The books are always the first thing people notice when they walk into my room.

Something about cheap crates that reek of wood stain being used as shelves to store books never

really seems to sit right with people. They probably wouldn’t have been my first choice either

but as a child I was more intent on devoting my money to acquiring the books then really

worrying about where to put them. Like many things in my life though my obsession with books

all started in one place: the Percy Jackson series. However in these books I found not only a love

of books but a fascination with ancient cultures and beliefs that would stay with me for many

years.

My introduction to ancient beliefs.

When I first started reading about ancient cultures and beliefs I was actually only the age

of seven. Quite frankly a child as young as I was should not have been able to comprehensively

be able to grasp what I was reading. For my ability to understand I would have to thank my older

brother for acting as a sort of literacy sponsor (Brandt) and aiding me in my desire to learn more

about Greek culture. With him in tow I was able to come to comprehensively read and

understand more and more about ancient cultures. Due to this he was in fact quite instrumental in

my later education on the subject for which I am dearly grateful for the sponsorship he gave me.

An intro to Omnism

All of Rick Riordan’s books explore the same general concept. In them there is usually a

group of teens descended or in some way related to an ancient deity, and they use some form of

powers or abilities granted to them via this relationship to counteract some form of nefarious

plot. The explanation for why these ancient deities are still alive seems to typically be founded in
a version of the beliefs of Omnism. The general concept here is that the physical belief by a

persons or persons in a thing lends that thing power. In the case of the original Percy Jackson

books the concept follows that as civilization move west out of Europe, Africa, and Asia it

brought many aspects of many ancient cultures with them, specifically many aspects of religion,

language, and architecture directly derived from a Hellenistic culture. Thus as many aspects of

Ancient Greek culture moved west, the many beliefs, myths, and folklore of this culture did too.

This cause the inherent belief in these ancient deities to lend them power in the western world,

resulting to them relocating there.

An introduction to Ancient Greek beliefs

With the concept of how these ancient deities were supposed to have survived into the

modern world understood, we can now delve into how the culture found in these books affected

me personally. The problem with the Percy Jackson books as a lender of information is that in

essence they were still written to entertain and ensnare the reader into purchasing more books,

thus they tend to take a slightly romanticized view of a traditionally more gruesome belief set.

With this in mind though, I was still able to glean the basics of their religion from just a few

children’s’ books.

To start off there is sort of the head council of all the Greek gods and goddesses. Think of

it as something of a sitting board for a corporation. All the many minor deities found in the

Greek pantheon were headed by twelve major deities consisting of seven males and 5 females.

The leader or chairman in the case of our hypothetical was Zeus, the lord of the sky, but most

prominently known for his proficiency with hurling lightning bolts at blasphemous mortals. Zeus
had two brothers; Poseidon, the lord of the sea, and Hades, the lord of the underworld. Right

about here is where the facts geta little tangled with the storytelling, and my learning of this

particular literacy veered from children’s novels to a slightly larger sized book titled simply

enough Ancient Mythologies.

A Larger Study of Greek Beliefs.

As I grew up so did my perception of the ancient stories I had been feeding myself. The

Percy Jackson books would have one believe that after they had committed the second ever

patricide, the Three Brothers were divided to their separate domains using trickery and deceit on

the part of Zeus and Poseidon in order to banish Hades to the underworld. However, this is more

of an author’s way of creating a villain that it is an accurate retelling of an ancient legend. In

traditional stories the brothers agreed on this matter quite peacefully, with Zeus having been the

first one to escape the belly of Kronos and free the others, therefore earning the highest position

as lord of the sky. Then, the other domains were divided between Poseidon and Hades in a

similar fashion.

Regardless of what is “true” or not, young me sided quite squarely with Hades as being

slighted by his brothers, and understood his anger perfectly. Brothers are brothers, and they’re

quite prone to squabbling and bickering, occasionally resulting in the odd fight or two. I may

owe my older brother a great deal for starting my fascination with ancient cultures, but he also

did much more to fuel my desire to learn albite somewhat antagonistically and unintentionally.
An Introduction to Modern Paganism

Coming into my ever-dreaded teen years I was introduced to an entirely new belief set.

Still obsessed with anything written by Rick Riordan I happened across the Magnus Chase

books. In them I found a description of the Norse beliefs and thankfully a much less

romanticized version than Marvel’s at that. I learned of a great looming tree upon which sat the

nine realms, managing to both occupy the same space as well as being tiered with some being

higher than others. A story about gods and the dead who died honorably, gone to live in the halls

of Valhalla, where they would drink and party forever until Ragnarök came.

However, I ran into the same problem once again in reading a book meant to entertain an

audience as opposed to a book meant to educate its audience. So, I looked where one should

never look for answers, the internet. I did not however find quite what I was expecting. Rather

than old buried stories about long dead deities I found a large community of people scattered

across the globe, who still worshipped the Norse gods. Some of them Omnist in their own right,

believing that their physical and active belief in these deities gave them power over which they

could be a force of influence on the worshipper’s life. Others believed that these great and

powerful beings always had and always wood exist as part of this world. Once again, my

fascination with different cultures’ beliefs was seized upon although this time significantly less

ancient. Thus, began my delve into studying the modern worship of benevolent gods, goddesses,

and some far less wholesome entities.

An Ongoing Study of The Modern Witch

Interestingly enough Modern Paganism, or the modern-day worship of what are typically

considered to be ancient deities, is seemingly inseparably linked to many aspects of modern-day

witchcraft found in today’s culture. The large majority of practitioners today do not in fact

worship Satan as The Crucible might like you to believe, although being descended from John

Proctor I might be biased. Rather, the majority of them are Wiccan, a belief system the focuses

mainly on drawing energy from the Moon Goddess and the Horned God. There are of course

exceptions from this majority that honor a wide variety of beings such as the Norse gods and

various daemons, and a great deal that focus on the energy in one’s self.

This particular study set is where I find myself while writing this, with various books on

green witchcraft (the study of plant-based magic) and the Wiccan calendar sitting on my desk. I

continue to this day to read further into and develop my literacy in ancient beliefs with a copy of

Dante’s Divine Comedy never out of reach and several still unread books on Greek and Norse

cultures resting on my shelves.