The Crafts: Wixes, Spells, and the Weaponized Placebo Effect

hey, your results aren't all in yet! for all you know, some of the key people that made it in downticket will be our shield against the BS. or your spell helped give energy to nongovernmental organizations that will help protect liberties.

 

Yeah, but that should have happened before his election. The guy's the definition of hubris. I have no idea what the fuck She's planning here.

 

If one person could do a spell and alter the outcome of an entire national election, that would honestly be even more worrying than the Cheeto. It wasn't you.

 

Yeah, if you affected anything it's more likely that it was at the local or even state level, where a lot of good things did happen I will beat that horse until even necromancers have no use for it.

I'm probably gonna go out and burn some of my lily-of-the-valley tonight - I have no idea what the mystical symbology of it is but given how poisonous the plant itself is, I think it'll be good for burning out the toxic feels.

 

I feel like this situation is all the more reason for me to listen to the Morrígan. If anything my faith in her has been bolstered. Yes, shit's bad and yes unjust things are happening and will happen but she's never been all powerful. And indeed her help often seems...backwards. Even harmful. If anyone can show me through these times and keep me optimistic it's her. The woman who prayed for peace and then sang of the end of the world.

 

In the case of Nemesis, I still don't feel like worshipping her is particularly useful. Again, it kinda feels like worshipping gravity. She does her job and... Doesn't really feel to me like the kind of deity to listen to mortals. IDK, that's mostly UPG.

 

I feel bad for immediately blaming the birth chart guy too. He didn't cause this, I don't think enough people pay attention to him for it to have made people complacent, and birth chart info is usually vague enough to mean just about anything, but I got the same reaction I did on first hearing about people marketing the Titanic as unsinkable.

 

Pop culture paganism; how does it work? I'm curious. I'm struggling to really grasp the idea of praying to things that you know don't exist. Obviously it works for some people, and it actually does appeal to me, but I'm not getting the why.

 

As someone who hasn't really done anything with it but also finds it appealing:

Some people do like the more irritating kinds of otherkin and declare that it's totes real somewhere because that's how multiverse theory works apparently. I... don't think that's a great route to take, but it's there.

The more reasonable cases I've seen out there seem to treat it as a more archetypal thing? Collective unconscious and all that? A character can stand in for A Thing in a way that's more meaningful to you personally than any more conventionally-accepted figure. I could go looking for extant deities that are like Nienna, say, but I already have all this emotional attachment to the Vala herself whereas the others would be new to me.

At least, that's how it looks to me.

 

For me its a hero worship thing. These are the beings i emulate and wish to be like. The beings i find wise or noteworthy and that id love help from. I dont do archetypal things because i personally dislike it. Theyre more like cu chulainn or the man with the magic bottle to me.

 

Like they may not be real but to use the word of imp from the drowning girl theyre True.

 

Also if you want you can ask me about the things ive done? I can also point you towards some pcps that i follow on tumblr. The skaia temple, popculturepaganism, and witchcraftstuck stick out to me in that regard. Theres also some zelda blogs i know of...the one i think was from sun to moon? Need to look it up. Sadly not very active.

 

It's one of those things where you can ask four people and get six different answers. This post sums up some of the common beliefs though.

 

That too. (Actually, it reminds me of Fred Clark's thing about true stories versus true stories re: vampires- "stories by which we tell ourselves true things so that we do not forget them.")

 

When she talks about it at some point she mentions an ursula k le guin quote about why we still fear dragons and mermaids even if we dont necessarily believe theyre real. Argh. I think when i get home ill get the book out and find it. Some of imps words on the subject too.

 

I'd really love to know about it. Send links my way? It feels very much like stuff I sort of do anyway. As I said in the other thread, I can think of ways to build a system around furry literature. Sound like something anyone would care about?

EDIT: And synchronism is real; Ursula Vernon's made a post about how a character from Watership Down helped her and called it the First Church of Bluebell.

 

Backreading the thread and thinking about animism. I've loved the idea ever since I first read about Shinto as a junior high schooler.
I have this funny little way of leaving offerings. I eat a lot of fruit with seeds, and if I find myself with seeds or rinds or whatever and I'm outside or in a car, I'll chuck the seeds into the nearest field/empty lot/out the car window towards the ditch/whatever and say "feed the earth!" and imagine the seeds taking root and growing.

 

@palindromordnilap Public shaming and arrest will do a lot more damage to him now.

 

Pop culture paganism has sort of already happened to me. When I did a meditation to find my guardian angel, I got an angel version of Anthony Crowley who seemed very awkward about being an angel, and when the recording asked what the spirit wanted to tell me I got a flash of Kung Fu Panda's title character. I thought I just hadn't gone into trance properly, and I probably didn't, but this and that post going around about the lady who got the Ninja Turtles for hers makes me feel like less of a dork.

 

Here's a link with a bunch of links