I wasn’t planning on addressing this again but I’ve been pushed to that point, after getting multiple harassing e-mails and having to spam multiple harassing comments in light of certain things I’ve said (and many of which from people I don’t even know, which leads me to believe people are getting involved who don’t know what’s going on, and don’t know what they’re talking about). I have also now seen it around that I am apparently “delusional” and “mentally ill”. I have never made it a secret of the fact that I have PTSD but one of the telltale signs of a cult is that when a member plans exit strategy, a smear campaign and character assassination is run against the individual who is leaving. Also, several of my friends on LiveJournal have been harassed by one particular individual belonging to this group who has threatened to de-friend them (oooh, scary) if they keep me friended. I never did that to them, as it’s not my job to police people’s LJ friends and being on someone’s LJ doesn’t mean you’re necessarily best buds, either. But again, such is typical tactics employed by cult groupthink.
But because people have decided to harass me and have decided to harass friends of mine for deigning to associate with me, the gloves come off now. This is directed at “the spirit-worker community” particularly as typified by those closely associated with Cauldron Farm, and some of their associates, and some of their associates and so on it goes, who have chosen to participate in the drama. It is not directed at all “spirit-workers” nor is it directed at personal friends of mine or people who read my blog for regular musings on the Vanir and the Vanic side of Heathenry, or Heathen issues from a Vanic perspective. I do not like posting this here at all but clearly it needs to be said.
While some would like to think this all came out of left field yesterday due to an interpersonal conflict with someone else, or “mental instability”, the fact is I have been vocally critical of things since at least March 2008, more so from fall 2008 on, and have been for the last few months of 2009 trying to sever my ties in the cleanest way possible with minimal damage done to myself or others. I guess, again, my complaining was ignored or minimized by those privy to it.
This is not a mere disagreement of ideology or theology. This is not me pointing the finger and saying “You don’t do things exactly as I do them, so you are wrong.” I’m not the Vanapope and while I have clear ideas as to what is acceptable and not in Heathenry, this has nothing to do with ideology or thinking I’m superior to everyone.
As I have said in a previous post, for months I had people coming between me and my Gods, claiming to speak for my Gods especially Frey, tell me things wildly contradictory of what He had said to me or asked me to do, and tried to micromanage me including in my diet and my relationship with my partner. I stopped this, but still wanted to be “nice” to people. I have less of a problem with the fact that I was manipulated and condescended with statements like “you’re a baby spirit-worker” or “your signal clarity is off” despite the fact that I have been dealing with Gods since 1995, than I do with what I have observed in the behavior of others. I had to second guess and second guess everything until finally I had enough. But it wasn’t just about me. In December of 2008 I was e-mailed by someone who was told by a well-known spirit-worker Odin denied them medical treatment for a fatal condition if untreated. That was when my hackles went way, way up.
When the first spirit-work blog came out I decided to submit an essay because to my knowledge there would be multiple voices on multiple issues and even if I disagreed with certain things, I thought it was a good idea at the time. I had no idea it would quickly escalate into promoting God-slavery and ordeal work predominantly, and I asked to pull my submission and not be listed as a contributor. I cited my position in my org creating a liability and that is not a lie (although I have had full disclosure with my org on my spiritual history, and I am still there obviously) but there is no nice way to tell someone directly “Uh, this really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
I never plotted or schemed about going public with this. I didn’t want to.
And I sat on it, but the last and most damning thing was “the Odin blot” as given at Cauldron Farm in March 2009. When we look at the details of this “Odin blot” as given in an account online, you can see why I would decide I want no part of “the spirit-worker community” even after distancing myself for months, and why I felt it was time to say something.
I’ll skip the initial parts and get to the meat as it were.(Freya'scomment don;'t bother withe screenshots I've copied it in full underneath)
According to a medical professional I spoke with, the saline injection could have been fatal, even if done by a person with professional medical training. If it were fatal, this could have gotten on the six o’ clock news and been ugly for everyone involved.
Also, talk about Odin’s ordeals for wisdom all you like, but I don’t recall where it said in the lore that He chained Himself to a pole and had stuff shot up into His chest. More to the point, Odin is a God, not a human. And His quest for wisdom was for a specific purpose, it wasn’t All Ordeals All the Time. It was a means to an end, as opposed to an end in and of itself.
Now, I am not opposed to all rites of passage and do not think there is no validity in feeling pain and giving it as an offering. Contrary to words people have put in my mouth, I am not anti-kink (per se) nor against certain aspects of the ordeal path - I am a magician. I am not opposed to things such as body modification, somafera, sens-dep or suspension under controlled circumstances, and think there is a precedence in our tradition for blood and sex magic. However, it should not be an everyday or frequent thing or it loses its value and is cheapened over time, and it should not be promoted as the main path to Deity, especially for those who have lived long enough in darkness and don’t need to keep dwelling on it. The very occasional ordeal done once in a great while safely and sanely is one thing; this is way out of line.
Another point: How, exactly, do you expect a rape survivor to react to someone who proclaims to be re-wired as a sexual predator by one of my Gods? (Whether or not this individual says she would act on it or not, the fact that this is being broadcast on the Internet with an “Odin forced me to put it here” creeps me out and would creep out any sane person, history of sexual assault or not. This is not someone I would want teaching my children, if I had any.)
If people think I’ve gone too far, I have more where this came from. I didn’t want to go here at all and it gives me no pleasure to do so, not even in anger and spite. Mostly I just feel sad. However, those who harassed me have brought it upon themselves and their mighty leaders. The biggest mistake anyone in this movement has made is thinking that “Frey is a pacifist” and ergo I must be one too. That because I used to run and hide in the face of conflict, that some Net-stalking and bullying is enough to make me shut down.
You are wrong.
Presuming that even if I wanted to shut down, this is a matter of my conscience bothering me, not because I think I’m superior, but because I see some people who I previously cared about putting themselves and others in danger, and things getting more bloody and painful over there over this past year. I know they won’t listen to me. I write this less for them and more for someone who is or will be in a position that I was in 2 years ago, burnt out by mainstream Heathen opposition to mysticism in many circles, wanting to find other mystical people and naturally gravitating towards those who have the most prolific body of work both online and in books.
It is very easy to see some of these books and think it’s pretty mild, versus what is going on here.
As far as the person who said if I have concerns I should keep my mouth shut or go to the authorities, obviously I am not going to broadcast online if I go to the authorities or not. That is not something I would be stupid enough to share with anyone.
As far as the allegation of slander, MAYBE YOU WANT TO READ A LAW DICTIONARY BEFORE YOU USE WORDS YOU DON’T KNOW THE MEANING OF. IT ISN’T SLANDER IF I’M POINTING OUT THINGS THAT ARE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET FOR THE WHOLE GODDAMN WORLD TO SEE. I have, in fact, gone to a lawyer for counsel in this to make sure I am within my legal rights. And I’m not making this shit up - go see it for yourself. Google “Fruit of Pain” and “Blood for the Divine”. Go and judge for yourself. Saying “group X is involved in Y” when Group X has accounts of Y publicly available is a lot different than making allegations of “Oh golly gee whiz, group X is involved in Y and I think they’re doing Z”. Even without speculations I have of what might happen later down the road (which I haven’t really voiced too much), it’s offensive enough. It has nothing to do with me supposedly being a Fundietru who thinks anyone who doesn’t do things by the book is WRONG. It has to do with what I just showed you, which any healthy and well-adjusted person would have a problem with.
But clearly, for those who think I should be “nice” and “STOP OPPRESSING PEOPLE” and be more “open-minded and tolerant”, the memo must have been lost with the words of Odin Himself, whose image would be twisted and perverted:
I counsel thee, Loddfafnir,
Wherever of injury thou knowest,
regard that injury as thy own;
and give to thy foes no peace.
If you think you are going to intimidate me into shutting my blog down through the harassing e-mails and comments, you have another thing coming. If you want me to call off the dogs, I suggest you stop making your presence known in my worldspace and let me return to using this blog for what I intended it to be, rather than continually having to do “damage” control. (I put the word “damage” in quotes because I am just shaking so hard in my boots over here.) Because I will not be intimidated into silence on this issue. I sat on this issue for months, in fact, wanting to be “nice” and “play fair”. I think I was fair and reasonable above and beyond the call of that duty.
Again, I’d rather have integrity than popularity. It was a very complicated process of severing ties and doing what I had to do, not because I think I’m perfect, but because I don’t want blood on my hands. I am aware I shot myself in the foot with regards to my primary reading audience and who buys my books, and it’s going to be awhile before I appeal to a broader Heathen audience if I ever do (frankly, I still have deep issues with greater Heathenry in the US; the org I’m in, while absolutely Heathen, is not business-as-usual, thank Gods, but I’m aware outside of it I’m persona non grata and a lot of that is my own fault, which I’m trying to work on). But again, I’d rather have integrity even if it is inconvenient.
To readers of my blog who are here for Vanic thoughts and not TEH DRAMAH, I would apologize for being off subject several times now, but I’m sure you can understand this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
To those who have a problem with what I have said here, nobody is putting a gun to your head forcing you to read my blog. I have only brought up the contents of those blogs because I was alerted to their existence by others and quite frankly I don’t want to read any of it past what I’ve read, so I don’t. If you think I’m mean and that I’m “persecuting” you, who are the ones making harassing e-mails and spamming my blog with snarky comments? Not me.
We will return to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. If any of my readership has a chance to get involved with “the spirit-worker community” I strongly advise against it. There is a need for alternate mystical voices in Heathenry, now, and alternate information.
Comments disabled because this is not up for debate or negotiation. I have better things to do with my time today than play Internet Cop, and I don’t want to give this bullshit any more attention than I already have. But if you think I’m going away because you can swing your weight around on or offline, you have another thing coming.
ETA 04/28/08: Due to this site getting a lot of traffic based largely on this post, I have also added the page Notice of Disassociation with Northern Tradition Paganism for some further thoughts on my criticism of Kaldera’s group. Feel free to read it, or don’t.
Freya.s opinion.
Please do! Here it is underneath.
I began working with the Northern Gods in 1996, after attempting to make nice with other pantheons and finding them to be disinterested. It did not occur to me until years later, when I got involved in Heathenry, that not everyone had the same experiences and “woo” as myself. On my quest for reality checks and sanity, I tried to find like-minded others, but would get criticism just for very innocuous things like being a woman who was oathed to a very masculine Deity (Ing-Frey), or actually seeing the wights and being mindful of their likes and dislikes (as opposed to them just being an abstract concept).
Shortly after moving to California, in early 2007, I discovered the writings on the Cauldron Farm site. Some of it (though not all) hit home with me, and months later when I put out a call for submissions for a Frey devotional book*, I got in contact with some of the people involved in the “spirit-worker” movement. Around the same time I caught crap from local/regional Heathens and did not know why. But I felt since no Heathen group would have me (which was a very wrong assumption on my part), I might as well jump in with both feet. At first it was refreshing to find others who claimed to deal with the Gods in the same way, and there was a “shiny new honeymoon period”.
However by March 2008 I started to have my first dose of serious criticism, mostly surrounding the issue of “God-slavery”. This criticism deepened during fall 2008 and finally came to a head at the beginning of this year, when I felt burnt out, bitter, and definitely psychologically abused and manipulated by some of this movement’s leaders (though not all).
When I finally went public with some criticisms (most notably in this post and this one) I got harassment both via e-mail and through spam comments, which leads me to believe that the majority of adherents to this movement cannot take criticism of it.
For those who feel “oppressed” and “persecuted” and that I am making shit up or being unfair, consider that I do not speak out as a way to say “I’m right and you’re wrong, nyarr,” or to say “Do things as I do or you’re wrong” as I consider myself to be pretty liberal and live-and-let-live on these topics, however what I am addressing is practices that are illegal and unethical and if the crap hits the fan with media or authorities it will reflect badly on all who name these Gods as the ones they honor.
For those who would think I speak “slander” the legal reality is that my speaking out is not slander if I am merely pointing out things this group is recording of their own experiences and putting on the Internet for literally the whole world to see.
And for those who would seek to bully me online in a trollish attempt to shut me down, you’re not doing your cause any favors, if anything that just strengthens my resolve for the truth to be known, so other people don’t get themselves into the position where I was at.
But with regards to my own experiences and observations - and I only speak for myself on this - I have to say the following:
Part of what attracted me to Heathenism is the concept that we can worship the Gods without groveling, that They are strong and want us to be strong. The Gods are not going to micromanage your life for you; They may intervene in some areas but They’re not going to do it all the time, nor should They. It’s not an offering if it’s not freely given, there is no point of worship if it is not through free will. I come from a fundamentalist Christian background so admittedly I may be more sensitive to this issue than some, but the idea of working with the Gods on empowerment, rather than being subservient, appealed to me and still does.
This does not in any way mean that I think of serving Gods as degrading, per se. Being clergy is a service position. There is something to be said about there being great power in helping others reach their potential. Of course, this position can be easily abused, but I digress.
In any case, I still think there is a difference between service and non-consensual slavery. No bully is worth my worship, there is no power in being powerless, and the Germanic Gods as I know Them are not like that.
I have had what I can only describe as clairvoyant experiences since childhood. I have an extremely high accuracy rate with foretelling things, and began to spae for other people in my late teens. This undoubtedly made my life interesting, and traumatic experiences made life even more interesting. One of the unfortunate things with this group is if you are a spae or a witch and appear to be gifted, they will puff it up and make it more than what it actually is especially if you are psychologically fragile or have ever had a major health problem in your past. I am a seer and many wyrd things have happened to me. I have made things happen with magic. At the same time, I do not consider myself to be a shaman, and I definitely think my Gods have better things to do with Their time than ring my spirit-phone every five minutes and micromanage my existence. I do not claim my abilities to be anything than what I say they are. I also believe that things like seership are useless or at the very least cannot reach their full potential if not in service of a community. And by community I mean people you know in person, not people you only know through the Internet.
What I saw was a lot of people feeling sorry for themselves and whining about the Gods to the point of using very vulgar epithets to describe the Gods, and talking about being “forced” to give away all their possessions or adhere to extreme diets or do such-and-such radical behavior that seemed very “off” to me. While I have in fact studied the anthropology of shamanism, none of these people truly fit the mold. We could get into the argument of whether or not there was any shamanism in proto-Germanic or Germanic tribes but I’ll save it and just say that I had what I could describe as “shaman sickness” and a deconstruction process that lasted several years, but my life is really good and stable now. I am not stuck in darkness and self-loathing and resentment of my Gods. (Of course, I don’t consider myself a shaman. Priest-in-training, spae, and witch, but not shaman.) After a time one has to move forward with their lives and I see the “shaman sickness” with this group as being ongoing rather than a thing that happens and is done. That contradicts the information recorded by anthropologists of classic shamans who have shaman sickness and never repeat it unless they are really out of line. It is not an ongoing process. In fact, one could argue there are many things that absolutely do not fit the paradigm of classic shamanism, but I am not going to hit below the belt with all of that.
I find the expectation that being in intensive Deity relationships SHOULD suck and if you’re not a “grouchy spirit-worker” you’re doing it wrong to be offensive at best, hindering to people’s exploration of Deity at the worst. I personally think of our connection to the Gods as an honor and a privilege, rather than something to lament.
And again, I think there’s something to be said about bullies not being worth worship and a time to say no, especially because Deities like Odin are known for testing Their people to see what they are made of, to stand up to Them. It’s not arrogant hubris to at least question what’s going on, especially when the Gods are our friends and our family. Ultimately if someone does not question what they perceive to be the Gods’ will, it bears asking, If the Gods told you to rape someone, is it Their will? What about murder? If the Gods told you to commit suicide, would you do it? If the answers to these questions are “yes” or “I would get an outside opinion first” rather than an outright “NO” I have to ask if you are really dealing with the Gods at that point. (Saying “They would never ask me that” doesn’t count, that’s not an option considering the extreme situations I have addressed.) While I can understand the concerns of putting community before the Gods, there can be a balance of good of the community and desire of the Gods, rather than one against the other.
I also feel that I was misled about how deep some associates of this group are/were involved in worship of hostile thurses. I felt and still feel that giants like Gerda, Bestla, Sunna and Mani, Jarnsaxa, Ran and Aegir, Rind, and Hel/Halja are undervalued Deities in Heathenism and do not get as much attention or honor as They should, “minor” Gods or not. Some years ago I had an argument with a gentleman who said, and I quote, “Skadhi stopped being a Jotun when She was adopted into the Aesir.” I guess this makes my partner Prussian by alchemic osmosis, then. I do feel that Beings have a right to be respected for who and what They are, rather than Their background and culture being disrespected. I have the same reaction when this is done to the Vanir, believe me.
That said, I had been led to believe that certain groups did not as a rule honor Fenris and Jormundgand because “they don’t normally call people”. And as I said, I feel that I was misled and deliberately, especially after hearing of a “Fenris blot” that was done when I was not in attendance or membership of a group, and would not have approved of and would in fact have been a deal-breaker for me, and I had made that known.
While I believe there was an earlier time of etin worship in Paleolithic and Neolithic Europe, I take this to mean the impersonal giants who are elementals and land masses. I do not believe Fenris or Angrboda for that matter were original giant Deities of the Northern people. I don’t think any human being has the power to bring on Ragnarok and as an Anglo-Saxon Heathen I don’t believe in Ragnarok, it is only in Icelandic sources and notably absent from Old English, Continental Germanic, and even Scandinavian (non-Icelandic) sources. However, I look at the worship of destructive thurses as akin to Goetic demonolatry in that it does bring chaos and destruction into one’s own life and that of those around them. Moreover, our Gods do have enemies.
There is a difference between etins and thurses and it is an unfortunate tendency of many American Heathens to conflate all giants as etins and all etins as bad, full stop, and on the other side NTPs conflate all giants as “Rokkr” (I previously made this mistake, as it was in common usage with this crowd for all giants, and yes I was stupid enough to do so, I don’t do it now) or say the “Rokkr” are their gods (which would assume that all giants are in favor of these beings) and all “Rokkr” are supposedly the underdogs because the “mean” Vanir and Aesir supplanted them. Worshipping these beings again will not bring on Ragnarok but it is not productive and in my nearly two years of close observation of those who worship the most destructive of these beings primarily or frequently, I feel I am correct in my observation that it is detrimental to a healthy life and preserving what is good about the human spirit.
It is not anything someone on a Vanic path should support.
Ultimately, the greatest issue at hand is that I do not agree with UPG instead of primary sources. The very phrase “Northern Tradition” is a misnomer when used in this context because there seems to be an overwhelming lack of respect for tradition. When UPG is unchecked by traditional precedence the majority of the time it can be very dangerous, and leads to things like the concept of “God-slavery” and resulting self-injury and/or injury to others, or the worshipping of entities destructive to the human spirit which has no foundation in our lore and is antithetic to the Heathen way.
Obviously I don’t do everything by the book either - if you haven’t noticed the title of this site is Vanic Thoughts and just for identifying as Vanatru I myself have gotten crap. But I try to make sense and I try to be respectful. Unfortunately if you question the UPGs and some of the stranger practices and especially if you are being “mentored” by someone in this movement and you disagree or put your foot down on some radical change they tell you that your Gods want you to make, you are told your “signal clarity” is off or with regards to the practices that “you need to be more open-minded”. At some point there’s a place where your mind can be so open your brain falls out.
I have posted all of this as a way to not only warn people against getting involved with this group if they have occasion to do so, but to mention a few areas where I take responsibility and the blame, for better understanding as to why someone would get involved at all:
1. I should have known better.
2. Instead of feeling burnt out by Heathenry I should have tried harder to find compatible people to fellowship with. I didn’t try hard enough. I should have been more mature.
3. I felt marginalized due to being a mystic. As I explained in my Sane Mysticism post, this doesn’t help with credibility and only made me come off like a whiny ass. Mysticism in and of itself does not entitle me to jack shit; as my mother says “the proof is in the pudding”.
4. I should have done more of my research on the group before falling for it hook, line, and sinker.
5. I should have trusted my intuition when I got the red flags of warning back in 2007, but I wanted to be “nice”.
6. I should have repudiated them a long time ago, although in fairness untangling myself from this crap has been rather like defusing a bomb. Cutting the wrong cords too soon can be bad. Of course, things exploded anyway, and I feel regardless of what people think of my theology or my person I am trying to do the right thing by putting the warnings out there.
In case anyone is wondering, I have given full disclosure to my organization with regards to my spiritual history (and where exactly I stand) and I’m still there, in a leadership position even. I am at this point in my life attempting to repair my reputation and maegen and work on the growth and maintenance of my local Hearth and my organization, and the betterment of greater Heathenry as a whole. Ultimately I feel that due to some hostility in Heathen circles towards magic and mysticism**, I was pushed towards this group, and while I acknowledge my own part to play in flinging poo from the sidelines, I think it truly says something that there really was no “middle way” for people who are mystical but are essentially Heathen. I hope to be one of the voices that can forge a middle way for people like myself, or not like myself. Ultimately beating myself up and making apologies is not going to solve anything. Trying to be a part of the solution rather than the problem can help, though.
And obviously if you’re not mystical, there’s nothing wrong with that. Personally I think mysticism is perhaps overrated in Neopaganism. Heathenry in particular has room for “just regular folks”. There are other ways to contribute to the good of your tradition and community without having the “woo-woo” on 24/7. In fact, I recommend it. You are your deeds, and you could have all the profound visionary insights in the world and at the end of the day, if your deeds are bad, your “woo” means nothing.
My last point of criticism with the phrase “Northern Tradition Paganism” comes from the fact that it’s awkward to say and assumes that somehow there is a copyright on the word Heathenry reserved only for recons. The fact is, nobody in modern Heathenry is a strict recon. It’s impossible. There is some room for older customs and traditional precedence but very few people are doing everything exactly as it was done. I feel the term “Northern Tradition Paganism” is ultimately causing more divisiveness to show “Look how we’re not Heathen” except that the adherents of this movement are in fact using our terminology and are claiming to work with our Gods.
Ultimately, I feel as a whole this movement is not contributing to the future and betterment of polytheist traditions, is not something I can condone as a healthy personal spirituality, and not something I can affiliate with in good conscience. Those who read this blog and are associated with the NTP movement should keep this in mind before they decide to comment or even if they want to continue reading this blog. Those who have made assumptions about where I stand on certain issues based on past associations may also want to take note.
I have moved on, and am attempting to pay my scyld for these associations and damage done. I respect that community is not for everyone, but my fulltrui Ing-Frey is a God of community and stability, not the fringe of society. I would be falsely representing Him if I did not at least try harder to help build sane Heathen community - weaving more frith, rather than stirring up strife.
____________________________________________________________
*This book, which was published through Asphodel Press in August 2008, I have removed from circulation as of April 2009 due to the associations behind it and what I feel is accumulated bad Wyrd. While I am grateful to the people at Asphodel who worked hard on formatting the book and helped me get my foot in the door, my gratitude only extends so far and I feel that ultimately my fulltrui deserves something better. For those curious or concerned, I will be putting out a Frey book of my own work at the end of 2009.
