The Talesinator
2003-07-26 18:54:27 UTC
[Note: As I have never been one to gossip or talk behind someone's back,
copies of this post have been sent to the people involved to give them a
fair shot at responding. It is more than they gave me]
The Internet has been a very useful tool for the Pagan community. It has
allowed the local communities to stay up to date and in touch with what is
going on and it has become the thread tying Pagans from around the world
together allowing them to share the commonalities of and the differences in
their experiences. It has also taken that bane of the Paganism- the Wiccan
War (Witch War is no longer considered the proper term)- to new heights.
I should have known better. I know what is going to happen before I even get
involved in there groups. However, a "friend" was kind enough to invite me
join this particular e-mail list. Also, I felt the familiar, gentle tugging
telling me that there was a reason for me to be there. Any good Witch knows
that one simply does not ignore the quiet little messages that come one's
way.
So I went to Yahoo groups and I found the group called The Pagan Way. On the
home page I found the "we are very tolerant and we will not stand for
bashing anyone else's beliefs" shtick that is as much a warning as a skull
and crossbones. Danger: Intolerant codependent fascist Wiccan group ahead.
Be nice, don't disagree with the dominant clique, and kiss ass or be
lynched! Despite my swearing off such groups, I went ahead and subscribed if
for nothing more than wanting to find out why I was to be there.
The first thing that happens is that I get a deluge of automatically
generated e-mails from the Chancellor of this little cyber regime. He calls
himself- and I swear to the Universe that I am not kidding you- Rev. Sir
Raymond E Nieman D. D., The Amber Adept. For the gods' sake, King James
himself would have been embarrassed to make such an arrogant and
ostentatious claim! Let me tell you, when I got to know this guy, I found
out this didn't tell half the story.
Well I joined this little Internet soirée and, realized that, once I started
posting, my time there would be short. So I lurked for awhile. The list was
exactly what I expected. While over 1500 people are subscribed to it, there
was a much smaller cadre of about 10 people who pretty much dominated the
list. One has to wonder if the other 1490 simply forgot to unsub. At any
rate, I silently watched the parade of whinings about life, error ridden
treatises filled with Silver Ravenwolf level magick, and totally bizarre
things like amber alerts and "help me name my feminist porno web site,"
waiting for whatever it was I was there for.
Finally, amidst the boring drone of the group, the post I was waiting for
came. A young woman posted asking the group to provide some help for a
"friend" (it's always a "friend", isn't it?). This "friend" was being
assailed, she claimed, by an evil spirit. Apparently this spirit had been
harassing her for some time- apparitions, moving objects and making strange
noises- and had even followed her when she moved. This, and some of the
other information she provided as well as my Witch knowledge told me that
she was totally wrong. This was no spirit. The "friend" was doing this
herself.
Several years ago, I was camping with a group of people. It was late into
the evening (early into the morning, actually), much alcohol and other
recreational substances had been consumed, almost everyone had drifted off
to their tents for sex or to pass out, and we had entered the post party
period where emotions were high and shields were down.
I was talking to young woman whom I had just met that evening. She was deep
into the cathartic effect which occurs when one is in the presence of a lot
of magickal energy. She related to me how she had been assailed by an evil
spirit. She assumed it was a woman who had died in the house she had lived
in as a child. Like the "friend's" spirit, this one followed her around. It
moved objects, made strange noises at night, and even caused things like car
keys and jewelry "disappear." She had tried many banishing rituals but not
one had worked. In fact, she felt things had gotten worse.
She also told me other things about herself. She had a bad relationship with
her parents and just about every romantic relationship she had been in had
turned to an angry, painful mess. She was having problems at work and was so
fed up with Paganism she had considered abandoning it all together. She was
at the end of her rope and did not know what to do.
As I listened to her, the pieces of the puzzle began to arrange themselves.
It became clear to me that there was no "evil spirit." The source of the
disturbances was the woman herself. This is not so farfetched when you think
about it. Many magickals have experienced a phenomenon which I call
"accidental magick." Emotion is a strong source of energy and, when that
energy becomes strong enough, it is going to go somewhere. When you couple
that with a constant state of inner chaos, the result is exactly the kind of
disturbances this woman and the "friend" are experiencing.
Being the blunt person I am, I told her, "There is no spirit. You are doing
this." Of course the woman did not take well to that thought. She objected
and was almost offended at the idea. I let her go on about how that could
not possibly be right and, when she ran out of steam, I asked her if the
spirit had bothered her at all during that particular weekend while we
camped. It hadn't. I asked her how she had felt that weekend. Her response
was that she was more relaxed than she had been in quite awhile. I just
looked at her for a few moments as the thought that I might be right crossed
her mind.
She contacted me a few days later. It seems that her "spirit" had not
bothered her for day or two. Then, she had a huge argument with her sister
and, that very night, three plates were "mysteriously" flung from a shelf
and broken on the kitchen floor while she slept.
After a lot of work and time, this woman found her solution in learning to
ground and center and in getting her life under control by staying away from
chaotic people and situations. The "spirit" eventually stopped bothering
her.
So this incident, my dealings with real spirits, and things I have picked up
from the experiences of my colleagues and mentors, made me pretty certain
that the ""friend"" was the source of her own torment. I also learned that
people who continue to assail spirits when there is no spirit involved not
only make things worse not only by ignoring their own problems but by
actually *evoking* spirits through their efforts to banish. Then, it becomes
a real party.
The post about the ""friend"" and her "spirit" hit a chord inside me. This
was why I was brought to the list. I did try to soften things a little. My
first post was a response to one of those stupid survey things. Of course, I
gave funny instead of real answers and, again of course, since Pagans as a
demographic are very humorless people, it was met with a cold response.
All of the Wiccans were buying into the evil spirit theory and contributing
all the knowledge Llewellyn had to offer (yes, that was sarcasm) to the
problem. If I was going to be the lone voice of reason, I would have to take
the blunt approach again. So I simply posted "It is not a spirit, your
'friend' is doing it herself." I seriously felt this person was heading for
big trouble and, since I was only going to get one shot, I took the kamikaze
approach.
The gods' balls, you should have seen the reaction that caused! How DARE I
make such a suggestion? How could I possibly know it was not a spirit (how
could they possibly know it was)? I might as well have suggested that The
Law of Three was a farce or that their mothers were all whores!
Normally, at this point, I would have unleashed my full Talesinic power and
flamed those Wiccans into fine ash. However, this was a serious situation
where someone really could get hurt. So I kept my flamethrower in the closet
and simply tried to reason with these people. They would not have it. They
demanded my credentials, insulted me and called me stupid names, and even
made not so subtle remarks about cutting me up with a variety of sharp
weapons. All of this without a single moderator of this oh so peaceful and
tolerant place objecting.
However, I decided that this time it was going to be different. If they were
going to ride me out of town on a rail, they would not get any comfort from
me. I stayed my ground, for sure, but I did not resort to any kind of
personal attack as they did to me.
Right on cue, when the first wave of abusive frontal assaults did not work,
the second wave of behind the scenes whining to the mods began. "Get him
off the list or I will unsubscribe." A friend of a friend of a friend told
me he is really a Baptist bent on destroying Wicca." "He is a tool of the
devil!"
Well, this put Sir Rev Adept into a bad place. He was obligated to make sure
no miscreants disturbed his little kingdom and yet, he could not simply oust
me and look like the intolerant fascist that he really was. He had to
fabricate a reason. Well, when you can't fight with facts, go with emotion.
I was accused of- get this- "having a rude tone."
So the Reichfuhrer of The Pagan Way (gods, I gag every time I think of that
name) banned me. It was no great loss. The problem with these fascist lists
is that they become dreadfully boring. When things are so tightly controlled
and people are afraid to say what they think, it really does not promote
interesting discussion. I had said my piece, those who were going to listen
to me did and those who weren't would just continue to wallow in the same
ignorance they were in when I joined the list. I hoped the "friend" would
not get hurt too badly by everyone else's ignorance and was happy to go on
my way. But it did not end there.
Apparently there are some people on The Pagan Way who disagreed with the
decision to ban me because I refused to knuckle under to incorrect
perceptions simply to appease a bunch of cyber bullies. Many of them-
including a few moderators (the list must have like 50 moderators)- wrote to
me to tell me they were appalled by what happened. They said they knew I was
only trying to help and that they supported my right to think as I wanted.
As an aside, I also found out that I had been moderated all along. The posts
I was banned for had actually been approved by a moderator *before* they
appeared on the list! It was a setup.
At any rate, my banning caused quite an offline stir (of course, none of
this was allowed to be discussed publicly. Ah, the beauty of censorship).
Members and mods alike were raising hell with over my banning. Things were
not happy in the cyber Third Reich and something had to be done about it.
Out came the favored weapons of the Wiccans- libel and slander.
When they first banned me, the moderator who did so screwed up and only
unsubbed me. I subscribed again before I was actually banned. Now, as you
e-groupers know, it currently takes Yahoo two days to process any change
requests. Thus, there was a time I was subbed to the list but my name did
not appear on the member page. This was perfect for those who had silence
me. "Look," they said, "He is hacking the list!" To further "prove" this,
they banned the next few new people who tried to join their list and claimed
it was me hacking them. These idiots even went as far as doing Internet
searches, finding some old spam dump addresses I never even look at, and
sending "you are banned" notices to everyone they could find!
Get this, Sir Rev Adept D.D. actually sends me an e-mail telling me that The
Pagan Way is *his* house and that, since I did not play his way, I was being
punished. That's right, he actually said, "punished." As further torment for
failing to kiss his arrogant ass, I was also banned from all of the other
groups he owns. Oh, let me shed a bitter tear!
Eons ago, when the Great Programmer wrote the code for the Universe, s/he
included a subroutine for Wiccan Wars that has run unvaried since Sanders
got pissed at Gardner. Someone comes along and refuses to follow the rest of
the sheep and suggests something that is not acceptable to the dominant
cadre. Said cadre immediately attacks said non sheep. The (moderator, elder,
HP/S, teacher) of the group steps in and calls for their (banning,
banishment, hanging, burning). To justify this heinous action, the same old
lies are brought out (s/he's a stalker, hacker, slut, sexual abuser). The
saddest and most sickening part is the way people who see what is going on
and know it is wrong refuse to speak up about it because they are terrified
of being the next person ousted from what ever social circle is involved.
Is it any wonder that actual Witches prefer remaining solitary or to
restrict themselves to family lines? Do we even need to consider why the
"old guard" Pagans have turned their backs, walked away, and refuse to even
acknowledge what they built? Is more than one brain cell required to figure
out why Wicca/neo Paganism has become a joke?
I understand the person who asked for help with the spirit and her "friend"
have consulted a medium and that this medium has "confirmed" it is an evil
spirit. The spirit of her grandfather, in fact. At this point, one can only
hope that, after all of the chaos and pain the "friend" has ahead of her,
she runs into someone who will be able to actually help her before she is
injured beyond recovery.
Had it not been for the fact that, this time, someone could be seriously
hurt by a Wiccan War, I would not have wasted everyone's time writing about
it. After all, these petty Wiccan Wars happen all the time. So often, they
are not even worth thinking about.
Sadly, they have become The Pagan Way.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Pagan_Way/
copies of this post have been sent to the people involved to give them a
fair shot at responding. It is more than they gave me]
The Internet has been a very useful tool for the Pagan community. It has
allowed the local communities to stay up to date and in touch with what is
going on and it has become the thread tying Pagans from around the world
together allowing them to share the commonalities of and the differences in
their experiences. It has also taken that bane of the Paganism- the Wiccan
War (Witch War is no longer considered the proper term)- to new heights.
I should have known better. I know what is going to happen before I even get
involved in there groups. However, a "friend" was kind enough to invite me
join this particular e-mail list. Also, I felt the familiar, gentle tugging
telling me that there was a reason for me to be there. Any good Witch knows
that one simply does not ignore the quiet little messages that come one's
way.
So I went to Yahoo groups and I found the group called The Pagan Way. On the
home page I found the "we are very tolerant and we will not stand for
bashing anyone else's beliefs" shtick that is as much a warning as a skull
and crossbones. Danger: Intolerant codependent fascist Wiccan group ahead.
Be nice, don't disagree with the dominant clique, and kiss ass or be
lynched! Despite my swearing off such groups, I went ahead and subscribed if
for nothing more than wanting to find out why I was to be there.
The first thing that happens is that I get a deluge of automatically
generated e-mails from the Chancellor of this little cyber regime. He calls
himself- and I swear to the Universe that I am not kidding you- Rev. Sir
Raymond E Nieman D. D., The Amber Adept. For the gods' sake, King James
himself would have been embarrassed to make such an arrogant and
ostentatious claim! Let me tell you, when I got to know this guy, I found
out this didn't tell half the story.
Well I joined this little Internet soirée and, realized that, once I started
posting, my time there would be short. So I lurked for awhile. The list was
exactly what I expected. While over 1500 people are subscribed to it, there
was a much smaller cadre of about 10 people who pretty much dominated the
list. One has to wonder if the other 1490 simply forgot to unsub. At any
rate, I silently watched the parade of whinings about life, error ridden
treatises filled with Silver Ravenwolf level magick, and totally bizarre
things like amber alerts and "help me name my feminist porno web site,"
waiting for whatever it was I was there for.
Finally, amidst the boring drone of the group, the post I was waiting for
came. A young woman posted asking the group to provide some help for a
"friend" (it's always a "friend", isn't it?). This "friend" was being
assailed, she claimed, by an evil spirit. Apparently this spirit had been
harassing her for some time- apparitions, moving objects and making strange
noises- and had even followed her when she moved. This, and some of the
other information she provided as well as my Witch knowledge told me that
she was totally wrong. This was no spirit. The "friend" was doing this
herself.
Several years ago, I was camping with a group of people. It was late into
the evening (early into the morning, actually), much alcohol and other
recreational substances had been consumed, almost everyone had drifted off
to their tents for sex or to pass out, and we had entered the post party
period where emotions were high and shields were down.
I was talking to young woman whom I had just met that evening. She was deep
into the cathartic effect which occurs when one is in the presence of a lot
of magickal energy. She related to me how she had been assailed by an evil
spirit. She assumed it was a woman who had died in the house she had lived
in as a child. Like the "friend's" spirit, this one followed her around. It
moved objects, made strange noises at night, and even caused things like car
keys and jewelry "disappear." She had tried many banishing rituals but not
one had worked. In fact, she felt things had gotten worse.
She also told me other things about herself. She had a bad relationship with
her parents and just about every romantic relationship she had been in had
turned to an angry, painful mess. She was having problems at work and was so
fed up with Paganism she had considered abandoning it all together. She was
at the end of her rope and did not know what to do.
As I listened to her, the pieces of the puzzle began to arrange themselves.
It became clear to me that there was no "evil spirit." The source of the
disturbances was the woman herself. This is not so farfetched when you think
about it. Many magickals have experienced a phenomenon which I call
"accidental magick." Emotion is a strong source of energy and, when that
energy becomes strong enough, it is going to go somewhere. When you couple
that with a constant state of inner chaos, the result is exactly the kind of
disturbances this woman and the "friend" are experiencing.
Being the blunt person I am, I told her, "There is no spirit. You are doing
this." Of course the woman did not take well to that thought. She objected
and was almost offended at the idea. I let her go on about how that could
not possibly be right and, when she ran out of steam, I asked her if the
spirit had bothered her at all during that particular weekend while we
camped. It hadn't. I asked her how she had felt that weekend. Her response
was that she was more relaxed than she had been in quite awhile. I just
looked at her for a few moments as the thought that I might be right crossed
her mind.
She contacted me a few days later. It seems that her "spirit" had not
bothered her for day or two. Then, she had a huge argument with her sister
and, that very night, three plates were "mysteriously" flung from a shelf
and broken on the kitchen floor while she slept.
After a lot of work and time, this woman found her solution in learning to
ground and center and in getting her life under control by staying away from
chaotic people and situations. The "spirit" eventually stopped bothering
her.
So this incident, my dealings with real spirits, and things I have picked up
from the experiences of my colleagues and mentors, made me pretty certain
that the ""friend"" was the source of her own torment. I also learned that
people who continue to assail spirits when there is no spirit involved not
only make things worse not only by ignoring their own problems but by
actually *evoking* spirits through their efforts to banish. Then, it becomes
a real party.
The post about the ""friend"" and her "spirit" hit a chord inside me. This
was why I was brought to the list. I did try to soften things a little. My
first post was a response to one of those stupid survey things. Of course, I
gave funny instead of real answers and, again of course, since Pagans as a
demographic are very humorless people, it was met with a cold response.
All of the Wiccans were buying into the evil spirit theory and contributing
all the knowledge Llewellyn had to offer (yes, that was sarcasm) to the
problem. If I was going to be the lone voice of reason, I would have to take
the blunt approach again. So I simply posted "It is not a spirit, your
'friend' is doing it herself." I seriously felt this person was heading for
big trouble and, since I was only going to get one shot, I took the kamikaze
approach.
The gods' balls, you should have seen the reaction that caused! How DARE I
make such a suggestion? How could I possibly know it was not a spirit (how
could they possibly know it was)? I might as well have suggested that The
Law of Three was a farce or that their mothers were all whores!
Normally, at this point, I would have unleashed my full Talesinic power and
flamed those Wiccans into fine ash. However, this was a serious situation
where someone really could get hurt. So I kept my flamethrower in the closet
and simply tried to reason with these people. They would not have it. They
demanded my credentials, insulted me and called me stupid names, and even
made not so subtle remarks about cutting me up with a variety of sharp
weapons. All of this without a single moderator of this oh so peaceful and
tolerant place objecting.
However, I decided that this time it was going to be different. If they were
going to ride me out of town on a rail, they would not get any comfort from
me. I stayed my ground, for sure, but I did not resort to any kind of
personal attack as they did to me.
Right on cue, when the first wave of abusive frontal assaults did not work,
the second wave of behind the scenes whining to the mods began. "Get him
off the list or I will unsubscribe." A friend of a friend of a friend told
me he is really a Baptist bent on destroying Wicca." "He is a tool of the
devil!"
Well, this put Sir Rev Adept into a bad place. He was obligated to make sure
no miscreants disturbed his little kingdom and yet, he could not simply oust
me and look like the intolerant fascist that he really was. He had to
fabricate a reason. Well, when you can't fight with facts, go with emotion.
I was accused of- get this- "having a rude tone."
So the Reichfuhrer of The Pagan Way (gods, I gag every time I think of that
name) banned me. It was no great loss. The problem with these fascist lists
is that they become dreadfully boring. When things are so tightly controlled
and people are afraid to say what they think, it really does not promote
interesting discussion. I had said my piece, those who were going to listen
to me did and those who weren't would just continue to wallow in the same
ignorance they were in when I joined the list. I hoped the "friend" would
not get hurt too badly by everyone else's ignorance and was happy to go on
my way. But it did not end there.
Apparently there are some people on The Pagan Way who disagreed with the
decision to ban me because I refused to knuckle under to incorrect
perceptions simply to appease a bunch of cyber bullies. Many of them-
including a few moderators (the list must have like 50 moderators)- wrote to
me to tell me they were appalled by what happened. They said they knew I was
only trying to help and that they supported my right to think as I wanted.
As an aside, I also found out that I had been moderated all along. The posts
I was banned for had actually been approved by a moderator *before* they
appeared on the list! It was a setup.
At any rate, my banning caused quite an offline stir (of course, none of
this was allowed to be discussed publicly. Ah, the beauty of censorship).
Members and mods alike were raising hell with over my banning. Things were
not happy in the cyber Third Reich and something had to be done about it.
Out came the favored weapons of the Wiccans- libel and slander.
When they first banned me, the moderator who did so screwed up and only
unsubbed me. I subscribed again before I was actually banned. Now, as you
e-groupers know, it currently takes Yahoo two days to process any change
requests. Thus, there was a time I was subbed to the list but my name did
not appear on the member page. This was perfect for those who had silence
me. "Look," they said, "He is hacking the list!" To further "prove" this,
they banned the next few new people who tried to join their list and claimed
it was me hacking them. These idiots even went as far as doing Internet
searches, finding some old spam dump addresses I never even look at, and
sending "you are banned" notices to everyone they could find!
Get this, Sir Rev Adept D.D. actually sends me an e-mail telling me that The
Pagan Way is *his* house and that, since I did not play his way, I was being
punished. That's right, he actually said, "punished." As further torment for
failing to kiss his arrogant ass, I was also banned from all of the other
groups he owns. Oh, let me shed a bitter tear!
Eons ago, when the Great Programmer wrote the code for the Universe, s/he
included a subroutine for Wiccan Wars that has run unvaried since Sanders
got pissed at Gardner. Someone comes along and refuses to follow the rest of
the sheep and suggests something that is not acceptable to the dominant
cadre. Said cadre immediately attacks said non sheep. The (moderator, elder,
HP/S, teacher) of the group steps in and calls for their (banning,
banishment, hanging, burning). To justify this heinous action, the same old
lies are brought out (s/he's a stalker, hacker, slut, sexual abuser). The
saddest and most sickening part is the way people who see what is going on
and know it is wrong refuse to speak up about it because they are terrified
of being the next person ousted from what ever social circle is involved.
Is it any wonder that actual Witches prefer remaining solitary or to
restrict themselves to family lines? Do we even need to consider why the
"old guard" Pagans have turned their backs, walked away, and refuse to even
acknowledge what they built? Is more than one brain cell required to figure
out why Wicca/neo Paganism has become a joke?
I understand the person who asked for help with the spirit and her "friend"
have consulted a medium and that this medium has "confirmed" it is an evil
spirit. The spirit of her grandfather, in fact. At this point, one can only
hope that, after all of the chaos and pain the "friend" has ahead of her,
she runs into someone who will be able to actually help her before she is
injured beyond recovery.
Had it not been for the fact that, this time, someone could be seriously
hurt by a Wiccan War, I would not have wasted everyone's time writing about
it. After all, these petty Wiccan Wars happen all the time. So often, they
are not even worth thinking about.
Sadly, they have become The Pagan Way.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Pagan_Way/