magical meandering

44, she/her, chaos magician focusing on dream and astral work, a fan of science and wonder from a family with old world ghost/ancestor based traditions

[dreamingflight]

I'm in a very weirdly different space now. Not even sure where I am with all of this anymore. My engagement with this stuff has increasingly been more academically/intellectually focused and if anything, I've walked away, hugely, from what I was doing. I have nothing against the various ways in which people interact with the unseen world around them but I have increasingly come to understand why that is load-bearing for some traditions and not others.

[dreamingflight]

You really risk getting lost in a hall of mirrors.

[dreamingflight]

I'm in a very weirdly different space now. Not even sure where I am with all of this anymore. My engagement with this stuff has increasingly been more academically/intellectually focused and if anything, I've walked away, hugely, from what I was doing. I have nothing against the various ways in which people interact with the unseen world around them but I have increasingly come to understand why that is load-bearing for some traditions and not others.

[dreamingflight]

I've noticed that I've left off with both this blog and my writing in one of the online metaphysical groups I was involved with. More or less for a few years there I decided to "paradigm pirate" being an atheist. So, basically, I feel like something massive shifted with the pandemic. Also I hit a weird point with magic/the occult where I was doing more research (reading archaeology material, etc) trying to imagine a religion based upon the people of Pre-Pottery Neolithic B through the Aegean First Farmers. It got intense, but ultimately led me down a more intellectual road than personally spiritual one for a while. And then the pandemic hit, and that changed everything.

First of all - for some reason or another (perhaps just needing more grounding) I completely stopped having to do with anything spiritual while under lockdown.

I didn't do magic, prayer, meditation, anything for a while and stopped even remembering my dreams. Total space of shutdown.

For about three years I was down a massive rabbit hole with Large Language Models and generative AI. As a graphic designer, I figured I must get ahead on this or it will get ahead of me. We always have to stay on top of the tech advances.  I'm now kind of a minor poaster in some spaces. I've also been down a rabbit hole with my sci fi writing. My sci fi writing, at some point recent, began to channel ancestral stuff and at that point, through my writing, then more spontaneous writing with the Neolithic pantheon. 

My mom gradually became kinda active as a Jew again at some point. Which in her case just kinda means going from secular and woo woo to Reform-to-Conservative-adjacent and woo woo. I realized I'm going to be responsible for a ton of stuff with the family on behalf of my mom at some point, and once she is gone. It will be my responsibility to deal with this stuff according to her actual wishes and with my upbringing and cultural/religious background, and I'm actually not culturally or socially prepared for that. And I will have to do something with her massive historical research (50 years of meticulous documentation) and genealogical work and have to know who to give it to, since I didn't have any kids to be an annoying Jewish mother to. No matter what I have to deal with, I'm going to have to stay alive to properly depose of this work eventually. I don't know that anyone I know will know what to do with it. I know there are historical orgs though who would be interested in it.

Then there's my MIL, who has had required me to help with case management and medical advocacy. I also started to be the only person in my household still able to drive. 

I became a Creative Partner with two different big AI video apps, and started doing weird stuff with that. I have had a lot of fun playing around in the Latent Space as an explorer. Using it to explore the landscape of my dreams. I still draw.

But then something happened - the UFO flap - and I started to doubt every single thing I saw online even harder than I ever did, began to wonder who were bots, and I have been dealing with an uncomfortable feeling that I must separate my livelihood from social media as much as possible. 

Already been a ringer of a year. I've been in one of the emotionally, mentally, socially darkest spaces I've ever been in my life. Some of it withdrawing from various groups to avoid being doxxed or my family being doxxed because of belonging to, I don't know, normie religious institutions. And pulling into the tightest possible silo online that I can manage.

Some of it personal (dealing with aging parents, dad's health scare, people beginning to drop like flies, sudden massive financial worry) and I'm still trying to make sense of much of this. It was an existential black hole. This feels like some kind of massive Evolutionary Determining Event happening in my life, and like something massively is shifting. It's like I've been handed a whole new set of responsibilities along multiple dimensions. Welcome to middle age, I guess.

But some of it is feeling like we're sitting at the intersection of massive things that most people can't even begin to fully comprehend and somehow my family and I get to have a ringside seat whether we want it or not.  One year I'm just a normal secular person who has a place in normal American society (well, sort of; I'd been able to live in denial about this over years) and has a place in the fringe and the next moment I and my family have basically been de-assimilated from American normalcy. This has resulted in some measures taken for OpSec which includes a potential career change on my part because I'm not going to risk being involved with anything that requires this dependent a relationship with social media, to a career field where if necessary I can just network through my own assigned figurative prison ethnic gang for employment. Finally, the city I wanted so hard to return to, is burning to the ground.

I figured I should pull my head out of the sand. Hello again. I have no idea how this much time got by.

[dreamingflight]

1/2/2025

Honestly: I don't know if I'll ever update this blog again. The entire topic became tedious to me, I don't really talk about spirituality or that kind of thing online anymore, and in fact, I barely talk about it at all at this point.

For reference, the bulk of my posting took place around 2016-2018.

A lot has happened in the meantime. There's also what *didn't* get talked about, a flat spot in which I stopped practicing anything whatsoever and decided to be a Paradigm Pirate about pure atheism. That was just a kind of bad post-pandemic mental space. Basically: 1) angry about all of the complete breakdown in normal human reasoning, and this was especially obvious during the pandemic, and 2) was feeling extremely unmoored and ungrounded.

Now I'm in a different space altogether.

Honestly I don't know what I will be doing with this blog. I keep it here for the sake of being able to refer back to it, but I got as far with many of these experiments as I'm ever going to get.

I will say that the further I got with understanding the mechanism of some things I've seen, and as far as I got with my quasi journey work, I realized why there are some things we don't really deal with, and some energies are better to work with than others while others are meant to be understood, then placated, and if at all possible, ignored.

[dreamingflight]

What a weird thing to revisit.

So apparently I haven't been active here in a few years, and a lot happened since.

A big thing is that much of this became overwhelming. I needed to get grounded again.

[dreamingflight]

And there has been a ton of stuff I've had to sit with... like...

A big thing I realized about my family practices is that they actually have a really culturally norm/trad context they emerge from and a lot of this, without the context of that, is actually quite dark. It requires the ritual framework of its cultural package in order to balance that. The rules my mom lives by around speech, cleanliness, social norms, etc are actually quite confining for her, because she believes strongly that she will manifest what she speaks or writes into being, and there is a lot of duty (and tons of thanklessness) on the part of being the family's memory keeper (in her case, as genealogist/historian for a family that could care less about it). A big thing is that it's not something you can take up. It's specific ancestors, it is not "ancestor cultus" - it is MY family's ancestor cultus. And either you're descended of these people or you're not. And even though it's not specifically Jewish per se, the specific ancestors are, require that in engaging with them, and what's more is that I've increasingly contextualized the family practice aspects as something by and large contained within Judaism and connected to perfectly "kosher" norms, though it's not obvious to most Americans because of the degree to American liberal Jewish culture sanitizes out a ton of things. It implies a level of magical protection and mystical and "speak things into being" load bearing into Jewish norms that even most normie, liberalized American Jews won't bother with.

I literally did not even begin to run into anything like this before I started getting to know people at Chabad. And actually it's stuff that originally arose within a fairly trad context that just doesn't really belong in the pagan, new age, or any other DIY Spirituality discussion world anymore. It has some fairly well understood cultural, religious, and social context. There is plenty of stuff I'm interested in that does not connect to this, but weirdly I have been doing less of that too.

Life has been weird and I'm increasingly seeking *grounding.* Understanding more about how the world really works, doesn't mean that knowledge is necessarily useful to me in my present space...

[dreamingflight]

What a weird thing to revisit.

So apparently I haven't been active here in a few years, and a lot happened since.

A big thing is that much of this became overwhelming. I needed to get grounded again.

[dreamingflight]

Here's an example of the weird intersection between Jewish ethnicity and pagan/occultist identity:

It means that I can't participate in many pagan/occultist spaces, without going to pains to hide my identity, because of the problem of Neo-Nazi infiltrators potentially making my family unsafe. Even in spaces where the mods are trying to keep Nazis out. Any space on Facebook is a *literally* unsafe space unless I actually go on using a fake identity and never admit to my background.

This is not a matter of what gods I do or don't worship, or whether I am a good or bad Jew.

My *family* is actually unsafe if I participate in these spaces.

This is what I mean when I say that Jewish identity is not easily shrugged off and that regardless of what I may or may not believe, I will always be on my back foot.

[dreamingflight]

So yeah this is a thing that happens ALL THE TIME.

[dreamingflight]

What a weird thing to get back to. I walked away from this blog for some time and so many of the posts hit differently now. This one certainly does, because now it's not just the right wing I have to worry about.

[dreamingflight]

Dear self:

Never forget, you asked a trickster god for help with your career.

This is all on you. 

[the-owls-craft]

Dreams or Astral Projection?

I see it is common to believe they are the same thing. My own experiences directly contradict that though, so it is not my belief. I'll explain why.

You can believe they are the same, I don't really mind. I just want to offer an alternative view point from my own personal experiences. Please don't take offense to this if you believe dreams occur in the astral.

My dreams are too weird and inconsistent to even happen in the astral plane. I do get dreams that have meanings, but it's mostly weird stuff. To give a playful context to how my dreams don't make sense in an astral environment: I had dream where I was in what I can describe in short as Dark Wal-Mart... I'd like to think that Dark Wal-Mart isn't actually out there.

Now, on to the deeper, more serious information.

I have only had two lucid dreams and three full OBEs (full astral projection). All of which have happened in the last two years.

One lucid dream turned into astral projection. They were separate events. As I gained more awareness in the dream, it faded away, and I started to feel like I was about to astral project. It was the vibrational phase of the projection process. My whole body felt like tv static, but it wasn't unpleasant (like it is when your foot falls asleep). I was interrupted so I never got to do it, but it was the same experience as the other times I entered this stage where I did project.

I wouldn't (almost) go into the astral if I was already there.

Dreams often contain a lot of information from the day that just passed. A lot of dreams really are just the brain throwing a bunch of stuff its experienced into something else.

One good way to tell if you're dreaming or in the astral is consistency. Dreams are often inconsistent, and something occurring in reality should have some consistency. Yes, even in the astral realm. There are different astral planes, and some may be more consistent than others, but there can still be distinction. What if you see a red chair, then go outside, and come back to find a blue chair? It probably means you're dreaming. This is how the brain is inconsistent.

I do believe dreams can carry spiritual messages. These are often distinct from the rest of my dreams. For me, they are more reasonable in terms of events, and more easily recalled. There is a clear progression of events as well.

Perhaps some people do astral project in their sleep. That sounds like a cool ability. I won't say that no one experiences the astral as dreams, but I will say that they are not exactly the same thing.

I want to encourage free thinking in spiritual spaces so we can form our own ideas on our paths. So again, this post is not to offend anyone or to attack anyone's beliefs. If your experiences are different than mine, that's okay. I'd actually like to hear other's experiences, because it helps me expand my own beliefs.

[occultist-romantic]

Guide for Baby Demonolatry practitioners

     Hello! Today, I’ve decided to make a post for my newbie LHP practitioners. First of all, if you decided to walk with demons and dark gods, congratulations, I’m happy for you! This path is beautiful and mysterious, but it does get overwhelming. There’s a lot to learn, plus, you can’t turn back. Not for the faint-hearted, proceeding to be calm as you communicate with ‘evil’ forces are not the easiest thing. You can be easily manipulated, they won’t give a shit.

     Most of the time, if one of them thinks you’re ready, they’ll reach out.  But of course, you have to know some stuff. 

1. Protection magick. Can’t stress this enough. You have to have strong wards, what if something you don’t want comes in? Lock your mirrors, do protection spells, wear talismans, ask for protection from your deities, etc. etc.

2. Many of us don’t worship any demons, dragons, or really any ‘infernal’ spirit, but some of us do. You can start by researching Satanism, Luciferianism, etc. 

3. Black magick types.

4. The hierarchy of demons. Sorry, you might suffer a bit here, wishing you luck. 

5. Rituals, casting a demonic circle.

6. Offerings for them.

7. The fae. There aren’t a lot of books, I suggest asking your tarot deck. And I’ve noticed that some people leave fucking offerings for them without knowing what the hell they are doing. Are you serious? No. They aren’t like Tinker bell. Dear Mammon.

8. My absolute favourite, traditional demonolatry, demonology.

9. This one is optional to be honest, but vampirism. No you don’t suck out someone’s blood, no you don’t burn when it’s sunny, you feed off of spiritual energy. 

10. The Qliphoth. Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. So important. 

11. Ars Goetia, The Lesser Key of King Solomon. As important. Some don’t like King Solomon, but that doesn’t mean you have to avoid it, that’s stupid.

     Yeah, so, these are the ones I would suggest you to do research on. I know it’s overwhelming but you can do this, I promise! You can always message me if you have any questions, I’d respond. Have fun researching.

[occultist-romantic]

Uhm I’ve noticed that some of y’all dumbasses think that Lady Lilith is a closed Goddess?? what the fuck-

she was the one reaching out to me and asking to be my guide, I have no connection to Judaism whatsoever. that’s literally saying that the Goddess won’t work with you unless you’re a guy. Stop being so fucking stupid. she has sumerian roots too. christ. PLUS you can’t understand MOST STUFF if you don’t know shit about kabbalah. just, have some common sense, thanks :)

and i swear, if you refuse to work with the infernal divine and qlipoth, then you’re LIMITING yourself. you won’t be able to get advanced. 

[friendlyneighborhoodskeleton]

Please keep going, I want to see how many bingos you can get. Don’t have a clue what you mean by saying only guys can work with lilith tho, or what you think qliphoth are supposed to be.

[dryadofephesus]

@occultist-romantic Demonolator here, been one for almost 5 years, listen to Jewish people when they say Lilith is closed. There are plenty of similar entities that ARE NOT closed, and if you’re working in the paradigm of classical demon hierarchies, they don’t even mention Lilith.

Most ceremonial magick was hella appropriated. Hermetic practices appropriate heavily from Kabbalah, which is very heavily closed. Qlipoth is part of Kabbalah, its closed full stop.

If you want a divine feminine figure that can mesh with a LHP path, look into Eve, the one who ate the fruit if you’re working in a luciferian context. Look into Babalon if you want a more darker vibe figure. Hell, look into Hekate too if going for a more traditional witchcraft path.

There’s no harm in telling an entity you can’t work with them. Turning down spirits is not a bad thing.

Also: the infernal divine WILL understand turning down invitations to work with them.

Also while yes, Lilith MAY have Sumerian roots with the Lilitu, the Burney relief is agreed to be of either Inanna/Ishtar or Ereshkigal, and the story of Lilith being Adam’s first wife is from Judaism. All the lore associated with Lilith thats become well known is from Judaism. Lilith as shes described in Judaism is closer to Lamashtu rather than any Sumerian, Mesopotamian, and Canaanite goddesses.

There are many ways to go about following the left hand path WITHOUT appropriation. Just use common sense and do NOT call people stupid/dumbasses for telling you to not appropriate their culture.

[hexfeathers-deactivated20241121]

You can be a demonolator without stealing from Jewish Mysticism. (Also a practicing demonolator here.)

Openly practicing Satanism, Luciferianism, demonolatry and other Left Hand Path faiths is already difficult enough. People on the outside already assume that we are horrible people. People already associate us with white supremacists, nazis and church burners. We as a community need to show that we don’t tolerate anything of the such. 

Respect the wishes of the Jewish community.

If I could add on to the suggestions for female divine figures, especially for people newer to demonolatry: there’s a good amount of demons from the Ars Goetia that will appear as either male or female depending on how they wish to be seen. Bune and Astaroth are two that I can think of off of the top of my head. Reach out to them, especially Bune.

[dryadofephesus]

Yes yes!!! This!!! ^^^

Demonolatry, Satanism, and Luciferianism is basically founded on biting back at oppression and fighting for justice.

Appropriating Judaism, a historically marginalized and persecuted religion, does the opposite of what this path is all about.

Listen to Jewish Voices. Its Not Hard.

[dreamingflight]

Based on what so many people think Lilith is, and so many people feeling called by Lilith, I only have this to say… What if it’s not actually Lilith? I think there is a lot of confusion between Lilith and some Neolithic/Chalcolithic “bird and snake goddess” imagery, and also a lot of confusion between her and other entities.  Instead of assume that what you’re connecting with or drawn to is Lilith, do your research… research, research, research. And never take any entity’s word right off that they are who they say they are. Who is it that you are actually wanting to connect to?

[dryadofephesus]

That’s a good theory! I’ve also been wondering about whether or not that’s the case. The Lilith a lot of LHP folks seem to be working with has more ties to Ishtar and Ereshkigal rather than actual Lilith.

Aside from the “first woman” story, the Lilith most people seem to work with doesn’t have much in common with the version of Lilith found in Judaism. Especially since the version of Lilith found in Judaism is described as killing children, and the Lilith many LHPers work with is seen as a protector of children and women.

though, that could be a result of demonolatry taking an approach to her from the view of “demons as good guys”, however with the lore we have on the Lilith in Judaism, there isn’t much there to show her as a misunderstood being. Wronged, yes, but misunderstood and the good guy? Not really. Its important to note that Adam and God also were portrayed in a more neutral light. It’s a story where nobody is fully in the right.

Moving onto who this LHP entity could actually be, there’s a few options, but I feel that these may be the most likely contendors:

Innana/Ishtar/Astarte/Astaroth - goddess associated with fertility, war, sexuality, battle, etc.

Ereshkigal - goddess of the underworld

Tiamat - primordial creator goddess, often depicted as a dragon

Babalon - a deified version of the whore of babylon. First deified in Thelema. Shes often associated with Lilith, though they’re very separate beings. It’s important to note that Thelema, founded by Allister Crowley, does have its issues, however modern Thelemites have been working to rectify these.

An Unnamed Goddess, which would explain her calling herself Lilith, as she doesn’t have another well known name to use?

Tanit - Carthaginian moon, war, and love goddess. Shares a lot of similarities with Ishtar, and is depicted as a lion-headed woman sometimes.

Its important to recognize that people have been called and contacted by this entity whoever they may be, however I doubt its the Lilith in Judaism.

[occultist-romantic]

Guide for Baby Demonolatry practitioners

     Hello! Today, I’ve decided to make a post for my newbie LHP practitioners. First of all, if you decided to walk with demons and dark gods, congratulations, I’m happy for you! This path is beautiful and mysterious, but it does get overwhelming. There’s a lot to learn, plus, you can’t turn back. Not for the faint-hearted, proceeding to be calm as you communicate with ‘evil’ forces are not the easiest thing. You can be easily manipulated, they won’t give a shit.

     Most of the time, if one of them thinks you’re ready, they’ll reach out.  But of course, you have to know some stuff. 

1. Protection magick. Can’t stress this enough. You have to have strong wards, what if something you don’t want comes in? Lock your mirrors, do protection spells, wear talismans, ask for protection from your deities, etc. etc.

2. Many of us don’t worship any demons, dragons, or really any ‘infernal’ spirit, but some of us do. You can start by researching Satanism, Luciferianism, etc. 

3. Black magick types.

4. The hierarchy of demons. Sorry, you might suffer a bit here, wishing you luck. 

5. Rituals, casting a demonic circle.

6. Offerings for them.

7. The fae. There aren’t a lot of books, I suggest asking your tarot deck. And I’ve noticed that some people leave fucking offerings for them without knowing what the hell they are doing. Are you serious? No. They aren’t like Tinker bell. Dear Mammon.

8. My absolute favourite, traditional demonolatry, demonology.

9. This one is optional to be honest, but vampirism. No you don’t suck out someone’s blood, no you don’t burn when it’s sunny, you feed off of spiritual energy. 

10. The Qliphoth. Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. So important. 

11. Ars Goetia, The Lesser Key of King Solomon. As important. Some don’t like King Solomon, but that doesn’t mean you have to avoid it, that’s stupid.

     Yeah, so, these are the ones I would suggest you to do research on. I know it’s overwhelming but you can do this, I promise! You can always message me if you have any questions, I’d respond. Have fun researching.

[occultist-romantic]

Uhm I’ve noticed that some of y’all dumbasses think that Lady Lilith is a closed Goddess?? what the fuck-

she was the one reaching out to me and asking to be my guide, I have no connection to Judaism whatsoever. that’s literally saying that the Goddess won’t work with you unless you’re a guy. Stop being so fucking stupid. she has sumerian roots too. christ. PLUS you can’t understand MOST STUFF if you don’t know shit about kabbalah. just, have some common sense, thanks :)

and i swear, if you refuse to work with the infernal divine and qlipoth, then you’re LIMITING yourself. you won’t be able to get advanced. 

[friendlyneighborhoodskeleton]

Please keep going, I want to see how many bingos you can get. Don’t have a clue what you mean by saying only guys can work with lilith tho, or what you think qliphoth are supposed to be.

[dryadofephesus]

@occultist-romantic Demonolator here, been one for almost 5 years, listen to Jewish people when they say Lilith is closed. There are plenty of similar entities that ARE NOT closed, and if you’re working in the paradigm of classical demon hierarchies, they don’t even mention Lilith.

Most ceremonial magick was hella appropriated. Hermetic practices appropriate heavily from Kabbalah, which is very heavily closed. Qlipoth is part of Kabbalah, its closed full stop.

If you want a divine feminine figure that can mesh with a LHP path, look into Eve, the one who ate the fruit if you’re working in a luciferian context. Look into Babalon if you want a more darker vibe figure. Hell, look into Hekate too if going for a more traditional witchcraft path.

There’s no harm in telling an entity you can’t work with them. Turning down spirits is not a bad thing.

Also: the infernal divine WILL understand turning down invitations to work with them.

Also while yes, Lilith MAY have Sumerian roots with the Lilitu, the Burney relief is agreed to be of either Inanna/Ishtar or Ereshkigal, and the story of Lilith being Adam’s first wife is from Judaism. All the lore associated with Lilith thats become well known is from Judaism. Lilith as shes described in Judaism is closer to Lamashtu rather than any Sumerian, Mesopotamian, and Canaanite goddesses.

There are many ways to go about following the left hand path WITHOUT appropriation. Just use common sense and do NOT call people stupid/dumbasses for telling you to not appropriate their culture.

[hexfeathers-deactivated20241121]

You can be a demonolator without stealing from Jewish Mysticism. (Also a practicing demonolator here.)

Openly practicing Satanism, Luciferianism, demonolatry and other Left Hand Path faiths is already difficult enough. People on the outside already assume that we are horrible people. People already associate us with white supremacists, nazis and church burners. We as a community need to show that we don’t tolerate anything of the such. 

Respect the wishes of the Jewish community.

If I could add on to the suggestions for female divine figures, especially for people newer to demonolatry: there’s a good amount of demons from the Ars Goetia that will appear as either male or female depending on how they wish to be seen. Bune and Astaroth are two that I can think of off of the top of my head. Reach out to them, especially Bune.

[dryadofephesus]

Yes yes!!! This!!! ^^^

Demonolatry, Satanism, and Luciferianism is basically founded on biting back at oppression and fighting for justice.

Appropriating Judaism, a historically marginalized and persecuted religion, does the opposite of what this path is all about.

Listen to Jewish Voices. Its Not Hard.

[dreamingflight]

Based on what so many people think Lilith is, and so many people feeling called by Lilith, I only have this to say... What if it’s not actually Lilith? I think there is a lot of confusion between Lilith and some Neolithic/Chalcolithic “bird and snake goddess” imagery, and also a lot of confusion between her and other entities.  Instead of assume that what you’re connecting with or drawn to is Lilith, do your research... research, research, research. And never take any entity’s word right off that they are who they say they are. Who is it that you are actually wanting to connect to?

[writing-prompt-s]

As you hover over your lifeless body, a man sporting a winged helmet approaches you. He looks just as confused as you are. “I’ve been sent to lead you to the underworld,” he says, “but we haven’t seen a newcomer in centuries.”

[dreamingflight]

One of the reasons that I struggle with ancestor work, is guilt.

I belong to a diasporic culture and I’m childfree. Not only am I childfree, I’m sterilized, meaning it will NEVER happen, under any circumstances. This culture is extinct in my family except for a handful of us. Everyone else in my generation, in my family, has abandoned this culture and identity and some who have, actively discriminate against it.

I feel I have let my ancestors down by not having children, and in dealing with them I have a deep sense of shame and regret. 

I chose not to have children because the circumstances in my life seemed like they would never be right for it. My parents did such a good job raising me that I felt like I only wanted to have children if I could do just as good a job, and the kind of life I had as a child - the access to the cultural and educational opportunities - is only accessible to very wealthy people in the US. I wouldn’t want my children to NOT have those things. (I think EVERYONE should have access to those things.)  But there’s a part of me that wonders, if I’d been right with my ancestors to begin with, then perhaps my life could have fallen in line to be one where I could please them. And I know that this is not likely but it’s a thing that repeats in my head sometimes.

I can’t even begin to light a candle for my great grandmother without feeling guilt, shame, and remorse. 

This is true on both sides of my family. 

[will-o-the-witch]

Antisemitism in Witchy Spaces

I decided to start writing down every time I saw/experienced something in hopes that it will help shed light on some specific stuff Jewitches go through. My hope is that people will see antisemitism as a community-wide issue and not the fault of just a few individuals. We all play a part in making it better.

Facebook Witch Group: post is made by a user with a profile picture of a clear nazi swastika. After being notified, admin declares the user is allowed to stay because the group is a “judgement free zone.”

Facebook Witch Group: Jewitch witches were assumed white by default and pitted against other groups, as if Jewish people are leveraging their identity to “play up” their own oppression and undermine others. Many openly Jewish witches are harassed out of the group.

A witchy discord group implements a rule that outlaws all mention of all closed practices (including Judaism) “to protect from appropriation,” even if the person has legitimate claim to the practice. When I pointed out this basically forced me into hiding, admin says, “you can be Jewish. Just not here.”

A user identified themselves as a Kabbalist. Later in the discussion, they were surprised to learn Kabbalah was Jewish in origin, admitted they didn’t know a single Jewish person in real life, and argued that Kabbalah couldn’t be that bad because Arianna Grande also used it. (”Are you saying she’s wrong too??”)

Another user is called out for appropriating Kabbalah and proceeds to sling antisemitic jokes until they are banned.

Just. So many more people appropriating Kabbalah and just becoming really nasty towards any Jewish person that expresses discomfort. (Including one person that even gave themselves a Hebrew username)

A group of users too big to argue with talking about how amaaaazing working with Lilith is. A few Jewish folks respectfully ask them to be mindful of her origins. They’re not given attention. (Or what attention they are given is only to debate her origin.)

Discord server has rooms for every major subcategory of Paganism and one room for “Abrahamic.” Christian witches completely dominate the conversation.

I mention on my blog that I am a proud Jewish person. One of the comments shortly after is “go be Jewish in Israel.”

A Nazi sympathizer joins a Discord group, reveals themselves, is banned, and proceeds to try and join again over and over again through different accounts.

I’m checking my blog activity and see a nazi witchy blog had gone through my blogged and liked a ton of stuff so I’d be sure to see their username (they did this to other notable tumblr blogs as well.) Looking at their bio revealed their agenda of proving Nazis “weren’t all bad,” and their dash included an open invite to a holocaust denial discord server.

A tumblr thread gets big of a bunch of witches arguing to cancel the word Sabbat because of supposed antisemitic origins. Jewish people chime in to insist that we really don’t give a shit about Wiccans using the word Sabbat, and not to speak over Jewish people and declare what we’re offended by. Tumblr arguments ensue.

I get “called out” for baking challah. That’s not antisemitism but it made me laugh really hard. (It’s okay for goyim to bake bread, obviously. Just don’t be weird about it.)

“High magic” and ceremonial practitioners ignoring or brushing off their tradition’s origin in blatant appropriation.

A user shares a magical chant to a group for everyone to use. The chant is in Hebrew. It includes a name of Gd. They didn’t realize that was a part of it.

Another discord group asserts in the rules that members of closed cultures may be openly themselves and discuss their craft, but not in an educational way. A mod practices exclusively Hermetic Kabbalah. I don’t have the strength to get into it. (Thankfully we had an actually decent discussion but it still made me feel kinda shitty.) 

Everyone is free to reblog. Jewish witches, please feel free to add your own experiences! 

[will-o-the-witch]

More happened, you say?

Discord server-wide prompt ping: Tell us about your Christian upbringing! (This isn’t “pure” antisemitism, but it sure does erase those of us who weren’t raised in Christian households)

The nazi witch blog starts making rounds again, dropping asks in multiple inboxes to the effect of: “Jews are anti-pagan and anti-gentile, so why can’t we be anti-Jewish?” (Hopefully I don’t have to explain why that’s a shit take

I suppose I’ll just update this every time I get a decent-sized batch going again?

[will-o-the-witch]

Update 2:

I joined a discord server and see people discussing different religions, at some point I point out Judaism doesn’t share every major Christian belief. People start challenging this, one person even saying (essentially) “Jewish people might not believe in Hell, but Judaism does because they believe in the same God as Christianity.” (????)

That same conversation, Modmins quickly shut down discussion and some members suggest we not speak about religion to avoid making lurkers uncomfrotable/ to avoid giving people a reason to hex us. Even though religious discussion had already been going on. (I left after that.)

Another Jewish tumblr brings up the history of violence against Jewish graves, and how taking graveyard dirt is considered an act of desecration by traditional Jewish law. Another user argues that because their practice considers it a rite of honor, taking graveyard dirt from a Jewish grave should be okay. They explicitly said they would take it from my grandparent’s graves. They said they would take it from my grave. Multiple people have to try and explain why you shouldn’t desacrate people’s graves.

This one happened a long time ago so I actually forgot about it! Another Jewitch once shared a story with us that a woman claimed she was able to contact (or had already been contacting and working with) that person’s ancestors who were killed in the Shoah. 

A person discusses why Kabbalah is appropriation. One person’s counterargument boils down to: “I was told I was Egyptian in a past life, therefore I may have been Jewish, therefore I have rightful access to Kabbalah now.” (Side note, pretty sure I’ve also seen people mention “past lives” where they were killed in the Shoah.)

[will-o-the-witch]

A discord server adds new roles, including Qlippoth and “Kabballah.” I inform them that 1) They didn’t spell it right and 2) I hoped that it would be respected as a closed practice. The mod response was essentially, “it’s not closed, are you a Rabbi?” When i asked “are you Jewish?” they would just continue to assert that my voice on the issue wasn’t valid unless I was a Rabbi. (Rabbis have no one unified belief on pretty much anything, btw.)

Another mod came in eventually to try and be more helpful, but still hesitated to make any changes. (The suggested changes were either taking off the Kabbalistic roles, or adding roles that were more inclusive to other types of Jewish magic. We’ve got more than just that.)

This could be more ignorance than “true” antisemitism, but I’d be amiss if I didn’t preserve this:

In a discussion about Lilith, one person asserts, directly to me, that Jewish people cannot be witches without forsaking and publicly denouncing their entire religion and culture. Therefore any Jewish anything was up for grabs for witchcraft purposes, and all Jewish witches present were mistaken in some way.

Another person in that same discussion describes an (incorrect) origin story for Lilith, which involved Judaism’s malicious plan to take local mythical figures and portray them as demons to oppress the other local religions and further their “rabid monotheism.”

Through the comments of this thread, I learned about Wiccans trying to make their own mezuzot which is hilariously off base

A semi-prominent witchblr user has an epiphany, and begins posting about it. They make a long post detailing that “most conspiracy theories hold a large amount of truth” and while they say they don’t want to delegitimize Jewish pain, also believe that Jewish people control all the banks, and the Holocaust was a “strategic move” to create a narrative of Jewish oppression (so that conspiracy theories about Jewish people would be seen as less legitimate.)

At least one other tumblr witch sees this blog and comments with enthusiastic support. (along the lines of “Yes, the truth is coming out! Preach!”) Their account looks really normal otherwise, so they were just quietly interacting with the community while harboring these beliefs.

Joy of Satan, a well-known neo nazi propaganda site disguised as a Satanism resource, comments on one of my posts with a link to their homepage.

Somebody in a Discord chat goes to the #closed-practices room and asks a genuine question about Lilith. Several goyim respond with incorrect information and challenge any Jewish voice trying to speak in dissent. One person even says they have spoken with Lilith directly in the past, and anybody who believes she is restricted just doesn’t understand Lilith/the Divine as well as they do.

[normal-horoscopes]

*READS TITLE* OH THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG POST

[dreamingflight]

I interact with all kinds of pagans and occultists in real life and in more closed spaces (such as a heavily moderated members-only forum that I am in) but I'm at the point of, with anything on FB or in equally open spaces... I only interact with Jewish spaces (such as "Jewitchery"-specific) at this point. All of this is why.

Pagan/occult spaces have become, bar none, the very most anti-Semitic spaces i could possibly be in that aren't actual white supremacist. And about half of the problem is with pagans and occultists who call themselves anti-racist, so just being in a space that claims it's not white nationalist, isn't enough. Lots of these spaces are still virulently anti-Semitic.

[jessica-messica]

[hellhound-wrangler]

@slashmarks

[dreamingflight]

So he’s their genius loci, is what you’re all saying.

[mediumofchange-deactivated20211]

Magick for the Blind and Aphantasic

Aphantasia:

When an individual is unable to produce mental images.

Aphantasics conceive of ideas, stories, and other thoughts in a non- or sub-visual way.

When the average person is told to imagine a chair, they “see” a chair in their mind’s eye. Also known as visualization.

Aphantasics are incapable of doing this.

This is not a disorder, merely a variation in cognition. It also exists on a spectrum.

Blindness:

Those who have been blind from birth typically do not perceive of their world in a visual way.

There is at least one notable exception.

Because of this, most people who have been blind their whole lives are also incapable of visualizing.

Magick and meditation often reference visualizations as a starting point. Therein lies the problem.

As someone who is rather close to the aphantasic end of the cognition spectrum, this has been quite frustrating and significantly impeded my own spiritual growth.

But I believe my fellow aphantasic magick practitioners along with blind magick practitioners can still do powerful things even without the power of visualization.

Here is what I’ve learned so far:

Throw out the word visualization. Throw it out forever. If you’re like me, it’s not for you.

Substitute your own cognitive process. In my case, I have a strong sense of spatial/mechanical thought. Do what works for you.

Trust your intuition. You know what you need to do. Just relax.

Accept your gift. You can conceive of the world in a way many people can’t. Your magick is so so So important. Because you’ll catch what others might miss.

I hope this is helpful for someone out there. I know I can’t be the only borderline aphantasic witch.

[reasonsmysoniscrying]

‪**Walking some place that we’ve never been**‬

‪8yo: “I’ve seen this before.”‬

‪Me:‬

‪8yo: “You know how sometimes you go to sleep and you see things in your dreams and then later on you see them for real? Like that.”‬

‪Me, quietly terrified: “Umm oh yeah! That’s called ‘Deja Vu’! Great!”‬

[kaylapocalypse-deactivated20201]

I have this too, and like a bunch of the other people who say they have this in the notes have described: it’s like...less prophetic full fledged dreams and more like a 2second snapshot of you doing an activity with no context. Like cutting paper then looking up or opening your purse with specific scenery in the background. Then you wake up and you’re like “what was that pointless dream scene.” Then later (sometimes weeks or months later), when you’re doing The Thing you’re like “oh”

[fandomsficsandfeels-deactivated]

I DIDNT KNOW THIS HAPPENED TO OTHER PEOPLE TOO

[audrey-hepbae]

Good morning all you That So Raven sons o guns