Alright, I waited until I’d be less nasty about this, but I seriously need to get this off my chest.
I’m someone who interacts with spirits and deities. This is an ability many non-Western cultures recognize and understand, whereas Western society does not.
In order to explain this ability in ways that make sense to Westerners, I have to translate my knowledge into a Western way of thinking. Doing this is very difficult and results in an explanation that’s ten times longer than its non-Westernized counterpart.
Nevertheless, I’ve enjoyed doing it because you’ve all been interested and polite.
Recently though, I’ve begun to understand why many spirit-workers don’t interact with Western neo-pagans: It’s because they might run into Western neo-pagans who throw raging fits at the idea that spirits and deities aren’t things they can do whatever they want with.
If you come across a spirit-worker willing to share their knowledge with you, this is what you do:
Be courteous and attentive.
Speak up if you don’t understand something, even if you’re not sure what you don’t understand.
Always assume the spirit-worker is talking about people when they talk about deities and spirits.
Treat the spirit-worker like a regular person too, because they are.
This is what you don’t do:
DON’T tell a spirit-worker you believe gods are archetypes and therefore it’s okay to use them however you please. This is like telling a dog-trainer you don’t believe dogs have souls so it’s fine if you use dogs as toys and handbag accessories.
DON’T try to “correct” a spirit-worker’s skills-based knowledge with your book-knowledge. You’ll look twee at best and like an ignorant jackass at worst.
DON’T use them as a prop to argue your point of view with.
DON’T pathologize them. Experienced spirit-workers know how to separate their spirit-interactions from symptoms of mental disorders. There’s no fucking reason to bring up mental disorders unless you’re asking a question about how to disambiguate.
DON’T assume people identify as spirit-workers. This term describes a person who’s developed a particular skillset. It’s not a bloody identity label.
As far as spirit-workers go, I’m really chill about the fact people view deities as archetypes because I know this has a few different purposes to it. But I will interpret it as nothing but pure entitlement if someone declares to my face that gods are basically Public Domain Blorbos they can play with like dolls. They either need to grow some ethics or get lost.
