Crookedlystrangecandy - Gala, Kurgarra (odd, Mostly Harmless) - Tumblr Blog

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

I’m going to give you the best piece of Adult Life Is Hard advice I’ve ever learned:

Talk to people when things go to shit.

I don’t just mean get it off your chest, although that’s good. I mean: Something’s wrong with your paycheck/you lost your job/you had unexpected emergency car repairs and now you’re broke so your credit card payment is late. Like, not just 15 days late. We’re talking, shit got crazy and now you’re 90 days late with compounded interest and late fees and the Minimum Payment Due is, like, $390, and you’ve got about $3.90 in your bank account. Call the credit card company. 

I know it’s scary. I know you feel like you’re going to get in trouble, like you’re gong to get yelled at or scolded for not having your life together. But the credit card company isn’t your parents; they’re just interested in getting money from you. And you can’t squeeze blood from a stone or money from someone who doesn’t have any. So what you do is you call them. You explain you’re experiencing temporary financial hardships, and you’re currently unable to bring your account up to date, but you don’t want to just let it get worse. Can you maybe talk to someone about a payment plan so you can work something out? Nine times out of ten you’ll be able to negotiate something so that at least it’s not just taking a constant, giant shit on your credit score.

- Can’t pay your power bill? Call the power company.

- Can’t pay your full rent? Talk to your landlord.

- Had to go to the hospital without insurance and have giant medical bills looming in your place? Call the hospital and ask if they have someone who helps people with financial hardships. Many do.

- Got super sick and missed half a semester of class because flu/pneumonia/auto-immune problems/depressive episode? Talk to your professor. If that doesn’t help, talk to your advisor.

You may not be able to fix everything, but you’ll likely be able to make improvements. At the very least, it’s possible that they have a list of people you can contact to help you with things. (Also, don’t be afraid to google things like, “I can’t pay my power bill [state you live in]” because you’d be surprised at what turns up on Google!) But the thing is, people in these positions gain nothing if you fail. There’s no emotional satisfaction for them if your attempts at having your life together completely bite the dust. In fact, they stand to benefit if things work out for you! And chances are, they’ll be completely happy to take $20 a month from you over getting $0 a month from you, your account will be considered current because you’ve talked to them and made an agreement, you won’t get reported to a collections agency, and your credit score won’t completely tank.

Here’s some helpful tips to keep in mind:

1. Be polite. Don’t demand things; request them. Let me tell you about how customer service people hold your life in their hands and how many extra miles they’ll go for someone who is nice to them.

2. Stick to the facts, and keep them minimal unless asked for them. Chances are they’re not really interested in the details. “We had several family emergencies in a row, and now I’m having trouble making the payments” is better than “Well, two months ago my husband wrecked his bike, and then he had a reaction to the muscle relaxer they gave him, and then our dog swallowed a shoestring and we had to take him to the emergency clinic, and just last week MY car broke down, and now my account’s in the negatives and I don’t know how I’m gonna get it back out.” The person you’re talking to is aware shit happens to everyone; they don’t need the details to prove you’re somehow “worthy” of being helped. They may ask you for details at a certain point if they have to fill out any kind of request form, but let them do that.

3. Ask questions. “Is there anything we can do about X?” “Would it be possible to move my payment date to Y day instead so it’s not coming out of the same paycheck as my rent?” The answer may be “no.” That’s not a failure on your part. But a good customer service person may have an alternate solution. 

Anyway! I hope that helps! Don’t just assume the answer is “no” before you’ve even begun. There is more help out there than you ever imagined.

Dandelions symbolize everything I want to be in life

Oh, so the Catholic Church can commit theophagy every Sunday for two thousand years and that's fine, but as soon as I decide to try a little theophagy of my own everybody freaks out. I see how it is.

Some ideas for bad things that are white/light:

lightning, very hot fire

snow storms, ice, frost on crops

some types of fungus/mold

corpses, ghosts, bones, a diseased person

clothing, skin tone, hair, etc. of a bad person

fur, teeth, eyes of an attacking animal/monster

bleached out deserts, dead trees, lifeless places

poison

Some ideas for good things that are black/dark:

rich earth/soil

chocolate, truffles, wine, cooked meat

friendly animals/pets/creatures

a character’s favorite vehicle, technology, coat, etc.

a pleasant night

hair, skin tone, clothing, etc. of a good person

undisturbed water of a lake

the case/container of something important

valued wood, furniture, art

velvet

Think to burn, to infect, to bleach vs. to enrich, to protect, to be of substance.

“The winter is here again, and this time I wanted to prepare myself for this 6 cold months to come. This winter I want to feel the cold as a source of power, and not the opposite. I thought that taking a little swim in the ice cold water is the best way to start this winter, to really get into the very core of how cold feels like. Almost like a ritual. The ice swim become a symbol for not letting the cold take control of me. And it’s a way of testing myself. It’s a strange feeling to do something when my whole body tells me to not do it. This is something I will try to do regularly during this winter. Because taking a ice swim really has the most amazing effect on our body and mind. I have never, ever felt so full of live as the two times I have taken a swim in ice cold water. It’s like giving your body a power start.“ From Youtube channel Jonna Jinton: ICE SWIM | Feeling the power from the cold “I don’t want to cold to control me… Instead, I want the cold to be a source of power…“ Powerful message from this young lady Yeah =D…

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

if an archaeologist says an artifact was probably for “ritual purposes” it means “i have no fuckin clue”

but if they say it was for “fertility rituals” they mean “i know exactly what it was for but i dont want to say ‘ancient dildo’”

by Maria Zolotukhina

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.

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

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

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.

And You rise from the unexplored depths of the soul, in the sweet effluvium of the rain, in the clangour of lightning, You, relentless strength, Celestial Snake, Mighty Dragon, You rise and shine in a dark firmament while the world praises Your Name. Leviathan, the fruit of knowledge is in Your hands and you dispense it like honey. Lord of the waters, glorious is Your name.

Hail Leviathan!

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

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.

No offence but you know what's really weird about America? You've got hardly any history past a couple of centuries. No medieval castles, no Roman walls, no bronze age settlement sites. Is there even anything for archeologists to dig for?

People have been here for quite some time, they’ve only been white for 500 years

Athena, Moon - Libra.

checks out

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 🌟