Deity
A deity designates, in polytheistic religions and in the comparative history of religions, a divine being endowed with its own personality, a specific domain of action, and a ritual cult. The term encompasses gods, goddesses and major divine figures of every tradition.
Origin and etymology
The word comes from Medieval Latin deitas, coined from deus (god) by Saint Augustine (354-430) in The City of God. Augustine proposed deitas as an alternative to the Greek theotes to designate the divine nature. The English word deity is attested from the 14th century and is used in particular to speak of non-Christian divinities: Egyptian deities (Ra, Isis, Osiris, Horus), Greek (Zeus, Athena, Apollo), Roman (Jupiter, Venus, Mars), Hindu (Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, Ganesh), Norse (Odin, Thor, Freyja), Aztec (Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc), African (Yoruba orishas). The term avoids the capital of God and allows for a neutral comparative discussion.
Evolution and tradition
Modern religious studies, from Friedrich Max Muller in the 19th century, Mircea Eliade in the 20th century (Treatise on the History of Religions, 1949), and Jean-Pierre Vernant, study deities in a comparative perspective. Carl Gustav Jung and his disciples have proposed a reading of deities as manifestations of universal archetypes: the Mother, the Father, the Trickster, the Hero, the Lover, the Sage. This archetypal approach was taken up by Joseph Campbell in The Masks of God (1959-1968). Contemporary Neopaganism (Wicca, Hellenic reconstructionism, Asatru) revives cults addressed to specific deities, with variable ritualistic seriousness.
Practical use
In contemporary esoteric practice, deities can be invoked in meditation, visualization or ritual. On Tarotoui, references to deities appear in the entries for tarot arcana and oracles: the Empress arcanum is often linked to mother goddesses (Cybele, Demeter, Isis), the Sun arcanum to Apollo or Mithras. Deity magic is a Neopagan practice that establishes a personal relationship with a chosen divine figure. The correspondences between deities and planets (Venus / Aphrodite, Mars / Ares) structure traditional astrology.
Going further
Confusing a polytheistic deity with the monotheistic God of the Abrahamic traditions is a simplification: these are structurally different conceptions. Note also that the fruitful Jungian archetypal reading does not replace the historical-religious reading that situates each deity within its precise cultural context. A generic abstract Goddess can sometimes mask the actual diversity of traditions.