Continued

Like, it's at times like this - reading through what other people have thought about Requiem for a Village - that one really feels the absence of women from the worlds of film criticism and film journalism lol

(no subject)

I am very strongly opposed to hierarchy in religious life; it's partly political, partly being an abuse survivor in a community context - that is, feeling that the individual was less to blame than the structures supporting and enabling abuse. And so I reflect on those structures an awful lot. I tend to view abusive people as an inevitability, but structures are something we can all contribute to building and designing - and done well, it minimises the power someone can have, the harm they can do.

I'm proactively looking to be around people who treat everyone around them with respect and as an equal, rather than as a resource or a minion; and instinctively suspicious of people in leader-like roles or subgroups where they don't seem able to view the power they hold as a form of service, or a form of temporarily delegated permission, or are unable to take responsibility with sufficient weight. I'm a lonely person; very few communities live up to this. The loneliness feels better than being victimised again, but maybe not by much.

Whenever I watch vintage witchcraft material - today it's Alex Saunders puff piece documentary Secret Rites (1971) - I feel a twinge of envy for hierarchical magic. You know: you see a newspaper article and write a letter to someone, and after corresponding by post you take the train to meet one of their representatives and, over time, gain permission to go to a real full-on initiation. There's undeniable power to that, as a set of ritual acts; spiritually and psychologically; even just the part where you take the train - a going under ground to be reborn on the other side of the sunlight. Being presented with the book of magic. Being prepared for dread rites.

And yet; and yet; and yet...