(no subject)
5 September 2018 16:33![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonThere were recently adverts for Pagan clergy for the prisons; to qualify, one had to be a Figure Of Good Standing In The Community. I think about this a lot.
There were recently adverts for Pagan clergy for the prisons; to qualify, one had to be a Figure Of Good Standing In The Community. I think about this a lot.
1) How can we have accountability, how can we have transparency in informal structures and whisper-networks? Being a figure of good standing means - I've made friends with the right people. I've brown-nosed. I've stayed quiet about the right people's bad behavior, and endorsed their criticism of the wrong people regardless of evidence. I've agreed about who the Good Writers are and What We Believe.
(I think I've been put back in a bad headspace by the Avital Ronell news cycle, which is *exactly* the kind of "the systemic abuse of power we write about is the sort of thing only other people do" experience I had.)
I am the librarian of a community group, and was recently reminded of my powerlessness when a community author was invited to speak. Five years ago, that author put their social power and weight behind my abuser - and that part of the experience which caused my final tailspin into isolation which robbed 2, 3 years of my life. Now, I come to do my library work once a month, and keep my bag within arm's reach at all times to make a quick getaway in case the wrong people turn up. I have worked as a librarian for this group, every month for three years, as well as helping with bake sales and planning and taking notes at council meetings. I remain less valuable than a dude with a cool haircut.
I'm depressed that this guy is still on the scene, and crushed that it falls to me to either stay silent and pretend things are fine, or call him on it and unleash hell, or quietly turn down my invitation to be on a book panel while he gets to attend, and bolster his image even further at the expense of my own. I chose the latter. Abuse survival is being repeatedly punished for soemthing you did not do.
If being Pagan clergy in the eyes of the world means accruing some form of community standing, how can I work towards it without inevitably having to deal with this monumental bullshit again?
2) Re-reading Valiente's "The Rebirth of Witchcraft", it really stands out to me what utter shits everyone around her is. For all I know, Valiente was a shit too.
3) See, my understanding of #metoo is that it is NOT about gender, so much as power.
Coincidentally, under patriarchy, most people who hold that power are white cisgender men; and coincidentally, due to sex/gender/society, the way that power is expressed is a sexual one.
For example, Avital Ronell - internationally acclaimed scholar - can gift or deny her research student access to a career. He cannot give meaningful consent, or object to a damn thing. The author dude with the nice hair has the power to support, or reject, the reality of my abuse, and thus control my access to local queer bars, support groups, talks and social meets, and how safe I feel at Pride. No abuse story which has touched my life involved a man victimising a woman - I exist in queer spaces, or at least I used to, which means every story I know involves a diverse combination of genders and bodies being vile to a diverse combo of victims.
So in this case, it's not as straightforward as a cult leader demanding sex with naive ingenue initiates. It's the internicine squabbling of small-community politics, and the way power can deny you access to things - unless you're willing to be quite as nasty as everyone else around you. In this case - if I wanted the general adulation and recognition of being Real Pagan Clergy, that means I first have to "win" at small community politics.
4) But organised religion has hardly covered itself in glory. One would hope that greater organisation would produce the possibility of accountability & transparency. I could point to my theology degree, and my certificate of priesthood, and that carries more weight than me saying "I am a High Priest" or "I did an internet course to let me do marriages".
But we see exactly the same secret-keeping and institutionalised silence as we do in informal networks, except this time the Pope is involved. And getting ordained as a priest means you did the same courting of favours and befriending of bishops and keeping your mouth shut - merely in a nicer hat. The problem is people. People are horrible.
5) Money.
If you're a Church of England vicar, you minister for the community for free because the church pays your bills. If you're a Local Witch who wants to do this kind of ministry and community-work, how do you pay your bills? It's questionable to charge clients at-point-of-use - it's wide-open to abuse by the manipulative. No shortage of stories of shady psychics.
All the same, under capitalism money is the unit of caring; one needs to eat, one deserves compensation for time and energy expended. If I wanted to dedicate my life to Christ, there's an infrastructure there for me to do so - a powerful and wealthy one. We have no such infrastructure - how then do I get paid?
5) How can we be a witch in a community, when old-fashioned notions of community are gone. I think about the notion of "being a shaman" or "shamanic practice". Leaving aside all questions of race and appropriation for a moment - can one be a shaman without a village? Can one claim to represent spiritual traditions which were intertwined with the life of a village, tribe or group? OG-Wicca had the dictum "thou can'st not be a witch alone", and that is certainly true of a shaman.
The term usually implies some immersive or ecstatic practice. Well, can one immerse oneself in the spirits without a mentor and social structure bolstering you are what you say you are? If I am the only person who thinks I am a shaman, can my power be in any way comparable to a bloke raised on that path from birth surrounded by others who are convinced of my connection with the uncanny?
6) In short - of course the prison service have a task on their hands to find Real, Genuine Pagan Clergy, because you're trying to find individuals who command a sort of collective belief in their importance, and hopefully you're also trying to find people who are NOT prone to abuse of power. The venn diagram here is a circle.
7) My Latin teacher - a Catholic - always said the only man qualified to lead was one who did not wish to be in power, and although this is probably something something jesus something - in this case I think she's right. The desire to lead, to have recognition, to have status, to have power - entirely disqualifies you as the kind of person who ought to have it.
What does it say about the kinds of people around me who claim it? What does it say about ME that I want it in turn?
8) I got married this year, and it was so important for me to find a "real" religious figure to do it. And I hit these obstacles head on because - who do I recognise as a religious authority, under these circumstances? Whose power do I read as genuine? How do I make that decision? I'm not embedded in community, and I have some Serious Misgivings about doing so. If I went to church every week, I'd choose my local vicar; but I'm a member of a disorganised religion, and a paranoiac abuse survivor to boot with some big feelings about religious authority as an inevitable site of abuse.
We found someone. We go to a yearly event, associated with a certain sacred place - it's lead by someone elected (by who?) as the guardian of that place, and we decided this figure did carry a sense of spiritual weight and power for us. I do still feel some ambivalence, however - I guess because I chose to trust, and that process included investing some of my belief in the divine in a mortal, like the village who thinks their shaman is real.
That's also the fear, being part of a collective belief that someone else's connection to the divine is more genuine, more powerful, more important than my own, and therefore worthy of a kind of respect and special consideration.
And I want to be humble, in the sense that - I'm surely NOT the greatest and most knowledgeable mage in the world. And I want to be wary, and keep asking of anyone set up as better than me - what qualifies you? What gives you cause to claim this right?
9) I think religious work is especially fraught because it's all intangible. If we were a society of painters, say, everyone could be the judge of what paintings they liked best. How can we meaningfully judge the quality of someone's spiritual work, connections or authority? I think the same conditions for interpersonal violence exist here as in queer communities, where everyone is vying to be seen as most authentic. I recieved some fearsomely bruising messages when I participated in witch communities previously, and I think it stems from an insecurity I recognise all too well.
**********
You know, I'm sure I've written something like this here before; I know I wrote it several times for my previous blog; I guess because it continues to occupy me. I cannot think of community without thinking of power, and the abuse of it. I cannot think of being a community leader or figure without worrying about my capacity for violence, and I cannot think of being a "lay" community member without worrying about those who would claim authority over me.
All these questions are ones of trust, and of social bonds. I am disinclined to trust, and it causes me a lot of problems. Under the circumstances, who could blame me? All the same, it causes me problems and barriers, and I want to overcome it - but doing so means relaxing barriers which are there for a reason. Perhaps I ought to accept that community work will never be for me, and that's ok. Yet it's something I want too.
There were recently adverts for Pagan clergy for the prisons; to qualify, one had to be a Figure Of Good Standing In The Community. I think about this a lot.
1) How can we have accountability, how can we have transparency in informal structures and whisper-networks? Being a figure of good standing means - I've made friends with the right people. I've brown-nosed. I've stayed quiet about the right people's bad behavior, and endorsed their criticism of the wrong people regardless of evidence. I've agreed about who the Good Writers are and What We Believe.
(I think I've been put back in a bad headspace by the Avital Ronell news cycle, which is *exactly* the kind of "the systemic abuse of power we write about is the sort of thing only other people do" experience I had.)
I am the librarian of a community group, and was recently reminded of my powerlessness when a community author was invited to speak. Five years ago, that author put their social power and weight behind my abuser - and that part of the experience which caused my final tailspin into isolation which robbed 2, 3 years of my life. Now, I come to do my library work once a month, and keep my bag within arm's reach at all times to make a quick getaway in case the wrong people turn up. I have worked as a librarian for this group, every month for three years, as well as helping with bake sales and planning and taking notes at council meetings. I remain less valuable than a dude with a cool haircut.
I'm depressed that this guy is still on the scene, and crushed that it falls to me to either stay silent and pretend things are fine, or call him on it and unleash hell, or quietly turn down my invitation to be on a book panel while he gets to attend, and bolster his image even further at the expense of my own. I chose the latter. Abuse survival is being repeatedly punished for soemthing you did not do.
If being Pagan clergy in the eyes of the world means accruing some form of community standing, how can I work towards it without inevitably having to deal with this monumental bullshit again?
2) Re-reading Valiente's "The Rebirth of Witchcraft", it really stands out to me what utter shits everyone around her is. For all I know, Valiente was a shit too.
3) See, my understanding of #metoo is that it is NOT about gender, so much as power.
Coincidentally, under patriarchy, most people who hold that power are white cisgender men; and coincidentally, due to sex/gender/society, the way that power is expressed is a sexual one.
For example, Avital Ronell - internationally acclaimed scholar - can gift or deny her research student access to a career. He cannot give meaningful consent, or object to a damn thing. The author dude with the nice hair has the power to support, or reject, the reality of my abuse, and thus control my access to local queer bars, support groups, talks and social meets, and how safe I feel at Pride. No abuse story which has touched my life involved a man victimising a woman - I exist in queer spaces, or at least I used to, which means every story I know involves a diverse combination of genders and bodies being vile to a diverse combo of victims.
So in this case, it's not as straightforward as a cult leader demanding sex with naive ingenue initiates. It's the internicine squabbling of small-community politics, and the way power can deny you access to things - unless you're willing to be quite as nasty as everyone else around you. In this case - if I wanted the general adulation and recognition of being Real Pagan Clergy, that means I first have to "win" at small community politics.
4) But organised religion has hardly covered itself in glory. One would hope that greater organisation would produce the possibility of accountability & transparency. I could point to my theology degree, and my certificate of priesthood, and that carries more weight than me saying "I am a High Priest" or "I did an internet course to let me do marriages".
But we see exactly the same secret-keeping and institutionalised silence as we do in informal networks, except this time the Pope is involved. And getting ordained as a priest means you did the same courting of favours and befriending of bishops and keeping your mouth shut - merely in a nicer hat. The problem is people. People are horrible.
5) Money.
If you're a Church of England vicar, you minister for the community for free because the church pays your bills. If you're a Local Witch who wants to do this kind of ministry and community-work, how do you pay your bills? It's questionable to charge clients at-point-of-use - it's wide-open to abuse by the manipulative. No shortage of stories of shady psychics.
All the same, under capitalism money is the unit of caring; one needs to eat, one deserves compensation for time and energy expended. If I wanted to dedicate my life to Christ, there's an infrastructure there for me to do so - a powerful and wealthy one. We have no such infrastructure - how then do I get paid?
5) How can we be a witch in a community, when old-fashioned notions of community are gone. I think about the notion of "being a shaman" or "shamanic practice". Leaving aside all questions of race and appropriation for a moment - can one be a shaman without a village? Can one claim to represent spiritual traditions which were intertwined with the life of a village, tribe or group? OG-Wicca had the dictum "thou can'st not be a witch alone", and that is certainly true of a shaman.
The term usually implies some immersive or ecstatic practice. Well, can one immerse oneself in the spirits without a mentor and social structure bolstering you are what you say you are? If I am the only person who thinks I am a shaman, can my power be in any way comparable to a bloke raised on that path from birth surrounded by others who are convinced of my connection with the uncanny?
6) In short - of course the prison service have a task on their hands to find Real, Genuine Pagan Clergy, because you're trying to find individuals who command a sort of collective belief in their importance, and hopefully you're also trying to find people who are NOT prone to abuse of power. The venn diagram here is a circle.
7) My Latin teacher - a Catholic - always said the only man qualified to lead was one who did not wish to be in power, and although this is probably something something jesus something - in this case I think she's right. The desire to lead, to have recognition, to have status, to have power - entirely disqualifies you as the kind of person who ought to have it.
What does it say about the kinds of people around me who claim it? What does it say about ME that I want it in turn?
8) I got married this year, and it was so important for me to find a "real" religious figure to do it. And I hit these obstacles head on because - who do I recognise as a religious authority, under these circumstances? Whose power do I read as genuine? How do I make that decision? I'm not embedded in community, and I have some Serious Misgivings about doing so. If I went to church every week, I'd choose my local vicar; but I'm a member of a disorganised religion, and a paranoiac abuse survivor to boot with some big feelings about religious authority as an inevitable site of abuse.
We found someone. We go to a yearly event, associated with a certain sacred place - it's lead by someone elected (by who?) as the guardian of that place, and we decided this figure did carry a sense of spiritual weight and power for us. I do still feel some ambivalence, however - I guess because I chose to trust, and that process included investing some of my belief in the divine in a mortal, like the village who thinks their shaman is real.
That's also the fear, being part of a collective belief that someone else's connection to the divine is more genuine, more powerful, more important than my own, and therefore worthy of a kind of respect and special consideration.
And I want to be humble, in the sense that - I'm surely NOT the greatest and most knowledgeable mage in the world. And I want to be wary, and keep asking of anyone set up as better than me - what qualifies you? What gives you cause to claim this right?
9) I think religious work is especially fraught because it's all intangible. If we were a society of painters, say, everyone could be the judge of what paintings they liked best. How can we meaningfully judge the quality of someone's spiritual work, connections or authority? I think the same conditions for interpersonal violence exist here as in queer communities, where everyone is vying to be seen as most authentic. I recieved some fearsomely bruising messages when I participated in witch communities previously, and I think it stems from an insecurity I recognise all too well.
**********
You know, I'm sure I've written something like this here before; I know I wrote it several times for my previous blog; I guess because it continues to occupy me. I cannot think of community without thinking of power, and the abuse of it. I cannot think of being a community leader or figure without worrying about my capacity for violence, and I cannot think of being a "lay" community member without worrying about those who would claim authority over me.
All these questions are ones of trust, and of social bonds. I am disinclined to trust, and it causes me a lot of problems. Under the circumstances, who could blame me? All the same, it causes me problems and barriers, and I want to overcome it - but doing so means relaxing barriers which are there for a reason. Perhaps I ought to accept that community work will never be for me, and that's ok. Yet it's something I want too.
no subject
Date: 5 September 2018 17:27 (UTC)