Between Two Extremes
How To Tell Them Apart & What You Can Do For Them.
Let’s address the big-ass elephant in the room: Extreme Ideologies.
Let me be clear on my statement here. These are my opinions based on my own observations. Whether or not anyone shares them is out of my control and none of my concern, they’re mine and mine alone. My sole intention (so if you read anything into this article, then that’s your problem, let’s just leave it that way) is to provide others that may or may not know what group to join if they wish to join one and some potential warning signs that they may be aligning themselves with ideologies that will go entirely too far.
So how do you know unless you join?
Ah, that’s kinda the beauty of it, you don’t!
Some groups have a reputation though and I can cite a couple of examples that, again, come from my own observations.
With the AFA, you date “outside of your race” then you’ll probably experience pressure to end the relationship or be ousted. Yes, there are receipts that show that this is the attitude in the AFA and they love to make fun of The Troth which is a nice segue into…
The Troth: Hard Left Ideology. Given any reasonable responses to questions, you will experience entire TED talks delivered to your email beginning with “That’s Not Enough!” which is where I usually stop. I don’t care. For anyone about to hop up and claim that’s not the case, I do have, can show and absolutely will release receipts to back that up. Also, The Troth allows it’s own brand of racism with Rede offering a workshop called “Interrogating Whiteness” and look into that if you have the stomach and the daring to do so. If not, I offer the following:
That’s not a joke. Again, I have the receipts on this one.
Was this something mandatory? No. Thankfully.
Keep in mind, with these two groups, I was a member of one of them for less than six months. I heard members of the Rede go on about how no one my age made the 366 day period before eligibility to hold office. Oh boy can I cite examples for days as to why but this article would be super-lengthy and would miss the point entirely.
If you happen to find yourself part of an organization, especially a pagan organization that spends far less time discussing the faith and more time on stuff like this, they’re not a religious organization and should have their 501 C 3 pulled because they’re a political organization dressing up and cosplaying a faith-based organization.
This is really the point. It’s how you’ll know right away and my advice is to distance yourself from every group that acts in this manner and possibly go solo or you can join us in building a truly pagan community with each other, sharing the faith, telling stories and finding that, as finite beings making our damnedest attempt to understand and reach across the divide between the spiritual and manifest physical five-sense, dumbed-down to a fault world that we live in, we share a faith in common much like anything else and that’s a solid foundation upon which we can build.
If you joined a group in the hopes of furthering your faith and you found yourself let down by groups, I don’t blame you one bit. When a group makes demands of you, deny them, especially if you know it’s going to be the first of many mental contortionist acts that you have to power through just to stay. I’ll give you a couple of personal experiences.
No shit, I had people up my ass about the titles of my tarot readings. It was absolute ridiculousness and I was being asked to explain one. So what was the offending post?
This is from my emails which I am one hundred percent giving my okay to share and what was the actual reading?
As you can see, I’m in no way joking when I say I Kept The Receipts.
I’ve kept the name out, of course because I do not have permission to share that but I will share the contents of what I received and currently hold onto to this day. No one can claim that my claims are baseless.
To cut this short, it got to the point where I was…just there. You’re fine if you’re “just there” and quiet and never speak up. I can not, have not ever been able to, nor will I tolerate that. Ever.
If you find yourself in similar positions (and believe me, this isn’t the worst of it, this is the tip of the iceberg) then my advice is to get the hell out. Listen, if you want to learn anything about the faith from The Troth, there are a few books I can confidently recommend but I advise you to stop there and read the Eddas and one thing that would make them upset at times is when I recommended Galina Krasskova’s book A Modern Guide To Heathenry.
To be fair, there’s a section in there where, in my opinion, Krasskova really got dramatic. To oversimplify (keep in mind, I still recommend this book) the remake of Clash of The Titans upset her and she went home and described a cleansing ceremony she did as an apology to the gods for that movie being made. Sure, it’s a Hollyweird CGI slop-fest, but even I still enjoyed it and I still prefer the original because Ray Harryhausen is an absolute unit of a legend in stop-motion and the practical effects, though a bit dated, still do better than the CGI but it’s a movie, it’s not Bulfinch’s Mythology here and it should be taken as such. Thing is, I would ask why they got upset about it…never got an answer. It was during my second read-through that I found it. I’ll quote the exact section that probably sparked the consternation:
There is tremendous beauty and profundity in the way we were designed, in the power of our minds to reach out to the Gods and experience in some infinitesimal way all that They are. We connect with the mysteries of creation every time we make a decision that aligns us with our Gods and against entropy, despair, and the empty promises of modernity, monotheism, and Marxism.
Krasskova, Galina. A Modern Guide to Heathenry: Lore, Celebrations, and Mysteries of the Northern Traditions (pp. 141-142). Red Wheel Weiser. Kindle Edition.
There it is! Why not just come out and say that this was the exact reason that this book upset people?
I mean, they could have said it, sure but that doesn’t mean a single scintilla of a shit to me, I think the information she gives is invaluable and does more for Heathenry than the constant fluff I kept running into other books. Listen, if you’re also doing the reconstruction of a faith based on archaeological finds and facts, you don’t need the following:
Incidentally, analysis of ancient DNA shows that the steppe people who probably spoke Proto-Indo-European languages had a range of skin tones, but were generally darker than most Europeans today (Wilde et al., “Direct Evidence for Positive Selection”). Sorry, bigots.
Source: Our Troth vol. 1 3rd Edition
I know I’m picking on The Troth more than the AFA and that’s because I spent time in there and I left because, let’s face it, if I wanted perpetual guilt, I could just go back to being Catholic again, I wouldn’t need to pay $25 bucks a year for the privilege.
Being someone who went through The Satanic Panic and found myself on the business end of people constantly telling me to change my ways to make them more comfortable, I have to fall back on what was said at the end of that first email clipping I posted, heed your own advice and become comfortable with discomfort.
Any group that wishes to strip you of your individuality in order to make everyone the same will strip you of your personhood in order to make it easier to target you later. That’s fact. I’ve been through it enough to know. People who will have you believe absurdities will go out of their way to justify atrocities. That doesn’t just apply to one group, it’s any group and these are a few of the things you need to watch out for.
When I do a reading, there’s no editing that. I am reaching across the divide to get messages, in fact, the question I ask every time I shuffle cards or a bag of runes is “What does this person need to know right now?” I get the answer and I deliver it. Sometimes, it’s not comfortable in the least but at least you have a sign that says “Hey that bridge up ahead is out, find another way.” If you choose to try to jump it like someone in The Dukes of Hazzard, know one thing, this is why some of us shake our heads and go “why the hell do I even bother sometimes?”
No one will ever get editorial rights to the messages I have to deliver. There’s a decision that you need to make in light of it; Do you take the advice or not? If not, fine but when the results are as predictable as the ending of any of the modern-day Star Wars movies, you can hardly complain. You got the same information I did and you chose to go in an opposite direction. It’s on you. I don’t care who’s offended. Being offended does not make you correct.
This is why I take a strong stance in favor of the individual. When it comes to people getting a reading from me, it’s all about you taking back your power. That’s uncomfortable, it’s not easy, you’re going to stumble and fall along the way but that’s how you learn and, when it comes to messages that I get and channel, what they have to say is what they have to say and it’s final. The rest is up to you. When it comes to groups that claim to be faith-based but all they do is rant and rave and carry on about a group that they consider “other” that is a colossal red flag and it means they will twist and distort the source material to fit their agenda which comes first.
You will never find that here with us. Where we differ is that we are together to claim our rights under The Constitution to practice our religion and to build that type of community. We don’t require that everyone think the same way because, there’s no need. Unique and truly diverse perspectives and people, to me, are like an adventuring party. Sure, your human fighter/barbarian/knight is probably a cyclone of death with that sword but what good is that sword in a keep filled with mystical and magical traps, you’ll need that wizard and that wizard might be hot shit with his spells but once they’re spent, he doesn’t exactly have a lot of points of damage to take before he goes toes up so your fighter is going to have to keep him safe.
If you find yourself seeing these colossal red flags pop up, do yourself a favor, have yourself removed or let your membership lapse because you’re going to learn nothing except how to look at someone else in disdain upon sight and we have enough of that. Have a look at Twitter these days.
What you can or should do for groups like this? Nothing. At all.
Face a fact, nothing you do will ever be good enough except that you fall in line or remain quiet and still learn nothing. You didn’t get what you came for. Do You. If you find an area that you and you alone decide you can improve, then go right ahead. You don’t need validation to do that, just go ahead. Start with The Eddas and come back and discuss.
On a personal level, if you’ve found anything I’ve posted in this article to be offensive and you want an apology then, before that happens, I want you to run to your local corner store and buy a lottery ticket. I really don’t care if you get a Powerball or Scratch-Off ticket, just get one. Your chances of wining are exceedingly greater than your chances of getting an apology and rather than having you sit there, wringing your hands and fretting over words I’ve said, I’d rather you take a chance on your happiness and I know that at least about ten bucks cash would at least put a smile on your face temporarily.
In short: If you’re offended, then suck it up, buttercup. Spiritual Truth Reigns Supreme Here.
If you’re offended to the point where you want a retraction because you think I’m lying, the sound that you should absolutely dread hearing is gonna be this one because receipts (full receipts) can and will be dropped right after these very words are spoken…
