#Syncretic Practice
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Jamaican Obeah
Jamaican Obeah refers to the practice of Obeah, a spiritual and magical tradition rooted in West African and Caribbean cultures. Obeah has a significance presence in Jamaica and holds cultural and historical importance on the island. Obeah in Jamaica has its roots in the spiritual beliefs and practices brought to the Caribbean through the transatlantic slave trade. Enslaved Africans brought with them a rich tapestry of religious and spiritual traditions, and Obeah emerged as a distinct syncretic practice in Jamaica. Individuals who practice Obeah are often referred to as "Obeah men" or "Obeah women". These practitioners have a deep understanding of the spiritual realm and are sought after for their abilities in healing, protection, divination and other spiritual services.
It's crucial to approach discussions about Jamaican Obeah with cultural sersitivity, recognizing the diversity of beliefs and practices within the Afro-Caribbean spiritual landscape. Different individuals and communities may have variations in their practices, and interpretations may differ among practioners. Respect for cultural beliefs and traditions is essential and fostering understanding.
#Obeah#Spiritual#Magical#Tradition#West African#Caribbean#Culture#History#Enslaved Africans#Syncretic Practice#Healing#Protection#Divination#Afro-Caribbean#Jamaica
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Dual faith folk witches
Polish Folk Witch (on instagram and Patreon) has an excellent article on dual faith practice and syncretism among folk witches: Dual Faith: the elephant in the room of the witchcraft community. The topic of dual faith keeps returning on a regular basis in the broader witchcraft community online, especially on the intersection of folk magic, paganism and christian occultism. Folk witches often…
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#diversity#dual faith#dual-faith practice#dvoeverie#folk Catholicism#folk witches#noteworthy posts#occult#Pagan#Polish folk witch#practice#religious identity#spirituality#syncretism#tradition#Wicca#witchcraft
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when reading scripture or religious texts in my studies from a variety of religions (a not-insignificant part of my education has been religious studies) i can appreciate and understand the beauty and appeal of it and make sense of its internal logic system and worldview and feel that i'm picking up what it's putting down even if i don't necessarily identify with it on a personal level, but i gotta be honest i always feel like i'm missing something or losing my mind when i read christian texts like i don't get it and it doesn't make sense to me and nothing about the trinity makes sense to me and the entire worldview feels so harsh and terrifying and bleak for no reason and every time i've asked anyone in my family (on the christian side) to explain any of it to me like sincerely i just feel more baffled and whenever i've had to read passages of the new testament i dont get it at all like even abstractly i don't understand and it makes me feel crazy like what i'm looking at has to be completely different from what other people are seeing and i don't mean it in a reddit atheist smug asshole way like it's genuinely beyond my comprehension I Don't Get It and i don't think i ever will
#and this is solely looking at texts/scripture/writings like i understand its historical and material context and aesthetics#i appreciate the way thay different ethnic groups have adapted xtianity to their culture and find it fascinating when it is syncretic#with ancient traditions and respect peoples right to practice and understand many xtian minorities have faced persecution etc#but every time i read something from the new testament im like is this really...??? uhhhh#and i dont feel that way at all w any other religions texts i can vibe with it i see what its doing and understand it and appreciate it#i find it so deeply unappealing in every possible way . truly just not for me sorry#it doesnt help the sheer amnt of bad experiences ive had with xtians targeting me for conversion#explicitly even after being told that i am sikh and not interested and continued to be harassed#and a genuinely traumatic incident w christian family counselling ive blocked out lol
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ive recently felt called to selene and so many things have shifted in my life since then. its kind of strange but comforting
#im also really interested in the hekate-selene-artemis syncretism and incorporating that into my practice#i havent heard of many people doing that but !!! i dont know#if anyone worships selene talk to me pls ily#helpol#hellenic polytheism#selene#selene deity#selene worship
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idle curiosity: does anyone I know have any recommendations for researching Buddhism from a more practical perspective, as opposed to the often philosophical/secular one presented in a lot of English texts?
#cipher talk#Especially if you like. Grew up with Buddhism#A lot of this is because I'm trying to figure out the historically informed way to write about the way a real group may have practiced#(Therapeutae- Egyptian sect that is currently thought to have a Judeo-Buddhist syncretized religion)#(The information we have from the time says North Indian Buddhists sent emissaries into Ptolemic Egypt and Eastern Rome but we also have#A great deal of evidence that Roman Egypt traded with Tamil peoples and that possibly was a greater influence. Sri Lanka esp is mentioned)#But also I would like to learn in general
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lmao @ that reblog riffing off someone's post saying they think of wheat fields as mystical and corn fields as less so. the reblogger claims wheat seems magical to the op because it is "tied to the ancestral rituals and beliefs of most white people"
most white people's ancestors have been christian for hundreds if not over a thousand years. i hate to break it to the neopagans but we know very little about most prechristian european religious beliefs and a lot of what we do know comes through roman and/or christian writers. so those "ancestral rituals and beliefs" are vestigial at best and completely gone in most cases.
if they had just said "corn seems spookier than wheat to some white people because white people have been growing wheat for longer than corn and corn is associated with Native Americans and therefore with negative stereotypes," that would have been a defensible thesis
you could argue that when white people became interested in recovering the pre-christian beliefs of their ancestors, they carried existing patterns of meaning (including colonialist and racist bias) into the ways they reconstructed and built on those beliefs. that could explain why someone who finds spiritual meaning in a wheat field finds it there and not in a corn field. but that is a distinctly different argument
#for someone with a background like mine to claim they have some sort of cultural affinity for wheat rituals#when their ancestors probably converted to christianity about 1600-1200 years ago#would be absurd#to claim they have positive or negative associations with certain types of agriculture because of cultural history? that makes sense!#chris talks#of course there are syncretisms and vestiges that characterize different denominations and regions of christian practice#but that's not the same thing as a contiguous religious tradition
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Currently working on a some syncretism with Hellenic Deities and creating my own personal Hellenic Pantheon. I’ll probably post some graphics once I’m done but if anyone has any direct queries my AskBox is open 🥰
#HelPol#Personal Spirituality#Personal Practice#syncretism#deity syncretism#personal pantheon#Hellenic pantheon#thewitchfarhan
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Ig at the end of the day (note that this isn't directed towards any particular person) I just find the practice of specifically 'occult' research to be very silly— it's the acquirement of vast amounts of knowledge without any learning. Esotericism has had historical value as a form of community building, or philisophizing, or even scientific study in the millenia prior to an actual useful understanding of chemistry, but the study of the "occult" tends to be at the explicit exclusion of any attempts to understand current or historical culture/philosophy, and doesn't tend to form community to boot.
#logxx#Esp bc the people who do this often very vocally announce thst they think it's fake#Like ummm you can learn chemistry and do Alchemy In Real Life... or do religious studies if the spirituality / ritual is what interests you#...#And then there's alsonthe fact that this genre of person also literally never has any interest in modern mysticism#Like they're very in denial of the existence of folk Catholicism or other syncretic religiosn#Or even just non-Western mystical practices broadly#Like 90% of the time these guys won't know what Taoism even Is and a remaining 9% is just like Uhhh#Isn't That That Fake Feng Shui Shit Sounds Dumb and you're like . Ok
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Well, I guess we're doing syncretic crimes now.
When I first opened my ADF Hearth, it felt strange, not having my Netjeru there. They told me it would be clear what to do in time. The Owl I drew that night reminded me to venture into the unknown, to act on one's unusul truths.
...so naturally, I didn't give the Hearth the attention I intended, that I wanted to offer. Because I felt weird.
Then They made it clear, in a yes/no oracle, that They absolutely wanted to be on the ADF Hearth. That for now, we are just traveling through ADF. That while I am learning what needs to be learned here, They will be strangers in a strange land alongside me.
...so I put Them on the Hearth and continued to feel weird, because syncretic treatment of the Netjeru is something I have always been told was wrong. Maybe even cultural appropriation. An act that neither Kemetics nor Druids approved of someone doing. So I kept avoiding it.
Well, now we've done it.
The disconnect from prior Hearth Keeping rituals vanished in an instant. They were with me.
Tonight's omen was the Moth. Directly from the book: "Moth whispers for you to trust your knowing even if others wish to persuade you have different realities."
Okay Dads. I get it. At least for now... We're doing syncretic crimes.
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Hmmmm I wonder if other Latines on campus would be interested in being in a Mexica and Maya social and informative club. We can keep track of the Anahuac calendar and do little things all year. Learn bits of Nahuatl and some of the Maya languages
#I have a few resources I’d love to share w more latinos irl#especially when I live in a place that celebrates Mexican tradition w danza and borrowed/syncretic indigenous practices
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#so i have been looking at ancestral practices to add to my collection#(WHITE SUPREMACISTS AND NATIONALISTS THIS POST IS NOT FOR YOU KEEP FUCKING MOVING)#bc my heritage is mostly hungarian and slavic and germanic#i have been peeking into those areas#and everything seems to be leading back to the scythians as far as a practice/cosmology that resonates#but it is so difficult to find untainted info#obvs im not talking about christianity bc it just kind of syncretized its way in#and that’s fine#tho im most comfortable with a practice that is faaaar away from christianity for personal reasons#im talking about like. people made shit up and also white nationalism#ofc because i live in the US my main focus is my region#but i like what im finding and i wish i could find MORE#would scythian practice be closed??? is it weird for me to go so far back in history????#agh this is mostly just the result of me not having anybody to talk to about this IRL so im going insane#ALSO how much of this is closed???#i know there are potentially shamanic practices in some of this and i don’t want to take what’s not mine#even if some of my ancestry is held there i didnt grow up in it and i really do not want to take what i am not welcome to#these are practices that i respect so deeply and i do not want to do them an injustice.#ALSO of course the white american lack of identity leading to people saying ‘oh im x nationality’ when their family is generations removed#there’s a lot going on there that i can’t speak to eloquently#but i know that’s something to consider as well#(my recent ancestors mostly kind of suck so building a practice based on them isnt something i will do#just as an aside to why I’m doing this specific searching so far back)#but the lack of cultural identity (or more the ‘american identity is the default so much that we dont even see it anymore’#and ‘my ancestors squashed their heritage so they could assimilate but were still extremely privileged in many areas so#how do i reclaim that and still acknowledge my struggle is lesser than others’)#so im going insane. again.)#if anybody with perspective wants to chat about this please hmu!!!! i am begging you!!!!!
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"Hath not an augment eyes?" Julian asked. "Or would you prefer it as it is in the original?"
Worf looked away first. "I have never liked that play."
"I have come to find it edifying, in some ways."
#cipher talk#ds9#Another random snippet I had pop into my head and don't know what to do with#Unironically I love that monologue! It's iconic! There's a reason the sentiment of 'if you cut us do we not bleed' is so popular in speech#And it's actually very interesting to think about the whole 'original klingon' thing here- what is the equivalent to Jews in their version#Of MoV? Do Klingons simply have Jews as a recognized cultural entity?#(Yes there's Worf but technically Worf does not canonically seem to be a practicing Jew- though the fact that the Klingon gods are dead#Does lead to interesting lines of inquiry about syncretism)#Something something joke about there being a Chabad house on Qo'noS before Earth even made first contact#I'm certain there is good fic out there digging into the intersection through Worf that I'd like#Also wanted to have the line translated but there is no translation of MoV into Klingon and the machine translations are obviously trash#I think about Julian asking him 'do you think I don't deserve to wear this uniform?' a lot#Often bc I think a valid reading of Augmentation in ds9 is a criticism of 90s military culture around queer men alongside the obvious#And that line is one of the key points in that reading for me#I need more Jewish Julian content#Especially the stuff that engages with uncomfortable implications in the Federation
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Folk witches and dual faith
Polish Folk Witch (on instagram and Patreon) has an excellent article on dual faith practice and syncretism among folk witches: Dual Faith: the elephant in the room of the witchcraft community. The topic of dual faith keeps returning on a regular basis in the broader witchcraft community online, especially on the intersection of folk magic, paganism and christian occultism. Folk witches often…
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#Christianity#dual faith#dual faith practice#dvoeverie#folk witches#other people’s journeys#Paganism#Polish folk witch#spiritual wobbles#syncretism
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***THIS BLOG IS 18+ ONLY. MINORS DNI***
TERFs/Dianic Wiccans are not welcome here.
Khaire 👋🫂
Welcome to my e-altar dedicated to Lady Artemis Potnia Theron 🌙🏹🦌
(complimentary devotional playlist included with your visit ⬇️)
About Me:
🌙 Taylor
🍄 Animist
🪷 They/Them
🦌 Adult (25+)
🏹 Oathbound devotee/worshiper of my beloved Patron, Divine Mother, and Queen; Mistress Artemis-Diana Potna Thea
Praise to divine Mistress Artemis, architect of my soul and eternal keeper of my heart.
She of the wolves and of the deer. She of the hunt and of the fire. Swift running archer who haunts the forest wilds and roams in the night. The cresent moon, her silver bow. She who dwells at the mountain peak. She of the Earth and the Heavens.
Bestower of death with her showering arrows. Strong-voiced worker from afar who whispers, “Kneel, or be knelt.” Beautiful empress who bears sword and reins on her golden throne. She of the lake, the marsh, and the harbor. Far-shooter. Light-bringer. Dawn-breaker.
Divine virgin, pure and revered, who soothes. Celestial midwife who nurses the young and patron of childbirth. She of the hymns and pastures. Singer of divine songs and leader of the dance. Sweet-garlanded lady of clamors. She of the white bird, the toad, and the berry seed. Bright goddess.
Beloved and loving high priestess of the bear's jaw, whose hymns only beasts can sing. Willow-bound and royal of cedar, walnut, and laurel. Immortal torch-bearer. Ancestral guardian who stands before the door.
Goddess queen of beasts and nymphs. Maiden. Death. Animal. Feral child. Holy mother. Praise be to Lady Diana, deliverer and savior.
Credits:
***user box by Aterios***
***Artemis divider by Renai***
My altar c: / Quote fragment from Sappho / Diana's Bath by Louis Devedeux / Artemis in the 'Pastoral' section of Fantasia (unknown gif maker) / Diana the Huntress by Guillaume Seignac / Detail of Artemis depicted as the Potnia Theron (Lady of the Beasts) from the Francois Vase / Fountian of Artemis (Diana) of Ephesus at Villa d’Este / Quote Fragment from Ursula K. Le Guin
#sorry for the long post#original intro post got taken down#info post#personal practice#personal#artemis#potnia theron#hecate#hekate#apollo#apollon#hellenic pantheon#hellenic polytheism#hellenic gods#hellenic community#hellenic worship#pagan#deity work#deity worship#deity prayers#long post#marian devotion#norse pantheon#celtic pantheon#roman polytheism#devotional polytheism#christian polytheism#info page#blog info#religious syncretism
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I can't speak for Hoodoo, but I can tell you from my experience as an Ndn- it's not about skin color. It's about community.
One of the reasons talking about "closed practices" with people is so frustrating is because it seems to trigger an immediate defensiveness, which often leads to a break down of communication when poc are simply trying to be informative. People are allowed to learn about closed practices in a respectful way. People are allowed to be, and are urged to be, curious and ask questions. I personally wouldn't call that being "exclusive"; it simply means that, depending on the practice, your role is that of an observer and not a participant.
Tbh, there are many people who participate in closed practices who are not of the closed practice's culture or heritage- but they were invited. They were taught. It was consensually shared.
I've met many white people who had a better understanding of my Native heritage than I did, because they grew up in close proximity to the reservation and I did not. When I lived in Wyoming I met white people who knew Shoshone and Lakota stories by heart. Who knew how to skin and cure a buffalo hide. Who knew how to sing and dance in a circle because they were taught by a tribal elder. I've met white people who were, in a sense, considered "honorary" tribal members. Granted, this didn't give them legal tribal membership, but it did mean that they were loved and respected by the tribe.
But they also understood what that meant.
They understood that, if they were taught anything of spiritual value, it was a gift. A tool they had been given out of respect and friendship, and that it wasn't their's to share with others without permission. That it didn't entitle them to be a teacher, or to play the part of the sage.
It is completely possible for an outsider to become a participant in some closed practices- but they have to be invited and understand the nature of their participation. They have to undersatnd that they now have a huge responsibility to be respectful, and a caretaker of what was gifted to them.
It also means that there is one very important step before anyone can learn anything-
One must be an ally. They must care about the issues that these groups face. The problems that they are experiencing on a day to day basis. They must become an advocate- because sometimes that struggle is inherent to the spirituality.
However, even then, people must understand that doesn't entitle them to a culture's spiritual heritage or methods. An individual must be an ally selflessly. They must do it while truly expecting nothing in return.
As a syncretic practicioner, I completely understand that cultures don't live in sealed off vacuums. The march of time effects all things. Academia, intermarriage, friendship, and yes, even violence and hatred, can cause the lines of one faith to blur into another. As a person of mixed heritage, I understand this as a complicated truth of my mere exisistence; one I struggle with daily.
But I am tentatively hoping that we can live in more enlightened times. I'm hoping that if some practices and traditions are to intermingle they can do so through mutual respect and sharing; rather than stealing and violence. That there can finally be agency, education and good faith behind our motivations and intentions as practicioners- but that does mean respecting a community's agency and accepting when you are told 'no'.
"Lol Who cares if it's a closed practice? Who's gonna stop me? Who's gonna know? 🤣😝"
The gods.
The gods will know.
#closed practice#racism#colonialism#witchblr discourse#witchblr#magic practitioners#history#syncretism
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"Okay, but if this whole Syncretic Crime thing is just for me to learn and observe from, why not do a Kemetic style ritual instead?"
*candle literally refuses to light after multiple attempts, only to light when I use ADF verbage*
FINE I GUESS
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