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Sharing and Silence
9 July 2018 11:42How do you make decisions about what parts of your practice you share? Welcoming comments and response posts from all x
Some thoughts:
A core part of my religious philosophy is openness. I associate secrecy in religion as inextricably twined with abuse: be that financial exploitation, sexual exploitation, or just generally being in a manipulative environment where secrets are kept to shore up power for the people at the top of the hierarchy at the expense of those at the bottom. My understanding of Luciferianism is not "anti Christian" - Christianity is perfectly lovely in many ways. It's rebellion against organised religion, and the domination which inevitably comes with it. For that reason, I am committed to share and over share what I'm thinking and doing.
I think about the generosity with which the 90s pagans shared their information online, which got me started on this path. And the generosity with which ive benefited from reading Thelemic texts and Golden Dawn material, and similarly how useless ultimately it is to fetishise Cochraine when whatever he was died with him, no words recording his work. I've learnt so much from others, both trad secrets and general articles and writings on sacred topics. I want to pay thst forward. Especially because the last two places i found the synthesis between trad craft and ceremonial I seek were secretive, and there ought to be at least one trad of thst type people can experiment with on their own terms.
And yet. Mystery traditions and initiatory steps are powerful. They work on the psychology of the initiate. They have an effect.I have often wished for such things, as one has to work twice as hard to "make real" when you are the only one in the temple. I think about how hollow Scott Cunningham's books made Wicca feel, compared to how alive and intense reading about Gardener's cult with its initiatory steps is. How being able to read all there is to know produces a lack of engagement, I guess - if you read about rhe Goddess you've "done it", and it seems shallow and false. If you have to work towards an understanding, as you do in say high magic traditions then doing the work is "built in" to the system, and from the outset you accept that there are things which you can only learn with time. People are obsessed with Cochraine because it was NOT written down - because we can project onto him a genuine power, whatever it is we want out of magic, a mystery to yearn for, a sense that his initiates are still out there keeping the faith and perhaps one day we might meet them.
(The very projection thst I fear to encounter in groups. I'm afraid of projecting, even for a moment, "this person has more seniority, knowledge and power than me", for that sets up the context for religious abuse. It's so powerful a feeling, and so violent when misused)
And on another hand - I've lost count of hands, I'm sorry - perhaps nothing sacred is lost by writing everything down. After all, paganism and the occult is by and large experiential - I can write what I know of the Ninefold God, but simultaneously say nothing because it must be felt. Nothing of value or power is really encoded in an image or a name, it's how those things are used and worked with and ultimately encountered. Sharing what I have isn't revealing the Mystery, because that can't be put on paper. Just as giving someone's address is not a substitute for taking afternoon tea with them.
Plus, perhaps it is flawed to see sharing practice as inherently non-abusive. I have a desire for my words to be not only read, but used and followed by someone. Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to lead a religious community, but quite a lot wrong with many people who do - perhaps the personality characteristics of those who wish to lead are those who tend towards domination and abuse, and therefore I ought to be suspicious of the tendency within myself. In short, sharing my practice can be as much of an attention-seeking and unhealthy act as not sharing. Perhaps the abuse comes at the point when I decide my words are Important and ought to be listened to. Perhaps the only way to safeguard against it is cultivating the humility to not need or want that kind of attention from others, but to do my work in private - not because it is an important initiatory secret, but because it is NOT important or interesting in any way. Perhaps there's something not sacred, but secular, in rejecting the Internet invitation to make important our recipes and hair tutorials and music and whatever it is we can now share which we've gone centuries without putting on display.
Yet perhaps there's something very healthy about just throwing it up online in full, and relinquishing "ownership" of it. That fits with my open source values - the faith would not be "mine" and I would not be its prophet or high priest to whom people had to go for information, it would just be stuff online others could remix or adapt or ignore. Because I've been around enough bloggers in my time who relentlessly hint and humblebrag about the parts of their practice they cannot share - and that is another form of hierarchy creation, of power taking, of secrecy as a method of attention-seeking rather than in response to need.
Well friends, strangers, all. Give my some thoughts. How do you make decisions about what to share and keep silent?
Some thoughts:
A core part of my religious philosophy is openness. I associate secrecy in religion as inextricably twined with abuse: be that financial exploitation, sexual exploitation, or just generally being in a manipulative environment where secrets are kept to shore up power for the people at the top of the hierarchy at the expense of those at the bottom. My understanding of Luciferianism is not "anti Christian" - Christianity is perfectly lovely in many ways. It's rebellion against organised religion, and the domination which inevitably comes with it. For that reason, I am committed to share and over share what I'm thinking and doing.
I think about the generosity with which the 90s pagans shared their information online, which got me started on this path. And the generosity with which ive benefited from reading Thelemic texts and Golden Dawn material, and similarly how useless ultimately it is to fetishise Cochraine when whatever he was died with him, no words recording his work. I've learnt so much from others, both trad secrets and general articles and writings on sacred topics. I want to pay thst forward. Especially because the last two places i found the synthesis between trad craft and ceremonial I seek were secretive, and there ought to be at least one trad of thst type people can experiment with on their own terms.
And yet. Mystery traditions and initiatory steps are powerful. They work on the psychology of the initiate. They have an effect.I have often wished for such things, as one has to work twice as hard to "make real" when you are the only one in the temple. I think about how hollow Scott Cunningham's books made Wicca feel, compared to how alive and intense reading about Gardener's cult with its initiatory steps is. How being able to read all there is to know produces a lack of engagement, I guess - if you read about rhe Goddess you've "done it", and it seems shallow and false. If you have to work towards an understanding, as you do in say high magic traditions then doing the work is "built in" to the system, and from the outset you accept that there are things which you can only learn with time. People are obsessed with Cochraine because it was NOT written down - because we can project onto him a genuine power, whatever it is we want out of magic, a mystery to yearn for, a sense that his initiates are still out there keeping the faith and perhaps one day we might meet them.
(The very projection thst I fear to encounter in groups. I'm afraid of projecting, even for a moment, "this person has more seniority, knowledge and power than me", for that sets up the context for religious abuse. It's so powerful a feeling, and so violent when misused)
And on another hand - I've lost count of hands, I'm sorry - perhaps nothing sacred is lost by writing everything down. After all, paganism and the occult is by and large experiential - I can write what I know of the Ninefold God, but simultaneously say nothing because it must be felt. Nothing of value or power is really encoded in an image or a name, it's how those things are used and worked with and ultimately encountered. Sharing what I have isn't revealing the Mystery, because that can't be put on paper. Just as giving someone's address is not a substitute for taking afternoon tea with them.
Plus, perhaps it is flawed to see sharing practice as inherently non-abusive. I have a desire for my words to be not only read, but used and followed by someone. Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to lead a religious community, but quite a lot wrong with many people who do - perhaps the personality characteristics of those who wish to lead are those who tend towards domination and abuse, and therefore I ought to be suspicious of the tendency within myself. In short, sharing my practice can be as much of an attention-seeking and unhealthy act as not sharing. Perhaps the abuse comes at the point when I decide my words are Important and ought to be listened to. Perhaps the only way to safeguard against it is cultivating the humility to not need or want that kind of attention from others, but to do my work in private - not because it is an important initiatory secret, but because it is NOT important or interesting in any way. Perhaps there's something not sacred, but secular, in rejecting the Internet invitation to make important our recipes and hair tutorials and music and whatever it is we can now share which we've gone centuries without putting on display.
Yet perhaps there's something very healthy about just throwing it up online in full, and relinquishing "ownership" of it. That fits with my open source values - the faith would not be "mine" and I would not be its prophet or high priest to whom people had to go for information, it would just be stuff online others could remix or adapt or ignore. Because I've been around enough bloggers in my time who relentlessly hint and humblebrag about the parts of their practice they cannot share - and that is another form of hierarchy creation, of power taking, of secrecy as a method of attention-seeking rather than in response to need.
Well friends, strangers, all. Give my some thoughts. How do you make decisions about what to share and keep silent?
