I was wondering if anyone sees anything in the witchcraft and pagan community that irks them, what these things are and why they irk you?
A few of my own:
Lately I have noticed deity discussions can dissuade some people interested in working with a deity when other practitioners, and rightly so, warn those newer to the deity of how the deity has been known to behave with them.
While it is not recommended to begin working with deities as a begginger, I wonder if more advanced practitioners may also be jumping the gun with warnings so to speak, when from what I have learned deities interact differently with different people.
An example from what I have personally found working with Belenus, is that he doesn't take to the idea of me promising something, an offering, and then not giving it. He gets rather demanding. Now!
However what if another practitioner whom works with Belenus discovers him to be patient and laid back with them?
Say a third party, someone just starting deity work, asks me what it is like to work with Belenus and the other whom honors Belenus is not present. I then go on to explain to approach carefully, and this in turn leaves the practitioner cold to the idea of Belenus?
I suppose I wonder if we all embellish the deity- practitioner relationship a bit.
While Belenus may be very strict with me, he may feel more a nurturing protector to someone else, while another may find him an absolute party type.
Another thing that makes me think a bit is that aesthetic altar look I see. My altar is and has always been a messy space due to use. Incense ash is a frequent culprit.
My altar isn't a total mess but it gets used. Many photos I see look wonderful, yet I see no ash, no signs of wear.
Anyone else have anything on the mind relating to the witchcraft or pagan community these days?
do not let anyone dissuade you from what you feel you must do.
it is all a learning experience, the more you try, the more you learn.
do your best to not endanger yourself or others, proper intention.
i definitely agree that no two people will have a same experience and someone else's experience does not determine your own.
my advice with deities is to have the proper respect to honor their respective culture and traditions as best as you possibly can. yep, that means plenty of research and preparation. it will certainly mean all the difference in my own experience. not to say you need to reconstruct the props and everything to a T,
but do your best with what you havewhere you are at right now.
I have a few pet peeves, to be quite frank about it.
One of them is what I label as abstractions: It's a practice without application. I don't mean a practice which does not have an application, but one which is not given a purpose. For example, some time ago "seeing auras" was a popular topic. People would make threads in various places around the Internet talking about their practice to see auras, what they saw, and that's where it ended. While there are people who use this to help them understand the energetic or emotional state of someone else, among other uses, there were a lot of people who never did anything with it besides trying to see a glow around people and calling that a full success. Similar can be said with something like a psi ball or energy ball (or sphere, whatever someone wants to call it). People might learn how to make one, and then never do anything with energy work other than just knowing they can feel it swirling between their hands. It's been abstracted into a useless (for them) practice.
i dont really keep pet peeves, i have enough pups to keep.
but!
it is a tad annoying when folks are spoonfed links and resources and information and still persist with nonsensical questions without any of their own reading, whatsoever.
I absolutely agree with the bit about aesthetic. I personally don't use an altar, I just have a space sort of reserved in my room where I will sit and practice or perform rituals. I just domeditation most of the time, so having a clear space works best for me, maybe a candle or two, sometimes incense. (I definitely understand the struggle with the ash!)
But a lot of times lately when I meet someone who says they practice, they never tell me what they practice but are obsessed with showing me their "witchy" outfits or how many crystals they have sitting in a bowl somewhere, and I sometimes wonder if they are actually practicing at all or if they just like the way it looks. I have no issue with liking the aesthetic, but being told someone practices and then being unable to actually discuss itwith them is a bit frustrating.
I also see a lot of people insisting that there is just one correct way to do a certain thing, which I think comes across as a bit pretentious, but it also can dissuade newer practitioners from trying things. At least in my experience, I never had a coven growing up or knew anyone else who was pagan and believed magic the way that I did, so a lot of it was trial and error and finding the things that worked best for me. So to me, that's what a lot of this is about: finding myself spiritually and making myself happy and helping myself to live the best life I can. Dissuading someone from finding their own path seems to defeat the purpose of that.
Of course, it's wonderful how many people there are, here especially, who can offer advice, suggestions, or tips to help people with something they are having trouble with, but every now and then I see someone taking it a bit too far and telling people that they don't know what they're doing if they do it this way or that way, and it comes across more as toxic than helpful. (Not includingtalking about fluff of course).
I agree for the most part regarding others insisting there is only one way to do something.
I make an exception for as you said impossible feats, and as well for common sense or safety.
I don't mind telling someone they should absolutely not burn Oleander flower for example because there is evidence it is not safe for burning, and is extremely toxic.
Or that candles should not be burned on a plastic tupperware lid, or some other incredibly dangerous thing others should not be doing.
While having to tell another again and again they can not sprout angel wings and fly can be annoying. Where safety is concerned I am quite serious when I tell someone not to do certain things.
Other than that I definitely agree there are multiple ways to practice.
This leads me to another peeve, safety.
Lately I have been seeing quite a few individuals selling loose incense on Etsy and listing the first few herbs within and then adding a descriptor of "and other herbs and flowers."
I understand very well wanting to keep your product ingredients under wraps, but personally I seriously would never purchase any of these. My reason is that I have heard and seen many well meaning practitioners use very hazardous plants especially flowers that they have not researched properly and I am not talking mugwort, which too can be hazardous, I'm talking azaleas.
I either make my own loose incense or I only purchase from sellers whom list all ingredients used and even then I am taking a risk in the case that they've left something out.
Another peeve of mine are crystal elixers still being sold by individuals.
Seasoned/experienced witches telling a beginner to not do something without explaining why. It creates these seemingly arbitrary rules to the craft. Either people these rules as the gospel- taking them as fact without questioning it, or the beginner rebels. I see this a lot with people interested in hexes or love spells, things that lure beginners to the craft. I think it is better to unpack the case for why a person should not go through with something, and perhaps the alternatives to their quests. Or saying okay so you are hell bent on doing this, well this is what I recommend you do if you are serious about doing whatever it is you are going to do.
Another pet peeve of mine is the huge platform some beginners to the craft gain very quickly. They end up speaking with authority without having the experience. They make beautiful videos and showcase several beautiful crystals or a product from a company. A lot of these social media witches have worshippers which makes me cringe. Misinformation is spoken with authority. Elders in the community don't get that much attention by comparison, even with a social media presence.
My pet peeves involve newbie or baby witches. Specifically, things like the predatory nature people have towards them. They're new and naive, so some roll their eyes and ignore them, while others feed them a diet of lies and use them and because they're new, they don't know better [kind of why I never liked Silver Ravenwolf. I had friends who warned me about her books and after doing research I learned how she seemingly moulded followers and gave them some less than credible information]
I don't mind aesthetic witches, it's nice to look at a pretty altar [it's up there with cottagecore for me, I like to look and dream about how wonderful it would be if life was like that, too bad I know the reality] Aesthetic witches could also be using the look as a way to empower their lives, so I'm not too upset with a picture or TikTok of a pretty spell or altar space. What does upset me and when new witches see these and think [or are told] that's how their craft should look. No dust or piles of incense ash in sight. Your candles are all beeswax and you put everything into pretty little glass jars. [*looks at altar* I should replace that candle]
Gatekeeping. Again, it's knowing the difference between gatekeeping, closed practices, and teaching. As one of the more predominant teachers on this site, I get a lot of flack for being a "gatekeeper" or "non-believer" or "mean" when the reality is I'm trying to help new members who don't understand and they feel like I'm giving them rules and they want to do whatever they feel like. That attitude needs to stop [and it can happen at any stage in a witches journey] Someone tells you voodoo is a closed practice and you need to be initiated to enter, they're not trying to be mean, they're not trying to keep you out because you're not cool enough. They're in a practice that's been passed down from teacher to student and work with their people's ancestors. It's out of safety for their traditions, not because you're not worthy. Second, when someone says you can't do something without learning something else first [can't cast spells unless you learn to focus energy] they're not being mean and stopping you from doing what you want. Certain things need to follow a certain path before you come to a fork. Can you dive right into deity work? Yes, but is it wise? In some circumstances, no. If you're entering a situation thinking you're going to get an attack dog or something that will give you stuff, it won't end well. But, if you're wanting to approach deity to help give you a direction on your path, then I don't see the harm in wanting to work with deity right out of the gate [again, do research first]
When we tell you to do research, we aren't being mean, this path is a lot of studying. You gain knowledge, then apply said knowledge. Watching 1 TikTok or reading a paragraph on a subject isn't enough to prepare you [unless it's something simple like "what's an Athame"] Nobody's an expert. They're just further ahead on the path, so they're simply looking back and going "don't trip over the log" not to mock you for not seeing the log, or to imply you don't see the log, but to save you the scraped knee they got from tripping over the log.
Also, I'm 32, I've been studying since I was 16 and I've met 18-year-olds who taught me new things. It doesn't matter the age, it's the experience. I know next to nothing about Greek mythology, so when I was approached by a Greek God last year, I was completely lost outside of the basic information everyone knows. So, what happened? Research. Reading historical and mythological information, followed by looking for practitioners who work with him for ideas of how to do that [which is really neat because it's eye-opening to realize you missed a ton of signs leading to that point]
I think that's the end of my rant thing. I normally shrug off things, but it upsets me when baby witches are either dismissed, used, or in those rare but loud cases get mad because you tried help [those that one I normally shrug off]
