i had an interesting questions asked of me today, namely why pagan message boards flare up into monumental name calling, bitch slapping, flame wars?

so why do you think message boards, online communities and email lists of the pagan variety sometimes devolve into flame war? (especially considering paganism in general prides itself on tolerance.)

any takers?


(also mods if you think that this question is to likely to create an actually flame war please feel free to delete)

Does anyone have an opinion on him? Good, Bad, Why? 

Recently a friend and I were discussing how to write the experiences we have that which fall into the category of personal gnosis or experiences in which we see, hear, know of, etc a divine being of a specific mythology. We discussed mainly how these experiences are hard to write as often you can come across as at worst being totally fluffy and at best a good fantasy writer. So how can we, as a community better express this rather hard to discuss topic, especially with such diversity in our community?

The following is from Ellen Evert Hopman:

An Urgent Plea Concerning Druid Veterans and Their Families and Friends.
Please Read and Pass This Along!

Dear all:

To date I have not received any new letters from vets stating their desire to have the 'Awen' symbol on their headstones, nor any copies of letters to next of kin or clergy stating the same. It will be very hard to proceed with this cause as a religious freedom issue unless we can show that there are Druid vets out there who want the symbol.

The campaign is at a critical point once again and we really need those letters. Can you please alert your members?

Thank you in advance and here is my address again; POB 219 Amherst, MA 01004 EE Hopman

Please see message from Selana Fox below;


Greetings, All,

This is follow-up to some individual and group discussions I have had with some of you previously, and most recently, Ellen.

It is a good idea to get letters from Druid vets and Druids on active duty in the US military who state that they have the Awen symbol as their emblem of belief and that they want it added to the Va's list of emblems of belief that can be included on gravestones it issues for deceased veterans.

Their letters should state that after death, they would like the Awen included on their VA-issued grave marker which will be ordered by next of kin.

It also is a good idea to have the next of kin of each of these veterans informed about the veteran's wishes regarding the Awen being included on gravestones to be ordered after the veteran's death from the VA. Something in writing from the veteran/soldier to her/his next of kin could be very helpful.

I met by phone this week with staff from the US Department of Veterans Affairs to get another update on the progress of the revision of the new procedures for adding additional emblems of belief to the Va's authorized list. This bureaucratic process is still in the works. During this call, no one could estimate as to how soon the process would be completed. I did lean that the process was continuing to move, although slowly. We plan to continue to track this.

Although the Va's new procedures have not been released yet and supposedly have gone through quite a few changes as a result of the revision process that was begun in January 2007,several VA staff I spoke with over the past year indicated to me that, as with the previous set of procedures, that a symbol will be eligible to be on the list after a veteran or one on active duty dies and had wanted a symbol on her/his marker and the next of kin knows of this and makes that request of the VA as part of the gravestone/marker/plaque application process.

During our settlement of the Circle Sanctuary vs. Nicholson lawsuit in April 2007 which resulted in the Pentacle being added to the list, I made certain that our attorneys (from Americans United for Separation of Church and State) included a clause in the settlement agreement that allowed me and Circle Sanctuary to work on behalf of other emblems of belief being added to the list. When asked about the reason for this clause by media at the national press club news conference on April 23,2007, the day the Pentacle was added to the list, I specifically mentioned the need for the Druid symbol to be added.

Should any of you know of a Druid vet or Druid on active duty who dies and has requested the Awen to be on a VA headstone and the next of kin is planning to order a marker from the VA, please contact Circle Sanctuary as soon as possible so we can be available to help as needed.

Contact:
Lady Liberty League
Circle Sanctuary
liberty@circlesanct

Am I being a thick-skinned lout because I don't feel like rushing to sign the online petition or write to NBC Denouncing Gifford and demanding that she apologize to the Entire Pagan Community (whoever THAT is supposed to be) for the remark she made in this clip? The offending remark happens at approximately 4:27.

first, it seems the Pagan reference was to "ancient" Pagans. Second, her "dirty nasty Pagan" comment, IMO, was more to let the guy know that the answer was NOT "C" -- she was giving a "hint" to the contestant. That's what it seemed like from where I sit. Am I being naive in thinking no harm to any living people was meant? Do we need to start a media campaign against NBC or are some people in the "Pagan Community" blowing this out of proportion?

(I also don't think online petitions are an effective means of political action. If action is warranted, a real letter on paper sent to the network, show's producers, and the sponsor would be more effective (and more costly, to be sure). And probably press releases about the protest and boycott (which is also being touted on some e-lists) is also advised, otherwise the sponsor won't realize we're boycotting them.

EDIT/UPDATE: apparently CLG "apologized" on the air - not a specific thing but a generic "Mea Culpa" that shows up on this clip, at time marker (appx) 2:51. And I almost didn't make it through the clip to the "apology".

The linked article that follows raised a number of interesting questions for me, particularly with the sometimes-rabid anti-syncretic, hard polytheist discourse of intelligent contemporary paganism - a perhaps understandable stance in light of some of the more wildly appropriative forms of neopaganism. Particularly interesting is the contrast between clergy and people here, with the dismissal of heterodox religious practice by clergy and the popular reaction.

From today's Guardian:

Sisters and goddesses
Legend has it that it was the apostle, Thomas, the doubting one, who brought Christianity to Southern India - and now, aside from the odd jealous spat, the Virgin Mary and goddess Bhagavati are worshipped with equal fervour.

"But, for sisters, don't they look rather different from each other?" I asked. A calendar image of the goddess, pinned up behind him, showed Bhagavati as a wizened hag wreathed in skulls and crowned with an umbrella of cobra hoods. In her hand she wielded a giant sickle.

"Sisters are often a little different from each other," he replied. "Mary is another form of the Devi. They have equal power." He paused: "At our annual festival the priests take the goddess around the village on top of an elephant to receive sacrifices from the people. She visits all the places, and one stop is the church. There she sees her sister.""

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/jun/28/india

No, I'm not planning a ritual in which I call on Odin and Kali as the Lord and Lady. That's just silly.

But I am having some deity trouble. Some background:

I am an eclectic Pagan. Have been practicing for nearly 12 years. What I do is very low-brow magic and ritual. Kitchen witchery stuff and celebrations of Sabbats with an emphasis on their agricultural roots. I am more likely to read a book on anthropology before writing a ritual than a book on Wiccan magickal correspondences. I have never had a specific patron Deity, I call on the faceless Lord and Lady.

Recently, I have been "pestered" by a few deities. My first reaction was that I was either dreaming or hallucinating, but then they became insistent. First was Hecate, telling me that I needed to choose a patron and that it should be her. She had all sorts of good reasons, but there were a lot of strings attached, such as daily meditation and more focused ritual work, neither of which I have much time for.

Then, I was approached by Bast and Anubis together, with Bast doing most of the speaking. They also informed me that I needed to choose some patron deities, and that it didn't really matter who I chose, but they wanted me to know that there were there if I needed them.

I recently became pregnant, and initially Hecate made a few comments about how I needed to thank her for it. Instead, I set up an altar to Bast and left her offerings of sandalwood, milk, and catnip (I have absolutely no idea what offerings should be left to an Egyptian Goddess... my own felines helped in the decision). It wasn't meant out of any disrespect to Hecate, I just felt that Bast was more influential in these matters.

Since then, Bast is the only one talking to me. The problem I have is that I don't want to follow any Egyptian-flavored version of Paganism. I like what my religion has evolved into for me. Following an 8-Sabbat Wheel of the Year works well in my Upper Midwest home. Plus, it appeals to my heritage: a long line of English, Scottish, and Irish farmers. My cousins and I are actually the first generation of my family not to spend any part of our childhood on a farm. Most of us did grow up in farm country, though.

So, I think my question is: Does anyone else have patron Deities of a pantheon that does not coincide with your day-to-day spiritual path? And how do you make it work without coming off as a fluffy "pick-and-choose" freak? And does anyone know what a really good offering would be to Bast, because I think my cats just want me to put milk and catnip in a place where they have easy access. :-)

Anyone who casts runes using a mat - I'm curious about what structure your design follows. I have two ideas on designing a rune mat at the moment, but some other examples and influence would be great. At present, it's a friend's design based on one by Kenneth Meadows, or one I knocked up based on the cross spread design in my rune book.
Don't suppose anyone knows how it might have been designed in the past? If not, what does your rune mat look like, and why?

While some may find the very nature of LOLCats annoying, there are some of us who it entertains the heck out of. One of these people is elisem, who wrote the LOLCat Rede (which made it to Memphis for an April Fool's Ritual). She has now turned her attention to the Nine Noble Virtues. I will place a cut for those not interested, and to save your friends page.

( Here there be virtues. )

Now I am waiting for the AteFold Pathz to be done.

And my utmost apologies to anyone offended by the humor contained above. No. Srsly. So sorry. Fer realz.

Inspired by dramah in a locked post in another community . . .

Is it ever okay to bash someone's spiritual tradition or private personal practise if the person is just quietly going about doing what they do and not in anyone's face about it? When is it (ever) justified to tell someone that they're doing it wrong?

I'm not talking about people making outrageous claims or doing anything illegal or unethical--just people quietly going about their devotional and spiritual life.

ETA: the original dramah had nothing to do with any definition of the word Wicca. :)

Ok so I missed our 5th birthday.

So, go us!

We never have hit the 2k mark in membership, and this saddens me. Then I remember who was supposed to join and can name them all by name, and I am still amazed and amused by the whole thing.

The list will always start with 7leaguebootdisk and end with our darling zothe, no matter how large the list gets.

That's all. Just realizing we have been around longer than some, not as long as others. The conversations over the last couple days have tickled and pleased me all over again.

I think it is time to go on a tagging spree again. 5 years worth of posts, we should have SOME kind of order...

Also, we are coming up on the anniversary of the swisscelt modding as it happened when mycorethoughts, simianlovedoc and I all went on vacation. Which we are about to do again!

My 12-year-old brother came across my Tarot deck and asked for a reading. Though our Catholic mother wouldn't let me do it for him, it got me wondering how I would even go about it. All I know is the Celtic Cross spread (only in the last year have I really gotten the hang of my Rider-Waite deck), and I would think it'd be too complicated for him to understand. He's a smart kid and all, but do you think it would go over his head? If our mom becomes more comfortable with the idea, how would you suggest I explain it to him? He's not particularly invested in Catholicism (and I don't see how Tarot contradicts it), though we go to mass every week, and and he goes to Sunday school. But he's been posing the Big Questions, like how we know God exists, if Creationism is true, etc. He even asked me if the pagan gods exist. Aww, I may already be corrupting him. ;)

For the past couple of weeks, there has been a figure just on the periphery of my dreams and it's weirding me out a bit. The dreams I'm having have nothing to do with him, he's just there. He is a black man  in some kind of breechclout. He's  tall, very bony and he is invariably doing a handstand on a drain grate. He never looks directly at me, but he is aware of me being there. There is also the impression of some sort of colorful bag associated with him.

Yeah, I don't get it.

Now to the really oddball part.

Two nights ago, I used lucid dreaming technique to say hello. He looked right at me, then without breaking his handstand, he bent his leg and tapped my right shoulder twice with his toe.

Yeah, really do not get it, but now I have a brainworm about it. I've been googling, but come up with nothing - though that might be more because I haven't got an inkling of where to start.

Can anyone give me a clue?

A particular thread on "the devil you know" v. "the devil who gets the job done" from an earlier post got me wondering:

As a matter of personal preference, would you rather stretch the attributes of one of your patron deities to help you with a particular problem, or would you rather go searching through the proverbial Deity Yellow Pages to find a specialist?

Sub-questions: Would you rather wait for Hogswatchnight to create Bilious the Oh God of Hangovers, Jeff the God of Biscuits, and Aqanuksiauq the God of Regretting You Poked the Hive of the Angry Bees, or would you rather practice Conservation of Belief* and generalize under the attributes of an existing deity who may not be your patron? Does specialist-hunting contribute significantly to eclectic paganism, or has it more frequently a broader, more intuitive motivation?

* ...by which I mean refraining from creating smaller, specialist gods, and instead going to those with a more diversified portfolio, saving belief for those who already exist and thus already have a certain gravitas. Some people like to personalize, though.

I don't often do begging posts, but 'shamanism' is in the comm interests and I figure the non-fluffy community are the only ones worth talking to at this point...

I'm looking for an online group about academic studies of shamanism. Something like The International Society for Shamanistic Research, and their "Shaman" periodical, or an equivalent of cr_r for global shamanism. Basically, somewhere which talks about real authentic practices with a distinctly non-fluffy approach, can actually cite texts or research, and won't start quoting D J Conway at me.

I looked online. I went to the LJ's and yahoogroups and all the rest, and quickly DROWNED IN THE HORRIFYING TIDE OF FLUFFY that seems to be any community with the word "shaman" in it. I'm not asking for academic excellence or elitism, I just want somewhere that posts about more than people's own UPG from neo-shamanism.

Anyone know of any suitable groups or websites?

---------

Edit: I don't want to *become* a "shaman". I want to mix with people who can talk about the various traditions in an academically truthful way.

You know what they say. One time is a freak occurrence. Two times is a fluke. Three times and it becomes a trend for some and dogma for others. Before that happens, I want to know I'm not completely out there on my views....

In a discussion on four elements (earth, air, fire, water) or five (adding spirit), I saw a couple different people make a statement that had me scratching my head.

When casting a circle, more than one person said that they see the "element" of spirit as so important and all encompassing that they don't bother calling the other four in a circle casting but, in their words "skip those other elements and just call the element of spirit".

Has anyone else run into this kind of thought process? (Or, does anyone else actually do that....) Is this something that will become more commonplace in the future? If so, why? Is it in some book out there that everyone has been reading lately? (I'm so behind the times!)

And certainly I know that the whole four elements/five elements thing is its own loaded topic. Just for disclosure, I'm in the four element camp, and so I don't "call the element of spirit" anyhow.

Author Raven Kaldera has put out a call for submissions for an upcoming book about the importance of UPG in paganism and the occult.

“The Personal Gnosis Handbook: Inspiration In Pagan Religious Practice”

This book will be a handbook for Pagan religious groups as to how to cope with the issue of personal gnosis in your religion. How do you tell what’s really a divine message and what’s not? Who decides, and what’s fair? Is fair even relevant when the Gods are involved? How do you figure it out anyway? This book will tackle all those hard questions, including how to turn UPG (unverified personal gnosis) into PCPG (peer-corroborated personal gnosis), and when you shouldn’t.

Basic assumptions of this book:

-Personal gnosis is desirable and valuable, and a side effect of having actual real Gods, not just archetypes.

-Personal gnosis, when applied to group practice, needs to be judged by a variety of criteria.


I'm a bit excited by this! I think it's certainly a good time for a book like this to be written.

In another forum I'm a member of, someone got "pagan" and "wicca" confused as being the synonyms, and I responded by posting a "family tree" of paganism. It then occured to me that this might be a really useful outline for a workshop at CMA where I'm currently part of youth services (specifically with teens).

So I'd like feedback on this outline, so that it becomes not something I pulled out of my ass in 10 minutes, but something that I can use confidently to discuss the diversity of paganism. It's really only a slightly modified (expanded?) version of Bonewit's categories. I'd like to avoid the flamewar of where to put British Traditional Wicca, if you don't mind, but discussions of the placement of everything else is desired.

Please note that the categories of Paeleopaganism, Mesopaganism, and Recontructionism contain well known examples and are not intended to be exhaustive.

Edit:"Family Tree" was obviously a horrible name for my original intention... How about "slightly more detailed categories than Bonewits"? Although the concept of an actual family tree to go with it is pretty intriguing... It would probably need to be done wiki style though, as I can't imagine having the time to look *all* of it up myself

( new list )
( original list )

I just.... no words. You guys come up with some.

Spells Cast at Anti-Marine Rally in California

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354689,00.html

I'm a nature sort of person when it comes to feeling the energy of a place or thing, but there's no denying the energy present in rush hour traffic. Yesterday, it was very noticeable, a warm afternoon, one of the first of the year, sitting in slow moving traffic on the motorway with the windows down and good music on, and everyone else doing the same, and there was a powerful energy - aggressive, but not threatening or oppressive. It was interesting.

Is Atheism an acceptable form of a pagan belief, or are Atheists who claim to be pagans 'doing it wrong'?

Public xpost to britpagan

And still may not have the wording correct. Feel free to fling things.

Where do you *personally* draw the line between the mystery in a religion and mental illness?

I was married for many years to a man with schizto affective disorder. All the paranoia and voices of schizophrenia and the mood swings of the bipolar disorder. I have the tendency to come down hard on the side of asking about med levels first and believing UPG from someone second. That being said, noticing that my daughter has maybe inherited some of my family "talents" makes me wonder why I don't question what she is "hearing" and take it at face value. It makes me wonder if the years that I have no longer been exposed to the Crazy, I have started to relax a little.

So, is it bullshit meter or personal experience or what that makes you draw the line on what you believe from people?

Just curious. Like I said, been chewing on this one for a while.

I occasionally see cousins-in-faith remark on how it might be dangerous (or at least inadvisable) to be a public pagan, particularly in certain locations (regions, etc.)

Since I will likely wait until the day after Ragnarök to see a disciplined, scientific survey that asks the questions for which I'd like to see answers, I thought I'd come here for one or both of two things:

1) Citations of "you ignoramus there are such studies go look in that direction;" *

2) Anecdotal answers to the questions, to wit:

Do you feel threatened by the prospect of being a public pagan where you live?

If so, what specific outcomes do you fear?

Can you cite verifiable (media report, court archives, first-person account in published form) evidence to support that those outcomes have happened where you live?

Please note: I am not looking for an argument about what is or is not happening. I don't care to try to measure frequency or severity. What I want is sincere answers to my question, and the opportunity to learn something.

Simple answers are the most I expect. Yes, no, a brief list for the second question, that will suffice. If the reader is inspired to write more, I promise you an avid and respectful audience of at least one.

I'll start by asserting that I have more than one affirmative answer to the questions from my personal experience. I will also disclose that I am a public pagan, find myself in situations where disclosing my faith is better left undone, and I wouldn't personally categorize my current outlook as "threatened". Inconvenienced would be closer to the mark for me. Finally, I'll point out that I'm 52 and have been on a pagan path since the age of 17. Much can happen and change over that much time.

* I enjoy being found ignorant. It means that I still have the joy of discovery in my future. ;-)