Devoured By Flame

Norse flavored mystic Spouse/Priestess of Loki || 31, non-binary She/her, they/them

[devouredbyflame]

About this Blog

I am Owl - obviously not my real name but it is one I use for my writing and pagan work. I am nonbinary (she/they) and pan. 31 years old.

I have been working with Loki for almost a decade. Most of what is discussed here are things that have been taught to me by Himself or by other Deities and not something I came upon via research. I like to say what I do is very experimental and has very little context until it does - but even then the context creates itself via hypotheses and evidence-based working.

I don’t attempt to recreate or repeat what has been documented in history nor do I try to be “heathen” because I don’t like to associate myself with them.

I only work with Norse deities and therefore my perspective on things only really applies to those who work with the Norse pantheon. Any other pantheon would need to check in with their respective deities and see if that works for Them.

I am, by all intents and purposes, a Spouse to Loki. I also serve as a priestess to Himself. My work comes typically only by His guidance and suggestion. My understanding of being a Spouse is more than likely not yours.

You can find my WordPress blog where I try to document the things I learn and attempt to teach. Note that some of it ends up being figured out in a different way because even though I am many years in, my understandings are ever-changing. My posts are more organized by process there, though.

Feel free to say hi or ask questions about anything. My inbox and my DMs are always open and I’m happy to provide guidance if I feel I can. If I don’t respond right away or I stop responding, it’s nothing personal. I don’t try to stay on technology as much given the nature of what I do.

**Because apparently this is relevant, but I post about topics that are not for minors.**

[vesse-moricaleo-lusifero]

Spiritual Hygiene and Self Care can and should be intrinsically connected, by the way!

[vesse-moricaleo-lusifero]

Spiritual hygiene culture revolves around making sure you're clean and washed in some manner before interacting with your gods.

This should hopefully be something you automatically do if you're Hellenic Polytheist or Kemetic or Shinto Practitioner regardless?

It's okay to live for your gods.

You didn't just "Wash your face", you took water (and sometimes soap) and you cleansed your mind of the weight of the day's energy.

You didn't just "wash your hair". You cleansed the negative and heavy malignant energies from your hair (if you have hair). Or washing your head in general is cleansing the spirit and your thoughts.

Washing your hands is mindfully making your touch clear and pure of any unclean and tainted energies you naturally picked up on while doing daily work.

Your nails being clean is the same principle.

Same with washing your feet.

Clean clothes is important for your gods. They want you in clean clothes so you are "presentable" to them in sacred space.

Your gods love you regardless. And you are cared for regardless. But there is spiritual sacredness in being mindful of "cleanliness".

No running water? Braid your hair. Brush your skin down. Use oils where you can. Doing things to "freshen" your own body also translates to your spirit and how you mindfully conduct yourself around sacredness.

It's okay to do these things because of your gods. And it's okay to do them in ways you have access to.

But if you can, still take care of yourself how you are able to.

[busridetohelheim]

Delightful post! Thank you for elaborating. I really appreciated reading "It's okay to live for your gods." I'll have to remember that.

[devouredbyflame]

Also, it’s okay to take care of your spaces, too. I find that the cleaner my home is, the less energetic “gunk” hangs around and it becomes easier to hear the Gods and vice versa. The whole point of cleanliness isn’t to be “perfect” or a “good” devotee. It just means there’s less “stuff” in the way that gets between you and your Deity of choice not the other way around. Metaphysical or physical stuff because physical objects all hold their own energy.

For example, my roommate and I are moving this month and never has the apartment we’ve been living in felt so “clean” as to how much junk we’ve tossed out while packing.

All the stuff you’ve been holding onto that doesn’t work anymore or that you haven’t touched? Find another home for it that’s not yours. Give it to a local charity, sell it online, do whatever your heart desires. But if there’s a bad memory attached to it - like it belonged to your ex or they gave it to you, or a person you won’t talk to anymore had something to do with it, that sort of thing - get rid of it. You do not need to hold onto stuff that triggers that kind of energy and in the same vein, that gets between you and the Gods of your home.

It’s important and you’ll feel better and thank yourself for it, too.

This is something Loki in particular prides himself of. He isn’t the trash gremlin people make him out to be. In fact, cleaning and getting rid of junk is probably the most important lesson he’s ever taught me in the care and keeping of my home that also stores Himself and His shrine. Consider that transformation means getting rid of stuff that you no longer need and that literally means stuff. Why people put random crap on His shrine is beyond me.

Anyway. The above is a brilliant post regardless.

[skaldish]

I don’t think people realize just how many USChristian attitudes get passed around in Heathenry, so I compiled different statements and behaviors I’ve seen over the years that reflect Christian notions not original to Heathenry. These examples are illustrative rather than definitive, since I’m only somewhat familiar with different Christian frameworks, but it should be enough to give you the picture:

General Christianity

“The first and most important thing you need to do to practice Heathenry is read the Eddas.”

“You must worship Odin even if you don’t want to, because he’s the head god.”

“The point of being Heathen is to live life in a way that grants you entry to Valhalla.”

“Valhalla is the good/awesome afterlife and Helheim is the bad/boring afterlife.”

“The Æsir are good and the jötnar are evil.”

“Odin is like God, Loki is like the Devil, and Baldr is like Jesus.”

“Odin is more powerful than the rest of the gods.”

“Ragnarok is the End Times.”

(“Us vs. them” attitudes.)

(Not knowing what to do with the the goddesses in general, regardless of one’s gender.)

Catholic-Specific

“To be Heathen, you must serve the gods.”

“We can’t truly know the gods, only attempt to understand them through the Eddas.”

“The gods are distant and don’t care about our personal needs or lives.”

“We must act as the gods’ ambassadors on Earth.”

“Making sacrifices should be painful. That’s why it’s called a sacrifice.”

“Ragnarök is the End Times and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

(Treating the Hávamál as scripture.)

(Using medieval Icelandic law-tracts as a stand-in for Heathen religious orthodoxy.)

(Observing strict worship and insisting others do the same.)

(Adopting a very feudalistic relationship with the gods; lord/servant dynamics.)

Protestant-Specific

“Showing devotion to the gods is done by acting as their hands and feet on earth.”

“You must think about the gods all the time and involve them in everything you do.”

“Why should we merely ‘work with’ the gods when we can worship them?”

“Ragnarök is the End Times and we must prepare to fight on the side of the gods.” OR...

“Ragnarök is the End Times and we must help fulfill it.”

(Behaving as marginalized on the basis of their faith.)

(Reacting badly when confronted with new information about Heathenry.)

(Making bold or even standoffish declarations of faith.)

If you come from a Christian background and hear someone make statements like this, you’re probably going to feel pressured to come up with a counterargument for why it’s okay for you to disagree. What you actually need to do is dismiss the premise entirely. These arguments aren’t reflective of Heathen truths and you don’t have to argue with them as though they are.

This is also not a dig at those who’ve made these statements / done these behaviors before. It’s not exactly second-nature for us to break out of the habit of believing in a specific idea or behaving in a specific way when we believed / behaved that way for most of our lives. However, it’s still worth understanding how specific to Christianity these things are and trying to move away from them.

It’s up to you if you want to point out the nature of these arguments to the people making them. But if you do, I recommend doing so tactfully, with a clear head, and with a very clear understanding about what makes the premise Christian in nature.

Let me know if you want clarification on any of these points and why they aren’t reflective of Heathenry. I’m happy to go into it.

[snigepippi]

Gods yes. Here in Scandinavia is not a major issue among older heathens, because we mostly found heathenry through libraries, person to person and speaking to the gods, and of course growing up with mythology and local history. (And the strict Christians migrated to USA 150 years ago). But I see it so often with young people who find heathenry online.

May I add:

* Verses and prayers. Like: "may Odins spirit entering me and take out the evil and ... etc ...etc."

* Lists of heathen Virtues.

* Alternatively treating Thor or Tyr as Jesus.

* You can sin and be forgiven by saying the right things.

As Skaldish say, it is not a dig or admonishing. Everyone know it's hard to figure it out on your own. Especially when young. And those who make groups are often inspired by Christian ideals of a congregation.

The heathens who have mostly removed christian ideals from their life, can be a bit closed off. Many don't want to join large groups or take in and teach strangers. We practice with friends and family, or maybe a small community. And we have a life and jobs. You have to meet us through our hobbies and interests, make friends and then we'll talk and give you pointers.

[devouredbyflame]

Or they say that “heathenry is relational” and proceed to make anything they do all about themselves and pomp and circumstance with costumes and the whole nine yards regardless of what their relationship with the Gods is defined as. I’d file that away under “Catholic” but any of the other flavors of Christianity would count, too.

Or receiving admonishment from other heathens for not doing what they think the heathen “values” are which, at the end of the day, was all made up by unsavory people.

I could go on and write a book how American heathenry is essentially Christianity but with Norse gods but I’ll stop there for now.

[vesse-moricaleo-lusifero]

How to Recognise When Someone Isn't Actually that Reliable of a Practitioner... A Casual Hot Take

This started off with me initially annoyed by other Luciferian practitioners and how poorly they are constructed and how poorly they are circulated as revolutionary occultists. But it is a deeper issue. So here we go!

A lot of people post their UPGs not understanding that their UPGs only work for them.

No matter how "thought out" the author may (mistakenly) believe their personal dogma is, it only works because they have made up their rules as they go along while experiencing (UPG) that no one else can experience.

Things can be peer reviewed. But their self-made-praxis is not going to be as reliable as they believe it is.

The meanings are rarely transferrable to others.

A lot of people mistake internally coherent for universally valid.

And not every UPG you see someone has is actually substance that's useful.

UPG is still UPG — "Unverified Personal Gnosis" — it is, by definition, personal. It can be psychologically meaningful, spiritually transformative, emotionally stabilizing, creatively fertile, whatever.

But the moment someone starts treating it as externally binding truth for everyone else, things get muddy fast.

What ends up happening is:

They experience something.

Then they assign meaning to it.

Then they reinforce that meaning through repetition, symbolism, selective attention, emotional investment, ritual structure, community validation, and memory.

... Eventually the system feels self-evident to them because the entire architecture of interpretation has grown around the original experience like roots around a stone even if the structure isn't stable in practise outside of that facet.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily make it false. Human beings work like that in all meaning-making systems . This happens with religion, psychology, art, nationalism, even personal identity.

But it does mean the system is often non-transferable.

Someone else cannot replicate the exact symbolic ecosystem because they do not share:

the same subconscious associations

the same emotional conditioning

the same life history

the same ritual habits

the same cognitive tendencies

the same interpretive lens.

... ... ... ... ... ...

So when people (many of which I see in Online Witchcraft Communities) present UPG as though it has objective authority outside themselves, you get this strange issue where the "evidence" for the claim is inseparable from the private framework that produced it in the first place.

It becomes circular very quickly. Especially when people rely on popularity and clout for circulation. They turn into "artistic influencers".

"I know this deity behaves this way because of my experiences."

"How do you interpret the experiences?"

"Through the theology I built from my experiences."

That’s not peer review. That’s autobiographical metaphysics and it's a slippery slope into spreading misinformation, bad metaphysics and spiritual belief systems, incorrect structures. It is the blind leading the blind and there are very prominent figures, especially here on Tumblr, that are not as experienced as they are just "popular" because of clout.

And honestly? I think internet spirituality sometimes struggles with epistemic humility. There’s a tendency to skip from:

"This was profoundly meaningful to me."

Right into:

"This reveals the hidden truth of reality"

Which are vastly different claims to make.

Many of the new beliefs that people may be "pioneering" aren't new. But they also lack fundamental basics.

These popular "occult" folks are not good teachers — not just because they are actually inexperienced and therefore the blind-leading-the-blind, but they aren't coming from a place that is rooted in structures that are reliable and sustainable.

this is where the issue stops being merely "cringe" or intellectually sloppy and starts becoming genuinely risky.

A sustainable spiritual structure is not just:

"Does this feel profound?"

It’s also:

Does it produce stability?

Does it encourage discernment?

Does it survive scrutiny?

Does it account for human suggestibility?

Does it have mechanisms for correction?

Does it prevent charismatic self-delusion?

Does it distinguish symbolism from literalism?

Does it help people remain functional and grounded?

Does it scale safely beyond one personality?

... ... ... ... ...

A lot of internet-occult spaces fail catastrophically at those questions.

Because many popular occult influencers (I do not doubt some of you have names that come to mind) are effectively self-taught content creators first and spiritual practitioners second.

Their incentive structure is visibility, novelty, emotional intensity, and personal branding — not rigor and sustainability, authenticity or sincerity.

And there are very particular names that come to mind that fail these basic checks that happen to be insanely popular and sought after for very wrong reasons. They are looked at as "experienced and great" when they are barely brushing against anything sustainable.

And spiritual rigor is usually… kind of boring from the outside. It's not going to get you as much attention, money, clients, commissions, or popularity.

Real disciplined traditions often emphasize:

- repetition

- patience

- study

- ethical conduct

- humility

- community accountability

- symbolic literacy

- gradual development

- skepticism toward one’s own perceptions.

... ... ... ...

Meanwhile online occult culture rewards:

- immediacy

- certainty

- uniqueness

- secret knowledge

- aesthetic mystique

- escalating claims

- identity construction

That environment naturally selects for people who sound spiritually advanced rather than people who are actually reliable guides.

And you can often tell when a framework lacks roots because everything depends on the personality of the teacher. It heavily relies on the juiciness of the "spirituality" someone has claimed to have developed or the fandom attitudes between the practitioner and their deity(ies) in question.

There’s no durable scaffolding underneath it. No lineage of interpretation. No tested methodology. No long-term community structure. No mechanisms for disagreement except social fallout. No distinction between intuition and authority.

One thing older traditions understood very well — even the strange, esoteric, mystical ones — is that altered states are not automatically wisdom.

This is a severely lacking understanding amongst substance users in the occult.

Visions are not self-interpreting. Emotional intensity is not proof. Synchronicity is not necessarily cosmic endorsement. Charisma is not spiritual maturity. And symbolic experiences can absolutely become distorted through ego, trauma, projection, isolation, or obsession.

Historically, many traditions built entire systems around containing that danger.

Because humans are extraordinarily good at convincing ourselves that meaning equals truth. And this is something that is severely lacking in some content creators I see and even follow.

A grounded teacher — or grounded system — knows how to slow things down. Recontextualize. Encourage reality-testing. Maintain proportionality.

And you absolutely can create your own systems that are grounded! You don't have to be a "sensational content creator." Smut shouldn't be what makes you "experienced". Attention ≠ Skilled and Knowledgeable.

Ironically, truly mature and experienced spiritual traditions and practitiors often become less sensational over time, not more. They tend to develop caution. Nuance. Restraint. A recognition that the human mind is both wondrous and deeply fallible.

Which is much less marketable...

[neuronary]

"the only difference between a cult and a religion is the scale"

NO. NO IT ISN'T. THIS IS WHAT THE CULTS WANT YOU TO THINK IT IS NOT TRUE. THERE ARE RELIGIONS THAT ARE NOT CULTS AND CULTS THAT ARE NOT RELIGIOUS AND YOU MUST LEARN THE DIFFERENCE

[devouredbyflame]

I was part of a non-religious cult during my atheist years and boy howdy did it take a long time for that kind of belief system and habits to undo themselves. It might as well have been a religion, what with free labor, moral values and principles, etc. and you’d never know especially when you are desperate and longing for community of any shape or form. I was kicked out by my parents, living with my boyfriend and his parents, not rubbing two pennies together and going to school. I was searching for something, anything. And I landed there. For like 3 years, dedicated to this bullshit philosophy. Thousands of people involved, worldwide.

And then you know what else I did? I became religious shortly after that. I met Loki. That desperate loneliness seeped back in and was ever growing. I wanted someone I could talk to and meet with in person about this love I had because where should it go? How neat was it that I loved this God and pantheon and how everything was not Christian and cool. I desperately needed people to embrace to replace that hole in my heart that grew because of my boyfriend who isolated me, my parents who didn’t talk much to me, and my life that was constantly in shambles as I scraped my knees and kept getting up over and over again.

But I ran the other way out of that cult and into the arms of yet another cult. This time with the persona of being a “kindred” with 12 people, tops. They invited the very thirsty public in to their fold by the dozens and some to the wider group surrounding the inner circle all because they were hopeful for community, sharing, and love from like-minded people.

The leaders were charismatic, controlling, and using your lack of knowledge about how paganism works such that they use it to create their own principles and values until you’re stuck because you created this group around you and there’s no way out lest I be lonely and outcasted again. Then it’s suddenly you against them and everyone else decides to take the side of a cult leader because they’re desperate for acceptance and love such that they turn a blind eye and turn away from you who loved them deeply and was left out to dry for crying wolf.

I left, of course. And two months after I left that group, I left my boyfriend. How, you ask? I grew a backbone. That’s how. I decided I had my own thoughts and feelings and a different relationship to the Divine than others did and a different lifestyle I longed for. I decided I had enough of my boyfriend taking advantage of my loneliness and my lack of self esteem and money and got a salaried job and left to get my own place.

It’s all the same, friends. It’s so, so fucking easy to get wrapped up in the same sense of desperation and hopelessness and loneliness that you end up in a high control situation where it eats away at you slowly and then suddenly, all at once.

I don’t know, guys. It’s not scale. It’s a relationship, it’s a family, it’s a group of friends. It’s anyone who’s desperate and vampiric people who eat that desperation for breakfast and take advantage of you and you’re too kind or too desperate or too nice or too sad or too invested to leave no matter how high the stakes get. Whether it’s negligence, control, financial instability, values, belief systems, leadership, using your faith. It’s all the result of narcissists with hungry, lonely people. If that’s you, know that it’s not your fault. You didn’t or don’t know better. You did everything you felt was good and right and just and they took advantage of your kindness and big heart and desire to please or serve. You don’t deserve this.

Stay safe, my friends. Even when you think the opposite of being in that group is to be alone forever and never having people who care, I can guarantee you, the other side is much better and easier. Maybe not immediately, but it does get better.

[devouredbyflame]

I hope this is a question you feel comfortable asking. But what do you do as a priestess in general? Particularly one for Loki?

Do you just try to spread his 'gospel' so to speak?

It’s difficult to frame it in the way that people expect it to be framed. But let me be clear, there is no hard and fast “priestess” role that gives me the benefit to use my tongue to relay Loki’s words and values to anyone who is not already called to Him.

That being said, my work is witnessed in passing and they may or may not know I’m a priestess of Loki. I’d say, currently, only about perhaps 10% of the work I do is for Loki’s people and 90% of the time, they do not that know that what I’m doing is on behalf of Loki or any other Deity I’m oathed to (because I’m also oathed to Freya but I’m not Her priestess but She still makes requests of me). They may not even know they’re being called to Loki in the first place and I put something in their path to help get Loki to them - or any Deity, sometimes, it really depends.

The work I do happens in my daily acquaintances, too. People come up to me, they meet me, I say what needs to be said for some reason or another, and they go on their merry way, changed either for good or for bad, I likely won’t know. I rarely see the consequence or benefit to my actions, I just know that’s what Loki needs me to do and He may or may not give me comfort or context for what it was, just that it needed to be done and He is grateful. I’m a catalyst in that way so that the Gods’ work gets done (even though I don’t know what that work is in the moment).

I also do work in my daily 9-5 job that I would consider to be work of Loki’s. I help people who help people. I make change on a micro level so that progress might be gained on a macro level. I also rarely see the benefit to my work there, as well, but Loki “pays” me handsomely, regardless. The fact that I even have the job is enough payment because it pays the bills in a way that I don’t have to worry about mundane issues and focus on Him and His work? Though, of course, there’s other benefits to the job as well. “Insurance”, you could say, perhaps.

It’s taken quite a bit of training to do this. The better part of my relationship with Loki has been leading up to this point which has been nearly a decade.

So no, it’s not as simple as spreading the good word of my Lord and Savior Loki Laufeyjarson 🤣 because His name is rarely brought up in the work I actually do. I’d call it more circumstantial, seemingly happenstance, luck, and quite a bit of navigating intrinsically difficult circumstances to look and act like a “normal person” in my everyday life so I can continue to be approachable and amicable for whatever He needs from me.

It’s meant to be a lived position - not something done on the side. I do it by living my life in this world and being wholly myself. People will know without truly knowing who they’re talking to and why. That’s the point. I typically know after it happens what needed to happen and why and even then He won’t give me the full picture because it’s not my business to know.

I hope that makes sense? I don’t talk about it much because I don’t feel like I need to as I hope my blog is testament enough but I suppose this gives context to the curious.

[cultkinkcoven]

So. I'm not even sure how to get into this.

These last couple months I've been receiving an influx of messages from people that I just don't know how to answer.

A couple weeks ago I answered an anon from someone expressing they had an unsavoury experience with Lucifer based on their approach. They asked Lucifer to have what I have and I guess he didn't respond well.

Since I answered that anon (and even before) I've received more messages of a similar nature, not even just here, on multiple platforms. Some are venting about him like an ex boyfriend, some are saying how jealous they feel towards me. All of them share the common theme of wanting me to be a relationship councillor for Lucifer. Like there's something I can just say that would make everything make sense or work out. Some ask me to speak to Lucifer on their behalf. Some ask me to say something to Lucifer that will somehow change how he behaves with them.

I made the decision not to answer most of these messages. Some of them were very intense, some stuck with me for days. Having strangers tell me that they hate seeing my posts because they make them feel jealous, that they feel suicidal because of my content, that Lucifer broke their heart, that I lead them astray by making them think Lucifer was nicer than he really is, that I should probably just stop... just sucks.

It sucks because of course my intent isn't to frame myself or my relationship as a template others can use to access "my Lucifer".

But it also sucks more so because I feel like these projections are almost entirely fabricated. It is a very romanticized version of a fantasy that doesn't exist in real life based on positive devotional posts and fluffy art. I "mythologize" and "narrative-ize" my relationship with Lucifer, but I am still a real person, not a character.

I want to say that the experiences I do share here are probably a good 10% of everything I have written. The vast majority of it stays in drafts. My deepest most intimate moments with him have never been shared here. This is a small sample. People accuse me of over sharing, I am actually extremely conservative when it comes to what I do post. Which means if you are trying to base whatever you're doing on my content, you are missing 90% of the context. These are highlights.

I have made an explicit point to not speak badly on Lucifer on this page. I don't post our arguments, I don't bitch about how he's currently annoying me. I don't like bad mouthing him to other people who might be working with him. He's still my Patron. I keep our issues between us to protect his image in the same way a mother refrains from arguing with her kid's dad in front of them. It's just not a good look.

I think because of that, people assume everything between us is sunshine and rainbows all the time. He must always be sweet and kind to me, so when he doesn't act sweet and kind to others they feel deceived.

I don't exactly know how to explain that Lord Lucifer can easily come off as an asshole to most. Don't get me wrong, Lucifer is sweet and kind to me on the regular. He rarely intends to be mean, but he is always extremely himself. With new initiates and people he hopes to work with, he can be very gentle and kind, and in general, he has good manners. But he is also Lucifer. Lucifer is defined by purely self directed will, meaning he does exactly what he wants when he wants to, and is not very concerned with sparing anyone's feelings while he's at it. He can be strict and extremely blunt. His opinion is law most of the time, sure he likes a debate, but always believes he's right at the end of the day. He can be very apathetic when he wants to be. He has a dark sense of humour with no social timing.

I observe Lucifer constantly, in his interactions with other spirits and mortals. The huge range in his temperament would make him seem very inconsistent and maybe even flaky with some people, but the truth is that he is extremely consistent in his selectivity. He has his own standards.

I've seen Lucifer break many hearts without batting an eye, I've seen him be very cold towards those he is uninterested in, even if they adore him. He isn't a bully, he’s just authentic to a point that is socially unacceptable. If his truth ruins your day, he doesn't see that as a moral failing on his part. He assumes your feelings are your own problem to manage.

He has bad friends, he drinks and likes to play games with people. He enjoys sex when he wants it.

I knew Lord Lucifer as the kind, light bringing, lover boy in the early stages of our relationship. I still see that sometimes, he will always be the Morning Star to me. But now I am extremely aware that Lucifer isn't a "good" guy. He's not a bad guy either, but he isn't exactly concerned with not being viewed as one from time to time. He's very comfortable being the bad guy in someone else's story. It is a defining characteristic of his story. He's perfectly fine letting people think he's the villain if it means he doesn't have to compromise his will.

So when I receive these messages from his exes, both mortal and spirit, and they say stuff like "I hate how he treats you so well but treats me like garbage, he's so cold towards me, he acts like such a dick",

I... believe that, and it doesn't necessarily surprise or bother me much. Not because I think he's mean, but because I know he is jarringly honest. I know he's a dick, and he certainly knows he's a dick. That's still part of the devil I love and deal with on the daily.

I would love to respond and say "oh no! That's not Lucifer, that's a trickster spirit! Lucifer would never do that!" But I simply do not know that. I suspect trickery in some of these situations, but I can also entertain the possibility where he would act like that.

The primary question everyone then has is, "why is he so nice to you, then? What makes you so special?"

And that question frustrates me. It assumes that Lucifer's affection is something that can be won. Like there's some choreography I can just give people that would make Lucifer act sweet and kind, like there's a "correct answer". "How do you make someone love you?"

It also assumes Lucifer is always sweet and kind and that none of his darker qualities reach me. That I don't also deal with cryptic messages and anger. Lucifer's trust in me only grew because I stayed throughout all of those threshold moments where others have jumped off of this crazy ride.

And it is a crazy ride, sometimes more crazy than any sane person could handle. Being Lucifer's vessel doesn't just mean he possesses me and gives me orgasms.

I find it so funny when people say they are jealous of what this is.

He wakes me up at 3am almost every single day. He gives me homework, real homework, the boring kind, and he expects that I do it. There are consequences for disobedience. Long mandatory reading lists and essays. Constant ritual planning. He is invasive, he decides when he wants me, it doesn't matter if I'm sleeping or shitting. Sometimes training takes all day, last week I had to actually call off work because he was still doing something with me. I have to schedule my week around him. I work with him every single day. He sometimes decides what I eat, when I need to sleep, how long I'm allowed to work. He tells me things about myself I don't want to know. He makes me cry often, not by being mean, but by being a fucking God. I have to explain my tattoos and rituals to people who think I am clinically insane. I have to deal with my boyfriend's family thinking I'm a freak. My own family has shunned me.

After the possession and the fluffiness, after the ritual is over and the God is satisfied, I am just a guy sitting alone in a room bleeding into a cup. There's no one there to tell me what I'm doing is good, real, or even matters. Lucifer isn't always standing there affirming that I'm not crazy. I deal with that doubt alone.

Every Friday is occupied. None of my thoughts, especially my thoughts about him, are private. Every sexual encounter with my partner is witnessed or shared by him.

I often see things he doesn't intend me to see because of our link, and those things sometimes hurt. I am frequently sidelined in my own astral trances, my magical identity is so deeply entangled with his to the point where other spirits see me as a literal extension of him. I'm told to sit and be quiet while the spirits talk to him, I am just his vessel, he is the main character. Many spirits despise me and make me very aware of it. Sometimes he's busy with others and doesn't have time for me, I have to share Lucifer, he has so many wives and partners. Sometimes I want connection and all he can offer is recognition. Multi hour long possessions exhaust me, and that's not even accounting for what happens when a possession fails. My waking life is devoted to him, and my dreaming world revolves around him. I literally cannot escape him. His name is carved into my skin. He has his own trauma that he brings to me that I have never spoken about. He cries and gets depressed. I get depressed. We argue with each other when there's no one else to fight. We both know things about each other we wish we didn't. I don't regret any of this, but there is also no going back.

I don't say any of this to imply that Lucifer is a shitty or abusive partner, father, master, possessor, or God. I would still say he treats me incredibly well and takes good care of me. Calling him "abusive" is like calling a storm "mean." He's just Lucifer, a force of nature, and I have accepted every part of that. He is difficult, and I am fucked up and weird in my own ways too, I would have to be to do this. He can call me his sweet boy while he cuts my chest open, and I will thank him for that. That is not a kind of "love" that most people want or could survive. Lucifer is beautiful and difficult.

I let my boyfriend read the draft of this post and he told me that I didn't have to go so far into detail about the specifics of these things, but I feel the need to thoroughly express the reality of what this is. If you want this, you need to understand what it actually is and stop pretending it’s something softer, safer, or more controllable than it is.

The primary defining quality of a successful vesselhood is perfect trust and deep faith, not necessarily love. Love is volatile. Trust is the real insulation. I have to trust Lucifer even when he makes me furious.

I was spirituality "raised" by angels. I spent years working with them before I ever approached Lucifer, I have angelic habits, I learned angelic discipline. Angels showed me what it looks like to have absolute faith in your God, Lucifer showed me what that feels like. I trust Lucifer with my entire soul because he owns it. My perseverance with him is built on a foundation of being trained by beings who do not always answer, and who are not easily accessible at all. Angels taught me how to maintain faith when the God is silent, "apathetic" or "busy." To humans, a lack of engagement can often feel like active malice. Quietness can feel cold. Do you show up the next day or not?

I feel incredibly blessed to have the relationship I have with him, but not lucky. Luck didn't give me this, I earned, or forged it with white knuckles all the way, every single day. I'm not saying that you should do that. I'm not saying anything about anyone other than myself and him.

About a year ago now, Lord Lucifer proposed that I become a high priest of his. I rejected him. I told him that I didn't want to be a public figure, I didn't want to be a mediator between him and his followers, I didn't want to do community service, I did not want any sort of spiritual authority. This was prior to me learning about vesselhood, and when I learned vesselhood was an option, I felt far more sure that was the route I wanted to go down. I didn't want my relationship with Lucifer to be custodial or exemplary, I actually wanted it to be the opposite. Deeply personal, specific, and self serving. I never wanted to be an extension of Lucifer in a public sense, I wanted to be an extension of Lucifer in a somatic sense. Vesselhood offered the privacy and intensity I was actually looking for.

This all sounds very ironic given my username and internet activity. I said I didn't want to be a priest but turned around and made a cult. I didn't want to feel obligated to share channeled messages or advice, I just continued sharing arbitrarily for documentation purposes, assuming that no one else was as interested in my doings as I was. I never really saw my sharing, even informational "advice" posts as a "service" to him. I just like doing that. This is my online space to share whatever I'm interested in, he just happened to be the main topic.

I've been told that my sharing is harmful to beginners because it sets up unrealistic expectations for what their relationship with him could or should be. I've always found that funny, the unrealistic expectations- because they are extremely unrealistic if you believe my life is actually a fairytale or something to be replicated. I don't take this position for granted at all, I know I'm having an extraordinary experience. But I also know I have sacrificed a great bit of my sanity to get here. As nice as the roses and wines may appear, there are genuinely difficult challenges here that aren't as glamorous as they seem.

Lucifer and I have been talking about this a lot lately. I asked him recently if he thinks it would be better if I kept to myself more. I personally believe my posting has had a tangible negative impact on his cult, if people are approaching him with unrealistic expectations that is directly my fault. He told me that other people's expectations are not my responsibility to carry- that my sincerity in my sharing is a gift to him, and that he accepts the burden of having to maybe explain himself a bit more, if it means my genuine account can continue to exist.

I like posting. I've been more hesitant to lately. Many of those messages felt that I personally owed them some sort of apology for creating these expectations. I created some kind of gateway and people who go through it keep getting hurt. One message in particular said "you don’t have to reply to this or tell him about me. But just keep in the back in your mind that he broke my heart and hurt me."

And I have kept it at the back of my mind. I wondered why they wanted me to carry that with me. Was that a warning, or a kind of revenge?

Keep this in the back of my mind for the future when Lucifer eventually discards me as he apparently discards everyone else?

Or keep this in my mind because it is the only quiet revenge they can inflict upon him- Lucifer- putting doubt in me. Hurting him through me, a curse disguised as a confession. Even if it isn't intentional, that baggage gets transferred to me, not just shared.

How do you respond to a stranger who thinks your personal joy is the cause of their personal misery? You can't. There is no logic that fixes a person who thinks your testimony is the reason they are starving. It’s a total breakdown of personal responsibility on their part that I am being asked to carry.

I love you guys, genuinely. I have made a lot of great friends and learned a whole lot from them here. But I at no point insinuated I was some kind of spiritual relationship therapist, I am not a priest. I don't even do readings for other people. I'm just a guy, I don't have all the answers for everything. I hate disappointing people, but I also hate being responsible for other people's mental health or expectations. It is deeply unfair to me. I like when people ask me questions, I decide to answer them, I am not obligated to, sometimes I'm not even able to.

People try to outsource their emotional regulation to me. They want me to do the work of censoring myself so they don't have to do the work of managing their envy, expectations, or desires. “Can you make your relationship smaller or less visible so I don’t feel this way?” Censoring myself would be a betrayal of the one entity I am actually obligated to.

I know this post is really long, but that's because this is the last time I will say this. This relationship is not a template. It is not a goal, and if you try to treat it like one without understanding its full weight, it will hurt you. Your reaction to my life is not my responsibility. Your expectations are not something I created or owe you solutions for. I will not diminish myself to make you more comfortable. I do not want to spend any more time talking about this on this page, and I probably won't be responding to any more messages I receive about this. Not because I don't care, I am compelled to answer all of these, and that's exactly why I shouldn't. I still need to take care of my own mental health.

I don't really know how to end this. Thanks for reading.

[vesse-moricaleo-lusifero]

This is very frustrating and why many longstanding individuals often do not share details of their experiences at all and instead offer usable and applied data rather than their UPGs. As UPGs are more often than not actually useless for people outside of your work.

As only you can have the relationship that you have with a deity.

If people ask, that's one thing. But this is why constantly documenting and publicly publishing your UPGs becomes a hazard for you and for viewer consumers.

[devouredbyflame]

I agree with the above and this is the whole reason why I don’t talk a lot about my personal experiences on this blog. Not because I don’t want to but because people are not going to understand and no matter how much I try, they will only take it the wrong way.

I’ve been down that valley before in previous iterations of the work I do for Loki and all of them exploded.

It is, by default, a mystery tradition that I honor and the whole point is the “mystery” part. Because it is sacred and preserved to those who are meant to find it in their own time. Not because they want to replicate my findings I spell out for them on this blog.

Most people would find what I do insane, or crazy. They’d make me into a target and my fending them off would take more emotional and spiritual energy away from the time I get to share with Loki in building the practice He wants with me and doing the work involved that is, for the most part, not on Tumblr and in my own life and experiences. At the end of the day, is it really worth the battle?

My answer has been historically “no” and it will forever and ever be “no” again and again because people have proven not to deserve my experiences and will trample all over the sacred if given the chance. Not because they are stupid or reckless but because it really isn’t for them to know. The people who need to know will find you when they’re meant to. And that is who I share my experiences with.

[vesse-moricaleo-lusifero]

Hello once more

I was asking, mostly, about gods from open practices, greek, egyptian, norse, keltic, slavic, like that, but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on demenolatry as well

It's just, if you are polytheist and worship a pantheon(s), do you really need to get an approval of the god you are interested in or can you just start worshipping? Isn't the whole point of polytheism is that you are, kind of, believing in whole pantheon and can reach out to all of them?

I know that demonolatry isn't like this in some ways, since i didn't really have experience with it, but it would be also interestingly to know 👀

Welcome back! It's nice to see you!

You see, you're asking a very good question but one that does not actually change my initial answer. What you seem to be asking is: "Can I just jump into whatever I want to do with gods that are appealing to me? Or do I have to have permissions from them?"

Deities are not universal. Neither is culture. Each pantheon you listed comes from a people. A people that had values, ethnic beliefs, cultural traditions, habits, daily rituals and ceremony, and cycles that they observed. This is absent in modern demonolatry as the contextual substances from where Demons come from are very much obscure, exist in antiquity, and survived through various forms of evolutionary syncretism. With the Theoi for Greek, you cannot just "start worshipping" the gods. You have to be clean. You have to be proper. There's cultural contexts. What have you done that day? Have you eaten? There are patterns, beliefs, and structures that matter to the Hellenic peoples. You should be educated on. The Theoi, according to the beliefs of the Hellenic Peoples---of whom these deities exist in the culture of---operate and have always operated through the ceremonial, ritual, cyclical, and cultural beliefs of those people. And its important to follow those rules and etiquettes.

The netjer of the Kemetic traditions also have a similar concept. I just made Natron because I need it to properly interact with my Kemetic gods. I always wash my hands, face, and mouth before doing so. Because that is properly aligning with ma'at. But I had run out of Natron to properly use it to cleanse and it's been eating at me. I could not afford to not have it. So I made more. Because I should. This is a basic show of respect to following cultural traditions and beliefs. They matter.

Celtic deities is a vague term. Which Celtic? What branch? Which Dialect? But also these deities are often actually considered somewhat closed as they are of an oral-tradition. And they are not typically shared with outsiders. Revivalism has since erased that concept and made them more profitable to outside cultures as the people were oppressed, erased, and slaughtered, but there are a lot of changes to those traditions to accommodate a new era. You would have to speak to those people and understand the cultural nuances, expectations, and significance.

Slavic Gods are not as "open" as you may think. Any culture that has a "Folk" tradition is actually quite considerably "closed" in most (but not all) circumstances. This is because the region you are in heavily relies upon localised beliefs. And those beliefs are unique to a people who have endured specific conditions, language movements, geopolitical climate changes, and structure shifts. Rodnovery, as a reconstruction movement, is considerably more open than if you were to walk into a town in Belarus or Poland and ask to just be given information on their gods. There's a lot of nuance. It's, again, heavily reliant on context, cultural expectations, linguistic adjustments, and lifestyle.

Now, let's discuss this... "Polytheism" misunderstanding.

Polytheism is not a free-for-all marketplace of gods. Please consider this. Deeply.

What you are imagining is closer to a modern, eclectic spiritual model. One where deities are interchangeable, accessible, and selectable based on personal interest. That is not how historical or living polytheistic traditions function. At all. Those traditions are relational and context-bound, not consumer-based. Which is how Deity Work and Spiritual Traditions are being treated when you ask this question.

The misunderstanding here is what "polytheism" actually means.

Polytheism does not mean "all gods are equally available to everyone at any time." It means "multiple gods exist," but those gods are still embedded within specific cultural, geographic, and relational systems.

In most traditional polytheistic frameworks, relationships with deities are not initiated casually---they are entered into. And like any relationship, there are expectations, boundaries, and context.

You don’t walk into someone else's home, from a culture you’re not part of, and start rearranging things because you like the aesthetic. The same principle applies here. And it is disrespectful. It is also a fast way to tick off deities of cultures of whom have had their people abused. Deities are not typically fond of people who cannot respect their people.

What you are describing---being able to reach out to any deity at will, without prior relationship, structure, or cultural grounding---is a modern eclectic spiritual approach, not traditional polytheism.

That approach isn't... inherently "wrong", but it is different, and it often overlaps with what people critique as cultural extraction when it ignores the originating cultures. Essentially, it's Spiritual Colonialism---something many cultures have suffered from simply because there are people who have free access to information and wish to do whatever they wish with shiny object they think look pretty. Those shiny objects being deities.

As far as 'polytheism' goes, you're not "just" a polytheist because your practice isn’t based on a generalised belief in "many gods." It’s based on participation in specific traditions, each with their own rules, contexts, and relationships---and importantly, your positionality within them is different.

So for me personally, I don’t really identify as a general "polytheist," even though I engage with multiple traditions.

My practice isn’t about believing in many gods in a broad sense---it’s about maintaining specific relationships within specific systems, some of which I was raised into, and others that I have approached with care, study, and adherence to their cultural expectations. This requires entire lifestyle changes. Which is not something people are often prepared for when they would rather approach cultural spiritual traditions through a "I can do whatever I want" mentality.

Those are not interchangeable experiences.

There is a difference between:

Being raised within or culturally tied to a practice

Entering a tradition through study and respectful reconstruction

And observing or appreciating from the outside

Those distinctions matter. A lot. And it will make or break your spiritual tradition. It will greatly change your experience.

What you’re asking assumes that gods are universally accessible in the same way, regardless of culture. That assumption itself comes from a very modern, often Western framework that tends to flatten differences between traditions.

So to come full circle to answer your question again: No---you generally don’t just 'start worshipping' in the way you are describing, at least not within traditional frameworks.

You learn. You observe. You align yourself with the practices, values, and structures that those deities exist within. And then, if a relationship forms, it forms within that context.

Otherwise, what’s happening isn't really engagement with that tradition---it’s reinterpretation through a modern lens.

Or you can do whatever you want, forever and ever and just kinda stick a middle finger to ethnic peoples and traditions across the globe. It's up to you! I'm not in charge of you. These are your consequences.

I hope this has helped clarify your confusion!

[devouredbyflame]

Why Loki Isn’t an April Fool

It’s April 1st once more and as is tradition, many people see April Fools’ Day as Loki’s holiday because of His trickster aspect and the fact that He is full of surprises and jokes. When I first became His devotee, I thought of it as Loki’s day off because people were already making a mess of themselves enough in this world for the day that He wouldn’t really need to be around. I also thought He was significantly less present on the day we thought would be His holiday and I thought maybe He just needed a vacation.

However, the longer I sat with the thought of Loki being a “fool” and being full of jokes, the more I realized that this is not really an apt description for Him.

People see the word “trickster” and equate Him with foolish pranks and jest. They diminish Him to a fool to make it easier for them to feel like they can control the narrative around who Loki is. It’s not just people who don’t want Loki around – though that’s usually who mostly does this – but it’s also followers of His that I often see floating around. People are afraid of what they don’t know and I think that’s why April Fools just seems to be so incredibly reductive.

Read the rest of this post here:

Why Loki isn’t an April Fool

It’s April 1st once more and as is tradition, many people see April Fools’ Day as Loki’s holiday because of His trickster aspect and the fac

[devouredbyflame]

Reposting this from last year.

[devouredbyflame]

Aaaand to bring it up once again.

[tricksterhowls]

I've always thought this too honestly. He does have a silly side, like most people do, but it's much less emphasized than people think and I often think it's a side he only shows if he's either close to you or it's what you Expect of him. Loki plays with your expectations of him; so if you expect him to just be a trickster in the essence of being fun and games that might be all you ever see because you don't go deeper. Loki is incredibly complex and it also annoys me for people to think he's just like an internet troll or memelord.

[devouredbyflame]

Exactly! I think most people expect a silly side and assume that’s what makes Him a trickster but in all reality, that’s not a trickster, that’s a jester. Let’s not confuse the two.

To add onto my point above because it’s been quite some time since I initially wrote this and I’ve gained more perspective since -

I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed him be silly once in my 8 years of working with Him. He has the occasional snicker or two but not in the way you’d expect and not to people who would think that’s all He is. Most of the time, if He is laughing at your expense or is being some type of way, it’s because you don’t understand Him or won’t try.

His presence is commanding, ancient and enormous - not a skinny whimsical twink. His voice booms and carries into your bones and His words slice like a knife.

I think most people point to when he tied his manhood to a goat to please Skadi as evidence of being “silly”. But we forget that the alternative to Him not doing this, of course, was having Skadi declare vengeance over the Gods for having killed her father. Not for fun, but because it was a dire situation and He is the one willing to make a sacrifice of Himself (His pride, ego, even His own wellbeing and family etc) in order to make things right. He helped the Gods avoid tragedy in an act of service and humility rather than to be a source of entertainment.

He’s essentially a “desperate times call for desperate measures” deity which is what most tricksters are throughout time. He is ancient and wise and carries the unique burden of self sacrifice and endurance throughout all the worst of times.

When there is no other option you call on Loki.

When things don’t work out the conventional way and you have to try the unconventional methods, you call on Loki.

When people don’t understand who or what you are, you have to be who you’re not regardless of your truth in the interest of self preservation and safety, you call on Loki.

When you have to sacrifice something in pursuit of protection of your value, your family, or your wellbeing, you call on Loki.

Let us not mistake His wisdom and protection for foolishness or games and forget the value that He keeps because now, I think, His value is extremely important to us - especially during these times of uncertainty and anxiety.

We are in exceedingly desperate times, ourselves. We need Loki’s desperate measures to get us out of it.

However, you certainly won’t win His favor by assuming a lack of sincerity from Him - and you likely won’t understand Him for all that He is. You’ll likely lose out like the rest of the people who are falling everyday to misinformation, chaos, and disorder and He will let you fall whether you think He’s on your side or not.

[devouredbyflame]

Why Loki Isn’t an April Fool

It’s April 1st once more and as is tradition, many people see April Fools’ Day as Loki’s holiday because of His trickster aspect and the fact that He is full of surprises and jokes. When I first became His devotee, I thought of it as Loki’s day off because people were already making a mess of themselves enough in this world for the day that He wouldn’t really need to be around. I also thought He was significantly less present on the day we thought would be His holiday and I thought maybe He just needed a vacation.

However, the longer I sat with the thought of Loki being a “fool” and being full of jokes, the more I realized that this is not really an apt description for Him.

People see the word “trickster” and equate Him with foolish pranks and jest. They diminish Him to a fool to make it easier for them to feel like they can control the narrative around who Loki is. It’s not just people who don’t want Loki around – though that’s usually who mostly does this – but it’s also followers of His that I often see floating around. People are afraid of what they don’t know and I think that’s why April Fools just seems to be so incredibly reductive.

Read the rest of this post here:

Why Loki isn’t an April Fool

It’s April 1st once more and as is tradition, many people see April Fools’ Day as Loki’s holiday because of His trickster aspect and the fac

[devouredbyflame]

Reposting this from last year.

[devouredbyflame]

Aaaand to bring it up once again.

[devouredbyflame]

Hello! I hope you're having a great day! Would you feel comfortable sharing your view on what makes The Divine care about lil old humans? I have recently come into polytheism from folk catholicism and find it difficult to understand why The Divine outside an all-loving framework would love us, if that makes sense? I hope this isn't offensive, I really don't mean to be!

Hi! I don’t think I’ve talked much about this so I can give my opinion on it.

I don’t speak for all of the Gods but I know at least where the Norse are concerned that they are entwined with us in inexplicable ways and they see parts of us in Themselves and we see parts of ourselves in Them and that’s what draws Them to us. They have feelings and opinions on humans and can be selective about who They work with but at the end of the day, we are Them and They are us but bigger, more ancient, and have a whole lot more wisdom to share than any human could ever hope to achieve.

All of us have a bit of the Divine within ourselves and the Gods assist in helping us get to Them so They can be with us. That’s the goal of most spirituality, if you think about it. To be in union with the Divine and to be whole within ourselves so that we can be in union with Them. That’s kind of the point and purpose.

If not all-loving then it becomes a relationship-focused reciprocity rather than an assumption. Which makes it more real in my opinion. But to get there, as I mentioned, you have to be whole in yourself. If not, you’re just loving a figure or a personified version of some celebrity who is far away that you can’t reach - you can’t get to know Them unless you are aware of your self. Which They teach by offering reflections of Themselves to us and grant wisdom to do so in the hopes that some day we might come to know Them more than just a self-help manual or vending machine. And that takes a certain level of digging and ego death to approach and that’s where one becomes a “mystic” rather than just “spiritual.”

But that’s essentially it. It’s reciprocal. It’s not a given. It’s work and loving care.

I hope that makes sense! Your question isn’t offensive. It would be very difficult to offend me xD so no worries. Ask all you want! If I don’t want to answer, I just won’t.

[devouredbyflame]

Hi, I have a question for you about your story being a godspouse but if it's private then please don't feel you have to answer! (I also wanted to thank you for sharing so many helpful readings on your blog).

Did Loki make his intentions with you clear from the very beginning in terms of marriage, or was it a gradual realisation that marriage was where you were heading?

All the best,

🌿

Hi there!

I would say considering the definition and requirements of said marriage changed before we got married, his intentions may have been clear about what he wanted but it was not defined clearly because there was no context for it.

My path is distinct in the way that he did ask for my hand in marriage early on but only as a means of a placeholder because I was only 22 and not a suitable age nor did I have a good understanding of what actual god marriage entailed. I also did not know him at all, actually. He made me believe we were married or were getting married twice before we were actually, legitimately married. The second time ended up being 6 years later.

However, if he told me that at 22 or 28, it would have shattered my world because he was being very romantic and I was in a fragile state at the ripe young age.

I was also in an interesting position where my life was about to be completely overhauled the second time he told me we were getting married. Both times when I believed as such incorrectly (though this is still very much what he wanted me to think), I would have been very angry and likely not believed what actual marriage was because, once again, no context outside of what was online and what everyone else thought god marriage was.

He was creating and building the context for me as well as our relationship through these almost 9 years together and when it was finally time to be married for realsies once I matured and understood what was necessary as well as knew Him in the way He needed me to, it was an extremely transformative and powerful moment and I will never be quite the same. Nothing could have prepared me for it. And no context for what was given was possible unless those prerequisite years existed.

So… the answer to your question is “yes” and “no.” Lol. There’s never a clear answer where Loki is concerned lmao.

[salixsociety]

say it with me chat: not believing something is not the same as fundamentally disrespecting it. not agreeing with someone's opinion is not the same as fundamentally disrespecting them. not believing someone's spiritual claims is not the same as disrespecting them or their beliefs. you do not owe people your agreement

[devouredbyflame]

There’s no such thing as Ostara. I hate to be such a bummer but…

It was created by a nationalist German movement that wanted to have its own holidays created to make a nationalist religion seem legitimate because it was grounded in Christianity.

Ostara actually just comes from the Germanic version of Christian Easter and actually likely didn’t exist prior to Christianity. “Ostara” is what was created in response to romanticizing a Germanic culture.

Ever wonder why your holidays might feel empty and pointless? It is probably because there’s no weight behind them and this is a perfect example.

If you want a holiday, pay attention to the seasons of the earth, points in the year that feel sacred or transitional. For example, the first turning of the leaves, the sprouting of the daffodils, the first snowfall or frost, the melting of ice and snow, rather than what a nationalist decided a holiday needed to be to celebrate an ideal and fantasy that never existed.

Pay attention to where your beliefs come from. If something feels empty to you, it’s probably because it is.

[devouredbyflame]

Listen, guys, it’s not that I enjoy ripping apart things and throwing them on the ground. That’s not what I’m trying to accomplish here. My goal is not to take your beloved holiday and stick a middle finger up to it. What I am trying to accomplish is to question the very material it comes from because we are all so happy to do so when it comes to everything else. Like, we don’t listen to racist authors anymore like Stephen Flowers or whatnot but we have to remember that him and his ilk is the exact kind of person to have built this “religion” in the first place.

If we are so focused on shifting away from the folkish narrative, what we fail to do is learn where things are coming from. The term Ostara comes from a quite literal folkish resource. The goddess likely never existed considering this is just a diluted term from an Anglo Saxon word for Easter. If she did, she was likely not anything to do with anything about Easter or perhaps even Spring.

If we are so damn focused on trying to make things paganized such that we throw out the origins of things just to make a point that we aren’t Christian anymore, we’re doing a shit job at it. It creates misinformation and blanket statements and beliefs that things are ancient when they are not and more often than not used by fetishizing fantastical nationalist rhetoric.

The Spring equinox can just be the Spring equinox. We don’t need a fancy name for it. We can celebrate it for what it is and what it is regionally and locally rather than creating some bullshit tradition mixed with Christian references. The people of the pre Christian times were inherently connected to the earth so much that they made note of these things on their own without forcing it to becoming a meaningful date by replication and these holidays were determined by geographical relationships to populations and not standardized across the planet like everything else is now. This creates more meaning and connection to the earth and to the Gods rather than trying to pigeonhole it and create a fake deity at the end.

I say this after years of attempting to do just that because the wider pagan community does it and it never established or created any meaning to me until I left and decided to create things on my own. You can’t force these things into being just because you need a name and tradition. It’s lackluster and, useless.

A diluted and distorted religion breeds reinvented and incorrect history. The Christians are the worst culprits of this but I’ll go ahead and say “Pagans” are becoming a close second.

[devouredbyflame]

There’s no such thing as Ostara. I hate to be such a bummer but…

It was created by a nationalist German movement that wanted to have its own holidays created to make a nationalist religion seem legitimate because it was grounded in Christianity.

Ostara actually just comes from the Germanic version of Christian Easter and actually likely didn’t exist prior to Christianity. “Ostara” is what was created in response to romanticizing a Germanic culture.

Ever wonder why your holidays might feel empty and pointless? It is probably because there’s no weight behind them and this is a perfect example.

If you want a holiday, pay attention to the seasons of the earth, points in the year that feel sacred or transitional. For example, the first turning of the leaves, the sprouting of the daffodils, the first snowfall or frost, the melting of ice and snow, rather than what a nationalist decided a holiday needed to be to celebrate an ideal and fantasy that never existed.

Pay attention to where your beliefs come from. If something feels empty to you, it’s probably because it is.

[devouredbyflame]

Hello! I'm relatively new to Loki worship and have found him to dislike my relationships with other spirits. I haven't done anything to show preference of them over Loki, but he's made it clear he's not happy when I contact them/wear their jewellery/rosaries. Has that been your experience with Loki too? Have a great evening, and thank you for all your helpful writings on your blog!

Hello!

I have found that to be the case as all of the things I had in place for other deities fell off the map when I started truly dedicating myself to Him and went hard into my devotion. Loki has always been my “#1” but it’s when I really turned my attention to what He needs from me that He began to have such opinions as it were.

Loki is a “gateway” if you will. By working with Him, he tends to give you a better understanding of the mechanics of work with deities and spirits. He’s like the intro course to mysticism.

In my experience, He tends to want the focus on Him not because He deserves it more but because there might be things you are missing with the other spirits that He can help with and discern better.

Most people don’t really get that aspect of Him and just assume He is extremely protective or attention-seeking and perhaps that’s the way He comes across to people because of whatever trauma or assumptions they make about Him, but that’s not likely the case. He likely wants to give you some tools to help you better work with spirits and deities.

He’s a teaching deity in several ways and that is one of them. He’s why I have this blog in the first place - He gives me the concepts I write about and share to help people better understand the mechanics and metaphysical aspects of work with the Unseen. He taught me (and continues to teach me) everything I know about mysticism and if He couldn’t get the concept across Himself, other Deities and resources stepped in to fill in the gaps of information and give more context.

He also moves things along. So if the work you have with others is stale or something isn’t working, He tends to have insight as to how to make it better by focusing on what He needs you to do.

He is passionate and He is helpful and patient. He doesn’t do these sorts of things to tear people away from things they enjoy - just to bring them a better perspective or help them have an easier time of it.

Thanks for asking! I hope this makes sense.

[devouredbyflame]

Hi Owl! I've been reading your blogpost about godspousal and I was wondering about what your wedding was like if you'd feel comfortable sharing?

- take care, 🌱

Hi anon!

Thanks for the ask.

I don’t think I’m able to share, unfortunately.