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Magical prejudice, tribal loyalty, and lines in the sand

  
  

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Ticker
15:44 / 25.06.06
I've been noticing in a few posts people mentioning being on the receiving end of a prejudiced attutide toward their magics.

Or just the results of their perceived magics.

Trouser mentions having the finger pointed at hir.

Z.deScathach mentions getting tagged for practicing 'black' magic.

I know I have my own set of prejudices that in the past put me on the giving end of that unpleasant exchange. I still tend to cringe and retreat any time a group of pagans start in on a rousing version of 'We All Come From The Goddess'. Often in conversation with other spirit workers the phrase 'fluffy new age crap' is employed to distance what we do from what others do.

I grew up hearing the gossipy fall out of the OTO and those tales of ego and dramatics colored my view of all Western Ceremonial traditions.

In college I had both good and bad interactions with friends who practiced Santeria and Vodoun. This allowed me to re examine the prejudiced attitude I had inherited from my family about these other faiths.

Most recently when I meet my beloved, my assumptions about Chaos Magick got roundly kicked down many flights of stairs.

Like all prejudices, magical prejudice is rarely based on first hand experience. Usually it is learned or propagated by another system afraid of the 'Other'. Sometimes it is reinforced directly, but like all generalizations these beliefs are more problematic than helpful.

I've learned from being on the shunned side and from losing the chance to learn something amazing that I'm best off judging each individual practioner rather than any entire system.

Share your tales of being the 'Other', being kicked off the team, getting tagged as magically 'BAD' even when you didn't do it.

What prejudices have you shucked off? Which ones are you working on? Which ones (if any) have you found to be valid?
 
 
Z. deScathach
18:58 / 25.06.06
I had been Wiccan for quite a few years before going on to what I now simply call "magick". I remember being on a pagan forum after taking up chaos magick, identifying on it, and having the owner of the forum post, "There are things that are OK, and things that aren't OK, and what you do is simply evil. I'll have none of it!" I wound up posting a full page on chaos magick, and what it entailed. She apologized and said that she hadn't realized what it was actually about. She said that it was the word "chaos" that had influenced her view. On the same forum, a poster wrote in that a friend of hers was going down a "dark path". That was the only info given, "dark path". She asked whether she should magickally bind the person. I was shocked at how many persons chimed in, "Yes! Of course you should!" I pointed out to them that they were telling this person to attempt to restrict the freedom of another person without any knowledge of the situation. I also pointed out that this was no different then christians praying for them to convert. Things were strained after that.....

I think that many of these problems come out of our inherent difficulties in stepping into each others shoes. Ultimately, our experiences are uniquely personal. I've encountered misunderstandings about my magick with persons who are heavily into western modalities, as my practices are eastern based,in Tantra, specifically Kashmiri Shaivism. When I talk about casting a sigil, some people assume that the magick that I do is shallow, a mere scribbling onto paper of a symbol. They say, "Where is the beauty in that?" For me, having practiced a system where the simple act of awareness takes one ever deeper into reality until all things vibrate with life, power and beauty, casting a sigil is the sacred act of writing a symbol on the heart of the universe. It lovingly opens that heart to me, and allows me to write upon it. What could be more beautiful? Many things are equally so, but those are the things of others. They have their own beauty that unfolds to those that practice them. The western ceremonialist talks in the same way about their rituals. The Wiccan talks in the same way about their circles. Still, we can not experience directly the beauty of another's experience. We can only take their word for it, and that is part of the problem.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:55 / 25.06.06
I don't currently identify as a chaos magician, but in the poast I've been on the business end of the anti-chaos-magic thing more than once. Online this has manifested in pretty much the kind of exchange Z. deScathach touches upon.

In meatspace, I had a magically-inclined family member, B., react very strongly to the term 'chaos magic' during a discussion of our respective practices. B. had been actively involved in Subud for a number of years. She had also been fortunate enough to recall a past life as a Native American (her term) and was practicing 'Native American magic'.

At the time, B. referred to chaos magic as 'low magic' and became very cool towards me. Afterwards it came out that B. had phoned up my mum, told her that she'd learned--psychically, natch--that during a group chaos magic ritual I had picked up an evil spirit that was still haunting me. This was all news to me, since at that time I worked exclusively solo.

I'm as certain as one can be on this kind of subject that B. and one or more of her cronies saw fit to slap some kind of magical binding on me after lowmagicgate. I was not impressed.

More recently: I had my big ol' heathen conversion thing last year, and that's causing all kinds of friction. Me and the NT mainstream are strange bedfellows.

For one thing, just being a heathen magician is frowned upon by a lot of people--magic is for those darn Wiccans. For another, I engage in a lot of mystical practices aimed at direct contact with my Gods and other spirits, also frowned upon. Fuck knows why since both are attested to in lore, but there you go. Then there's my ongoing involvement with various entities outwith the pantheon; again, this kind of thing is a recorded practice, but frowned upon by heathens in general.

(And of course my worshipping Loki doesn't go over at all.)
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
01:02 / 26.06.06
(just like to say; lovely idea for a thread.)

Hmm. my relation to this question is a different one to those above.

Namely that I was totally put-off anything occult and/or magical/had huge assumptions about the vast range of people therein.

Which were basically challenged and changed by the Temple/Barbelith Magic forum.

The prejudices weren't on the 'they're doing bad things' scale, but more on the 'this is all rubbish, no such thing as magic, just lines spouted by posers'.

An impression pretty much obtained from a few people I knew at Uni who self-identified as magicians. Who were often men using magic as an okay venue for their hideous macho performances.

Often, they were 'into' Crowley, and for years I had (and if I'm honest probably still have, albeit much less so) had a strong knee-jerk 'ick' feeling when hearing anyone talking about Crowley and/or Golden Dawn stuff.

As I say, the initial main challenge to this was the Barbeilth Magic forum, which brought me into other people who took the same frame of reference but did very different, and often inspiring things...

Has led onto self-realisation (mainly regarding my counselling and (self) healing practices and how much they overlap with this stuff) and much greater openness to 'magical/occult/religious' practice.

I'm not totally over my prejudices, but I've shifted from where I was.
 
 
Z. deScathach
07:49 / 26.06.06
I don't currently identify as a chaos magician, but in the poast I've been on the business end of the anti-chaos-magic thing more than once. Online this has manifested in pretty much the kind of exchange Z. deScathach touches upon.

I don't identify as a chaos magician either anymore. I just tell persons that I practice magick, as I perform from so many different focal points that it's hard for me to nail MYSELF down. Sometimes I focus on one thing, sometimes another. To me that sort of speaks to the problem. People get ideas about this system or that system, and when I tell people that I just practice magick, it's almost like they are uncomfortable with that, as though they WANT to get me nailed down to a specific system. Over time, I've come to a feeling that this is about feeling safe. If they can get me to cop to a specific system, then they know who I am. They believe that they know what to expect from me, and that brings a greater feeling of control over their environment when I'm in it. There's nothing scarier than a wildcard. The problem with that is that things are seldom that cut and dried.
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:36 / 26.06.06
I used to shun and disdain god based systems of magic, i guess for alot of reasons, some due to the pop cultures i belonged too in my teens and twenties, family attitudes and personal experiences as a child.

I grew up into goth/industrial and metal in my early teens and twenties and there was and still is to some degree a kind of written in philosophy of anti christianity, i can see why, but i dont think its the whole picture and certainly know its not now, so the spirituality attached to those sub cultures, chaos, wicca, vamp, otherkin, tarot, oto etc is all well and fine as long as it doesnt include any notion of god, as that is too close to christianity. I think that idea is a pile of crap these days, well at least to me. I can see the value in all the above systems, but when set up in opposition to one another they all begin to stink.

I started to explore alot of older living spiritual systems as i grew up and found that almost all of them have a notion of one god or creative life principle at there heart. As more and more was studied and experienced personally it became apparent to me that there was a truth to this understanding to me.

I went through a period of devalueing my teen and twenty something intrests, but now can see the value of them as well as what has been growing in me of late, a recognition of the unity of all spirits as a reflection of one spirit.
I think i at times still carry prejudice around towards christianity, atheism and wicca,chaos,oto etc, but i think i am in a place where i understand that better than i did before. I think that prejudice sometimes sparks in me as a reactionary judgement born of ignorance and sometimes as an excitable lust for conflict, or perhaps somedays i just need a good argument. I think i am understanding what motivates these and other attitudes i can push out. I like to think i am beginning to see as many sides of a conflict as i can.

I think a great deal of prejudice can be avoided through empathy, and putting yourself in other peoples shoes.
 
 
Ticker
14:16 / 26.06.06
I'm aware of a discomfort I feel in the presence of magical monotheists / duotheists (a lot of Wiccans seem to fall into this category).
Often when they tell me 'all-gods-are-One-God' I get squirmy. When they tell me that Kali and the Morrigu are the same face of the Goddess I start turning funny colors.

I want to be tolerant, I want to be respectful of other people's beliefs, and I'd rather not be the jerk who makes other people uncomfortable.

When I have tried to politely bring up that some folks are genuinely polytheistic I've often gotten a very judgment laden response of being told I'm wrong or unenlightened.

Somewhere in this I've picked up a strong aversion to talking to atheists, monotheists, and duotheists about my beliefs. It feels like a flinch mechanism because the structure of their beliefs does not allow for my polytheistic beliefs to be regarded in any way except as incorrect or 'unevolved'. Often the interaction leaves me with a sense of being patronized or indulged as crazy.

I've tried to flip this around in my head and I feel I can accord others their reality in which there is no God, or only one God, or only one Goddess and God, or maybe Gods/no Gods, while maintaining my reality in which there are uncountable Gods.

I'm much more likely to talk serious shop with someone who is polytheistic or agnostic even if they have a completely different system. It's a prejudice that I often push within myself but I find the tension of being perceived as 'incorrect' so tiring.

I try to extend others the respect that they are right in their beliefs as they apply to themselves. I'm not quite sure what to do with the folks who insist that I'm wrong about what is right for me besides to lump them into the Avoid category.
 
 
Doc Checkmate
15:32 / 26.06.06
I'm aware of a discomfort I feel in the presence of magical monotheists / duotheists (a lot of Wiccans seem to fall into this category).
Often when they tell me 'all-gods-are-One-God' I get squirmy. When they tell me that Kali and the Morrigu are the same face of the Goddess I start turning funny colors.

Well, I guess there's a question of when a comment goes from a statement of belief to a misstatement of fact. Ignoring Hasan I-Sabah and Pete Carroll for just a minute, it is possible to just be straight-up wrong even in the area of spirituality. It's a hard line to draw. If I say, "I see Indra as an embodiment of superstring theory, with every bead on his net as a parallel reality following waveform collapse," then I am uncreative and a bore, but that's about it. If I say, "Odin was worshipped as the god of surfing, and hanging ten is actually a symbolic completion of his sacrifice on the world tree..." well, that is in fact wrong. Spiritual concepts come with historical and cultural contexts; these contexts are factual, they are part and parcel of the concepts, and we don't get to just contradict them (except in the tail-biting “well, nothing’s real anyway” sense). I can't credibly claim that “government” means “shoe,” and I can’t make similar claims about this god meaning that god.

I think we can disagree with a particular spiritual perspective, even strongly, without bleeding over into prejudice. The problem comes when we start assuming that because a person claims adherence to a particular school of thought, they therefore adopt a certain perspective or way of life. There's flexibility within most or all belief systems, and every school has its standouts and embarrassments. Initially, I had to learn that every chaos magician wasn't a globetrotting rock star with an eviscerating wit and impeccable fashion sense. Later, I had to learn that every chaos magician wasn't a basement-dwelling recluse with semen-crusted fingers and an unfinished "hypersigil" about nailing Julia from the coffee shop.
 
 
Quantum
16:25 / 26.06.06
Someone said the magic shop I work in was dark side (it's true! I laughed like a drain!) but I haven't had too much prejudice. On the other hand dish it out frequently, I have to bite my tongue not to launch into diatribes against wiccan and pagan groups (I pre-judge them to be hostile to newcomers and arrogant with a poorly thought out practice and the social graces of failed roleplayers, bickering and backbiting about trivial differences instead of acting like grown ups) I have very little respect for paths I don't think are valid and practitioners I dislike (Silver Ravenwolf leaps to mind) and I am generally a curmudgeonly scornmonger. I try not to let it out but sometimes the exasperation is too much, I am a bad person and the worst kind of elitist.
The people I hate the most though are charlatans, I can stand talking to the fluffiest new ager who believes what they say but can't stand bullshitters manipulating the credulous, it makes me very angry.
 
 
Ticker
18:07 / 26.06.06
WTF is up with the binding spells being dished out like phone calls to your 'rents?

I'm all down with praying for people you have issues with but not in a specific outcome sort of way ("May so-n'-so have a great day and stop being an ass hat"), but binding? What kind of magical intervention happens behind your back off screen? The intent there is not like writing a letter to the Editor, it is totally Disrespectful and Stupid.
It's like stealing your car keys so you stop going to see R rated movies...

...sorry ranting...


Doc

I agree about being wrong and being Wrong, they are touchy things to navigate. I tend not to regulate other people's perceptions unless they ask me specificly about a topic I have studied. Then I still tend to couch it as my opinion. I might think someone is doing something totally ass backwards but that doesn't mean it isn't working for them.

With my Deities, I can speak to my experience of Them and the verifiable historical work relating to Them. As much as I hate the fluffy new age crap that filters in about Them I can't say with absolute authority that it is all untrue because well, who really knows what They get up to with other people?

Maybe for some people the homogenization of global Gods/Spirits works, to me it is offensive and smacks of appropriation. Yet the alternative of telling people they're wrong is equally offensive.

Mechanics you can debate but core beliefs you just have to be polite about.
Unless everybody is an adult, which seems to be a bit rare, sadly.

Quantum
you maybe the most polite scornmonger ever.
 
 
Queer Pirate
19:07 / 26.06.06
The whole "Chaos = Black magic" stuff makes me smile and annoys me at the same time. A couple of months back, I was in a hotel room with a work colleague, the kind of guy who enjoys fast cars, hot women and cop shows, and he saw me reading Condensed Chaos. When I said it was about chaos magic, he immediately assumed it was about black magic. Somehow, I typically get the same reaction when I mention anarchism, which gets people thinking its all about breaking everything around you. Sometimes I wish people were a bit more educated and a bit less hasty in their judgements.

I can't help but feel a lot of prejudice whenever I see the Wicca/magic/occult section at Chapters or Barnes and Nobles. For some reason, it all feels rather fake. It's nothing agaisnt Wiccans, though; I just feel that a lot of people write about it simply to make money.

My own brother identifies as a magician (his interest into magic actually pre-dates mine) and I have to say that I sometimes feel he just buys into anything that suits his latest fancy. Someday I should have a decent conversation with him, to see if he's really on to something or not. Maybe its just me who's put off by his belief system, as its pretty far away from mine.

Both the Salivation Army (by Scott Treleaven) and The Invisibles have been important triggers for my own magical explorations. While I used to dismiss a lot of the magic stuff as superstition (strangely enough, I was nonetheless - and still am - an amateur Tarot reader, mostly because in my experience it has proven useful), reading two writers' accounts of their own experience as magicians, writers who had written so much significant works for me, gave the whole magic thing credibility in my eyes.

Although I do not identify as a chaos magician (there are some aspects of the practice that are not my thing), the whole DIY and creative aspect of it is very appealing to me, while ceremonial magic always felt like a bore to me (once again, a matter of personal preference - no offence intended to ceremonial magicians). But I often see people dismiss chaos magic for its lack of structure. Yet, this is this very lack of structure that allows me to let stuff emerge from myself, as I feel the focus is all on content rather than form. And without any exposure to chaos magic material, I don't think I would be exploring magic at the moment.
 
 
Z. deScathach
20:45 / 26.06.06
I guess that if I had any pejudice it would be against systems that believe in antecedent godforms, i.e., my God or Gods created the known and unknown universe. It's not so much a "Your wrong!" thing as much as, "Your belief system doesn't enable you to play well with others" thing. Someone who believes that their God or Goddess created everything,(including other Gods), is going to look at anyone who believes otherwise as sadly deluded. I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with this if it didn't lead to such damnable arrogance. I once was in a discussion group that had invited a Wiccan high priestess, a major muckety-muck in the area. After I expressed my opinions, she looked at me with SUCH a look of condescending pity, that I found myself thinking, "If I smacked her, would I REALLY go to jail? Would I REALLY, REALLY go to jail?"

I used to have a belief system like that, and three to one I probably had that same look. Accepting but oh so pitying. *sigh* Suprised nobody smacked me......

I finally gave up on first cause beliefs all together. Now when I'm with a condescending person who knows the Truth about first cause, I can be equally condescending. S/he can look at me and say to hirself, "So sad she doesn't know the Truth of the *insert deity here*", and I can say to myself, "Too bad that s/he doesn't know the Truth that there is no Creational Deity", *sigh* *sigh*......

This is in keeping with my only real belief, that humanity will behave like horseshit for all of eternity.....
 
 
Z. deScathach
21:04 / 26.06.06
OOOPPPS! Not believing in a creational deity is a first cause belief! See what I mean? No hope for us whatsoever.....
 
 
Unconditional Love
00:17 / 27.06.06
rot* i think i am classical pantheist * rot ends
 
 
Quantum
09:21 / 27.06.06
Someone who believes that their God or Goddess created everything,(including other Gods), is going to look at anyone who believes otherwise as sadly deluded.

Everyone is deluded. You are, I am*, the best thing is just to scorn everyone until they convince you they've got something worthwhile to say, then scorn your past self as just another unenlightened pillock who didn't know that.

Practice that pitying look in the mirror, then get busy pitying those fools; Suckas and their jibber-jabber.

*I am the least deluded person ever of course. A Badger told me so it must be true.
 
 
SteppersFan
15:14 / 27.06.06
Queer Pirate:
I can't help but feel a lot of prejudice whenever I see the Wicca/magic/occult section at Chapters or Barnes and Nobles. For some reason, it all feels rather fake. It's nothing agaisnt Wiccans, though; I just feel that a lot of people write about it simply to make money.
Whenever I look at the books in those sections I tend to think there's not an awful lot of Wicca in the "Wicca" books. Even books written by people who do actually know something about it tend to look and feel a bit shallow.
 
 
Ticker
17:05 / 27.06.06
One of my biggest issues with a lot of modern Wicca/New Age/Shamanism books is straight up shitty research and big claims based on vapor.

Now I'm all for a living tradition that includes fresh tingly insights. In fact I prefer it when an author says 'I was in the park/sewer/highrise/elevator/mountain/toilet and had this idea....' then when they claim some inspired lineage that's total crap.

I have bothered to read a few cheese coated books that the publisher doused glitter on to discover really excellent academic tidbits hidden within. It's one thing to list your sources and disagree with their findings, it is another thing to make 'facts' up whole cloth and then have the nerve to look down your nose at people who admit they are doing it.

I suspect that the lit is suffering from being too divorced from academic standards. There are notable exceptions but the Joseph Campbells are being drowned out by the Silver Tadpole Messiahs. If you write a shitty book on the Buddha someone is going to call you on it, but if you write a shitty book on the Tuatha Dé Danann how many Celtic mythology experts are going to speak up?
 
 
trouser the trouserian
04:41 / 28.06.06
if you write a shitty book on the Tuatha Dé Danann how many Celtic mythology experts are going to speak up?

It does happen occasionnally - see this post & link to pdf article.
 
 
*
06:45 / 28.06.06
I'm not so keen on Joseph Campbell either, if you want the truth (speaking as someone only moderately trained in anthropology).

So, all this is well and good, and fertile fodder for discussion. I'm also disdainful of fluffywicca, I'm suspicious of people who in my judgment seem to do magic to "empower" themselves over others instead of over— well, themselves, and I had a omgkaosmajykistehcoolestEVAR phase which I now distance myself from by ragging on omgkaosmajykistehcoolestEVAR types. I have never met a Folkish Heathen I didn't vaguely wish would make a suitable Blood Eagle— but then I've only met a few. I am trying to be more critical of my own exoticising tendencies, and this makes me more prone to jumping on others I perceive as being damagingly misappropriative.

But let's be honest. No one here is really going to give up making prejudgments about the way other people practice whateveritiswepractice. Is that what we want to do, anyway? sift through EVERY book on the shelves, instead of discarding the ones with titles like Turn Your Toad Into A Prince With Wykkyn Majyk! right off the bat? So how do we discriminate between valid and valuable discrimination and the harmful kind? And if you think you're doing the latter, what do you do about that, if anything?

I went to a Radical Faerie ritual for Summer Solstice. I won't say it was da bomb shit, but as group rituals go, it was one of the better ones I've been to. I frequently had to suspend the part of me that says things like "Gods, that's cheesy, I would never do that that's so cheesy" while still keeping the part of me that reminded me "wait, at this point they're asking for something from the power of the West which I don't want for myself." That's how I involved myself with a ritual which I might have separated myself from on the grounds that it was "too fluffy" and had a meaningful experience which is having a lasting effect on my life. But I don't quite understand where I was drawing that line, and what the reasons were. I don't know if I could have got more out of the ritual. I don't know if by separating myself off that little bit, I interfered with the practice of the larger group. Any thoughts? Similar experiences?

(One other funny but possibly relevant thing came up. I was there with a long-term member who had been to many such gatherings. At one point during the ritual we were repeating back something which had the words "forever and ever" in it, which my friend jokingly followed with "Amen." I can well imagine that in some other pagan contexts that would have been highly frowned on.)
 
 
ophion
10:06 / 28.06.06
A minor thing, but I always get the withering look of doomy scorn in chaos magic company if I let slip a 'jeezuz'. Even worse is after I give out a 'Oh God' or similar, a wag will pipe up 'Goddess, actually' or some inane 'i'm more pagany than you' bollocks. This from people (you know who you are) who exclaim 'Odin's beard' etc in such a self-consciously rehearsed manner as to make me queasy. Oh well...
 
 
Quantum
10:09 / 28.06.06
I find it very hard to get past the cheese, I just can't suspend my disbelief when faced with poor quality poetry. I might intellectually think that any system that works for you is good enough, but I've been reading a lot of rituals recently and the doggerel makes me blanch. Pagan music is bad enough, but the wiccan rites I've been looking at are just embarrassingly poor. Maybe that's one of the reasons a lot of ritual is in other tongues, so you don't cringe at the rhyme of summer and bummer, or Litha and whither, or Athame and flame or whatever.
 
 
Doc Checkmate
14:01 / 28.06.06
[...] people (you know who you are) who exclaim 'Odin's beard' etc in such a self-consciously rehearsed manner as to make me queasy.

Merciful Rao!
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:13 / 28.06.06
Tiny Baby Jeezus in a centrifuge.
 
 
Ticker
14:52 / 28.06.06
Well crappy books aside (thanks for the link trouser!) I suspect the only way to get over some of our prejudices is to interact with the people we are prone to disdain and give them a chance to buck the label. One at a time regardless of fluff factor.

I can't really stand group ritual that's big crowd of folks I don't know unless it is supa-generic or highly wrangled. If it is highly wrangled it tends to feel more like we're all witnesses standing around anyway which bores me to tears, unless it's grand performance art....

I suspect it isn't anyone group that generates the annoyance factor, rather just the shallow ego tripping weenies interspersed throughout humankind. I'm always shocked to find the exact crappy judgement exclusionary behavior in a group of magical folk as a lot of mainstream fundie groups. Something about calling yourself open minded and then being a closed minded asshat just strikes me as odd. I remind myself of this everytime I start bitching about the fluffy pagans dusting everybody with glitter...

..and bad poetry is universal, I know I'm guilty of it.


Can we have more blood eagles though? I really want to see more exposed lung at gatherings. Sexy.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
15:41 / 28.06.06
I'm actually finding my hitherto rabid prejudice against fluff-wiccans eroded somewhat by exposure to Folkist heathens. Bunnies may get on your nerves but I know who I'd rather be stuck next to on a long bus ride.
 
 
Princess
16:08 / 28.06.06
Anyone who believes Margeret Murray earns my scorn.
 
 
Quantum
08:46 / 29.06.06
I'm actually finding my hitherto rabid prejudice against fluff-wiccans eroded somewhat by exposure to Folkist heathens.

Why, because there's someone worse and that makes them relatively bearable? Blimey, the Folkist heathens must be bad, who are they- my Pagan taxonomy is rusty.

Swashbuckling, surely Margaret Murray with an A. Do you also despise anyone who believes Frazer's Golden Bough?
Murray's original ideas were heavily influenced by the ideas of the anthropologist Sir James Frazer, who, in The Golden Bough, detailed his proposal of a world-wide belief of a sacred king who was sacrificed. Frazer's ideas, in this regard, have not stood the test of time, and modern anthropologists generally reject his conclusions of widespread "Sacred Kingship" and his ideas about death and rebirth gods.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
15:53 / 29.06.06
Folkists/Folkish: heathen types who believe that only people of Northern European extraction should party with Team Norse. "Racist? Us? No! We love all the pieces of the great human mosaic. We just don't let those pieces of the human mosaic who don't look like us join our special little clubs. We think they should stick to their own Folk-Faiths and not put their sticky fingers on our nice white Gods."

You can recognise a Folkish web-page because it'll have one sentence descriptions of three or four gods followed by a six-page rant on preserving the purity of the Folksoul from alien influences. Said influences may include, but are not limited to: tea, coffee, tomatoes, Spanish (true heathens should only learn European languages), Will and Grace, rock music, and that guy you saw in the supermarket who looked like some kind of Arab to you.

Getting into a debate with one online is kind of like being slowly beaten into unconsciousness with the complete works of David Irving.
 
 
Ticker
17:08 / 29.06.06
I thought that attitude was reserved for the black metal kids in the old country to justify burning churches and rawking out on their fish and beer diets?

What kind of dunce thinks humans have any control over other humans interacting with various Gods? Like there is only one batphone and you've got the key to the Commissioner's office?

Sheesh.

I'm pretty certain the only requirement for signing up with my Gods is the ability to tend livestock....and lemme tell you, driving cats between two purification bonfires is no easy task!
 
 
*
17:11 / 29.06.06
Do you also despise anyone who believes Frazer's Golden Bough?

Although The Golden Bough is not factually or theoretically correct in terms of anthropology and the study of world religions, that hasn't changed the fact that Sacred Kingship is still important to my beliefs.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:39 / 29.06.06
I thought that attitude was reserved for the black metal kids in the old country to justify burning churches and rawking out on their fish and beer diets?

I don't encounter them as much because the groups I'm involved in tend to be oriented towards historical study, analysis of extant lore, or mysticism, none of which attract people with combinations of ODIN and 666 in their usernames and chicken bloodstains on their clothes.

I tend to run into the other kind, the sort of person who changes their name by deed poll to Obscurefigurefromthesagasson and signs up with group after group in the earnest belief that simply everyone would be Folkish if they applied themselves to the proper study of the lore. 'Proper study,' in this case, may include daily visits to their website and signing up for their personal e-lists, and in extreme cases shelling out thirty quid for the Obscurefigurefromthesagasson translation of Snorri's Edda. (All other translations being hopelessly contaminated by alien Kristinn influences. Obscurefigurefromthesagassons will generally insist that they have never been Kristinn. Ever.)
 
 
Ticker
18:56 / 29.06.06
I think the anti Christian people are missing the point sometimes. Conversion happened, European traditions were lost or garbled or they were dramaticly changed by Christianity. You don't push the flow of time backwards, you flow forwards with what you now know. Evolution through catastrophic change. The Gods are now and some of our ancestors were Christian. How the hell do you perform respectful ancestoral worship if you're dissing your Grandma's church?


When I go to an ancient site that has Mary plopped in it I'm respectful that some people are there to see a Christian, um, Influence, while I might be there to see Someone else.

Maybe I spend too much time with the UU folks and not enough with the angry mead swilling heros I ought to be listening to talk about the good ol'days two thousand years ago...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:51 / 29.06.06
I couldn't agree more. I tend to find that what people mean when they say "I honour my ancestors" is "I honour my ancestors, except my maternal grandfather's side of the family because they came from Portugal and my great-uncle's who's supposed to have been a bit, y'know, that way, and except for all the ancestors who were Scandinavian but converted, and except for anyone else who doesn't conform to my fantasy ideal of a pure-blooded Viking warrior." And no offering anything Alien, even if your Gran drank six mugs of tea a day and smoked like a chimney.

Ditto the supposed reverence for the land-spirits; whether you live in Michigan or Milton Keynes, one size offering fits all. Never mind that there may be very active spirits who were heavily involved with the previous occupants of the land and have their own preferrd approaches--they'll get a splosh of mead or ale and like it.

Personally I have no problem with the idea of placing, say, an image of a Christian saint on my ancestor harrow if someone back there asks for it. They're not my saints, but I don't see it as that much different to walking an elderly relative to church.
 
 
*
22:10 / 29.06.06
Obscurefigurefromthesagasson
Why oh why did I just change my username?? *sobs*
 
 
Quantum
16:26 / 30.06.06
Folkist heathens, hahahahaha! Ariosophists more like, I'm looking at Thorsson's translation of Kummer's Rune Magic (1933) right now. In the introduction Thorsson writes;
"There are several statements made ... which might be found to be "offensive" to the politically correct,"
so I'm thinking Volkism is the modern equivalent? Euw. Suddenly the fluffwiccans *do* sound better.
 
  

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