ill_made_knight

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/matauryn/2018/12/07/millennial-witches
"what millennial witches really want"
well, they don't want me, lol, that's for sure.

( Read more... )

interesting read
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-embarrassments-of-chronocentrism.html

http://galabes.blogspot.com/2016/05/on-separation-of-coven-and-state.html?m=1

just some telling statements, that really bug me, and why I totally shun pagandom.
"1. Is it so incomprehensible to you that some of the gods give POLITICAL instructions to their followers? That some people have relationships with gods that require that they engage in politics? How can you blithely assume that you are one of the 'us' that puts your Gods first, but that the many polytheists that write at Gods and Radicals aren't engaged in gods-inspired work?

2. Do you think that the gods can live on a dead planet? Do you think that colonization and imperialism, in exterminating countless cultures and ecosystems, hasn't also annihilated gods? How many gods have been erased along with the people that worshiped them? And what system of colonization and world conquest has been more brutal than the last half millenium of capitalist power?

To support not only your gods, but the existence of all gods, you have to be against capitalism because capitalism is destroying the world within which the gods live."

"If there was a warning about the possibility of fascism or something else negative in any field or practice would it then condemn that field and all it's practitioners by association."(?)
comments section: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2016/03/guilt-by-association.html#disqus_thread

"Paganism in general—and apparently Devotional and Reconstructionist Polytheism in particular—have been long overdue for a reckoning. How do we differentiate our own practices and beliefs from someone whose identical practises and beliefs actually lead them to advocate for racial purity or separtism, the primacy of European gods, eugenics to prevent the birth of disabled people, and even human sacrifice? What is really the difference between the Fascism of Augustus Sol Invictus, or New Right ideology of Stephen McNallen and Alain de Benoist, and the rest of polytheist belief?"

"There are some deeply difficult questions that we need to ask. Do the gods want us to return to ‘tribal’ societies, do the gods demand we war against Muslims and Atheists and Leftists, do the gods demand we institute strict hierarchies and authority-relationships between priests and the rest of us? And did those gods happen to notice those are the same ideas of the New Right?"

"Despite the fact that there are, indeed, writers and leaders who openly claim allegiance with many of the ideas of the New Right, it is the ideas which are the problem, not the people. In fact, we must not fall into that trap when confronting dangerous ideas—that’s the tool of Fascism, not of liberation. Humans are not the ideas or beliefs they hold, anymore than they are the color of their skin, their genitals, their ability, or their sexual orientation."

"from AnomalousThracian'fb page "

“Important to remember that this same sort of document circled in the US around 25 years ago, igniting the Satanic Panic, which sent the entire country (nay, the world..?!) into a frenzy of paranoia around witchcraft, magic, delusions of baby-killing and child-ritual-trafficking, and a whole lot of thinking that Dungeons and Dragons would open a portal to the underworld and unleash a literal apocalypse.”
“And then about, what, twenty five or thirty years before that, the same thing, in the McCarthy Era. Different language, different scapegoats, same paranoid and delusional fear-mongering propaganda.”

"There is some great degree of irony in a leftist witch being declared a McCarthyist or attempting to initiate a witch-hunt."

"If you are responsible for your writing, then you are responsible for what you communicate with your writing. This was an utterly predictable response, as you proved you knew by putting that in TWICE. You knew people were going to be offended by you listing groups, and if you really are the skilled writer people say you are, you ought to have known that those would be insufficient."
comments section
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/throughthegrapevine/2016/03/the-uncomfortable-mirror/?ref_widget=gr_popular&ref_blog=grails&ref_post=pagan

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/agora/2015/10/the-rantin-raven-wicca-was-the-tantra-of-the-west/?ref_widget=gr_trending&ref_blog=grails&ref_post=pagan

I remember the author from the old internet days of paganism (compuserv/aol/listserv's and newsgroups)
She's pretty much dead on. no flash, no 'flowery oratory', no 'messianic' messages to lead one into another rendition of pop witchcraft, just the straight dope.
except I do know how to get back to our roots, just go back to them. leave the "schools" and "churches", leave the pop witchcraft, the 'apocalyptic' witchcraft, "ye olde crafte" bs to the masses. Let them have their 'religions' and bless them on their path.
there comes a time when there are too many holes in the dam, and the 'little dutch boy" has to decide to head for higher ground....

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganrestoration/2015/10/my-ancestors-are-dead/
quite frankly this one is really dumb.
it seems the author equates ancestor worship with a type of necromancy.
then he undoes his basic premise about 2/3rds down.....

"When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual."
from Dune, Frank Herbert

http://polytheist.com/noeseis/2015/07/23/principles-of-mythological-hermeneutics-i/

to "christianity" with many gods....
this is the same exegesis used by the early church fathers, many forget the heavy neoplatonist influences in the formation of christian theology.Dunno who's worse Plato or Jung...
but hey, he's a PhD and I'm just some shmuck from jersey, heh.

"sermons" from the mound.....

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/sermonsfromthemound/2015/06/why-pagans-dont-evangelise/

then...
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/sermonsfromthemound/2015/06/things-pagans-care-about/

and.....

http://godsandradicals.org/2015/07/17/pagans-and-politics/

of course just throw in the phases "many pagans" or "most pagans" and one is off the hook....

and the classic rationale.... "religion and politics have been intertwined almost all of human history" in one of the replies to the last, and look where it got us, lol.
It's not about religion and politics, it's what comes after. the actual governance. There are no benign religions. None are free of dogma, despite the loud protestations of many.Religion has no business in governance, and government has no business in religion. It's dangerous to freedom. That is why certain persons made it the first amendment to their new country's constitution.
eh, but what would one expect from the writers of an outfit who is in the business of the "business to promote religion"
in the words of Leto II the god emperor.....
<tr><td width="100%" class="entry">"Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such Ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions."
Frank Herbert-Heretics of Dune </td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">

</td></tr>

theocracy in any form is a poison to life force.

so the theology thing has come around again. it's taken the form of an old christian argument 'faith' vs 'works', except in this case it is more like 'knowledge' vs 'practice'. I still marvel at the duality of the professed monists/nondualists tending to see things as either/or.
if one doesn't know where one came from, one doesn't know where one is headed.
There's also this notion being rather insinuated that 'theology' only came to prominance via christian thought and had little influence in ancient pagandom.lol Except for when they make the assertion that chrisianity lifted most of its theology from pagan sources. Really, if one knows anything about the early church one would know that the most influential christian fathers of a theological bent were schooled in pagan cults.
another instance of defining things from a christian perspective then denying 'pagans' do 'that' or shouldn't do that, based on that definition.

I marvel at the idea that the nature of the gods is somehow mysterious, paradoxical, supernatural or unknowable. the key to it has been passed down through millennia, from the oldest Upanishads to the inscription at Delphi, the Smagardine Tablet, to the more modern charge of the goddess and Victor Anderson's 'sutra'. even Joseph Smith.;-)
perhaps it is due to the dearth of the English language to have any terms for the various nodes within the vastness of the hierarchy of beings. Or the notion of 'god' signifying some vastly superior supernatural being, or perhaps it's the lack of a holistic thread linking cosmo-, theo- and anthropo-, genesis.

so why would one be in 'service' to something they don't, can't, or won't know the nature of?

I'm off to go float in the pool....

so for the last year, in my experiment of putting away 'foreign gods', the results seem to be positive. The garden is doing better than it has in any other year.The native flora and fauna have become more contented, and gift us regularly with their presence and bounty. Rain has been plentiful, and more of localised than regional sources.

In other news, probably against better judgment, I visited patheos pagan portal. The site has become a nightmare of commercialism, taking forever to load, and constant freezing.and so the commercializtion of religion grows. many comments get moderated and screened for content, but of course that isn't censorship, pagans don't do that. heh. Just like a lot of things 'Pagans don't do', but really do, they just use a more pleasing synonym to describe the practices. Gods forbid that pagans are seen as indulging in the same methods as the 'other religions'. They can't seem to think outside of the box. part of that is, I think, the heavy academic influences. Institutional learning is institutional after all lol, and so they still promote narrow views and contexts. And so the whitewashing continues.

my work schedule has regularized after the hectic time of the season opening so I am hoping to get back to some drum making. i also have some ideas for rhombus designs (bullroarers). W has some skins for me, I have to mill some stock for frames and steam them before I can process the skins. I also want to move out from frame to barrel body drums.

funny how the 'nodualist' see things in black and white, either /or for or against....mutually exclusive
and I'm the dualist and see things as complimentary

clowns on the left, jokers on the right
people today they give me a fright
gonna stay over here,
where I'll be out of sight.
cloaked in the welcoming blanket of night.
and sing the holy name...

well here's another piece of social theory
http://libjournal.uncg.edu/index.php/ijcp/article/view/249
Though it's a few years old it is the latest thing in which to browbeat people, and built into it are statements to prove the point no matter what a white person might say.
it's like this
" I have a theory that everything is red"
"but that thing over there is orange"
"runs over to the orange thing and paints it red"
"no it's not, it's red"

So no matter what you do or say, one is still stuffed into this stereotype, because any response one makes is covered as proof that the theory is valid.
One can't deny that one is anything like that, because that is seen as 'defensive' and a 'typical' response."it gets painted red"
it is also seen as an attempt to establish 'individuality' and that is also seen as a 'typical' response."it gets painted red"

yanno, some of us white folk have experienced discrimination based on superficial reasons. Some of us white folk have lost friends and loved ones to police brutality, have been on the receiving end of police brutality, with no recourse to justice.
But one can't say that because it's another 'typical' response. "it gets painted red."
because it is "impossible( for white folk) to fully understand the oppression of People of color". That is true, but is full understanding needed, to be able to relate? Is, say, being beaten up for having long hair any less a beating, than for being beaten up because one is black, or gay?

And so everything gets filtered through the lens of social justice theory. which by the way originates in the institutions of the very system folks condemn. And every one of these theories reinforce the systemic divide by furthering the divisiveness, of the traditional view of class and race/ethnicity.It keeps folks divided. it eliminates any kind of shared experiences that can provide a common ground for compassion. All they do is perpetuate interracial and interclass violence, distrust and hate. All they do is provide more labels to separate folks from coming together. And who does that benefit?

that snow globe....
so the earth day big reveal was the going public of "a pagan community statement on the environment" followed by the reaction to it by the pagan anti capitalist 'front'. seems it didn't include any mention of capitalism, but cited humanity in general for doing in the eco system.
The anti capitialist crowd is having none of that, because you see, it isn't humanity but capitialism wot done it. because blaming all of humanity for climate change lets capitalism off the hook.
whew, glad to hear that.For a while there I thought we all were contributing to the mess by our consumerist consumption.
of course it's that dastardly 1% at it again, messing it up for the rest of us. No wait, hmmm it was James Watt!!!(or was it Thomas Newcomen,or Hero of Alexandria, nah Hero was a pagan he wouldn't do that) it's all his fault!!!
well anyway, we are all off the hook now,so we can go on with our business as usual and tweet about those darn capitalists on our I phones, galaxies, androids, while we stop and wait in line at starbucks, since after all, none of us are capitalists by the new definition. People don't hurt the environment, capitalism does.All by itself.
Come to think of it maybe it's not any humans at all, maybe the 1% isn't even human maybe its the annunaki from the planet niburu The 'gods come back', or OMGS Reptilians from Alpha draconi or is it from the hollow earth?
yeah that must be it.

in the modern pagan snow globe....
found this of interest
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/allergicpagan/2015/04/13/putting-marx-in-his-place-why-we-need-a-change-in-spirit-as-much-as-a-change-in-economic-system/

ah a glimmer!!
some are starting to get it. yet the new radicals are still adamantly insisting "It's the system!!!"
Thing is who is this chimera called "the System"?
well the simple answer is People.
people design the system, people employ the system, and the system reflects the ethos of people.
to change, one needs to change the ethos of the people. there is no other way to change The System.

You would become a Witch. Do not expect to become wealthy; only rich. If you would do magic for money, you do it to sustain yourself and your work. You will not live in luxury, perhaps not even in comfort if you are a professional. That is for a rare few who write books for the laity, or for those who have wealthy clients. But again, these are rare, and even so should not be sought after. Expect only that you may help a few who are superstitious and ignorant. The sophisticated, and therefore the rich, are not likely to come to you,unless it be to milk your secrets from you. And would you be so cruel and monstrous as to demand excessive payment from the poor? I know no Witch who would. I expect you will be of this more humane variety as well.
G.P "Anatomy of a Witch"
except they aren't so rare anymore, and are the 'rule' it seems rather than the exception...

so we've had our array on line for three years now. It generates 60% of our electrical needs. In addition we've also reduced our usage by about 25% through conservatory practices.
Prior to installation we used an average of 13,000 kwh per year. that average is now down to 9,000.
We generate an average of 5,600 kwh per year. Slightly lower than our design rating of 5,700
So far,between the savings on our electric bill and the sale of srecs we've recouped 25% of our initial investment, even though the past 2 years have had less than average solar days (down about 10%).