I Think This Is A Really Important Article For A Lot Of People Here.

I think this is a really important article for a lot of people here.

Consider Christian biases before putting them on the gods.

John Beckett

Our Gods Are Not Jealous Gods: The Importance of Building a Pagan Worldview

Why do some people insist that their call to devoted service is a call to exclusive service? Because they’ve always been told that the Chris

On Discernment...

…This side of the hedge.

Today we’re going to learn about pathos, a literary device that is used to persuade readers to take the proffered side in an argument. It can be used appropriately, but it can also be used inappropriately, such as to manipulate. As a preliminary note, the adjective form of pathos is “pathetic,” meaning “of pathos”–so when “pathetic” is used here, it is not used as a negative or disparaging word, only a factual descriptor. Here’s some info about pathos:

“When an author relies on pathos, it means that he or she is trying to tap into the audience’s emotions to get them to agree with the author’s claim. An author using pathetic appeals wants the audience to feel something: anger, pride, joy, rage, or happiness…Emotions can make us vulnerable, and an author can use this vulnerability to get the audience to believe that his or her argument is a compelling one.” [source]

The same source also says, “When reading a text, try to locate when the author is trying to convince the reader using emotions because, if used to excess, pathetic appeals can indicate a lack of substance or emotional manipulation of the audience.” (Emphasis mine.)

There’s also some great information here (and here, here, here, and here) about fallacious pathos, which is pathos that is used incorrectly or excessively to manipulate others. Here are some indicators that are common in witchblr:

Knee-jerk, blind, immediate dismissal of others’ views. If someone dismisses other viewpoints without giving a good reason for it, that’s a red flag. If the reason doesn’t make sense or hold up under scrutiny, same thing. This also extends to directing others to dismiss other viewpoints without engaging and deciding for themselves.

Unjustified and/or irrelevant emotional appeals. If somebody is using a lot of extremely emotional language, it’s probably a good idea to look closer. It’s possible that the emotion is being used to distract people from the facts; this happens a lot, for example, in political arguments. An additional sub-type of this is using a personal anecdote to gain pity from others, although in most cases, the personal anecdote has little bearing on the argument as a whole. This is especially effective on people who are generally empathetic and caring, because they tend to put themselves in the person’s shoes and thereby fall for it a lot easier (speaking as one who has learned the hard way).

Using guilt. If a person tries to guilt you into believing them or doing what they want, I’m guessing you already know that’s a big problem. But this can be more subtle than most people realize, and you may not notice it. Watch for language like, “If you do/don’t do x, then y (bad thing) will happen to me.” A related concept is using fear, which most people recognize pretty readily.

The slippery slope argument. This is when someone says things like, “If this isn’t taken care of now, the community will suffer for a long time to come.” For non-native English speakers’ reference, the name is derived from the phrase “it’s a slippery slope,” referring to walking along the top of a muddy hill and trying to avoid sliding down to the bottom.

Loaded terms. Using loaded terms is always, always an attempt to sway readers’ or listeners’ opinions, and it often works, while simultaneously being subtle enough that many people don’t notice the manipulation. That makes it quite prevalent in abusers’ speech. A loaded term is a word or phrase that is very difficult to argue against, like “freedom” or “responsibility”. No one wants to argue against these concepts, and that can lead them to subconsciously be more willing to believe the argument they’re presented as part of.

Generalization. We’ve all seen this a thousand times. “All Wiccans are fluffy,” “all tradcrafters are snooty,” and so on. This can also be slightly more specific, however: “that whole server is bad,” “all their followers are kids”. Whatever it is, it’s worth a second look, because generalizations are almost never correct. If ever–but then, that would be a generalization. ;)

I think that’s enough for now. There’s plenty of resources linked here, so I encourage everyone who is part of witchblr, or any social media group really, to use them. Do your research. Think for yourself. Vet everyone and everything–including me. Good luck.

This is a long read, but important

this came from a friend’s post…..For those of you complaining about Trump being blamed for the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic: Note: I didn’t write this.

I thought I would post a little history lesson for everyone on both sides of the political divide. I think it’s important that we understand the truth, especially come November when it’s time to vote. Forgive the length, but hey, we all have time on our hands to read, correct?

In December 2013, an 18-month-old boy in Guinea was bitten by a bat and died a brutal death a day later. After that, there were five more fatal cases. When Ebola spread out of the Guinea borders into neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone in July 2014, President Obama activated the Emergency Operations Center at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The CDC immediately deployed CDC personnel to West Africa to coordinate a response that included vector tracing, testing, education, logistics, and communication. Altogether, the CDC, under President Obama, trained 24,655 medical workers in West Africa, educating them on how to prevent and control the disease before a single case left Africa or reached the U.S. Working with the U.N. and the World Health Organization President Obama ordered the re-routing of travelers heading to the U.S. through certain specific airports equipped to handle mass testing. Back home in America, more than 6,500 people were trained through mock outbreaks and practice scenarios. That was done before a single case hit America. Three months after President Obama activated this unprecedented response, on September 30, 2014, we detected our first case in the U.S.A. A man had traveled from West Africa to Dallas and somehow slipped through the testing protocol. He was immediately detected and isolated. He died a week later. Two nurses who tended to him contracted Ebola but later recovered. All the protocols had worked. It was contained. The Ebola epidemic could have easily become a pandemic, but thanks to the actions of our government under President Obama, it never did. Those THREE EBOLA CONFIRMED CASES were the ONLY cases of Ebola in the U.S.A. because Obama did what needed to be done THREE MONTHS PRIOR TO THE FIRST CASE. Ebola is even more contagious than COVID-19. Had Obama not acted swiftly, millions of Americans would have died horrible, painful, deaths like something out of a horror movie (if you’ve never seen how Ebola kills, it’s horrific). It is ironic because since President Obama acted decisively we forget about his actions since the disease never reached our shores.

Now the story of COVID-19 and Trump’s response that we know about thus far: Before anyone even knew about the disease (even in China) Trump disbanded the pandemic response team that Obama had put in place. He cut funding to the CDC, and he cut our contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO). Trump fired Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer, the person on the National Security Council in charge of stopping the spread of infectious diseases before they reach our country - a position created by the Obama administration. When the outbreak started in China, Trump assumed it was China’s problem and sent no research, supplies or help of any kind. We were in a trade war, why should he help them? In January he received a briefing from our intelligence organizations that the outbreak was much worse than China was admitting and that it would definitely hit our country if something wasn’t done to prevent it. He ignored the report, not trusting our own intelligence. When the disease spread to Europe, the World Health Organization offered a plethora of tests to the United States. Trump turned them down, saying private companies here would make the tests “better” if we needed them. However, he never ordered U.S. companies to make tests and they had no profit motive to do so on their own. According to scientists at Yale and several public university medical schools, when they asked for permission to start working on our own testing protocol and potential treatments or vaccines, they were denied by Trump’s FDA. When Trump knew about the first case in the United States he did nothing. It was just one case and the patient was isolated. When doctors and scientists started screaming in the media that this was a mistake, Trump claimed it was a “liberal hoax” conjured up to try to make him “look bad after impeachment failed.” The next time Trump spoke of COVID-19, we had SIXTY-FOUR CONFIRMED CASES but Trump went before microphones and told the American public that we only had FIFTEEN cases “and pretty soon that number will be close to zero.” All while the disease was spreading, he took no action to get more tests. What Trump did was to stop flights from China from coming here. This was too late and accomplished nothing according to scientists and doctors. By then the disease was worldwide and was already spreading exponentially in the U.S. by Americans, not Chinese people as Trump would like you to believe. As of the moment I am posting this, the evening of April 13, 2020, we have Coronavirus 577,729 CONFIRMED CASES, 23,115 COVID-19 DEATHS and 33,907 recovered in the U.S.A. The actual number is undoubtedly Many more than this, with people dying at home uncounted.

As if you needed one more reason to vote, here it is.

Becoming Other

I sat across from the Village Witch. We were sharing tea. The tradition of friendship. 

I stared around at her lovely cottage. Tea cups were displayed on the rafters (I had hit my head on a few!). The snail talisman I had gifted her was hanging there: a ward against evil. In the corner, the skull of a horse. Great power emanated form this fetish. Its hollow eyes burned into mine. In it, I could see vast depths of good fortune and death. 

Her eyes, the witch’s eyes, were upon me, too. 

“You are eldrich,” she said curtly.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” she smiled slyly. “You are eldrich. You are witch.”

I dance about the fire, singing a song with the drums. It is a song from no where. 

A song of the winds. 

Of the stars. Of the rain. 

It is a wailing song of love and loss. It is fevered and hot. And wild. 

It is my song.

Fire glows on my naked, writhing body. I glow bright gold. A sun in the wild night. 

Faery songs and stories cascade from my lips. I give out wine in exchange for kisses, and sensually massage secret ointments into the skin of those who wish to fly. 

“Elf!” They call me. “Shining One!”

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Athena, Moon - Libra.

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would ya look at that, ive made a quiz. to find out which greek goddess you channel, click here! then, reblog with your moon sign & resullt 🌟

The very term ‘the crooked path’ suggests at first glance that the path of witchcraft is the opposite path to that of Christianity. The term is in fact related to the tradition of ‘sacred walking’, of walking for meditative purposes by early Celtic Christians on pilgrimage. These tracks were laid out to connect sites of holy significance and being on the ‘straight and narrow path’ symbolised the meditative walkers adherence to God.[6] As an old Gaelic maxim tells us, ‘He who will not take advice will take the crooked track.’

But like with many seemingly ‘Christian reversals’ that have found their way into the witchcraft legacy there is more to this notion of the ‘crooked path’ than simply doing the opposite to the church. Like Hermes’ Caduceus the ‘straight tracks’ around Britain (and other locations) and the human spine itself, the straight path is always coiled around by twin serpent lines. In the case of these twining ‘serpent lines’ in the land numerous ancient pagan holy sites emerge along them. It seems that our ancestors set out these holy sites both to recognise the straight track down the middle and the crooked one that twined around it. Like the migratory path of geese, something often associated with the host of the dead in flight along the ‘ghost tracks’; these straight tracks are best appreciated from the air. The ‘crooked’ snaking paths around them however are very much the path of the walker, they penetrate the land with many a holy well and standing stone.

So we might say that in reviling the serpent, in reviling this crooked and snaking path, it was walking the path of the earth and its interior that the Christian saints were rejecting. It also implies that if we agree to walk this path we accept the ‘hooks and crooks’ of the road that may obscure what lies ahead and agree to follow the irregularities of the earth’s path and be guided by our intuition. We could even say that in the context of this book, itself an exercise in meditative walking, that the scholarly component of witchcraft lore is the ‘straight track’ and the path of experiential gnosis via occult practice is the ‘crooked road’ that winds and snakes around it.

Morgan, Lee. A Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft (pp. 7-8). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle Edition.