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 Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 12:14 am
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Sometimes you just see things around you that deeply DEEPLY irritate you. Things you know don't follow logic, can't be supported by facts, should have been thought through more, or are detrimental in some way to their purported purpose. And yet they are out there.
Usually I let them pass; I recognize myself as a curmudgeon and don't always phrase things diplomatically or kindly. But I realized today that there are plenty of folks who don't have the knowledge or experience to see these things for what they are, or question them. I've started to think that we could use them as examples of what not to do, teachable moments. It's not about reaching everyone - it's about reaching the people we can, and then hoping they'll also pay that forward. I want to spread knowledge. I want to remove ignorance. And I hope others do, too.
I'll start this rolling, but I'd like it if people joined in when they felt motivated to. Post 'em if you've got them - but please, no personal attacks. This isn't about what you don't like aesthetically; I'd like to see solid criticisms, not personal poison. And if you've got questions about things you see or read online or in books - please post and ask about them!
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Today brought me two.
The first is from Tumblr. Tumbr is pretty good at spreading really inaccurate or misrepresented concepts on its' Paganism tag - misinformation seems to be a constant stream, due in part to people preferring the style of things over the substance, and its' generally graphical nature. You see a lot of 'info' graphics that are pretty, but are just not at all factual. And of course, you get a look at all kinds of people's personal spaces and goings on. This one caught my eye.
http://althara.tumblr.com/post/23948084850/this-is-my-main-shrine-shelf-featuring-basts
This is a good example of how not to build an eclectic shrine or altar, even if you have very limited space. Mixing pantheons on a single space is a bad idea. I can't tell here if this is meant to be a Wiccan-flavoured pairing of deities as well, in which case they are trying to force Bast and Herne to be sexual partners, regardless of the appropriateness of that pairing. And Herne isn't even a god - he's a localized spirit of Windsor Forest in England!
This altar area isn't really useful as a staging area, being squashed between these two, and it doesn't really take into consideration that whatever work or ritual they may choose to undertake there might be offensive or inappropriate to its' neighbours. Sometimes you just have to wait until you have the appropriate space to give to your shrines and altars. It's that, or make them very small and very simple.
In any case, I think this shrine/altar needs more thought given to it, and shows common flaws of eclectic neo-paganism done poorly.
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The second is a much lengthier bit of rumbling.
Today I made the mistake of leafing through Pauline and Dan Campanelli's book 'Rites of Passage' whilst bored. It's a book I acquired in my very early days as a pagan, and I'd forgotten how angry it makes me at what's available as source material.
Why is this book an example of how Not to Be Pagan? It is an example of how shallow the eclectic neo-pagan genre of books can be - misleading, simplistic, inaccurate, and vague. Worse, the book's tone works to spoon-feed the reader instructions without giving them any real idea why they're doing what they're doing when they're doing it. Everything is happy, fun, good for you, and easy to do - just follow all these steps and you can be a Pagan, too.
The book conflates Paganism and Wicca constantly. You'd think they were interchangeable, especially if you were a newbie to either concept. Also fairly heavy-handed with the idea that magic is inherently religious Pagan worship. It doesn't offer the reader any idea that there are many different forms of Paganism, instead making it appear as if everything is 'Eclectic Wicca-flavoured Paganism/Wicca!'.
Confusing matters more is the application of the term 'Witch', which doesn't seem to indicate either practice of magic, or initiation into Wicca, but rather seems to be used entirely as a reference to a woman with psychic ability. The authors also place a heavy importance on gardening, to the point where you'd think you'd have to be a serious gardener before being able to be a Pagan or a Witch.
If you don't already have a background in modern neo-pagan history, or even an accurate understanding of the history and cultures pagan religions originated in, you certainly won't get it from here. Instead, you're shown a succession of examples of things that are similar across the world - the 'all these historical and cultural things from everywhere are similar, so clearly they're evidence that they're the same thing ' theory in action. But similarities don't make things the same, and it's not adequately supportive of the very broad conclusions they draw throughout. It's clearly still got a lot of influence on it from Margaret Murray's very debunked Matriarchal Society theories. The book also gives the idea that all cultures celebrated the Wheel of the Year, another modern construct that doesn't fit well for all cultures. No indication is ever given that the calendar is modern, or that it is based around the agricultural cycles of the British Isles and may not be appropriate for other pantheons.
'Wheel of the Year' is heavy on very soft polytheism. It never mentions the concept of hard polytheism. There are many examples of conforming or placing deities into modern constructs like the Triple Goddess or Horned God that contradict those deity's historical role in their respective cultures. There doesn't seem to be any limit to how many cultures they try to blend into one - including the Aboriginal peoples of North America. There's lots of entitlement and cultural appropriation in evidence - they encourage both rather cheerfully. For example:
There is a 'Wiccan Self-Initiation' ritual in the Initiation chapter. Doesn't even pretend to be a dedication - nope, you can just initiate yourself into the religion according to this book. Apparently they don't think initiation is what makes a priest or priestess of Wicca, since Initiation and Priesthood are two different chapters. But you can make yourself a Priest/ess as well, so it really doesn't matter.
There are multiple mentions of using Elder Futhark runes for magic - without calling them Elder Futhark, without indicating that they are Norse in origin, without mention of Odhinn, without any reference to them as specific energies or Mysteries, and usually without giving them their proper names. They instead treat them as generic magical symbols, renaming them as 'Fertility', 'Creativity', and so on - but more often the symbols are simply inserted into the text, and the reader instructed to use it in some manner or another. At one point the rune 'Sowelu' is immediately followed by discussion of its' relevance to the Kemetic god Horus.
While all of these points stand as good statements of why I think this book is a great example of How Not to Be Pagan, today this was what irked enough to write about it.
Page 106, in a chapter about Handfasting, there is this:
Quote: '[It is possible that in ancient times when Paganism was the world religion]'
Um...whut?
There is no unified 'Pagan religion'. Not now, not then, probably not ever. Lots of individual religions, sure...but not a world-spanning faith. Certainly not a vague "Ye Olden Tiems" where all the world was happy and peaceful and wonderful because everyone was a 'capital P' Pagan.
I despair. I do my best to teach my students about the pitfalls in Neo-Pagan literature, about the reality of history, and where we really fit into all that - but it's a drop in the bucket. Is it any wonder, with books making blanket statements like these, with bad research and poor logic and dubious revisionist histories to support those statements, that newcomers to Pagan religions think some of the ridiculous and inaccurate things they do? I really wish there was a way to get them out of that genre and into primary and secondary source materials, into something with some depth.
And I wish I could say this book is an isolated example, but it's not. The Campanellis wrote multiple books, all with the same cruddy info and tone. And they're not the worst I've seen. But I will still find a use for them - they're a proper example of what NOT to use as reference material.
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So that's my first (long) contribution to this thread. I'm sure there'll be more, since I'm usually ticked off by something at least once a day. wink
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Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 6:40 am
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Sanguina Cruenta Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 9:41 pm
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I've heard of the Campanellis but I can't remember where from.
Today's tumblr-sourced bit of bullshit is:
What's wrong with this picture? (lol)
Let's take it line by line.
"When one defines oneself as Pagan..."
McCoy makes the error here of implying Paganism is one cohesive thing, rather than the loose collection of different religions that it is. On top of that she seems to be speaking for all Pagans, which is a bit much for any one individual to do, given how different we all are.
"...it means she or he follows and earth or nature religion..."
Not true. Many Pagans do follow nature religions, but many Pagans do not, and honestly what constitutes an "earth religion" or a "nature religion" will differ widely depending on who you ask; one person of a specific Pagan religion might have a very loose definition of "earth religion" and be fine with it as a descriptor while someone else will use a different definition and be rather offended.
Even if we have a distinct and single definition for "earth religion" that doesn't mean all Pagan religions will fall into that category. Paganism is too wide for that.
"...one that sees the divine manifest in all creation."
Same basic problem. She is assuming all Pagans believe what she believes, or is drastically narrowing the definition of "Pagan" without cause to do so.
"The cycles of nature are our holy days,"
Again, a big leap to speak for ALL Pagan religions in making such a claim. I can think of one holiday at least in my religion that has nothing to do with the cycles of nature. It also depends a great deal on what you consider to be "nature" and what you don't; are the movements of the planets "nature"? What if your holiday is focused on something that happened a long time ago or far away, like a day of remembrance or the rising of the Nile (which doesn't even happen now it's been dammed)? What about religions that have a focus on agriculture - can planting and harvesting really be considered natural cycles? Aren't they more of a technological leap forward?
"the earth is our temple,"
Different religions will have different holy places. For some, there are groves, for others, standing stones - but is this "the earth" or are these places more specific and distinct? Just saying "the earth is our temple" is quite vague and doesn't take into account the specific places of worship of many, many cultures, including ones who BUILT and continue to build special sacred buildings in which to worship.
On top of that many Pagans, particularly solitary Pagans, worship inside at an altar. If one is going to generalise it would be better to say that the home is the temple, not the earth.
"its plants and creatures our partners and teachers."
This is mostly just romanticism of the natural world. There are plenty of creatures whose idea of a lesson is "don't step on me", taught by delivery of venom to the bloodstream via the ankle. Or perhaps their idea of a lesson is "humans are for eating". For many Pagan religions there are things we can learn from plants or at least the spirits within them, and there are many animals with which we can get along fine, but this whole idea is basic romanticism that is less about understanding the world around us and the animals in it and more about building a pretty fantasy land with flowers and friendly wolves. To a lot of our Pagan ancestors, the natural world was filled with things that could kill you. A lot of our Pagan ancestors lived in cities, after all! The idea that all Pagans live happily alongside all manner of plants and animals is just nonsense. Plenty of Pagans are allergic to plants and will remove them from their garden whenever possible. I personally have a dread hatred of cockroaches and will rain chemical death upon them at the slightest provocation, e.g., seeing them at all at any point.
"We worship a deity that is both male and female,"
Incorrect to the point of being actually offensive. Some Pagans don't worship any deities. Some Pagans - I'd venture MOST Pagans - worship more than one deity, not one deity who is both genders. Other Pagans worship a deity who is distinctly either male or female. McCoy's monotheism, I would venture, is something of a rarity. I don't know why she thinks other Pagans worship this same deity as she does.
"a mother Goddess and a father God,"
Not only is this a contradiction to the line above (unless she means she worships her single deity as both a mother goddess and a father god, which seems a redundant thing to do) but it makes the same error of straight-out saying that all Pagans worship a mother goddess and a father god. No. They don't. It's that simple.
"who together created all that is, was, or will be."
Not all Pagans believe in creationism, whatever form it takes. On top of that my suggestion of one deity worshipped twice seems to be wrong ("who together") so she has definitely directly contradicted her monotheistic stance from two lines earlier.
"We respect life,"
I'm not even sure what this actually means, in a practical sense. What does it mean to respect life? Perhaps it is intentionally vague so that she can say it applies to all Pagans and it is difficult to disagree without really knowing what it means or how one can tell if one does or not.
"cherish the free will of sentient beings,"
Fun fact: not all Pagans believe in free will. Fun Fact #2: I have read several books that directly contradict this statement by recommending things such as binding spells. I would not be terribly surprised if I discovered McCoy had written such a spell herself.
"and accept the sacredness of all creation."
If this was true, there would be no ritual rules about cleansing before ritual, or abstaining from particular activities or foods before performing certain tasks, etc. These things certainly exist within Paganism past and present.
McCoy isn't going for accuracy here. She doesn't care about being accurate. She's more concerned with pretty sentiment than what Pagans actually believe and do, which is offensive to Pagans and misleading to newbies. The worst part, to me, is the implicit suggestion that if you don't adhere to her arbitrary definition you are not a Pagan.
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Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 6:12 am
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Sanguina Cruenta Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 2:45 am
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Person: Blah blah Elen of the Ways blah blah.
Me: Oh interesting, I hadn't heard of Elen of the Ways, do you have any information? I googled her but nothing I came across had any citations.
Person: Sure. *provides link to 100% UPG by some vacuous bint*
Me: Yeah.... actually I was sort of interested in something with citations.
The problem: There's a big big difference between established information and personal experience. Both are great, but if someone's asking for information, don't give them personal experience. It's important to distinguish between actual scholarship and what some random person feels is so, because they don't have equal weight, nor should we give them equal weight. If someone asks you personally for information, you should distinguish when you speak to them between what is understood generally (through lore, or as established ritual, etc) and what you think, feel or do yourself. It's nice if in all your experiences with Odin he is a young-looking cheerful chap, but you can't tell someone else those things as if they were gospel if someone asked you what Odin looked like. Odin as established in lore is older and is missing an eye, which is what it would be appropriate to tell others, after which you could add your own experiences, identifying that they are your own. If someone asks you for a link to information about something, find a good link. In the link I was sent to today, the woman could have made it all up off the top of her head; it wasn't information, it was her experience, and it may as well have been her fiction for all it was worth to me.
Instead, I tracked down a saint on wikipedia I think they were referring to. There is a supposed goddess upon which the saint and the heroine in Welsh myth are based upon, but we apparently know no more than that. Had the person I was speaking with been honest and had researched well, rather than relying on the experience of others and treating them as if they were information, she would have been better able to respond and we would have had a better discussion, with both parties knowing where we stand as per established knowledge.
For example, it's all very well to say "Cernunnos does this" and "Cernunnos does that" and so on, but we know very little about Cernunnos save his name and a few figures to which the name is ascribed. It is most helpful in discussions to know where you are all starting from regarding solid information before suggesting your own ideas, your own UPG, your own musings on the subject matter. Otherwise we end up in situations where we take other people's thoughts and misunderstandings as fact; Hekate ends up an old woman, Herne ends up a god, and so on.
Musings are great but they don't measure up to the solid research of scholars, and honestly to give them equal weight (or to give musings more weight than the work of academics) lowers the hard work of those people and undermines and demeans intellectualism within Paganism.
FYI: Personal experiences and conclusions you've drawn yourself are referred to as "UPG" or "univerified/unsubstantiated personal gnosis" in order to better differentiate what you think from what is either a) known from lore, history or archaeology or b) a suggestion from an academic. A citation is a link or book and page number that substantiates your statement and that someone can go and check for further information, so a properly cited article (such as a good article on wikipedia or any scholarly article) will have citations for every piece of information.
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:53 am
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:55 am
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 8:00 am
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Sanguina Cruenta Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 3:48 pm
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 4:35 pm
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:02 pm
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Staring Berry I don't mean to fight or anything but I thought I should point something out. Why does everyone hate it so much when people use the generalized term "pagan"? If you don't want to be generalized don't classify all the religions under one general name. Christians have different branches too but you don't see them going "Im a Lutheran, Get it right!" Same goes for anything really... "Its sorbet, not ice cream!" Sorry I don't mean to offend....I'm really in a neutral position here. Open to hear from all sides... sweatdrop
Well, as was pointed out already: Christianity is one single religion. It has different sects or traditions, but they're still all generally the same thing, centered around the idea of Jesus Christ as savior and Lord.
Paganism isn't a religion. There's no one single religion called Paganism, never was, and never will be. There are pagan religions, yes - but they're all different. Pagan means 'non-Abrahamic'. That's it.
Historical titbit:
Originally it comes from the Latin 'pagani', which meant 'country-dwellers' - those unsophisticated folks in Italy outside Rome, not the urbanites behind the Servian Walls. It really was meant more as meaning 'hick', than anything else. But when the Western empire converted to Christianity, it came to refer to those 'hicks' as people who lived outside Rome and thus might still practice the original Roman religion, full of its' borrowed Gods and Etruscan numina. Over time, the 'hick' implication faded from the word, and it came to mean what it does today.
For me 'Pagan' is such a general term it's sort of useless as anything but that. If you tell me you're a Pagan all I'm going to know for sure is that you're not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew. It doesn't have any other information attached to it than that.
And that's fine if that's all you want to tell me. But if you're trying to use 'Pagan' as a term that somehow means something more specific than that, and you expect me to know those specifics when you use it, you'll be disappointed. That is compounded a hundred-fold by people who want to assume we are going to be friends and compatriots simply because we share the label 'Pagan', and that all Pagans are brothers and sisters who all believe the same thing. There's a profound lack of knowledge regarding the term, in part thanks to bad research, revisionist history, and writers who perpetuate it.
In the end it isn't so much the term, as it is the way people use and misuse the term by making poor assumptions about it. You can't stretch the definition of 'Pagan' to mean more than 'non-Abrahamic'. That's as specific as it gets.
I feel much the same way when people use the word 'Celt' as some sort of descriptor for their paths or ancestry. It's useless - 'Celt' refers only to a group of languages, a family of related linguistics. People who spoke Celtic languages spanned Europe - it's not specific, and those many nations that spoke Celtic languages could be very different in cultures and beliefs. Once again, it's a word that is perfectly fine - but people use it in the wrong context and try to make it define things it doesn't. |
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 9:48 pm
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Staring Berry I don't mean to fight or anything but I thought I should point something out. Why does everyone hate it so much when people use the generalized term "pagan"? If you don't want to be generalized don't classify all the religions under one general name. Christians have different branches too but you don't see them going "Im a Lutheran, Get it right!" Same goes for anything really... "Its sorbet, not ice cream!" Sorry I don't mean to offend....I'm really in a neutral position here. Open to hear from all sides... sweatdrop
I don't think anyone here has expressed a dislike of the word "Pagan" itself or that people use it. The problem is when people say "Pagan" when they mean "just my form of Paganism". It excludes a massive number of people, implies they don't matter and that their religion isn't relevant despite the fact that they're just as Pagan as anyone else under the umbrella. The issue isn't calling someone a Pagan when they are, it's assuming they believe or do certain things just because they're a Pagan.
A corresponding umbrella isn't "Christian" but "Abrahamic"; it would be like saying "All Abrahamics believe in Jesus as the son of god" or "all Abrahamics believe in the trinity" or "All Abrahamics stay kosher". None of those things are true when it comes to everyone under that umbrella - hell, if we're including Gnostics, we can't even say "all Abrahamics believe YHWH is the highest god". Some Abrahamics are henotheists and some are monotheists. Some honour Jesus as a prophet, some as the son of god, some as god, some don't at all.
The problem with avoiding the word "Pagan" entirely is that for a lot of people, that's the main (or only) word they identify with. They don't fall within a specific religion, so that's their word of identification. Others prefer "Pagan" over more specific words because they'd rather not get specific about their faith with people who might not understand it or who they don't know well. We, as Pagans, might not necessarily have much in common, but as "outsiders" and minority religions we share common social experiences, and as few people might share our specific faiths, it's nice to be able to talk to others who might have had similar social experiences, even if what they do and believe is quite different. |
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Sanguina Cruenta Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 10:39 am
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http://merrymeet.tumblr.com
Another episode of 'How Not'...
This tumblr blog is a prime example of how confusing and confused it can get out there with paganism and witchcraft.
1) Witchcraft and magic are the person's stated focus for the blog. But it seems to focus instead on Goddess spirituality and nature worship. It's a good indication of how fuzzy the delineation between Pagan religions and witchcraft is - this blogger seems to believe that witchcraft=pagan, which it does not. It is a very confusing mess of Goddess worship, nature spirituality, and 'spells'.
2) The blog assumes that 'Pagan' is a specific religion, a fault we see copiously elsewhere. 'Pagan' is a category, not a definition or title.
3) Uncredited materials! I see quotes from different authors in graphical form, but no credits or attributions. It's pretty rude to put things up online without crediting them, if you didn't create them yourself. If you did it in any professional capacity, you'd be penalized for not sourcing, or perhaps charged for plagiarism outright. The Pagan community has a huge problem with this sort of thing because materials spread, half-copied and uncredited, between people for decades. Pretty soon you got folks who can't be arsed about who wrote it or finding out where it came from - they just slap 'Traditional' on it as if that's a valid credit for something that's most less than 75 years old.
This sort of cherry-picking 'I assumed it was traditional' approach is problematic - if you don't know where the materials you're basing your path or practice on come from, it's pretty difficult to ascertain whether or not they've got any kind of factual or historical validity. You need that valid basis underneath - otherwise at best you may have created yourself a fantasy fiction for a faith, and at worst you're indulging in delusional behaviors. You can end up in a space when confronted with reasonable doubt and facts that contradict what they've constructed, people become abusive, stick their fingers in their ears and ignore whatever is bothersome to their preferred reality, or worse - they retreat farther into that fantasy.
Willful ignorance is ugly, and uncredited materials can be where it starts. It is always worth knowing who wrote something.
4) There's some bashing of monotheistic Abrahamic religion further in. This usually happens when a person has a past with a dogmatic religion, and speak in a reactionary fashion due to their issues with said past. No-one likes their religion being bashed; most pagans cry persecution pretty fast when it's directed at them, but then they do it right back! Hypocritical, and not cool. Don't do it.
5) There's some ritual language being thrown around out of context here. What makes the language sacred is using it in a sacred manner, in sacred places. Plastering it all over your blog in graphics probably doesn't qualify as that, and lessens its' sacredness.
The key to being eclectic is to be respectful of other paths and cultures, to be thoughtful about the practices and materials you take on, and to be discerning about how you use them. This blog is good evidence of what happens when you don't.
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Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 12:01 am
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I saw a Midsummer ritual going around on Tumblr, which appears to be from here: http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/lithathesummersolstice/ht/Litha_Fire_Rite.htm
This ritual seems to be of two minds. It wants to be Wiccan-esque in places, but not in others. Like..why bother involving quarter work at all, if casting a circle isn't mandatory? The cultures being used for this rite didn't themselves believe in the classical elemental system, instead using a Three Realms model of Land, Sea, and Sky. They didn't cast circles. If a person doesn't work with the classical elements, half this ritual feels illogical or unnecessary.
This rite makes zero mention of any God. Traditionally the focus of the Sabbats and the Wheel of the Year is the life of the God shown through the journey of the sun through the agricultural year and the seasons. A Sabbat ritual that focuses on Goddesses alone seems odd. The Sun is only given the most vague mention, and the rite does not seem to involve any specific sun deity from either of the pantheons featured.
It's problematic. Either the rite is about the Wheel of the Year (a ritual calendar created for Wicca that Eclectic Neo-Paganism adopted) and trying to shoehorn in cultures that may not work well with that calendar, or the rite is focused on a seasonal observation of a specific culture, and the Wheel and its' holidays are an inappropriate reference point or label for that seasonal observation.
It's all very confusing; a mashup of not-quite-Wicca and modern 'Celtic', 'neo-Druid' religion, and it's not quite factual. Alban Heruin is a Welsh name...but two of the three goddesses named are Irish. The Irish didn't celebrate what we'd call the Lesser Sabbats - equinoxes and solstices were astrological observations, not festivals.
Further into the rite, this person has chosen to invoke a Triple Goddess, although it's not clear whether or not this is the only deity invocation in the rite. If you want to work with the Triple Goddess concept, that's fine. But this isn't the way to do it.
Quote: The triple goddess watches over me. She is known by many names. She is the Morrighan, Brighid, and Cerridwen. She is the washer at the ford, She is the guardian of the hearth, She is the one who stirs the cauldron of inspiration.
Don't do this. Know your history. The Triple Goddess is a modern construct, and these goddesses were not historically honoured in any form close to that construct. Not only are these deities from different pantheons - two Irish, one Welsh - one of them is already a triple goddess in her own right, The Morrigan being composed of three sisters. Three sisters, though - not Maiden-Mother-Crone. These deities do not have a MMC connection - and certainly not across pantheons.
It's not a hopeless case. This ritual needed some more research, and a little more time in editing. It needs to decide if it's a Wiccan-flavoured eclectic neo-pagan rite, or if it's not. If it's not ENP, removing the ENP concepts like the Triple Goddess, the Wiccan Wheel of the Year, and the term 'Litha' would help it restructure. If it is ENP, keeping the concepts soft poly, and not using specific deity names, would help clear it up a little. And it would definitely help to keep things to one pantheon, regardless of what direction it goes in.
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Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:56 pm
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Morgandria http://althara.tumblr.com/post/23948084850/this-is-my-main-shrine-shelf-featuring-basts This is a good example of how not to build an eclectic shrine or altar, even if you have very limited space. Mixing pantheons on a single space is a bad idea. I can't tell here if this is meant to be a Wiccan-flavoured pairing of deities as well, in which case they are trying to force Bast and Herne to be sexual partners, regardless of the appropriateness of that pairing. And Herne isn't even a god - he's a localized spirit of Windsor Forest in England! This altar area isn't really useful as a staging area, being squashed between these two, and it doesn't really take into consideration that whatever work or ritual they may choose to undertake there might be offensive or inappropriate to its' neighbours. Sometimes you just have to wait until you have the appropriate space to give to your shrines and altars. It's that, or make them very small and very simple. In any case, I think this shrine/altar needs more thought given to it, and shows common flaws of eclectic neo-paganism done poorly.
Colour me ignorant, but I don't entirely see why this is so bad? I mean, if they are going for a Wiccan-esque thing, and trying to force Bast and Herne into a being sexual partners, I can see why that's bad, definitely. But I don't really see an indication that's what they're doing? Their different spaces look fairly clearly delineated. It just seems like, if that's the only space available, then an exception can be made, even if it would be preferred to give them each space on their own shelf.
Maybe I'm not getting this because I don't work with any Deities. But my shrine space is a bit of an eclectic mix, and my apartment is so small that I don't think I could split it up into multiple shrines if I wanted to. |
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