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Ysee from Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds talks about the musical language she sings in and about feeling Noel's happiness so strongly while recording Be Careful What You Wish For that it was distracting.
Source Links: Stage Left Podcast Episode 59b, 29 December 2019
Gif cut from Ysee's instagram
ysee & noel, michigan, february 2018
Listen to Lullaby (feat. Amena, Bastille, Brian Eno, Celeste, Kieran Brunt, Lana Lubany, London Community Gospel Choir, Mabel, Nadine Shah,
batjokes is good cause above all batman hates the joker but above all he loves the joker but above all he hates the joker but above all he l-
the only downside to playing ffxiv near daily is that I have a subconscious habit of mimicking whoever I’m around most be it affect or gesture so recently some words or sentences have just decided to be british. i swear im not british on purpose and I probably have a middling imitation of the accent at best. disastrous
Supreme Council of Ethnic Hellenes aka YSEE
An organization I avoid in my practice heres why.
YSEE claims to be the foremost organization for the Ancient Hellenic Religion
After 21 years (1997-2018) of continuous presence in the contemporary Greek society, with over 350 civic actions like protests or press releases, over 800 lectures, commemorations of ancient national historical events, public religious ceremonies, and many educational events, the Supreme Council of Ethnic Hellenes (YSEE) is the formal legal entity representing the historically continuous and since 2017 “legally known” Hellenic Ethnic Religion. The Supreme Council of Ethnic Hellenes has two chapters outside Greece, one in the United States since 2007 and one in Cyprus since 2014, and seeks to establish more in any country that has active Hellenic Ethnic presence.
YSEE is Greek and nothing but Greek to an unwelcoming and ahistorical fault. Based on their own words they expanded solely for the Greek diaspora. I would feel more welcomed in a Greek Orthodox Church, which are extremely diaspora centered, than a YSEE ritual ….. and I’m ethnically Greek. I just happen to be adopted therefore I am not “Hellene from Hellene," I don't have the necessary blood.
They are very focused on it being an ancestral ethnic religion, which it is to an extent. But YSEE twists that into exclusionism that simply does not make sense for any Greek religious tradition if you take even a passing glance at a history book.
A Hellenic Polytheist should respect Greek culture and remember they are not relics of history; but being ethnically Greek or knowing Greek politics is not a prerequisite for this religion. If you read the YSEE American Book…. it’s basically useless for a non-Greek.
(Hellenes = ethnic Greeks vocab wise.)
Here are some ritual passages from their AMERICAN book.
Basic ritual: Lighting the altar flame:
With our nation reduce to cinders, ruined, and enslaved, and with the last Hellenic sacred altar flame long extinguished, a promise of national rising we give to Gods and Ancestors calling upon the goddess Hestia, we ignite the flame of our heart, the altar fire, wishing the Hellenes rebirth enlightenment and freedom.
Name giving ceremony
Hear us ancestral Gods, ethnic Gods of the Hellenes. True offspring of myself and my spouse, Hellene from Hellene / blood of our blood / soul of your souls. Blessed Gods, ethnic Gods of the Hellenes
Funeral Ritual
A hellene born of hellenes, venerated offspring of venerated parents, may you have a peaceful journey
Introduction
[YSEE,] without legal status rendered incapable to defend itself and its beliefs, practices, and sacred rituals. Under such circumstances, and in the interest of defending our religion from what we recognized as an organized attack […] we under took the publication of this book which aims to clarify with the Hellenic ethnic religion is.
Based on the intro it appears the book is a showcase of what their religion is—but NOT an invitation to practice. Despite how the rest of the book is stuctured.
LGBTQ
As for being gay they use Zeus and Hera to justify homophobia; which I cannot begin to tell you how much it angered me:
On the ritualistic level though, since the marriage symbolizes the sacred union of two opposite elements (male-female, Zeus-Hera) for further “demeourgia” (creation, “birth”), we perform marriage rituals only between people of the opposite sex.
They claim to accept it otherwise:
I think I was clear enough: YSEE respects homosexuals, it does not deny membership to them, not even priesthood, and the same it respects people that may have other forms of sexual expression, YSEE does not examine the sexual orientation, we polytheists are friends and not enemies of the human sexuality like the monotheists are
But then use the slippery slope argument of all things:
If we change even once our ritualistic Tradition then there will be no Tradition (ritualistic, I repeat!) at all, because then we’ll have to perform marriage ritual also for a polygamist with 5 brides, also for a nudist couple that may want to be blessed nude, also for a BDSM couple that may want the one part collared, and so on.
Source: https://tjalexander.livejournal.com/61147.html
(archive) https://web.archive.org/web/20240221203435/https://tjalexander.livejournal.com/61147.html
Also should mention the ultra-conservative/"traditional" Societas Hellenica Antiquariorum won't marry gay people, infertile people, or people older than "child bearing years" to have a religious wedding. And anyone with a medical condition is disqualified from being a priest. But they don't have any outreach outside Greece so its kind of irrelevant to the post but I thought I'd mention it.
Last I checked reconstructionism, not just revivalism, supports bringing these traditions and rituals back to life but also into the 21st century.
Statements in their FAQ
On their Greek website (rather than YSEE USA) they have a hilariously incorrect statment about nations.
[Quick word info: Nation = distinct group of people, nearly synonymous with "ethnicity" but it isn't always; such things can get very nuanced. The French people are a nation. The French have a “Nation State,"— France. There are other nations within France like the Bretons. Thats why "Stateless Nation” is a term, the Kurdish people are a nation but Kurdistan does not exist, hence they are stateless]
YSEE's “Nation” statement:
It is always ancestral and ethnic. It can never be imposed from one nation to another. There is no tradition shared by more than one nation.
Like every word is wrong. I’m sorry have you not heard of Hellenistic times? This is insular and boarders on ethnic nationalistic ideas of exclusion. The Hittites Hurrians Sumerians Akkadians whatever other ANE "nation" you'd like to talk about shared plenty. As a Sumerian and Hellenic polytheist who also separately participates in other traditions—this is bullshit. The entirety of the ANE & Mediterranean history proves it. Sumerians effected Akkadians— Sumerian as sacred language. The Phrygians effected the Greeks— Rhea-Kybele. There are Roman era cultus of Isis, an Egyptian deity, in ancient London— what was that about not sharing? Literally “Greco-Roman Religion” and “Greco-Egyptian Religion” are historical traditions that transcend the modern concepts of a nation. How is this statement even said with any shred of seriousness.
Continuing with the ethnic emphasis:
FAQ: Can someone from a different nation embrace the Hellenic Ethnic Religion? Answer: Ethnic religions refer to specific nations and that is why they do not partake in proselytising. Just like in ancient times, however, they accept people from other nations who freely decide to let go of their own ethnic religion and adopt the religion of a different nation.
In other words, if a Japanese person wanted to “adopt” their concept of Hellenic Polytheism they would have to “let go” of Shinto. In their concept of Hellenic Polytheism also practicing Sumerian Polytheism is most likely offensive to them. Again its insular, you are a Hellene, or you give up your own ethnicity / nation to participate as if you are Hellene.
FAQ: What is your stance vis-a-vis the various political ideologies and their followers? Answer: All decent religions accept people who turn to them, regardless of their individual political, nutritional, sexual, aesthetic or other personal choices. That said, as a religion per se, we steer clear of all ideologies of modernity, especially those that constitute political forms of monotheism and infect humankind with absolute ideas of how to fix the world, threaten human freedom and either deny (internationalism) or misappropriate the concept of ethnos.
I will always say ethnicity and heritage is important, but these people truly take it to a straw man extreme “Internationalism (aka Globalism) denies ethnos!“ No, no it doesn’t.
I think "steer clear of modernity" in and of itself speaks volumes about the organization... in a negative way.
We are a purely ethnic religion, i.e. referring to a very specific ethnos. Under natural, free and normal conditions, that is if the Hellenic ethnos was not under foreign spiritual rule, all Hellenes would worship our ethnic Gods. Proselytising came exclusively out of anti-ethnic or non-ethnic, expansive and global religions.
Source: https://www.ysee.gr/faq-eng.html#2
Alexander the Great. Hellenistic Traditions. Did you not study what they did in Egypt? To the ancient Egyptian "ethnicity”? This literally denies that syncretized Gods existed. Alexander the Great literally replaced Zoroastrian traditions with Hellenic traditions during his conquests. I bet they won't complain about a major global religion such as Manichaeism which stretched from Rome to Persia to China— no they just need a reason to whine about "Abrahamic Religions"
I also love that apparently not following the ancient Greek religion = spiritual stagnation. And blatant theocracy! Even though ancient Greeks weaved religion and politics together literally all the time.
... restoration of the Ethnic, Polytheistic Hellenic Tradition, Religion and way of life in Modern Greek society which is ruled by spiritual stagnation , irrationality, byzantinism and blatant theocracy.
Source
The way YSEE presents the religion certainly lends a helpful hand to anyone who wants to use "Greece is for Greeks go home" type rhetoric. They also present it in such a way that promotes religious disdain for other groups rather than acceptance or encouragement of a diverse society.
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YSEE America has some of the main website’s FAQs but not all as far as I can tell.
I don’t care if you are “okay with everyone’s sexualities,” when you use my beloved Gods Hera and Zeus to say my marriage is religiously invalid and it means you might have to start marrying nude people wearing collars in a Hellenic Polytheist ritual, you’re a homophobic shit. Almost as bad as “Love the sinner hate the sin and gay marriage will lead to legal beastiality” Almost as bad, not quite, but it comes close.
Ancestors do not take a front and center place in the religion to the point where not having ancestors of that ethnicity would literally prevent something crucial in the tradition, as opposed to say, root work where it's necessary. Nor was Hellenic polytheism ever closed off completely, the entire ANE & Mediterranean was an open mixing melting pot of Gods and traditions.
FAQ: Why "Supreme"? Answer: Because, as the official entity representing the Hellenic Ethnic Religion, the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes is its foremost administrative body
Do not support them, do not allow them to claim to be the authority of Hellenic Polytheism.
They aren't the only Greek organization for this religion! Don't let them fool you.
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-Repost forget original date, edited and added to, not audio proof read sorry for spelling-
i am going to be SO incredibly insufferable when KRTDLD comes out.
ysee_ysee_onlinemusic « Shall we take that cliché pic in front of the cathedral, while we’re here Ellie ? »🙈😊 So nice to see u badass ellieciararowsell wolfaliceband . Have a great one tonite letrianonparis ✊🏾✨✨#paris #sacrecoeur
