Slow day here? You betcha! I’m putting the finishing touches on a book review and decided to engage on some Internet dialog with my fellow Pagans who lean left on this hit piece on Jason Pitzl-Waters’ blog The Wild Hunt. I hesitate to bring this up because Jason thinks I dislike him on a personal level which is of course not the case. We do disagree on much however, including the idea of Sarah Palin and the “Dominionist” threat to American Pagans. I also tend to think that Palin receiving a blessing from an African pastor who “fights Witches” means very little in the scheme of things.
TWH and the “Witches” who spend their time lurking on the Internet railing against Sarah Palin rather than, I don’t know, practicing Witchcraft seem to disagree. Strongly, as it turns out, or at least by Wiccan standards it is. But first here’s a copy of my comment to The Wild Hunt regarding the evil of Sarah Palin and her barbaric African “Witch hunter” compatriot:
Little bit racist here isn’t it Jason? The “witch hunters” supposed hunting is confined to being a Pentecostal who fought a magical battle with another practitioner. This is part of a long tradition in Africa of “practitioners” battling each other that has been passed even into Diaspora traditions like Voodoo, Santeria and Hoodoo. By painting this as “Witch hunting†you’re ignoring the traditions of Africa and judging this person by American, or really European standards. Not very tolerant I’d say.
And what he did was no different from what the so-called Witches here do, or are supposed to be doing I should say. I’ve been involved in many a metaphysical dust up. Am I “Witch hunting” now? Was Herman Slater a “Witch hunter’ when he fought the Frosts?
But more to the point comparing traditional African magical practice to the anemic paganism of modern America, as the wailing of Palin being anti-American Pagan because of her affiliation with some Christian from Africa implies, is charitable to say the least. When Hoodoo practitioners slap curses on Sante Muerte cultists neither is part of an anti-Pagan movement, and more importantly neither are Wiccans so it really doesn’t affect them. This is more co-opting of other cultures by White, middle class armchair Witches. It’d be better for all of us if people took Wiccans seriously enough to be afraid of them.
These “Third wave Christians” are no more anti-Catholic than the commenters here and ALL Christians are theologically opposed to paganism just as all Jews, Muslims, Satanists, Atheist etc are. Just as I am philosophically opposed to Christianity (it preaches weakness and spiritual slavery) Islam (a religion of rape and murder that stole a holy Pagan shrine) and Judaism (their god treats them shoddily indeed) however those “wingnuts” have gone out of their way to promote my openly Pagan blog (and others) and Palins operation has been open to Conservative Pagans for some time. Red Alerts has an at least 50% Conservative Christian readership yet I have never received any negative feedback for religiously themed articles I write. Nor have I been evangelized even when Christians and I have broached religion online.
I have gotten death threats from Wiccans however. And Muslims which is another story.
I proudly affiliate with Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups despite having theological problems with their false religions. I suppose that means I’m in cahoots with an anti-Pagan conspiracy. And I suppose since many of you affiliate with Marxists online you’re all part of a communist conspiracy to overthrow the government.
I don’t judge people by their religious beliefs just as I don’t judgepeople by the foods they like, the books they read or anything else that isn’t related to their direct interaction with me. Neither do the “wingnuts” you’re lambasting in my experience.
But while you’re lambasting Sarah Palin and her book (which I admit Ihave not and likely will not read, although my non-Pagan wife may) some of those conservative Christians you hate tipped me to yet another “pagan” who is in fact a sex offender named Tom Sokilik, aka Silver Dragon Wolfe (as an aside, can we stop using craft names we thought were cool when we 15?) who has recently admitted to molesting pagan children even as we speak and more disturbingly claims to have some knowledge of the murder of a 15-year-old girl he was molesting that he hasn’t shared with the police. I would ask “Riverbend†and others if they will be thanking the “wingnuts” for watching out for their children while they complain online about some person they’ll never meet and or interact with.
Or are they too being hateful by identifying real threats to you and yours? More Christianist nonsense I guess. But I’m curious as to when Pagans will look in their own backyard for problems as opposed to recycling Naomi Wolfe/Alex Jones’ “secret society” conspiracy theories. There is a man in your midst now, who may be culpable for the murder of a teen, who went to jail for molesting teens, who admitted to molesting a 5-year-old and is active in the Pagan community and it was a “wingnut” who tipped me to it because she cares about your children.
Pagans Against Child Abuse and Red Alerts and several other peoplehave pointed this out for years and been slandered and attacked for it. Instead you bleat about “the real threat” like sheep scared of the farmer’s shear unaware of the butcher waiting among them. But by all means put your energy into Sarah Palin. The Christians can watch your children and take on your responsibility to police the Pagan community.
In other words, I take the philosophically Republican view of religion. I treat believers in other traditions with respect even if I (sometimes strongly) disagree with their religions. I am not a believer in Christianity but I do respect Christians and try to treat them fairly. I have debated some and will always be open to religious debate with anyone while remaining polite, respectful and friendly. Modern Wiccans in general do not feel the same way unfortunately.
My comment was met with a flurry of the usual venom, no doubt spurred on mostly by the fact that I confront Wiccans with the same critical eye I use with any other religion. To the Wiccan, it is acceptable for me to claim that Christianity is, in essence, too liberal for me. Christian meekness and turn-the-other-cheekery, as I have said to Christian friends of mine for years, encourages Islamist aggression and leftist exploitation. What isn’t acceptable to these same Wiccans, who I should point out have embraced meekness as part of the New Paganism, is pointing out that Wiccans are in fact not particularly well versed in what we loosely term Occultism these days and in fact few are knowledgeable enough to even be considered proficient in Witchcraft. Thus, their fundamental misunderstanding of Africa’s religious scene.
Modern Wicca is a role-playing game for adults who never outgrew the desire to tell people their “craft” name is Black Dragon Thunder Pants or something equally asinine. It is a leftist dumping ground for New Agers who can be relied on to march in lockstep on any issue (such as Sarah Palin) but aren’t ready for the grownup table. They pretend to practice Witchcraft and are jealous of those who really do, like say a rootworker or other practitioner of African Diaspora traditions. They need to feel oppressed so they latch on to bizarre conspiracies about Sarah Palin and her “Dominionist” fellows ready to overthrow the government and burn all the witches. And they hate people who point out that their Llewellyn scripted passion play is not just a con game of truly epic proportions, but a gateway to abuse for their children as they embrace the Wiccan hippy sex cult ethos handed to them by their Pagan plantation masters.
Those people would be me.
As I’ve said, I’ve had plenty of death threats or threats of curses, bindings, banishing and whatever other ritual chastisements modern Wiccans have no understanding of. Almost always, these empty threats by hollow people completely devoid of chutzpah or ability to physically or metaphysically harm anyone has followed me exposing some pedophile or degenerate in their midst, or exposing how sad they look standing next to a real practitioner of some spiritual tradition, like the so-called “spiritual warfare” Christians or the African folk traditions of the south. Thus, when making a comment that does both I was not surprised to see frequent Wild Hunt commenter “snoozepossum” slap up his own thinly veiled and sadly non-worrisome death threat.
It’s short if you want to read it but the gist of it is that I’m an intolerant bigot for being intolerant of bigotry, his supposed coven Carolina Grove is just beleaguered by Christian attacks on their freedom, and in response to my point about mainly getting threats from Wiccans, that he “sees their point.”
In terms of threats made against me he “sees their point” and I assume thinks it’s justified to make such threats. Interesting. It’s ironic that in a comment thread full of screeching about how “dangerous” Sarah Palin is and how it’s just outrageous that Christians are philosophically opposed to Witchcraft (because after all no one should be offended by another person having a negative opinion of their faith) that I should receive this half-hearted threat for defending the faith traditions of others from obvious slanders.
Irony in the Wiccan community, however, is never a surprise.
For instance, while commenters crucified Palin for being “homophobic,” a commenter called Lokisgohdi left this little gem about the late Herman Slater:
Herman Slater was owner of the legendary Magickal Childe occult shop in NYC. He was an openly gay Wiccan who, as HIV began ravaging the gay community, promoted monogamy among gays to curtail the spread of AIDS. He was then labeled a conservative and to this day people like “Lokisgohdi” revel in his death from AIDS. “Lokisgohdi” goes a step further and accuses Slater of giving AIDS to the straight NYC Pagan community. You know, because “Lokisgohdi” did the research to determine patient zero for the great Pagan AIDS epidemic and in addition found that Slater purposefully introduced AIDS into the Pagan community out of sheer gay malice.
In other words, a fantasy based on his dislike of someone he never met. I guess Herman Slater is the Sarah Palin of gay Wiccans. Frankly, the attacks on Slater sound exactly like the kind of hateful rhetoric the “Dominionists” are being accused of by Wiccans to me.
And like this mincing threat by “snoozepossum,” it has all the substance you’d expect from the bush leagues of occultism.
I have to say that at least when degenerates from PaganSpace or some other nest of poseurs feel like making threats, they come right out and make their threats. Nowadays, all Wiccans can muster up is some warmed over DailyKos talking points and some cross words about how they maybe, kind of, possibly would support other people’s desire to see me harmed. Maybe.
But through all this childishness what you won’t see in the comments is any recognition that my essential point is important. It’s public knowledge (because it played out in my comments) that I basically had to guilt Jason Pitzl-Waters into blogging about Pagan pedophile James Douglas Ray who at the time was advertising on Witchvox for families to join his coven. In my comment I allude to yet another pedophile hiding amongst the Pagans and not one of those offended Wiccans in the comments cared.
Predators, you see, are a real threat. One that requires moral certainty and fortitude to deal with. It is easier by far to simply pretend that there is an anti-Pagan conspiracy you can fight from the comments section of your favorite blog, because this imaginary foe won’t be at the next pagan festival. The supposed “Witch hunters” of the Wiccan imagination aren’t crashing on their couches, or members of their “all inclusive circles” so railing against them requires no spine. Easier to “confront” Sarah Palin, Black people or Conservatives because they’ll never run into any in their real lives.
When I confront them I force them into the real world, where adults must face unpleasant situations and do what is right. Wiccans hate to break character, so having someone destroy the illusion of the Wiccan/Christianist war being the “real threat” and exposing that their forced solidarity with any cretin who buys a pentagram necklace at Hot Topic is an invitation to have their children raped only shows them how pathetic their “religion” has become. Until Wicca as a whole begins to set some standards of belief and behavior it will always be a refuge for sexual predators.
And until Wiccans see that child molesters and other predators are a more serious threat to them than Sarah Palin, my disdain for their non-existent magical prowess, and the Alex Jonesian conspiracies they make up while smoking pot in their parents’ basements, their children will never be safe.
