#the same with ads algorythms and all that

[partyhere]

i’m seeing more and more influencers and some celebrities saying that they’re not feeling social media anymore and want to stop posting and all i’m thinking is - please, let’s do it. no more content to look at. no more people interacting with content to sell things to. all encouragement for quitting social media. can someone please start a trend of leaving social media and seriously stop living our whole lives through screens. we need this

[opoloopm4l]

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[geschiedenisish]

I LOVE this post. I really, really do. I hope you'll read this and hear my thanks.

Personally, I already knew most of this stuff. Kinda came upon it on my own. I knew the global stuff was problematic and the local stuff was so cool and underrated and, more importantely, on the verge of being forgotten in favor of algorythms, anti-science and capitalism.

My local area doesn't have a lot of folk magic. I have searched, but it has been catholic since 900 AD, so most of the pre-christian stuff nowadays is probably hidden somewhere in our local catholic celbrations.....

I do wanna add that most of your grievances with Wicca are problems with religion in general. Especially the "it's still problematic" takes. In the Netherlands, Western Esotericism did all of that bad stuff, but they also more or less founded most of the modern Dutch left. These people are products of their time. And they try to fight their times in some ways, but not in other ways. Their progressivism doesn't negate their bigotry. They exist parallel. A feminist movement doesn't become less feminist because they're racist. They just become problematic. But that doesn't make the feminism less impactfull.

But again, I agree with most of your points, especially the later ones.

I also think the whole FOCUS ON LOCAL STUFF is a good take, but not a perfect take.

I myself haven't always felt welcome in the community I grew up in. So hearing "just do research on your local area" does really hurt when "the local people" gatekeep "local culture" excluding me/us, even though I was born here.

This happens to people everywhere. I think it may be a reason why they turn to Wicca. To tap into this worldwide movement. So yeah, most of your points are great, but we need to do some thinking on that last point.

I'm using my whole unviersity career to find out what my local identity means to me, so yeah, this is not an easy task.

"Listen to what your elders have to say", can mean exposing you to all kinds of bigotry. My area, being rural catholics, has unironically used "protect local culture" as a dogwhistle for "keep the village white", even if they themselves don't realize that.

Folkloric practices and local culture can also run into the same problem as wicca's 'ancient cultures'. Again, I HAVE made posts about how the area where I grew up used it's catholic, rural idenity as a kind of 'this is the way things have always been' propaganda. They romantize the way things were around 1900 AD. Which, spoiler, is absolutely not how things "had always been". They also talk about "traditional clothing" that wasn't worn before 1880. But they act as if this fashion had always been this way, which just isn't true.

So why 1900 AD? Because around 1900, these rural communities were fighting in a culture war against the gouvernment. And it was a culture war. They wanted to make clear they were very white, very catholic, very rural and very anti-progressivism. They were fighting liberalism and socialism, and were encouraged and by the big guy in town; the Catholic Church. To not listen to those socialist, but 'keep traditional' which they have been doing from 1900 until now, especially the elderly.

Just to say; don't stop thinking and/or learning about this subject. Because it is incredibly difficult. And be open to changing your religious practices because they are problematic. When you're open to change like that, you will get closer and closer and closer to something that DOES really work really well!

Also do wanna add, once again, that you are ignoring the great work done by esotericists. In the same way that there are so many people who have fought against or within the catholic church. I feel like it is a ladder. Like, you can fight within the catholic church against christian, but a estoricist is always gonna be better than a christian, and a pagan is always gonna be better than a spiritualist.

So yeah, nuance, but at the end of the day. LEFTISM IS THE MOST IMPORTANT. ;)

Yes, I Hate Wicca.

A hopefully comprehensive guide to all my strifes.

More often than I care to admit I find myself quarrelling with people over my seemingly baseless hate for all things popular and simple. I'm accused of being a pretentious traditionalist, of being a snob, even of being a white supremacist on grounds of talking about European culture as a replacement for conventional witchcraft. I will not deny that I am a touch snobby and pretentious - such is my biggest flaw - but I am not a white supremacist, and my loathing for many seemingly innocuous witchcraft practices is not for nothing. It is because I hate Wicca, and everything related to and derived from it, and I have good reason to. Today I would like to introduce you to every single reason I have to loathe Wicca passionately, so that I can hopefully defer future debate partners to this post instead of retyping the same arduous messages.

What is Wicca?

Per the r/Wicca subreddit:

Wicca is a neopagan religion based on ancient pagan beliefs. It's an earth-based religion that believes in a God and Goddess as representative of a greater pantheistic godhead. Wicca includes a system of ethics and teaches that we all are ultimately responsible for our own actions. We believe in gods. We believe in magic. We believe in multiple realities. We practice alone, or in groups. We practice witchcraft.

I chose the r/Wicca subreddit for my first primer because it's easy to accuse people of misrepresenting a faith if you do not allow the community to speak for itself on what their faith constitutes. As much as I hate Wicca, and do not think it is redeemable, I have no desire to be accused of letting my hate set the tone of my arguments against it. I don't want to give militant Wiccans leeway to claim that I speak on their behalf and therefore my points are wrong. The Wicca subreddit is a large community and often referred to by Wiccans, and it features this brief description of 'The Craft'. In any case, though Wicca nowadays is divided and will be described slightly differently by everybody you ask about it, the description provided by the subreddit is a pretty good example of common ground between all Wiccans. That description mostly matches up with how the average Wiccan would describe their faith. My personal description of what Wicca is would look slightly different. I would take care to note, for one, that Wicca is a form of Western Esotericism, more specifically Western Occultism. [1] I also find it important to note that whether or not Wicca is an earth religion, or nature religion, is of some debate, and not all consider it such. What is also subject of some variation across traditions and individuals is whether or not The Craft is pantheistic: some people accept the two gods of Wicca as figureheads for every pagan god in existence, others simply worship them as one single masculine god and one single feminine god. 'Witchcraft' is also a term that has no set definition - I can only assume that the mention of it on r/Wicca intends to broadly refer to most or all forms of magic accepted within Wicca.

Worth noting is that Wicca has spread very far beyond the confines of British Traditional Wicca (BTW), which are streams of Wicca that still adhere strongly to their roots. What is and is not Wicca is something that is of some debate among Wiccans themselves. That's why I think it is highly important to establish a few definitions that we'll be using for the rest of this post:

WICCA: I'll admit to using this term loosely. When I say 'Wicca' in this post I'll mainly be referring to the community of people who consider themselves Wiccans, i.e. the Wiccan religion. I may also use it to describe the broader influence of Wicca, however.

WICCA-DERIVED: I'll mostly use this term when I don't want to paint something as being inherently Wiccan, just related to or derived from it. Wiccan practices often escape the bounds of their respective culture and then grow into staples of various traditions that aren't meant to be Wiccan at all. When referring to such things I'll refer to them as derived from Wicca, or similar.

Wicca's Origins

To understand the history of Wicca we have to travel back a bit further than its founding: to the 16th and 17th century Witch Hunts in Europe. I have another post on this same blog detailing the relationship between Wicca and the Witch Trials, which I highly recommend reading to get a better understanding of the accusations of antisemitism I will be making shortly. At any rate: the witch trials happened across Europe and its colonies throughout the early modern period, after a time of much disaster. As I state in my other article:

Before the early Church turned its hateful eye to the concept of 'witches,' it was firmly on jews. Jews, alongside other heretics and oppressed minorities like the Rroma, were considered utterly worthy of damnation. They were seen as antagonistic to the Church, going against everything the Church stood for, and furthermore as misanthropic, greedy, unreliable enemies. They were the scapegoats for many disasters and indeed frequently accused of practicing magic or poisoncrafting to invoke these disasters on the 'Good Christian Folk'. Furthermore, and this may sound familiar to you, jews were accused of 'consorting with the devil' and murdering children in order to consume their blood to mock the Eucharist, often referred to as blood libel. It was often claimed that this (nonexistent!) practice was done on the Shabbat, alongside other practices twisting and mocking those done in Church on Sunday. The persecution of Jews in Medieval Europe was horrific and seemingly endless, having origins in antiquity and reaching a peak during the Crusades, and another when the Plague ran rampant. Jews were banished, forced to convert to Christianity or brutally murdered, not infrequently by burning or strangulation.

It is fairly easy to see, with some research and critical thought, that it wouldn't logically be real witches being murdered during the witch hunts. For starters, it's hard to believe that there were really people out there flying through the sky on brooms, to mythical locations, to dance naked under the full moon, have sex with the devil, and cannibalize children. There were of course those people who confessed to having done such things, but they were under threat of torture. Indeed, this archetype of the 'witch' has its origins in the Church's loathing for non-Christians and heretics. As Lily Climenhaga states [2]:

"Magic" acted as a description for individuals or groups who did not subscribe to the perceived societal norms of the medieval Christian community. Jews and heretics, the principle Others within Medieval Europe, existed outside of the societal norms and played an important role in the formation of the Christian perception of witches and witchcraft. Common elements existed between stories surrounding Jews, heretics, and witches. These beliefs created the preliminary conditions necessary for the mass persecution and intolerance toward witches and became inherent to the idea of the witch as the diabolical Other within Medieval Christian thought.

Furthermore, the stereotypical image of the witch is directly derived from hateful depictions of the marginalized. The conical, wide brimmed hat that we often see a cartoon witch depicted with actually comes from the conical hat known as a judenhut (jew hat), which was compulsory for many jews to wear in the Middle Ages. [3] Then there is of course the typical red or black hair, short and stocky figure, buckled shoes, large hooked nose, green skin, et cetera. All of this to say: It was not witches being hunted during the witchcraze. There is no such thing as a human person able to fly on broomsticks, cause storms at will, magically steal money from a distance, and curse someone to death with one glance. The medieval and early modern 'witch' is a mythical figure used to justify the persecution and eradication of the already marginalized. This idea is fairly commonly accepted now, as it should be, but it wasn't always.

In 1828, German lawyer and professor Karl Ernst Jarcke proposed the witch-cult hypothesis: a now discredited theory that the people persecuted and murdered during the witch trials were not marginalized innocents, but rather members of a pan-European pagan religion. He posited that this pagan witch-cult was older than Christianity, but had been driven underground by it, and only came to light when the accused of the witch trials confessed to witchcraft. This hypothesis was affirmed and adapted by other scholars throughout the 19th century but remained of moderate popularity at best, until 20th century Egyptologist Margaret Murray became one of its most avid proponents, incorporating it into many of her works. Most notably, she featured it in 1921's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe and 1933's The God of the Witches. [1] Murray's writing is the origin of many Wiccan motifs, such as the thirteen member coven, the Horned God (based on the works of James Frazer) and the cross-quarterly gathering. Furthermore, as a radical skeptic and rationalist, Murray wished to strip the witch-cult hypothesis of all supernatural notions. [4] She claimed that the secret society of witches were not Satanists but nature-worshippers, and that the gatherings were actually orgies, where a priest dressed in ritual skins and horns fornicated with all the gathered women. She also proposed that these rituals were actually benevolent fertility rituals for the good of the witches' communities, and there was little to no malevolent magic involved. She was also the one to introduce the idea that the people who confessed to curses and other malevolent magic were actually witches who had forgotten their own original intent, or had been misinterpreted by the court. [5] Murray herself [5]:

For centuries both before and after the Christian era, the witch was both honoured and loved. Whether man or woman, the witch was consulted by all, for relief in sickness, for counsel in trouble, or for foreknowledge of forthcoming events. They were at home in the courts of Kings [...] their mystical powers gave them the authority for discovering culprits, who then received the appropriate punishment.

These writings were a turning point for the associations of the word 'witch'. Prior to these hypotheses, 'witch' was a bad word, an insult even, reserved only for people - especially women - believed to have evil intentions and use spiritual methods not sanctioned by the Church for their own benefit. The use of the word 'witch' nowadays, as a self-imposed title for anybody using any magical means, can be traced back to this pivotal moment in time. While Murray did great PR for the nonexistent witch archetype, erasing the idea that their practices were Satanic and supernatural, she unfortunately did much harm to marginalized peoples by propagating the idea that it was not them being persecuted, but some mythical clan. Therein lies my first problem: Wicca minimizes the impact of what it calls the 'Burning Times' on marginalized peoples and instead adopts all this suffering for itself, painting the 'witch' as a marginalized, oppressed, and beloathed historical figure, when it's the very people who would've been doing the burning who founded, shaped, and maintain Wicca. In doing so, it also adopts various words, like Sabbat(h), which is a word unique to Judaism and has been weaponized against Judaism since the Middle Ages. Despite much criticism, even from Murray's contemporaries, she was invited to write a highly influential piece for the Encyclopaedia Brittanica in 1929. She used the opportunity to promote her hypothesis as fact, and it quickly grew so influential that according to Jacqueline Simpson, the ideas got to be "so entrenched in popular culture that they will probably never be uprooted." [4] But we haven't even gotten into when Wicca was actually founded, so let's get to that.

One of, if not the only contemporary fan of Margaret Murray's hypothesis, was Folklore Society fellow Gerald Gardner. He was an interesting and well-travelled man, having come from a wealthy family, growing up with nursemaids and a family firm. As a result of his illnesses (namely asthma) and constant travels abroad during childhood, he never received a formal education, nor did he attend school. Instead, through his travels and family acquaintances, he developed quite the interest in spirituality. At first he developed an interest in the Buddhist beliefs of the Singhalese natives on his tea plantation, later in British and Celtic folklore from his relatives the Surgenesons. In his biography, it is revealed that it is from these relatives that he learns that his grandfather, Joseph, was rumored to be a practicing witch. [6] Different accounts of Gardner's life had it that it was also rumored within his family that a Scottish ancestor of his had been burned as a witch in 1610. [7] A few years after this time with the Surgenesons, Gardner was initiated as an Apprentice Freemason in Ceylon. He quickly rose in the ranks, but eventually lost interest in the Masonic activities and resigned in 1911, presumably because he wanted to leave Ceylon. [6] After this he moved around Asia a fair bit more, taking a great interest in Indigenous beliefs there, and even participating in some of their tattoo and ritual traditions. During this time of travel, Gardner also decided to take the Shahada, the Muslim confession of faith and, technically, final step in the process of becoming Muslim; but Gardner never became a practicing Muslim, mostly using the Shahada as a means to gain trust from the locals in Malaya. [7] In 1927, Gardner's father's health deteriorated, and he went back to Britain to visit him. During this time in Britain he researched various spiritual and religious movements, namely Spiritualism and Mediumship, and he reported many spiritual encounters with whom he interpreted as deceased family members. [6] [7] He attended many Spiritualist churches and seances, and had a number of spiritual experiences that, according to his biographer, changed his interest from a purely amateur anthropological one to one of genuine personal belief. [6] He became re-involved with Freemasonry, and started taking a serious interest in magic. When he, after his retirement, officially moved back to Britain, he started pursuing magic there with some seriousness. He became involved in such things as nudism, and, in September 1937, he requested a Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph. D) from the Meta Collegiate Extension of the National Electronic Institute, an organization based in Nevada. This organization was widely known for providing illegitimate degrees and diplomas through mail order, for a fee. After this he began to introduce and style himself as 'Dr. Gardner' despite having no academically recognized qualifications. [7]

He started allowing spirituality to shape his life, such as when he bought land on his beloved Cyprus because he came to believe that he had actually lived on the island before, in a past life. He wrote a book referencing this as well, influenced by his dreams: his first novel, A Goddess Arrives, followed a British man in the 1930s who had, in a past life, been a bronze age Cypriot. [7] When World War II became an imminent threat, Gardner and his wife moved to Highcliffe, just south of the New Forest, to escape potential bombings. [7] He becomes involved with the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, a magico-religious tradition in Western Esotericism. The Fellowship had been founded in 1920 by George Alexander Sullivan, based upon a blend of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Freemasonry and his own personal innovations. [7] It requires mentioning that Western Esotericism and all of its more modern traditions (Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Freemasonry, Occultism, et cetera) are inseparable from white supremacy. This is something fairly well-recorded, if shrouded, and so complex I am hesitant to delve into it in great amounts of detail. It is, however, pivotal for the reader to understand that many of Western Esotericism's greatest thinkers from the Middle Ages onward were antisemites, racists, misogynists, colonialists, and even nazis. Western Esotericism also had a gigantic impact on 20th century race studies, and the idea that there was such a thing as a superior or aryan race. Defenders and fans of Western Esotericism are quick to point out that there are also many non-white thinkers in Western Esotericism that were pivotal to its formation, and I would never deny that. I am, however, denying that what Western Esotericism has turned into is productive. Having been founded upon the backs of indigenous and marginalized peoples, by appropriating their practices and denying their suffering, such as the appropriation of Kabbalah and the denial of the persecution of jews, shaped by men who were famously evil, such as Aleister Crowley, and used as pseudoscientific justification for some of mankind's greatest atrocities, I cannot stand with Western Esotericism. Ever. It is true that Western Esotericism has been the victim of white supremacy as well: Freemasons being persecuted and incarcerated as part of the 'jewish conspiracy' in Nazi Germany for example, but at the same time the connections between Esotericism and the nazi, half-Nordic, half-Hindu German Faith Movement cannot be denied. Folkish and Odinist 'traditions' find their roots in nazi occultism as well, as they sprang from the desire for a Pan-Germanic ethnic identity. These faiths persist to this day, attracting many different types of people and turning them into white supremacists or even neo-nazis.

Back to Gardner. During his time with the Rosicrucian Order he had also joined the Folklore society, where he published some works and became member of the governing council, where he was a distrusted man. He had also joined the Historical Association. [7] He ran into some quarrels and troubles with the Rosicrucian Order and found himself increasingly cynical of their practices, especially when Sullivan claimed that World War II would not come the very day before Britain declared war on Germany. [6] There was, however, a select group of people within the Order with whom he got along quite well. [7] Biographer Philip Heselton theorized upon who this group could be and claims they may have been Edith Woodford-Grimes, Susie Mason, her brother Ernie Mason, and their sister Rosetta Fudge, all of whom had originally come from Southampton before joining the Order in Highcliffe. Per Gardner himself: "unlike many of the others [in the Order], [they] had to earn their livings, were cheerful and optimistic and had a real interest in the occult". He was "really very fond of them", claiming he "would have gone through hell and high water even then for any of them." [6] It was these very people who took him to the house of a woman Gardner calls 'Old Dorothy' Clutterbuck, a wealthy local to the New Forest area. They, according to him, made him strip naked and take part in an initiation ritual, wherein he caught the words 'Wicca' and 'Wicce', which he recognized as the Old English words for witch. Though research by the likes of Hutton and Heselton shows that the New Forest Coven, as Gardner calls them, were likely only formed in the 1930s, Gardner took this experience as proof of the witch-cult hypotheses which he had learned about from Margaret Murray's writings. [7] Gardner spent a significant amount of time with them but only ever described one of their rituals in detail, one intended to ward off the Germans from coming to Britain. It is attested in both Bracelin's and Heselton's biographies. Gardner went on, after these events, to also become involved with druidry and be ordained as priest in the Ancient British Church, and he conducted some rituals according to the Lesser Key of Solomon with his nudist and occultist friends. [7] In 1947 Gardner was introduced to Aleister Crowley, a man of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the founding father of Thelema, a Western Occultist new religious movement. Crowley is one of those ubiquitous, evil figureheads in Western Esotericism that people prefer not to give too many words to. His history with occultism, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and sexual abuse is too vast to summarize in one paragraph. Still, Thelema persists to this day, as do Crowley apologists. Crowley elevated Gardner to the IV° of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) and issued a charter decreeing that Gardner could admit people into its Minerval degree. The charter was written in Gardner's handwriting and only signed by Crowley. [6] [7] [8] When Crowley passed away, Gardner appointed himself the leader of the O.T.O.. He would, however, lose interest in leading the O.T.O. within a few years. [7] During this time Gardner also travelled through America, especially in hopes of learning about Voodoo and Hoodoo. [7]

Gardner wished to spread his newly founded Wiccan religion, and wrote another work of fiction in order to do so. He described various Wiccan rituals in this book as 'High Magic' and based it heavily on the Solomonic Keys. He was also working on a scrapbook which he did not intend to publish, which he called 'Ye Bok of Ye Art Magical'. Therein he wrote down various Wiccan rituals and ceremonies, and this book would later form as the prototype for the Wiccan Book of Shadows, a term he himself coined. He claimed the book to be of ancient origins to his followers. During this time he also gained his first initiates, and the first covens were formed. [7] During this initial time of true organized religion, Gardner ran into several problems. People important to him left his faith due to his actions with the press, and he had quarrels with some members who recognized that many of his rituals and such had been adapted straight from Thelema. [4] In 1954, Gardner wrote arguably the most influential work on Wicca: Witchcraft Today. It was his first non-fiction work, and contained a preface by Margaret Murray, the woman who had popularized the witch-cult hypothesis on which Wicca was built. In this book, Gardner praised Murray's theories, and added some of his own: namely that the European belief in faeries was actually because of a hidden pygmy race living alongside mankind, and that the Knights Templar were actually initiates into The Craft. [7] After this, Gardner started cultivating larger scale attention for Wicca. He invited the press to write about his religion, and most of the tabloid articles produced painted him and his cult in a negative light. They were made out to be devil worshippers, cultists, et cetera. Nevertheless, Gardner persisted, and encouraged the press to write more. He thought the publicity, even if negative, would help prevent the 'Old Religion', as he called it, from dying out. [7] [8]

In 1960, Gardner's official biography, Gerald Gardner: Witch, was published. It was penned in its entirety by Gardner's friend Idries Shah, a Sufi mystic, but Shah used the name of one of Gardner's High Priests, Jack L. Bracelin, because he was wary of being associated with witchcraft. In 1963, Gardner visited Lebanon. On his way home, he had a heart attack on ship, en route to Tunisia. He was buried there, the funeral only attended by the ship's captain. [9] Many authors have speculated on Gardner's life since his passing. Though he was devoted to his only wife, Donna, it was claimed that Gardner spent many evenings 'cuddling up' to a young High Priestess named Dayonis. Biographer Philip Heselton claims that Gardner had a longterm affair with Edith Woodford-Grimes, nicknamed Dafo by Gardner. This theory was affirmed by Adrian Bott. [10] Gardner was one of, or possibly the first person to use what Wiccans know as a 'Craft name', a magical name used for magico-religious purposes in Wicca. Gardner was known as Scire by his followers. Reportedly, Wicca was not known as Wicca at the time of its initial development. Gardner often referred to his adherents as 'the Wica', but the religion was only ever referred to as 'Witchcraft', capital W.

In Wicca's founding lies my second problem with it. Wicca was founded by a white man, based on a combination of Western Esoteric notions and experiences, Spiritualism, Mediumship, appropriation of indigenous European, Asian and even American spirituality. It was built on a hypothesis that denies the suffering of marginalized peoples and claims it for nonmarginalized, white, privileged Europeans instead. It poses itself as something with roots in academics, while the founder had never enjoyed any form of education and possessed a fake PhD. It was influenced heavily by cults, occultists who are generally acknowledged to be terrible people, and pseudoscience. It claims to be ancient, but was founded in the 1900s. And, importantly, it contributes heavily to white supremacy through the idea of a pan-European cultural identity and pan-European pagan religion.

Wicca Today: Innocuous Propagation of White Supremacy

Wicca has grown exponentially since its founding, now being by far the largest pagan religion actively being practiced in the modern era. It has both organized covens and solitary adherents across the world, and most people who have access to the internet will have heard of Wicca once or twice. Wicca is, truly and undeniably, inescapable in pagan and magical spaces. It's easy, and common, for adherents to claim that Wicca is not what it once was. 'Yeah, the origins are bad, but that doesn't make the whole Craft bad,' is a favored argument against the idea that Wicca's origins make it inherently irredeemable. I disagree strongly with this, and always will; something that was built with bricks made of appropriation and lies can't be separated from those evils. If you took the appropriation out of Wicca, it would cease to be Wicca. Deconstructing Wicca would leave you with a blend of Freemasonry, Thelema, folk magic, Christianity, various Indigenous beliefs, Kabbalah, Occultism, and some misrepresented paganism. If you take the appropriation and harm out of Wicca, it simply ceases to exist. Nevertheless, many people think Wicca can be separated from its evil origins. That's why in this section of the article, I'd like to delve into why that is not true, and how Wicca continues to do harm in this day and age.

For starters, of course, Wicca has not ceased to be appropriative simply because time has passed. Rather, the appropriation gets increasingly less attention, until it becomes so integral to the Craft that people don't even notice or stop to think that it may have come from somewhere that never wanted it to be taken in the first place. A prime example, which I've already touched on very briefly, is the use of the word 'sabbat', in reference to 'Wiccan' holidays. As I wrote in my other post about this topic:

The very root of this word is the Hebrew ש־ב־ת (sh-b-t). It is the root word for many words pertaining to rest and not working (or more broadly: 'cessation'). This word evolved into שַׁבָּת (shabát), which translates to Saturday or weekly rest-day, normally. This word, also often spelled Shabbos from Ashkenazi Hebrew, travelled through various antique languages (Ancient Greek -> Latin -> Old French) directly to Middle English, where it became 'Sabat', and later Sabbath. While this word, in its travel through Europe, has influenced some words, you'll notice that it has also stayed one unique word, with a unique meaning: the Jewish Rest Day. The Sabbath, Shabbos, Sabbat, Shabat, et cetera, will always and has for most of its history been the word uniquely reserved for Saturday in Judaism. To those not very well read on Judaism, it may be helpful to know that Judaism is what is considered a closed practice. It is only permissible to practice Jewish religious tradition, and to a large extent, Jewish culture, if you are a Jewish convert. By extension, that should clue you in on the nature of the word and holiday of Shabbat.

This word, which should have stayed what it was meant to be, a word for the Jewish rest day, first became associated with the archetypal witch during the late Medieval period, when jews, and later witches, were accused of going to Sabbaths or Synagogues to perform evil rituals. Though there were attempts by the likes of Margaret Murray to claim that the word 'sabbat(h)' as used by 'witches' was not in any way related to Judaism, those claims have been strongly disputed. Murray claimed in her 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe that 'sabbat' actually came from Old French s'esbattre, meaning to frolic and amuse oneself. This theory has no proof, nor is it readily academically received or accepted. The word in conjunction with witchcraft is deeply hurtful to Judaism and jewish people across the globe, as it reminds them of the persecution they faced when their faith and culture was considered evil and worth being killed over. I highly recommend reading Why I Don't Call Them Sabbats, Why You Should Stop, and Other Thoughts on Problematic Aspects of Western Witchcraft by Nile Sorena for more thoughts on this topic, as well as Jews and the Witchcraze by Jewitches.

The Wheel of the Year, the cycle of yearly Wiccan holidays (the very ones referred to as 'sabbats', which I refuse to do and will not start doing), is just as appropriative as the use of the word sabbat, but, hilariously, it is also quite magically and religiously dysfunctional. The Wheel of the Year is a Wiccan invention, initially based on the works of James Frazer, Robert Graves and Margaret Murray, the latter of whom was a big proponent of the theory that 'witches' gathered on cross-quarterly days, something that is still a big motif in Wicca. These theories were adopted by neopaganism by Gardner's Bricket Wood Coven and the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a neo-Druidic group founded by Ross Nichols. Supposedly, these people harmonized the eight primarily holidays described by the former academics to create an easy-to-use calendar for neopagans in Britain. [11] In the 1970s, prolific Wiccan Aidan Kelly gave names to some of the previously unnamed Wiccan equinoxes (Mabon and Ostara) and the Wiccan summer solstice (Litha). [12] This leaves us with the contemporary wheel of the year, which looks like this:

There are many reasons I find the Wheel of the Year appropriative and dysfunctional. For starters, Wiccan lore claims that the spokes-on-a-wheel structure is borrowed from Celtic mythology, but there is no evidence that Celtic myth ever depicted the passing of time as a wheel. Nevertheless, there is no inherent problem with viewing the passing of time as a wheel; cycles are very important in paganism across Europe. More cumbersome than the supposedly ancient wheel structure, is the combination of pagan holidays from various only passively related cultures. Beltane (Bealtaine), Lughnasadh, Samhain, and Imbolc are Celtic; specifically Gaelic. They all work well in conjunction, and were historically celebrated by the same people(s) throughout their years. Yule is Germanic, being celebrated by the Norse, continental Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon peoples. It was not in any way historically related to the four primary Celtic festivals, and doesn't work in conjunction with them very well, as many things that made Yule significant to the Germanic peoples, were celebrated during Samhain by the Gaels. Mabon is a contrived festival, filling an autumnal gap. The Germanic peoples did not have a specialized holiday for the autumn equinox, nor did the Celts, so Wiccans filled this gap with a 'lesser Sabbat' in the 1960s, named 'Mabon' by Aidan Kelly in the 1970s. [12] It was named for Mabon ap Modron, a figure in Brythonic mythology. As Wicca is wont to do, it paints itself and its traditions as incredibly ancient and cultural, and Mabon is no exception to this rule. Wiccans generally paint Mabon as a 'Celtic harvest festival' filled with rich traditions of sacrifice and preparation for winter, but factually, nothing is less true. Mabon (ap Modron) as a deity has nothing whatsoever to do with the autumn equinox, and there is no solid record of consistent autumn equinox festivities as celebrated by the Celts (nor by the Germanic peoples, for that matter). Noteworthy also is that on top of this usage of the name of Mabon for an unrelated festival often being deemed appropriation by Welsh and other Gaelic people, additional offense is often taken to the likening of the 'Mabon' celebrations to Thanksgiving, as many leftist people involved in Celtic culture have no respect for, nor wish to be associated with, colonialism. Ostara is an almost equally contrived festival, based on a single attestation by a Christian in England, Bede, who claimed in his work The Reckoning of Time that there was an Anglo-Saxon goddess named Ēostre, to whom a spring feasts were dedicated during the month of Ēosturmōnaþ (modern April). Litha, too, finds its origins in Bede's The Reckoning of Time. Per Aidan Kelly himself:

Summer was also rather easy. The Saxon calendar described by Bede was lunisolar. It usually had twelve months, but in the third, fifth, and last month of an 8-year cycle, a 13th month was added to keep it (more or less) in sync with the solar years. The last and first months in the calendar were named Foreyule and Afteryule, respectively, and obviously framed the holiday of Yule. The sixth and seventh month were named Forelitha and Afterlitha; furthermore, when the thirteenth month was added, it went in between them, and the year was then called a Threelitha. Obviously, by analogy with Yule, the summer solstice must have been called Litha. (I later discovered that Tolkien had figured this out also.)

Now, there is nothing wrong with being inspired by various open, European cultures and using that inspiration to create something new. Traditions don't have to be centuries old to be valid. What makes this thing that Wicca does appropriation, is that it refuses to acknowledge its traditions as modern, and its inspirations as cultural. This started way back in its origins, when Murray popularized the witch-cult hypothesis and Gardner espoused it, and it survives into the modern day with Wiccans either refusing to admit or pointedly ignoring the fact that their traditions are modern and were established in the modern period.

Wicca also breeds tolerance for cultural (mis)appropriation. When one is not taught to feel any animosity toward appropriation like the use of the word 'sabbat(h)' outside of its original context, even when the usage of the word is of active detriment to the people to whom the word originally belonged, one will feel confident doing other, similar appropriation elsewhere as well. This is why you'll often notice that it is Wiccans, and people who practice Wiccan-derived practices, who end up appropriating such things as white sage, dreamcatchers, sound bowls, reiki, et cetera. Some of those things should never be used by people who are not native to the culture those things come from, such as white sage, which is not only strictly closed but also a severely endangered plant; others are open to foreigners, but should be treated with respect and acknowledged as belonging to a certain culture. Wiccans who readily appropriate such things are often unable or unwilling to provide substantial information on where those practices or items come from and why they should be within their rights to have them, except through arguments which minimize the cultural value of something. A great example of this is this famed argument: "white sage can't be closed, it's a plant. Plants belong to the earth, and the earth belongs to everyone. I should be allowed to use white sage." Ignoring the fact that white sage is endangered and white sage in stores is generally poached, which entirely negates the 'respecting the earth' aspect of that argument, this argument also diminishes the cultural importance of white sage to Native Americans.

A different reason that appropriation runs rampant in Wiccan communities is, actually, white supremacy. The goal of white supremacy is to homogenize the white race into a single white cultural and ethnic identity, so that all white people may band together and rule over the inferior races, as it were. People think that white supremacy has to be quite drastic, only recognizing it in such things as fascism and neo-nazism, but in actuality, white supremacy is propagated in many far more innocuous ways. The wish to eradicate minority languages, various conspiracy theories about aliens, many commonly accepted forms of pseudoscience, and many forms of cultural appropriation that are popular to this day are huge cultivators of white supremacy. Something does not need to explicitly state, or even have the intent or desire to create a homogenous white ethnic identity to further white supremacy. This topic is so vast and complex it is impossible to summarize in any effective way in this post, which is why I encourage all magical practitioners and pagans to see witchcraft as highly intersectional an do their research about white supremacy and other harmful ideologies that survive in western spirituality to this day. Folkism and Odinism are great examples of not explicitly, but undeniably white supremacist spiritual organizations that further white supremacy by attempting to create a universal Germanic (and then European) cultural and ethnic identity. Wicca also engages a lot with the idea of various pan-European identities. This is particularly visible in two ways: one, the idea that there is a pan-European witch-cult that has survived from prehistory into the modern age. Magic, throughout Europe, as well as paganism throughout Europe, is highly variable and culturally dependent. Though it follows many of the same themes, as it does mostly have its roots in Proto-Indo-European common origins, it is distinctly different. If Europe had one, shared, culture, our world would look very different. Indeed, Europe is just as culturally diverse as any other place, even if nowadays (thanks to white supremacy) that is harder to see. There is not and never has been one singular secret society of witches in Europe. Instead, folk magic, which is culturally and linguistically dependent, and extremely variable across Europe, has survived under the radar of the church into the modern era, and it is one of Europe's most beautiful assets when it comes to illustrating our cultural richness. The second way that Wicca propagates pan-European identities is through their dual divinity system. Wicca's divinities, the Great Horned God and the Triple Goddess, who both are also, in turn, appropriated from Gaulish and Celtic lore respectively, are often said to be a sort of figurehead for all pagan divinities and serve as a sort of shorthand way to worship them all, in a soft pantheist way. The Horned God or Lord, the divine masculine, represents all male pagan gods, and his counterpart represents all female pagan gods as the Divine Feminine. Now, pantheism is not inherently problematic, but when one tries to reduce every pagan divinity in existence, gods which all have wildly different cultural and historic backgrounds, to two deities, without even being so courteous as to make those deities liminal and featureless, I fear that does turn into a problem. No, it is not possible to worship every single pagan god in existence by paying respects to just two deities who are mostly modern inventions. Every deity and every religion, every culture, has distinct needs, requirements, and ways of paying respect, and attempting to reduce all of that to the idea that two gods can serve as a prism and replacement for all the gods which have ever existed is a major flaw to this religion as well as a serious indicator of a strong tie to white supremacy.

But there is another problem to the dual divinity system of Wicca, which is gender essentialism. On top of cultural variability being completely forsaken by this prism-pantheistic idea, it also completely fails to acknowledge that there are many deities across Europe and across the globe which do not conform to the gender binary. The abrahamic God Himself is a great example, but so is Loki, a deity who is oddly well-beloved by Wiccans despite the religion's bioessentialist nature. So are Hermaphroditus from Hellenic myth, various South American divinities, even deities in Tagalog lore. As a matter of fact, gender-neutral depictions of divinity have been found on Celtic gold. [13] Divinity itself, as a concept, has no gender. Rejecting the gender binary has also been crucial to magic and witchcraft across Europe, see for example crossdressing being a prerequisite to successful Seidhr practices, and the associations of men practicing seidhr with unmanliness and even homosexuality. [14] Rejecting the gender binary was a powerful act when it came to magical skill, as it furthered ones journey into the liminal and undefined, the strange and 'other', which is where all manner of magical creatures resided. In fact, the residents of the Otherworld, the Faeries themselves, are not too keen on gender binary. The Divine Male archetype of aggressor, protector, avenger and ruler is one that, in Faery Courts, is generally represented by the Queen, not the King. If there even is a King. I find this ironic, considering Wicca's desire to be closely associated with Celtic mythology and antiquity. The concept of Divine Femininity and Divine Masculinity is also directly contradictory to feminism. To attempt to reduce a woman to nothing but the soft, sensual, sagely, nurturing caretaker is undeniably misogynistic. The idea of a Divine Masculine, too, is antifeminist, though only in the sense that it is entirely patriarchal. Men are leaders, providers, and warriors, according to the gender essentialist archetypes that the Divine Feminine and Masculine reference. This is harmful to men, as well, because it places them in the position of needing to be manly and invulnerable at all times, much to the complaint of both men and women in the modern age. It is simply unproductive and anti-feminist, in a way that is hard to ignore. The bioessentialism of Wicca goes beyond just the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine archetypes of their deities, however. There is a strong emphasis within Wicca on depictions of genitalia, and many Wiccan authors and figureheads draw comparisons between really any long object and a phallus, believing that everything in magic has to eventually circle back to fertility. Wands are phallic, athames are phallic. The average Wiccan supply store will have penis shaped candles, penis carvings of various crystals. Wicca propagates bioessentialism the likes of which are not seen in any other form of paganism, not even historic paganism. This attitude towards the nonconforming and emphasis on the gender and sex binary make many people feel excluded from Wicca. Trans people, nonbinary people, really any queer or gay person, of any sort, can experience Wicca as a hostile environment. Wiccans may argue that it isn't transphobic by saying that they are including both sexes and never intentionally exclude trans, gay and nonconforming individuals, but what they fail to realize is that the binary, any binary, is outdated. There are more than two gender identities, and there are more than two sexes. Intersex people can never feel included when the religion so heavily affirms that there is, or should be, only penis and vulva.

Furthermore, Gardner himself was a flagrant homophobe, and well-known for it. Lois Bourne, a High Priestess of the Bricket Wood Coven, Gardner's own coven, wrote this about him: [15]

Gerald was homophobic. He had a deep hatred and detestation of homosexuality, which he regarded as a disgusting perversion and a flagrant transgression of natural law ... "There are no homosexual witches, and it is not possible to be a homosexual and a witch" Gerald almost shouted. No one argued with him.

Wicca Tomorrow: Cultural Erasure and Loss

Admittedly, none of what I've said so far has truly captured my biggest, and primary, reason for hating Wicca as much as I do. Other than the fact that I myself am indigenous, and have felt the effects of white supremacy, cultural erasure, and homogenization of white peoples all my life, other than the fact that I am queer and in a gay relationship, other than the fact that I have family who were victims of the holocaust, other than the fact that I am, at my core, an intersectional, radical leftist - the thing I hate the most about Wicca is its potential. Not potential for greatness, mind. I hate Wicca's potential for destruction. I already get to witness it in action every day, and it strikes fear into my heart like nothing else.

I, personally, have always believed that the first antidote to white supremacy, in an ironic but poetic spin, is love for one's own culture. White supremacy, in an attempt to make the white man feel at home in his whiteness and like he has one thing (superiority) in common with all other white men, strips him from his local culture. He is forced to view himself as part of something great, something that spans all of Europe, or all of Germania, or what have you, and he is made to turn a blind eye to what he already has. Local culture. His language, more specifically even, his dialect. His mother's lilt, and his father's flowery cadence. His neighbors. Their celebrations, their cooking traditions. His city. Its architecture, its communal sites, its judicial system. His land. Its medicines, its foods, its magics. The animals upon it. His companions, his livestock, rarely even his foes. Everything a person truly needs is within walking distance when in nature. Every ecosystem is equipped with everything we could possibly need, from a varied diet, to our medicines, to our shelters, to our hygiene products, all the way to the very things that keep us in check. That is not coincidence: we were grown, woven fiber by fiber by that land, that soil, over thousands, millions, billions of years. We do not need the whole world, there is no reason to try to conquer it. But we want to colonize, and so we must make larger and larger teams, clans, armies, races. The man from Truthan must become Cornish, then Celtic, then English, then British, then European, then white, then better. He would have been better off, happier, had he stayed Cornish.

In the worldwide community of people who take an amateur and personal interest in magic and paganism, Wicca is white supremacy's most effective tool in stripping people of their local culture. Wicca did not become this by design; shoddy and evil though its origins may be, I do not think Wicca was created with the intention of homogenizing and radicalizing the white race. However, in the 1950s, when all cultural magic in Europe were flying low under the radar of the church, hiding in families, in villages, in cookbooks and journals, in visits to the local keening woman to cure the evil eye the neighbor gave your cow, Wicca was the first community, first organized religion, to wave a flag and loudly and proudly proclaim to be pagan, to be witches. To do magic. It was the first to associate itself with those labels and voluntarily take them on, to be known by them. Through this singular association with those terms, it became the first thing people thought of when they thought about magic. Because the magic of the common people, the folk magic, is never termed magic by the ones doing it. "This rowan stick in my windowsill against lightning? Magic? You mean that stuff those witches in London do?" Nowadays, as the first form of magic and paganism to go mainstream in Europe since Christianity's taking over, Wicca is ubiquitous when the amateur goes to research magic and paganism. When the internet came along, this became a bigger problem than it may already have been before the digital age. Now, when people are introduced to the concept of modern magic and paganism, when they go to research it, they will only find Wicca. Not for utter lack of sources on (other) cultural magic, on the contrary: there are plenty, but one needs to use specific key words to find them. More scientific, more academic, more secular. When one wants to research cultural and specific magic, one must assume the author does not believe himself, nor does he believe you do. Wicca, however, has resources that do assume the researcher is interested in practicing, which is yet another reason that people go to Wicca rather than something else. They won't find the folk magic, and if they do, it won't be as comprehensive, accessible, entertaining, and personable as Wicca. Wicca will always win, because it was never challenged in the first place. This has led to a huge disparity in the amount of people who know about and/or practice Wicca, and the amount of people who know about and/or practice folk magic and/or cultural paganism. And as Wicca gains more and more popularity, both because it was always set up for success by chance, and because it subtly purveys white supremacy in a way that most people do not even recognize, it will continue to smother cultural, traditional, and folk magic.

Wicca's Reach: Contemporary Magic

Many people who would not consider themselves, or do not identify as Wiccan, still get called that by me in an intentionally derivative way. Not usually to their faces, but when I am discussing reasons why I do not like Wicca, I find it hard to draw a substantial, or even relevant, line between people who identify as Wiccans, and people who do not identify as such but still, functionally, are. Due to Wicca's chokehold on the first several pages of Google when you look up most things pertaining to magic, most practitioners of magic are essentially Wiccan without the label. They do not associate with Wicca intentionally, but they have no idea how to access, or any awareness of the existence of folk magic resources, and so end up practicing the magic Wicca teaches. In witching communities, well-known Wiccan authors are considered staples to read, such as Scott Cunningham. Authors that do not call themselves Wiccan (anymore) but do promote the magic are just as popular, such as Arin Murphy-Hiscock and Nathan M. Hall. These authors all have the same fatal flaw, which makes them Wiccans and automatically unreliable in my eyes: they promote the very idea which Wicca all but created, that there is one, single, universal way to do magic. That you, a Hawai'i Native living on the Islands, will do the best magic you've ever done with this set of European herbs that do not grow on your own soil. With this set of half-baked, appropriative Laws and methods, contrived out of a mishmash of appropriated indigenous practices and European traditions; like the Threefold Law, which is nothing but a cheap and terrible misinterpretation of the Dharmic concept of Karma. Except Wicca doesn't call them that. It calls the herbs staples, essentials. It calls the half-baked rules Ardanes and Magical Theory. Nothing is more ironic to me than a supposed nature religion telling people to forsake the nature around them in favor of the 'universal subsitute' Rosemary (salvia rosmarinus), a plant they've never even seen in real life save for in the jar in their spice cabinet.

Nowadays, thanks to the omnipresence of Wicca, there is a whole new magical tradition, yet unnamed. It consists of all those secular practitioners of magic who do all of their research via resources actually pandering to practitioners, all those people who claim 'we are the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn', all those people who have never heard of or hardly ever think about magic that isn't 'witchcraft'. I like to refer to it as 'contemporary magic', or sometimes 'modern magic', in a context where the label contemporary could be cause for confusion. This 'modern magic' is that more-or-less universal, monotone, Wiccan derived, secular magic that most people would term 'witchcraft'. The magic you see on TikTok. The spell jar magic. The cord-cutting magic. The lemon hex magic. The 'spiritual but not religious' magic. The sound bowl and smoke cleanse magic. The light and love magic. The 'white' magic. Magick. This magic is not culture-less, not at all. It is its own culture, as it were, and not only that, most of the spells, rituals and rules it has have their origins in European culture. But this magic is, in a way, anti-culture. Colonial. It smothers and endangers local magic, more relevant magic, and spreads like wildfire because it is so easy to never have to research beyond Wicca. What makes this modern magic inherently harmful is that it, too, is appropriative. The resources that provide you with this magic, which like the religion that sprouted it, is a huge, sometimes dysfunctional and clashing mosaic of culture, do not actually inform you of the origins of any of the practices that they teach you. They teach you what to do, how to do it, what materials to use, et cetera, but they don't teach you where these rituals came from, why these plants had those associations, what culture sprang this curse. And contrary to popular belief, those things are crucial to magic. The cultures at hand deserve to be honored for what they've given, and every culture has the right to be preserved. Culture is important elsewhere, but it is fundamental to magic. Magic cannot exist without culture. Gods are nothing but a lens to view the world through, magic is nothing but a response to struggle in a language that every human shares: the language of wonder and learning. Magic, at its core, is nothing but humanity's ability to feel amazed, and learn from the elegant language the earth speaks to us. And it is propagated by our ability to speak, to share, to teach to one another. Mother to daughter, brother to sister, chieftain to peasant, wife to warrior. Carry this, eat that. Don't do this, don't go there. Wicca does not acknowledge this importance of culture, nor does it make any efforts to teach the practitioners of it and its derivatives what cultures it was built on and off of. That is the crux and definition of cultural appropriation.

Wicca will continue to spread. I think one of my toxic traits is that I resigned myself to this idea a long time ago, much like how many people resign themselves to the idea of white supremacy or climate change. I can't help but see Wicca and the damage it does as irreversible. Wicca occupies the first pages of any google search about magic, the first thought anyone has when you self-identify as a pagan or practitioner of magic. 'Witch' as a word is completely different than it once was, as is the word sabbat. It feels inescapable, and this weighs heavily on me as somebody whose culture, too, is growing lost in part due to the priority of Wicca over cultural magic. I started writing this post in hopes of getting out all my grievances with this tradition. Ten thousand words and a great many sources later, the wound Wicca carved into me when I realized people would choose it over the valuable cultural knowledge I have and want to preserve no longer throbs, it just aches emptily. If this post manages to change one person's mind on Wicca, it has done its job, and I can die happily. If this post motivates one person to look beyond Wicca and glance at the rich and wild world of cultural magic, especially their own culture, I'll spend eternity in the afterlife gloating.

If there was one thing I wanted the reader to take away from this post, it is not that they should hate Wicca and actively fight to eradicate it. It is that culture is beautiful. All cultures are beautiful. There is no such thing as 'white culture' and we should strive to dismantle that, but the way to do that is to acknowledge the real culture. British culture, English culture, Cornish culture. Low Saxon culture. Silesian culture. Yakutian culture. Tibetan culture. Qazaq culture. Yup'ik culture. Irish culture. Amazigh culture. Cree culture. Sámi culture. Maori culture. Aymaran culture. Muscogee culture. Zulu culture. Find what is rightfully yours, because no matter who or where you are, there is culture in your ancestry, and there is culture in your neighborhood. You are entitled to it like you are entitled to air and water. Learn about the plants that are native to your area. Learn about the medicines your peoples used when conventional medicine was not available to them. Learn about their faith before Christianity, learn about the way they thought the universe came to be and what made humans human. Eat cultural foods, both yours and not. Talk to your elders, and really listen to what they say. Try to remember the weird superstitions and turns of phrase you grew up with. I promise it's there, and I promise it's beautiful. I promise it will make you feel at home.

In the following weeks I will try my best to dedicate some posts to the beginnings of folk magic. How to get involved, where to look for resources, what makes a good resource, what keywords to use when searching, what to do when it feels like there's nothing out there for you, how to find which culture you are a part of. Until then, I will leave you with my sincerest gratitude for reading this ridiculously long complaint.

----------------------------

Doyle White, Ethan (2016). Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. 

Climenhaga, L. (2012). Imagining the Witch: A Comparison between Fifteenth-Century Witches within Medieval Christian Thought and the Persecution of Jews and Heretics in the Middle Ages. Constellations, 3(2). 

“The Dehumanization and Demonization of the Medieval Jews.” Medieval Antisemitism?, by François Soyer, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds, 2019, pp. 45–66.

Simpson, Jacqueline (1994). Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her, and Why? Folklore, 105:1-2: 89-96.

Murray, Margaret Alice (1933). The God of the Witches. S. Low, Marston & Company, Limited.

Bracelin, Jack (1960). Gerald Gardner: Witch. Octagon.

Heselton, Philip (2012a). Witchfather: A Life of Gerald Gardner. Loughborough, Leicestershire: Thoth.

Valiente, Doreen (2007) [1989]. The Rebirth of Witchcraft. London: Robert Hale.

"Britain's chief witch dies at sea". News of the World. 23 February 1964. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018.

Heselton, Philip (2003). Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration: An Investigation Into the Sources of Gardnerian Witchcraft. Capall Bann.

Lamond, Frederic (2004), Fifty Years of Wicca, Sutton Mallet, England: Green Magic, pp. 16–17.

Kelly, Aidan. About Naming Ostara, Litha, and Mabon. Including Paganism. Patheos.

Ambiguous Deities on Celtic Gold, Numismatic News. February 27, 2023.

Price, Neil (2002). The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Uppsala: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University.

Bourne, Lois (2006). Dancing with Witches. London: Robert Hale. p. 38.

---- If you enjoy my work, please consider purchasing or commissioning some of my written resarch, ordering a reading, or commissioning my art. Click here to see the options. Thank you!

[longinglook]

Why on earth is Tumblr hiding your posts? they still don't see that creators and editors like you are keeping this site alive:(

no idea! It’s been a big bummer this week especially because I was very excited to take part in 2getherweek but none of my posts have shown up in the tag there, but at least they were showing up on dashboards. My latest gifset is invisible unless you’re on my blog, which makes it impossible for people to find it. It happened with another text post I made linking it as well, so I really don’t know what to do. A few days ago I contacted support and got the same old “the algorythm is programmed like this!” response, and nothing was fixed, but this is even worse than not showing up in tags. I am afraid of adding tags to my posts because they might disappear, I don’t know if anything I make will appear anywhere, it’s just really bad and discouraging :( I would link my gifset here but I really don’t know if this post would appear, so all I can do is ask everyone to please go on my blog to see it and reblog it <3

[rpgmgames]

November’s Featured Game: Shooty and the Catfish

DEVELOPER(S): Daniel ENGINE: RPGMaker MV GENRE: Adventure, RPG WARNINGS: Course Language, Gore SUMMARY: Shooty and the Zaat are a dynamic duo solving monstrous mysteries!

Play the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! Sure! So my name is Daniel, I guess technically I am an animator. I started out making flash cartoons around 2000 just for fun and became a professional animator in the advertising space around 2007. I have been working in media ever since, both in studios and as a contractor working under the Visitors From Dreams label which is also the label I use for my game development. I started dabbling with RPG Maker in around 2002 but I never got very far. Once I got into the media industry I wanted to pick it up again but with Mac being what almost all my work was done on, at home and in studio I didnt get the chance to actually get into it properly again until MV released, infact I was so excited that I purchased MV the day it dropped and immediately begun development on my first title Flatwoods. Ironically Shooty and the Catfish was developed on a PC, but I digress.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Daniel: Shooty and the Catfish is set up pretty simply. The 2 lead characters, Shooty and Zaat run a sort of monster investigation unit out of their home. They get calls to different desitinations to deal with different monster problems. I really wanted it to feel like it was set up in a similar way to a lot of cartoons from the 80s, where every episode had a pretty similar but still managed to feel like a little self contained adventure. I have thrown in some little elements of an larger narrative but they are light until the final episode. Originally the series was pitched to Frederator for Cartoon Hangover, it got a little ways into early development but then Youtube changed its algorythm and animation on the platform became a struggle and the project was dropped. I didnt want to waste all the work I had done on the concepts and so I eventually tried to find a way to work them into a game, its taken me quite a few years to get as far as I have with development, but I would be even further back if I had tried to animate it all alone. I created Flatwoods to try and get a small project out, you know, to get some experience with the engine, little did I know how much more I had to learn!

How long have you been working on your project? *Daniel: I pitched Shooty and the Catfish back in 2013 from memory, but it didn't start to take shape as the project you currently see until the last 12 months. In that sense I am incredibly happy with how quickly the game has come together.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Daniel: So many things have influenced my work its not funny... Where do I even start? Shooty and Zaat have a bit of a Finn and Jake thing going since when the project was originally pitched to Frederator and thats what they were looking for at the time. Resident Evil 4 (the closest any game has ever come to perfection imo) was the inspiration for the games ammo based combat system. Demons Souls originally derailed the project when I tried to emulate its non linear hub based design (you will notice the demo takes place on a single island instead), that created all kinds of balancing issues though so thats all been stripped back and is what lead to the decision to make the game episodic instead. One element from Demons Souls that remains in the game is a diverse mix of linear and looping level designs when it comes to mapping. The game also features towns that have layouts based on unused maps from the Pokemon GS 97 Spaceworld demo since they never made it into any of the actual games in the series. Pokemon GS also influenced the games visuals. I'm not a big RPG guy, but I played a hell of a lot of Pokemon growing up and Gen 2 is still my favorite. Trying to get MV to emulate the limitations of the Game Boy Color was quite the hurdle, I still cant believe I got it working as well as it is. I also have a lot of cameos from other peoples RPGM games, so there's that. Its a big ol' mixing pot of ideas and inspirations.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Daniel: Countless, the biggest challenge is always scope though. I originally wanted the game to be like 3 hours long tops, now its well in excess of that and that's before I have even put in meaningful NPC interactions. That's why I have decided to break the game up into episodes, each one should be around an hour which is much more my jam. I don't have a lot of free time so I tend to gravitate towards games that are tight and short, I think that's why I am so determined to keep this game in nice manageable chunks. Now that the game is shorter I don't need levelling so I am starting to tone down the RPG elements. One change always leads to another, but episode one is getting damn close to completion. I say this before I have even had the chance to announce the game's going to be episode on my own blog, ha ha. Episode 1 January, The Great Spore Chore! Keep your eyes out for it!

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Daniel: As mentioned above a lot has changed, I feel the biggest change was when I tried to move the game from being episodic into one adventure after playing through a bunch of other RPGM games for ideas, it all started to feel a bit aimless and the storytelling techniques I had planned when it was episodic weren't translating well as the game progressed. So I guess now the game is episodic again we have come full circle! So many ideas seemed good on paper but ended up not really being fun or adding anything in practice. Oh yeah, and the transition from Game Boy green to color was a big one based on feedback from the demo. Some people were finding it hard to tell what elements were interactable, doors in particular, I hope that color has helped minimize that issue. Key items will also have an animation on them so they are hard to miss. I'm not a fan of hunting for items in big maps, it's certainly not something I want to subject people too in my own projects.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Daniel: This project has had a few key people involved. Outside of myself I have worked with 2 musicians. One is an old school friend who did music for my animations back in the early 2000's. He has contributed a bunch of really cool EDM which makes up most of the games OST. On top of that there is also a number of optional bosses (one per episode) that have music composed by Secret Agent Ape who worked on Soma Spirits and a bunch of other upcoming games. I have been really lucky to get to work with such rad dudes.

What is the best part of developing the game? *Daniel: I love designing enemy battlers, my process usually involves me drawing a weird shape, sticking some eyes and a big goofy nose on it and trying to come up with a stupid pun to use for a name while listening to bands like Yes or Klaatu. It's bliss. I have a lot of people ask me why I have limited myself in terms of resolution and color palette, and it comes down to one of the important things I told myself when I got into game making as a hobby was that I would stop if it ever started to feel like work. I spend my days doing heavy visual effects and compositing, sometimes doing complex character animation. I want to keep that stuff as far away from my game development as possible. Ironically working within the incredibly restrictive limitations of the Game Boy has ended up being incredibly liberating and keeps things feeling fun as opposed to feeling like more of what I do all day to pay the bills.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Daniel: I always enjoy checking out demo's of upcoming games. Both Heartbeat and Virgo and the Zodiac's demos blew me away from a technical standpoint on the MV front. I still find it hard to believe those demos were made with the same engine I'm using. I guess it really shows what can be done when the engine is in capable hands. I wish I had more time to play actual full releases, I mean Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass just came out and I have no idea when, if ever I will have the free time to play it because its such a commitment. I feel like I am missing out on some great stuff.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Daniel: I guess I relate to different characters in different ways. Slim Grim is the one who hands out assignments to Shooty and Zaat, he is pretty much done with life, over people and the world itself, I think thats something we all have a bit of inside of us. Shooty is a very positive individual, his solutions to most problems is a bullet with a smile, and I think theres a bit of that in all of us as well. Zaats a bit of a cheeky smart arse, so I guess in a lot of ways I am most like her as a person. One of the episodes also features Gerkinman who is and has been a sort of self insert in my work since 2001 so I guess technically I relate to him most... ha ha, but thats cheating!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Daniel: I wish I had done a better job keeping the project focused. I feel like a good few months were spent making the game bigger in ways it didnt need to be.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Daniel: All of my games are loosely connected, taking place in the same world. None of them tie directly into each other, im not big on the cinematic universe concept that seems so popular right now, but events in my previous 2 releases and the 5 planned episodes of Shooty and the Catfish are loosely connected in ways people who take the time to look can find. They are also tied into around 17 years worth of animated shorts I have released. I have no plans on stopping now!

What do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Daniel: Well, theres quite a few things... Mapping for all 5 episodes (outside of towns) is complete, so when Episode 1 is done I will be immediately rolling into Episode 2. I am aiming to have an episode out every 2 months which should be doable with so much of the game already finished. I also have a couple of short films I am looking forward to being able to invest some time into, things have slowed down in recent months due to freelance but I am eager to get to animate some of my own work again. I am also eager to see the comments sections on Lets Plays. Both Flatwoods and Hazmat got a bit of Lets Play action and a couple of those have some pretty substantial comment sections. The amount of theories people try to put together for these projects is staggering. I could never write something as entertaining as what the speculations in these comment sections contain in terms of what my games mean, it cracks me up and I find it quite flattering that random people have put more thought into elements of my stories then I have. Makes me want to keep things deliberately vague just to encourage more of it. Lastly I will be releasing all the build files for the project so if anyone wants to make fangames or whatever they have direct access to all of the core files used to build the games. Im a big fan of the concept of a mod community, and while RPGM doesnt exactly allow for that, id love to see people do similar things to my work as whats been done with a lot of LISA fan games.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Daniel: I don't know about being afraid exactly. I am curious about how my business model for the episodic releases will go over. I was planning on releasing them at $1 an episode and $4 for the bundle when it's all complete. I know some people think thats still charging too much, but some people have also told me im not charging enough and that it lowers price standards accross the board for RPGM content. The way I see it if I can cover the costs of Steam and the music I commissioned then I've done alright since this project was for fun, but that's just me.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Daniel: Just keep at it and set yourself small goals. If your working on a big project break it up into manageable sections. Take things one map at a time, ya know what I mean?

Question from last month's featured dev @overcast-rpg: If you could choose an RPG Maker gamedev to release another game; which one would you choose and why? *Daniel: Oh that's an easy one, The Catamites. I love Space Funeral, it's easily my favorite game made in the engine, and while The Catamites has developed countless games since its release, they have all been in other engines. It would be fun to see them return to the engine after all they have learned about game design since Space Funeral's release and to see what they would do.

We mods would like to thank Daniel for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Shooty and the Catfish if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[gallusrostromegalus]

Oh yeah definitely landscaping and civic managment absolutely need to pay the fuck attention to the actual biology behind individual trees and what is and is not a good idea to plant in any given area. I live in a place with no water and have the same foaming-at-the-mouth reaction every time I see someone putting more Kentucky Blue Grass down.

And you are entirely correct that there is a monstrous sort of egotism to going "What can this tree do for ME?" and even to the concept of landscape managment (save that we, having dicked that right up, are no resposible for fixing it).

And you are extremely correct that gardening websites can be immensely destructive in how they disseminate information, from making overgeneralizations on what can will or should grow somwhere, a total lack of consideration of enviornmental impact, to actually fucking lying to sell their stock or making shit up to get clicks because it's not a gardening website, it's some kind of clickbait algorythm-manipulating ad-revenue junk site. Like what you'l find if you do a basic google search.

That said, the screenshotted list doesn't have anything specifically wrong with it- it's not helpful without additonal information about "Consider watering needs" and "Check your local invasive specie watchlist" and "Do Not Dig Without Calling Your Local Hotline so you don't electrocute yourself/break a sewer or gas line"- but from a purely introductory "Bob who knows fuck-all about trees just googled how to plant one" standpoint... stating the utility of trees for humans isn't a bad place to start. Gives Bob a reason to continue with this Tree idea he just had. Makes him think of other places on his property that he could plant things. This paragraph SHOULD, by all means, be followed with more detailed information about how to select the right tree for that job, in that place to precent Bob from planting a Callery Pear or Hymalayan Blackberries, but "Why did you want to plant a tree?" isn't a bad first question to ask a potential planter, provided you follow through on the guidance. There's nothing specifically wrong with the screenshotted paragraph, but it definitely needs to be followed with a shitload more context.

This is related to a broader gordian knot of Lack Of Enviornmental Stweardship, Ad-Revenue-First Content, Media Illiteracy, Poor Science Communication In Popular Media, Colonialism, Urban Spaces And Their Associated Problems, and probably 60 other intersectional problems, and BOY HOWDY that's gonna be a fucking mess to fix.

I apologize for being flippant about different types of categorization as a language thing earlier. I've been attempting to help my aunt who thinks the Navy SEALs are a group of trained pinnepeds navigate the Ohio DMV website all day, so while you're discussing at this level:

My brain was down here:

Looking at gardening and landscaping websites and peering into this realm where people say just. random things about trees as if forests or any natural context for trees have never existed and also biology doesn't exist either

[phoebeinhell]

Dear Youtube Algorythm

Food addiction is a strange thing.

At some point this little voice in your head says "You know what? F it! I dont care anymore. Why should we?! We dont care about anything else eighter!" and so you start to not care. Thing is 'not caring' doesnt mean just not being pro ana anymore. It means stuffing yourself until you are full and feel sick. Thats why I still purged sometimes. You lose money on delivery food. Get hungry faster. Fatter. Because all you eat are your ugly cravings for pizza and cheesecake!

And sometimes the store is closed. Or you dont have any money. So what are you gonna do? Right! You start to watch mukbangs. Cooking videos. Food challenges. Everything like that! And the Youtube algorythm learns (the ads too btw) to show you more of this and not all the other interesting stuff. Your whole life becomes food because you just cave in. Hence it is hard for me to eat normally. Eighter I try to starve myself or I overeat. No in between.

Well I stopped watching food videos. Or I try which is going good so far. Problem is that you can watch two videos of Logan Paul and get three million video recommendations. But it takes ages to get rid of them! Same with food. It tries all the time!

So dear Youtube algorythm. Do me a favor and dont put all this food in fron of me! If makes me feel disgusting! Also I watch less which you should know by now.

[rougedraconteur]

Just adding, RM’s deal is $300 MILLION. I’m sure you all know that, and that was just a misprint, but newbies won’t. Biggest development deal anyone has gotten at Netflix or any other studio, so it is a really big deal and considered a real power move for RM. At least, that number is what has been widely reported, and why he has gotten a shit ton of mostly positive press in lots of legit publications (Time, for one, as well as finally getting that coveted Time 100 nod) who don’t automatically give him and his shows heavy press on the regular (EW, where he started his own rise, loves him, as does Vogue, Vanity Fair, Hollywood Reporter, People) over the last two years. He SHOULD have tons of power, as a result, but there is a catch or two. One, While he still has product elsewhere, like Fox (911 and 911-Lone Star) and FX (American Crime Story, American Horror Story, and Feud, where the big buzz is Beanie Feldstein as Monica Lewinski, and Monica as an exec producer), he chose to go to Netflix instead of staying with Fox, his long-time home. The Disn/ney deal that was in the making happened at a time when his own career was in flux, and did not seem to be going well, so he opted for a major change of direction into the unknown. So, while he is developing product still for Fox, it does mean that most of his main cheerleaders and  protectors, like Da/na Wal/den and John Landgr/aff, are no longer in play for him on his projects in the same way. Here, if he messes up, he is on his own, and he may feel that lack of protection as a potentially dangerous thing for him. Fo/x was, and is, a machine, while Net/flix, despite its massive success, is still an experiement, especially when in comes to in-house productions.

And “the Netflix algorythm” may be joked about, but it is a much talked about mystery component in that the heads of Netflix keep pretty much everything to themselves.  Their process is far from transparent, the opposite, actually. Their rating process to determine success is not very clear, but their financing mechanisms are what everyone truly questions. Many in the industry think their financial model is not sound, and that the massive numbers reported in both the RM deal and Shon/da Ri/mes will break their Ponzi type setup soon enough.

 And yes, the mixed press has surprised me, but the writing seems shoddy and lacks polish, like it was rushed, especially that last episode. The big speech about the black actress sitting in the room, and then having Archie clearly ahed of her, sitting in the front row, was a huge blunder for the writer’s room, and the Oprah like ending (you win an award, and you win an award) for everyone BUT the white guy, while ironic but not written well in that regard, sort of took the shine off, they could have won without all the award winning, just with the new production and huge financial success being shown to that radio audience as a win with some stronger writing of that episode. 

And it could have been that there was a rush job for the last two or three episodes, with Covid closings of productions everywhere breathing down RM’s neck.  It still looks great, and has enough to hold together the concept, and he was able to get new product in the pipeline during a time when not much new and fresh was available. That was a real coup, for showcasing his product without much real competition during quarantine.

RM has put together a truly solid production team that works well under pressure delivering for him, over and over, which is his real strong suit, and ace in the hole, in my opinion. But if he thought people would go along with a “revised” Hollywood history as a happily ever after fairy tale, during this dark time, and overlook the writing and similarity to Tarantino’s award-winning project, which he appeared to want to take on, era-wise, next, apparently he guessed wrong this time. His hero shine seems to have tarnished.

RM has done a lot of bad reputation revision work riding this positive press high for the last couple years, and the awards garnered from his work on Normal Heart, O.J Sim/pson and Vers/ace, none of which he wrote. While he has had other product on Netflix, such as The Politician, also getting weak reviews overall, it was produced at Fo/x Studios and sold to Netflix, and I think Ratchet will also be that way. Hollywood is the first product created and produced solely under Net/flix, and we don’t really know how their oversight on a production with RM works, or doesn’t, as opposed to Fo/x. Netflix product will include The Prom with Me/ryl Str/eep and Nic/ole Kidman (who I personally think are a little long in the tooth for that material that was showcased by D at Elsie Fest and suddenly became an RM product, which seems to me to be something D does quite often for RM, scout new actors, material, opportunities that are young and fresh. But casting older actresses is RM’s thing, and they both are huge talents, and Nic/ole is on a run of great work for tv.) He has a production of his Broadway revival of Boys in the Band with an all gay cast, but I think his best work may be showcasing the recent documentary, “A Secret Love.” At leat one more documentary (maybe with an environmental focus? I don’t rmember now) and his show on Hal/ston with Ew/an Mc/Gregor are in the works.  Too bad if C truly won’t work with RM any more, or vice versa, since I think he looks so much like a young Mc/Gregor. And a young Hal/ston.

Overall, I think RM and his cast did what they could in the time they had to create a good, solid, visually beautiful, but not great, product. Again, writing, mostly.  (That is my background, so yes, writing matters. A lot.) The older actors, with worlds more experience, fell into character and nailed it with what they had, and probably helped bring more to their lines, while I think the younger, less experienced actors would have benefitted from better writing and more development of their characters. The older cast was crackerjack, with a real forties feel, while the younger cast was still a little bland and needed some guidance and direction and sharp writing to get that ratatat crisp feel the retro dialogue should have had. There were some seriously anachronistic elements to the younger cast dialogue and attitudes that were too modern and took them out of the forties feel, but again, that is mostly writing, and some additional direction Again, RM films with different directors for each episode, for time, with multiple episodes filming comcurrently, a common practice, but there is a danger there with continuity, also. I like RM’s product better when there are not so many writers in the room, and he has a more concise and singular writer’s vision to work with and interpret. I think they have been successful enough to get a second season, but RM may shy away because of the gossip out there now (mostly about the Sco/tty Bow/ers and Cu/kor pool party storylines and how RM has his own history here that he seems to be trying to gaywash) and the negative reviews.

The other side of having the only really fresh new project during Covid is that it gets more scrutiny than normal, too.

[opoloopm4l]

The DIGISYNTHFM is a Fm synthesizer inspired on the "Digitone" Synth. It uses very similar configurations and algorythmics, but it is not the exact same, DIGISYNTHFM goes far away the limits of the Digitone algorhythms, it uses a one more modulator per voice scheme. After months trying different algorythmics schemes, we decided that adding a one more modulator works better for what we were looking for, and that is, weird FM synthesis!!!

To check the Digitone Synth Manual here : https://www.manual.do/elektron/digitone/manual?p=90#google_vignette

If you are familiar with the Elektron products then you will find this synth very easy to understand, if you are not familiarized with the Elektron Machines then you can read the manual of the Digittone and get an idea of what this is about. Of course, we did not make the sequencer part, it may be ridiculous to do it since all the capabilities of native Ableton and Max For LIve sequencers have to offer.   

This synthesizer will be in continuous development, adding more features, more presets, and better performance. and of course the upgrades will be for free for owners.

For now, the DIGISYNTHFM has four fixed ratios, in the future, we will work on a system capable of giving to the user more flexibility, more subtle changes.

In the FX area, we use the Bleep effects, courtesy of Beep.

In the LFO area, we could go deep, but, again, it is nonsense to add more cpu processing when you can implement LFOs very easily in Ableton. We limited the amounts of LFO to 2.

Lastly, the DIGISYNTHFM by Op.Oloop is a FM beast! Also, with the random function to apply to the ratios, it gives you tons of sound surprises, and modulating the Mix dial control with a soft sine wave, you have endless evolving sonorities.

[juniperpublishers-endocrinology]

Predictive Parameters in Thyroid Cancer: The Mirror of an Endemic Country- Juniper Publishers

Abstract

It has been detected that the absence of thickening of isthmus and the solid nature of nodules, both had statistical significance in regard to predictivity of suspicious nodules. Although not statistically significant, there were differences in favour of malignancy between the groups when any of the parameters of solitary nodule, solid nature, loss of perinodular halo, hypoechoic nodule, and large nodule diameter were evaluated. In contrast to the expectancy; the number and diameter of nodules, in addition to gender were not found to be of significant predictive value in Turkey.

Go to

Introduction

The adult population in Turkey is 30 million. Scientifically, people with thyroid nodules have 6% cancer. As it is known that 40-50% of nodules are found in western societies, it is known that thyroid cancer is present in approximately 900.000 people in a country of 70 million according to the existence of the thyroid gland which contains at least one nodule in an endemic goiter country as Turkey. However, very few of the patients are diagnosed, and for the most part, their lives continue without being diagnosed as being cancerous or because the cancer has not progressed. Since small nodules can also develop cancer, nodule dimensions are no longer important. Thirteen percent of thyroid carcinomas are reported in autopsy series in the present country. In fact, in the autopsy series, Harach and colleagues found that 36 (35.6%) papillary thyroid microcarcinomas were found in 101 consecutive autopsies [1]. Occasionally, incidental thyroid cancer can disguise a quiet or even dangerous course of thyroid cancer. In recent years, thyroid diseases that require surgery are now being treated with lobectomy or total thyroidectomy. Today, it is known that multinodular goitre is less risky of cancer than single nodule containing thyroid glands. Distribution of iodine tablets in endemic areas prevents cancer. When goitrogens and carcinogenic factors are combined, the conversion of thyroid disease to cancer in every region is different from each other in our country. It is not appropriate for us to copy the algorithm of the approach to the thyroid nodule from countries without endemic disease in the same way. Algorythms in countries with thyroid nodules in their population with an incidence of 5-10% are unfortunately inferred as references to the Turkish population in whom 65% of thyroid glands have nodules. For example, in our country, which has lived with intense effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster with close proximity, it is reported that the cancer rate in the hyperactive nodule is much higher than the world average. According to us; selection of appropriate predictive parameters and logistic regression analysis can be used to develop a local scoring system to detect when the likelihood of malignancy of the suspicious thyroid nodule is suspected at the outpatient clinic. So, the general surgeon will not learn from the pathology report after the surgery that the patient who is operated on has actually cancer and will be able to choose appropriate surgery previously. In order to be able to create a model of the country in the scoring system; thyroid cancer patients who underwent surgery in our General Surgery Clinic were evaluated in comparison with a control group, in regard to various parameters.

Go to

Patients And Methods

The files’ informations, in addition to surgery and pathology reports of 50 consecutive patients who had been operated on for thyroid carcinoma between 2004 and 2011 were evaluated retrospectively in Haseki Education and Research Teaching Hospital’s General Surgery Clinic of Health Sciences University. The study group constituted of 50 consecutive patients with thyroid cancer. The control group was 50 consecutive patients who did not have hyperthyroidism and underwent total thyroidectomy in the same period. Parameters used for group comparison; were age, gender, nodule diameter, number ofnodules, suspicious finding on scintigraphy, hormone status, blood group, suspicion in FNAB, and ultrasonography.

Presence of nodules within nodules, ultrasonographic nature of nodule (cystic, solid, mixed), abnormality of isthmus thickness on ultrasonography, filling of the nodule almost totally the lobe in ultrasonography, presence of microcalcification on ultrasonography, presence of hypoechoic nodule on ultrasonography, loss of halo around the nodule on ultrasonography, Intra-nodal vascularization in Doppler ultrasonography were studied. Apart from this; the data containing valuable information which is not used in comparison were also considered.

We evaluated the distribution of cancer types we encountered. Minimal invasive thyroid cancer was deemed as a tumor with diameter ≤1cm with no lymphovascular and capsule invasion. Tumor diameter was assessed. If there is even one of the suspicious findings in the ultrasonography; ultrasonography was generally considered as a predictive decision-making factor in the statistical examination. Positive ultrasonography parameters that provide predisposition were the nodule nature (cystic, solid, mixed), presence of microcalcification, presence of hypoechoic nodule, loss of halo around the nodule, and increased intranodular vascularization. Other ultrasonographic parameters were the isthmus thickness, the presence of congromerulated nodules (nodules within nodules), and filling of the nodule almost the total lobe. The existence of at least one of the former ultrasonographic parameters other than the ultrasonographic parameters we have added has fulfilled our suspicious findings on ultrasonography.

Statistical method

Mean, standard deviation, ratio and frequency values were used in the descriptive statistics of the data. The distribution of the data was tested with Kolmogorov-Smirnov. Parametric data were tested by t test. The chi-square test was used to analyze proportional data, and the fischer exact test was used when chisquare test not met the criteria. Risk analysis was carried out for the effects of variables on cancer formation. SPSS 19.0 program was used for analysis.

Go to

Results

There was no significant difference (p>0.05) between sex ratios of patients with thyroid cancer (female: 39/78%- male: 11/22%) patients without cancer (female: 42/84%- male: 8/16%). There was no significant difference (p>0.05) among the age groups of patients with thyroid cancer (50.5±14.4) and those without cancer (48.8±12.5).

In the patient group with thyroid cancer, the solid naturality rate was statistically significant (p=0.004 <0.05).

There was no significant difference in the number of nodules, nodule diameter, hormone status, IIAB, congromerulated nodules, total cholesterol values, microcalcification, halo loss,nodule almost totally filling the lobe, hypoechoic nodule ratios (p>0.05) in patients with and without thyroid cancer.Thick isthmus thickness (76%) was significantly high (p=0.021<0.05) in the non-cancer group when compared to thyroid cancer group (54%). In those with thyroid cancer the likelihood of thin to normal thickness was 2.698 (range 1,148-6,341) times more. Sensitivity of determining benign cases was 78 % when the nodule filled the lobe almost totally.

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Discussion

The rate of cancer in multinodular goiter in the present study was not reduced which was in accordance with the literature. The incidence of thyroid cancer in our male and female patients was similar, which was not consistent with the literature [1]. However, our male and female patient ratio wass similar to the literature. The cause of this contradiction is not understood and thyroid cancer did not choose sex according to the present study.

In the case of goitre patients, each lobe should be regarded as a separate thyroid organs and in some patients lobetomy+isthmectomy should be preferred instead of total thyroidectomy [2]. The inadequacy of ultrasonography reports was noteworthy in our patients. Suspicious nodules can have hypoechogenicity, irregular borders, halo loss, and solid natures. When ultrasonography is not performed well, this can lead to the wrong choice of treatment. Even if ultrasonography is done with care, there are occult points in this subject. For example; although egg shell calcification, which is considered as macrocalcification, is now being interpreted in favor of benign disease, there are also authors who talk about the risk of cancer up to 40% in them [3-6]. For us, the USG is as important as the FNAB due to the improved USG equipments available today. Using the color doppler USG to evaluate the blood flow of the nodule has been suggested to be useful in determining malignancy risk. While the blood circulation at the periphery of the nodule is benign, the blood at the center of the nodule suggests a malignant nodule. Nodules according to the characteristics of blood circulation can be classified as; no circulation at all, perinodular blood flow, intranodular blood flow, and complete blood flow to the nodule. It has been suggested that intranodal type of blood flow increases the risk of malignancy in the nodule [2-4].

It has been accepted that 14-22% of cold nodules and 1% of hot nodules are malignant, although scintigraphy has gradually lost its importance nowadays. There are known problems in determining whether the nodules are cold or hot because the thyroid planes are projected on top of each other with only twodimensional image presentation, and even when the nodule remains behind a larger nodule where no vision is visible. Technetium-99 pertechnetate or radioactive iodine is used for thyroid scintigraphy. Most benign nodules and malignant tumors, all take less radioisotope than normal thyroid tissue [2]. According to our results; microinvasive papillary cancer was a separate problem. Many microinvasive papillary cancers are being skipped, but researchers claim that this cancer typeis not progressing, so the patient’s thyroid cancer will not cause a problem. As a result, microinvasive papillary cancer is not considered even to be malignant [7-11]. According to the results of our study, microinvasive papillary cancer was detected in 26 patients, but 12 of them were found incidentally in goiters with no cancer suspicion preoperatively. In our study, these patients were included in the cancer group since these mostly skipped patients although detected incidentally, they were treated as aggressive as other cancers. In fact, only 10% of all thyroid cancer patients in general are lost for a long time due to thyroid cancer [2].

It has been proven that more than one foci in one lobe, and even bilateral papillary thyroid cancer are not intraglandular metastasis of each other, since each of them come from separate cancer cell clones. Individuals with chromosomal breaks or with distinct environmental factors may develop separate synchronous cancers at several focuses, but these usually do not progress [8]. The results of frozen examinations were hardly ever applied in our series and were misleading when applied as also reported in the literature [9]. The normal upper limit of thyroid isthmus thickness is 5mm, so this value was taken as the upper limit of the thickness of the isthmus for our parameters.

We believe that total thyroidectomy does not cause more complications than other methods of thyroid surgeries. Similar experienced centers like our clinic do not increase the rate of harm to vocal cords due to recurrent nerve damage [2,12]. We think that the endoscopic examination

By a specialist in eye nose throat unit before and after surgery is useful for this purpose. Total thyroidectomy or completion thyroidectomy did not result in any cord paralysis in our series but transient parathyroid damage was more common than it has been reported in the literature, a result which could be attributed to higher incidence of hungry bone syndrome in Turkey. According to us, even minimally invasive thyroidectomy will not be performed when microinvasive cancer is detected in the near future. Considering many factors, although invasive thyroid cancer and microinvasive thyroid cancer are completely different diseases and different from each other, they are all treated in the same way due to lack of evidence unfortunately.

Go to

Conclusion

It has been detected that the absence of thickening of isthmus and the solid nature of nodules, both had statistical significance in regard to predictivity of suspicious nodules. Although not statistically significant, there were differences between the groups when any of the parameters of solitary nodule, solid nature, loss of perinodular halo, hypoechoic nodule, and large nodule diameter were evaluated. In contrast to the expectancy; the number and diameter of nodules, in addition to gender were not found to be of predictive value. Papillary cancer replaced the place of follicular cancer in Turkey. If we review the data of our patients with microinvasive cancer retrospectively, we canspeculate that most of these patients would not be operated on if they had been evaluated with internationally accepted parameters, and nevertheless would not have a life-long problem with thyroid cancer, too. It has been observed that the statistically significant USG findings for benign thyroid disease were a nodule almost totally filling a complete lobe, the presence of congromerulated nodules, and the increased thickness of the isthmus. Although they did not take part in the study group, 2 of the 6 patients (1/3) had residual cancer following completion thyroidectomies which was a result consistent with the related literature [2,13].

For more Journals in Juniper Publishers please click on https://juniperpublishers.com/journals.php

For more articles in Journal of Thyroid Research please click on: https://juniperpublishers.com/jetr/index.php

[itsayrewolf]

  As I lay me down to sleep, I find my insides are screaming, after a river recovery, I dropped by Denny’s. Of course Alex was there, so I scarfed down the chicken fried steak, listened to some old bats say how bad theirs was, then watched a very not in tune family, next to me and since the place was busy, didn’t get to chat too much, but she’s still on our crew so groovy. So earlier to day the day goes that once I had posted things of a southern nature, the grand gurus of the filtering censorship hardly dry behind the ears college youth at Facebook, had pulled nearly pulled all if not all of my pics, and much of anything confederate. Now its no big discovery, to know that the Knytes, myself and Facebook are not mutual friends. Hasn’t been since I once stood up to them just before PoohBear came to be with me. Since that time and since we posted talent recruitment ads, I couldn’t boost or buy advertising on Facebook if my life depended on it. Something that Facebook says they can’t find my address. Really? Hey Facebook punks, get out from behind your cubicles in California , fly to Burley Idaho and frigging look.  Same thing goes for Googles gurus. I have always said both social networks need to regionalize their sites. Yahoo, did that a few years ago , like wise Micro-Crap did that. That way if you saw something for sale, it was in YOUR neighborhood , not clear across the Union. Of course the way these social sites have things so restricted, you can’t get access to YOUR accounts, until you answer 20 questions. Much of which others know any whoo. Here’s a thought, why not ask what hour of the day(or night) you were born? There’s not too many people who other than you, the attending doctor, Hospital and your parents would know. Naw the algorythmic programmers have never conceived of that one. 

Well time to once again to go see Alex

TA TA 4 Now.

Dixie Nation News , Just Pappy. As I lay me down to sleep, I find my insides are screaming, after a river recovery, I dropped by Denny's.

[trans4business-blog]

AI (Artificial Intelligence) in eCommerce

Shift from Simple to Sophisticated

Business has long shifted from being just an open market of goods to the more sophisticated mechanism of various techniques and technologies working together in one bundle. Biology has merged with Electronics and the Technical World mingled with Humans. 

Technology Update

Now the microchipping has become quite common all over the place and the microcircuitry replaces human brains. Intel company has “implanted” a lot of their processors in PCs and has become brand number one in the IT market. We have chips inbuilt in the embossed Debit and Credit cards, chips on goods and commodities for tracking the cargo on the way to the destination. There are chips installed on vehicles for GPS monitoring and supervision.

Automation Integration

Any industrial production or manufacturing process can not do without the automated systems working based on logics and algorythms. Any transport now has multitude of sensors, transmitters or transducers for keeping the vehicle or machinery safe during operation. 

Internet as a human friendly environment

Internet has evolved into a normal human friendly environment which is taking over more and more fields of everyday life. All that pertains to normal communication activities in people’s lives has transferred to the online environment. Post mails turned into Emails, wire phone calls turned into cell phone talking, we have witnessed the emerging of a whole lot of different messengers and various internet based means of communication and data transfer. All the documents can now be easily put into electronic format and be sent in pdf or other formats.

AI in eCommerce

Like in any other sector, the automation or AI is also used in eCommerce. How it works? And what is it? 

In order to answer that question it is important to know that the online world is represented as a Big Data stored on many servers. This is actually what we depend on - kilograms of steel and plastic. Curious and ridiculous. But that is how the e-world exists and works. The artificial intellect collects the information about users from all parts of the world by tracking the IPs of PSc and monitoring the users’ behavior in the electronic media. 

Selective Software

The software integrated into and connected to the media scans the activities and based on the logics of the program decides and chooses the respective scenario for each user. Once the user takes an action the software triggers the established sequence or deliberately set of signals which are turned into certain actions in responce to what the user is doing online.

How AI tracks your searches

For instance, if you type in the “eCommerce online” in the search engine like Google, the software picks out your phrase and based on your request generates the leads to the websites offered by the software. So the software tracks you all over the internet and if you go to some public websites where the ads can be placed just shows you short info about the websites in question.

Is it good or bad? It is both. If the product or service shown by the software is of respective high quality it can be good, but if the service or goods is not what you are looling for it can be just a spam.

If you type the Translation Company phrase

Among other ads chasing you wherever you go in the internet, you may also notice the information about translation services or translation companies. It can also pop up in the place where Google advertisement normally shows up. Most of public websites that are visited by thousands a day or millions have an ad bar where such teasing information may appear. 

Who will translate documents?

If you are looking for translation company in order to translate documents in MS Word or PDF and type in the phrases like “translate pdf document online” or “need translation of documents from English to German” you will be suggested to visit some of the websites where such services are provided.

Professional Translation Company can be found also by searching the same in Google, Bing, or Yahoo. You can look for local translation services by typing in the respective key words in the search engine, like translation services UK or translation services New York or London. Of course, there is a great competition among translation agencies in the market. So to specify your request you can type in something like “translation from English to Japanese” or “translate pdf document from German to English” or the like.

Professional Language Translation

Anyway, when you choose the professional language translation provider you have to pay attention to a few things that can be a determinant of whether you will contract this agency or not.

First is the credibility or experience. You shall be able to learn more about the Companies from their references. Second is the capacity. They company should be able to easily handle your project whatever size and sector. Third is the price. The price for translation is important but the low price shall never be a perfect quality. So you have to look for something cost effective  - something neither expensive nor cheap.

[jvzooproductsclub]

Contractor Marketing Confidential Review & Bonus

Contractor Marketing Confidential Review & Bonus

Learn more here: http://mattmartin.club/index.php/2017/07/18/contractor-marketing-confidential-review-bonus/

Contractor Marketing Confidential is The Complete Guide To 6 Figures Working With Home Contractors. This system is a Master Template for getting your first client and then getting another and then yet another…until you have three to five clients each paying you $700 to $1,000 per month. You need the guidance, resources and a step by step formula so you don’t have to go at it alone. It has taken me over years of trial and error to develop this method of a sales funnel, getting past the gatekeeper and using LinkedIn to get in front of prospects. Every email in this system has been split tested to find the perfect combination of subject lines, and email copy that works for every service.The typical approach that most ‘consulting gurus’ advise is to spam business owners with the latest LinkedIn gimmick and MAYBE get a 10% response… The remaining 90% being angry emails and rejection (plus getting in trouble for spamming). They tell you to play the numbers game and sit through rejection after rejection before landing a single client. I show you how to build trust and have your contractor clients begging to meet with you.

You are probably asking why I am not keeping this to myself. Why am I letting the cat out of the bag? I want my students to be successful. I want to pay it forward to anyone out there struggling to make money from home or wanting leave the 9 to 5 rat race. Those people who need a little extra money to make ends meet. Those people who want to show their spouse or significant other that they can be a success working from home and it would be nice if they believed in their dream.You need to move fast on this right now though, the pre-webinar pricing is going away fast. As soon as I have the case studies I will increase the price to webinar pricing.Here’s what to do now: Click on the BUY NOW button below, fill out your information on the next page and click the buy button. After you complete your checkout, you will be given immediate access to the Offline Consulting Confidential Package.And I guarantee if you follow the step by step plan, you will be on your way to getting your first payment and generating at least $1,500 a month within your first 30 days.This is your last chance to get this course before the price goes up You only have that vacation, that new car, that house of your dreams, or finally proving to your spouse that you can do this work from home thing and you’ve made it to gain, and nothing to lose!!!

Contractor Marketing Confidential Review and Bonus by Jim Mack – Best New Method The Complete Guide To 6 Figures Working With Home Contractors will solve your problem, even if you have no technical experience.

The best part is making money with this system requires:

NO cold calling – Every business you contact is a warm lead who NEEDS something. I will show you an awesome way to make a cold call turn into a warm call. With this technique, the gatekeeper will love you! You won’t spend your time being told no. You will speak to only interested business owners. All you do is drop in, leave a present and come back in and get a thank you. I kid you not. Then set the appointment.

NO Experience needed – This program is designed to take you from day 1 and walk you through exactly what to do each day to be guaranteed 3 new clients in just 30 days. Everything is given to you in a copy/paste format that will have you sending out real proposals and real emails and earning real money each week of the challenge. You don’t have to be an SEO expert. You don’t have to know web design. You don’t have to be tech savvy. You will learn how to use LinkedIn to get contractors asking you to come see them. The same day! I prove it.

NO Technical Skills Needed – Just follow the instructions to learn by doing and land 3 clients in the process. You will get day-by-day instructions from ground zero, all the way to landing 3 clients in 30 days’ time. No website , phone lines are needed. Without start up costs you will be able to get started immediately. Making money in that first week. Giving you time and money freedom. Easing the burden and worry of the daily grind and paying bills.

Here Is What You Get In This Done For You Package:

The Complete Step by Step System that will quickly take you from an absolute beginner to expert. – My secret prospecting method designed to get you through the gatekeeper every time, my proprietary LinkedIn prospecting method, Facebook ad marketing, lead generation to get you that first client within your first week. These contractors will hire you to generate leads and perform other services (that you outsource) when you use this step by step system. I am going to show you how to get your foot in the door and make this process a no brainer for you. My methods will make the owner feel like they’ve known you for years, and instantly build trust. Which will make closing the deal a slam dunk. Putting money in your bank account in your first week.

The scientifically crafted Facebook ad marketing. – These Facebook ads are designed to get clients to respond bringing the contractor new business so you have a happy client paying you month after month. the business owner’s problem. I’ve used these same templates for years, and they always produce results, and no messing with SEO or Google’s algorythm changes. Get your message read and responded to every time. Which means more responses to your lead generation email, which means more clients, more money and freedom for you to actually enjoy life.

All of my free and paid lead sources to find contractors who are in DESPERATE NEED of your service. – You will learn every trick I have spent 3 years developing and find every local business database to find clients who are in need of the services you will offer. Most of these lead sources are completely FREE so you can land your first client by the end of the week with NO out of pocket expense. These secret hacks make your job easy finding the business owner who needs your help. You won’t waste your time contacting people who don’t need your help. This allows you to be laser focused and work with ninja like skills.

The Presentation Template to make closing the deals a no brainer. Show the business owner the proposal and just wait for the yes. The ‘non-sales’ approach in these done for you templates stands out and establishes rapport with your prospects while building credibility and trust that lead to a closed deal. This can be customized to each presentation so that you are the expert and there is no way the business owner can tell you no. That first client will lead to a second, and a third. Giving you the time and money freedom you want.

Sample non-disclosure and work agreements. – Protect yourself with the proper legal forms to ensure you get paid on time from every client, and they know EAXCTLY what they are getting in return. Never worry about getting paid on time. Always know when you help a business owner you are going to get paid.

The List Of Contractors In Desperate Need Of Your Help Is Endless

Heating and Air Conditioning Contractors

Plumbers

Roofing Contractors

Lawn and Landscape Contractors

Foundation Repair

Siding and Gutter Contractors

Foundation Repair

Fence Installation and Repairs

Handymen

Window Installation Contractors

Water and Fire Damage

And A Ton More…

This is NOT for everyone.

Because of this outrageous personal guarantee, I need to be upfront and tell you what is expected of you:

YOU need to spend at least 45 minutes-1 hour a day working on your business.

YOU must be an ethical, honest and provide the BEST service – NOT someone who just takes the money and runs.

YOU need to be able to follow step by step instructions. If you can meet these criteria, then this is the last program you will ever need.

And Picture This: (You can mark your calendar right now!)

It’s one year later. You took me up on my offer.

You’re now Totally Debt Free

You’ve said goodbye to your boss and are closer to your family than ever before. The only thing dragging you out of bed, is your early morning jog, maybe a game of golf…

You now laugh at your credit card statement. You laugh because you pay them in full each and every month… if this is what you want to do.

You now have choices! People can tell that you are enjoying life now.

You have an aura of calmness, and relaxed confidence.

You have a joyful smirk because you bank account balloons with all the money you stuff in here… legally. Money is not a concern anymore. Can you feel it?

Offer A 100% Risk-Free Money Back Guarantee

Now you can test drive our product for two months with NO RISK! If you think that our product is useless for you, simply contact our support, and will return 100% of your money. No Question Asked!

Contractor Marketing Confidential : FAQ

Q: Does this work outside the U.S.? A: YES! As long as you can open a PayPal account you can earn money as a consultant… no matter where you live. All the details are provided in the course.

Q: Can I do this all from my computer? (Or do I need to go door-to-door to sign up businesses?) A: YES! You can do it all from your computer. Remember, business owners are busy, too, so they’re happy to avoid a face-to-face meeting and get signed up over the phone or email via PayPal.

Q: Is there any upsell or OTO? A: Everything you need to get started as a consultant for local businesses is included in this program. NO Additional purchase is needed to make money! After purchasing you will have the option of buying extra sales materials to help you grow your business, yet these are only needed if you want to grow your business beyond 6-figures.

Q: Are there any other costs involved? A: NO! You can get started as a consultant with no other out of pocket expense. I handle my entire business from my Gmail account, which is a free email provider. All it takes is a few hours work each week sending out these emails in order to see results

Q: How much money can I make? A: There is no guarantee you will make any money when trying to sell services to business owners, in fact most new consultants don’t make any money at all because they take little action and give up quickly.

Q: How do I get paid? A: This program will teach you how to invoice business owners through PayPal and bill them every month. Once set up, you never have to worry about collecting money from your clients, everything is handled securely and automatically by PayPal.

Q: How fast can I get paid? A: How fast you can get paid depends on how much action you take. First time consultants have been getting paid in as little as 36 hours from starting when they follow the instructions.

If you buy through my affiliate link (just click on any link on this page) you get these bonuses below: 

СНЕСK ІТ NОW

Please Note: I only promote products I use or have used myself. All have great reviews, significant sales and low refund rates. I try to promote offers from reliable and trustworthy sellers with excellent track record about customer support and are in business for a while.

#Blog, #Marketing, #Traffic_General

[cstesttaken]

You Don't Need An Ad Agency; Do All Your Content Marketing and SEO In-House

Your business doesn’t need a pricey ad agency to handle its content marketing and SEO; hire a few key employees and create success on your own.

Outside help is great when you’re starting out. For a monthly retainer, a marketing agency can deliver all the expertise and creativity you need.

They don’t require any of the fixed costs or personnel issues full-time hires require. If you have to slash budgets, no one loses their job. Want to expand? Just buy more of their services.

It all works great – until it doesn’t. Maybe it’s because your agency doesn’t really know YOUR business or they’re charging you more what it would cost for a staffer to do the same job. Maybe you’d rather not share sensitive information with an outside firm.

There are plenty of reasons to bring content marketing in-house, and many companies are making the move. According to research from the Society of Digital Agencies, 27 percent of companies no longer work with outside agencies. That’s more than doubled from last year when it was 13 percent.

Some companies have brought their former agency’s staff in-house.

Simply cherry-picking a content marketing team from your former agency might sound attractive, but it’s risky. Many agency people like being at an agency – they consciously chose it over client-side work. They may not want to restrict themselves to just one company’s marketing.

The agencies themselves have protections against this and include language in their client and employee contracts that legally prohibit you from directly hiring their key talent.

It’s better to look somewhere else for talent.

Create a small in-house team to do your content marketing and SEO

Of course, finding a squad of talented marketing employees can be tough for small businesses. According to our recent “State of Small Business Report,” 50 percent of small business owners said hiring is one of their top three business challenges.

Recommended for You

Thankfully, you don’t need a large crew to bring your content marketing and SEO in-house. Most content marketing teams are pretty small – five people or less.

My own content marketing team is only made up of two employees.

Where do you start? Find a writer

Content marketing firm Kapost discovered 41.5 percent of companies choose a writer as their first content marketing hire.

Writers often get hired first because:

There’s so much writing to do that you can easily keep someone busy full-time.

They’ll give you a consistent voice for all your content.

Your writer needs to have a basic understanding of your company, industry and the key audiences you want to reach. Look for a writer who has a background in public relations or marketing communications; they tend to be more knowledgeable about how to build relationships with key audiences, have experience with social media and promotion, and can not only write content for various media, but can also help you develop your overall program. Many of these writers have also specialized in specific subjects or industries, so you’ll be getting a strong subject matter expert for your money as well.

If you’re looking for someone who is an established subject matter expert, check out blogs and websites in your industry that accept guest posts. Many of these writers who are looking for work will publish on these sites to gain exposure.

Good communicators are generally quick studies and can learn about the technical elements rather quickly. Your new writer should have a good understanding of SEO, specifically about how to use keywords and how to optimize a blog post.

You’ll need a good developer/designer

The medium is just as important as the messages your business is sending. Your content will fall flat if there are problems with the way it’s transmitted to your key audiences. With content marketing, these media include your website, graphics, presentations and other visual elements.

Find a designer who has experience with both website and graphic design. A good Web designer can create a site that is user-friendly with easy navigation, good organization, interactive features, data collection, sales capability and more. They can also help you with other graphic design elements such as creating presentations, ebooks and infographics.

A very good Web designer should also be knowledgeable about how SEO interacts with design.

Bring in a social media manager

Your writer may have a good background in writing for social media, but you will probably need to add someone who is very well-versed in other “social” functions that get your content to your key audiences. This person will take on all the content distribution work that includes posting on social media, engaging with social media users, promoting content and engaging in native ad creation such as sponsored content, branded content and advertorials.

Experience with email marketing is also a big plus here. Email marketing is a core function of content marketing because of the limitations of social media. Email marketing content such as newsletters allow you to directly capture your key audiences’ contact information and communicate with them directly without the restrictions imposed by social media platform’s algorythms.

Resist the urge to bring on an intern for this role. While they may be very familiar with the platforms, many interns do not understand how social media is an integral part of brand awareness and customer service. An inappropriate post or flippant response to a social media follower can do a tremendous amount of damage to your business.

The SEO expert rounds out the team

Your writer and designer knows the basics of SEO, but you really need an SEO expert to make the most of your content marketing. This person should be very knowledgeable about Google Analytics, website performance and data, and the technical elements of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Because of the required analytics skills, SEO people often sub as data analysts in other areas until your company grows enough to devote their full-time hours to marketing.

How do you know if you’ve got a good SEO person? It can difficult to assess their skills if you’re not an SEO expert yourself; thus, many business owners struggle with the decision to bring SEO in-house or keep it with a specialized SEO agency.

Use freelance help when you can

Hiring specialized content marketing professionals can seem a little daunting. Many businesses have had great success breaking away from agencies and hiring freelance professionals for their content marketing needs. Freelancers can charge a fraction of what agencies charge for services because they have minimal overhead costs, many of them have outstanding experience gained from working for Fortune 500 firms and top agencies.

The best way to find top freelance talent is to ask others for recommendations. While ad agencies probably won’t give up the names of the freelancers they work with, friends and colleagues who work in communications or marketing will. (I’ve received great referrals for freelance writers from some of my vendors.) Local chapters of professional organizations such as the American Marketing Association, the Public Relations Society of America and the International Association of Business Communicators can also be helpful. You probably won’t find the specialized talent you need on sites like Fiverr or Elance, but LinkedIn has several groups for freelance and solo professionals.

Conclusion

Those four positions are enough staff to build a serious content marketing program. As you continue to grow, stretch first with freelancers and then expand into full-time hires. You could even hire your old agency back for the occasional big campaign.

Source

http://www.business2community.com/marketing/dont-need-ad-agency-content-marketing-seo-house-01811243

[ambermorant]

13 Great Book Launch Strategies for 2017

We’ve all seen them, the huge flop of a book launch that gets no traction and you feel like you’ve failed as an author. I’ve been there multiple times and have had a chance to see what works and what doesn’t work. To prevent that from happening again, I’ve come up with a list of strategies to prevent sales from dunking or not happening at all. Obviously, these tips aren’t 100% fool proof and you may feel they do the opposite for you. However, as a general idea I have seen many of these be very successful for both those who are limited on funds and others who have a bigger pocket of money to use.

1. Beta Readers

For those who don’t know, beta readers read the book before it ever goes onto the shelves at stores. Usualy they are there to check if a book has plot holes or any grammar issues an editor may have missed. Beta readers are also your first line of reviews if you ask them after leaving a book to review it. It’s best to have a paperback version of your book available before the ebook launch happens so that way you have a page for them to leave the review on immediately and before anyone else goes to buy the book. If you are scared that a beta reader will steal your work, you can also have them sign an NDA but for the most part, beta readers follow the unspoken rule to not steal ideas or pirate the piece when they read it for you.

2. Street Teams

Street teams are the golden road for all social media. They are your most loyal of fans and can bring you the best reach when you need a boost. Having weekly, or daily if you are that motivated but weekly tends to be the most effective, missions for them to complete in different ways from pinning the cover of your book on pinterest, sharing a post on facebook, and even just sharing a favorite part in the series can help in different ways. So if you just need that extra boost, this is the perfect way to do it. In another post I will discuss how to actually build a street team from the bottom up.

3. Instafreebie

Who doesnt love a free book? Also, who doesn’t enjoy some emails for their newsletter in exchange for that free book. You don’t have to put your entire book on Instafreebie and a good way to build interest for that book launch is to have an excerpt of your book on Instafreebie and then email them when your book goes live. For those who love your book from the excerpt, you will be garunteed sales from those who are interested still. There is a 30 day free trial available from them but after that it will cost you. So keep that in mind when going into their service, but I haven’t heard anything bad from them yet.

4. Newsletter Book Blasts

In the world of Book Bub, authors are constantly wanting to be that next big author who gets featured in front of millions of authors. Obviously we all can’t get on there, but there are smaller Newsletter Blast service providers that will still be just as effective if you know what you are doing. A few that I know of top of my head are GenreCrave by Rebecca Hamilton and Romancing the Dragon by Jen McDonnel. Both are great and have a strong base of readers in their newsletters that are willing to grab a copy of your book. They also have additional services you can use to help in boosting the word out as well. Newsletter Blasts can obviously be used whenever, but if you need that boost for launch, this would be a great way to add to it.

5. Review Blogs

Who says that blogs are a dying breed? Obviously not these reviewers who are still creating a strong fan base that trust them on finding the next greatest books. You can easily find some on Facebook by just typing in “review” or “reviewer” or just “book” and do a little digging into your preferred genre. Make sure that what they review usually isn’t too outside of your target audience or you wont find many sales from it. So if you write epic fantasy but the reviewer has a lot more focus and attention to urban fantasy, you may not appeal to a lot of their audience. There will be some crossoveer, but not by much even though it is still fantasy.

6. Facebook Parties

These used to be a big hit on facebook before they changed how events look. Though if you can get enough interest and do a multi-author event, these can be still fairly effective and great for multiple calls to action during your time at the party to advocate your books. It’s beneficial to have your teasers and posts planned out beforehand so when it comes to party time you spend less time typing and more time interacting with the audience. If you want to find some, its best to connect with other authors in your genre and ask around about current or new parties possibly coming out. Just because they don’t post about it often doesn’t mean that it’s not happening.

7. Facebook Live

Live is getting HUGE boosts from Facebook right now. If your app is up to date, it will even notify you when people are live or had gone live since you last checked. It’s good to be consistent with these videos so people can join in on them constantly and go live beforethe book launch so you can get readers hyped for the launch even more. If you got the paperback version with you, showing off how it looks in real life can be one idea for your advertisement of the launch or doing a live reading for people to enjoy. Like the Street Teams, I will be doing a more in depth look at how as writers you can use Facebook Live or the other live video promotions to get more traction from readers.

8. Takeovers

For this you need to build trust and interactions with the writer you are wanting to do the takeover with. You don’t want to host a takeover on a Facebook page that was built on Science Fiction and you write Contemporary Romance. You could incorporate a lot of the other tips from this list into a takeover and do a mixture of posts during your takeover time. What can also be beneficial is letting the other author do a takeover on your page as well as a trade so that way both of you can meet new readers in your market and showcase your work to them versus your constant readers from your own page.

9. Newsletter Swaps

This tip goes hand in hand with Newsletter Blast services. Obviously you need a decent newsletter size for this of 1000+ for some trades but once you hit that, there will be plenty of people willing to trade. If you are in any author groups, just ask around to see if anyone is willing to feature your book in their newsletter in return for a feature in your own newsletter. Many are always up and willing to do trades but don’t let that mean you accept everyone and anyone. They need to be close to your target audience or it will just be a dud for the both of you in terms of sales. Note: These are all free so don’t always expect sales from the swap but enjoy that you were shown in front of a large audience so that they may remember you another time.

10. Newsletter Trickle Effects

If you have your list labeled on who clicks the most, you can seperate your list up based on that and trickle emails out to readers to spread the word. Having the least clicked readers first and the most clicks last can help with Amazon algorythms. If they see that your book sales are constantly growing in size, they will begin to also advertise the book more and your rank will go higher faster than if purchases stay at a constant rate or even drop from the first day to the 7th.

11. Ads

My biggest downfall but perhaps not yours. An ad on Facebook could bring you a lot of eyes on your book and potentially a lot of clicks to purchase it as well. You need to really understand your audience before you do an ad that way it is extremely targetted and you know you wont have a lot of empty “reach” from the ad. Personally, I do a boosted post as it is already getting interaction as is by my own fans, so when more see the interaction, they are willing to see what all of the importance is about and keep boosting reach. Just keep playing around to see what works for you and go from there on this one.

12. Goodreads

Goodreads is reader central! If you want to find reviewers, readers, and all around die-hard fans, this is the place to go. There are even dedicated groups just for authors to find fans for their book and get reviews while others are for readers to talk about what they loved or hated about a book It can be great research in that sense so you can connect with readers on a different level and see how they think versus how you believe they think. Even setting up a profile and linking your boost is a boost as everyone begins to add your book to their shelves and then becomes highly searchable through Google.

13. Thunderclap/Headtalker

An all-time favorite of many launches for any launch. They both operate in the same fashion of setting up a page and a message that those who support you will send out automatically on the day you decide to publish. Thunderclap is the most trusted, but at the price of you needing at minimum 100 people supporting you for the message to go out. With headtalker, you can set a much lower count that you expect and the support can keep growing from there. Both connect Facebook and Twitter for the messages so make sure to use hashtags while each has their own other special social medias you can also have someone support with.

  So tell me, what other ways do you make your book launch a success? Comment below with your own personal tips.

13 Great Book Launch Strategies for 2017 was originally published on Amber Morant