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haptalaonAs I’ve been writing and thinking, there are a couple of big unanswered questions/unadressed problems.
Many communities have faced this head on by designing processes for reporting and handling abuse. A lot of writing has been done about community accountability & mediation; activist-aware communities will often have a page on what their principles are.
(Here’s someone trying:
They are all flawed, all inadequate to the task. This is a very hard problem to solve.
And having gone through it, I still don’t feel like I have any answers. These situations are simply horrible for everyone involved. This article is excellent, especially its list of flaws in Community Accountability processes.
Now, this conflicts with an earlier principle: “Act Like A Larger Organisation”. Above a certain size, one really should develop a process for handling this, and do it before an accusation is made. Personally, I’d combat this by not letting it get that large. So perhaps there’s another point here about self-awareness and limitations, about setting a challenge you can meet. If I know I’m incapable of handling an abuse scandal in my organisation, I need to run an organisation sufficiently small that I can disband it just by no longer inviting members to tea.
At the same time, the Catholic Church is an ugly lesson in an organisation refusing to take responsibility for the actions of those it ordains.
Creating safer communities and accountability is a primary task for any larger organisation, perhaps the defining reason why such organisations should exist at all.
I’m currently looking program which teaches me lore for 12 months, and at the end promises initiation into the tradition – the website says it has initiated 120 people or whatever. I doubt it does follow-up on all those people. It doesn’t claim to, it doesn’t have to – but I can’t help think that would be so much more useful than sharing lore and ritual scripts. I like the idea that when someone says “I was initiated by Haptalon himself and have attained the rank of Adept”, it stands as a mark of their integrity and quality, and if someone doubts it they can write to the
organisation for a fact-check.
But of course, at that stage – it requires an organisation free from corruption, who judges wisely, makes fair decisions, is not controlled by a clique, doesn’t cover things up…
One option when passing on a reference would be to include some of your abuse-awareness materials as standard. You could write - "this is my impression of the person. But I don't feel able to vouch for anyone unconditionally, and would like to share some of the materials we use in our trad to assess the safety of individuals and groups"
For legal reasons, my work cannot provide character references - only factual ones. That's another neat way to both acknowledge and side-step responsibility: "I can confirm Jim worked in X Coven 2006-2008, and holds the rank of Fantastico - this role included...please note we don't give character references, but here are some resources for you". Job applications ask you why you left your previous role - so maybe it's appropriate to add "Jim was asked to leave after a serious infraction involving alcohol" or "Jim was a member in good standing, but wanted to pursue different avenues".
I'm a big fan of being upfront about limitations. Giving Jim a good or bad reference, or giving no references at all, cuts abuse out of the conversation, and doesn't offer insight into your perspective. Acknowledging the ways that reference-giving is imperfect means the recipient is thinking and reflecting about both Jim and me, and that's crucial.
In terms of this blog series. The original question was – how would I create a safer environment – so my answer on this would be: not letting a group become bigger or more official than I could be accountable for.
Failure Mode 1: Cal is in a coven. Martin is evil and cunning and manipulative. Cal leaves the coven; or maybe they speak out about it and are disbelieved; and they kinda drop out of the Pagan scene, or maybe they stick around but don’t have any influence or social power. Betty joins Martin’s coven, without the opportunity to talk to Cal. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Failure Mode 2: Martin’s coven friends recognise he is a bad egg and eject him from the coven. They hear no more from him; or perhaps they try and spread the word, but tire of the responsibility, or aren’t well enough connected to do it effectively. Martin joins a new coven, who aren’t in contact with his old coven. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
This is one of the things which lets prolific abusers become so prolific. What’s to be done? It’s very difficult. Martin could change his name, or move countries. Abuse victims quite rightly want to move on. Ought a person or group have the responsibility - or the right - to tell stories about a person for months and years? What if Martin becomes a better person? What if the rumour-mongers are liars - what if Martin is the victim of a smear campaign? What if Martin’s accusers interpretations of the events are disproportionate or unfair? What if the tale-tellers have less social reach than Martin?
No solutions for this given, because few exist.
This is a scenario where a well-functioning hierarchy can be helpful. Your coven might not have any social reach or power, but you can let the other covens in your network know - and collectively, your organisation might have enough clout to spread the word further. If your org is large enough, maybe the scandal will be worthy of mention on The Wild Hunt or discussion in the wider Pagan blogosphere.
That doesn’t account for how “you’re on our blacklist and no longer welcome in this scene” is a horrifyingly powerful tool, and small community organisations don’t have the oversight or wisdom to use it with care. There’s a clutch of posts by Local Queer Notables about why I am a dangerous and toxic individual, written after I accused their buddy of the same. How is a third party supposed to judge between those two conflicting stories?
The Mystery
“I HAVE BEEN GENEROUS UP UNTIL NOW, BUT I CAN BE CRUEL. EVERYTHING THAT YOU WANTED I HAVE DONE.YOU ASKED THAT THE CHILD BE TAKEN. I TOOK HIM. YOU COWERED BEFORE ME. I \WAS\ FRIGHTENING. I HAVE REORDERED TIME. I HAVE TURNED THE WORLD UPSIDE-DOWN, AND I HAVE DONE IT ALL FOR YOU! I AM EXHAUSED FROM LIVING UP TO YOUR EXPECTATIONS OF ME. ISN'T THAT GENEROUS?”
Quite a lot of the things critiqued in this series are things I/we all secretly want. Of course I want to meet a geniuine guru, with a genuine historic lineage, who is Jedi-like and wise and touched by the Goddess.
The principles I have laid out strip out a lot of the flim flam and make-believe, and suggest no more sacred an experience than joining the Women’s Institute. The experience of being initiated into the Mysteries is real – these things work on the psychology in a powerful way. Magic is supposed to be immersive, ecstatic, participatory and strange – not run like a business meeting.
To what extent is this a problem? Can we create similarly powerful and authentic experiences without them? What checks and accountability would be needed to continue using them? How would I give my congregation the experience of me, as the Prophet of the Aeon – masked and all-powerful, a shadow cast by the fire – without the imbalance of power that inevitably comes with it?
Abuse reporting?
Many communities have faced this head on by designing processes for reporting and handling abuse. A lot of writing has been done about community accountability & mediation; activist-aware communities will often have a page on what their principles are.
(Here’s someone trying:
They are all flawed, all inadequate to the task. This is a very hard problem to solve.
And having gone through it, I still don’t feel like I have any answers. These situations are simply horrible for everyone involved. This article is excellent, especially its list of flaws in Community Accountability processes.
--
For these reasons, I haven’t listed anything about how to handle abuse when/if it happens. Is this a failing? Definitely. But I think it is better to be honest about our limitations, and the extent to which individuals can effectively act as a substitute for law enforcement.
Now, this conflicts with an earlier principle: “Act Like A Larger Organisation”. Above a certain size, one really should develop a process for handling this, and do it before an accusation is made. Personally, I’d combat this by not letting it get that large. So perhaps there’s another point here about self-awareness and limitations, about setting a challenge you can meet. If I know I’m incapable of handling an abuse scandal in my organisation, I need to run an organisation sufficiently small that I can disband it just by no longer inviting members to tea.
---
Rising again to Alex’s challenge to think of ways that hierarchy can be good. A large umbrella organisation can also be a way to reduce spiritual abuse – if the organisation is up to it.
At the same time, the Catholic Church is an ugly lesson in an organisation refusing to take responsibility for the actions of those it ordains.
Creating safer communities and accountability is a primary task for any larger organisation, perhaps the defining reason why such organisations should exist at all.
I’m currently looking program which teaches me lore for 12 months, and at the end promises initiation into the tradition – the website says it has initiated 120 people or whatever. I doubt it does follow-up on all those people. It doesn’t claim to, it doesn’t have to – but I can’t help think that would be so much more useful than sharing lore and ritual scripts. I like the idea that when someone says “I was initiated by Haptalon himself and have attained the rank of Adept”, it stands as a mark of their integrity and quality, and if someone doubts it they can write to the
organisation for a fact-check.
But of course, at that stage – it requires an organisation free from corruption, who judges wisely, makes fair decisions, is not controlled by a clique, doesn’t cover things up…
Technique: Keep thinking about abuse
One option when passing on a reference would be to include some of your abuse-awareness materials as standard. You could write - "this is my impression of the person. But I don't feel able to vouch for anyone unconditionally, and would like to share some of the materials we use in our trad to assess the safety of individuals and groups"
For legal reasons, my work cannot provide character references - only factual ones. That's another neat way to both acknowledge and side-step responsibility: "I can confirm Jim worked in X Coven 2006-2008, and holds the rank of Fantastico - this role included...please note we don't give character references, but here are some resources for you". Job applications ask you why you left your previous role - so maybe it's appropriate to add "Jim was asked to leave after a serious infraction involving alcohol" or "Jim was a member in good standing, but wanted to pursue different avenues".
I'm a big fan of being upfront about limitations. Giving Jim a good or bad reference, or giving no references at all, cuts abuse out of the conversation, and doesn't offer insight into your perspective. Acknowledging the ways that reference-giving is imperfect means the recipient is thinking and reflecting about both Jim and me, and that's crucial.
Technique: Know Thyself
In terms of this blog series. The original question was – how would I create a safer environment – so my answer on this would be: not letting a group become bigger or more official than I could be accountable for.
Dropouts
Failure Mode 1: Cal is in a coven. Martin is evil and cunning and manipulative. Cal leaves the coven; or maybe they speak out about it and are disbelieved; and they kinda drop out of the Pagan scene, or maybe they stick around but don’t have any influence or social power. Betty joins Martin’s coven, without the opportunity to talk to Cal. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Failure Mode 2: Martin’s coven friends recognise he is a bad egg and eject him from the coven. They hear no more from him; or perhaps they try and spread the word, but tire of the responsibility, or aren’t well enough connected to do it effectively. Martin joins a new coven, who aren’t in contact with his old coven. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
This is one of the things which lets prolific abusers become so prolific. What’s to be done? It’s very difficult. Martin could change his name, or move countries. Abuse victims quite rightly want to move on. Ought a person or group have the responsibility - or the right - to tell stories about a person for months and years? What if Martin becomes a better person? What if the rumour-mongers are liars - what if Martin is the victim of a smear campaign? What if Martin’s accusers interpretations of the events are disproportionate or unfair? What if the tale-tellers have less social reach than Martin?
No solutions for this given, because few exist.
This is a scenario where a well-functioning hierarchy can be helpful. Your coven might not have any social reach or power, but you can let the other covens in your network know - and collectively, your organisation might have enough clout to spread the word further. If your org is large enough, maybe the scandal will be worthy of mention on The Wild Hunt or discussion in the wider Pagan blogosphere.
That doesn’t account for how “you’re on our blacklist and no longer welcome in this scene” is a horrifyingly powerful tool, and small community organisations don’t have the oversight or wisdom to use it with care. There’s a clutch of posts by Local Queer Notables about why I am a dangerous and toxic individual, written after I accused their buddy of the same. How is a third party supposed to judge between those two conflicting stories?
no subject
Date: 12 September 2018 15:07 (UTC)There's also an issue of communication - Boston is especially weird like this, because Salem warps a lot of the regional community, and the heavy college/university focus in Boston as a city doesn't help either, but there are very few public groups here.
I am actually in regular communication with the HPS for the main public group, and go occasionally to their rituals and do periodic workshops for them. But I didn't train in a tradition that's present locally, I don't have great connections to the existing trad groups here other than a few fairly tenuous connections.
(Which I could and would use if I had a potential student whose background included that, but I wouldn't go to them with "I had a problem with this person, just giving you a head's up" as I might have with a few people in Minnesota where we had established history.)
And of course, there's no central reporting agency, and probably never should be (because confidentiality, because people can't differentiate between 'not right for us' and 'dangerous to others' in many cases, and so on.)
In the one situation where I (and others) did actively report concerns about someone, it also blew up badly in our faces (destroying multiple years of good interactions, creating significant fragmentation in the larger community, etc.) Which tends to discourage people from doing it again.
I think that some of it comes down to good vetting: I have a detailed questionnaire for people at the point we're talking about dedication.
I am really clear that sharing things on it will in most cases not change the decision about accepting someone as a student, but lying on it is grounds for immediate dismissal from the group. (i.e. someone who claims they didn't have previous group experience where it later comes out they were booted, someone saying there are no health issues that are relevant - I'm pretty specific about what counts - and finding out later there are things.) It's not perfect, but it's a model I can actually work with.
no subject
Date: 6 December 2018 15:42 (UTC)This is a good idea; esp because the way someone responds to a question tells you a lot about them. Like, "Have you ever been asked to leave a group?" or "Have you ever been the target of an abuse accusation?", one can infer a lot about whether they've grown from the experience, whether they're self-aware about what happened and about the complexity of the situation, whether they're generous to people with a different perspective, etc etc.
In the one situation where I (and others) did actively report concerns about someone, it also blew up badly in our faces (destroying multiple years of good interactions, creating significant fragmentation in the larger community, etc.) Which tends to discourage people from doing it again.
Hard same; it was horrible. Was it worth it? Possibly, but it's hard to tell - the impact on those at the epicentre is hellish.
--
Agreed there is a helpful difference between answering requests, and proactively volunteering information. I guess it's having an appropriate idea of who you can, and can't, take responsibility for - everyone is different, and for some that might be "people in my coven" not the whole scene.
no subject
Date: 6 December 2018 16:05 (UTC)Agreed there is a helpful difference between answering requests, and proactively volunteering information. I guess it's having an appropriate idea of who you can, and can't, take responsibility for - everyone is different, and for some that might be "people in my coven" not the whole scene.
Yeah. And part of the issue is that a) I don't know most of the other people well enough to have a good idea how they'd react to that info (again, different than Minnesota, where there were about two dozen people regularly doing group leadership things where I was pretty sure what they'd do with certain info, based on past experience.)
and in particular b) some of the people active in the area are on the other side of a significant division in a witchcraft trad that one of my best friends (and her teacher) are on the other side of.
Which doesn't prevent me having conversations with them (because some of the differences are 'this is not my mess to be involved with, and I know I have incomplete info about trad specifics') but in some cases the patterns of behaviour around that have made me want to be cautious about sharing information in particular settings.
(I probably still would if it were a direct connection or concern, but it might change how I approached the conversation.)