I’ve been researching about helpol lately and found it really interesting. I’d like to try some offerings and get to know the different deities but if they aren’t their myths how do I get information about them other than their names and titles? What distinguishes their actual origin from fanfiction?

I swim several times a week. Now that the cold dark half of the year is upon us in the N Hemisphere, which deities could I look to inspire me to drag my warm lazy a** off the couch and get to the pool.

Vocês acreditam que os deuses podem abençoar um objeto em específico para podermos usar no dia a dia/durante rituais??

I have been thinking about worshipping Apollo regularly. I think it would make a lot of sense with my life. I just listened to a podcast on Apollo and I am a bit turned off, though. I don't know if it's just the way the stories were presented and this podcasters opinion. She did say Apollo is her least favorite deity. He just sounded kind of stuck up?

I think it makes sense for me to worship Apollo because

1) I like writing poetry and want to do that more

2) I like music- I have been getting more and more into playing ukulele and also love listening to music. Music has been a core part of my identity for a while

3) I am chronically ill and could always use help with my health

4) I struggle with mental illness and have been told I can pray to him for help with the dark thoughts since he is the god of light

What do you think? Any Apollo worshipers that can weigh in on what he is really like?

Also, I am very unsure how to feel about divination. I don't know much about it, so I wouldn't feel super connected to that aspect of him.

Hello! I’m not a 100% a Hellenist, I have a bit of a wider interpretation of cultures and divinities, but I still see so much value the Hellenist Pantheon.

I find myself very drawn to Artemis, I feel like I require a lot of her help because I deal with a lot of insecurity, health issues and the like, but also have a big devotion to nature despite living in a huge city.

However, I think I am by nature closest to Persephone, I work a lot with death and rebirth in my career and fields of study.

I know you don’t have to pick one god to worship and stick with them forever, but I feel a need to devote myself to one above others as a way to seek guidance.

Is it better to look to one I feel I need or one I feel would understand me?

Edit: I feel like people are understanding I want to only worship one goddess ever, I was more asking which I should look like for guidance first or more

I feel like many modern Hellenic polytheists drift away from traditional religions because they never felt truly welcomed or accepted. As a result, many resort to extreme personalization of the gods. They try to bring the divine closer by framing the gods as parent figures to fill their own need for validation, affection, and belonging.

​In doing so, they miss the core point of the religion.

As humans, we live in a realm of tension, imperfection, and opposition, whereas the gods inhabit a domain of absolute perfection and divine order. Hellenism isn't about projecting our emotional needs onto the gods—who, in their perfection, are complete and inherently self-sufficient. We need them; they do not need us.

​While it's understandable that people seek comfort and love, treating the gods this way misinterprets the faith. There is a clear distinction between simply praying to the Greek gods and practicing Hellenism as a path. The true purpose of Hellenism is self-improvement: striving toward the perfection represented by the gods while recognizing our own inherent human limitations. We aspire to divine virtue, knowing we will never be divine ourselves.

Hello, everyone. A very dear member of my family is a full-time firefighter, and I would like to know to whom I should petition if I want to ask for his continued safety in the line of duty. However, as best I can tell, “firefighter” as a profession didn’t technically exist until the Roman Vigiles in 6 CE.

My pragmatic half says to direct prayer to Hephaestus, as a god of fire, and stop overthinking it. But my liberal-arts-educated half keeps insisting something about it doesn’t fit. So I come here as a newbie looking for advice 🙇

Hey so I have recently been getting back into my practice but often find myself scared of the gods. Not in the halloween horror way but in the respected to the point of fear way. I first started feeling this way with Lord Apollo after seeing a video of someone saying that Lord Apollo felt disrespected. I know that seems so fake and I get it likely is but I feel like I'm doing things wrong. I used to talk to the gods respectfully but also comfortably. Now I don't talk to them at all because im scared. Any advice? Also is it okay to talk to them about daily things in life and not really about them directly?

Hello everyone!

So, I am an English teacher (English as a second language) and I am currently teaching celebrations and festivals to my students. I taught Kwanzaa, Yule, Ramadan, and today I taught them about Thesmophoria.

I always like to teach about different cultures, but I of course got super enthusiastic about Thesmophoria. I taught my students about the myth of King Hades and Queen Persephone.

After the class, my students asked if we could please work more with greek mythology, and I am brainstorming some ideas. Please keep in mind that of course all of these ideas would be 100% approached through a non-religious lense since in the public school system in my country we CANNOT give our political opinions/religious beliefs/etc.

One idea I thought about is to have the students draw Lady Aphrodite. Of course Lady Aphrodite is the representation of beauty, and since beauty is subjective, everyone's Aphrodite would look different.

After drawing, the kids would make a small written description of their Aphrodite.

For example: my Aphrodite has brown short hair. Her eyes are blue. She is a bit chubby. Etc,etc.

I just wanted to share my ideas for any other teachers out there! If anyone has more ideas I could use with my students, don't be afraid to share!

recently i've been thinking about converting since it feels like the correct path for me, i don't want to rush it since i still need to read and research a lot and dealing with a neurodivergent brain is a challenge.

the thing is, first, my first language is spanish, but ever since i learnt english on my own i mostly post/read/study whatever in english. i wonder if i should or shouldn't do that...? like if i should stick to my mother tongue to properly worship the gods.

my second question is more like me looking for some tips regarding setting up an altar when i have two very curious and active kitties that might destroy it.

I was doing some research into the classic “problem of evil” and the general relationship between immoral actions and divine retribution, and I was wondering about how Poseidon might view our pollution of the ocean/other bodies of water. I think it is a generally accepted view that the Gods generally let humans make our own mistakes, and do not prevent immoral actions (correct me if I’m wrong). However, since our pollution is defiling his domain, would we expect Poseidon to be more upset with humanity and more directly lead us to taking better care of the sea and/or punish the worst culprits? I suppose one could make the same argument about Zeus and air pollution as well. It sits oddly with me that the Gods have not intervened in some way thus far, given that I would imagine our actions upset them in some way. Any thoughts?

It's probably been asked before, but is there anyone here who is devoted to Nike?

To explain, I am autistic, and lately I've been really overstimulated a lot of the time, almost everytime barely escaping a meltdown, and I would really like to know if there were any 'overstimulation calming' healing deities I could call upon any time I need them.

I've heard about healing deities such as Dionysus, although he seems to be more centered on mental healing, which wouldn't correspond to what I'm searching.

So a while back like few years ago i think, wayyyyy before i even knew anything about the Greek gods, I had a few OCs (original characters) I made. The characters just so happened to be gods, because I thought it'd be cool. A few of them we're a goddess of oceans, goddess of the sky, gods of space and time etc... Would this be considered hubris?

I'm not interested in those OCs anymore and honestly forgot about most of them, and in my head they were just silly characters I made up who fight the forces of evil trying to destroy the whole universe.

I'm just asking to make sure I didn't do something wrong

A more historical question: was it common to offer a prayer to all twelve [Olympians] at once—something like, "Oh, Theoi! Good morning. Today I..."—or was that never the case, and prayers were always directed to only one or two gods at a time? Note: I am referring to informal prayers, without any offerings.

Hello, I am reading the Orphic hymns and I notice most of these hymns list types of burnable fragrances to burn in sacrifice during the ritualistic performance of the hymn. There for example, No.58: Eros lists Insence of Fragrant Herbs. However, both Hymn to Hekate and Hymn to Aphrodite do not list burnables. Does this hymn not require a burnable fragrance element? Or is it open ended, allowing more diverse types of burnables? What do you use, or not use? What would you recommend?

Εἰς Ἀθηνᾶν Κορυφίτιδαν

(To Athena Koryphitis)

Athena, for wisdom

golden tripod I will dedicate

My sharpened blade caresses

already sacrificial lamb

Athena, for wisdom

I vow trophies and my hair

The armour has been bloodied

broken sword in hand

Athena, for wisdom

let me suffer by myself

So whenever I pray to Dionysus for anything my mom ends up getting drunk and either passing out, yelling, getting mad for no reason, playing music on the TV (which is right above my room) at max volume and/or keeping me up til 2 in the morning

Ik this probably has nothing to do with lord Dionysus but still I thought it was something I would share

Where to buy 5 Ancient Greek Sheep Bone Dice for Divination (Astragolomancy)?

I am located in the US.

There is this seller on Etsy I was literally just about to buy from as someone grabbed the last set 😭

i prayed to father zeus tonight and i just flat out started crying for no reason at all in the middle of praying. i dknt think this has ever happened to me 😭 has this ever happened to anyone else? does it mean anything?

Xenophanes and others criticised Homeric literature for mischaracterising the gods. And I agree (I'm not a literalist).

That's why I don't have physical copies of either epic yet, although I bought a book of Hellenic poetry (with hymns and such of various ancient authors).
Any thoughts?

But why incest you may ask? Why are the gods so nasty?

Well, that's because world-building is hard. lol.

(Ok, this one isn't for the folks who understand what is going on, but for the ones horrorized by the gods' actions. Why is everyone making out with everyone? Why is the god's family tree a wreath?)

Let's start easy: The gods are NOT human. We like to personify the cosmos' inteligentia as human beings so we have a familiar face to speak with, instead of the abstract forces of nature. As they say, if we were birds, our gods would have wings. If we were dogs, our gods would have tails.

Because the gods are not human, they DON'T have actual human relationships. After all, the Gods (their names, their appearance, THEIR STORIES) are only world-building we invented to describe reality. When Love (Aphrodite) pacifies War (Ares), Harmony is born. Surprise, surprise.

From here, it's free real state. Sometimes Tyche is Hermes' daughter (fortune is born from commerce), memory is the mother of art and knowledge (Mnemosyne & the Muses). To define one definitive genealogy is basically impossible for the simple reason all these concepts don't behave in singular cause-effect sequences. It's all a fucked retelling of who was first, the egg or the chicken? Sometimes two gods are a couple, sometimes son and mother, sometimes they're the same being. And when you mash together all these different stories things get weird.

There are MANY, MANY ways to describe how the world behaves, which translates in many, many different stories, characters and interpretations. (Does this mean the gods are made up? Look around, everything is made up. The language you read is made up. Communication is real. Salve Hermes).

For example: We recognize the gods as wise and powerful... so, as an allegoric device, we make them all related to Wisdom and Power itself (Zeus) as a way to legitimate their position... this, of course, has the side effect of incest. Lots of incest. But can you blame the greek story-tellers?

Who knows, can you image the gods of the mushrooms? Was Athena's birth Zeus doing mitosis? It doesn't matter.

It's really a question for those who worship the gods. How do you firmly distinguish or draw the line between the mythology and then actual paganism or Hellenic religion? and how different are the divinities in the stories versus how they are portrayed or thought of in Hellenic polytheism, or anything else that involves their worship. Like did the big authors like Homer and Ovid and those guys treat the gods as characters almost in their writing, or did they take a lot from the actual teachings about the deities, and do the lines ever blur a bit or am I dumb and it's very easy for devotees to the religion to separate the two. I'm agnostic and I don't practice any pagan religion, and i'm not an expert on ancient greece either, I'm just a very curious 17 year old girl so if this question comes off as clueless it's because I am.