A student of mine asked me this and I wanted to share their question and my response because I feel it may be helpful for some when considering ideas around spirits and gods:
“I’ve been thinking about the witch father a lot recently and I kind of got the impression that his spirit exists in a similar form as plant spirits. Each plant that we work with has an individual spirit, it’s grand genius or overarching spirit that encompasses all plants from that species, then there is the spirit of the entirety of all plant life on earth.
Am I way off with my interpretation here? Because sometimes when people talk about the folk devil they make it seem that he is one entity that travels from place to place meeting all who call him, but every description of devils met seem to be vastly different in look and personality.”
My response:
I don’t believe there is one answer here, but you’re thinking and questioning and that is good.
I want to make some suggestions here, using myself as an example (though this applies to us all) to inspire further consideration on this topic.
Every person you know, knows a slightly, or vastly different version of you. That is their experience of you and the relationship they have with you.
A coworker, or someone who rings me up at the grocery store, will likely know a very different Matthew than a parent will, or a longtime friend, or a lover.
These relationships might be viewed as their own distinct entities which emanate from the connection I have with another person and our shared experiences together. These relationships and experiences are also colored by the perception, culture, symbol systems, values, and emotional weights applied by the person observing their experience of “Matthew”.
Does this mean that to each person, including my own relationship to myself, presents a different “Matthew”? I would argue yes.
But they are all a part of what we might call a “Matthew Complex”. There are characteristics most people will experience of me or come to expect of me. If several people who have relationships and experiences with me get together and discuss me they are more likely than not to share similar impressions than the alternative. But there are always exceptions. Some people adore me, and some despise me. Many will fall somewhere in between.
Also, at what point do the things people say about me for good or for ill become apart of this idea of Matthew? There are plenty of historical figures, celebrities, saints, etc. whose stories have become a part of them, regardless of if they are true or not.
I will add that we could also get very microcosmic or macrocosmic in this exploration. Am I only the three souls we discuss in class? Am I also all of the microbes and bacteria that make an ecosystem of my flesh? Am I grafted to the spirits I pact with in my witchery? Or to my ancestors? Am I a one of many Matthews in a multiverse. Or could we think of the spirit of Matthew being that of ALL people ever named Matthew? Am I just one part of the greater oversoul of the human species? I could argue yes on all these points.
Now all that in mind, apply some of these same ideas and questions to both spirits and gods and see where it may lead you.