World's Worst Devotee

I am a Hellenic pagan. I'm very, very bad at it. I am not a reconstructionist, I am not good at research, and I'm chronically ill. Come and watch me flail about as I try to honour the gods the way they deserve.

[gwydionmisha]

Ionic - C.P. Cavafy

That we've broken their statues, that we've driven them out of their temples, doesn't mean at all that the gods are dead. O land of Ionia, they're still in love with you, their souls still keep your memory. When an August dawn wakes over you, your atmosphere is potent with their life, and sometimes a young ethereal figure indistinct, in rapid flight, wings across your hills.

[twunkish-cleric]

The fact that there are gods with disabilities make me so emotional. Hephaestus, Tyr, Hodr, Odin and other disabled deities just prove that being disabled is a vital part of the human experience, not a deviation from it, and that concept alone is so moving. Just like there are deities for specific human experiences like fertility or war, there are also deities with disabilities, which just proves that we have just as much of a place on this earth as mothers and warriors do. The idea of that has genuinely pulled me through some hard times.

[magpiesmagicnestarchive]

☤ ✉︎ - Hermes - ✉︎ ☤

This is from personal practice, I encourage people to look into epithets and associations to find what works for them, these are just what works for me or information I use regularly in my own practice or have noted down in my book of shadows. - Magpie

Epithets: Epimelios - Taking care of animals. || Angelos/Aggelos - Messenger. || Agetor - Of travellers. || Hegemonios - Protector of the wayfarers. || Psychopompos - Conveyor or conductor of souls. || Pheletes - Thief. || Agonios - As president of games. || Ploutodotes - Giver of wealth (as inventor of fire using fire sticks) || Dotor Eaon - Giver of good things. || Hodios - Patron of travelers and wayfarers. || Oneiropompus - Conductor of dreams.

Colours: Green, gold, yellow, cyan, silver, light blue.

Symbols: Caduceus staff, winged helmet (Petasos), golden sickle, winged sandals (Talaria), satchel (kibisis), herma/herms.

Stones/Metals: Silver, lead, pebbles, emerald, alexandrite, amethyst, blue lace agate, carnelian, opal, malachite, red/yellow jasper, rainbow moonstone, aventurine, goldstone, pyrite, tiger's eye.

Animals: Tortoise, ram, hierax, hares, rooster, snake, pigeon, hawk.

Food/Drink: Olives, pork, ram, honey, wheat, saffron, wine, mead, strawberries, nuts, cakes, eggs, sweets, beer, coffee, food from other cultures.

Perfumes/Incenses: Storax, mastic, dragon's blood, nag champa, poppy, lavender, vanilla, frankincense, myrrh, rosemary, cinnamon, mint.

Plants: Poppy, lavender, strawberry plant, crocus.

Misc: Lyre, letters, coins, stones, dice, playing cards.

Devotional acts: Travel and leave a penny at new locations, writing, communicating with friends, leave flower or charms on graves, ask him to join you for lunch when going out eating, give to the poor, exercise, dance to music, thank Hermes for good luck, visit a thrift store, learn slight of hand, leave kind notes for strangers, flip a coin for decision making.

[dukeofankh]

If your vision for the deradicalization of right-wing men begins and ends with "other men telling them that that's gross and to stop it" then I'm sorry, you do not understand how masculinity works.

"Men who hold patriarchal status" and "men who are feminists" are two groups who overlap less than you want them to. I'm sorry. That's not solely because men are so happy with patriarchal status that they don't want to risk it by policing misogyny/queerphobia/racism, It's because being misogynistic, queerphobic, and racist, end expressing other forms of toxic masculinity(and often abusively so) are part of how people establish and maintain patriarchal status. The men who have the ability to stop this via nothing but peer pressure are the very people who are doing it. That's by design. And engaging in feminist intervention is, in and of itself, usually the abrupt end of that status and its associated power to persuade misogynistic men.

Like, I have worked in blue collar jobs as a notably queer person. It was pretty much a constant deluge of verbal abuse. In my experience, most blue collar work environments are exploitative, abusive, and bigoted, and very gleefully so. On the occasions I have spoken up about someone saying something that was super fucking out of line (asking me which of the girls walking by was hottest. We were installing a portable classroom at a middle school), believe it or not, they completely failed to be shamed! Because nobody else on the crew gave a fuck. *I* was the weird one. They ghosted me. A full blown company ghosted me. I suddenly didn't have a job anymore because they just straightforwardly stopped telling me where the next job site was.

Like, this doesn't mean that it's your job to do it, but this vision you have of these big groups of men where everyone is on the fence and there is precisely one shit stirrer who can be shut down by a brave feminist man who can single handedly set the example for all these other guys...you are high. You are describing an "everybody clapped" level absurd scenario. Most of these truly virulent misogynistic guys either have zero friends, because, you know, our society is atomized to fuck, or they are in a group where the feminist guy is actually the weirdo who can be shut down and ostracized much, much easier than the misogynists, because there is no such thing as a man misogynists respect who stands up for women.

You might be saying "well, we're talking about longstanding personal relationships, actually. Like, they need to have to want to spend time with you and then, as a side effect, you can mind control them out of being a threat to us."

Problem with that being:

1: Many feminist men also have no friends, see the atomized society above.

2: Feminist men already stopped hanging out with men who make rape jokes because why the fuck would we want to spend time with them.

3: That isn't just because we respect women so hard. We are in many cases talking about men who are also deeply queerphobic, heirarchical, violent and abusive to other men. What initially drew me to feminism and women was a lack of heirarchical squabbling and constant bullying, and the ability to be openly queer. A lot of men who came to feminism did so because they knew that the patriarchy was not a place they would find success or acceptance. These are not the men who are gonna be able to change right wing minds.

4. Men do not view themselves as a monolith. There is no universal brotherhood of men. The actual meaning of the term "Fragile masculinity" is that men are constantly expected to prove that they are deserving of the status of being a member of their own gender. There are large swathes of men--including most of the men who you'd look to as examples of good, feminist men who you want to undertake this project--who are considered failed men, sissies, f****ts, soyboys, ect. They are. Not. Going. To. Convince. These. Men. Of. Jack. Shit. Much less successfully *shame* them. Jesus.

I know all of this sucks. I know it would be cool to be able to just point at a group and have them be responsible for the work. But nah. It's gonna have to be a societal project, one that will probably outlast all of us. Sorry. The thing you want these men to do is, absolutely, the morally correct thing to do. But presuming that it would be effective is, and once again I am so sorry about this, just ignorance of how these social groups function.

[heckyeahhermes]

The first problem anyone encounters when trying to understand [Hermes] is directly attributable to the very diversity of his activities. They are so varied that modern scholars have been unable to reach a consensus as to what quality or concept holds them all together, some even arguing that there is no such unifying feature to be found. The closest we can come to identifying any ‘core’ to Hermes, according to Parker, is to group his activities into a triad associated with ‘transition / communication / exchange’. It may well be the case, again as noted by Parker, that the diversity of Hermes’ activities arises ‘not on the basis of the internal logic of a central core’ but rather from what he terms ‘the principle ... of “one thing leads to another”’.

– Arlene Allan, Hermes (from Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World)

[vaspider]

In defense of retellings & reimaginings

I'm not going to respond to the post that sparked this, because honestly, I don't really feel like getting in an argument, and because it's only vaguely even about the particular story that the other post discussed. The post in question objected to retellings of the Rape of Persephone which changed important elements of the story -- specifically, Persephone's level of agency, whether she was kidnapped, whether she ate seeds out of hunger, and so on. It is permissible, according to this thesis, to 'fill in empty spaces,' but not to change story elements, because 'those were important to the original tellers.' (These are acknowledged paraphrases, and I will launch you into the sun if you nitpick this paragraph.)

I understand why to the person writing that, that perspective is important, and why they -- especially as a self-described devotee of Persephone -- feel like they should proscribe boundaries around the myth. It's a perfectly valid perspective to use when sorting -- for example -- which things you choose to read. If you choose not to read anything which changes the elements which you feel are important, I applaud you.

However, the idea that one should only 'color in missing pieces,' especially when dealing with stories as old, multi-sourced, and fractional as ancient myths, and doing so with the argument that you shouldn't change things because those base elements were important to the people who originally crafted the stories, misses -- in my opinion -- the fundamental reason we tell stories and create myths in the first place.

Forgive me as I get super fucking nerdy about this. I've spent the last several years of my life wrestling with the concept of myths as storytelling devices, universality of myths, and why myths are even important at all as part of writing on something like a dozen books (a bunch of which aren't out yet) for a game centered around mythology. A lot of the stuff I've written has had to wrestle with exactly this concept -- that there is a Sacred Canon which cannot be disrupted, and that any disregard of [specific story elements] is an inexcusable betrayal.

Myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us as individuals, as social groups, and as a society. The elements we utilize or change, those things we choose to include and exclude when telling and retelling a story, tell us what's important to us.

I could sit down and argue over the specific details which change over the -- at minimum -- 1700 years where Persephone/Kore/Proserpina was actively worshiped in Greek and Roman mystery cults, but I actually don't think those variations in specific are very important. What I think is important, however, is both the duration of her cults -- at minimum from 1500 BCE to 200CE -- and the concept that myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us.

The idea that there was one, or even a small handful, of things that were most important to even a large swath of the people who 'originally' told the store of the Rape of Persephone or any other 'foundational' myth of what is broadly considered 'Western Culture,' when those myths were told and retold in active cultic worship for 1700 years... that seems kind of absurd to me on its face. Do we have the same broad cultural values as the original tellers of Beowulf, which is only (heh) between 1k-1.3k years old? How different are our marital traditions, our family traditions, and even our language? We can, at best, make broad statements, and of inclusive necessity, those statements must be broad enough as to lose incredible amounts of specificity. In order to make definitive, specific statements, we must leave out large swaths of the people to whom this story, or any like it, was important.

To move away from the specific story brought up by the poster whose words spun this off, because it really isn't about that story in particular, let's use The Matter of Britain/Arthuriana as our framing for the rest of this discussion. If you ask a random nerd on Tumblr, they'd probably cite a handful of story elements as essential -- though of course which ones they find most essential undoubtedly vary from nerd to nerd -- from the concept that Camelot Always Falls to Gawain and the Green Knight, Percival and the grail, Lancelot and Guinevere...

... but Lancelot/Guinevere and Percival are from Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century, some ~500 years after Taliesin's first verses. Lancelot doesn't appear as a main character at all before de Troyes, and we can only potentially link him to characters from an 11th century story (Culhwch and Olwen) for which we don't have any extant manuscripts before the 15th century. Gawain's various roles in his numerous appearances are... conflicting characterizations at best.

The point here is not just that 'the things you think are essential parts of the story are not necessarily original,' or that 'there are a lot of different versions of this story over the centuries,' but also 'what you think of as essential is going to come back to that first thesis statement above.' What you find important about The Matter of Britain, and which story elements you think can be altered, filed off or filled in, will depend on what that story needs to tell you about yourself and what's important to you.

Does creating a new incarnation of Arthur in which she is a diasporic lesbian in outer space ruin a story originally about Welsh national identity and chivalric love? Does that disrespect the original stories? How about if Arthur is a 13th century Italian Jew? Does it disrespect the original stories if the author draws deliberate parallels between the seduction of Igerne and the story of David and Bathsheba?

Well. That depends on what's important to you.

Insisting that the core elements of a myth -- whichever elements you believe those to be -- must remain static essentially means 'I want this myth to stagnate and die.' Maybe it's because I am Jewish, and we constantly re-evaluate every word in Torah, over and over again, every single year, or maybe it's because I spend way, way too much time thinking about what's valuable in stories specifically because I write words about these concepts for money, but I don't find these arguments compelling at all, especially not when it comes to core, 'mainstream' mythologies. These are tools in the common toolbox, and everybody has access to them.

More important to me than the idea that these core elements of any given story must remain constant is, to paraphrase Dolly Parton, that a story knows what it is and does it on purpose. Should authors present retellings or reimaginings of the Rape of Persephone or The Matter of Britain which significantly alter historically-known story elements as 'uncovered' myths or present them as 'the real and original' story? Absolutely not. If someone handed me a book in which the new Grail was a limited edition Macklemore Taco Bell Baja Blast cup and told me this comes directly from recently-discovered 6th century writings of Taliesin, I would bonk them on the head with my hardcover The Once & Future King. Of course that's not the case, right?

But the concept of canon, historically, in these foundational myths has not been anything like our concept of canon today. Canon should function like a properly-fitted corset, in that it should support, not constrict, the breath in the story's lungs. If it does otherwise, authors should feel free to discard it in part or in whole.

Concepts of familial duty and the obligation of marriage don't necessarily resonate with modern audiences the way that the concept of self-determination, subversion of unreasonable and unjustified authority, and consent do. That is not what we, as a general society, value now. If the latter values are the values important to the author -- the story that the author needs to tell in order to express who they are individually and culturally and what values are important to them* -- then of course they should retell the story with those changed values. That is the point of myths, and always has been.

Common threads remain -- many of us move away from family support regardless of the consent involved in our relationships, and life can be terrifying when you're suddenly out of the immediate reach and support of your family -- because no matter how different some values are, essential human elements remain in every story. It's scary to be away from your mother for the first time. It's scary to live with someone new, in a new place. It's intimidating to find out that other people think you have a Purpose in life that you need to fulfill. It's hard to negotiate between the needs of your birth family and your chosen family.

None of this, to be clear, is to say that any particular person should feel that they need to read, enjoy, or appreciate any particular retelling, or that it's cool, hip and groovy to misrepresent your reworking of a myth as a 'new secret truth which has always been there.' If you're reworking a myth, be truthful about it, and if somebody told you 'hey did you know that it really -- ' and you ran with that and find out later you were wrong, well, correct the record. It's okay to not want to read or to not enjoy a retelling in which Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere negotiate a triad and live happily ever after; it's not really okay to say 'you can't do that because you changed a story element which I feel is non-negotiable.' It's okay to say 'I don't think this works because -- ' because part of writing a story is that people are going to have opinions on it. It's kind of weird to say 'you're only allowed to color inside these lines.'

That's not true, and it never has been. Greek myths are not from a closed culture. Roman myths are not sacrosanct. There are plenty of stories which outsiders should leave the hell alone, but Greek and Roman myths are simply not on that list. There is just no world in which you can make an argument that the stories of the Greek and Roman Empires are somehow not open season to the entire English-speaking world. They are the public-est of domain.

You don't have to like what people do with it, but that doesn't make people wrong for writing it, and they certainly don't have to color within the lines you or anyone else draws. Critique how they tell the story, but they haven't committed some sort of cultural treachery by telling the stories which are important to them rather than the stories important to someone 2500 years dead.

****

*These are not the only reasons to tell a story and I am not in any way saying that an author is only permitted to retell a story to express their own values. There are as many reasons to tell a story as there are stories, and I don't really think any reason to create fiction is more or less valid than any other. I am discussing, specifically, the concept of myths as conveyors of essential cultural truths.

[llsilvertail]

(via @ace-and-ranty)

No no. Babe you're so right and you should say it.

[librarychair]

On cold days, I'm reminded of the luxury of modernity. What a wonderful thing to have 40 gallons of scalding hot water stored up in the basement, delivered to my shower at a moment's notice. How lovely to preheat my bed with the heated blanket sandwiched between sheet and comforter, ready to keep me from catching a chill when I lie down. Just decadent and so nice to be able to make my environment more gentle toward my body.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Peer reviewed tag (from OP):

#I wonder if my ancestors felt this way about the fire they tended

Well, there's this Homeric hymn (#20):

[1] Sing, clear-voiced Muse, of Hephaestus famed for inventions. With bright-eyed Athena he taught men glorious crafts throughout the world, —men who before used to dwell in caves in the mountains like wild beasts. [5] But now that they have learned crafts through Hephaestus the famed worker, easily they live a peaceful life in their own houses the whole year round.

Be gracious, Hephaestus, and grant me success and prosperity!

English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. (Source)

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

P.S.:

I also think it is not insignificant that Hephaestus was the physically disabled god who invented tools to make his life easier. The Personification of the Curb Cut Effect.

[dduane]

I'll never get tired of reminding people about Hephaestus's homemade mobility-assistance droids. When the Goddess Thetis comes to visit him about new armor for Achilles --

…he limped out leaning on a thick stick, with a couple of maids to support him. These are made of gold exactly like living girls; they have sense in their heads, they can speak and use their muscles… These bustled along supporting their master, and he stumbled to a chair beside Thetis…

And then there are the automated delivery robots (which I strongly suspect he initially made for household use before some other god asked why they couldn't be used for general deliveries).

…twenty tripods which were to stand around the walls of his room. He put golden wheels under the base of each, that they might run of themselves into any party of the gods and then run home again. They were a miracle! They were nearly done; only the lugs had to be put on, and he was just finishing these and forging the rivets. (Iliad XVIII, tr. Rouse)

But all through that poem he's Mr. Pragmatic: the disabled divinity who just gets on with things as best he can, and doesn't let what's happened to him stop him.

[wolfythewitch]

Hephaestus :D

[devotedtomygods]

Lord Hermes

42x59cm

I'm quite happy with this one, I loved expressing myself with all the colours and lines✨

[retreat-to-your-mood]

𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒈. 𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒉𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒎 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒋𝒐𝒚𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒎𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒇 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒛𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒑𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏-𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒆𝒅 𝒔𝒂𝒅𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔.

𝑴𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒂 𝑲𝒉𝒂𝒏

I don't own any of the pictures

[hekateanwitchcraft]

Look at what I saw on Twitter!!!

[teawiththegods]

If Apollo isn’t constantly making this face 😒 when he’s around you please tell me the cheat code you used to unlock his approval.

[lovecorekiss]

[April] Helpol 101 Recommended Reading + Free resources

Ello Everyone! This is a rather simple post this week, focusing on my recommended reading for hellenic polytheism as of April. As I read, I will naturally expand or change around my recommendations. So, here is my recommended reading for beginners as April 2021.  Personally, I would read Understanding Greek Religion, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion, and Devotionalism, Material Culture, and the Personal in Greek Religion to begin your studies.

BIPOC & Progressive Classics

I made a masterpost here. You should read it all.

General Ancient Greek Religion

Depew, M. (1997). Reading Greek Prayers. Classical Antiquity, 16(2), 229–258. [link]

Dignas, Beate, and Kai Trampedach, eds. 2008. Practitioners of the Divine: Greek Priests and Religious Figures from Homer to Heliodorus. Hellenic Studies Series 30. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. [link]

Eidinow, E., & Kindt, J. (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion (Oxford Handbooks) (Reprint ed.). Oxford University Press. [link] 

Henrichs, A. (2003). “Hieroi Logoi” and “Hierai Bibloi”: The (Un)Written Margins of the Sacred in Ancient Greece. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 101, 207-266. [link]

K.A. Rask, « Devotionalism, Material Culture, and the Personal in Greek Religion », Kernos [En ligne], 29 | 2016, mis en ligne le 01 octobre 2019 [link]

Larson, J. (2007). Ancient Greek Cults (1st ed.). Routledge. [link]

Larson, J. (2001). Greek Nymphs : Myth, Cult, Lore (1st ed.). Oxford University Press USA. [link]

Ogden, D. (2007). A Companion to Greek Religion (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World) (1st ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. [link]

Parker, R. (2011). On Greek Religion (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, 60) (Illustrated ed.). Cornell University Press. [link]

Pulleyn, S. (1998). Prayer in Greek Religion (Oxford Classical Monographs) (1st ed.). Clarendon Press.

Hestia

Brock G. (2018) Cosmopolitanism Beyond the Polis: Creative Memory Works and Reimagining the Relationship Between Xenia and Hestia. In: Giri A. (eds) Beyond Cosmopolitanism. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. [link]

Cross, Nicholas D. “The Hearth as a Place of Refuge in Ancient Greece.” Pallas (2020): 107–123. [link]

Çayir, Esra. The Study of the Concept of the Sacred Hearth and Greek Goddess of the Hearth and Their Association With the Prytaneion, Its Origins, and Its Development. Bilkent University, 2006. [link]

Kajava, M. (2004). Hestia Hearth, Goddess, and Cult. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 102, 1-20. doi:10.2307/4150030 [link]

Homeros

H., & Green, P. (2019). The Iliad: A New Translation by Peter Green (First ed.). University of California Press. [link]

H., & Wilson, E. (2018). The Odyssey (1st ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. [link]

Peter, Owen. (2015) Proportion and Apportionment: A Study in Homeric Values. McMaster University. [link]

Magic

Kerr M. D., (2018). Gods, Ghosts and Newlyweds: exploring the uses of the threshold in Greek and Roman superstition and folklore [link]

Ogden, D. (2009). Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. [link]

Petropoulos, J. (2014). Greek Magic (Monographs in Classical Studies) (1st ed.). Routledge. [link]

Mantikē

Beerden, K. (2013). Worlds Full of Signs: Ancient Greek Divination in Context (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World)(Approx. 272 Pp. ed.). BRILL. [link]

Flower, M. (2009). The Seer in Ancient Greece (First ed.). University of California Press. [link]

Johnston, S. I. (2008). Ancient Greek Divination (1st ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. [link]

Johnston, S. I., & Struck, P. T. (2005). Mantike: Studies in Ancient Divination (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World). Brill Academic Pub. [link]

Other Primary Sources

H., Scruton, R., Morrissey, C. S., & Voegelin, E. (2012). Theogony / Works and Days. Talonbooks. [link]

Rayor, D. J. (2014). The Homeric Hymns: A Translation, with Introduction and Notes (Joan Palevsky Imprint in Classical Literature) (First Edition, Updated ed.). University of California Press. [link]

Other

Bremmer, J. N. (2014). Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World (Münchner Vorlesungen zu Antiken Welten Book 1) (1st ed.). De Gruyter. [link]

Garland, R. (2001). The Greek Way of Death (Second ed.). Cornell University Press. [link]

Johnston, S. I. (2018). The Story of Myth (Illustrated ed.). Harvard University Press. [link]

Sommerstein, A. H., & Torrance, I. C. (2014). Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (Beiträge Zur Altertumskunde, 307) (Digital original ed.). de Gruyter. [link]

Sourvinou-Inwood, C. (1996). “Reading” Greek Death: To the End of the Classical Period. Clarendon Press. [link]

wordpress link

[trickstersartist]

Hermès is done!! Here he is with one of Apollo’s cattle.

‘Shh. Can’t you keep a secret?’

[theradmovie]

Hermès portrait practice ✨

[north-of-annwn]

Heathens, if you’re constantly worried about accidentally offending or angering your deities, I hate to tell you but you may have been the victim of religious abuse at some point in your life.

Healthy relationships, whether with human or spirit/deity, don’t use fear to strengthen the connection or control the relationship.

[clouds-of-wings]

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.

[skaldish]

Going to highlight this, since it’s a very excellent question to ask oneself:

“Could this way of thinking about spirituality be a product of abuse?”

[honorthegods]

Two or three people over the years asked me what can be done about abusive deities and this is is an excellent point to consider in addition to seeking the advice of a spirit worker.

[t0il-and-tr0ubl3]

8. Know Thyself

This might be the most well known Maxim of the bunch, and I wouldn't blame you if you were sick of hearing about it. I won’t talk your ear off about it either, just hit the major points and move on.

Knowing yourself is a taller task than many of us realize. We’re our own constant company, but don’t mistake spending time in your own head as knowing yourself. Self exploration, in many cases, has to be an intentional act. You have to spend time and energy looking into yourself when attempting to truly know and understand who you are.

We can stunt our own growth pretty easily. We can spend a set amount of time getting to know ourselves and then decide that’s enough. We can choose our labels, figure out what we want in the moment, and then lock ourselves in those labels and wants forever. Don’t use already knowing yourself as an excuse.

We are not static beings. That’s one of the beautiful things about being human. We change almost constantly. Take that change as it comes because you will never stop it. Like water eroding a mountain, you’re going to be changed over and over again throughout your life. Be aware of it, and figure out those changes as they come.

You are the only person who can know yourself in your entirety. Don’t squander that chance. You can’t do it for anybody else, and nobody can do it for you.