ancient Iraq,
Ancient Egyptian,
Ancient Greek,
Ancient Roman,
Nordic and
Asian culture – personified
natural phenomena, variously as either their conscious causes or simply their effects, respectively. Some
Avestan and
Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. Deities have also been envisioned as a form of existence (
Saṃsāra) after
rebirth, for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life, where they become
guardian deities and live blissfully in
heaven, but are also subject to death when their merit runs out. Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings and carrying out God's tasks. Within Abrahamic religions, angels are often organized into
hierarchies, although such rankings may vary between sects in each religion, and are given specific names or titles, such as
Gabriel or "
Destroying angel". The term "angel" has also been expanded to various notions of spirits or figures found in other religious traditions. The theological study of angels is known as "
angelology".
In fine art, angels are usually depicted as having the shape of human beings of extraordinary beauty; they are often identified using the
symbols of
bird wings,
halos and
light.
Prophecy Prophecy involves a process in which messages are communicated by a god to a
prophet. Such messages typically involve inspiration, interpretation, or
revelation of divine will concerning the prophet's social world and events to come (compare
divine knowledge). Prophecy is not limited to any one culture. It is a common property to all known ancient societies around the world, some more than others. Many systems and rules about prophecy have been proposed over several millennia.
Revelation In
religion and
theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of
truth or
knowledge through communication with a
deity or other supernatural entity or entities. Some religions have
religious texts which they view as divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired. For instance,
Orthodox Jews,
Christians and
Muslims believe that the
Torah was received from
Yahweh on
biblical Mount Sinai. Most Christians believe that both the
Old Testament and the
New Testament were
inspired by God. Muslims believe the
Quran was revealed by God to
Muhammad word by word through the angel
Gabriel (
Jibril). In
Hinduism, some
Vedas are considered
apaurusheyatva|, "not human compositions", and are supposed to have been directly revealed, and thus are called
śruti, "what is heard".
Aleister Crowley stated that
The Book of the Law had been revealed to him through a higher being that called itself
Aiwass. A revelation communicated by a supernatural entity reported as being present during the event is called a
vision. Direct conversations between the recipient and the supernatural entity, or physical marks such as
stigmata, have been reported. In rare cases, such as that of Saint
Juan Diego, physical artifacts accompany the revelation. The
Roman Catholic concept of
interior locution includes just an inner voice heard by the recipient. In the
Abrahamic religions, the term is used to refer to the process by which
God reveals knowledge of himself, his
will and his
divine providence to the world of human beings. In secondary usage, revelation refers to the resulting human knowledge about God,
prophecy and other
divine things. Revelation from a supernatural source plays a less important role in some other religious traditions such as
Buddhism,
Confucianism and
Taoism.
Reincarnation , a
soul travels to any one of the four states of existence after death depending on its
karmas. Reincarnation is the
philosophical or
religious concept that an aspect of a living
being starts a new
life in a different
physical body or form after each biological
death. It is also called rebirth or
transmigration, and is a part of the
Saṃsāra doctrine of cyclic existence. It is a central tenet of all major
Indian religions, namely
Jainism,
Hinduism,
Buddhism and
Sikhism. The idea of reincarnation is found in many ancient cultures, and a belief in rebirth/
metempsychosis was held by Greek historic figures, such as
Pythagoras,
Socrates and
Plato. It is also a common belief of various ancient and modern religions such as
Spiritism,
Theosophy and
Eckankar and as an esoteric belief in many streams of
Orthodox Judaism. It is found as well in many tribal societies around the world, in places such as
Australia,
East Asia,
Siberia and
South America. Although the majority of denominations within
Christianity and
Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of
Cathars,
Alawites, the
Druze and the
Rosicrucians. The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of
Neoplatonism,
Orphism,
Hermeticism,
Manicheanism and
Gnosticism of the
Roman era as well as the Indian religions, have been the subject of recent scholarly research.
Unity Church and its founder
Charles Fillmore teaches reincarnation. In recent decades, many
Europeans and
North Americans have developed an interest in reincarnation, and
many contemporary works mention it.
Karma Karma (; , ; ) means action, work or deed; it also refers to the spiritual principle of cause and effect where intent and actions of an individual (cause) influence the future of that individual (effect). Good intent and good deeds contribute to good karma and future happiness, while bad intent and bad deeds contribute to bad karma and future suffering. With origins in
ancient India's
Vedic civilization, the philosophy of karma is closely associated with the idea of
rebirth in many schools of
Indian religions (particularly
Hinduism,
Buddhism,
Jainism and
Sikhism) as well as
Taoism. In these schools, karma in the present affects one's future in the current life, as well as the nature and quality of future lives – one's
saṃsāra.
Christian theology of air travelers, aviators, astronauts, people with a mental handicap, test takers and poor students is
Saint Joseph of Cupertino, who is said to have been gifted with
supernatural flight. In
Catholic theology, the supernatural order is, according to
New Advent, defined as "the ensemble of effects exceeding the powers of the created universe and gratuitously produced by God for the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny." The
Modern Catholic Dictionary defines it as "the sum total of heavenly destiny and all the divinely established means of reaching that destiny, which surpass the mere powers and capacities of human nature."
Process theology Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical
process philosophy of
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) and further developed by
Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000).
Heaven Heaven, or
the heavens, is a common
religious, cosmological, or
transcendent place where beings such as
gods,
angels, spirits,
saints, or
venerated ancestors are said to originate, be
enthroned, or live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to Earth or
incarnate, and earthly beings can ascend to heaven in the
afterlife, or in exceptional cases
enter heaven alive. Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the
holiest place, a
Paradise, in contrast to
hell or the
Underworld or the "low places" and
universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of
divinity,
goodness,
piety,
faith, or other
virtues or
right beliefs or simply the
will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a
world to come. Another belief is in an
axis mundi or
world tree which connects the heavens, the terrestrial world and the
underworld. In
Indian religions, heaven is considered as
Svarga loka, and the soul is again subjected to
rebirth in different living forms according to its
karma. This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves
Moksha or
Nirvana. Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, outside the tangible world (Heaven, Hell, or other) is referred to as
otherworld. Underworld The
underworld is the supernatural world of the dead in various
religious traditions, located below the world of the living.
Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. The concept of an underworld is found in almost every civilization and "may be as old as humanity itself". Common features of underworld
myths are accounts of
living people making journeys to the underworld, often for some
heroic purpose. Other myths reinforce traditions that entrance of souls to the underworld requires a proper observation of ceremony, such as the ancient Greek story of the recently dead
Patroclus haunting
Achilles until his body could be properly buried for this purpose. Persons having social status were dressed and equipped in order to better navigate the underworld. A number of mythologies incorporate the concept of the soul of the deceased making its own journey to the underworld, with the dead needing to be taken across a defining obstacle such as a lake or a river to reach this destination. Imagery of such journeys can be found in both ancient and modern art. The descent to the underworld has been described as "the single most important myth for Modernist authors".
Spirit ,
Bertalda, Assailed by Spirits, A
spirit is a supernatural being, often but not exclusively a
non-physical entity; such as a
demon,
ghost,
fairy,
jinn or
angel. The concepts of a person's spirit and
soul, often also overlap, as both are either
contrasted with or
given ontological priority over the
body and both are believed to survive bodily death in some religions, and "spirit" can also have the sense of "
ghost", i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person. In English
Bibles, "the Spirit" (with a capital "S"), specifically denotes the
Holy Spirit. Spirit is often used
metaphysically to refer to the
consciousness or
personality. Historically, it was also used to refer to a "subtle" as opposed to "gross" material substance, as in the famous last paragraph of
Sir Isaac Newton's
Principia Mathematica.
Demon (a
medieval demon from
German folklore) flying over
Wittenberg, in a
lithograph by
Eugène Delacroix. A
demon (from
Koine Greek daimónion) is a supernatural and often malevolent being prevalent in
religion,
occultism,
literature,
fiction,
mythology and
folklore. In
Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the
Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval
Christian demonology, a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity, below the heavenly planes which may cause
demonic possession, calling for an
exorcism. In Western
occultism and
Renaissance magic, which grew out of an amalgamation of
Greco-Roman magic, Jewish
Aggadah and
Christian demonology, a demon is believed to be a spiritual entity that may be
conjured and controlled.
Magic Magic or
sorcery is the use of
rituals,
symbols, actions,
gestures, or
language with the aim of utilizing supernatural forces. Belief in and practice of magic has been present since the earliest human cultures and continues to have an important spiritual, religious and medicinal role in many cultures today. The term
magic has a variety of meanings, and there is no widely agreed upon definition of what it is. Scholars of religion have defined magic in different ways. One approach, associated with the
anthropologists Edward Tylor and
James G. Frazer, suggests that magic and
science are opposites. An alternative approach, associated with the
sociologists Marcel Mauss and
Emile Durkheim, argues that magic takes place in private, while
religion is a communal and organised activity. Many scholars of religion have rejected the utility of the term
magic and it has become increasingly unpopular within scholarship since the 1990s. The term
magic comes from the
Old Persian magu, a word that applied to a form of religious functionary about which little is known. During the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC, this term was adopted into
Ancient Greek, where it was used with negative connotations, to apply to religious rites that were regarded as fraudulent, unconventional and dangerous. This meaning of the term was then adopted by
Latin in the first century BC. The concept was then incorporated into
Christian theology during the first century AD, where magic was associated with
demons and thus defined against religion. This concept was pervasive throughout the Middle Ages, although in the early modern period Italian
humanists reinterpreted the term in a positive sense to establish the idea of
natural magic. Both negative and positive understandings of the term were retained in Western culture over the following centuries, with the former largely influencing early academic usages of the word. Throughout history, there have been examples of individuals who practiced magic and referred to themselves as magicians. This trend has proliferated in the modern period, with a growing number of magicians appearing within the
esoteric milieu. British esotericist
Aleister Crowley described magic as the art of effecting change in accordance with will.
Divination Divination (from Latin
divinare "to foresee, to be inspired by a god", related to
divinus,
divine) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an
occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or
omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency. Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appear to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and
fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a
religious context, as seen in
traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion. Divination is dismissed by the
scientific community and
skeptics as being
superstition. In the 2nd century,
Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a
charlatan, "
Alexander the false prophet", trained by "one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love-affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure and successions to estates".
Witchcraft 's painting
The Magic Circle (1886) Witchcraft or witchery broadly means the practice of and belief in
magical skills and abilities exercised by
solitary practitioners and groups.
Witchcraft is a broad term that varies culturally and societally and thus can be difficult to define with precision, and
cross-cultural assumptions about the meaning or significance of the term should be applied with caution. Witchcraft often occupies a religious
divinatory or medicinal role and is often present within societies and groups whose
cultural framework includes a magical
world view. Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (a
deity), a
miracle worker, a
saint or a religious leader. Informally, the word "miracle" is often used to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood, such as a birth. Other such miracles might be: survival of an illness diagnosed as terminal, escaping a life-threatening situation or 'beating the odds'. Some
coincidences may be seen as miracles. A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many rational and scientific thinkers to dismiss them as physically impossible (that is, requiring violation of established laws of physics within their domain of validity) or impossible to confirm by their nature (because all possible physical mechanisms can never be ruled out). The former position is expressed for instance by
Thomas Jefferson and the latter by
David Hume.
Theologians typically say that, with
divine providence, God regularly works through nature yet, as a creator, is free to work without, above, or against it as well. The possibility and probability of miracles are then equal to the possibility and probability of the
existence of God. ==Skepticism==