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Yes, you do, sometimes. Other times, you don't.
I do it a lot. Do I have to back up everything I say with a chunk of autobiography? Nah.
If I specifically refer to that article, then there is very little to go on in the way of your own experience that is conveyed as such.
The whole piece is peppered with little asides about my own practice and qualifiers such as "In my experience..." I cut a lot more out because I felt that in this particular bit of writing I had more important things to do than talk endlessly about myself.
Everything I wrote in that article represents a sincere attempt to get across the things I really believe, based on my own experience. I do not accept that taking a firm tone when you're talking about things that really matter to you is wrong. I think it is especially important for FI writers to vigourously resist a culturally indoctrinated tendency to weaken their writing with constant qualifiers of the "well this is just what I think, silly little thing that I am!" kind.
There is a whole lot of what seems like assumptions made about what is best for every person's individual practice.
Such as? I thought I was pretty careful to leave things flexible, since I'm aware that we are all very different and that an individual's practice may change radically over time. The only things I assert as generally a good idea are things like evaluation of one's practice, journalling, being ready to question and interrogate one's experiences, etc.: record, question, adapt. I've never met anyone who claimed that hir successful, functional magical practice required that ze did not keep notes, or that ze must accept everything ze experienced on the astral plane as hard grave-in-stone fact, or that ze must never ever alter a lick of hir practice no matter what.
Or what is even considered to be "real" experiences wrapped in snarkiness for entertainment. I mean, the whole thing about having tea with Kali - why not? I have experienced this quite a few times.
If you review that passage you will see nothing that says you can't have a peaceful, loving encounter with Kali. That might simply be the face of the Goddess that you needed to see at that time. What I actually did there was to present the image of a trite, vapid information-free encounter where a Goddess acts less in accordance with some aspect of Her nature as generally reported by Her devotees and more like your mate Denise from the hairdressers, along with the suggestion (and it is phrased as a suggestion, mind) that if such an interaction had occured one might have to consider the possibility that it may not have been Kali. Yes, it's a little snarky. It's meant to entertain the reader, perhaps by evoking the memory of something equally excruciating buried in her magical journals from when she was 17.
In your world my experiences become "inferior" and I can be viewed as a nutter, perhaps.
No.
I believe what is "authentic" is what truly speaks to one's heart. That is the measure I think that people should use.
That sounds lovely, but it doesn't stand up. There are lots of people in heathenry who describe interactions where they eg journeyed to Asgard and drank mead with Odin, who informed them that their first duty as a noble Warrior of the Folk was to make sure that non-Europeans aren't allowed into Asatru. I'm sure that these astral trips spoke very loudly to their hearts, too.
We shouldn't be feeling pressured to measure up to someone else's ideas about what is superior, or inferior practice, or what is a genuine experience or not.
No, no-one should feel pressured to measure up to some abstract standard of what a "real" human-Deity interaction "ought" to look like. However I have absolutely no problem with telling someone who claims to have fought and killed a God that no, they didn't. I do not believe that every single reported experience deserves to be treated with the same loving respect, no matter how ludicrous or self-serving it may be.
I agree that it is important to assess ourselves and our practice, I just don't think you have supplied the tools for everyone to assess themselves with.
Well no, of course I haven't. I've supplied a knockoff Swiss army knife which will help hold things together until the reader has assembled hir own toolkit through experience.
Yet, your article is written as if it is fact and not your subjective experience.
I don't know how to respond to this statement, except to re-iterate what I said above re: weakening and undermining my writing with lots and lots of apologetic little linguistic curtseys, which ain't going to happen. Of course it's my subjective experience. What else is it going to be? Are you seriously suggesting that anyone reading that piece is going to assume that I have some kind of hotline ot the Divine? What am I, Pope Mordant the First? No, I'm just another dope with a practice and an internet connection.
I stand by what I wrote and how I wrote it. It comes from a lifetime of--sometimes bitter and painful--personal experience, and several years of incredibly frustrating interactions with people who have eg. fought the Evil Dark Goddess Kali to the DEATH. If mocking people who've killed Kali is wrong, I just don't want to be right. |
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