Hi Chat, I Have A Question. What Are Some Of The Biggest Misconceptions You Know About? Unlike Most Of

Hi chat, I have a question. What are some of the biggest misconceptions you know about? Unlike most of witchblr, you actually read academic texts :p but yeah! Thank you!

Ah, the infamous witchblr. I hope it’s not as bad as tiktok. I’ve got quite a few, and I’ll go over them here.

The idea that hellenic polytheism is not a religion because it’s not Christianity 

You might go — “wait, what?” But I’ve actually seen this quite a few times. Ive met people who say they’re hellenic polytheists, but then call themself an atheist because “hellenic polytheism isn’t a religion.” Well, it is, even if it doesn’t have culturally Christian standards :p This idea comes from the idea that Christianity = religion when Christianity is just one religion. Hellenic polytheism is a religion. 

(And just in case, please don’t argue this point with another unrelated topic. I’m only talking about this specific case.)

The notion that kids or beginners can’t worship the gods

Saying that the kids can’t worship the gods is so historically inaccurate it hurts my soul. Do they forget that this was a religion that people were born into? That they worshipped the gods since they were young? I understand that kids can be stupid, but I’ve seen 13 year olds who are well read, pious, and respectful. 

And the idea that a beginner polytheist can’t worship the gods because of a lack of experience — then how will they get experience?? It’s like trying to apply for your first beginner job and one of the requirements is experience, but you don’t have experience yet!

Lastly, we all know how witchtok likes to gatekeep gods and it doesn’t make sense. These are gods that have been worshipped by kids and “beginners” for thousands of years. You have highly parental gods, gods like Apollon & Artemis who protect the youth. 

The idea that the titans aren’t gods and that you can’t worship them 

The titans are gods. And you can definitely worship them. I mean, they had cults back in antiquity too! Some might say “well, the titano-” no. Hell, not every titan sided with the other titans — titans like Helios joined Zeus’s side :p Even Kronos was celebrated — alongside Zeus, and he’s the ruler of Elysium — granted by Zeus.

And as someone who worships Helios, I get very annoyed at that one. 

The idea that you can’t worship x god because you’re y

You can worship Artemis if you’re a man or nonbinary. To say otherwise is just... plain wrong. I guess they’ll just have to ignore all the Male devotees back in Ancient Greece. Smh. 

That you can’t worship heroes 

This probably due to hero worship not being a well known topic, but you can totally worship heroes. I even made a Hero worship 101 guide.

That magic is “untraditional” “not correct” or “not historical” in our religion 

This one in particular annoys me. It’s like, read a damn ancient magic academic book right now. Look to gods like Hekate, Helios, Kirke. Yes, modem witchcraft isn’t like Ancient Greek magic, but like. Stop. Everything changes and grows. 

And oh, some might say “adding the gods to witchcraft is not historical-” stop. Look to magic in Alexandria, the PMG, the curse tablets, Medea, etc. Some hellenic polytheists hate witches and I’m like :// stop. Yes, Wicca can be annoying because of all the misinformation, but still. 

Even in the Iliad, there’s magic. Look to Kirke, daughter of Helios, for more information. 

I’ve even seen some say that the “true religion” doesn’t allow witchcraft and divination, and to that I say, run because that’s a literal cult if they say they have the true religion. And divination was HUGE in Ancient Greece. We have multiple divination types, and even an academic text I’d recommend on it: Ancient Greek divination by Sarah iles johnston. 

The idea that an altar is necessary 

It’s not, and not everyone in Ancient Greece could have a shrine. An altar is a tool for worship, not a requirement. 

That altar is spelled “alter”

Altar and alter have very different definitions and I tend to get confused because I don’t realise that they’re trying to say altar and not alter.

That some gods are “beginner friendly.” 

There is no such thing as a “beginner friendly” god. Gods aren’t level up systems, they’re individuals. It’s like saying you can level up with your friends, like, dude no. Go with who YOU want to worship and feel comfortable with.  

That tiktok is a good source.

Tbh I’d just stay away from tiktok. It’s not going to help you at all. If you need academic texts, hmu and I can try to get some for you. All I want is for y’all to succeed.

These are all the ones I can muster up right now. This took quite a bit of energy from me to create — feel free to add on! And give good reasoning too. That’ll help anon most : D

https://www.artstation.com/bettyjiang

Hathor

Hi, First time in your blog, I've been planning on contacting some germanic gods but I don't want to come out as disrespectful nor I want to end up looking for guidance or advice with neo nazis or that shit, is there any advice you could give an amateur? If not, some kind of internet source where I can get started?

The general understanding of respect and hospitality is fairly common, in my experience; however, despite having had some rather amicable contact with those divinities, my main practice and expertise lie elsewhere - so I pass the question on to @systlin

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!”

Keep reading

EGRESS

Being the Third Rite of the Sabbat

The Sacrafice of the Shadow

A Spell for Binding and Controling the Gods, Involving an Application it the Egress Formulae

Of Worship Beyond the Death or Icons

The Azoëtia

—by Andrew D. Chumbley

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.