Honoring the Self

For some of us, Deity may be the Higher Self, Deep Self, or Soul Self (a person's spiritual essence), or a symbol arising from the unconscious mind.

The Higher Self

Some of us honor, worship, or seek to communicate with their own Higher Self, or Soul Self. Some consider it to be the Divine energy emanating from within. Most of us believe that people have a level of consciousness or some other part that transcends time and space. This consciousness is the essence of who we have been, who we are, and who we will always be, our own individual truth.

These of us (who believe in this) turn inward rather than outward for spiritual growth and fulfillment.

Truths, symbols, and archetypes

For some believers, Deity and/or truth lie only within the human mind and imagination. Deity may be a truth or insight arising from the personal unconscious mind or the collective unconscious, shared by all beings.

The unconscious mind has two parts:

- The personal unconscious is the location of everything that isn't presently conscious but can be, including memories that you can call up easily and those that you have buried deep in your mind (I call it my private storehouse, I even have a complete office and a statue of Cthulhu standing there under the section: Cthulhu Mythos).

- The collective unconscious holds the accumulated knowledge and experiences of all beings (also animals). It is the inherited part of the brain. It holds instincts, which are patterns of behavior.

The unconscious mind doesn't have language to express these behaviors and experiences. It communicates only in pictures. It uses symbols. A symbol is an image or object that represents something else. The collective unconsciousness uses archetypes, symbols that are common to everyone. An archetype is not an image, but a tendency for humans to represent certain ideas with a specific symbol.

These archetypal symbols appear in religions, dreams, myths, and in the Cthulhu Mythos. Yidhra is an example of an archetype. Some believe that when they communicate with Nyarlathotep, they are reaching this symbolic information in their own minds.