#anyway. my guy. you just like. deeply misunderstand what spiritual means to a lot of people i think

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

author i'm beefing with: "i feel slight revulsion about the word 'spiritual', it's got negative overtones, aren't you deluding yourself and others with it, keep it to yourself"

same author, literally twelve (12) pages later: *spends a page describing spiritual experiences, sharing them with the world, but insists they don't count as "spiritual" because they're about the physical material world*

my dude it's not just believers who try to have it both ways, huh

[keshetchai]

Question, do you have any thoughts on demonolatry? It is a path I am seriously considering and slowly researching. I'm still working my way through the book The Devil and the Jews, but what I've read so far plus what I've been coming across in my demonolatry research (Hebrew is a source language for many texts) plus still being very ignorant of Jewish traditions over all has me cautious. I feel comfortable in demonolatry but don't want to trespass/appropriate something I have no right to.

Oh goodness, I have….different takes on my gut reaction/answers. I’ll divide them into mini-answers!

Answer #1: [The most generalist answer about cultural appropriation]

If the source language for a variety of texts in something is in a language you don’t understand, and isn’t a heritage language for you, then chances are high it would be appropriative for you to adopt this kind of practice. This might not always be a hard and fast rule, but like…it’s a pretty sure bet in this case that a bunch of Gentiles who made a practice using misinterpreted and perverted Hebrew texts for their own needs and then continued on for several decades or centuries is just going to get you an end result of cultural appropriation/cultural perversion.

Answer #2: [The issue of Jewish appropriation & western Orientalism]

I honestly don’t know much about demonolatry, but from what I can tell it’s another spin on western occultism which was and is, at its core, appropriative of Judaism as an “exotic” flavor to be added as Gentiles saw fit. The whole “seal of Solomon” thing being appropriation by occultists is part and parcel with this kind of stuff, and it’s really really weirdly orientalist. The use of a holy language in Judaism (Hebrew) for this stuff is just….really trying to make it more “magic” seeming.

I mean some of these occult texts are what, 1500-1600’s? When you realize Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and the inquisition continued to try and make sure that converso Jews didn’t revert to their heritage faith – I mean it’s just more of the same obsession with perceived connection between non-Christian (read: Jewish and Muslim) ties to demons and devil worship/working.

But then there’s later stuff, from what I can tell it’s like a chunk of stuff 1500-1600 and then again after the 1700’s a period 1800 - Today (at least the bulk of this stuff is before or after the Enlightenment period in Western Europe) and…. Surprise surprise, a bunch of white guys being obsessed with the magical secret demon rituals of the “exotic orient” is undeniably connected to gross European colonial/imperialist attitudes. Another generalization: stuff written by dead white guys about the “orient” or “near eastern” practices in the occult arts are full of shit.

Thing is – fear of cultural appropriation aside – is any of this NOT fully enmeshed in orientalist imperialist western attitudes? And is any of it going to hold up to any kind of academic-historical-archaeological scrutiny?

Answer #3: [The issue of “All religions have stuff we can’t prove, but some religions have more complete mishmash based on conflated facts and made up stuff that ignores academic study on the originating culture(s) than others.” AKA the Academics of Appropriation]

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh. If the PDF I found on my google search of the term is a real source on the demonolatry issue, then it just lumps a gazillion different devils/Angels/spirits/goddesses/gods/whatever that are all occurring over the span of what is in reality probably 2-3,000 years. They have nothing to do with each other in many cases! Like a “devil” that has an Arabic name naturally occurs much later in time than a really early babylonian type language spirit because of the timeline of when those languages began and developed. I’m also probably the wrong person to ask - the very mention of “Lucifer’ makes my eyes want to roll out of my head because anyone who ascribes that to a demonic-figure misunderstood that it was a criticism of a Babylonian King, and had zero to do with any kind of supernatural figure.

I don’t particularly know much about Mesopotamian/Fertile Crescent/Near Eastern/Levantine paganism but I do know an archaeological/art history scholar who does study the prehistoric/ancient near east and I just deeply truly feel like the emphasis on near eastern paganism is mostly about 19th century Orientalism. I’m going to guess that a majority of the stuff discussed by demonolatry is riddled with factual errors, misunderstandings, and conflations that come out of ignorance of the region, time periods, and religious practices that took place.

I try to be respectful of the fact that different people find solace in different kinds of religions, but I won’t lie - I found myself deeply dissatisfied with the whiteness, appropriation, and bad scholarship I found across pretty much all modern pagan variants some time ago. Like it’s not just not cohesive/disorganized, it also just…doesn’t have any grounding in the actual historical reality of these beings/spirits in the faith origins any of them come from? I find most people in paganism/neo paganism are really interested in only very specific texts. Like they’ll read someone’s (European) grimoire from the 1600’s but won’t pour over Sumerian archaeological digs and academic papers on Hittite worship - because the point is not really these ancient/prehistoric paganisms but the *idea* of them - the orientalist *concept* of the ancient near east. like why does everyone talk about the meaning of the color of the candle you use for an ancient (whoever) entity when candles….hadn’t even been invented yet? I’m pretty sure that spirit doesn’t care because wax/dipped (dyed & COLORED) candles weren’t a Thing Then. You know? the rituals mentioning pillar candles for something that was worshipped in like 3000 BCE just isn’t based in any actual practice of the time because they didn’t have that then. It’s a tiny detail, but you could expand that to almost anything you wanted.

Maybe that’s harsh of me? But like personally I deeply dislike this kind of stuff because I find it just as intellectually dishonest as many organized faiths can be, except these people tend to publicly emphasize their ancient spirituality/faith predates “xyz”. But if you can avoid Hebrew entirely, avoid Jewish-Hebraic entities AND Islamic AND Zoroastrian entities and are just focusing on like….worship of things from ancient religions which just don’t exist anymore? I mean, I guess? Like just don’t….use anything that at all uses or borrows from Hebrew/Judaism/Tanach (or the Christian Bible). That might help avoid Jewish appropriation but won’t get rid of the orientalist lens issue.

Anyways….

Last Answer: [The: “I have a Mom of Color” aka “the comedic kinda” answer]

NOPE NOPE NO NAH NU UH sure appropriation is bad but do you know what is ALSO BAD????? Inviting spirits into your life that have their own motives and powers and minds!!!!! NOPE.

Why would any spirit deign to work with your ass for free? THEY WOULDN’T! What makes u think they’re gonna let you set the price for their services? THEY WON’T! You also can’t work with someone else’s spirits, you have to work with your own!

Idk man I was forbidden from playing at seances as a child, my momma literally told me to never summon anything because you don’t know how powerful it is and whether or not it wants to hurt you I compulsively throw spilled salt over my shoulder to blind any devils behind me, I have a hand of hamsa amulet by my door, I grow sage at my windowsill, I have literally been trained my whole lil Mexican life to avoid the devil even though my mom explicitly does not believe in hell or an actual literal devil.

Honest we don’t believe in the devil but JUST IN CASE…..

So uh tl;dr:

1.) yes. It’s got appropriative elements 2.) and Orientalism/racism 3.) also I don’t even know if any of the sources I found actually are true of the origins of these entities in any historical or academic sense which is a large part of why I think it’s rooted in Orientalism/fetishizing of the near east 4.). I’m like ethically (ethnically?) obligated to tell you demons are Bad News and My Momma Says I Have to Go if Someone Uses so much as a Oujia Board, Right Now, Immediately, She is Calling Me for Dinner Probably. (I mean I can’t stop you and have met satanists/lucifer worshippers and wasn’t scared of them personally, and I don’t even believe in “The Devil,” but also I ain’t white.)

Thanks for asking though! Sorry if I seem….idk unfair? I think these criticisms I’ve made can be applied to a LOT of things, which is why I apply them also to any modern paganism strain.

[codyh412]

I'm not perfect without you

It's sad that I care for so many people I've met in my lifetime and forgave some over and over because I knew where the path led too. And no matter how many times some of you have hurt me I found a way to forgive. Sometimes we need that one piece of missing information to completely change our opinion on things. It's not everyone's fault for growing into the number 666 because it's all around us. We've grown into deception and misunderstanding. It's not false information it's just that you were misinformed by the people you thought you can trust. I tried so hard to make so many friends in school, just to have my whole hometown turn their back on me and ridicule me. Of course they have no idea how dangerous that was and I had to cut them off altogether for their own safety. To be so misinformed that you're incompetent of your actions behind a computer screen. And not aware of the lifestyle I was living and the capabilities of the people who cared for me so deeply that violence against social media users made sense. Fuck no I don't condone violence, but remember that God made it possible for such events to be triggered in our hearts and minds. We must learn what true love is from the actions of others and understand that any act of violence in my name or cause is something I don't want to be a part of. We are all together, it's not just me in this alone anymore guys. And btw my family has a special family crest emblem. My uncle has it. Look up the family crest and you'll see a big horse head with red paint behind it. Also my Fellowship has it's headquarters right here in Carlsbad? My great grandfather's and families home town is here in Carlsbad. Hmmmm???

It really is all a coincidence. Anyways I like how I hear a voice from the sky get so happy to tell me a certain someone was thinking about me right when she woke up. Then 20 minutes later maybe it was 30 she texted me to let me know we are gonna have fun hanging out all day again. Maybe kick it for the 3 days I'm in her town. After that I probably won't see her again :/ Ya never know though, it isn't the first time I bet we've both said something like that. And how are people going to try and act on impulse by causing harm and violence towards me when they haven't met me? Would they want the same done to them? I'm helping so many people so sorry that your beliefs got you and others fucking no where but a prison cell or casket. Like wtf people, this is a new philosophy on how to behave. Did I say that properly? Lol it's called Aetherism. The opposite of being Athiest but they are accepted and fitted into my way of living your life. And it makes all religion, spirituality, tool book whatever correct.

Go ahead and try to make it your own after I type this, of course there's a trap in everything I say so anyone using it the wrong way is easily considered misinformed without realization of their own foolishness. So please don't waste people's illusion of spacetime. It's your reality though person reading this. Who the fuck am I to tell YOU what book leads to the right path? No one understands your struggle and questions burning to be answered. The thing is though we need these books to find our own unique path to be United. Some people have a hard time imagining things and need these stories of a great hero or amazing ability to never give up so they can get looking for answers on how to better their moral and values. It's about building purpose in life that you accept as your reality, and multiple religions might be needed for this. OR if your reality is so fucking baller your name is on a gold star then don't choose any religion and atheism was your path right? Just remember that there are a lot of things we can bring with us in death. Loyalty, Determination, leadership, honesty, integrity, Assertiveness, Rationality, Connection, communication, Empathy, love, Creativity, and so many other things can be unlocked once you realize you ain't shit even with a bunch of shit. And if you are shit well then wtf how do we stop being shit? By being your own unique shit different from all the others in a class and league of it's own. Did I lose a lot of you? Be yourself that is no one else except the person who can say wow I've been through so much with so many people and no matter what happened it's ok cause I made it here today. And I'm blessed to be human and still have my eternity in the afterlife to make whatever other changes I want to my personality and beliefs.

Yes if you think about it then you will realize you can think your way out of the 2D realm of darkness, consciousness, and conversation. Some of my Spirits come from the Etheric Plane of this Hell to help us by their horrible cognitive tests. The first is shame and paranoia, getting used to being comfortable something or someone is following you. Like perhaps a Spirit??

They'll make fun of you in the shower, pissing, any little button that can put you down will be said by them. So how do you make it go away? It's fucking amazing how women do it, and yea it's sexy for the few times I've seen it.

You females already know how to respond to such comments made by uncleansed spirits with your bat shit crazy mind games you do. They are all of low consciousness and mainly drive, fear, shame, rejection manifestations of frequency into our Universe. A simple "hey nice try bud, but I'm too busy being myself to have you try and control me" actually works on some. Sounds fucking gay and lame to say but that thing will keep trying to bring you down. Just remind it that you are way too busy being human and loving it for you to consider such an entity. Even if you don't mean the words, just constantly saying them so something will leave you alone is a key to making it more of a reality. The Law of Attraction.

P.s. also any religious book that isn't even written yet is correct if it helps someone in the future find moral or a better understanding. As long as it's that truth that drives us to do good for others having a hard then things aren't that bad for us. A fucking picture drawn 200 years in the future will be considered truth or Wisdom if it honestly helps ya find such precious gems. One day your value might be waged on all of this, some of us can see your wickedness in your Aura ya know.

P.s.s wow I looked online and our real family crest isn't on the internet. Wtf guys? The wooden Emblem my uncle has is way different than the online shit. Fuck the internet for taking this away from me. I'll post pictures of all the symbols on the emblem.