Letters from the Editor

Well, I got around to finally updating my “Recommended Reading List“. In it I added all the books I have read that I really think have a lot to offer those who read them. This is the cream of the crop folks. I advise that you go and at least look at the list and possibly check a few of them out. I promise you that these books get two thumbs up from me, and are excellent references for those who are lost.

They are not only good but they are good general references in Paganism too. Like Buckland’s Complete Book, it gives almost everything you need to start on a Wiccan Path. AND it gives excellent references to continue your education. Plus, I started with that book myself. The concepts weren’t foreign to me since I had used techniques in the book for some time, but it was really good to start me on the sections I wasn’t familliar with and to point me in the right direction. Same for all the other references on there.

In my review of Dragonlore, I state that I don’t like the Grey School as designed and run by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart. This is true. I really don’t like that school, the book that started it (Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard) and I hate the concept totally.

This would probably prompt some people to ask why I don’t like them. There are many reasons I feel this way.

Most of the reasons I don’t like the book I discuss in the review of it. Those that I don’t say Zak says better and for me.

Why don’t I like the Grey School? Mostly because of the same reasons I don’t like the Grimoire. It teaches incorrect facts, links fantasy up to reality and blurs the line between fantasy and reality constantly. It doesn’t teach any kind of tradition of Wicca or witchcraft that I recognize, and does not give any benefit to those taking the class.

It is a means of fleecing the the unsuspecting, normally those who don’t know any better, and the young who are trying to learn something.

I have heard rumors of the teachers being forced to teach specific things, whether or not they are actually true. There IS plagarism going on that I know of, and the members of that school are completely unrepentant of that plagarism and copyright theft. When it is brought to their attention, they plea “creative license” or “fair use” when it is neither.

Mostly however I am most upset and distressed with the hypocrasy in the “headmaster”. He has stated that he is upset with the current state of education with the popular Wiccan authors, with the different schools (such as Gavin and Yvonne’s school and the Corellian School), and he has written books that are better and more accurate in an attempt to present a better way.

Then he writes the Grimoire. Which is WORSE than anything out there.

Someone pointed out recently that it was a real shame that the school that was better than his school was the Corellian WitchSchool.

It is nothing but pandering to the lowest common denominator, with him trying to sell books, nothing more. He’s not trying educate, he’s trying to sell books, sell classes, sell downloads and whatever. Who honestly writes a book saying that Cerberus was sold to a fictional character so it could show up in a fiction book.

The whole thing disgusts me.

On being responsible for your own education.

Okay, I don’t know who is responsible for this, but I want to kick the crap out of them for this culture of “I NEED A TEACHER TO TEACH ME TO BE WICCAN!!!!” that I keep seeing.

Know how I got my education in Wicca? Know how I got to know what to do and how to do it and the theory behind it? I taught myself.

When I was 12 to 18 and above, there was no Internet to do research on. The vast shelves of books that are there for you at the local Barnes and Noble and Books A Million didn’t exist for me and those in my generation. We had to look in things like “Self help” and “religion” for thse books.

We read books on things like the Pyramids, Stonehenge, Bigfoot, Atlantis, UFOs and crystals. I read about the Crystal Skull long before they make a TV show about it. I knew about psychokenesis and I didn’t need a Llewellyn book to teach me about it, because I went out and I found those books. I looked for Edgar Cayce, for Alice Bailey, for Aliseter Crowley, for the history of the Salem Witch Trials, for Edith Hamelton’s Mythology?

How many of you out there know who Bullfinch is? I bet not many. But ask people older than 28 who Bullfinch is and they will immediately tell you that he’s THE author of THE text on mythology there is. His works are used as standard texts in college courses.

How many of you have actually sat down and read Joseph Campbell? These books I’m mentioning and these authors were THE references we used. If you were lucky (incredibly lucky) you might be able to find a copy of “What Witches Do” or something by Doreen Valente or the Farrars, but more often you found books on why Atlantis sunk, the Bermuda Triangle, psychic phenomenon and experiments in psychokenesis or astral travel.

Those were our teachers. “The Golden Bough” wasn’t just a reference that sat on our shelves, it was a book that we poured over trying to find some small sliver of truth in it so we could learn about the religions of old.

Where do you think we got all this knowledge? Do you honestly believe we were born with it, or that we had teachers that poured all this into our heads one thought at a time? Didn’t you see the shelves of reference material that we had? Did you think it was for decoration?

Start taking responsibility for your own education. Start using some critical thinking skills and start asking questions. You say you would do anything to be Wiccan? Then start learning about it from the references that Silver Ravenwolf used to gain her knowledge, the same books that Cunningham learned from. Want to know about the magickal properties of herbs? Read the medevial grimoires and Culpepers book of herbs or some other similar lexicon of herbalism instead of depending on Cunningham to teach you, or worse a physical person to teach you.

Want to be respected in the communities you interact with? Then demonstrate that you have knowledge that is worthy of respect and start looking at what you know versus what you should know.

A good starting place? Go out and get “Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft”. Read it. Read EVERY book he references, the whole thing. Then read the books those books reference. And keep going. Keep reading. Check them out of the library, borrow them from friends, pick them up at used book stores and swap meets or flea markets.

Don’t cry to me about how hard it is to learn about Wicca because no one will teach you. I was NEVER taught by anyone in what I know about Wicca, but when I started interacting with other Wiccans, most of them were very respectful of my knowledge and my studies, even earning places of respect and honor in groups I was part of due to that same study and knowledge.

Want more wisdom? Go sit on a park bench in the shade and watch people. Watch what they do, how they interact. Still yourself and just be. Listen to the tree and the wind. See if you can hear what the chipmunk is saying to the mouse. And watch the patterns of the pigeons. Go to a mall and look at what people are doing and why. Look at how they act and think of possible motivations behind how they are acting.

Then consider that you have vastly more opportunities to educate yourself in metaphysics and magick and wicca and mythology and paganism than ANY of us “teachers” ever had. We had probably a few dozen books, and most of them were not too good then. But we learned. We studied, we occasionally managed to sit down with others we knew were into metaphysics and have a discussion on tarot or runes or energy work. We shared ideas and read and practiced.

Do you know how many hours I spent in meditation between the ages of 12 and 18? I meditated for an hour a night, more if I had Karate that day. That is 2192 hours for those of you who can’t add. How many hours have you meditated? How many hours have you tried to move a piece of paper with your mind? How long have you tried to hear the thoughts of others? Have you played Jedi before?

All these relate to Wicca in very fundamental ways, and you won’t understand how they relate until you understand the concepts behind ESP and so on. So start studying them.

Don’t whine about how there are no teachers to teach you. You have the SAME teachers to teach you that I had, that each and every elder out there had. Say you will do anything to be Wiccan? Prove it. Start reading and studying.

And skip those books with the crescent moon on the spine. They will just confuse you right now.

Okay, that’s it…

I’m am so sick of this whole “Do what feels right” thing. Applied to metaphysics, it’s suicidal. Applied to many areas of life, it’s insane to say the least.

Let me tell you about the “Do what feels right” mindset, it’s lazy. Yes, lazy. It is for those who don’t want to challenge their beliefs in any way shape or form.

I have watched this trend build over time, and the more I see it the more sickening it becomes.

Let’s look at some things: Eating sugar feels good. It tastes sweet, it is good for us, right? Wrong. Refined white sugar is one of the most prolific things out there and is a very subtle poison to the human body. It kills slowly and insidiously, and causes all kinds of problems before it does. Things like diabetes and hypoglocemia, obesity and heart problems. Have you looked at how many things you eat have sugar in them?

There are multiple examples of this principle. Sex, eating, doing drugs, LSD, drinking alcohol and others all feel good. But each and every one of them can kill you. Some you don’t even have to do to excess.

In metaphysics, Wicca, paganism in general, this trend is just as deadly.

“Doing what feels good” is DIFFERENT from “doing what works”. The way it is supposed to work is that you are trying to meditate, for example. You can’t get into the proper mood to meditate with the chanting and the sitting in the lotus position. “Do what feels good” is going to say “give up”, but “doing what works” is going to have you changing position or finding a different technique to accomplish the same goal.

And this is where I see red.

Doing what feels good leads to lazyness, achieving a comfort zone in your spirituality where nothing has to be examined again, nothing is ever questioned, nothing is evaluated. Which ultimately means that no growth is achieved or made, and as we all know, no growth = stasis = stagnation = death.

People by nature don’t want to have to work for what they want. They want to be lazy and not have to constantly look at what they are and who they are. They want to have the answers handed to them and to have no thought in the process. It’s much easier to have someone say “POOF, you will not suffer in your life or after you are dead. You have a blank karmatic balance sheet and you are one of the CHOSEN.” That’s easy.

But most religions that are worth a damn actually make you look at your beliefs. WHY do you believe thus and so is a sin? Why do you think that this set of subjective facts is more true than this set over here? By continually pushing those boundraries, growth occurs. In some cases it ossifies and scabs over so that no more growth can occur in that direction, but in others it will allow for a difference of oppinion and an acceptance of that which is strange.

In many cases, the “do what feels good” can be applied to the philosophical side of yourself. If you are uncomfortable with a personal philosophy which says that you have to accept homosexuals as equals, then that is fine, no one can or should force you to change. All change should be up to you and in this case, you need to find a faith path that puts you at ease. You should examine WHY you feel that way, but if there is no chance to change because it is too deep rooted, then others will have to accept that you feel that way.

But when applying it to learning, it’s worse. The “do what feels good” is crap. It feels good to sleep in instead of going to Forensics 101, and thus it will mean that if I do what feels good, I will fail in my goal. It feels good to not do the exercises I have been assigned, and it feels good to watch TV instead of reading the books I need to. It feels good to stay at home instead of driving to the HPS’s house for Circle.

But what feels good is not always right.

When you start on a course of study, you have made a contract with the person teaching you. You have agreed to do the assignments given and to work to the best of your ability at the exercises needed, and the teacher has agreed to teach you the material selected. How would you feel if the class instructor did what “feels good” and every time you showed up for class, they didn’t. If they said “Oh, I was sleeping and it felt better to stay asleep so I didn’t show up. Sorry.” How would you feel if you worked for hours or days on a paper, and the teacher never read it or graded it? Would you feel like you achieved something if you got a B on a paper the teacher never looked at or graded? Or if the teacher showed up for class since they had to be there and spent the whole rest of the class talking on their cell phone to their spouse and didn’t ever start teaching? Would you have a lot of respect for that person?

Why, as a student, would you do the same thing in reverse?

If you have problems with the material, by all means, seak alternative means of gaining the information needed. Look at other ways to do the same thing. But DO NOT do what feels good and give up. DO NOT do what feels good and look at sources that don’t challenge your mind. Do NOT go haring off on your own and completely ignore the class criteria because it’s easier and feels better to get some crappy source.

If you have a problem with Wallace Budge’s interpertation of Egyptology, look for “the simplified Wallace Budge” or something similar. Don’t go out and grab “The beginners guide to Egypt” which makes no reference to Budge at all because the point of this section of the class was the writings of Wallace Budge. You have just defeated the purpose of the class entirey.

Don’t read “Wicca for Dummies” by Mark Ventmiglia (for example) when the class course you are taking says that you should read and practice what is contained in “The Complete Guide to the Runes” by Sigfried. Light fluffy crap is no substitute for solid information.

And for GOD’S SAKES, if you must read light fluffy crap instead of the texts that will actually teach, don’t do it with skills that are difficult in the first place. “Grey’s Anatomy” will teach you SO MUCH MORE about anatomy if you are becomming a doctor than Llewellyn’s “The Body” will. There is a reason that it is the standard text in the area of Anatomy.

There are reasons others tell you to read books (blank), (blank) and (blank), and it’s usually because they have read those books and know what they are talking about. Especially if you are learning from them.

As you may surmise, this was brought on by a real life situation.
Suffice to say that I had my personal skills called upon to give a critique to a young gentleman who was asking questions about something I know a lot about. I gave my professional opinion, and told him to avoid the books on the subject he was reading like the plague since they contained very little information of use. Someone else (who has absolutely NO knowledge of the subject at hand that I was able to determine) posted RIGHT AFTER me and told the original poster to “do what feels good.” Add to that the author of said book having absolutely no knowledge of the esoteric subject at all.

Well, I flipped. I wanted to jump this idiot, but instead I simply walked away and now I wash my hands of it.

You see, when I give the information I have to others, after having demonstrated my knowledge of the subject, I expect that I will actually be listened to. That I will be the expert on that subject. But someone with no knowledge who comes along and countermands my information pisses me off. It is analogous to a passenger on the Titanic who countermads the captain’s orders to abandon ship. The Captain knows what he’s talking about, the passenger doesn’t. I am the Captain.

Doing what feels good is holdover hippie bullshit which doesn’t work any more. It can work, but it still takes discipline to make it work since you have to WORK at being happy. Want to eat sugar? Want to avoid diabetes? YOu have to work to find alternatives to sugar, like the artifical sweeteners out there. They still are sweet, but they don’t have the problems that refined white sugar has.

The point here, other than to be a rant, is that if you don’t have direct experience and knowledge, STAY SILENT. You know the old witches creed: To know, To dare, To will, To stay silent.

Doing what feels good in 99% of the time the wrong thing to do. The worthwhile things normally bring sweat and effort with them, so doing what is only comfortable will not get them accomplished.

And in the end, we all work, we all have to struggle. If we didn’t have mussles forcing us to do things, our lungs wouldn’t expand and our heart wouldn’t beat. That takes work. So is it any surpirse that our spiritual life would take work too?

What’s wrong with being new?

I see this mentioned many times on other blogs and articles, and I keep coming back to the central point of “what is wrong with being a new person in a religion?”

I know I’m pretty harsh with fluffies in this site. I don’t equate new people with fluffies however. Fluffies are those who are deliberately and willfully ignorant and revel in being that way. They go out of their way to promote and argue the ignorant and busted myths from decades ago (Wicca is ancient, 9 million, all gods are one god, etc) and they decry and flame those who have the temerity to say differently.

But being new is not the same thing. One can be fluffy and new, that’s easy. But one can also be new and be non-fluffy, in that one is willing to listen and learn. And that is listen and learn to multiple sources, not just one.

But I see people on some of the forums I’m on who go out of their way to present that they are not new. Why? I think Juliaki’s essy (referenced a few posts back) about this same problem hits a very key point, many new people are treated as fluffies.

In this I’m of two minds. First hand says that “if the shoe fits…” and the other is that this is grossly unfair. However, that is the initial reaction. I know of absolutely no cases where someone who is new who acts mature and who actually tries to learn who was continually treated as a fluffy. In fact, the one case I can think of where someone was unfairly persecuting someone else for learning, I and several others who had been teaching took it upon ourselves to
correct that attitude.

But I see post put up every day where the person in question says something like “I’m new and The Rede says that we must never harm anyone….”. When pressed for more information, they resort to quoting Cunningham, Ravenwolf or some other less-than-credible source. And then the frenzy starts.

However, there is a small group who go “Okay, I think the Rede says this, but I could be mistaken. So and so says this, but would someone like to help me understand?” Almost al the time, help is immediately given.

But here is the interesting part, they have to be willing to look like a n00b. And I think that is the problem.

Most other forums they have problably interacted on, revile and deride the n00b for being new. They make fun of and criticize those who are actually new for not knowing the same things the rest of the forum knows. In many cases this is done in some of the most humiliating ways possible. This is an initiation and it is part of the process. Not one I’m thrilled with however.

But in most Wiccan/Pagan forums this is skipped since we have actual initiations, so we don’t have to do the “hazing initiation” of the forum. We tend to accept everyone for who they demonstrate themselves to be. If this is a complete new person who has no knowledge, we tend to teach. If it is a fluffy idiot who thinks they know a lot but doesn’t, we still teach with sticks and a clue-by-four.

One of the most deadly mistakes that someone who is genuinely new can make is to pretend to be somone they are not. This inclues, and is not limited to, pretending to have knowledge they don’t, pretending to have degrees/initiations/titles they don’t, pretending to have ancient books of witchcraft and pretending to have met/talked to/learned from Big Name Pagans.

Let me clue you in; we know when you are lying, we can spot it and at that point there is no mercy given.

The best thing a new seeker can do is to go “Hi! I’m new and just starting to learn. I’ve read the messages about what to do now, and I plan on doing all that, but I have some specific questions:” That will get you respect. Also trying to be pompous about what you know (”The Rede REALLY means this, I know because Mark Ventmiglia is a GOD”) and talking condescendingly to those you are speaking with is never a good idea. Trying to make things up on the fly when you don’t know is also NOT a way to impress. It is a way to paint a huge target on your back for all of us to attack.

Admitting when you don’t know something is not an admission of weakness. It’s a weakness when you refuse to find out or screamingly defend a position that is counter to mounds of evidence. If you are saying something, be able to back it up with sources or even an admission of it being your own feeling. But when your position is challenged, defending yourself with “EVERONE KNOWS THAT I”M RIGHT!” is not good, but “This source says…” is good.

Oh, and if you can’t spell your posts correctly, you can almost guarentee that you will be hunted down. Especially if you are simultaneously defending a bad possition in the debate. Want to be respecteted? DO NOT USE l33t speak and spell check your posts. We tend to be inclined to overlook the occasional misspelling, but not when every third word is misspelled, uncapitalized, bad punctuation and bad grammar.

Even if you are being thuroughly trashed by others, admitting you are wrong and trying to change is going to do a LOT toward gaining you respect. Don’t make blanket statements or judgment calls on people you don’t know.

Please speak your mind and please ask us to teach. Most of those who will be in a position to teach will be more than willing.

http://juliaki.livejournal.com/64020.html

Wow. I’m very impressed. But I could wish I were given a few fewer challenges. < snerk >