Welcome to Gaia! ::

If it makes you feel any better- I got the memo a few months ago.

My friends and I were sitting around working on an art project when one of them (who is a witch) said something about how we're real witches. The Thelemite, the Asatru chick and I looked blankly and said "No we aren't."

I'm familiar with it. That doesn't mean I am one.

I find most witchcraft to be rather abhorrent.

Allowed when done in a tasteful manner.

Though, the question would be- why would someone who doesn't practice Hinduism be using their metaphysical systems.

Well this is a rather recursive argument--why am I mixing systems? Because I'm a fluffy bunny and a cultural rapist. razz

It's a chicken/egg thing--I was already having sexual energy rising along my spine, and Western New Age tantra gave me a framework and vocabulary. I was already doing witch things, witchcraft gave me a framework and vocabulary. I was already feeling the effects of transits, astrology gave me a framework and vocabulary.

Hathor, on the other hand, came to me directly, or I should say sent Tawaret to talk to me. And I picked Thoth for pantheon consistency, so at least I have some small shred of non-fluffiness in me.

I chose what I needed to deal with things that were already happening to me, allowing some stability and prediction and limitation--limitation in particular. Also better for sanity in general, rather than being blindsided by surprising experiences.

I wouldn't say I'm "proud" to be those things, but at 43 years of age I care very little about that sort of thing--so rather a cheerful indifference.

The Culture Rapist part is explained by Racism.

See, when people stop treating cultures like communities of people and start treating them like objects, it's easy to degrade others and become racist towards them, exercising privilege etc.

After all, the people who are able to exercise such privilege have already subjugated the cultures they are raping. The cultural attitudes towards the groups are already ingrained.

What does age have to do with anything? I'm 35, and as far as I'm concerned if I learn something new, then it's been a good day. When one is solitary, there's no reason not to make changes to our practices, especially if they are needed (due to faulty/incorrect info). Considering that we have to read through a lot of crap to get to the good stuff, it's not surprising that we might pick up some bad habits along the way, that need to be dropped along the wayside at a later date. It can be painful to make such changes, but in the end we come out better for it. biggrin

It should be even more understandable that the members of this forum would expect a somewhat more seasoned newbie like yourself to know the difference between familiarity and actual practice.

Maybe my expectations are too high.



I hope you're also resigned to being almost useless and inert metaphysically.

Even if you don't give a s**t about defacing cultures and stealing from closed off communities there's always the big issue of context. The things you take as a culture rapist almost always lack context and the things from within closed cultures almost always require context to work.

Taking a ritual without the benefit of several required side rituals, one initiated clergy member and a certain bit of background knowledge necessary for the psychodrama means you've just wasted your time in a particularly useless and painful way. Because the ritual won't work without its context. It may even backfire in unpleasant ways. And this is forgetting the concept of vengeful gods and spirits that don't like being hassled by outsiders who think they deserve an in with them.

So really, by being indifferent to being a culture rapist, you're also being indifferent to being without a functional path and possibly with being a target of some very pissed off beings. Spinning your wheels and going nowhere doesn't sound like a fun time to me.

But if that doesn't encourage you to rebuild and rethink then you really are just a stagnant walker of the Path of Decay and should be left to your entropy to fade and die.

*shrug*

I'm not familiar with it.

...or alternately 666.5 on me. x_x