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Pantheon and Supernatural Beings

High deity/deities, lesser gods, spirits, ancestors; functional mapping.
Why: “who” the actors are, without mixing with cosmology.

Pantheon and Supernatural Beings

Who or what does this religion recognize as possessing divine, spiritual, ancestral, postmortem, cosmic, nonhuman, transhuman, or otherwise more-than-ordinary agency—and how are those entities individuated, classified, related, empowered, encountered, and addressed?

Ultimate realities and high gods; creators and primordial beings; major, local, household, occupational, and tutelary deities; emanations, hypostases, avatars, incarnations, and manifestations; angels, messengers, guardians, and celestial officials; nature, place, elemental, astral, and disease spirits; ancestors, ghosts, saints, bodhisattvas, immortals, culture heroes, and deified humans; demons, adversaries, tricksters, and chaos beings; collective hosts and unnamed classes; personified abstractions and impersonal powers; ontological rank, agency, embodiment, gender, temporality, spatiality, powers, limitations, moral character, relationships, mediation, manifestation, cultic status, and historical or regional variation.

Why: The original framework assigns this dimension the identification of high deities, lesser gods, spirits, ancestors, and their functions. Its governing boundary is that this section explains “who” the religious actors are, while Cosmology and Myth explains how reality is structured and operates.

Purpose of This Dimension

Pantheon and Supernatural Beings constructs the religion’s complete ontology of extraordinary agents and presences.

It is not merely a list of divine names. It must determine:

What kinds of beings or powers the tradition recognizes.
Which entities are individual persons, collective classes, manifestations, forces, abstractions, places, ancestors, or contested boundary cases.
How the religion distinguishes one entity from another.
Whether several names refer to one being, or one name refers to several beings.
How beings originate, persist, act, communicate, manifest, change, and cease.
What powers and limitations they possess.
How they relate to ultimate reality, one another, human beings, animals, places, objects, and the dead.
Which beings receive worship, veneration, invocation, appeasement, avoidance, exorcism, remembrance, or no cultic attention.
How official theology, local practice, popular religion, esoteric teaching, historical sources, and different branches disagree about them.
What is established by evidence, what is asserted within the tradition, and what remains metaphysically or historically unresolved.

The completed section should produce two major outputs:

An ontological census of every relevant being, class, manifestation, and power.
A relational model showing how those beings are connected through identity, generation, emanation, hierarchy, kinship, service, rivalry, mediation, patronage, and cult.

Foundational Analytical Distinctions

Before cataloguing any entity, distinguish the following.

1. Being versus force

A tradition may describe something as:

A conscious person.
A semi-personal power.
A collective intelligence.
A personified abstraction.
An impersonal force.
A law or principle.
A place possessing agency.
A manifestation without an independent personality.
A reality beyond all categories of being.

Do not call every religious power a “god” or “spirit.”

2. Individual versus class

Distinguish:

A named individual being.
A species or class of beings.
A collective host.
A title held by several beings.
A temporary office.
A succession of beings occupying one role.
A single being manifested in several places.
Several local beings later treated as one.

“Angels,” “ancestors,” “spirits,” or “devas,” for example, may name broad classes rather than individual entities.

3. Being versus manifestation

A visible or named form may be understood as:

The being itself.
One body of the being.
An incarnation.
An avatar.
An emanation.
A hypostasis.
An aspect.
A local form.
A temporary epiphany.
A possession state.
A symbol.
A representation.
A vessel or residence.

These relationships must not be collapsed.

4. Name versus entity

One name may be:

A personal name.
A title.
An epithet.
A role.
A sacred formula.
A local designation.
A euphemism.
A secret name.
A name shared by several beings.
A translated equivalent that obscures distinctions.

Likewise, one being may possess hundreds of names without becoming hundreds of separate beings.

5. Existence versus worship

A tradition may affirm that a being exists while:

Forbidding worship of it.
Treating it as hostile.
Regarding it as spiritually irrelevant.
Permitting only specialists to address it.
Acknowledging it historically but not presently.
Interpreting it symbolically.
Denying that it deserves the category “deity.”

Conversely, a being may receive intense popular devotion while receiving little attention in formal theology.

6. Rank versus power versus popularity

These are separate variables.

A being may be:

Ontologically highest but rarely invoked.
Ritually central but theologically subordinate.
Extremely powerful within a narrow jurisdiction.
Politically prominent but privately unpopular.
Narratively famous but cultically inactive.
Widely loved despite low formal rank.
Morally revered but cosmically limited.

No single hierarchy captures every kind of importance.

7. Narrative role versus ontological status

A myth may portray a being as defeated, killed, tricked, married, imprisoned, or transformed. The religion may nevertheless interpret that episode:

Literally.
Symbolically.
Allegorically.
Liturgically.
Philosophically.
As belonging to a former age.
As one manifestation of a deeper reality.

Do not assume that narrative appearance exhausts ontology.

8. Benevolence versus holiness versus purity

A being may be:

Benevolent but ritually impure.
Dangerous but sacred.
Morally perfect but remote.
Ambivalent rather than evil.
Protective toward one community and hostile toward another.
Necessary to cosmic order despite causing suffering.
Beyond ordinary moral categories.

“Good” and “evil” are rarely sufficient classifications.

9. Historical attestation versus metaphysical truth

The analysis can establish with varying confidence:

That a being was named.
That a community believed in it.
That people reported encountering it.
That rituals addressed it.
That institutions defined it in a particular way.
That material representations existed.
That its cult expanded or declined.

Those conclusions do not, by themselves, settle the being’s independent metaphysical existence. Emic truth claims must be represented faithfully, while the limits of historical and empirical methods remain explicit.

Governing Principles

1. Begin with indigenous categories

Before applying “god,” “spirit,” “demon,” “saint,” “ancestor,” or “angel,” record the religion’s own terminology.

Ask:

What term does the community use?
What does it literally mean?
What range of entities does it include?
What distinctions does it make that English erases?
Does the term indicate ontology, rank, function, lineage, moral status, or cultic relationship?
Does the same term change meaning by period or branch?

The comparative label should follow the local ontology, not replace it.

2. Do not assume every tradition has a pantheon

“Pantheon” literally suggests an organized totality of gods. Some traditions instead possess:

One God and many subordinate created beings.
Innumerable local spirits with no centralized system.
A network of ancestors and places.
Several competing divine orders.
One ultimate reality with many manifestations.
Non-theistic perfected beings.
An apophatic absolute beyond being.
No fixed census at all.

State whether “pantheon” is emically appropriate, analytically useful with qualification, or misleading.

3. Do not assume a nature–supernature distinction

Some traditions do not separate “natural” and “supernatural” realms. Rivers, mountains, ancestors, animals, weather, and human communities may all participate in one relational world.

Where the category “supernatural” distorts the tradition, use language such as:

More-than-human beings.
Nonhuman persons.
Sacred agents.
Invisible beings.
Other-than-human persons.
Divine or spiritual entities.
Extraordinary agencies.
Ontologically significant presences.

4. Do not count names as though they were entities

Every census must first resolve:

Synonyms.
Titles.
Epithets.
Local forms.
Translations.
Manifestations.
Independent beings with similar names.
Later identifications.
Scribal or scholarly conflations.

An apparently large pantheon may contain many names for fewer beings. An apparently simple pantheon may conceal numerous local entities under one official name.

5. Do not reduce beings to functions

A deity associated with war is not merely “the war god.” A healing spirit may also govern ancestry, justice, fertility, initiation, or territory.

Record domains and functions, but also:

Personality.
History.
relationships.
Ontological nature.
Moral character.
Cultic constituency.
Local variation.
Contradictory roles.

6. Preserve internal disagreement

Different branches may disagree over:

Whether a being exists.
Whether it is divine.
Whether it is one or many.
Whether it may receive worship.
Whether it is benevolent or hostile.
Whether it is an aspect, incarnation, servant, saint, ancestor, or symbol.
Whether two named beings are identical.
Whether an image contains, represents, or merely recalls the being.

Do not force these positions into an artificial consensus.

7. Date and locate every ontological claim

A being’s identity may vary by:

Century.
Region.
Language.
Temple.
School.
Rite.
Denomination.
Social class.
Household tradition.
Political regime.
Diaspora setting.

Every claim should answer:

According to whom, where, and when?

8. Distinguish official, lived, local, and esoteric ontologies

At minimum, identify:

Canonical or official teaching.
Philosophical or theological interpretation.
Institutional teaching.
Liturgical treatment.
Popular or vernacular belief.
Household practice.
Local cult.
Esoteric or initiatory teaching.
Dissenting interpretation.
Historical form.
Contemporary form.

9. Preserve ambiguity where the tradition preserves ambiguity

Some beings are deliberately difficult to classify. They may be simultaneously:

Ancestor and deity.
Person and place.
One and many.
Male and female.
Benevolent and dangerous.
Created and eternal.
Individual and collective.
Historical and mythic.
Present and absent.

Ambiguity may be theologically productive rather than evidence of confusion.

10. Treat absence and hiddenness as positive characteristics

A being may be defined through:

Remoteness.
Silence.
Concealment.
Withdrawal.
Death.
Sleep.
Imprisonment.
Exile.
Refusal to manifest.
Apophatic unknowability.

Do not assume that lack of cult, image, or appearance means insignificance.

11. Distinguish class membership from moral judgment

Terms such as “demon,” “devil,” “evil spirit,” “false god,” or “idol” may be:

Indigenous classifications.
Polemical reclassifications.
Missionary translations.
Later demonizations of earlier beings.
Moral judgments rather than ontological categories.

Record who applies the label and why.

12. Do not treat humanlike personhood as the norm

A being may possess:

Distributed consciousness.
Collective identity.
Dividual personhood.
Multiple bodies.
No permanent body.
No stable name.
Agency without humanlike emotion.
Presence inseparable from a landscape.
Identity constituted through relationships.
Temporary personhood produced through ritual.

13. Distinguish cultic centrality from textual prominence

Texts may emphasize beings that ordinary people rarely address. Archaeology or ethnography may reveal widespread devotion to beings that official texts barely mention.

Map both:

Theological prominence
Narrative prominence
Liturgical prominence
Material prominence
Popular prominence
Political prominence

14. Distinguish the religion’s ontology from outsiders’ interpretations

A scholarly description of a deity as a fertility symbol, psychological archetype, social projection, natural force, or historical amalgam is an etic interpretation.

It must not be substituted for the community’s own account of the being.

15. Make evidence and confidence explicit

For each entity, identify whether it is attested through:

Canonical text.
Noncanonical text.
Inscription.
Archaeology.
Image.
Ritual.
Oral tradition.
Ethnography.
Institutional teaching.
Personal testimony.
External observer.
Comparative reconstruction.

Then state what is:

Established.
Strongly supported.
Probable.
Contested.
Tradition-asserted.
Speculative.
Unknown.
Restricted.

Comprehensive Pantheon and Supernatural Beings Template

Part I — Scope, Terminology, and Ontological Control

1. Pantheon Scope Lock

Define exactly which world of beings is being mapped.

Questions to answer

What religious unit is being analyzed?
Which branch, school, denomination, lineage, region, or historical period is included?
Is the analysis synchronic or diachronic?
Is it mapping:
- Current official teaching?
- Current lived belief?
- One historical period?
- The entire historical tradition?
- A local cultic system?
- A comparative family of traditions?
Are extinct beings included?
Are beings preserved only in myth included?
Are rejected or heretical beings included?
Are beings of neighboring religions included where the subject tradition recognizes them?
Are beings known only from hostile sources included?
Are symbolic or allegorical interpretations included?
Are ancestors included?
Are saints or perfected humans included?
Are non-agentive ultimate realities included for boundary clarification?
Are sacred animals, places, or objects included when treated as persons or embodiments?
Are literary figures without cultic or ontological standing excluded?
Is the inventory intended to be exhaustive, representative, or limited to major beings?
What is the contemporary cutoff date?
What evidence threshold is required for inclusion?

Required scope statement

This analysis maps the divine, spiritual, ancestral, postmortem, and other more-than-human agents recognized within [religious unit], covering [periods, regions, and branches]. It includes [specified classes] and excludes [specified classes], while treating disputed and restricted cases separately.

2. Applicability of “Pantheon,” “Deity,” and “Supernatural”

Evaluate each analytical label before using it.

Questions to answer

Does the tradition possess a term equivalent to “pantheon”?
Does it imagine a complete, bounded set of divine beings?
Is the set finite, open-ended, or innumerable?
Are the beings organized into one coherent system?
Does “deity” correspond to an indigenous category?
Does the local category include entities that English would call spirits, ancestors, saints, forces, or places?
Does “supernatural” imply a division the tradition rejects?
Does the tradition distinguish sacred beings from ordinary nature?
Is “spirit” too broad to be useful?
Does “god” falsely imply worship, creation, immortality, omnipotence, or moral perfection?
Does “demon” import hostile theology?
Does “ancestor” imply biological descent where the tradition uses ritual or political ancestry?
Does “saint” imply institutional canonization where none exists?
Does “angel” imply a messenger function absent from the local class?
Are comparative terms being retained only as provisional crosswalks?

Required classification

For each comparative term, mark:

Emically exact.
Broadly appropriate.
Useful only with qualification.
Historically imposed.
Polemical.
Misleading and not used.

3. Indigenous Ontology and Category Lexicon

Construct the religion’s own classification system before imposing an external taxonomy.

Questions to answer

How does the tradition divide kinds of beings?
Which beings belong to the same class?
Which distinctions matter most internally?
Are categories based on:
- Origin?
- Substance?
- Rank?
- Location?
- Function?
- Moral character?
- Relationship to humans?
- Relationship to ultimate reality?
- Mortality?
- Cultic treatment?
Can beings change category?
Can humans enter a nonhuman class?
Can a deity become an ancestor, demon, saint, or local spirit?
Are categories mutually exclusive?
Are they hierarchical?
Are they situational?
Do ordinary practitioners use the same terms as theologians?
Do translators collapse several indigenous categories into one English word?
Does one local term cover both human and nonhuman persons?

Required crosswalk

Emic term	Literal sense	Included entities	Excluded entities	Provisional comparative class	Important mismatch

4. Entity Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Define what counts as a being for this section.

Possible inclusion criteria

An entity may be included when one or more of the following apply:

It is explicitly described as existing.
It possesses attributed agency or intentionality.
It receives direct address.
It receives worship, veneration, appeasement, avoidance, or exorcism.
It communicates through revelation, dreams, possession, signs, or divination.
It is said to cause events.
It occupies a named position in a divine hierarchy.
It maintains postmortem agency.
It is embodied in or identical with a place, object, animal, or natural phenomenon.
It functions as a collective or class of agents.
It is historically attested as an object of religious belief or practice.
Its denial is itself central to the tradition’s ontology.

Boundary questions

Is an abstract principle treated as a person?
Is a poetic personification ontologically real?
Is a sacred place a being, a body, a residence, or a symbol?
Is a ritual mask the entity, a vessel, a representation, or a costume?
Is a dead human still an agent?
Is a legendary founder regarded as historically human, divine, or both?
Does a force have will?
Is a corporate collective treated as one person?
Is a deity merely a role filled by successive beings?
Is a narrative monster believed to exist beyond the story?
Is a theological metaphor ritually treated as real?
Is a being included only in one disputed source?
Is an entity merely an outsider’s classification?

Exclusion categories

Mark excluded cases as:

Purely literary.
Purely metaphorical.
Ordinary human.
Human specialist without superhuman status.
Symbol without attributed agency.
Object without indwelling or embodied presence.
Scholarly reconstruction without sufficient attestation.
Outside the defined religion.
Insufficient evidence.
Restricted and not classifiable.

5. Ontological Commitment Levels

Not every source or community commits to a being’s reality in the same way.

Classify each entity as

Explicitly affirmed as real.
Presupposed by ritual.
Canonically narrated.
Theologically required.
Philosophically interpreted.
Popularly believed.
Locally believed.
Symbolically interpreted.
Allegorically interpreted.
Psychologically interpreted.
Historically believed but no longer affirmed.
Treated as folklore.
Disputed.
Rejected as false.
Reinterpreted as another kind of being.
Bracketed as mystery.
Unknown.

Questions to answer

Does the community say the being literally exists?
Is literal existence considered the wrong question?
Is belief required?
Can adherents participate without affirming the being?
Is the being treated as real during ritual but metaphorical in theology?
Do clergy and laity differ?
Does one school allegorize what another takes literally?
Is the being affirmed only historically?
Is disbelief tolerated?
Does the tradition distinguish belief, knowledge, faith, vision, and ritual presupposition?

6. Type, Token, Office, and Manifestation

Determine what kind of identity is involved.

Possible structures

One unique individual.
One individual with many names.
One individual with many bodies.
One essence with several persons.
One source with several emanations.
One deity with many local forms.
A recurring avatar.
A role filled by successive beings.
A title shared by unrelated beings.
A class containing many individuals.
A collective functioning as one being.
A distributed being present in many places.
Several beings later fused into one.
One being later divided into several.
A temporary ritual personification.

Questions to answer

What makes the being numerically the same across manifestations?
Do manifestations share memory, will, and agency?
Can several forms act simultaneously?
Are local forms independently worshipped?
Can one form disagree with another?
Does an incarnation fully contain the source?
Is an emanation consubstantial with the source?
Does manifestation diminish or divide the source?
Is the title permanent or transferable?
Does the office survive the individual?
Can one class member become uniquely named?
Does an epithet develop into an independent entity?
Can scholars determine whether two names originally referred to one being?

7. Master Entity Census

Create a complete registry before writing narrative summaries.

Minimum census fields

Entity ID.
Preferred analytical name.
Primary emic name.
Original script.
Transliteration.
Pronunciation.
Translation.
Alternate names.
Titles and epithets.
Entity class.
Individual, class, collective, office, or manifestation.
Ontological status.
Branch.
Region.
Period.
Current status.
Highest attested rank.
Principal domains.
Primary relationships.
Cultic status.
Evidence types.
Confidence.
Restricted-data status.
Cross-references.

Count status

State whether the ontology is:

Exactly enumerable.
Canonically enumerable.
Conventionally enumerable.
Partly enumerable.
Open-ended.
Innumerable.
Regionally variable.
Historically variable.
Impossible to count meaningfully.

8. Entity Evidence and Confidence

For each being, identify the evidence supporting:

Its name.
Its class.
Its existence within the tradition.
Its rank.
Its domains.
Its relationships.
Its cult.
Its historical distribution.
Its iconographic identity.
Its current recognition.

Questions to answer

Is the being attested internally?
Is it attested externally?
Is it named in a canonical text?
Does material evidence indicate actual cult?
Is it known only through hostile polemic?
Is it known only through modern reconstruction?
Does an image identify the being through inscription or only interpretation?
Are several sources independent?
Does the evidence represent official or popular religion?
Is a late source projected backward?
Is one local form generalized?
Are identity claims contested?
Does the source establish the being’s existence in belief, or only the use of a name?

9. Official, Popular, Local, and Esoteric Entity Registers

Create parallel inventories where necessary.

Questions to answer

Which beings appear in official doctrine?
Which appear in liturgy?
Which appear in household practice?
Which are recognized locally but ignored centrally?
Which are condemned but widely invoked?
Which are known only to initiates?
Which are associated with women, children, occupational groups, castes, clans, or regional communities?
Which are politically promoted?
Which are privately feared?
Which are accepted by one branch and denied by another?
Which are retained in folklore after formal belief declines?
Which are represented publicly but interpreted differently in esoteric teaching?

Required parallel registers

Official or canonical.
Liturgical.
Local and regional.
Household and vernacular.
Esoteric or initiatory.
Dissident or heterodox.
Historical but inactive.
Contemporary reconstructed or revived.

10. Restricted and Dangerous Knowledge

Questions to answer

Are any names secret?
Is speaking a being’s name believed to invoke it?
Are images prohibited?
Are origin narratives restricted?
Are some beings known only by initiates?
Does disclosure endanger sacred sites or practitioners?
Are certain entities gender-, lineage-, or office-restricted?
Can the being be described publicly without violating community rules?
Can its existence be acknowledged while details remain withheld?
Are hostile beings intentionally unnamed?
Does concealment protect the community?
Does publication risk appropriation, sensationalism, or ritual misuse?

Part II — Complete Census of Ontological Classes

Every category below is optional. The point is not to force all religions into the same inventory, but to ensure that no significant class is overlooked.

11. Ultimate Reality, Absolute, or Beyond-Being

Some traditions recognize an ultimate reality that may not properly be a “being.”

Questions to answer

Is there an ultimate reality?
Is it personal, impersonal, transpersonal, or beyond that distinction?
Is it described as being, nonbeing, emptiness, ground, source, truth, consciousness, law, or mystery?
Is it singular?
Is it numerically one or beyond number?
Is it self-conscious?
Does it possess will?
Does it act?
Does it create?
Does it emanate?
Is it identical with all reality?
Does all reality exist within it?
Is it separate from the cosmos?
Is it immanent, transcendent, or both?
Can it be named?
Are positive predicates permitted?
Is it approached apophatically through negation?
Is it worshipped?
Is it experienced?
Is it represented?
Does calling it a “being” violate the tradition’s theology?
How do finite beings relate to it?
Are gods subordinate manifestations of it?
Is it morally personal?
Is it the source of value or beyond moral categories?

Required conclusion

State whether ultimate reality belongs:

Fully within this section.
At the boundary between Pantheon and Cosmology.
Primarily under Cosmology and Myth.
Outside all being-language according to the tradition.

12. Supreme or High Deity

A high deity is not automatically creator, sole deity, most worshipped deity, or morally supreme.

Questions to answer

Is there a supreme being?
In what sense is it supreme:
- Ontologically?
- Politically?
- Cosmically?
- Morally?
- Genealogically?
- Ritually?
- Historically?
Is supremacy universal or branch-specific?
Is the high deity creator, organizer, ruler, ancestor, judge, or source?
Is it uncreated?
Is it eternal?
Is it omnipotent?
Is its power limited by fate, law, covenant, logic, other beings, or its own nature?
Is it omniscient?
Is it omnipresent?
Is it remote or accessible?
Does it receive direct worship?
Is worship mediated through lesser beings?
Is it represented materially?
Is it gendered?
Does it possess multiple persons, forms, or names?
Are rival high gods acknowledged?
Has supremacy changed historically?
Is the high god a theological abstraction imposed over a more plural popular system?
Does a remote creator coexist with active local spirits?

13. Creator, Demiurge, World-Organizer, or Culture-Former

Creation and supremacy must be analyzed separately.

Questions to answer

Who or what creates?
Is creation from nothing, from preexisting material, from chaos, from self, from sacrifice, or through reproduction?
Is there one creator or several?
Is the creator identical with ultimate reality?
Is the creator subordinate to a higher principle?
Does the creator make the entire cosmos or only a region, people, species, or institution?
Does another being organize what the creator produces?
Is creation intentional?
Is it accidental?
Is it morally good, defective, mixed, or illusory?
Does the creator remain active?
Does it withdraw?
Does it regret creation?
Is the creator worshipped?
Is a trickster or culture hero responsible for human institutions rather than cosmic creation?
Are different creation accounts assigned to different beings?
Are creators mortal, replaceable, or defeated?

The complete account of creation belongs under Cosmology and Myth; this section profiles the creators as entities.

14. Primordial Beings and Pre-Cosmic Powers

Possible members

Primordial parents.
Chaos beings.
Giants.
Titans.
Cosmic animals.
First ancestors.
Personified elements.
Preexisting gods.
World bodies.
Sacrificial primordial persons.

Questions to answer

Do these beings precede the ordered cosmos?
Are they creators, raw materials, ancestors, or enemies?
Are they conscious?
Are they defeated, dismembered, imprisoned, absorbed, or transformed?
Do they remain active?
Are they worshipped?
Are they feared?
Are current deities descended from them?
Does the ordered pantheon depend upon their suppression?
Are primordial beings morally evil or merely pre-order?
Are they expected to return?
Does their body become part of the world?
Are they one generation in a recurring divine succession?

15. Major Deities

Questions to answer

Which beings possess broad transregional importance?
What makes them major:
- Number of worshippers?
- Political sponsorship?
- Canonical prominence?
- Cosmic jurisdiction?
- Temple network?
- Mythic centrality?
Are they universally recognized?
Do different branches rank them differently?
Are their domains exclusive or overlapping?
Are they independent persons or manifestations of a higher unity?
Are they members of a divine family, court, council, or bureaucracy?
Are they associated with states, peoples, cities, planets, elements, or professions?
Do they possess stable personalities?
Are contradictory portrayals harmonized?
Does each have a distinct cult?
Do they receive standardized or local forms of devotion?
Are some major in text but minor in practice?
Are some major in practice but neglected by elite theology?

16. Local, Regional, Tutelary, Household, and Occupational Beings

Possible jurisdictions

City.
Village.
River.
Mountain.
Boundary.
House.
Hearth.
Family.
Clan.
Nation.
Profession.
Guild.
Ship.
Army.
School.
Field.
Marketplace.
Road.
Well.
Particular individual.

Questions to answer

Is the being bound to a place or group?
Does its jurisdiction end at a boundary?
Can it travel with migrants?
Can several places possess separate forms of the same deity?
Is the local being subordinate to a major deity?
Is it an independent person?
Does it protect only insiders?
Can outsiders invoke it?
Is its power stronger locally?
Does it migrate through relics, images, soil, names, or ritual authorization?
Does urbanization weaken or transform it?
Is a household being inherited?
Does the being transfer through marriage?
Is an occupational being tied to practical knowledge or initiation?
Are local beings marginalized by centralized theology?
Do communities identify themselves through their patron?

17. Celestial Officials, Messengers, Attendants, and Guardians

Possible functions

Messenger.
Herald.
Scribe.
Warrior.
Guardian.
Throne bearer.
Court official.
Watcher.
Intercessor.
Guide.
Accuser.
Recorder of deeds.
Administrator of natural processes.
Custodian of sacred knowledge.

Questions to answer

Are these beings divine, created, perfected, or of a separate species?
Do they possess free will?
Can they disobey or fall?
Are they individually named?
Are they organized into ranks?
Are ranks ontological, functional, or honorific?
Do members change office?
Are they worshipped, venerated, invoked, or merely acknowledged?
Can they appear bodily?
Can they possess humans?
Do they have gender?
Are wings, halos, weapons, or other features literal, visionary, or symbolic?
Are guardians assigned to individuals, nations, places, or institutions?
Do they mediate access to the supreme being?
Are messenger and warrior roles held by the same class?
Are later elaborate hierarchies present in the earliest sources?

18. Emanations, Hypostases, Persons, Aspects, and Divine Forms

These categories require precise metaphysical distinctions.

Questions to answer

Does one ultimate reality possess internal differentiation?
Are differentiated persons numerically distinct?
Do they share one essence?
Is an emanation created or uncreated?
Does it proceed necessarily or voluntarily?
Does procession diminish the source?
Does the emanation possess independent will?
Is an aspect merely a way the one being appears?
Is a hypostasis a full person, ontological level, or manifestation?
Are forms temporary or eternal?
Can one form be worshipped independently?
Can forms act simultaneously?
Are several beings ultimately one?
Is unity metaphysical, devotional, symbolic, or philosophical?
Do different schools disagree over person, essence, mode, and manifestation?
Does translating local terms as “aspect” erase real plurality?
Does translating them as separate “gods” erase real unity?

Required identity statement

For every such relation, state exactly:

X is understood by [community] as [person, aspect, emanation, form, manifestation, title, or incarnation] of Y, not merely as a similar being.

19. Avatars, Incarnations, Embodiments, and Descents

Questions to answer

Does a divine being become human, animal, material, or otherwise embodied?
Is the embodiment complete or partial?
Does the divine source remain elsewhere simultaneously?
Is the body created, born, assumed, inhabited, or transformed?
Does the incarnation possess one will or several?
Does it retain divine knowledge?
Can it suffer, age, die, or err?
Is embodiment temporary or permanent?
Is there one incarnation or a recurring series?
Can several incarnations coexist?
Are incarnations recognized retrospectively?
Who authenticates an incarnation?
Is the incarnation identical with the source, a vehicle, a chosen person, an emanation, or a possession?
Are rival claimants recognized?
Does the incarnate being remain an object of worship after death?
Are relics or descendants treated as extensions of its presence?
Does the tradition distinguish incarnation from appearance?

20. Nature, Place, Elemental, Weather, and Astral Beings

Possible associations

Rivers.
Springs.
Mountains.
Forests.
Caves.
Seas.
Winds.
Storms.
Fire.
Earth.
Sky.
Sun.
Moon.
Stars.
Planets.
Species.
Seasonal cycles.
Ecological zones.

Questions to answer

Is the physical phenomenon identical with the being?
Is it the being’s body?
Is it the being’s residence?
Is it a manifestation?
Is it merely a symbol?
Can the being exist apart from the place or phenomenon?
Does destruction of the site harm the being?
Can the being relocate?
Is the being individual or a class?
Are all rivers persons or only particular rivers?
Does the being possess humanlike intentionality?
Is agency relational rather than individual?
Does it govern the phenomenon or constitute it?
Is an astral body the deity itself, its vehicle, or its sign?
Does scientific reinterpretation alter religious identity?
Does environmental damage create theological crisis?
Are local environmental beings integrated into a wider pantheon?

21. Ancestors and the Active Dead

Ancestors must be distinguished from all deceased persons.

Questions to answer

Does every deceased person become an ancestor?
What qualifies the dead for ancestral status?
Is biological descent required?
Can ritual incorporation create ancestry?
Do ancestors retain individual personalities?
Do they merge into a collective?
Do they remain near descendants?
Can they reincarnate and still act as ancestors?
Are they morally perfected?
Can they be angry, jealous, needy, or dangerous?
Are they subordinate to gods?
Are they themselves divine?
Do they possess territorial or lineage jurisdiction?
Can ancestors of another group act upon outsiders?
Do forgotten ancestors lose agency?
Does remembrance sustain them?
Are founding ancestors historical, mythic, or both?
Are women and collateral ancestors recognized equally?
Are royal ancestors politically elevated over ordinary dead?
Can a recently deceased person become a guardian, ghost, or ancestor depending on ritual outcome?

The process of dying, funerary transition, and postmortem destination belongs under Death and Afterlife. Here the concern is the dead as continuing agents.

22. Ghosts, Restless Dead, and Dangerous Dead

Questions to answer

What distinguishes a ghost from an ancestor?
Are ghosts incomplete, improperly buried, forgotten, violent, polluted, or unjustly killed?
Do they retain personality?
Are they bound to place, body, object, memory, or grievance?
Can they communicate?
Can they possess?
Can they cause disease, fear, infertility, accident, or madness?
Are all ghosts dangerous?
Can they be reconciled?
Can they become ancestors?
Can they be reborn?
Can they be exorcised, transferred, fed, appeased, or destroyed?
Does the tradition distinguish apparitions, souls, shades, revenants, and demons?
Are ghost traditions official or vernacular?
Are traumatic historical deaths especially likely to produce ghosts?
Are modern ghost narratives continuous with formal doctrine?

23. Saints, Bodhisattvas, Immortals, Sages, and Perfected Beings

These categories must not be flattened into “minor gods.”

Questions to answer

Was the being formerly human?
Does it remain human in some sense?
Is it deified?
Is it perfected rather than divine?
Does it possess superhuman knowledge or power?
Does it intercede?
Does it voluntarily remain accessible?
Does it postpone final liberation?
Does it inhabit another realm?
Does it manifest repeatedly?
Does it receive worship, veneration, remembrance, or requests?
Does the tradition distinguish worship from veneration?
Is institutional recognition required?
Is recognition local, popular, or formal?
Are relics treated as personal presence?
Are visions or miracles evidence for recognition?
Are there unofficial holy persons?
Can recognition be withdrawn?
Do saints or perfected beings possess specialized patronage?
Are they subordinate to the supreme being?
Can they act independently?
Are they exemplars to imitate, agents to invoke, or both?

24. Culture Heroes, Founders, Deified Rulers, and Apotheosized Humans

Questions to answer

Was the figure historically human?
What evidence establishes historicity?
Was divine status claimed during life or after death?
Was apotheosis:
- Theological?
- Political?
- Honorific?
- Cultic?
- Popular?
- Legally imposed?
Does receiving divine honors make the figure a deity?
Did the ruler claim descent from gods?
Was the ruler treated as divine only in one territory or office?
Did death transform status?
Did successors inherit divinity?
Was deification voluntary, imposed, or contested?
Did opponents reject it as tyranny or impiety?
Did a founder become cosmically reinterpreted over time?
Is the figure an ancestor, god, saint, incarnation, prophet, or several at once?
Are heroic deeds historical, mythic, or symbolic?
Did political collapse end the cult?
Does national memory retain divine or quasi-divine treatment?

25. Tricksters, Shape-Shifters, and Liminal Beings

Questions to answer

Does the being cross boundaries between:
- Divine and human?
- Male and female?
- Human and animal?
- Order and chaos?
- Life and death?
- Sacred and profane?
Is deception malicious, creative, pedagogical, or necessary?
Does the trickster create culture accidentally?
Does it violate norms that it also establishes?
Is it worshipped?
Is it feared?
Is it comic?
Is it morally judged?
Can it change identity?
Does it possess a stable body?
Does it mediate between realms?
Does it reveal contradictions within the religious system?
Has later moralization turned an ambivalent trickster into a devil?
Are different local tricksters later identified as one?
Is the category “trickster” an outsider’s comparative label?

26. Demons, Devils, Adversaries, Disease Spirits, and Chaos Beings

Questions to answer

What indigenous category applies?
Is the being intrinsically evil?
Is it morally corrupt, ritually impure, chaotic, hostile, hungry, ignorant, or merely dangerous?
Was it created?
Did it fall?
Is it primordial?
Is it independent of the supreme being?
Is it permitted to act?
Is it an accuser, tester, tempter, punisher, enemy, or cosmic rival?
Does it perform a necessary function?
Is it bound by law?
Can it repent, convert, or be redeemed?
Can it be annihilated?
Is it immortal?
Does it have followers?
Is there a hierarchy of hostile beings?
Can hostile beings impersonate benevolent ones?
How are they discerned?
Do they receive sacrifice or appeasement?
Is such attention considered worship?
Are they exorcised, bound, avoided, negotiated with, or redirected?
Are former gods reclassified as demons?
Are rival religions’ beings treated as demons?
Are disease-causing beings distinct from moral evil?
Is chaos expected to be finally defeated, eternally opposed, or cyclically restored?

27. Psychopomps, Gatekeepers, Judges, and Threshold Beings

Questions to answer

Does the being guide souls?
Does it guard entrances?
Does it judge?
Does it record deeds?
Does it test travelers?
Does it control passage between realms?
Is it neutral, benevolent, hostile, or ambivalent?
Can it be bribed, petitioned, or appeased?
Is it subordinate to a higher judge?
Does it escort only particular populations?
Does it have authority over gods as well as humans?
Does it guard ritual, social, geographic, or cosmic thresholds?
Is it active only at death?
Is it associated with roads, doors, rivers, bridges, crossroads, or boundaries?
Does one being combine messenger, trickster, and psychopomp functions?

28. Familiars, Companions, Guardian Animals, and Personal Spirits

Questions to answer

Is the entity assigned at birth, inherited, chosen, summoned, initiated, or acquired?
Is it unique to one person?
Is it an animal, ancestor, spirit, double, guardian, or external soul?
Does it share the person’s fate?
Can it be transferred?
Can it be lost?
Does injury to it affect the human?
Does it advise, protect, tempt, or empower?
Is it visible?
Who can perceive it?
Is it separate from the person’s own soul?
Does it survive the person’s death?
Is it morally accountable?
Can several people share one guardian?
Do specialists possess distinctive familiar beings?
Are animal companions literal animals, spiritual forms, or symbolic affiliations?

29. Collective Beings, Hosts, Councils, Species, and Unnamed Classes

Questions to answer

Is the collective one being or many?
Does it possess one will?
Are members individually named?
Is membership fixed?
Can beings enter or leave the class?
Is the class finite, innumerable, or infinite?
Does the group act collectively?
Are there ranks within it?
Does a divine council deliberate?
Can the collective disagree internally?
Is a “host” a military body, liturgical assembly, species, or metaphor?
Are ancestral collectives composed of identifiable persons?
Are classes generated repeatedly?
Is one named being the leader or embodiment of the class?
Are individual members cultically interchangeable?
Does a class name conceal regional diversity?

30. Personified Abstractions and Impersonal Powers

Questions to answer

Is the abstraction merely poetic?
Is it represented as a person?
Does it possess will?
Does it speak?
Does it act independently?
Does it receive cult?
Is it genealogically related to other beings?
Is it a title of another deity?
Is the force transferable?
Can it accumulate, diminish, contaminate, or be inherited?
Does the force exist independently of persons?
Can objects, places, and humans contain it?
Is an impersonal power later personified?
Is a personified deity later philosophically abstracted?
Does translating the term as “energy” distort the tradition?
Is the principle ontologically prior to the gods?

31. Sacred Animals, Plants, Landscapes, and Objects as Agents

This section includes them only where the tradition treats them as agents, persons, embodiments, or living presences.

Questions to answer

Is the animal, plant, place, or object itself a being?
Is it one individual or an entire species?
Is it an ancestor?
Is it a divine body?
Is it a vessel?
Is it possessed?
Is it a manifestation?
Is it a representative?
Is agency permanent or temporary?
Does consecration create or reveal presence?
Can the presence depart?
Can the being inhabit several objects simultaneously?
Does damage to the object harm the being?
Is replacement possible?
Is a replica equally valid?
Is the material object addressed directly?
Is the object fed, clothed, washed, awakened, carried, or put to sleep because it is treated as a person?
Is the landscape understood as conscious?
Does ownership language apply?
Are outsiders incorrectly reducing presence to symbolism?

The material construction and use of the object or site belongs under Sacred Space and Material Culture. Here the concern is what kind of being or presence is believed to be there.

32. Rival, Foreign, False, Rejected, or Reclassified Beings

A religion’s ontology includes how it classifies beings claimed by others.

Possible classifications

Nonexistent.
Imaginary.
False names.
Idols without beings.
Demons.
Fallen beings.
Lesser spirits.
Territorial beings.
Valid foreign deities.
Alternative manifestations of the same ultimate.
Formerly legitimate but superseded beings.
Human inventions.
Misunderstood natural forces.
Symbolic truths.

Questions to answer

Does the tradition deny other gods exist?
Does it affirm their existence but forbid worship?
Does it reinterpret them as demons?
Does it absorb them as local manifestations?
Does it tolerate them territorially?
Does it regard them as subordinate?
Are foreign names translated into familiar beings?
Does one branch recognize what another rejects?
Are rival beings treated differently in theology and popular practice?
Did polemical classification change over time?
Does the tradition distinguish a false account of a real being from a wholly fictitious being?
Are opponents’ depictions of the tradition’s own beings recorded separately?

33. Hidden, Absent, Dead, Sleeping, Imprisoned, or Retired Beings

Questions to answer

Can a god die?
Can a spirit be destroyed?
Can a being sleep through an age?
Can it be imprisoned?
Can it withdraw from the world?
Can it lose worshippers?
Does loss of memory weaken it?
Can it return?
Is return expected?
Is absence punishment, self-withdrawal, transcendence, or cosmic necessity?
Does the being continue to act indirectly?
Is it present only in relics, descendants, dreams, or prophecy?
Is a former god now treated as historical mythology?
Does inactivity mean nonexistence?
Can a being retire from an office while another succeeds it?
Are dead gods absorbed into the landscape or underworld?
Does ritual reenact resurrection or reawakening?

34. Non-Theistic, Transtheistic, and Apophatic Configurations

A framework of supernatural beings must remain usable where gods are absent, subordinate, unnecessary, or doctrinally bracketed.

Questions to answer

Does the tradition deny a creator?
Does it deny eternal gods?
Are gods acknowledged but subject to mortality, karma, ignorance, or rebirth?
Are enlightened or liberated beings superior to gods?
Is salvation independent of divine action?
Is ultimate reality beyond personality?
Are supernatural beings pedagogically useful but not ultimately real?
Are they conventional truths?
Are they mental projections?
Are they accepted without devotional centrality?
Are questions about their existence considered spiritually irrelevant?
Does philosophical nontheism coexist with popular divine devotion?
Are celestial beings treated as inhabitants of the cosmos rather than transcendent creators?
Does the tradition possess no stable “pantheon” but many relational presences?

Required conclusion

Do not mark this dimension “not applicable” merely because a religion lacks a creator god. Map the actual classes of agents and state where deity language fails.

Part III — Complete Entity Profile

Every individually named being, major class, collective, or disputed entity should receive the following dossier.

35. Identification and Naming

Record

Preferred name.
Emic name.
Original script.
Transliteration.
Pronunciation.
Literal meaning.
Etymology.
Alternate spellings.
Historical names.
Regional names.
Titles.
Epithets.
Praise names.
Secret names.
Taboo names.
Euphemisms.
Names used by opponents.
Names used by scholars.
Names used in translation.

Questions to answer

Is the name unique?
Is it a title?
Is it grammatically singular or plural?
Does the name identify essence, function, place, kinship, or rank?
Does speaking it invoke the being?
Is exact pronunciation important?
Is the name restricted?
Can the being’s “true name” be known?
Does knowing the name confer power?
Are several names merely epithets?
Did one epithet become an independent entity?
Do different languages distinguish beings that English merges?
Is the modern standard name historically anachronistic?

36. Numerical Identity and Continuity

Questions to answer

Is the being one?
Is it one-in-many?
Is it many-in-one?
Does it possess several persons?
Does it possess several bodies?
Are local forms numerically identical?
Do manifestations share consciousness?
Does reincarnation preserve identity?
Does succession preserve the office but replace the person?
Does transformation into another form preserve the same being?
Can the being divide?
Can divided beings reunite?
Can several beings merge?
Is identity maintained through:
- Name?
- Memory?
- Substance?
- Lineage?
- Office?
- Body?
- Cult?
- Relationship?
Do different branches answer differently?

37. Ontological Status

Classify the being as applicable

Uncreated.
Created.
Emanated.
Begotten.
Born.
Self-generated.
Primordial.
Necessary.
Contingent.
Eternal.
Immortal.
Long-lived.
Mortal.
Reincarnating.
Liberated.
Embodied.
Disembodied.
Subtle-bodied.
Distributed.
Localized.
Collective.
Personified abstraction.
Impersonal power.
Beyond being.
Illusory.
Conventionally real.
Symbolically interpreted.
Contested.

Questions to answer

What is the being made of?
Does it possess essence, spirit, soul, body, energy, breath, name, office, or relation?
Is it dependent on a higher reality?
Is it ontologically distinct from the cosmos?
Is it part of nature?
Can it cease to exist?
Is its existence necessary or contingent?
Does the tradition use substance language at all?

38. Origin, Generation, and Derivation

Questions to answer

Was the being created?
By whom?
Was it born?
From which parents?
Did it emanate?
Did it emerge from chaos, matter, thought, speech, sacrifice, light, darkness, or a body?
Was it once human?
Was it once another kind of being?
Did it arise through apotheosis, awakening, canonization, death, possession, or appointment?
Is its origin eternal?
Does it have no origin?
Are there competing genealogies?
Does origin determine rank?
Is the being older than the current cosmos?
Was it created for a particular function?
Did it usurp or inherit a predecessor’s role?

39. Body, Form, Substance, and Embodiment

Questions to answer

Does the being possess a body?
Is it material, subtle, spiritual, luminous, shadowy, composite, or indescribable?
Is the body permanent?
Can it assume bodies?
Can it appear anthropomorphically?
Can it appear as an animal, plant, object, weather event, voice, light, dream, or absence?
Does it have a true form?
Is the true form dangerous or impossible to perceive?
Can it be simultaneously embodied in several places?
Is an image a body, residence, manifestation, or representation?
Can the being eat, sleep, bleed, reproduce, age, be injured, or die?
Does embodiment limit power?
Is bodily description symbolic?
Are contradictory forms context-dependent?
Do different regions assign different forms?

40. Personhood, Consciousness, and Agency

Questions to answer

Is the being conscious?
Is it self-aware?
Does it possess a stable personality?
Does it remember?
Does it form intentions?
Can it choose?
Can it refuse?
Can it learn?
Can it change its mind?
Can it be deceived?
Can it deceive?
Does it act independently?
Is its agency identical with a natural process?
Is agency collective or distributed?
Is it constituted through relationships?
Is it a person only during manifestation or ritual?
Is human personhood an appropriate comparison?
Does the tradition treat agency without consciousness?
Does the being act automatically according to law or function?

41. Gender, Sex, Age, and Generative Identity

Questions to answer

Is the being male, female, both, neither, fluid, multiple, or beyond gender?
Is grammatical gender being mistaken for ontological gender?
Does gender vary by manifestation?
Does the being change sex?
Is it androgynous?
Is sexual reproduction literal, symbolic, or cosmological?
Does it possess spouses or consorts?
Are consorts independent equals, subordinate aspects, powers, or later additions?
Does the being bear or father children?
Is divine parenthood biological, emanational, adoptive, initiatory, or symbolic?
Is the being eternally young, aged, ageless, or cyclically renewed?
Does age signify authority, fertility, wisdom, or vulnerability?
Do gender classifications differ among official, popular, and philosophical accounts?
Have modern interpreters imposed binary categories?

42. Temporality, Mortality, and Life Cycle

Questions to answer

Does the being exist in ordinary time?
Does it exist outside time?
Was it born?
Does it age?
Can it die?
Can it resurrect?
Can it reincarnate?
Can it dissolve or be absorbed?
Does it sleep through cycles?
Is it renewed annually?
Does it have a fixed lifespan?
Is immortality natural or granted?
Can immortality be lost?
Is the being subject to cosmic cycles?
Does it remember previous worlds or lives?
Does a ritual annually reactivate it?
Is death literal, temporary, initiatory, seasonal, or symbolic?
Can a dead deity continue acting?

43. Spatiality, Location, Presence, and Mobility

Questions to answer

Where does the being ordinarily dwell?
Is that location:
- Physical?
- Spiritual?
- Symbolic?
- Simultaneously several?
Is the being omnipresent?
Is it localized?
Is it territorial?
Can it leave its place?
Can it cross political or ethnic boundaries?
Can migrants carry it elsewhere?
Does it inhabit a temple, image, landscape, body, text, relic, or natural phenomenon?
Is it present only when invoked?
Can it manifest in several locations simultaneously?
Is the being more powerful in one place?
Does desecration force departure?
Can a sanctuary contain the being without limiting it?
Does the being possess a heavenly residence and earthly presence?
Is presence continuous, intermittent, sacramental, visionary, or relational?

The complete layout of realms belongs under Cosmology and Myth. Here the concern is the being’s mode of location and presence.

44. Knowledge, Perception, Memory, and Cognition

Questions to answer

Is the being omniscient?
What does it know?
What does it not know?
Does it know human thoughts?
Does it know the future?
Can it forget?
Can it be surprised?
Can it be deceived?
Does it require messengers?
Does it perceive everywhere?
Is knowledge specialized by domain?
Does rank determine knowledge?
Can the being acquire wisdom?
Does it possess secret names or techniques?
Can knowledge be stolen?
Does it communicate knowledge to humans?
Is divine ignorance a narrative device or theological claim?
Do philosophical sources idealize knowledge beyond mythic portrayals?

45. Will, Emotion, Personality, and Character

Questions to answer

Does the being possess will?
Is its will free?
Is it identical with goodness, law, fate, or necessity?
Does it love?
Does it experience compassion, anger, jealousy, grief, desire, humor, fear, shame, or regret?
Are emotions literal or anthropomorphic?
Does its personality vary by source?
Is it predictable?
Can it be persuaded?
Can it be appeased?
Can it forgive?
Can it repent?
Can it break promises?
Is it capricious?
Is it detached?
Is it beyond emotion?
Are apparent emotions pedagogical accommodations?
Do popular stories humanize a philosophically impassible deity?

46. Moral, Ritual, and Purity Valence

Separate classifications

Morally good.
Morally evil.
Morally ambivalent.
Beyond morality.
Source of morality.
Subject to morality.
Ritually pure.
Ritually dangerous.
Polluting.
Protective.
Chaotic.
Order-preserving.
Beneficent to some and harmful to others.
Transformative rather than benevolent.

Questions to answer

Does the being define moral law?
Is it itself bound by law?
Can it act unjustly?
Are myths of misconduct interpreted literally?
Is danger equivalent to evil?
Is impurity equivalent to sin?
Can a morally good being inflict suffering?
Can a hostile being serve justice?
Can an evil being perform truth-telling or necessary functions?
Does moral status change?
Can the being be judged?
Can it be punished?
Are beings divided into moral camps?
Does one community’s protector become another’s enemy?

47. Powers and Capacities

Possible capacities

Creation.
Destruction.
Preservation.
Transformation.
Healing.
Disease.
Fertility.
Weather.
Warfare.
Protection.
Judgment.
Prophecy.
Knowledge.
Inspiration.
Possession.
Shape-shifting.
Resurrection.
Transportation.
Concealment.
Blessing.
Cursing.
Binding.
Liberation.
Guidance of the dead.
Control of animals, crops, wealth, love, or fate.

Questions to answer

Which powers are inherent?
Which are granted?
Which depend on office?
Which are geographically limited?
Which are temporary?
Which require ritual activation?
Can powers be delegated?
Can powers be lost?
Can powers be stolen?
Can another being block them?
Are powers unlimited in principle but voluntarily restrained?
Are narrative feats representative or exceptional?
Are powers symbolic of social or natural functions?
Does the being control a phenomenon or merely influence it?
Are devotees promised reliable outcomes or uncertain favor?

48. Domains, Jurisdiction, and Functional Mapping

Possible domains

Creation and cosmic order.
Sovereignty and kingship.
Law and justice.
Oaths and contracts.
Fate and destiny.
Time and calendrical cycles.
Sky and weather.
Sun, moon, stars, and planets.
Earth, water, fire, and air.
Agriculture and fertility.
Animals and hunting.
Birth and childhood.
Sexuality, love, and marriage.
Household and kinship.
Health and healing.
Disease and epidemic.
War and defense.
Travel and boundaries.
Trade and wealth.
Craft and technology.
Writing and knowledge.
Music, poetry, and art.
Prophecy and divination.
Death and the dead.
Purification and protection.
Trickery and disorder.
Local territory.
Occupation or social group.

Questions to answer

Is the domain exclusive?
Is it shared?
Is jurisdiction universal or local?
Does the being control the domain, personify it, inhabit it, teach it, or protect those involved in it?
Did the domain change historically?
Is the function inferred only from iconography?
Is the being invoked for functions absent from formal theology?
Does one being unite apparently contradictory domains?
Does political patronage expand jurisdiction?
Can a local deity acquire universal functions?
Do domains vary by region?
Does a being’s domain explain its rank or only its practical importance?

49. Limits, Dependencies, and Vulnerabilities

Questions to answer

Is the being subject to:
- Fate?
- Karma?
- Cosmic law?
- Logic?
- Covenant?
- Oaths?
- Names?
- Ritual rules?
- Territorial boundaries?
- Higher beings?
- Time?
- Death?
Can it be wounded?
Can it be imprisoned?
Can it be deceived?
Can it be exiled?
Can it be forgotten?
Does it require worship, offerings, memory, or embodiment?
Does absence of worship weaken it?
Can sacred objects constrain it?
Can specialists compel it?
Can it violate its own nature?
Can omnipotence coexist with self-limitation?
Are limits narrative, metaphysical, moral, or cultic?
Do theologians reinterpret myths that depict divine limitation?

50. Manifestations, Epiphanies, Signs, and Sensory Signatures

Possible modes

Visible body.
Human form.
Animal form.
Hybrid form.
Natural event.
Light.
Darkness.
Sound.
Voice.
Fragrance.
Dream.
Vision.
Possession.
Oracle.
Image.
Relic.
Coincidence.
Miracle.
Absence.
Inner awareness.

Questions to answer

How does the being become perceptible?
Is manifestation voluntary?
Can it be summoned?
Is a manifestation the being itself?
Can witnesses survive direct sight?
Are signs unambiguous?
Who may recognize them?
Can hostile beings imitate them?
Are there tests of authenticity?
Does the being possess characteristic animals, colors, sounds, scents, numbers, or weather?
Are these intrinsic or conventional?
Are manifestations public or private?
Are visions bodily, mental, dreamlike, or undefined?
Does the being manifest differently according to the observer?
Is nonmanifestation theologically meaningful?

Detailed symbolic interpretation belongs under Symbolism and Cultural Expression.

51. Communication and Discernment

Questions to answer

Does the being speak directly?
Through whom?
In what language?
Is communication verbal?
Is it symbolic?
Is it public or private?
Who can authenticate it?
Are messages binding?
Can revelation continue?
Is communication infallible?
Can the recipient misunderstand?
Can false beings imitate the source?
What tests distinguish genuine communication?
Do messages require institutional approval?
Is silence interpreted as refusal, hiddenness, absence, or test?
Are conflicting revelations possible?
How are conflicts resolved?
Does the being communicate only with designated lineages or offices?

52. Relations with Human Beings

Possible relational models

Creator and creature.
Parent and child.
King and subject.
Lord and servant.
Patron and client.
Ancestor and descendant.
Teacher and disciple.
Healer and patient.
Judge and defendant.
Covenant partner.
Lover or spouse.
Host and guest.
Owner and possession.
Guardian and ward.
Friend.
Enemy.
Indwelling presence.
Shared identity.

Questions to answer

Does the being relate universally or only to one people?
Are humans dependent on it?
Does it depend on humans?
Does it desire worship?
Does it seek relationship?
Is relationship initiated by the being?
Can humans refuse?
Can humans bargain?
Can humans compel?
Can humans deceive it?
Does it love individuals or communities?
Does it possess favorites?
Can it abandon a people?
Can it adopt outsiders?
Does it punish descendants?
Can humans become kin?
Can humans marry or reproduce with it?
Can humans imitate or participate in its nature?
Does the relationship continue after death?

53. Cultic Status and Mode of Address

A being’s cultic status must be recorded without yet detailing the full ritual procedure.

Possible statuses

Supreme object of worship.
Primary deity.
Co-recipient of worship.
Venerated intermediary.
Intercessor.
Patron.
Ancestor.
Guardian.
Recipient of offerings but not worship.
Feared and appeased.
Negotiated with.
Invoked only by specialists.
Exorcised or opposed.
Forbidden to address.
Remembered but not invoked.
Doctrinally recognized but cultically inactive.
Literary or mythic only.
Historically worshipped.
Revived or reconstructed.
Disputed.

Questions to answer

Is the being worshipped?
What indigenous term describes the relationship?
Does the tradition distinguish adoration, veneration, honor, service, remembrance, and appeasement?
Who may address it?
Is address direct or mediated?
Is cult public or private?
Is it regular or crisis-based?
Is it central or optional?
Is devotion universal or tied to a constituency?
Does official teaching approve the cult?
Is cultic attention forbidden despite affirmed existence?
Are hostile beings offered gifts to avert harm?
Does such action imply reverence?
Is the being invoked by name?
Is silence or avoidance itself a relationship?

The complete acts, sequences, words, gestures, and calendars belong under Ritual and Practice.

54. Offerings, Preferences, Prohibitions, and Relational Requirements

This section records the being’s attributed preferences and conditions, not the complete ritual performance.

Questions to answer

What kinds of offerings are associated with the being?
Are they symbolic, nourishing, reciprocal, sacrificial, commemorative, or contractual?
Does the being consume their substance, essence, scent, intention, or social value?
Does it require offerings?
Does it prefer particular foods, colors, materials, animals, music, or times?
Are preferences local or universal?
Are certain offerings forbidden?
Are taboos moral, purity-based, mythic, or relational?
Does the being require vows?
Does it reward fidelity?
Does it punish neglect?
Can inappropriate offerings offend it?
Can offerings be transferred through intermediaries?
Are former offerings now reinterpreted symbolically?
Does official theology deny that the being “needs” anything?
Does popular practice nevertheless speak of feeding or pleasing it?

55. Patronage and Human Constituencies

Possible constituencies

Nation.
Ethnic group.
City.
Clan.
Household.
Ruler.
Army.
Occupation.
Guild.
Gender.
Age group.
Life stage.
Illness group.
Travelers.
Farmers.
Sailors.
Artists.
Scholars.
Children.
Marginalized populations.
Individual devotee.

Questions to answer

Who claims the being as patron?
Is patronage chosen, inherited, assigned, or territorial?
Can one person have several patrons?
Can the being reject a client?
Does patronage entail obligations?
Is it institutional or personal?
Does a patron protect insiders against outsiders?
Does political authority promote one patron for the whole society?
Do marginalized communities reinterpret a major deity as their own?
Does diaspora preserve patronage?
Can patronage transfer through migration or marriage?
Is an occupational patron historically linked to the occupation or assigned later?
Are patronage claims disputed?

56. Blessings, Rewards, Punishments, and Sanctions

Questions to answer

What benefits can the being provide?
What harms can it inflict?
Does it punish moral wrongdoing, ritual violation, neglect, disloyalty, impurity, or insult?
Are sanctions immediate or postmortem?
Are they individual or collective?
Can descendants bear consequences?
Does the being enforce oaths?
Is punishment corrective, retributive, protective, or arbitrary?
Can punishment be reversed?
Can another being intercede?
Can ritual repair restore the relationship?
Does the being reward devotion, morality, lineage loyalty, courage, knowledge, or sacrifice?
Are blessings signs of approval?
Can suffering occur despite favor?
Does the tradition warn against reading all fortune and misfortune as direct divine action?

57. Possession, Indwelling, Inspiration, and Mediumship

Questions to answer

Can the being enter or act through a human?
Is possession voluntary?
Is it temporary?
Is it desired, neutral, or pathological?
Does the host retain consciousness?
Does the being replace, share, overshadow, inspire, or transform the person?
Can several beings possess one person?
Can one being possess several people simultaneously?
Does possession confer authority?
Who identifies the possessing being?
What signs distinguish identity?
Can deceptive beings imitate another?
Is possession gendered, hereditary, or initiated?
Does inspiration differ from possession?
Does indwelling persist outside ritual?
Is incarnation distinguished from possession?
Does the being speak in its own voice?
Are utterances binding?
Are physiological and theological interpretations kept separate?

The ritual management of possession belongs under Ritual and Practice; the human office of the medium belongs under Religious Specialists and Institutions.

58. Relations with Other Beings

Possible relations

Identity.
Manifestation.
Emanation.
Incarnation.
Creation.
Generation.
Parentage.
Marriage.
Siblinghood.
Adoption.
Service.
Patronage.
Delegation.
Alliance.
Rivalry.
Enmity.
Succession.
Defeat.
Imprisonment.
Absorption.
Fusion.
Transformation.
Equivalence.
Jurisdictional overlap.
Membership in a class.

Questions to answer

Which relations are explicitly stated?
Which are inferred?
Are genealogies literal, symbolic, political, or cosmological?
Do relations vary by source?
Are spouses independent or complementary forms?
Are servants ontologically inferior?
Can hierarchy exist without kinship?
Can beings rebel?
Can alliances change?
Can one being grant powers or offices to another?
Can one being replace another?
Does a defeated being remain active?
Are rival pantheons reconciled through kinship or equivalence?
Do beings cooperate across traditions?

59. Rank, Hierarchy, and Precedence

Rank must be measured across several dimensions.

Rank dimensions

Ontological status.
Proximity to ultimate reality.
Creative power.
Sovereignty.
Knowledge.
Purity.
Age.
Genealogical seniority.
Jurisdiction.
Military power.
Ritual precedence.
Cultic popularity.
Political sponsorship.
Narrative prominence.
Moral perfection.
Accessibility.

Questions to answer

Is there one hierarchy or several?
Is rank fixed?
Can it change?
Can a lower being defeat a higher one?
Does ritual precedence reflect ontology?
Does political sponsorship elevate rank?
Is the high god remote while lower beings dominate cult?
Are beings ranked by purity rather than power?
Is hierarchy bureaucratic, familial, emanational, or military?
Are ranks formally enumerated?
Are later theological hierarchies projected backward?
Are local beings outside the central hierarchy?
Does the system resist ranking altogether?
Are beings incomparable because they govern different domains?

Required output

Produce separate rank matrices rather than one undifferentiated ladder.

60. Genealogy, Kinship, Marriage, and Divine Descent

Questions to answer

Who are the being’s parents?
Is parentage consistent?
Is birth biological, symbolic, emanational, or political?
Does seniority determine authority?
Are divine families modeled on human kinship?
Are marriages monogamous, plural, temporary, ritual, or symbolic?
Are consorts regional additions?
Do sibling rivalries structure the pantheon?
Are children independent beings or extensions of parents?
Are human dynasties descended from gods?
Is divine descent literal, legitimating, initiatory, or mythic?
Are clan totems treated as ancestors?
Does adoption occur among gods?
Can genealogies reconcile formerly separate traditions?
Do genealogies change when political alliances change?
Are incompatible genealogies preserved in parallel?

61. Equivalence, Assimilation, Fusion, Splitting, and Identity Disputes

Questions to answer

Are two beings explicitly identified?
By whom?
In what period and region?
Is the relation:
- Exact identity?
- Functional analogy?
- Translation?
- Local manifestation?
- Shared title?
- Political assimilation?
- Theological reinterpretation?
Did one being absorb another’s cult?
Did an epithet become independent?
Did one deity split into several specialized forms?
Did several local beings become one standardized deity?
Does shared iconography prove identity?
Does shared domain prove identity?
Do devotees treat the beings as interchangeable?
Do rituals distinguish them?
Do myths distinguish them?
Are scholars harmonizing what communities kept separate?
Is identity disputed among branches?
Does syncretic equivalence preserve both identities or erase one?
Is a foreign being translated into the nearest local category?
Is demonization a form of reclassification rather than disappearance?

The historical mechanisms of fusion, demonization, and syncretism belong under Contact and Transformation. Here the concern is the resulting identity relation.

62. Representation and Iconographic Identification

Record only the features needed to identify the entity. Full symbolic interpretation belongs later.

Questions to answer

Is the being represented?
Is representation permitted?
Is it anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, hybrid, aniconic, geometric, or calligraphic?
What identifying attributes recur?
Are those attributes intrinsic or conventional?
Does the being have multiple standard forms?
Does form vary by function?
Does gender vary visually?
Are images portraits, symbolic diagrams, bodies, presences, or teaching devices?
Is an image identified by inscription?
Could the same iconography represent another being?
Are colors, numbers, animals, weapons, plants, or gestures distinctive?
Are later images being used to identify earlier unlabelled figures?
Did iconoclasm distort the surviving record?
Can a representation be worshipped without being regarded as the being itself?

63. Mythic Biography and Narrative Profile

Record the entity’s major narrative episodes without absorbing the full mythological analysis.

Questions to answer

What are the being’s principal birth, creation, conflict, marriage, death, descent, victory, teaching, or transformation narratives?
Are there several incompatible biographies?
Which events define identity?
Which events explain cultic practices?
Which narratives are canonical?
Which are local?
Which are late?
Is the being portrayed consistently?
Do myths explain names, attributes, domains, or relations?
Is biography cyclical?
Is the narrative reenacted?
Are episodes interpreted literally, allegorically, philosophically, or ritually?
Did later theology revise morally difficult narratives?

The full narrative structures, themes, and cosmological functions belong under Cosmology and Myth.

64. Historical, Regional, Branch, and Social Variants

Questions to answer

How did the being’s identity change over time?
Which names or forms are earliest?
Did rank rise or fall?
Did domain change?
Did a local being become transregional?
Did a major being become local?
Did gender change?
Did iconography change?
Did one branch reject the being?
Did philosophical schools allegorize it?
Did popular practice retain older forms?
Did diaspora alter patronage or accessibility?
Did state sponsorship standardize the being?
Did suppression drive the cult underground?
Did later revival reconstruct missing features?
Do women, men, clergy, laity, or distinct classes understand the being differently?
Is one region wrongly treated as normative?

Required variant matrix

Period or community	Name	Class	Rank	Domain	Form	Cultic status	Major differences

65. Current Status and Entity-Level Synthesis

Conclude each dossier with:

Present recognition.
Current branches affirming it.
Current regions.
Current cultic status.
Historical status.
Major identity disputes.
Strongest evidence.
Principal uncertainties.
Restricted information.
Cross-references to other dimensions.

One-sentence entity statement

[Name] is understood by [community and period] as a [ontological class], related to [higher or associated beings] through [relation], possessing jurisdiction over [domains], encountered through [principal modes], and treated cultically as [status].

Part IV — System-Level Pantheon Analysis

66. Overall Ontological Architecture

Ask what kinds of existence the religion permits.

Questions to answer

What is the most fundamental reality?
What categories of being exist?
Are categories sharply bounded?
Is reality layered?
Is personhood widely distributed?
Are gods different in substance from spirits, ancestors, and humans?
Are categories determined by origin, rank, purity, power, or relationship?
Can beings move between categories?
Are all beings dependent on one source?
Is the system genealogical, emanational, created, evolutionary, cyclical, or relational?
Are beings permanent or processual?
Is individuality stable?
Can one being be distributed across many bodies?
Are places and species persons?
Are some entities only temporarily personified?
Is the ontology closed or open to newly revealed beings?
Does the system admit unknown beings?

Required output

Produce an ontology map showing every major class and the permitted transitions among them.

67. Unity and Plurality

Comparative labels should summarize the completed evidence rather than predetermine it.

Possible configurations

Exclusive monotheism: only one deity exists.
Monotheism with subordinate beings: one God, many created spiritual beings.
Monolatry: several divine beings may exist, but only one may be worshipped.
Henotheism: one deity is elevated as supreme without denying others.
Kathenotheism: different deities are treated as supreme in different contexts.
Polytheism: several deities possess distinct agency and cult.
Dualism: two ultimate or near-ultimate opposed principles.
Monism: multiplicity is grounded in one reality.
Nondualism: ultimate distinctions are denied or transcended.
Pantheism: divinity and all reality are identified.
Panentheism: all reality exists within the divine, which also exceeds it.
Animism or relational ontology: personhood or agency extends widely among humans and nonhumans.
Animatism: impersonal sacred power is emphasized.
Nontheism: gods are absent, denied, or unnecessary.
Transtheism: gods may exist but are not ultimate.
Apophatic configuration: ultimate reality exceeds positive classification.

Questions to answer

How many deities are said to exist?
How many receive worship?
Are many beings ultimately one?
Is the one internally plural?
Are subordinate beings divine or created?
Does “god” refer to one class or several ranks?
Is plurality literal, conventional, or pedagogical?
Does popular practice differ from philosophy?
Does the religion’s own classification fit any comparative label cleanly?
Are several labels needed for different periods or branches?
Does counting obscure the actual ontology?

68. Hierarchical, Genealogical, Bureaucratic, Networked, and Ecological Models

Possible system forms

Royal court.
Family.
Divine council.
Bureaucracy.
Military hierarchy.
Emanational chain.
Great chain of being.
Monastic or initiatory hierarchy.
Patron-client network.
Territorial federation.
Ecological network.
Distributed field of persons.
Decentralized local cults.
Competing divine houses.
No comprehensive order.

Questions to answer

What organizational metaphor is indigenous?
Is authority centralized?
Is there a divine sovereign?
Do beings deliberate collectively?
Are offices assigned?
Is hierarchy based on lineage?
Do local beings retain autonomy?
Is the pantheon a later scholarly synthesis?
Does one temple system present a different hierarchy from another?
Are divine relations modeled on human government?
Did human institutions model themselves on the divine order?
Is the system better represented as a network than a ladder?
Are beings linked through reciprocal obligations rather than command?
Does rank vary by context?

69. Divine Economy and Division of Functions

Map the allocation of powers and responsibilities without reducing beings to “job titles.”

Questions to answer

Are functions centralized or distributed?
Does one being combine many domains?
Do several beings share one domain?
Are functions inherited?
Can functions be delegated?
Can functions be seized?
Does a deity’s office change?
Are functions cosmic, territorial, occupational, familial, or temporary?
Do local specialists invoke different beings for the same need?
Are practical functions more important than formal rank?
Does philosophical theology dissolve functional distinctions?
Are hostile beings assigned necessary functions?
Do ancestors perform functions elsewhere assigned to gods?
Are natural processes governed by agents, laws, or both?

Required domain matrix

Domain	Primary being	Secondary beings	Opposing beings	Local variants	Degree of exclusivity

70. Jurisdiction, Overlap, and Conflict of Competence

Questions to answer

Are jurisdictions territorial?
Are they based on people, occupation, activity, time, or life stage?
Can several beings claim the same person?
Which being has precedence?
Can one being act outside its domain?
Do offerings or vows create temporary jurisdiction?
Does migration alter jurisdiction?
Can a household patron override a city patron?
Can a supreme being intervene in all domains?
Are jurisdictional conflicts narrated?
Are disputes resolved by rank, treaty, fate, or ritual?
Are divine boundaries analogous to legal boundaries?
Is overlap productive rather than contradictory?

71. Mediation Architecture

Map every chain between human beings and the highest or most remote realities.

Possible mediators

Lesser deities.
Angels.
Saints.
Ancestors.
Bodhisattvas.
Spirits.
Incarnations.
Prophets.
Sacred names.
Images.
Relics.
Human specialists.
Texts.
Rituals.

Questions to answer

Is direct access possible?
Is mediation necessary?
Is mediation ontological, moral, ritual, institutional, or practical?
Does the mediator carry prayers upward?
Does it carry power downward?
Can it intercede?
Can it refuse?
Does it possess independent authority?
Is the mediator worshipped or venerated?
Does one mediator specialize by constituency?
Are there competing mediation chains?
Does official theology discourage popular mediation?
Does philosophical theology treat mediation as symbolic?
Can a mediator become the principal focus of devotion?

72. Divine Presence, Absence, and Accessibility

Questions to answer

Is the highest being present or remote?
Are lesser beings more accessible?
Is presence continuous?
Is presence conditional?
Is presence localized?
Is absence a theological problem?
Does the being hide?
Is hiddenness protective, punitive, transcendent, or pedagogical?
Does accessibility depend on purity, initiation, lineage, office, location, or grace?
Can anyone invoke the being?
Are some beings dangerously accessible?
Are some beings too holy to approach directly?
Does silence indicate disfavor?
Can presence be recognized only retrospectively?
Is the being simultaneously transcendent and immanent?

73. Sovereignty, Fate, Cosmic Law, and Divine Constraint

Questions to answer

Who possesses ultimate sovereignty?
Is sovereignty personal or impersonal?
Are gods subject to fate, karma, law, order, truth, or necessity?
Did gods establish the law that binds them?
Can they suspend it?
Can they violate it?
Is fate a being, a collective, a law, or an abstraction?
Can prayer alter fate?
Can one deity overrule another?
Does divine freedom coexist with covenant or promise?
Is evil permitted, caused, resisted, or independent?
Are cosmic laws administered by subordinate beings?
Does final authority rest in one person, a council, or an impersonal order?

The structure of cosmic law belongs under Cosmology and Myth; its implications for human society belong under Social Function and Law.

74. Conflict, Alliance, Succession, and Cosmic Politics

Questions to answer

Do divine beings cooperate?
Do they compete?
What resources or jurisdictions are contested?
Are conflicts primordial, recurring, historical, or eschatological?
Can gods overthrow one another?
Is divine succession legitimate or violent?
Are defeated beings destroyed, subordinated, imprisoned, or absorbed?
Are alliances formed through marriage?
Can divine politics change human political history?
Do human wars mirror divine conflicts?
Do rival human groups claim rival patrons?
Is conflict moral, generational, territorial, or structural?
Does cosmic conflict threaten the whole order?
Are conflicts resolved?
Can former enemies reconcile?
Are multiple contradictory conflict traditions preserved?

75. Moral Structure and Ambivalence of the Pantheon

Questions to answer

Are beings divided into good and evil camps?
Is the distinction ontological or behavioral?
Are all gods morally good?
Are gods beyond human morality?
Are some beings beneficial only when properly approached?
Are tricksters necessary?
Are disease spirits morally blamed?
Can hostile beings enforce justice?
Can benevolent beings inflict catastrophe?
Is moral perfection concentrated in the supreme being?
Are lesser beings fallible?
Can beings sin?
Can they repent?
Can they progress spiritually?
Does moral character differ by myth, theology, and cult?
Are “dark” and “light” categories moral, spatial, ritual, or symbolic?

76. Human–Divine Permeability

Possible transitions

Incarnation.
Apotheosis.
Ancestorhood.
Canonization.
Enlightenment.
Immortality.
Possession.
Adoption.
Divine marriage.
Heroization.
Reincarnation.
Descent from gods.
Ritual identification.
Participation in divine nature.

Questions to answer

Can humans become divine?
Can every human do so?
Is the transition permanent?
Is it ontological or honorific?
Who recognizes it?
Does the person retain individuality?
Can a human become an ancestor but not a god?
Can gods become human?
Can a god lose divine status?
Are rulers divine by office?
Does possession temporarily erase the boundary?
Does initiation establish kinship?
Is salvation participation in divine life, escape from gods, or something else?
Are demigods a stable mixed class?
Is human and divine nature sharply separated?

77. Theological Rank versus Cultic Attention

Create separate measures for each being.

Measure

Ontological rank.
Canonical prominence.
Narrative prominence.
Liturgical frequency.
Number of dedicated sites.
Household presence.
Number of devotees.
Political sponsorship.
Regional spread.
Contemporary visibility.

Questions to answer

Which being is highest?
Which is most worshipped?
Which is most feared?
Which is most represented?
Which is most invoked in crisis?
Which is most important to rulers?
Which is most important to households?
Which is most important to specialists?
Why do these rankings differ?
Does theology criticize disproportionate popular devotion?
Does popular devotion compensate for remoteness of the high deity?
Does one mediator function as the practical center of religion?

78. Spatial Distribution of Beings

Questions to answer

Which beings are universal?
Which are territorial?
Which are attached to specific sites?
Which travel with people?
Which are associated with cardinal directions?
Which occupy borders?
Which are urban or rural?
Which are domestic?
Which belong to wilderness?
Which control upper, middle, lower, internal, or liminal spaces?
Do beings possess exclusive territories?
Can a being’s jurisdiction expand?
Does diaspora reproduce the original divine geography?
Are local beings absorbed into a global system?
Are sacred centers understood as residences, bodies, meeting places, or symbols?

Detailed cosmic geography belongs under Cosmology and Myth; material sites belong under Sacred Space and Material Culture.

79. Temporal and Calendrical Distribution

Questions to answer

Are some beings active only at particular times?
Are they associated with seasons, weekdays, planets, hours, life stages, or historical ages?
Do beings alternate supremacy?
Does a deity die and return cyclically?
Are ancestors especially present during commemorative periods?
Are dangerous beings released at liminal times?
Are some beings associated with beginnings, endings, transitions, or crises?
Do divine offices rotate?
Does a calendar reveal rank or simply ritual sequence?
Are temporal associations universal or regional?

The full festival and calendar system belongs under Ritual and Practice.

80. Divine Society and Human Social Analogies

Questions to answer

Is the divine order represented as:
- Family?
- Court?
- Empire?
- Bureaucracy?
- Army?
- Village?
- Clan?
- Monastery?
- Ecological community?
Does divine hierarchy reproduce human class, caste, gender, or kingship?
Does human government claim to imitate divine government?
Are divine offices modeled on historical institutions?
Did political change alter pantheon structure?
Are marginalized populations represented by different beings?
Do divine marriages legitimize human marriage forms?
Does celestial bureaucracy support administrative ideology?
Do alternative pantheons challenge social hierarchy?
Is the analogy explicit or a scholarly inference?

The social consequences of these representations belong under Social Function and Law.

81. Official, Lived, Popular, Philosophical, and Esoteric Pantheons

Questions to answer

Does official theology describe the same beings that ordinary practitioners invoke?
Are local spirits omitted from canonical lists?
Are popular beings condemned as superstition?
Are canonical gods reinterpreted philosophically as principles?
Do initiates understand public beings as masks of deeper realities?
Do household practitioners maintain beings unknown to clergy?
Do women, occupational groups, castes, or regional communities possess distinct pantheons?
Do children’s traditions preserve beings absent from adult theology?
Do philosophers deny literal plurality while temples maintain it?
Does official monotheism coexist with a dense practical world of angels, saints, demons, and ancestors?
Which level should be called normative?
Are several ontologies simultaneously valid within the tradition?

82. Core, Peripheral, Local, and Diasporic Configurations

Questions to answer

Is there a universally shared core?
Which beings are local?
Which beings are transregional?
Which beings define branch identity?
Does diaspora retain homeland beings?
Are local territorial beings transferable?
Do diaspora communities create new patrons?
Do local beings become symbols of ethnic identity?
Does a centralized institution suppress regional pantheons?
Does a peripheral region preserve an older system?
Are “peripheral” forms actually central to their communities?
Do migrants identify foreign beings with familiar ones?
Does loss of sacred geography elevate portable intermediaries?

83. Closed, Open, Finite, and Innumerable Ontologies

Questions to answer

Is there a canonical list?
Is the list exhaustive?
Can new beings emerge?
Can humans become new saints, ancestors, or gods?
Can new revelations disclose previously unknown beings?
Are spirits continuously generated?
Are classes innumerable?
Are unnamed beings religiously important?
Does the tradition insist on a symbolic number rather than literal count?
Do different texts give different totals?
Does a list represent ranks rather than every individual?
Is the desire for exhaustive enumeration foreign to the tradition?
Can the census record “open class” without inventing members?

84. Contradictions and Variant Management

Common conflicts

Different parents.
Different spouses.
Different gender.
Different rank.
Different creator.
Different number of forms.
Different moral character.
Different domains.
Different identity equivalences.
Different cultic status.
Different historical origin.

Questions to answer

Do the sources concern the same period?
Do they concern the same region?
Are they from rival branches?
Is one account liturgical and another mythic?
Is contradiction intentional?
Does the tradition permit multiple truths?
Did later harmonization occur?
Is one version politically dominant?
Is one version more ancient?
Is “more ancient” equivalent to “more authoritative”?
Can both versions remain in the final analysis?
Does resolving the contradiction erase real plurality?

Required variant record

Issue.
Version A.
Version B.
Communities holding each.
Dates.
Evidence.
Attempted harmonizations.
Current status.

85. Stability, Development, Disappearance, and Reclassification

Questions to answer

Which beings remain continuous?
Which change name?
Which change rank?
Which change moral status?
Which are absorbed?
Which are split?
Which are demonized?
Which are canonized?
Which are historicized?
Which are allegorized?
Which are psychologized?
Which lose cult but remain in literature?
Which survive in household practice?
Which are revived?
Which are reconstructed?
Which disappear entirely?
Does loss of political sponsorship explain decline?
Does centralization reduce local plurality?
Does philosophical reinterpretation preserve or dissolve personhood?
Is a being’s “death” an emic event, historical disappearance, or both?

Historical Context dates these changes. Contact and Transformation explains their mechanisms.

86. Controlled Comparative Classification

Only after the emic system is complete should comparison begin.

Questions to answer

Are two entities genuinely comparable?
Are they at the same ontological level?
Is similarity based on:
- Domain?
- Form?
- Narrative?
- Cult?
- Historical contact?
- Linguistic relationship?
Does similar function imply similar ontology?
Is a “sky god” in one tradition equivalent to another?
Is a saint comparable to a deity?
Is an ancestor comparable to a ghost?
Is an avatar comparable to an incarnation?
Is a demon comparable to a disease spirit?
Does the local category include relations the comparative category excludes?
Are differences documented as carefully as similarities?
Is the comparison genealogical, functional, structural, or merely heuristic?
Does the comparison preserve the tradition’s self-understanding?

Comparative status labels

Exact emic equivalence.
Strong functional analogue.
Partial structural analogue.
Historical identification.
Borrowed identity.
Shared inheritance.
Superficial similarity.
Misleading comparison.
Unresolved.

Part V — Required Analytical Outputs

87. Pantheon or Ontology Map

Display:

Ultimate reality.
High deity or high beings.
Creators.
Major beings.
Subordinate beings.
Intermediaries.
Ancestors and dead.
Hostile or adversarial beings.
Open or unnamed classes.
Human–divine transition points.

Where a hierarchy is misleading, use a network.

88. Entity Relationship Graph

Include standardized relationship types:

Identical with.
Person of.
Aspect of.
Manifestation of.
Incarnation of.
Emanation of.
Created by.
Child of.
Parent of.
Spouse of.
Sibling of.
Servant of.
Messenger of.
Patron of.
Guardian of.
Rival of.
Defeated by.
Imprisoned by.
Succeeds.
Replaces.
Absorbed into.
Split from.
Local form of.
Equivalent to.
Member of class.
Dwells in.
Possesses.
Communicates through.

89. Multi-Dimensional Rank Matrix

Entity	Ontological rank	Authority	Power	Knowledge	Purity	Cultic prominence	Accessibility	Political prominence

Do not collapse these into one rank unless the tradition does.

90. Domain and Jurisdiction Matrix

Record:

Principal domain.
Secondary domains.
Territory.
Constituency.
Life-stage relevance.
Temporal relevance.
Overlapping beings.
Rival claimants.
Limits.

91. Identity-Resolution Matrix

Name or form A	Name or form B	Claimed relation	Community making claim	Period	Evidence	Confidence

This prevents accidental fusion of distinct beings or inflation of one being into many.

92. Cultic-Status Matrix

For every entity, mark whether it is:

Worshipped.
Venerated.
Invoked.
Petitioned.
Praised.
Thanked.
Remembered.
Appeased.
Feared.
Avoided.
Exorcised.
Forbidden.
Doctrinally affirmed but cultically inactive.
Historically active only.
Contested.

93. Manifestation and Presence Map

Record:

Ordinary dwelling.
Sacred sites.
Material embodiments.
Natural manifestations.
Incarnations.
Possession forms.
Visionary forms.
Temporal appearances.
Conditions of presence.
Conditions of withdrawal.
Discernment tests.

94. Official–Lived Ontology Comparison

Topic	Official teaching	Liturgical treatment	Popular belief	Local variation	Esoteric interpretation

95. Historical and Regional Variant Map

Every major being should be traced across:

Period.
Region.
Branch.
Language.
Rank.
Gender or form.
Domain.
Cultic status.
Identity relations.
Current status.

96. Entity Evidence Ledger

Entity claim	Evidence	Source perspective	Period and region	Counterevidence	Confidence

97. Final Pantheon Synthesis

One-sentence system statement

[Religion] recognizes [basic ontology], ordered through [hierarchical, relational, or nonhierarchical structure], centered on [ultimate or principal reality], populated by [major classes], and connected to human beings through [principal forms of mediation and relationship].

Expanded synthesis

The final analysis should state:

Whether “pantheon” is an appropriate term.
The indigenous categories of beings.
Ultimate reality or absence of one.
Number and type of high beings.
Creator or creators.
Major deities or agents.
Local and household beings.
Ancestors and active dead.
Intermediaries and guardians.
Saints, perfected beings, or deified humans.
Hostile and ambivalent beings.
Personified forces and boundary cases.
The system’s unity or plurality.
Hierarchical or network structure.
Divine economy and domain distribution.
Modes of embodiment and manifestation.
Relations to human beings.
Cultic centrality.
Official–popular differences.
Branch and regional differences.
Historical transformations.
Principal identity disputes.
Strongest evidence.
Major uncertainties.
Restricted knowledge.
Current status.

Mandatory Pantheon and Supernatural Beings Deliverables

A completed analysis must contain all of the following.

1. Pantheon scope declaration

Religion, branch, period, region, included entity classes, exclusions, and cutoff date.

2. Category-applicability statement

Whether “pantheon,” “deity,” “spirit,” and “supernatural” accurately describe the tradition.

3. Indigenous ontology lexicon

Every emic category, its meaning, members, contrasts, and translation limits.

4. Complete entity census

Named beings, anonymous beings, classes, collectives, manifestations, disputed beings, and restricted cases.

5. Entity-type map

Individuals, species, offices, manifestations, emanations, incarnations, abstractions, and powers.

6. Ultimate-reality profile

Personal, impersonal, transpersonal, or beyond-being status.

7. High-deity profile

Supremacy, accessibility, power, cult, and relation to other beings.

8. Creator profile

Creator, organizer, demiurge, primordial source, and their distinctions.

9. Major-being dossiers

Complete individual profiles for all principal beings.

10. Local and tutelary register

Territorial, household, occupational, personal, and communal patrons.

11. Intermediary register

Messengers, guardians, attendants, intercessors, and celestial officials.

12. Manifestation register

Aspects, forms, persons, emanations, avatars, incarnations, and embodiments.

13. Nature and place-being register

Rivers, mountains, stars, animals, landscapes, elements, and related agencies.

14. Ancestor register

Family, lineage, royal, collective, and founding ancestors.

15. Ghost and dangerous-dead register

Restless, improperly transitioned, forgotten, and hostile dead.

16. Perfected-being register

Saints, bodhisattvas, immortals, sages, and comparable figures.

17. Deified-human register

Founders, rulers, heroes, martyrs, and apotheosized persons.

18. Hostile-being register

Demons, devils, adversaries, disease spirits, and chaos beings.

19. Liminal-being register

Tricksters, shape-shifters, hybrids, gatekeepers, and psychopomps.

20. Collective-being register

Hosts, councils, species, classes, and unnamed multitudes.

21. Personified-force register

Abstract powers, principles, laws, and semi-personal agencies.

22. Rival-being classification

How the religion treats beings of neighboring or competing traditions.

23. Entity naming record

Original scripts, transliterations, meanings, epithets, titles, secret names, and translation issues.

24. Identity-resolution matrix

Which names, forms, manifestations, or local beings are identical, related, or distinct.

25. Ontological-status matrix

Created, uncreated, eternal, mortal, embodied, distributed, collective, symbolic, or contested status.

26. Agency and personhood profile

Consciousness, will, memory, intention, and distributed or relational personhood.

27. Body and manifestation profile

Forms, embodiments, sensory signatures, and conditions of appearance.

28. Gender and generative profile

Gender, sex, age, reproduction, consorts, and variation.

29. Temporality and mortality profile

Birth, age, death, rebirth, resurrection, sleep, imprisonment, and return.

30. Spatiality and presence profile

Dwelling, localization, mobility, territoriality, immanence, and transcendence.

31. Power and limitation matrix

Capacities, jurisdiction, dependencies, constraints, and vulnerabilities.

32. Domain map

Every practical and cosmic jurisdiction with overlaps and rival claims.

33. Moral and purity profile

Benevolence, hostility, ambivalence, holiness, pollution, and accountability.

34. Genealogy and kinship map

Parentage, marriage, descendants, divine descent, and competing genealogies.

35. Hierarchy map

Ontological, political, ritual, genealogical, and cultic rank.

36. Mediation map

Every chain connecting humans to higher realities.

37. Human-relationship matrix

Creator, patron, ancestor, judge, healer, teacher, enemy, indweller, and other modes.

38. Cultic-status matrix

Worship, veneration, invocation, appeasement, avoidance, prohibition, and inactivity.

39. Patronage map

Peoples, places, occupations, genders, life stages, and individuals associated with each being.

40. Communication and discernment profile

Revelation, dream, vision, possession, oracle, sign, and tests of authenticity.

41. Official–popular–esoteric comparison

Parallel ontologies and points of conflict.

42. Regional and branch-variant matrix

Different identities, rankings, forms, and cults.

43. Historical-status register

Active, inactive, suppressed, absorbed, demonized, allegorized, revived, or reconstructed beings.

44. Evidence and confidence ledger

Source basis and uncertainty for every significant claim.

45. Restricted-knowledge register

Known beings or teachings whose details cannot be disclosed.

46. Final ontology synthesis

One concise system statement and one complete analysis of the religion’s more-than-human world.

Non-Overlap Rules

The framework’s original design explicitly separates Pantheon’s “who” from Cosmology’s “how,” ritual action from human organization, material carriers from symbolic expression, and supernatural belief from social regulation.

Identity and Scope

Identity and Scope determines which religion, branch, people, period, and region are included. Pantheon and Supernatural Beings determines which entities exist within that defined unit.

Historical Context

Historical Context dates the appearance, elevation, suppression, fusion, or disappearance of beings. This section describes who those beings are at each relevant stage.

Sources of Evidence

Sources of Evidence evaluates the texts, inscriptions, archaeology, images, oral traditions, and ethnography attesting each being. This section synthesizes the resulting ontology.

Cosmology and Myth

Pantheon asks:

Who or what exists and acts?

Cosmology and Myth asks:

How is reality arranged, originated, maintained, and destined?

A deity’s identity belongs here. The complete creation narrative, world structure, sacred time, and mythic sequence belong under Cosmology and Myth.

Ritual and Practice

This section records:

Who receives worship.
Who is invoked.
Who is appeased.
Who possesses.
Who protects.
Who is exorcised.

Ritual and Practice records the complete actions, words, sequences, calendars, participants, and techniques.

Sacred Space and Material Culture

This section determines whether a being:

Dwells in an object.
Is embodied in an image.
Is identical with a landscape.
Manifests through a relic.

Sacred Space and Material Culture analyzes the physical place, object, architecture, material, and use.

Religious Specialists and Institutions

This section profiles nonhuman beings that communicate or possess. Religious Specialists and Institutions profiles the human priests, mediums, theologians, or authorities who manage those relationships.

Social Function and Law

This section records divine kings, judges, oath witnesses, patrons, and law-giving beings as entities. Social Function and Law analyzes how those beings legitimize government, hierarchy, morality, purity, punishment, and social order.

Death and Afterlife

Pantheon and Supernatural Beings treats ancestors, ghosts, judges, psychopomps, and active dead as agents. Death and Afterlife analyzes what happens to human beings at death, how postmortem transition works, and how funerary rites operate.

Symbolism and Cultural Expression

This section records enough iconography, names, colors, animals, and attributes to identify a being. Symbolism and Cultural Expression interprets those signs as an aesthetic and cultural language.

Contact and Transformation

This section records that two beings became identified, one was demonized, a local deity was absorbed, or a suppressed being was revived. Contact and Transformation explains the historical mechanisms of borrowing, syncretism, polemic, translation, suppression, diaspora, reform, and reconstruction.

Final Quality-Control Audit

A Pantheon and Supernatural Beings analysis is complete only when every question below is answered yes, not applicable, restricted, or explicitly unknown.

Scope and category control

Is the religious unit precisely defined?
Are branch, period, and region stated?
Is the contemporary cutoff date stated?
Are extinct and historical beings handled explicitly?
Are disputed beings handled explicitly?
Are beings from neighboring traditions included only under stated rules?
Is “pantheon” tested for applicability?
Is “supernatural” tested for applicability?
Is “deity” tested for applicability?
Is “spirit” tested for applicability?
Are polemical labels identified?
Are comparative terms treated as provisional?
Are inclusion criteria stated?
Are exclusion criteria stated?
Are restricted categories protected?
Is the ontology recognized as finite, open, or innumerable?
Is the analytical level consistent?
Are local and global systems distinguished?
Is a scholarly taxonomy prevented from replacing the indigenous one?
Is ambiguity preserved where necessary?

Indigenous ontology and terminology

Is every important emic category recorded?
Is original script provided?
Is transliteration provided?
Is pronunciation provided where knowable?
Is literal meaning provided?
Is semantic range provided?
Are contrasting categories identified?
Are historical semantic changes identified?
Are regional semantic differences identified?
Are branch-specific meanings identified?
Are secret or taboo names protected?
Are exonyms separated from endonyms?
Are hostile names marked as hostile?
Are translation losses stated?
Are grammatical categories prevented from determining ontology automatically?
Are category boundaries tested through borderline cases?

Entity census and individuation

Is every major named being included?
Are anonymous but important beings included?
Are classes and species included?
Are collective beings included?
Are manifestations included?
Are incarnations included?
Are emanations included?
Are offices distinguished from officeholders?
Are titles distinguished from names?
Are epithets distinguished from independent beings?
Are local forms identified?
Are duplicate names resolved?
Are homonymous beings separated?
Are one-being/many-name cases resolved?
Are many-being/one-name cases resolved?
Are open classes marked as open?
Is every entity assigned a stable ID?
Is every entity linked to evidence?
Is count uncertainty explicit?

Ultimate reality and high beings

Is ultimate reality identified where applicable?
Is personal versus impersonal status stated?
Is being versus beyond-being status stated?
Is singularity or plurality stated?
Is immanence versus transcendence stated?
Is the ultimate worshipped or merely metaphysically affirmed?
Is the high deity distinguished from ultimate reality?
Is the high deity distinguished from creator?
Is the creator distinguished from organizer?
Is supreme rank defined by dimension?
Is remoteness or accessibility described?
Are subordinate beings related precisely to the high being?
Are internal persons, forms, or hypostases distinguished?
Are philosophical and popular models compared?
Are monotheistic claims prevented from erasing subordinate beings?

Ontological classes

Are primordial beings included?
Are major deities included?
Are local beings included?
Are household beings included?
Are occupational beings included?
Are territorial patrons included?
Are messengers and celestial officials included?
Are guardians included?
Are nature and place beings included?
Are astral beings included?
Are ancestors included?
Are ghosts distinguished from ancestors?
Are saints or perfected beings included?
Are deified humans included?
Are culture heroes included where ontologically active?
Are tricksters and liminal beings included?
Are demons and adversaries included?
Are disease spirits distinguished from moral evil?
Are psychopomps and gatekeepers included?
Are familiars and personal spirits included?
Are collective hosts included?
Are personified abstractions included?
Are impersonal powers included?
Are sacred animals and places included only where agency is attributed?
Are rival or denied beings classified?
Are hidden, dead, sleeping, or withdrawn beings included?
Are non-theistic configurations handled without forcing deity language?

Entity identity and ontology

Is every entity’s primary name given?
Are alternate names given?
Are titles and epithets given?
Is etymology separated from current meaning?
Is numerical identity stated?
Is singular versus distributed identity stated?
Are manifestations distinguished from independent beings?
Are aspects distinguished from persons?
Are emanations distinguished from creations?
Are incarnations distinguished from possession?
Is ontological status stated?
Is created versus uncreated stated?
Is eternal versus contingent stated?
Is immortal versus mortal stated?
Is embodiment status stated?
Is collective versus individual status stated?
Is dependency on ultimate reality stated?
Is symbolic interpretation distinguished from literal affirmation?
Are competing ontological interpretations preserved?

Origin and life cycle

Is the being’s origin stated?
Is creation distinguished from birth?
Is birth distinguished from emanation?
Is apotheosis distinguished from incarnation?
Are competing genealogies recorded?
Is the being’s age or primordial status stated?
Is mortality addressed?
Is divine death addressed?
Is resurrection addressed?
Is reincarnation addressed?
Is sleep or dormancy addressed?
Is imprisonment addressed?
Is withdrawal addressed?
Is return addressed?
Is transformation into another category addressed?
Is succession distinguished from personal continuity?

Body, form, and manifestation

Is bodily status described?
Is material versus subtle embodiment distinguished?
Is a true form distinguished from appearances?
Are human, animal, hybrid, and nonfigurative forms identified?
Is simultaneous embodiment addressed?
Is injury or vulnerability addressed?
Is reproduction addressed?
Is image-as-representation distinguished from image-as-presence?
Is place-as-residence distinguished from place-as-body?
Are sensory manifestations identified?
Are signs distinguished from the being itself?
Are manifestation-authentication procedures described?
Are false or deceptive manifestations addressed?
Is nonmanifestation treated as potentially meaningful?

Personhood and cognition

Is consciousness addressed?
Is self-awareness addressed?
Is memory addressed?
Is intentionality addressed?
Is free will addressed?
Is capacity for change addressed?
Is capacity for deception addressed?
Is vulnerability to deception addressed?
Is learning addressed?
Is distributed agency addressed?
Is collective agency addressed?
Is relational personhood addressed?
Is personhood prevented from being reduced to human psychology?
Are impersonal agencies treated separately?

Gender, kinship, and generation

Is gender stated?
Is grammatical gender prevented from determining theology?
Is gender fluidity or multiplicity addressed?
Is androgyny addressed?
Is sex distinguished from gender?
Is age symbolism addressed?
Are spouses and consorts identified?
Are consorts treated as independent or derivative as appropriate?
Is divine reproduction interpreted carefully?
Is parentage stated?
Are children and descendants identified?
Is adoption or ritual kinship included?
Is divine descent of humans evaluated?
Are variant genealogies retained?
Are political uses of genealogy marked without replacing ontology?

Location, presence, and movement

Is ordinary dwelling stated?
Is physical versus spiritual location distinguished?
Is omnipresence addressed?
Is localization addressed?
Is territoriality addressed?
Is mobility addressed?
Is diaspora transfer addressed?
Is simultaneous presence addressed?
Is site-dependent power addressed?
Is presence in objects addressed?
Is presence in persons addressed?
Is presence in natural phenomena addressed?
Is desecration or departure addressed?
Are residence, body, manifestation, and symbol distinguished?
Is cosmic geography left for the proper later dimension?

Knowledge, character, and morality

Is knowledge scope stated?
Is future knowledge addressed?
Is knowledge of thoughts addressed?
Is ignorance addressed?
Is fallibility addressed?
Are emotions described?
Are anthropomorphic descriptions qualified where necessary?
Is character variation across sources recorded?
Is moral status stated?
Is ritual danger distinguished from evil?
Is holiness distinguished from benevolence?
Is justice distinguished from caprice?
Is accountability addressed?
Is repentance or moral development addressed?
Are beings beyond ordinary morality described accurately?
Are relational differences in moral valence recorded?

Powers, domains, and limits

Are principal powers recorded?
Are secondary powers recorded?
Are inherent and granted powers distinguished?
Are domains recorded?
Are territorial limits recorded?
Are temporal limits recorded?
Are overlapping domains recorded?
Are rival jurisdictions recorded?
Is control distinguished from personification?
Is narrative power distinguished from regular cultic expectation?
Are dependencies recorded?
Are vulnerabilities recorded?
Is subjection to fate or law recorded?
Is dependence on offerings or memory addressed?
Can powers be delegated or lost?
Are claims of omnipotence carefully defined?
Are theological and mythic depictions reconciled only where warranted?

Relations and hierarchy

Are relations to ultimate reality mapped?
Are parent–child relations mapped?
Are spouse relations mapped?
Are sibling relations mapped?
Are servant and messenger relations mapped?
Are alliances mapped?
Are rivalries mapped?
Are succession relations mapped?
Are absorption and fusion mapped?
Are splitting and differentiation mapped?
Are equivalence claims mapped?
Are defeated and imprisoned beings mapped?
Is hierarchy represented multidimensionally?
Is ontological rank distinguished from cultic popularity?
Is power distinguished from authority?
Is purity distinguished from power?
Is accessibility distinguished from rank?
Are networked or nonhierarchical systems represented without forcing a ladder?
Are later hierarchies prevented from being projected backward?

Human relations and cult

Is the being’s relationship to humans stated?
Is universal versus group-specific jurisdiction stated?
Is patronage stated?
Is kinship stated where applicable?
Is mediation stated?
Is direct access stated?
Is cultic status stated?
Is worship distinguished from veneration?
Is veneration distinguished from remembrance?
Is appeasement distinguished from worship?
Is exorcism distinguished from disbelief?
Are forbidden relationships identified?
Are offerings associated with the correct being?
Are preferences and taboos identified?
Are constituency differences identified?
Are rewards identified?
Are punishments identified?
Are intercession and mediation identified?
Is possession addressed?
Is inspiration distinguished from possession?
Is the human specialist kept conceptually separate from the possessing being?
Are ritual procedures left to Ritual and Practice?

Official, lived, and variant systems

Is official theology distinguished from popular belief?
Is liturgical treatment distinguished from doctrine?
Are household beings included?
Are local beings included?
Are esoteric interpretations included?
Are dissident interpretations included?
Are branch differences mapped?
Are regional differences mapped?
Are historical differences mapped?
Are gendered and social differences considered?
Is one elite source prevented from defining the whole pantheon?
Are condemned but widespread beings recorded?
Are philosophical allegories prevented from erasing lived personhood?
Are popular beings prevented from being projected into official doctrine?

Historical transformation and comparison

Are changes in names recorded?
Are changes in rank recorded?
Are changes in domain recorded?
Are changes in moral status recorded?
Are fusion and splitting recorded?
Is demonization recorded?
Is canonization or apotheosis recorded?
Is loss of cult recorded?
Is survival in folklore recorded?
Is revival recorded?
Is reconstruction recorded?
Are historical mechanisms left to Historical Context and Contact and Transformation?
Are comparative labels applied only after emic analysis?
Is functional similarity prevented from proving identity?
Is historical contact established where borrowing is claimed?
Are similarities and differences both documented?
Are cross-cultural equations marked by confidence?

Evidence, truth status, and ethics

Is every entity claim linked to evidence?
Are internal and external sources distinguished?
Are textual and material evidence compared?
Is official evidence distinguished from lived evidence?
Is current ethnography prevented from proving ancient continuity automatically?
Are hostile sources treated critically?
Are late sources prevented from defining early forms without justification?
Is confidence stated?
Are metaphysical claims distinguished from historical attestation?
Are practitioner experiences represented accurately?
Are empirical observations separated from interpretations?
Are restricted names protected?
Are sacred images protected where required?
Are dangerous locations or practices withheld where necessary?
Is community authority over restricted ontology respected?
Are unknowns left unknown?

Final synthesis and non-overlap

Does the analysis explain what kinds of beings exist?
Does it explain how they are individuated?
Does it explain how they relate?
Does it explain how they act?
Does it explain their powers and limits?
Does it explain their human relationships?
Does it explain cultic centrality?
Does it explain official–popular variation?
Does it explain regional and historical variation?
Does it identify the strongest evidence?
Does it identify major disputes?
Does it identify restricted knowledge?
Does it avoid turning into a myth summary?
Does it avoid turning into a ritual manual?
Does it avoid turning into an institutional chart of human specialists?
Does it avoid treating sacred objects as merely material?
Does it avoid reducing beings to social functions?
Can another researcher reproduce the entity census?
Does the final synthesis represent the religion’s ontology without forcing it into a foreign model?

Only after this audit is satisfied should the analysis proceed to the complete structure, narratives, temporal order, and metaphysical operation of Cosmology and Myth.

Pantheon and Supernatural Beings

Pantheon and Supernatural Beings

Pantheon and Supernatural Beings

Who or what does this religion recognize as possessing divine, spiritual, ancestral, postmortem, cosmic, nonhuman, transhuman, or otherwise more-than-ordinary agency—and how are those entities individuated, classified, related, empowered, encountered, and addressed?

Purpose of This Dimension

Foundational Analytical Distinctions

1. Being versus force

2. Individual versus class

3. Being versus manifestation

4. Name versus entity

5. Existence versus worship

6. Rank versus power versus popularity

7. Narrative role versus ontological status

8. Benevolence versus holiness versus purity

9. Historical attestation versus metaphysical truth

Governing Principles

1. Begin with indigenous categories

2. Do not assume every tradition has a pantheon

3. Do not assume a nature–supernature distinction

4. Do not count names as though they were entities

5. Do not reduce beings to functions

6. Preserve internal disagreement

7. Date and locate every ontological claim

8. Distinguish official, lived, local, and esoteric ontologies

9. Preserve ambiguity where the tradition preserves ambiguity

10. Treat absence and hiddenness as positive characteristics

11. Distinguish class membership from moral judgment

12. Do not treat humanlike personhood as the norm

13. Distinguish cultic centrality from textual prominence

14. Distinguish the religion’s ontology from outsiders’ interpretations

15. Make evidence and confidence explicit

Comprehensive Pantheon and Supernatural Beings Template

Part I — Scope, Terminology, and Ontological Control

1. Pantheon Scope Lock

Questions to answer

Required scope statement

2. Applicability of “Pantheon,” “Deity,” and “Supernatural”

Questions to answer

Required classification

3. Indigenous Ontology and Category Lexicon

For every indigenous category, record

Questions to answer

Required crosswalk

4. Entity Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Possible inclusion criteria

Boundary questions

Exclusion categories

5. Ontological Commitment Levels

Classify each entity as

Questions to answer

6. Type, Token, Office, and Manifestation

Possible structures

Questions to answer

7. Master Entity Census

Census categories

Minimum census fields

Count status

8. Entity Evidence and Confidence

Questions to answer

Required confidence categories

9. Official, Popular, Local, and Esoteric Entity Registers

Questions to answer

Required parallel registers

10. Restricted and Dangerous Knowledge

Questions to answer

Required reporting categories

Part II — Complete Census of Ontological Classes

11. Ultimate Reality, Absolute, or Beyond-Being

Questions to answer

Required conclusion

12. Supreme or High Deity

Questions to answer

13. Creator, Demiurge, World-Organizer, or Culture-Former

Questions to answer

14. Primordial Beings and Pre-Cosmic Powers

Possible members

Questions to answer

15. Major Deities

Questions to answer

16. Local, Regional, Tutelary, Household, and Occupational Beings