I have LITTLE problem with using mythic figures as words in the language of metaphysics.

But it is highly bewildering to newcomers who are barely old enough to have some idea what a "person" is, to then have to wrestle with the corruption of "archetypal metaphor" into a projected "person" which exercises a lot more power over "you than you do over your own life. Isn't that a rather debilitating disservice to someone trying to learn how to manage existence in the middle of a drunken midden? Attributing the situation of the individual and the group in the complex of forces and flows of life to embodies verities, it strikes me, is at best a rather egoistic shorthand and at worst a complete betrayal of trust to those who need to learn what gives.

In their origins, faced with highly complex systems and equipped with very little workable insight into them, the development of divinities strikes me as so much science-fiction -- a creative exercise in wrassling with the unknown. But I don't think people should worship science fiction, whether Kali, Blavatsky, Dianetics or more mainstream figments.

Sorry if I have stepped on any toes here. I do not intend to offend, merely to offer an alternative point of view.

A