This is actually something I spent a lot of time thinking about last year. I was talking a lot to someone who had definitely been through religious abuse (grew up in a Christian cult, became Heathen later) and he expressed feelings like this, feelings of being haunted or “chased” by spirits who wanted him to do things he wasn’t comfortable with. It led me to reevaluate my own relationship with spiritual matters, because I had experienced similar things (not as intensely as he described them but similar in principle) but hearing someone else talk about this, someone I cared about on top of that, put this kind of thinking into perspective. Suddenly it wasn’t duty and indebtedness that was front and center on my mind, instead I felt protective of another human and thought about human-spirit relationships in terms of reciprocity and consent.
The thing is, the more I thought about these somewhat dysfunctional ways of relating to spiritual/religious (use whichever word you want) matters, the more other parts of them I saw as a trauma-informed way of thinking, even ones that aren’t directly connected to punishment. The best example is “looking for signs”. Because apparently gods and spirits have the power to change things in your life if they want, but they can’t be expected to communicate clearly? We have to constantly be on the lookout for subtle signs of what they want from us? Sounds iffy to me too, now that I think about it.
Religion didn’t play a big role in my upbringing, but abuse did, and now that I looked at spiritual matters from this new perspective, “sending signs” actually reminded me strongly of an abuse tactic my father was always fond of. Say we’re all eating dinner together. My father wanted something from the other end of the table. He wouldn’t just say “Could you pass me the x”, instead he’d stare pointedly at the thing he wanted and say nothing, waiting for someone to notice and give him the object. If someone did notice and ask “Do you want the x”, he’d respond very kindly. If no one noticed, after a while he’d start stabbing at the object he wanted with his knife or fork, then making exaggerated noises and pretending to be in pain. I don’t know what would have come after, because at that point someone, usually my mother, always relented and played her part in his messed-up little play. The message was clear: we were supposed to constantly pay attention to every sign he gave off, predict his wishes, he didn’t want to have to ask explicitly for what he wanted, a glance should be enough. Similar things happened in other parts of life, but this is a good example.
How is sending mysterious signs any different from this? If the gods are so powerful, they should be able to send clear signs (as in “appearing in a dream saying exactly what they mean” clear), not ones that can be interpreted in five different ways. Even if there’s no punishment for getting it wrong, it’s still manipulative to try to get someone to constantly be on the lookout for subtle ways of communication. Because having a spiritual practice, trying to establish a relationship with deities, and feeling like you’re getting nowhere is a punishment in itself. When I see even experienced practitioners write things like “I think when god q sent me sign x half a year ago, they actually meant y and not z as I originally thought.”, I now can’t help but think - how do you be so old, know humans for so long, and still suck so much at communicating?!
Basically, starting to view religion and spirituality through the lens of “could this way of thinking about spirituality be a product of abuse?” led me to question a lot of things and I’m now rebuilding my spiritual worldview and practice from the ground up. A lot of traditional superstition also seems based on a deep sense of mistrust toward others, combined with confirmation bias. I might fuck around and not overextend myself so much anymore. Maybe view gods as more akin to natural (or even psychological) forces rather than spiritual beings. Because I don’t think the universe is an abusive place, but I do know my brain has been primed to adopt abuse-informed ways of relating to it, and in matters of spirit we project a lot. So therefore if I imagine gods to act in a way that mirrors thinking patterns which were instilled in me through trauma, I consider that that might just be projection.
