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

Looking into Ardan pcp and the people who want to venerate Mairon or Smaug are just making me cringe. I mean, obviously they can do what they like, "dark" things aren't off limits, all that, but. What.

 

Should we make a separate thread for PCP? Or, um, PCM for Pop Culture Mysticism strikes me as a much less easily misunderstood abbreviation.

 

I keep mixing it up with the ppc

 

Heh, now you've mentioned that I'll never unsee it. I was just thinking drugs.

 

PCM would be popculture magic, an already existing acronym. Also I see no reason to separate it from this thread.

 

Okay, I was just wondering if it was sufficiently different from regular paganism to need splitting off. I'm gonna go think of points for my furry practice. This is ridiculous amounts of fun; possibly that's all it is and it's silly, but fun has value of its own. That's a thing which never really came across to me with the mainstream faiths, I'd always be like "this isn't working, this is stupid, you're stupid for wasting your time, go hide in a corner and despair". If it's something I can relate to immediately, then even if it is just in my head, I can accept it as having value.

I don't really have space for an altar. Advice?

 

And I arrive with links to blogs for ChelG and the other curious.

PCP in general: popculturepagan
Homestuck: popculturepaganstuck, skaiatemple, and witchcraftstuck
Zelda: suntomoon-moontoson, hyrulianlegends

 

I got way too excited. Now I'm trying to translate my prayer from the Batman thread into Quenya. /headdesk

 

As far as description of what I myself do...I treat them very similar to heroes that I do treat as having existed. So like Cú Chulainn or Fionn Mac Cumhaill. Which means that every so often I might throw an offering of food or drink the way of one of these fictional heroes/gods (the line here is exceptionally blurred for me and many gaelpols). I also respect the figure a lot in question because I feel that they've done something to be respected for. Something about them and their character strikes me as worthy of a degree of respect. This doesn't mean that they are "good" by whatever standards we may be using here. Someone who knows Cú Chulainn knows that the boy did all he did out of personal glory. He also sadistically teased and toyed with Medb and her troops. He also slept around a fucking hell of a lot despite being married, murdered his own son because he and the kid were too proud to break oaths, and was generally a cocky raging shitlord. But he was heroic. It doesn't matter if his main drive was personal glory and to be remembered as great, because to me he was great. If anything that makes him even better. The boy had a fucking goal. A cocksure and proud one and he succeeded at it like few others have. Good doesn't matter. Heroism does. Honor does.

Other things I've done is light them incense, a practice I've borrowed from Buddhism. Prayers are said while it burns, preferably with some way for the smoke to get out. The prayers reach the Heavens that way then. Then there's some of my fanworks, which could be considered devotional works at that point. The poetry in particular stands out in that regard.

So really a lot of it for me is just taking these figures and smashing them into my already existing values and veneration circles.

 

...I don't suppose anyone else around here knows anything about Quenya, do they...?

 

I DO

 

(15 hours late with Starbucks but it took some time to form my thoughts into words)

Pop culture paganism has a strong draw for me, because I feel more power from it than from any 'established' pantheon, more of a draw. (The only thing that compares is the guardian lady I still haven't managed to properly communicate with.)
It's something deeply tied to creativity and creation for me, deep as the others but not as imposing? More accessible for/to me, the whole "get it right before you start" isn't really there.

 

Is it acceptable to put an altar on top of a piece of already existing furniture? I really don't have room for more and the only place I can find is on top of my chest of drawers, which is still going to require some serious room rearrangement because I have boxes stacked on there already.

 

Whoever the altar is for will probably understand that you're doing the best you can for them.

 

Yeah, my altars are all set up on top of furniture. Loki's altar is literally a cabinet drawer. They don't seem to mind.

 

There isn't really room to do a lot if I use that, either. Is it acceptable to store stuff there and actually use it spread out on a floor blanket?

 

My parents think wixcraft is stupid, but I think my mum would actually approve of PCM as a symbolic thing; she's a hypnotherapist, and it sounds like some stuff she already does. She kind of goes with "whatever works". I told her about the "all four Ninja Turtles and Sylvia Plath" meditation incident going round Tumblr and she didn't laugh at the person, she thinks that sounds like exactly what that person's brain would need.

On the other hand, I really can't stop thinking of the Snapes on an Astral Plane business.

 

Been pointed out to me that I shouldn't encourage feeding wildlife; my bad. I live in the UK, the worst we can get from it is foxes in the trash, not bears eating people, and bird feeders are pretty much everywhere here. Would feeding pets with species-appropriate offerings and composting others to feed the earth which will feed animals cyclically speaking work better? And I thought pouring herbal tea on the ground probably wouldn't cause harm, though that depends on what the tea is, I guess.

 

A bird feeder with appropriate seed for your local birds should be fine! (although realistically a lot of it will go to squirrels without some serious goddamn effort to keep them off)

 

Never was much into crystals, but SO PRETTY!

Burning sage strikes me as too American; I've never even been to America, I'm certainly not Native American, and it doesn't feel right. Celtic or Nordic cleansing rituals are much harder to find. Any ideas?