#stop stereotyping alternative or pagan religions

[oh-youprettythings]

white scots, let’s clear some things up:

scotland is a country that has historically been a victim of colonialism at the hands of england. as recently as the 1960’s, gaelic-speaking children, my grandmother included, were placed in state sponsored re-education schools and beaten for speaking their native language as part of an attempt to anglicise the ‘backward,’ ‘wild’ and ‘uneducated’ highland and islanders. their names were changed to acceptable, english ones. westminster still has huge control over scotland’s government and economy, and possession of hugely important historical artefacts like the coronation stone.

scottish people suffer from predjudices based on stereotypes- for example, being spoken down to because of our accents, and having traditional practices like highland games and ceilidh mocked. celtic pagan religions are frequently appropriated in the name of a witchy, mystical aesthetic. “och aye sco’eesh twee’ur hehe” jokes are belittling and obnoxious. more than once i’ve literally been demanded to ‘do a wee highland dance!’ upon non-scots hearing my accent. it’s humiliating. it’s ignorant. it is not systemic racism.

THIS DOES NOT DIMINISH THE FACTS THAT:

‘ethnically scottish’ people are white. even if you consider yourself a ~celt~, even if you are from some obscure islander clan- you are perceived as white. you benefit from white privilege. you are not oppressed systemically because of your race. people being ignorant about your culture online is not the same as your entire existence being steeped in deeply entrenched systems of racism that marginalise people of colour.

scottish people were never a slave race. read a book or shut the fuck up. now and forever.

as well as being colonised, scotland has historically reaped huge benefits from the global slave trade. edinburgh, glasgow, aberdeen, and dundee are port cities. glasgow, especially, benefitted and continues to benefit hugely from the transatlantic slave trade. you think jamaica street is named that as a coincidence? the kind of wealth it took to build those cities didn’t come from the internal fucking tattie and whiskey economy. alexander hamilton was scottish. donald trump has generational wealth in scotland. the colonisation of hong kong was largely scottish-run. read a fucking book. (or, alternatively, start with this)

regardless of how good your patter is, scotland is still a racist country. in the uk as a whole, black people are stopped by the police 10x more often than white people. i do not know a single person of colour living in this country who hasn’t faced racism both from everyday people and from positions of authority. your ‘non-discriminatory dynamite craic’ didn’t help sheku bayoh. we have a duty to show up for scottish POC, as well as immigrants of colour who make their home here. and yes, ACAB here too.

[qqueenofhades]

Medieval Magic Week: Witchcraft in Early Medieval Europe

Apologies for not getting to this last week, but I will try to be at least semi-reliable about posting these. If you missed it: I’m teaching a class on magic and the supernatural in the Middle Ages this semester, and since the Tumblr people also wanted to be learned, I am here attempting to learn them by giving a sort of virtual seminar.

Last week was the introduction, where we covered overall concepts like the difference between magic, religion, and science (is there one?), who did magic benefit (depends on who you ask), was magic a good or a bad thing in the medieval world (once again, It’s All Relative) and who was practicing it. We also brought in ideas like the gendering of supernatural power (is magic a feminine or a masculine practice, and does this play into larger gendered concepts in society?) and did some basic myth-busting about the medieval era. No, not everybody was super religious and mind-controlled by the church. No, they were not all poor farmers. No, not every woman was Silent, Raped, and Repressed. Magic was a common and folkloric practice on some level, but it was also the concern of educated and literate ‘worldly’ observers. We can’t write magic off as the medieval era simply ‘not knowing any better,’ or having no more sophisticated epistemology than rudimentary superstition. These people navigated thousands of miles without any kind of modern technology, built amazing cathedrals requiring hugely complex mathematical and engineering skill, wrote and translated books, treatises, and texts, and engaged with many different fields of knowledge and areas of interest. They subjected their miracle stories to critical vetting and were concerned with proving the evidentiary truth of their claims. We cannot dismiss magic as them having no alternative explanation or way of thinking about the world, or being sheltered naïve rustics.

This week, we looked at some primary sources discussing ‘witchcraft’ beliefs in early medieval Europe, which for our purposes is about 500—eh we’ll say 1000 C.E. We also thought about some questions to pose to these texts. Where did belief in witchcraft – best known for early modern witch hunts – come from? How did it survive through centuries of cultural Christianisation? Why was it viewed as useful or as threatening? Scholars have tended to argue for a generic mystical ‘shamanism’ in pre-Christian Europe, which isn’t very helpful (basically, it means ‘we don’t have enough evidence, so fuck if we know!’). They have also assumed that these were ‘superstitions’ or ‘relics’ of pagan belief in an otherwise Christian culture, which is likewise not helpful. We don’t have time to get into the whole debate, but yes, you can imagine the kind of narratives and assumptions that Western historiography has produced around this.

At this point, Europe was slowly, but by no means monolithically, becoming Christian, which meant a vast remaking of traditional culture. There was never a point where beliefs and practices stopped point-blank being pagan and became Christian instead; they were always hybrid, and they were always subject to discussion and debate. Obviously, people don’t stop doing things they have done a particular way for centuries overnight. (Once again, this is where we remind people that the medieval church was not the Borg and had absolutely no power to automatically assimilate anyone.) Our first text, the ‘Corrector sive medicus,’ which is the nineteenth chapter of Burchard of Worms’ Decretum, demonstrates this. The Decretum is a collection of ecclesiastical law, dating from early eleventh-century Germany. This is well after Germany was officially ‘Christianised,’ and after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire as an explicitly Christian polity (usually dated from Charlemagne’s coronation on 25 December 800; this was the major organising political unit for medieval Germany and the Carolingians were intensely obsessed with divine approval). And yet! Burchard is still extremely concerned with the prevalence of ‘magical’ or ‘pagan’ beliefs in his diocese, which means people were still doing them.

The Corrector is a handbook setting out the proper length of penances to do (by fasting on bread and water) for a variety of transgressions. It can seem ridiculously nitpicky and overbearing in its determination to prescribe lengthy penances for magical offenses, which are mixed in among punishments for real crimes: robbery, theft, arson, adultery, etc. This might seem to lend legitimacy to the ‘killjoy medieval church oppressing the people’ narrative, except the punishments for sexual sins are actually much lighter than in earlier Celtic law codes. If you ‘shame a woman’ with your thoughts, it’s five days of penance if you’re married, two if you aren’t, but if you consult an oracle or take part in element worship or use charms or incantations, it could be up to two years.

Overall, the Corrector gives us the impression that eleventh-century German society was a lot more worried about whether you were secretly cursing your neighbour with pagan sorcery, rather than who you’re bonking, even though sexual morality is obviously still a concern, and this reflected the effort of trying to explicitly and completely Christianise a society that remained deeply attached to its traditional beliefs and practices. (There’s also a section about women going out at night and running naked with ‘Diana, Goddess of the Pagans’, which sounds awesome sign me up.) Thus there is here, as there will certainly be later, a gendered element to magic. Women could be witches, enchantresses, sorceresses, or other possible threats, and have to be closely watched. Nonetheless, there’s no organised societal persecution of them. Formal witch hunts and witch trials are decidedly a post-Renaissance phenomenon (cue rant about how terrible the Renaissance was for women). So as much as we stereotype the medieval world as supposedly being intolerant and repressive of women, witch hunts weren’t yet a thing, and many educated women, such as Trota of Salerno, had professional careers in medicine.

The solution to this problem of magical misuse is not to stop or destroy magic, since everyone believes in it, but to change who is legitimately allowed to access it. Valerie Flint’s article, ‘The Early Medieval Medicus, the Saint – and the Enchanter’ discusses the renegotiation of this ability. Essentially, there were three categories of ‘healer’ figure in the early Middle Ages: 1) the saint, whose miraculous power was explicitly Christian; 2) the ‘medicus’ or doctor, who used herbal or medical treatment, and 3) the ‘enchanter’, who used pagan magical power. According to the ecclesiastical authors, the saint is obviously the best option, and believing in/appealing to this figure will give you cures beyond the medicus’ ability, as a reward for your faith. The medicus tries his best and has good intentions, but is limited in his effectiveness and serves in some way as the saint’s ‘fall guy’. Or: Anything the Doctor Can (Or Can’t) Do, The Saint Can Do Better. But the doctor has enough social authority and respected knowledge to make it a significant victory when the saint’s power supersedes him.

On the other hand, the ‘enchanter’ is basically all bad. He (or often, she) makes the same claim to supernatural power as the saint, but the power is misused at best and actively malicious and uncontrollably destructive at worst. You are likely to be far worse off after having consulted the enchanter than if you did nothing at all. Both the saint and the enchanter are purveyors of ‘magical’ power, but only the saint has any legitimate claim (again, according to our church authors, whose views are different from those of the people) to using it. The saint’s power comes from God and Jesus Christ, the privileged or ‘true’ source of supernatural ability, while the enchanter is drawing on destructive and incorrect pagan beliefs and making the situation worse. The medicus is a benign and well-intentioned, if not always effective, option for healing, but the enchanter is No Good Very Bad Terrible.

The fact that ecclesiastical authors have to go so hard against magic, however, is proof of the long-running popularity of its practitioners. The general public is apparently still too prone to consult an enchanter rather than turn to the church to solve their problems. The church doesn’t want to eradicate these practices entirely, but insists that people call upon God/Christ as the authority in doing them, rather than whatever local or folkloric belief has been the case until now. It’s not destroying magic, but repurposing and redefining it. What has previously been the unholy domain of the pagan is now proof of the ultimate authority of Christianity. If you’re doing it right, it’s no longer pagan sorcery, but religious miracles or devotion.

Overall: what role does witchcraft play in early medieval Europe? The answer, of course, is ‘it’s complicated.’ We’re talking about a dynamic, large-scale transformation and hybridising of culture and society, as Christian religion and society became more prevalent over long-rooted pagan or traditional beliefs. However, these beliefs arguably never fully vanished, and were remade, renamed, and allowed to stay, without any apparent sense of contradiction on the part of the people practicing them. Ecclesiastical authorities were extremely concerned to identify and remove these ‘pagan’ elements, of course, but the general public’s relationship with them was always more nuanced. When dealing with medieval texts about magic, we have a tendency to prioritise those that deal with a definably historical person, event, or place, whereas clearly mythological stories referring to supernatural creatures or encounters are viewed as ‘less important’ or as the realm of historical fiction or legend. This is a mistake, since these texts are still encoding and transmitting important cultural referents, depictions of the role of magic in society, and the way in which medieval people saw it as a helpful or hurtful force. We have to work with the sources we have, of course, but we also have to be especially aware of our critical assumptions and prejudices in doing so.

It should be noted that medieval authors were very concerned with proving the veracity of their miracle narratives; they did not expect their audiences to believe them just because they said so. This is displayed for example in the work of two famous early medieval historians, Gregory of Tours (c.538—594) and the Venerable Bede (672/3—735). Both Gregory’s History of the Franks and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People contain a high proportion of miracle stories, and both of them are at pains to explain to the reader why they have found these narratives reliable: they knew the individual in question personally, or they heard the story from a sober man of good character, or several trusted witnesses attested to it, or so forth. Trying to recover the actual historicity of reported ‘miracle’ healings is close to impossible, and we should resist the cynical modern impulse to say that none of them happened and Gregory and Bede are just exaggerating for religious effect. We’re talking about some kind of experienced or believed-in phenomena, of whatever type, and obviously in a pre-modern society, your options for healthcare are fairly limited. It might be worth appealing to your local saint to do you a solid. So to just dismiss this experience from our modern perspective, with who knows how much evidence lost, in an entirely different cultural context, is not helpful either. There’s a lot of sneering ‘look at these unenlightened religious zealots’ under-and-overtones in popular conceptions of the medieval era, and smugly feeling ourselves intellectually superior to them isn’t going to get us very far.

Next week: Ideas about the afterlife, heaven, hell, the development of purgatory, the kind of creatures that lived in these realms, and their representation in art, culture, and literature.

Further Reading:

Alver, B.G., and T. Selberg, ‘Folk Medicine As Part of a Larger Complex Concept,’ Arv, 43 (1987), 21–44.

Barry, J., and O. Davies, eds., Witchcraft Historiography (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007)

Collins, D., ‘Magic in the Middle Ages: History and Historiography’, History Compass, 9 (2011), 410–22.

Flint, V.I.J, ‘A Magical Universe,’ in A Social History of England, 1200-1500, ed. by R. Horrox and W. Mark Ormrod (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 340–55.

Hall, A., ‘The Contemporary Evidence for Early Medieval Witchcraft Beliefs’, RMN Newsletter, 3 (2011), 6-11.

Jolly, K.L., Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996)

Kieckhefer, R., Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Maxwell-Stuart, P.G., The Occult in Mediaeval Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005)

Storms, G., Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1947)

Tangherlini, T., ‘From Trolls to Turks: Continuity and Change in Danish Legend Tradition’, Scandinavian Studies, 67 (1995), 32–62.

[logancausingproblems]

FAQ/Reference post

List of my opinions on subjects, may or may not be updated yearly depending on whether or not I remember this blog exists

Trans stuff:  - Don’t need dysphoria to be trans - Not gender-critical. Stop giving critisism a gender (/j) - Tucutes don’t exist, most “tucutes” are young folks trying to figure out their identities, often through makeup, dying hair, and dressing alternatively while they figure themselves out. Leave them alone. - Cis people can have gender dysphoria - ‘being trans is defined by. . .’ Gender euphoria. - Neopronouns are valid and cool - “Transwoman” is defined by people who identify as a woman. Woman is defined by how society perceives women, and how she herself perceives women. This can be in a “traditional” 50s housewife manner (because some women genuinely want to be housewives and good for them), the “Girlboss”, insert stereotype or no stereotype at all. Women are women. - Gender is a social construct and also a personal construct. If you’re cis, congrats you identify with how you percieve the gender you were assigned at birth. If you’re trans? congrats you percieve yourself as a different gender than the one you were assigned at birth. - Birth certificates don’t mean shit. Mine says I still have a dad on there. Things change. Race = Disclaimer, this is coming from a white person = - “White people can’t have an opinion on the struggles of POC” Correct. We can, however, listen to POC and work to dismantle racist views in ourselves - White fragility is dangerous - “Color Blindness” is dangerous - White women, disabled folk, and LGBT+ folk are primarily white above everything else, and a person of color who is disabled, a woman, or LGBT+ will face different struggles and risks due to their skin color. - Medical racism is alive and well, doctors need to learn how to identify symptoms in POC and on POC skin tones. - This isn’t really relevant but for some reason it gets brought up?? I don’t just consume content from white creators (includes music, youtube videos, movies, books, so on and so forth) - You can’t be “not racist”, everyone will be racist to some degree due to how inherent racism is in our society, even in POC. - If you aren’t actively anti-racist and unlearning the toxic things you were taught growing up, you are pro-racism. - Turning a blind eye to racism is deadly. - Sundown towns and lynchings are still active today - This is a cold ass take but slavery and indentured servitude are not the same thing - AAVE is another language - AAVE and southern slang often cross because the vast majority of black people in the united states are poor and live in the south. I was born and raised in the south and have been going to diverse schools since I was a child. If someone sees me using AAVE, please do not be afraid to call me out on it as I will not react negatively. I understand it is not my place to use it and am learning where the line is drawn. - Cracker is a slur made by rich white people aimed at poor white people. It isn’t offensive if you use it towards white people and you yourself are not white, but it is offensive coming from a rich white person at a poor white person. - Progress is not being made while white people are comfortable with race The Lesbian Discourse - I am not a lesbian. I do not have an opinion on the stuff going on with lesbians. Shoutout to y’all tho y’all are cool TERFs/Transmedicalists - Not TERF or transmed safe - This /is/ a discourse blog so I don’t have a DNI, however I do have boundaries. Start throwing around slurs and I’m not afraid to block. - Transmedicalism is inherently classist, ableist, and racist - TERF ideology is inherently classist, ableist, and racist - TERF ideology closely lines up with white supremacy and harms actual feminism - TERFs hurt more cis women than trans people - Transmedicalism is transphobic - “LGB” is transphobic and homophobic. Learn your history. The LGBT+ community owes everything to trans women of color. Religion - I am not christian, never was, but I was raised baptist. I have never aligned with their beliefs. - Christians almost always actively encourage abuse and discourage consent - Evangelicals are dangerous - Paganism is alive and well - Religion has no place in law LGBT+ General Discourse - Pansexuals are valid, and are not the same as polysexuals, omnisexuals, or bisexuals. - Agender, asexual, and aromantics are all valid and I love y’all <3 - Being aphobic almost always leads to TERF ideology - mlm can use fag (I’m mlm) and the various versions of it, just as wlw can use the d slur. Depending on the history of someone who is nb and what they currently identify as, they can use either one as well. (For example: nb lesbian using the d-slur because they have been called such before and want to reclaim it) - nonbinary people are valid and fall under the trans umbrella - binary trans folks are valid and fall under the trans umbrella - neurodiv folks will have different perceptions of gender depending on the person. I don’t know about neurotypicals but I think that goes for everyone tbh Sexism - Toxic masculinity is real and very dangerous - Sex work isn’t exclusive to women but they play a very big part in it - Sex work is real work and sex workers deserve more love and appreciation. Shoutout to y’all, ily <3 - Men can be part of the MeToo movement - Men can be SA’d and r//ped - Women can be r//pists - It is an awful problem that r//pists get away with their crimes easily - There is no “role reversal” with r//pe. There is no accountability for the r//pist either way. - Women can do anything men can do and vice versa - Women can be abusers - Men can be abusers - Toxic masculinity harms everyone, not just men - Nonbinary people can be abusers, SA, and r//pists Capitalism and whatnot - I support giving the US back to native americans - There is no ethical consumption under capitalism - The nuclear family is a biproduct of capitalism, is inherently toxic, and supports the idea women are objects - ADHD is not a “capitalism problem” and thinking so is ableist - Classism is real - Racism is linked with classism, ableism, homophobia, and is linked directly to capitalism. Without racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and xenophobia, capitalism would not work. - Communism and socialism have worked before, however misinformation about the two have been widespread and capitalist countries (AHEM the united states) have stepped in and messed things up while spreading lies about it and blaming communism or socialism.

[tipsycad147]

Busted: 7 Myths About Witchcraf

For those of you who plan to come out of the broom closet or already emerged and struggle to defend your beliefs, I compiled the list below to help you address some common misconceptions and stereotypes about witchcraft with your loved ones and friends.

At some point, most serious practitioners of the Craft encounter an uncomfortable situation that requires them to either explain themselves or remain misunderstood.

Please note:  As witchcraft takes many forms in the modern world in many different cultures, I use the word “most” very frequently because there are naturally exceptions to every rule.

It is not my intention to speak for every practitioner or pigeonhole the diversity of witchcraft and paganism as a whole, but to provide meaningful counterpoints to common falsehoods about the alternative spiritual practices often labelled (and self-labeled) as “witchcraft.”

Please feel free to leave accurate, respectful, fact-based additions to this list in the comments.

Myth #1:  Witchcraft includes or is somehow related to devil worship.

The concept of the “devil” as Western society understands it emerged mostly from monotheistic Abrahamic religions like Christianity and Islam.  Belief in the devil as a opponent of the God of Abraham remains a tenant of many faiths, and as a non-Christian, I absolutely respect that.

However, most modern practitioners of witchcraft do not acknowledge a satanic being at all.

(There are some exceptions.  Witches of blended traditions wherein Christian influence imprinted the concept of the devil, or those who identify as “Christian witches,” may recognise an oppositional being known as “the Devil.”  Most mainstream Christians recognise the devil as an entity also—that doesn’t mean they worship him.)

Although Christian thought leaders throughout history sometimes labelled pagan gods as the manifestation of the devil, this approach largely aimed to discredit indigenous religious practices and encourage pagan populations to turn towards monotheism.

For more information on this, see How Witchcraft Became Associated with Evil.

Myth #2:  Wicca and Witchcraft are the same thing.

Many non-practitioners use the word “Wicca” and “witchcraft” interchangeably.  Because Wicca enjoys relatively high popularity in the Western world, it’s easy to understand the confusion.

However, “witchcraft” is a blanket term, and under it, we find Wicca along with a whole host of other practices, including Afro-Caribbean traditions, Celtic traditions, Central American traditions, and many indigenous practices around the world.

To further the confusion, some Wiccans don’t practice witchcraft at all.  Spell casting is merely one component of many, including the honouring of the moon cycles, natural living practices and the Wheel of the Year.

Myth #3:  Typical Christians don’t practice witchcraft.

Well, they may not call it that.  But I would.

During a traditional Mass, the priest is said to turn wine into the blood of Christ, and bread into his flesh.  For some, this transition is meant to be symbolic.  Many Christian traditions even interpret this transformation literally.

Either way, many practising witches would akin this and other common, mainstream Christian traditions to spell craft or at least magickal ritualism.

This comparison is not intended to offend Christians, but to point out that what practising witches do really isn’t that different, at least in form.

We use ritual as a means to commune with the divine and spell craft as a means to express ourselves to a higher power.  We sometimes even use the words “spell” and “prayer” interchangeably.

If you’re Christian, and you’d rather not define your traditions as “witchcraft,” I mean no disrespect.  But if you’re asking me what I call witchcraft, I personally don’t see a whole lot of difference between saying the rosary and chanting over an altar.

Then again, “witchcraft” isn’t a blasphemous slur to me.

So it’s easier not to be offended by it.

Myth #4  Witchcraft is an ancient religion.

Witchcraft is an ancient practice.  The earliest cave dwellers left behind artifacts of shamanistic witchcraft (see The Sorcerer for a solid example) and it absolutely qualifies as a universal archetype.

If we accept Wikipedia’s eloquent-yet-simplistic definition of witchcraft as “broadly . . . the practice of and belief in magical skills and abilities exercised by solitary practitioners and groups” then all known cultures practised some form of witchcraft at one time.

Your ancestors were witches.  Their ancestors were witches.  We are all descended from witchcraft.  No serious archeologist or credible human historian of any kind denies that.

Even the Bible recognises humanity’s ancient roots in witchcraft.

But witchcraft isn’t a religion at all.  It’s a component of various religions, and many religions that acknowledge openly their use of witchcraft are actually quite modern (including and, perhaps especially, Wicca).

Myth #5:  If you let your kids spend time with pagan children, they may be converted or enticed into practicing witchcraft.

In a broad sense (but with a few major exceptions, like Buddhism) proselytism or “enticed conversion” is a feature unique to, or at least most frequently employed by, monotheism.

For cultural as well as theological reasons, a monotheistic child is actually much more likely to try to convert a pagan child than the other way around.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that.

I’m just saying, that’s generally not how we roll.

Your kid might end up doing super scary things with his pagan friend, like stop playing video games for a half hour to go watch the stars, or learn how to compost properly.

But spell casting?  Probably not.

Pagan parents usually feel a sensitivity as a community to non-pagan parents and we recognise that you may not appreciate us exposing your child to our beliefs.

We generally don’t even assume it’s okay to conduct a ritual with a pagan child who isn’t ours.   We have no central doctrine; our traditions can be extremely personalised, varying widely from family to family even within the same coven or group.  Therefore, we usually don’t assume what’s okay for our family is okay for someone else.

But if you have any doubts, a simple “We’re happy to send little Jimmy to your house, just please avoid any spiritual topics, as we prefer to discuss those things with him ourselves” will almost certainly go over just fine and get the point across effectively.

Most importantly, it’s not cool to exclude kids because of their parents’ religious or spiritual beliefs, no matter how much you disagree with them.   So don’t.

Myth 6:  Pagans/Witches are unattractive, ugly, socially awkward or otherwise make undesirable friends/partners.

Damn.  Some people can be harsh.

For hundreds of years now, society invested a lot in creating powerfully negative images of pagans and witchcraft in general.

Think for a moment about the old, wart-speckled woman with gnarled, horrifically arthritic knuckles and bad taste in hats.  (Can you stick a feather in that thing?  Some ribbon?   A little colour goes a long way, girl).

Now, the super nerdy, overweight, pock-marked middle-aged woman embodies the new stereotype of a sad, delusional person with a limited social life and nothing better to do than adorn her parade of house cats with exotic crystals from around the world.

Like any other stereotype, those people exist somewhere to confirm this image of witchcraft for you if you look hard enough.

The most open, flamboyant or expressive pagans present themselves like the most open, flamboyant or expressive people in any culture.  They tend to go over the top.  They tend to be very public.

And yeah, sometimes, they come off as kind of weird.

You notice these people because they are so public and loud, and you may get the impression that they are representative of the whole witchcraft world.

But the practitioners you might find more relatable often don’t have the luxury of identifying themselves publicly or even privately.  They work in law, politics or public school teaching jobs that prevent them from speaking openly about their practices.

Or, they may just think it’s nobody’s business.

They dress like you do, they go to Starbucks, they’re obsessed with their !Phones, they set unrealistic New Year’s resolutions and they fret about their dating lives (aka “The Basic White Witch”).

In short:  they’re mostly “normal” in every other respect.  Or as “normal” as any of us get.

Myth #7 Witches are resentful of, or generally intolerant around Christians.

First of all, some practitioners of witchcraft consider themselves Christian.

However, if you had the unpleasant experience of being lectured as a Christian by a pagan witch, then I am very sorry about that.  I find this hypocrisy embarrassing.

I hope it’s not common..

At the very least, know that we’re not all like that.

If it helps, please bear in mind that many people adopt a practice witchcraft after a bad childhood or early adulthood experience with Christianity.  That experience, not the practice of witchcraft itself, informs their ideas and attitudes about Christianity.

I know of no formal tradition that teaches the hatred or intolerance of any religion, including Christianity.

I tell my pagan friends the same thing I will tell you:  the best way to heal other people’s wounds or misconceptions about your spiritual tradition is to be the finest example you can humanely be.

It’s easier to swallow a tiny drop of compassion than ocean of bitterness or contempt.

Let’s all try to love each other a little better.

Blessed be.

https://moodymoons.com/2017/12/27/moody-moons-busts-7-myths-about-witchcraft/

[jurakan]

I made this post basically because @andasideofpanache told me to.

So there’s a bit of a kerfuffle going around because the makers of Game of Thrones announced that they want to do an alternate history show about what life would be like if the Confederacy had won the American Civil War. And I don’t know how I feel about it, exactly, other than I think it’s...kind of boring? As far as alternate histories go, it’s pretty standard. “If the Confederacy won the American Civil War” and “If the Nazis won World War II” are the two alternate histories I see all too often and that’s horrible because the answer is that life would suck.

I think it’d be much better if you took some other point in history and took something that was pretty much neutral and said what if it’d gone the other way? So for the viewing pleasure of the followers of this blog: 

A BUNCH OF ALTERNATE HISTORY IDEAS THAT ARE MORE INTERESTING:

-What if Christianity was not the dominant religion of Western Civilization: Look as a Roman Catholic I don’t know if I can conceive of the idea of Christianity just not existing so that’s not what I’m suggesting here. But i am suggesting that it’d be interesting to design a world where it didn’t become the dominant theological viewpoint in Europe. How would the medieval world look? What would make the art different? What would our modern world look like? What would be considered “traditional values” in that world? What would our calendar look like?

And I’m curious as to what different people would put to replace it; my first instinct is Mithraic religion, but as that was a mystery cult I don’t think it’d pick up much steam. Islam’s still a big contender for that, but if you wanted to do something more out there you could pick Zoroastrianism or the official Roman state pantheon of gods. I mean could you imagine PETA freaking out over augurs reading animal guts? There’s a fun picture.

-What if Spain had controlled North America until it had become independent?

As a Hispanic person I get a bigger feel for how much English culture still influences American society today. I’m still baffled by people’s fetishization of the English royal family (especially Anglo Catholics, considering that whole Church of England thing but whatevs), given that a King of Spain actually told Hugo Chavez to shut up to his face in 2007. Really guys, the Spanish-speaking world is where it’s at.

So to see the US as a country more culturally influenced by Spain than England would be a great thought experiment, especially considering that Spain came to the New World first, and fully expected that that new land was all theirs for the taking. The obvious changes would be the dominance of Spanish as the spoken language and probably Catholicism would be more common than Protestantism. But what cultural values would be more common? What would the US’s government turn out to be without the direct influence of English Enlightenment thinkers? Which thinkers would be influential? How would the relationships between countries change in that setting (do we eventually become BFFs with Spain like the US did with Britain or with Spain instead and what’s up with France)? What would the State names be like? Would religious freedom have been such a big thing in our country? Would all the Neo-Pagans be less inclined to British Celtic and Germanic mythologies as much as Roman, Ibero-Celtic, Basque and Mesoamerican mythologies? How would the architecture look different? And so on and so forth.

-What if China colonized North America first?

There’s a conspiracy theory that floats around every now and then that China actually found the west coast of the North America long before Columbus set sail. So...what if they did? What if they set up a colony there? How would that completely change the game?

For starters, the capital would be on the West Coast, and European culture wouldn’t be the dominant one in the country. Even after independence Mandarin Chinese would remain the biggest language in the world, Chinese philosophers would be the important ones people in the country studied and I strongly suspect that democracy and republicanism wouldn’t be as popular given that the Chinese government was imperial until 1911--and not in the same sense of having a Parliament or representative body like England or France. All our urban legends would be more like Chinese ones, and...I don’t know what the opposite of Yellow Peril stereotypes would be, but that’d be something interesting to explore.

Also, would slavery had been a thing? I mean, not that the Chinese never had slaves, but would it be so racialized as it was under a European model of colonialism? I have my doubts, especially considering that there’s not an Africa right there for them to exploit.

-What if Alexander the Great had an heir that held his empire together?

Very famously when Alexander the Great died his empire was divvied up between his generals and became several different nations that all eventually fell to Rome. But what if it hadn’t? What if Alexander had named an heir (a son or general or whatever) who’d been able to hold everything together until Rome came along?

What would the empire be called? And would it be able to hold against Rome? Would the two become allies? Or, more likely, would they duke it out and become bitter enemies? And who’d win? How would that change the world today? How would that effect Greek and Roman philosophy/language/culture and the place they held in Western Civilization today? Would we still have Hanukkah? 

-What if Napoleon hadn’t been defeated?

What if Napoleon had been lifelong emperor? Whether that means succeeding in escaping from that island prison, or just never being defeated in the first place, it’s an interesting thought? How long would his empire have lasted? Would it last into the modern day? And if so how different would it be from the EU? Would Britain join or always be in conflict?

And what about his descendants? Would they hold his empire or lose it bit by bit? Or would they expand it and take even more land? Would the French Empire be THE superpower and dominant society on the world stage in modern day?

-What if Antony and Cleopatra defeated Octavian?

Oh hey, what if Octavian was defeated and Egypt didn’t get as Romanized? What if he was killed and the Roman Empire got stopped before it really got started? Suddenly we don’t have an emperor. Does that mean Rome goes back to a (decadent and corrupt) republic? Would Egypt conquer them (and then the repercussions for the world stage after that)? Or would they be in a sort of cold war?

If Rome did endure as a country, what would be the opinion of the Roman Empire? Would we still glorify the “old days” of the Roman Republic if they’d endured, given they were corrupt and lasted? Or would we think of the good ol’ days of Rome being the Empire that never really lasted?

-What if El Dorado was a real place?

And the Spanish found it? And they were able to hold on to that gold, meaning that they remained the dominant superpower in the Age of Exploration/Colonization? Or what if El Dorado was able to defend itself and remained an oasis against Spanish colonization and European influence in Mesoamerica?

Or what if the Spanish didn’t find it but someone else did much later? And how would that discovery be taken by the world?

-What if Mesoamerica repelled the Spanish invasion?

Does that mean Spain wouldn’t have become a major power at all? Does that mean that it’d also be able to resist Anglo American settlers trying to expand the US? How long would the Aztec Triple Alliance last considering it was pretty crappy to its neighbors, and what would happen to replace it? A new Mayan empire, or something else entirely? How long would the practice of human sacrifice last?

Would Latin America be primarily indigenous then? Would Mesoamerica help other nations of indigenous peoples in the Americas and the Caribbean fight against European colonizers? Would Mesoamerican mythology be a more common religion in the modern day?

-What if the Eastern Crusades didn’t happen?

What if the Pope didn’t answer Constantinople’s call for aid against Muslim conquest? Or what if things had just gone peacefully in the meeting between Islam and Christianity? Alright that’s unlikely, but what if some sort of agreement and territorial difference was settled not through armed pilgrimage but by any other means?

But by the Crusades Europeans got a bunch of information about places beyond Europe and preserved Greek and Roman texts from their occupation of the Holy Land (and arguably, this helped contribute to the Renaissance). So does this mean that the Renaissance wouldn’t have happened? Or that certain military and cultural developments wouldn’t have happened?

If the West never went to official war with Islam in such a way would their be the same level of Islamaphobia around today? And what would the status of Israel be, considering that it was taken by Islamic forces in the Crusades? Would Islamic/Christian tensions be assuaged by Jewish people still be screwed by having their lands still not be in their own hands?

-What if the Reconquista never succeeded?

What would happen if Spain never became a Catholic nation again, and continued into the modern day to be dominantly Islamic? It would lead to their being an Islamic country in mainland Europe for one, but what would that entail? Would Portugal exist? Would the relationship with the rest of Europe be good or bad? What would it be like to be Christian, Jewish or atheist in a primarily Islamic modern day Spain?

And of course, what would that mean for Latin America? It wouldn’t be ‘Latin’ at all if it was colonized by an Islamic power rather than a Catholic one. How would that conquest go anyhow? Would African slavery be a thing on the scale it was under Christian Europeans? Would most of Central and South America be Muslim? Would the language be Spanish or Arabic? Or would there be an in-between language?

Would prejudice against Mexican immigrants be based in Islamaphobia? Or would Islam be more accepted in mainstream American society considering that there are tons of immigrants from Mexico?

-What if World War II just didn’t happen?

I don’t know what to do with this one other than suggest that question.

-What if the US had invaded Japan instead of dropping the atomic bomb?

Alright so a bunch of people on Tumblr always like to claim that the US was dickish because it dropped the atom bomb. Which, okay, it’s hard not to construe dropping an atom bomb as a dick move, but what if we’d gone with the other option, which was invading Japan with infantry? That would have sucked, because it’d result in more deaths of both Japanese and Americans. 

So you know, think about how that’d turn out?

-What if the Mongols has conquered Europe?

The Mongols tried to take Europe one time. What if they succeeded? How long would that have lasted? What would the cultural influences of a Mongol Empire, connecting Europe and Asia? Cross-cultural exchange existed then, of course, but it’d be even more prominent. We’d also have Western religions being more common in the East and Eastern religions more common in the West.

And THEN think about what would happen when that Europe or Asia goes out colonizing the world.

Some other ideas that I don’t have time to write about: -What if Buddhism hadn’t caught on? -What if there hadn’t been a Bronze Age Collapse? -What if Italy had funded Columbus’s voyage instead of Spain? -What if Italy never united? -What if the Saxons couldn’t conquer Britain?