Pagan Blog Project: A is for Adiós

I'm changing my second "A" post to reflect a sudden tragedy. A friend, whom I sadly only knew over the Internet, passed away. We weren't very close but I admired his power, his mind, his eloquence, the passion and joy he had in his life and his greatness as a Santero, priest and man of magic and wonder.

His unexpected passing at the extremely early age of 38 years, sparked a lot of thoughts in my mind. Even though this was someone I knew only online, it is the first death of someone I know that I've experienced in years.

I work with Gods of the dead. I am devoted to Hekate, psychopomp Goddess and Lady of the Dead (especially the Restless Ones). I honour many chthonic divinities and, in addition to that, as a Witch I am fairly familiar with the Lower Regions.

It doesn't prepare you from the sudden coming of death. It can prepare you for a lot of things but not the moment, the instance and event of death itself. I guess that's part of the ways things are: perhaps death always ought to shock us for us to truly experience it. I don't know.

All of this is making me think a lot about Ancestors, the Dead and working with them. I'm not going to say much more here, I'm still a bit shocked and not very capable of articulating my thoughts right now. Let's just say that such tragedies have immense impact when they strike someone you know personally; even if over the Internet. So, let us tell our friends, family and beloved that we love them, let us embrace them and let us remember to LIVE because death's finality and unknowable time is ever-looming.

What comforts me and will continue to comfort me throughout all deaths of people I know that I will experience in my life is that, even though we do lose those people, we can still reach out and interact with them in another capacity. I consider myself lucky to practice a religion that values the dead, that contacts and interacts with them in a deeper and more active way than most other systems. It most certainly can never replace the truly living person, but it helps. It helps so that it's not a complete loss.



Adiós, Eddy. I admired your passion, your tenacity, your knowledge, eloquence and strength, your beauty and love for life, your joyous character, always eager to laugh and joke around, your impressive skills as a writer, conjure doctor and priest and your very presence and spirit. For the relatively short time I knew you, I admired and looked up to you as a role-model. You were and are someone I want to be like. May the Gods guide you safely, may they grant you peace, may they bring comfort and solace to your loved ones. I bid farewell to you and honour you as one of the Mighty Dead, one of the blessed Ancestors. You will be missed.

In memory of Eddy Gutiérrez, a fantastic man.

Pagan Blog Project: A is for Academic Approach

To begin, let's see how the word is defined in general:

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, academic means:

1. relating to education and scholarship.
2. not of practical relevance; of only theoretical interest.

As an academic myself, I half-agree with the first and almost entirely disagree with the second. In my opinion, this is a bright example why even dictionaries need to be taken with a grain of salt. Someone recently told me "dictionaries reflect word usage - not the opposite". In other words, we don't use a word a certain way because the dictionary tells us so; rather, the dictionary includes a definition because that's how people use the word.

"Academic" can refer to the level of higher education: books written for professors and/or university students are academic books, for example. It can also refer to scholarly knowledge, research and informational approach. An academic study of religion - what interests us in this case - is the properly organised, properly sourced study that reflects the research methodology most oft-employed in higher education. Using the word as a noun we can refer to someone who's a member of an educational institution (like a college or university professor) or field (usually researchers in any field).

My disagreement with the second definition of "academic" - and the main focus of this post - is that it's reflective of the misconceptions of the general public (and, thus, a great portion of the wider Pagan community/ies): that the academic approach is useless.

It really isn't. An academic approach (in our case, to religion) can enrich us with much knowledge and help us separate the wheat from the chaff. In other words, it does wonders to disillusion us, to dispel half-truths and superficial nonsense as well as sharpen our minds and critical thinking skills. Our practices become better and more well-informed, our knowledge broadens and we become more thorough and focused in our pursuits. By utilising the tools of the academic approach, we can refine our own religious study and make it much more efficacious.
 

Although the academic approach is, indeed, theoretical, it doesn't mean it has no practical use or relevance. I doubt anyone would say that the theses and papers on medicine, electronic engineering or environmental sciences are not practically relevant or useful. The academic approach informs the practical - you rarely have advanced practice or complex practical application of any concept without academic study preceding it.

What does this have to do with Paganism specifically though?

The various Pagan religions have a host of issues that can be addressed and dealt with the academic approach. From faulty history to a lack of theology and from confusing ethics to half-baked philosophy (not to mention things like plagiarism, bad writing etc), there are countless problems that could be mitigated, if not outright solved, if more people were aware of and used the academic approach, at least to an extent.

There's another important reason as well. Most of the various Pagan religions are, to a certain degree, reconstructionist or revivalist systems. They depend on the past and the ancient religions, one way or the other, to shape their present. It is nigh impossible to study the ancient religions non-academically. This is a necessary sacrifice that we must make, at least in our generation, so those that come after us can find a more complete system. Of course, any active religion that lives, grows and evolves, will never really stop requiring further study and analysis, so the need for the academic approach will never truly die out. However, it will be much less needed in the future if we do the work today.

The Hellenic religion, for instance, does not have reputable non-academic sources a prospective follower can study in order to learn the religion. All of us are forced, in varying degrees, to study academic sources and attain a scholarly level of involvement with the religion. Failure to do so usually results in faulty understanding of the lore, misrepresentation of the deities and spirits, mistaken (and even offensive) practices and a system that can considerably deviate from a Hellenic character.

In any case, there's no need to get overly academic in our religions (unless we want to, of course!). However, it is imperative that we become more organised and well-informed. Pagan religions are still very new and if they're left to get (or remain, as the case might be) flooded with the mud of misinformation and nonsense, they will never have a proper position amongst world religions nor provide a fullfilling and valid experience to their followers.

My friend, Sarduríur, has an excellent guide for those unversed in the academic method; it can be found here.

My advice is: ask questions, maintain a critical POV (instead of simply an open mind), cross-reference and study. No one's perfect and no one knows everything but proper study can give you a pretty good idea of what and how much you (do and don't) know.

Next week, we'll discuss some specific uses of the academic approach in relation to some of the problems of Paganism we already mentioned.

Pagan Blog Project

I've wanted to try the Pagan Blog Project for a while and now I can finally begin properly. I'll be participating in the 2014 Project so you should expect the first post (for the letter A) on January 3rd!

Changes to the Services

Hey everyone! I've made a small change to the Services. I increased the price for the Consultations (from 15, 25 and 35 to 25, 35 and 55 dollars respectively) as well as the How-to Guides (from 7, 12 and 15 to 10, 15 and 20 dollars respectively). This won't affect any clients that requested any of those things before the change. I do promise no hidden fees and I mean it. That includes retroactive price increases (big no-no in my book).

However, I was forced to raise the prices for those services since they turned out to be far more work than I had anticipated, which made their price too low as a result. I hope this won't be seen as money-grabbing since I assure you, it's much, MUCH cheaper than paying me by the hour. Believe me, I've done the math, much as I might hate them! ;)

Thank you and here's to more clients!

Services are now available!

Exactly one month after I posted my "A Milestone and Important Changes" post, I finally have the "Services" page up! You can find it here.

Feel free to ask any questions you might have via comment or e-mail!

I sincerely hope this will be a good start. I really want to offer to the wider community in a more professional and individualised manner. Of course, I need some compensation as well and in this case money is the best one.

You can also make a donation using the button on the right, under the "Followers" section. All money received goes towards helping my family and for my living expenses. :)

I will definitely keep writing blog posts and such. I am also always available for a chat. :)

May the immortal Gods favour this effort of mine.

A Milestone and Important Changes

Hello everyone! I have something important to announce and it amused me a lot that at the same time I chose to write this, the blog also hit 7500 views and 50 (!!!) followers! Wow! 7500 views and FIFTY followers! How did that happen? :D It amazes me that so many people find my writings interesting enough to read them to such an extent. Thank you all so, so much!

I take this as a good sign for my decision. Here's what's going to change:

As I am sure most of you know, the economy of Greece is going downhill fast. Financial issues crop up one after the other and things are pretty tough. I thought long and hard on what assets and skills I have and which ones I can utilise to try and earn some money. Since a significant part of my life is devoted to spiritual matters, I thought I should explore my options there as well. It took me quite a bit (years, in fact) to come to terms with my decision but here it is.

From this point on, I will offer spiritual services for payment. What are those going to be? For starters, divination, spiritual consultations and how-to guides.

What kind of divination?

I am versed in two divinatory methods (cards and pendulum). For cards specifically, I use a Greek-themed deck called Deste and, more recently, the WildWood Tarot deck (which proves to be immensely fitting for my style and has increased the accuracy of my readings). I intend to offer set prices depending on the type of readings (i.e. the spreads and number of cards) I will perform, as opposed to the time the readings might take. Pendulum readings will be featured as optional double-checking for the card readings and their cost will be a small addition to the card readings' price.

What sort of spiritual consultations?

As a theologian-in-training, researcher and practitioner with 8 years of experience in religion, spirituality and magic, I can provide in-depth explanations and help regarding those fields. Specifically, I am capable of informing and advising you on anything pertaining to the Hellenic religion or, at the very least, pointing you towards sources that can cover what I do not know well enough. I can also help you find or narrow down the paths that fit you as well as guide you towards knowledgeable people and sources dealing with a great variety of systems, from Mesopotamian religions to Wicca and from Kabbalah to shamanic spirituality.

Consultations also involve divinatory readings in order to gain a more spherical point of view of your situation and make sure we're working on the path your Gods and spirits point towards. These readings will not be charged extra; their cost will be part of the consultation's final price.

What kind of how-to guides?

I can guide you step-by-step in the following fields: matters of the Hellenic religion, witchcraft and spirit-work (aka communication and interaction with spirits). These how-to guides can also be part of your consultation. In that case, depending on their complexity, there might be a bonus "fee" for them that will be added to your consultation's final price.

How am I offering all these things?

Through the internet! In other words, through extensive e-mail correspondence. And remember: for divinatory readings, I charge by the reading, not the hour! That means you can request as many or detailed explanations as you want (within logical limits) and the cost won't change! For the consultations I will adjust the price depending on the amount of help required and how much work I have to dedicate to answering all your questions.

I guarrantee I will always give it my absolute best, no matter if it's a 10-minute reading or a complex consultation requiring hours upon hours of research and interpretation!

Payments will be submitted via Paypal.

ALL COSTS will be decided between us beforehand. You WILL be informed of any possible bonus costs upfront. There will be NO hidden costs or "sudden" fees.

I also have a Paypal donate button, which you can find on the right side of the blog, underneath the "Followers" section!

ALL payments and donations go towards supporting my family, my studies and daily life. A huge thank you to everyone that supports me in any way whatsoever, even if you "only" spread the word. Even that seemingly small action can benefit me immensely!

Rebuttal to an Inaccurate Article on Hekate

I came across a status/photo post on Facebook from a page called “13 Witches”, a generic Neopagan and Witchcraft page. The post contained the following text about Hekate, which I have copied here with permission from the author. Since I found it contained multiple mistakes and inaccuracies, I thought a blog post pointing those out and setting things straight was in order. I will comment on each sentence separately, with my writing in italic and the original text in quotation marks. The sentences of the original text have been numbered to ease reference.