{"id":46411,"date":"2018-11-21T04:02:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T04:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/21\/every-magician-is-a-thief-2\/"},"modified":"2018-11-21T04:02:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T04:02:00","slug":"every-magician-is-a-thief-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/21\/every-magician-is-a-thief-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Magician is a Thief"},"content":{"rendered":"

emergentanimism<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
<\/figure>\n

Cultural appropriation in magick has always been a sticky
\nissue. From Crowley incorporating yoga into his magick outside of the Hindu
\nbelief structure, to the Romans stealing entire pantheons of gods, people seeking
\nspiritual experience have always seen the neighbor\u2019s grass and felt envy. Most
\nof this comes from a genuine respect of those cultures, and a feeling that
\ntheir own culture doesn\u2019t have what they need to express their own
\nspirituality. So they steal.<\/p>\n

For the magus, the biggest danger here comes from taking
\nthings out of context. No spiritual practice occurs in a vacuum. The people whose
\ntraditions are being stolen have every right to say, \u201cNo. You\u2019re doing it
\nwrong. That\u2019s not how that works.\u201d Because their practice only works in their
\nspecific cultural milieu. In most instances, you will never get it right and
\nyou will never understand because you were not raised in that culture.<\/p>\n

Not to mention that this kind of stealing most often comes
\nin the context of colonialism. Greece was Rome\u2019s colony when they decided to
\nmake off with an entire pantheon of gods.<\/p>\n

But this doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t learn from other cultures.
\nIt doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t use their concepts as a part of your own practice. It
\ntakes some work. But if you\u2019re willing to do it right and put things in the
\ncontext of your own culture and your own locality, it\u2019s going to work better
\nfor you in the long run.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example. In my attempt to rebuild by own paradigm
\nwith a stronger foundation, I\u2019m still doing a lot of ancestor work, but I am
\nthinking about the next step. In the working theory of Emergent Animism that
\nmeans contacting a wider range of spirits, which includes spirits of place or
\nspirits of the land. Recently, one of my followers (thank you again @aweandimagination)
\nreminded me about Shintoism\u2019s strong animistic beliefs. So I did some poking
\naround, and one thing I noticed right away were the shrines, some huge and
\nelaborate structures, but others tiny roadside shrines dedicated to local Kami.\n<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n

They instantly reminded me of the Thai Spirit Houses I
\nlearned about from Jenx and his interviews on Runesoup. (Go and
\nlisten to those episodes if you want to learn how to be respectful to other
\ncultures.<\/a>)\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n

So I want to do something similar. I think building a shrine
\nto leave offerings and make a connection to land spirits would be extremely beneficial
\nin getting to know those spirits and honoring them. But I certainly don\u2019t want
\nto build a \u201cThai Spirit House.\u201d I\u2019m not in Thailand. Why would the spirits near
\nme understand the symbolism and motifs of that culture? So I did some more
\nresearch.<\/p>\n

Actually, I already knew that the Ancient Greeks created
\nthousands of tiny shrines to local ancestors and spirits. In fact, the general
\npopulace in Greece were much more concerned with those spirits than they were
\nwith the fuckery of Zeus, Apollo, and their buddies. Those are gods for the
\nnobles. They have rich people problems. The commoners were much more concerned
\nabout how they can appease the spirit of that big ass rock so they don\u2019t piss
\nit off when they go plowing all the land around it. What I didn\u2019t know was that
\nthe practice continues to this day. The names have changed, with the shrines
\nbeing dedicated to saints, but they sure look like a continuation of the
\nancient traditions.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n

Chances are, if you see a magical practice in another
\nculture that appeals to you, dig just a bit, and you\u2019ll find something similar
\nin your own culture. That practice will probably make more sense to you, and
\neven if it doesn\u2019t, why not give it a try? You should also be tailoring it to
\nlocal traditions and listen to the spirits and ask them what they want.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m not going to build a Shinto shrine or a Thai Spirit
\nHouse. It won\u2019t have peaked and curved Asian architecture. I won\u2019t leave
\nstrings of tropical flowers as offerings. I won\u2019t be including Eastern Orthodox
\nicons either. Incense, water, beads, these things are universal, and
\nappropriate. But I will be using local products and things that resonant in my
\nculture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You should research other cultures and be inspired by their
\nmagick. You should be awed by the great variety of spiritual practice in this
\nworld. But you should also be amazed when you learn that the core concepts
\nthemselves cut across cultures and across time. A true thief steals because they
\nare lazy and don\u2019t want to do the work themselves. Do the work. \u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

emergentanimism: Cultural appropriation in magick has always been a sticky issue. From Crowley incorporating yoga into his magick outside of the Hindu belief structure, to the Romans stealing entire pantheons of gods, people seeking spiritual experience have always seen the neighbor\u2019s grass and felt envy. Most of this comes from a genuine respect of those … Continue reading “Every Magician is a Thief”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}