#are not white they are from different cultures AND times

[frogsandfries]

I think I was in like, fourth grade when I first learned there was a group of people called Jews, and that even though most of them look white, like me and about 75% of my peers at the time, they're "other".

I've never, ever been religious, even growing up in a moderately religious family.

Maybe this is where my confusion comes in about why I, a white person, should hate another white person for their religion. Or maybe I'm focusing too hard on the religion thing. After all, in this age of leaving religion behind us, people are Jewish in a way that people are not Christian. Being Jewish is also like being Navajo or being Celt.

My entire childhood, it was hammered into me "don't stare at people just because they look different from you; be kind to everyone; treat everyone in a way you would want to be treated".

My parents are, obviously, older than me. They are chronologically closer to the socio-political upheaval that WWII unquestionably caused. My maternal grandfather could have been in WWII, but I'm not positive about his service record. I guess I've never thought to ask my dad why they didn't teach me about Jews or like, make some kind of point about it. Too little, too late. They didn't make a big deal about how groups of people who look white, like the Romani, the Irish, and the Jewish, are "not white" and why people shun them.

Now, maybe we're getting into the part where, I'm undiagnosed but unquestionably autistic. I still don't understand why black people were chosen to be othered and then traded like livestock. I still don't understand why Catholics and Christians seem to have gotten together and been like "those believers in an Abrahamic god, they're bad and other and we should spend generations upon generations othering and shunning and excluding them."

Honestly, I think there's a lot of nuance about neurotypical humanity that I'll probably never grasp, because when I look at humans with dark skin, I see the usefulness of their dark skin to help them survive the places where their dark skin evolved. When I see humans with pale skin, I see the usefulness of their pale skin to help them survive. When I see humans with epicanthic folds, I see the usefulness of that trait too. All I see in humanity are the ways that we have evolved to live all over this planet, in the mountains, on islands, near volcanos, in wet places, in dry places, in cold places and hot places.

I just can't get over how beautiful the vast variety of humanity is, to get to a place of hate.

I'm not sure there will ever be a sufficient explanation for me to fully grasp why Jews are other and why I should want them eliminated. The Jewish people have also made it for hundreds of generations over thousands of years. At the very, very least, they're as suited to this planet as any Brit or Celt or Navajo or any other group. At the very least, they bring something genetically unique and useful to the human species. They also have their own culture and stories and art and ways of dress. They have their own language and ways of existing in the world, and I think maybe that's blinding me to what seem flimsy and pathetic excuses to cling onto outdated ways of being.

We might share a common ancestor with chimps, but we are not chimpanzees. We have sophisticated language. But instead of using it to appreciate each other and appreciate that we've made it millions of years of evolution to reach this point, we use our sophisticated language skills to hate and hurt, to develop weapons and to use those weapons against each other.

And somehow, this is okay with way too many people???????

“Elon didn’t mean to sieg heil, he’s just autistic”

Do you guys remember when Kanye said he was gonna go “death con” on all the Jews? Do you remember how his apologists said he was just off his bipolar meds? Do you remember that he doubled down, said he didn’t actually have bipolar, and he had been misdiagnosed by a Jew doctor? Do you remember he proceeded to meet with prominent white supremacists and told infowars he was a Nazi who loved Hitler?

Nobody ever believes the Jews the first time, even though our culture has spent literally thousands of years learning the warning signs. We know what we’re looking at. It’s two consecutive Nazi salutes on a white supremacist’s inauguration day. You can downplay it all you want, but this coal mine’s canary isn’t coming back to life.

[uzumaki-rebellion]

I want to say something about an author's "voice" in their work...

Voice is something that can be imitated, but not duplicated all that well. A.I. or other authors can attempt to copy this innate thing, but it will read inauthentic or too cookie cutter as to become bland...unseasoned if you will. Developing your author voice comes with time, but it is distinct. I can "hear" my voice now in my own writing. I'm also aware that what I write is very culturally distinct and from my own lived experience. It's also why different people can be given the same writing prompt/trope with key character details and each story comes out unique although they all used the same idea.

Fanfiction writing has many tropes that are used over and over. This helps your writing practice and discovering your voice! For example, with the new Terry Richmond/Rebel Ridge fandom, there are a lot of Office AU's, strip clubs, BDSM, Terry as a new father/baby daddy, or even mafia stories/Toxic!Terry/Dark Romance. Tropes are fun and a way to explore a character in a different setting or genre...and also write in tropes you've never done before. I finally wrote my first fluff and full on cheating fic that I never do! I put Terry into the horror realm with my Vampire!Terry series, and also a new horror fic I'm cooking up for later in the year that is a new interpolation of one of my favorite horror movies from the 40's that was re-made in the 80's. I'm going to put Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr. in it together because I know Hollywood will never give me what I want, and neither will traditional publishing that only thirsts for white romances and BWWM/IR romances.

Venturing out into new/underused trope territory makes your work stand out, so I'm always happy to see my fellow Black writers stretching to do new stuff they haven't before, or experimenting with their stories. It's your "voice" that stands out doing that. If you're still learning what your writing voice is, don't fret, that's a good thing! And here's a shocker...it changes sometimes with each new fic as your confidence grows.

For those who transition into indie publishing or even trad, you'll notice how your voice grows and becomes new. The newness is just experience propping you up.

Now...go write and play with your voice.

[kn11ves]

my comic is live right now!

kyle and rex is an absurdist drama set in a stagnant afterlife where everyone lies, cheats, manipulates, and hurts each other in order to gain political power and admiration from the public.

with characters constantly haunted by ghosts of the past, trying to stay on top of the food chain despite constant betrayals and having their secrets held up above their heads, comes back kyle, from his long stay back as a guiding spirit on earth, to take back reigns of the throne in the inbetween. though much like everyone else, hes got a long list of dirty laundry that many are aching to reveal. there are no real friends here.

⸻

updates every 2 weeks, at 6:30 pm central US time! (SP & ENG)

WEBTOON: english link + spanish link

TAPAS: english link + spanish link

FANEO: spanish link

[bluejay-makes]

Drow kiddos growing up in different cities

[cosmogyros]

It's fucking weird how rude people are about immigration sometimes. And I don't just mean bigots being biased and stuff. I mean that, on a REGULAR basis, people ask me if I'm thinking about "going back to the US". And I'm just like... no? What do you mean "back to the US"? I live in Germany. I LIVE IN GERMANY.

I literally fucking started learning German and obsessing on German culture in high school, then I went to college in the US and majored in German Studies, including two study-abroad programs in Germany, then I moved to Germany for grad school and lived there for three years and worked in various German-speaking jobs while studying, then I had to temporarily return to the US but found a German-translation-based job at the US branch of a German company, and made a bunch of German or at least German-speaking friends in my new US city, and then a few years later I was able to move back to Germany, where I got a work visa sponsored by my employer and a full-time salaried job, and after a few more years I acquired my permanent residency, and soon I'll be applying for citizenship.

And people still sometimes ask me whether I'm considering "going back to the US". Like... dude? Would you ask a Mexican living in the US about their plans for "going back to Mexico"? That is rude as fuck.

Immigration is fucking hard. Why on earth would I have gone through all this shit just to throw it up in the air like "Oh well, never mind!"

[musical-chick-13]

Regarding the whole "Fandom Is An Escape, so why should I have to care this much about misogyny/racism/ableism/transphobia/etc." thing. Idk about the rest of you, but it gets kind of hard for me to "escape" when I keep seeing people say the same vile things about characters who share aspects of my identity that I hear all the time in real life.

[hechose]

'lestat crossed an ocean to save claudia and louis from the paris coven!!!'

..... im gonna hold your hand while i bash you over the head when i tell you this,,, that mans went to paris to be healed by armand,,, that mans went to paris to punish the people he abused for daring to fight back,,,

[dykedvonte]

The Khans - My Introspective

I don't like the Military and I don't support a lot of the actions the NCR does to the Mojave in New Vegas but in terms of the Khans I feel like the fandom infantilizes or diminishes the fact that they are or at least one of the most violent raider groups in the Mojave.

What happened at Bitter Springs was a tragedy, innocent lives were lost and the fact that the NCR swept it under the rug and continued to hunt down Khans that are truly trying to back down and resettle is horrendous, but there is a history to the NCR's aggression towards them.

The Khans first appear in Fallout 1, the main faction of raiders in the game besides the mentioned Vipers (who don't actually appear if I remember correctly). They came from Vault 15 along with the members that would form rival groups; The Vipers, The Jackals, and Shady Sands. They are a very large and foreboding raiding party, known for burning towns and encampments they attack and taking survivors as their slaves or slaves to sell. They are a big reason why the Jackals and Vipers are actually so small in New Vegas, they wiped them out.

Their main targets where Shady Sands and Junker town, the former of the two would be what became The New California Republic. This explains a big part of their animosity towards the Khans, only furthered by the fact the Khans kidnapped Tandi as a young girl, the girl that would go to offically found the NCR out of Shady Sands. When the dweller saved her and killed much of the Khans, this allowed the NCR to develop into what it currently is as they no longer needed to focus on fighting off constant raids.

When the Khans became the New Khans in Fallout 2, they barely resembled the Khans as they were led by Darion, Garl Death-Hand's son (former leader of the Khans). They were smaller and refortified vault 15, still planning to take down the NCR (at this time nowhere near as imperialist as they are in FNV) as mostly a revenge/power ploy. They manipulate The Squat, a group of y'know squatters, that lived in the upper levels, promising and lying about repairing the vault and offering them ransacked caravan resources if they kept the NCR away. Being their only life line The Squat had no choice. Still the chosen one got rid of them and they left New California for the untapped Mojave.

The Great Khans, the most current iteration, continued in the path as the original Khans, regrouping and gaining information from the Followers who hoped they'd use their new medical knowledge to heal themselves. They gained more members and a substantial part of Vegas territory before they were run out by the three families. They were pushed to Bitter Springs where they first and foremost continued to pick off and attack NCR settlements, most of which consisted of caravans, towns, and camps as they saw them as easy like in their old days. It was the killing of four influential Republic members (non-military) that brought on Bitter Springs.

Bitter Springs was the result of years of hatred and animosity and likely the goal to send a final message to the Khans. It does not excuse the fact that innocent men, women, and children were slaughtered with few survivors. It does not excuse the fact that the NCR has yet to make amends for this and continues to try and persecute the Khans even in moments of surrender.

This post is not to defend what happened but to give a quick rundown of the Khan's history and their history with the NCR. It's to remind people that the NCR is not just their military power but an actual group/settlement of people that were also attacked indiscriminately by the Khans. It's to point out that the Khans were not a band of indigenous people (no matter the comparisons) driven from their homes but raiders who fed into the brutal cultures of the west coast wasteland and were in turn treated to the same things.

My frustration comes from the fact that FNV has so many comparisons to indigenous struggles but the groups it chooses are not comparable at all. Their oppression hinges on not being familiar with their past, which explains why they have the reputation they do in canon. The "tribes" are often not even groups of minorities or have goals/desires out of acquisitions of power and I feel like it is important to both acknowledge that this is bad indigenous rep because it is not supposed to be. It is supposed to be a comparison of the in-game groups and how they all do the same things and justify it in their own fucked up ways, some better at it than others.

FNV of all the Fallout games (in light of it being heavily Western based) distastefully uses indigenous imagery and theming for groups that are sad mimicries of American indigenous cultures at best and outright offensive at worst.

[giantkillerjack]

Favorite part about Death Note is that Light gets the Note and IMMEDIATELY becomes a serial killer fascist with a god complex.

No build-up, no Fall From Grace, no slow corruption of a good boy gradually becoming a monster. Just-- SPEED RUN STRATS. And I love that for him.

Tbh, I think there are a lot of folks (especially boys) from my high school days who would have immediately become monsters if given the power of life and death over every person around them.

It's kind of like how when people have apparently casual ableist beliefs, and you push them to elaborate on that just a little bit, they'll often end up openly saying stuff like "well, some people are just too disabled to be worth the resources it takes to support them." - Which is... eugenics. It's just eugenics, justified by the myth of scarcity. Now these folks almost certainly won't call it eugenics, or even think of it that way. But that doesn't make it NOT a core belief of the Nazis.

In a similar way, Light seems like a nice and well-adjusted boy with strong beliefs. No harm in that.

But to paraphrase Lindsay Ellis in her analysis of the Game of Thrones ending, "Power doesn't necessarily corrupt. Power reveals." [I think she was quoting someone else when she said this. It was someone who wrote a biography on LBJ. Whatever. Lindsay said it and she's smart as hell and I recommend her videos.]

And 15 minutes into the Death Note musical, I'm already thinking about how so many beliefs "casually" held by well-adjusted, nice people immediately reveal their monstrousness when talked through to their natural conclusion.

And I wonder how many of those people, given the power of life and death over everyone around them - the power to take their ideas to their natural conclusions - would also immediately reveal how their lack of self-reflection has laid the groundwork for them to become monsters.

[rametarin]

It's more socially acceptable to be touched when it's unwanted by a woman, unfortunately. Be it a slap to the face, or other. It's one of those trusts and privileges that the different sexes receive based on our animal drives and then rationalized based on how you can't punish women for womening in culture. So, some crimes go unpunished, because it's socially unacceptable to punish women for what they do without making the rest of them feel insecure it could happen to them, too.

So naturally for a long time, women only considered it sexual assault or unwanted sexual touching when it came from a man, because of the whole syonymousness with sex involving opposite-sex relations and risk of pregnancy. No balls, no meat log, "no danger."

But if you remove the animal instincts from the equation and live entirely in the concept of equality irrespective of the necessity of biology and empiricism from the equation, suddenly it becomes rape and sexual assault if a woman does it to another woman, without the necessity of having a dick for it to be rape. And if you don't add an asterisk like, * "But she's a girl so it isn't rape or sexual assault really" to slap their hands, then suddenly those statistics shoot WAY up to nearly half.

When I was a kid, radical feminists were very keen on deliberately cooking the books and cherrypicking on the subject of rape, and then using these supposed facts about how men were just biological and cultural rape machines. But they were the ones that antagonized and lobbied and bullied by threatening to smear organizations and groups in office and civic society about how corrupt and male chauvinist and white supremacist society was, if they didn't get through their legislation that declared rape to be something only male bodied people could do, stopping JUST SHORT of saying it's only rape if it happens to women because they couldn't swing that and get away with it without blowback. But, it was implied heavily.

So the image they presented was all these rapes happening per year coincidentally by men (cherry picked so it was only rape if a biological dick was involved, exempting strapons or prosthetic devices) and then suggesting even close to half of all men were rapists at least once in their life. Then attaching that supposed fact to an infexible platform where if you rejected it, it meant you were rejecting other, less damning, more plausible "equality" positions of feminism. And you weren't allowed to do that without being declared a danger to girls for being anti-feminist (like being declared a Gamer Gator, or a Tech Bro, today.)

Tumblr has been fantastic for those little moments of radfems unironically posting these "facts" like this, and the moment hanging in the air long enough for people to actually spit out facts that many gatherings never had in the 80s and 90s conveniently at that water cooler.

[ablednt]

Granted I have the overall geographical and cultural knowledge of a 4th grader but from what I can tell the nuclear family model really does seem to be a white colonial invention

Different cultures have different approaches but I mainly hear about either large family units where multiple generations support each other and raise their children and grandchildren together or an "it takes a village" approach where children are raised somewhat communally

And I can't really speak on it much or claim that these families were free of abuse or that children aren't often an oppressed group basically everywhere I know of but the way ownership of your children is so engrained into white society is so bizarre

Like once you notice it you can't unnotice it even the most loving well meaning parents don't know what to do about it because everyone is so isolated from their own families and their own communities so you wind up with 1-2 parents who have full legal ownership of their child and are raised in a culture where you don't have personhood until you're 18 and all attempts at self actualization before them are seen as clueless rebellion. Like our culture is so divorced from the concept that a parent is someone who is helping mentor and care for their child so they can thrive as a fellow human being and it's actually so alarming

And ik this problem isn't unique to white and colonized people but it's honestly really soothing to hear about how other cultures approach and view parenting and community as a whole and to internalize it doesn't have to be this way

[irhabiya]

i think my favorite thing that i got out of my medical anthropology elective is how culturally defined health and illness are... very interesting to think about

[cakemoney]

i don't want to put my uninformed foot in my mouth or get involved with the Discourse but i've been seeing the two extremes of reactions to the korean low birth rates issue (on tumblr and twitter both) and i'm just kind of like. look. i feel like "low birth rates (in many countries but especially japan and korea as part of this conversation) are more broadly the result of capitalism/a culture of overwhelming overwork that makes social relationships and having families incredibly inaccessible to young people" and "low birth rates are very much a part of the current conversation about misogyny and social expectations for women in korea especially in the context of reproduction as 'unpaid labor' for women" are statements that can both be true

[fromchaostocosmos]

You do not need to be white to be a colonizer so you not be white has nothing to with it.

That you keep calling Judaism a religion is a part of the problem. Because we are not just that.

Of course there is value is cultures and societies are no longer around. The reason that I brought them up is not to say that we Jews or more accurately using our actual name יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל are more superior for surviving.

No I used those specific examples because all of them if you knew anything about the history of my people are all ones who tried to destroy us. They did their best to ruin us, to murder us, to rape us, to tell us what we could and could not do.

They enslaved us, they colonized us.

Each one of those examples I gave have to do with Empires that did Horrors to us.

And my point is even though they did those things we are still here and we have survived. And on top that there is an extra fuck you in that they are not.

It is the way we say fuck you to Arch Titus and to Hitler. It is a you tried to kill us and destroy and fuck you we are still here and you are not.

If you can not understand that I don't know what to tell you.

Like many of our Holidays can be some what summarized as "they tried to kill us they failed let us commemorate and eat and party"

Jews, יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל are a tribe. We are a very old tribe. Judaism is the name that put onto practices and beliefs of said tribe.

We are not just a religion and that you keep calling us a religion shows that you are not getting it.

You do understand how we function. You think that we are trying to tell you how do to your stuff and that we are being party poopers.

That is not what is happening.

Christianity is not an off-shoot, branch off, evolution, etc. of Judaism. Christianity is some original ideas, stuff stolen from Judaism, and stuff taken from a whole bunch of various pagan beliefs as well from other religions such Buddhism and Hinduism.

All of that got blended and mixed and that is Christianity.

The thing about Christianity that you and lots of other people may not like, but this is just a fact of reality is that is foundations are built on antisemitism.

It set itself up by stating we are not the Jew and we are very different from them, in fact they killed our god.

When you look at the history and study it you see this. This whole thing is something gets studied by students of theology.

And this is something that we Jews have been discussing for a very long time.

Christians as individuals may not antisemitic, but Christianity the religion is founded on antisemitism and as an institution very much is antisemitic. That is just a fact.

I don't believe in Lucifer or any of them so you want to do whatever it is you do go and do it and enjoy.

My issue is and always has been when you and anyone else comes and takes that which is not for you to take.

My issue is the propping up of Christian Supersessionism (also know as replacement theology) which yes is what you are doing. My issue is the talking over Jews and thinking you know more then us on our own stuff and bringing in some sources and acting like you understand when you clearly do not.

I always find with pagans that it is either a very pleasant nice experience and the person is just respectful and the conversation is interesting. Like I enjoy it and can ask questions and they can ask questions and we both can learn things and come away with new information and understanding.

I always enjoy those and have had many of them. I always open to them and I enjoy learning so when I get the chance to understand how stuff works or why someone does something a certain that is great.

I've met many really wonderful pagans who are just very respectful of the many different groups with closed practices and want to learn and listen to those from those practices to make sure they are being respectful.

I've seen many a pagan who when asked certain questions will say that it is not for them to answer that question and then direct the asker to people from the correct community who they know are okay with answering those kinds of questions.

And I'm always thankful and appreciative that they understand the boundaries and limitations and respect them.

And then there are ones like these. And the ones likes these are always just the most exhausting, frustrating, and many times upsetting.

And the experiences like are never like slightly annoying or mildly irritating. No they it is always just the fucking worst.

And I see it happen with my fellow Jews and other people who have closed practices.

You either get a very lovely interaction even in cases where someone did something offensive or is appropriating and it is because they just did not know and they when given the information do better.

Or you get just the worst.

This for me has been one of the worst. I feel like I am talking to brick wall. Like everything I say gets taken out of context to be clear I not saying that means that everything I say is being taken out of context I just feel that way. (I do however think that there are couple things that I do think were purposefully taken out of context and/or purposefully misconstrued such my comment about us still being here while listing various empires that are not).

It is exhausting. But this is also something that I've had to do so many times before when dealing with anything related to being Jewish and Judaism and Jewish history and etc and correcting those who are not Jewish.

Because it doesn't matter what the topic might have been the refusal to let us Jews be the authority ourselves is something that goyim just seem to have in common pagan, monotheistic, atheist, or whatever.

The idea that we know better and best on us is something that can not be allowed and that is the common thread in all of those conversations.

Like maybe we are not the problem here, I know perish the thought.

And maybe for the 5 seconds you could just listen to us and like understand that I and other Jews in the comments are not trying to telling how to live your life all we are asking is for you stop taking from us, stop doing Supersessionism specifically in this case Christian Supersessionism, and like leave our things alone.

Hi, Shi! So, I saw your post about white saviours in the community and I wanted to ask about the Judaism one specifically. I am not white but nor am I Jewish, in ethnicity or religion, but I was also told that demonolatry spreads harmful ideas about Judaism. Because of that, I kind of stepped back from my demonolatry research for a moment. But your post did get me thinking. I guess I'm kind of just asking for clarification. Is it okay for me to practice demonolatry as a non-Jewish person or not? Sorry for the super long ask. Thank you, love your blog!

Okay, this is a kind of complex topic.

Demonolatry is the practice of worshipping demons. This can apply to any demon not just those with English names. There are people who worship the demons mentioned in Islam just as much as there are those who worship those with Jewish and Latin names, and there’s a ton of overlap.

The concept of “demon” can only exist if you conceive of some kind of supernatural divide between Gods and spirits. Many demonolaters consider all spirits including Gods to be “Spirits”; the distinction is not important and doesn’t have any real meaning. It’s rare to hear of demons in religions or spiritualities that do not have a dualistic philosophy, you don’t hear about Hindu demons often for example. And the word “demon” in English comes from the Greek “daimon” actually referred to any spirit or divine being. Pinpointing what is and isn’t demon, daemon or spirit is a matter of perspective.

The idea that you can only work with demons that have Hebrew names if you are a Jew is one that literally doesn’t make grammatical sense.

If you are a practicing Jew or hold an Abrahamic theology, to worship or revere any demon would be a violation of your theistic laws. It’s a sin, a big one. Every deity, spirit, God/Goddess from every other religion or belief is a demon to you because you believe there is only one true God. That means Norse, Greek, Egyptian, etc. deities are also considered to be demons.

Because of this theology, every time that people of Abrahamic religions (Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims) encountered pagans who worshipped other Gods, they were demonized. Aphrodite/ Astarte became Astaroth, Phosphorus became Lucifer who then became Satan, Cerberus became Naberius, and so on and so on.

It’s incredibly important to remember that just because a name is written in a certain language, Hebrew for example, that does not directly imply that the deity is closed to the religion of Judaism. Not all people who spoke Hebrew were Isrealites, and not every spirit that was described by them was closed to them. Lilith for example was a deity/spirit that was recognized by multiple groups of people before the Israelites existed as a definitive and monotheistic group. Lilith was described by the Sumerians for example, her strongest surviving name and archetype is that which was described by the Jews because the Jews themselves survived and the Sumerians did not.

Most demonic names you will encounter will either be written in Latin, English, or Hebrew, not because these demons are closed to those cultures but because their documentation was only ever really considered legitimate when it was done by the followers of Yahweh. This is one of the major effects of colonization in general. If I as a Phoenician pagan say that Astarte is kind and beautiful, that doesn’t matter to any Roman Catholic. If I as a Catholic say that Astaroth is a perverted demoness who tricks men into demonic sex, the church might actually listen and write that down. Us 1000 years in the future may look at that name and assume Astaroth is a Roman demon and not a Phonecian Goddess who was described by Roman people and documented in Latin.

We speak English, so the demons that are accessible to us are usually recorded from the Abrahamic religions that speak English- Christianity. Our demons are not cosmologically “Christian” nor necessarily have anything to do with the Christian God specifically (Lucifer is a Roman deity and would have had no biblical interactions or connection with YHWH according to their origins). But Christians gave them names and we use those names for the sake of consistency and to reduce confusion across languages. Many times, the original names have been lost and the infernal aspect and name is all that remains. It is the life’s work of many Demonolaters to restore their deitie’s cult to its glory, to discover these dead names or to ensure that the surviving name… survives.

There are a select few demons who’s names originate in the Jewish tradition, Azazel for example, was the scapegoat of the Isrealites who then went on to command the Watchers who became the fathers of the Nephilim. But these demons aren’t necessarily considered to be closed to Judaism- again, because no Jew is ever going to reach out to a demon before the big GOD himself. There is no theological reason why Azazel would only recognize Jewish or Christian people. If you acknowledge Azazel as the scapegoat and use that name, you are referencing his archetype as it was described by the Isrealites. Likewise if you use the name Lilith and consider her to be Adam’s first wife, you are also using her archetype as she was described by the Jews. But that doesn’t mean that Lilith herself is considered to be a sacred figure within the religion of Judaism any more than Aphrodite is. They’re all demons. There is only one God.

There’s a stronger argument to be made for the big three Jewish angels - Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, being closed to the Jewish religion because they literally are the angels patroned to the people of Israel and they are majority involved in the actual worship of their God- although I don’t really consider them to be closed either because, according to their theology, they would protect any human being created by God (which would be everyone).

The thing that you actually need to consider is if the deity is:

1. Culturally tied specifically and only to the people inside that closed religion- Demons were said to fuck with everyone, all of humanity, not just Jews. The Wendigo was a culturally significant creature that specifically targeted the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island.

2. Intrinsic to the actual act of worship/ practicing itself- No practicing Jew incorporates Lilith or any demon into their prayers in the way they might with Archangel Michael.

3. Conceived of by the culture itself- Lilith is far older than Judaism and they do not claim to have conceived of her, whereas Michael was literally created by the Isrealites and was always said to act in the best interest of Israel as a nation.

4. Is revered and considered sacred- If I call Lilith or Belial nasty little whores, no jew is going to flinch, they probably agree. If I even speak the name of their God which is considered to be so sacred that it should not even be said in prayer, that’s insanely offensive. If I use the Tetragrammaton or wear it frivolously, someone is going to call me out.

Many western occultists have certainly appropriated sacred things from other cultures, ESPECIALLY from Judaism. Rather than admit their clear inspiration they bastardized the names and essentially stole incredibly important spiritual concepts (Qabalah). As much value is there is in the Qliphothic tradition it is also majorly appropriated from Jewish mysticism which is supposed to be knowledge closed to specific Rabbis. That’s why I’m not the biggest fan of people like Aliester Crowley.

This doesn’t mean to say that you can’t learn about anything Jewish, or Indigenous or Muslim etc. I try my best to always learn from people who are actually of the faith and not asshats who try to take the culture out of the practice. Some things genuinely are sacred and should not be appropriated, I don’t think that demons in general are one of those things.

It’s also important to remember that practices and deities aren’t always synonymous.

The Loa sprits of Voodoo religions are closed because they are ancestral spirits specific to the people in that culture. I can’t invoke my Haitian friend’s great great great grandmother and expect her to do my bidding. I can’t invoke the ancestral spirits of the Indigenous peoples of America and expect it to recognize me. I can’t even pronounce those names.

Hoodoo being closed to the black community is due to Hoodoo being not only a practice,but a survival mechanism of the black slaves who were imported into America during the slave trade. It was the blending of African spirituality with the assimilated Christianity of their masters. But theologically, most black people who practice Hoodoo have a predominantly Abrahamic faith, with belief in the Bible (although usually an alternate version) and belief in the one true God. You cannot practice the act of Hoodoo if you do not have the context of your experience as black person and the unique familial/ancestral relationships and knowledge they possess.

Likewise, you cannot practice Native American spirituality, or smudge with white sage because you do not have any experience or context living as an aboriginal in this land. Due to … yknow, colonization and genocide, most aboriginal tribes have opted to keep their practices extremely closed and sacred. I couldn’t even do it if I wanted to because I don’t even know where to start, I would have to be taught by the people they have elected to know this sacred practice.

You cannot be a practicing Jew if you are not initiated into the religion. Working with these fringe spirits is not nearly the same as appropriating the closed Jewish practice. What I and other demonolaters do is not even remotely close.

Demonolatry is not organized, it’s a self actualizing practice. Sure we have priests and priestesses, but we usually operate in cults.

I don’t know how to explain the irony in this take because if demonolaters and outcasts don’t work with and worship these spirits … literally no one will. The left hand path is crooked for a reason, alternative subcultures are alternative for a reason. The cults of Phosphorus and Lilith have never been as big as they are now. For these fringe deities to have survived so long and somehow even entered the mainstream is honestly incredibly impressive lol.

People who are unconcerned with being outcasted from Abrahamic theology aren’t going to stop practicing with their demons because religious people think it’s bad. I’m already practicing witchcraft. I already don’t believe in monotheistic theology, and there’s an entire rainbow of other things I do that are unacceptable to Judaism, Christianity and so on. The thing I care about is not disrespecting the actual culture and the things that are truly important to them.

You won’t really catch me wearing crosses, referencing Catholic practices, or talking about my practice in reference or opposite to Christianity or Judaism. I don’t defile Jewish or Christian traditions or bastardize their teachings. My practice is not the invert of their doctrine. It’s a completely separate and individual practice and philosophy.

This is LONGER THAN I MEANT IT TO BE

TLDR: No, demonolatry is not antisemitic.

It can be antisemitic if you happen to be antisemitic and many antisemitic people have historically ruined the fun for the rest of us (thanks Crowley)

But no, practicing Demonolatry does not make you racist. Being a pagan also doesn’t mean you hate religion.

[solitaireships]

Found an article talking about racial imposter syndrome in mixed people who look white and finally I’ve found something that describes it

[faunandfloraas]

inadvertently stopped using my freckle fade cream without thinking.... right around the time i started making gifs of felix.... coincidence?