omg so many of them (original) (raw)

FAQs & Newbie Orientation (Updated October 20!)

“What’s your position on magic?”
I’m one of those “magic is 99.9% psychological and .1% ?????” people. (My own practice is based on a psychological paradigm.) I generally don’t mind when people believe in metaphysical stuff more than I do, though. I do mind when people push stuff that’s well known to be harmful or incorrect.

“I think you’re a fake wizard because you don’t believe in X thing.”
Skill issue.

“I’m new to witchcraft, got any advice?
Yup, over on this post!

“Why are you so critical of conspiracy theories?”
Simply put, because conspiracy theories are tools of reactionary violence. Most conspiracy theories are derived from The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a known hoax created to demonize Jews and blame them for the world’s problems while justifying a return to monarchy; or early modern witch panic and blood libel. BTW, I recommend Justin Sledge’s video on the Satanic Panic.

"Is X spiritual person a conspiracy theorist?”
See this post, Is the spiritual person a conspiracy theorist? A list of red flags.

“What do you mean when you say ‘New Age’?”
I specifically mean forms of spirituality that revolve around the idea that the Earth is about to enter an actual new age, commonly referred to as the Age of Aquarius, Fifth Density, or Fifth Round. That’s literally what the term “New Age” refers to.

“Why are you so critical of New Age and starseeds?” Short answer? It’s a belief system built on white colonialism, Orientalism, eugenics, hateful conspiracy theories. Always has been.

Longer answers:
The Deal with New Age, in a nutshell
New Age beliefs that derive from racist pseudoscience
A quick intro to starseeds
Various ways the New Age movement is shitty
The New Age concept of ascension - what is it?
Why New Age is thinly-veiled antisemitism/nazism
Why David Icke’s reptilian aliens are sparkling antisemitism
Starseeds: Nazis in Space? (Not my article)
What is the New Age to Alt Right pipeline, and how do you stay out of it?
How the mythology of starseeds, indigo children, crystal children, rainbow children, etc. harms kids

I also recommend checking out the #new age to alt right pipeline and #spiritual eugenics tags.

Now, I don’t think everything associated with New Age is bad simply because it’s associated with New Age. Many practices are harmless in and of themselves - the problem is the conspiratorial, morally polarized framework they’re practiced in. For more info, see Some things associated with New Age that aren’t inherently bad.

”What do you think of reincarnation, in general?”
I think it’s fine to believe in reincarnation so long as you don’t act like it gives you special knowledge or wisdom, or entitles you to tell other people what to do, or entitles you to appropriate and misrepresent other people’s cultures and spiritual traditions, or tie it in with a conspiracist worldview. (Starseeds do all of these.)

“What if I’m alienkin, or I believe my soul comes from another planet?”
Nothing inherently wrong with that! The problem with the starseed movement is its politics - it’s founded on a bunch of racist, ableist, colonialist garbage. (It’s no coincidence that a number of starseeds are outright Nazis.)

“What if I want to call myself a starseed, though?” That’s like wanting to call yourself a Nazi. There is something deeply wrong with you.

“Why are you so critical of ancient aliens?”
See Spencer McDaniel’s excellent post.

“But aren’t starseeds part of ancient traditional beliefs?”
Literally no one has been able to produce a single scrap of evidence that anything like the New Age concept of starseeds existed before the Victorian period. However, New Agers are well-known for bullshitting about the age and origins of their beliefs. If you’re going to assert that starseeds are genuinely part of some ancient tradition, you need to provide some real evidence.

“Do you think it’s wrong to believe in alien life?” No, I just think it’s important to be critical of what you believe about it, and why you believe it. If you believe in aliens, question your assumptions about them. What are you projecting onto them? Why are you projecting that? Is that projection a bit self-centered, whether positively or negatively?

“What do you think of alter programming?
Alter programming (ie, deliberately giving children DID to create alters for specific functions) is a conspiracy theory. See:
This post on how the alter programming conspiracy theory developed
Cathy O'Brien - The First Project Monarch "Survivor”
Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler: Two Of The Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theorists Most People Have Never Heard Of

“But isn’t there a bunch of evidence?”
‘Fraid not. All of it’s either fabricated (EG, the aforementioned Protocols), taken out of context (EG, the Dendera “light”), extremely subjective (EG, someone’s mystical experience), based on absurd standards of what constitutes "evidence” (being a depressed teen who liked heavy metal and D&D was taken as a sure sign being involved in a satanic cult in the 80’s and 90’s), or produced through flawed methods (EG, so-called recovered memory therapy), or questioning vulnerable people until the interviewers or psychologists finally got what they wanted to hear. (If you want to get an idea of just how much of a mess this was, and just how unethical and irresponsible things could get, I recommend checking out the You’re Wrong About podcast’s episodes on Michelle Remembers.)

“Wait, do you have actual evidence that false memories exist?”
Yep, you only have to peek in on the starseeds to see hundreds of 'em. See my posts hypnosis is unreliable for memory recovery, and this is one way we know and false past life memories among the starseed movement. You might also take a look at Abducted by Susan A. Clancy. Also read my post here’s the trouble with hypnotic regression for an explanation of why it’s so easy to generate false memories.

“What’s your problem with the Law of Assumption?”
See this post and this post. See also:
The prosperity gospel, explained: Why Joel Osteen believes that prayer can make you rich. (The Law of Assumption is closely related to prosperity gospel.)
Why you should know about the New Thought movement (another closely related movement)
“If the Law of Assumption is fake, what about the success stories?”
“This Law of Assumption practitioner posted photos, doesn’t that prove something?”
Was Neville Goddard really trustworthy?
No, modern witchcraft and the Law of Assumption are not “the same.”
Quick rundown on my actual positions re: the Law of Assumption & reality shifting right now

“I’m trying to get out of a shitty situation, what can I do?”
See my post, “I’m in a bad place and need to get out, what can I do?”

“Why haven’t you posted anything about X?
Probably for one of the following reasons:

Please understand that researching conspiracy theories takes a lot of time and can be pretty draining. There’s an immense amount of media to go through, and that media is often some of the most hateful shit you’ll ever find. Sometimes I need days to decompress from it.

“Do you recommend any resources?”
Yup, over here!

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I think a lot of the occult is people trying to recontectualize outmoded yet ossified ideas. John Dee trying to heal the protestant schism by bringing back nominalism. Tummy fulla medieval bones like some kinda intellectual Bearded Vulture.

“But I need generative AI to help me with witchcraft-” No, you just suck at witchcraft. Sorry, but that’s literally all there is to it. If you were actually studying techniques, and actually using your senses and mind to truly observe and comprehend the world around you, you would not need generative AI to tell you what to do.

Multiple academics analyzing Metamorphoses in its context: This is a text deeply motivated by the political, legislative changes within Roman social climate at the time. Ovidian narratives are responses to those reforms and the morality panic of Augustan Rome. By making change the only way through and those in power the ultimate perpetrators, he's making a point.

Tumblr user who has not read a single word of the poem: Clearly Ovid personally glorifies violence and hates myths.

Hi @hogwings you asked for thesis in the tags and its:

Patterns of Rape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (2014) by Nikki Bloch

The link is a direct download (I have no idea how to change that) so be aware of that. Nikki graduated in 2014 so I suppose this was a successfully defended thesis.

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

What's a citizen science project? Basically**, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!**

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

And let me tell you, from one scientist to you, it is SO HELPFUL!!

Massive data sets like these take a really long time to work through. Heck, my own tiny data sets take forever for me to work through.

Your help helps IMMENSELY. It allows scientists to focus on the more intense data analysis and paper writing part, and to analyze much more than they otherwise could.

And Zooniverse is coming out with new projects all the time—two new projects showed up this morning in my email!

It makes a difference!!!!

How To Practice: Divination With Dice!

While most of us associate dice with games, they can also be used for divination. Even if we don’t have access to a set of physical dice, dice rolling apps and websites are everywhere, making them one of the most accessible divination tools there is.

The method is simple: you assign a meaning to each number, then roll.

You can assign meaning through older numerology associations, or you can even assign your own meanings. Here’s how this works:

Let’s say you’re working with a D10 (ten-sided die). You make a numbered list on which you write possible outcomes. Here’s an example of a list populated with common symbolic objects:

  1. Branch
  2. Heart
  3. Clover
  4. Rock
  5. Star
  6. Crystal
  7. Moon
  8. Sun
  9. Tree
  10. Sky

This is of course just a quick example, and I definitely don’t think it would necessarily work for everyone. Feel free to play around with your own symbols. I would personally not recommend using straightforward answers like “yes,” “no,” etc., unless you can demonstrably get a correct result every time (for example, correctly answering who’s running the country, what year it is, etc). IMO, your intuition is where the real power lies, and you should give it lots of wiggle room.

If you’re using a D12, you can even even associate the numbers with the Zodiac, starting at 1 for Aries and ending at 12 for Pisces. Or you could do the months of the year. I would suggest using them in a suggestive sense rather than a strictly literal one. (Like, don’t roll to find out your next lover’s Zodiac sign unless you can also correctly roll your family’s Zodiac signs. If the dice can’t correctly tell you your mom and dad’s signs, why trust it to tell you your next partner’s sign?)

So yeah, that’s the basics of dice divination. Experiment and see what works for you or not.

Happy witchin’!

Anonymous asked:

its honestly really, really scary seeing people refuse to vote because where i live, when trump was elected it had very palpable and real consequences. i remember i was in middle school and hearing kids cry because they were terrified their parents were going to be deported. i remember how much worse the homophobia and racism in my school got. i remember the fear my (nonwhite) mother had for her children increasing beyond belief. and thats a light example, theres alot of people who experienced much worse than i did!! and its so frustrating seeing people who live in blue states where their rights arent questioned every single day choose to sit this one out and leave the rest of us for dead. im legitimately so scared lmfao, i just wanted to finish my bachelors degree

traegorn answered:

If it’s any consolation, the folks you see saying that are a small percentage of the folks out there. If you’re just watching my blog, you’ll miss that most of the folks in the notes on those posts are on our side.

There is hope and we can get through this – and there will be a day when we are thriving and not just fighting to survive.

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Harris is presidential. Trump is playing make-believe at a closed McDonald's.

Mods are asleep, post bananimals

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Whatever happens, two things remain true:

1. Trump might be distancing himself from Project 2025, but his Agenda 47, which is on his website, is basically the same thing.
2. Third party voting is useless without ranked choice voting; it's mathematically impossible to elect a third party candidate. DO NOT SPLIT THE VOTE.

Ignore the polls and vote- Dumps guys are out there spoofing the polls anyway but it won't matter if you don't vote! So get out there and be heard!