Pagan Pet Peeves

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

Magik, majic, magick.

Uez spel ck, gooph!

Also, closed minds. Consider the possibility that ideas formed 5000 years ago may be lala.

[habbalah]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

People who defang/neuter/fluffify/however you want to call it entities, to make them into beings of love and light and kittens farting rainbows. I see this a lot with angels. "Uriel is a being of light and love and will massage your groin to give you divine inspiration!" "Uriel is the one who hangs liars by their tongues over the flames of Gehenna. That's not groin massage; that's 'write now or suffer'". Angels are soldiers and executioners too; people seem to forget that.

It's just as bad or worse with gods. If you only choose to work with a certain aspect of a god, that's one thing. If you outright ignore certain aspects and claim it makes that god a being of softness and light when they're not, that's another. Ishtar is a goddess of love, but She is also a war goddess; She's probably not going to be a fluffy bunny. Also, just because a certain entity is seen as female, that doesn't mean they are a love goddess! In a class I was taking about love magic, the teacher talked about a time where a young woman asked Kali to bring her exboyfriend back to her. And since it wasn't "with his head on a pike", she clearly had no clue who she was talking to. She just knew that Kali was a goddess, and assumed that She would help with her lovelife. Study the entities you contact, people.

[NeoPlatonic]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

I know this should not really annoy me, but it does all the same: People who claim to be of one religion but actually follow a strange hybrid faith. Example, my family. Two of them claim to be Roman Catholics but one worships the saints / Virgin Mary and has a special altar for them which borders on Santeria/Umbanda practice. The other one follows what the Pope says but pretty much disagrees with Catholic stances on almost everything.

My point being... Why claim to follow a path when in effect you are doing something else entirely? It would be as if I claimed to be polytheistic but then behaved like an Orthodox Christian and worshipped as one.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

If anyone's wondering, I've moved the posts about the term 'shamanism' to there own thread so we didn't derail this one. Anyone interested can find it here http://www.paganforum.com/showthread...r-appropriated.

[Thorbjorn]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

The phrase "you're doing it wrong because that's not what the ancestors did", whether those exact words, or implied. It's corollary: "I practice Heathenry perfectly because I studied for X years". The historical and archaeological records are not complete. Snorri, Saxo, Adam of Bremen and Tacitus did not canvas each hut to find out a family's individual practices and beliefs.

Pronunciations. No one knows exactly how Old Norse sounded, but since Icelandic has changed very little in 800-1,000 years, and Old Icelandic was a dialect of Old Norse, it's reasonable to assume Old Norse sounded very much like modern Icelandic. So let's use at least Icelandic pronunciation, not German. Not that there's anything wrong with German. The name is Haym-dall, not Hyme-dall; Jotun-haym, not Jotun-hyme; anything '-ei-' is like 'ay', not 'I'. It's not only the Marvel movies that do that, I've heard YT vids use those pronunciations.

[Willow]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

This isn't something I tend to see on this forum; but people who are just starting out on their journey and begin twisting lore/information to make their diagnosed mental illness something that doesn't need professional attention. For example: I'm a psychic/clairvoyant, therefore I know everything and my psychologist diagnosed me as having grandeur-type delusions and bipolar; so I shouldn't have to take the medications I was prescribed or keep in touch when I get depressed.

It's not a common thing I come across, but it is one of those things that just REALLY rubs me the wrong way.

Strangely, the vast majority of other weirdness I'm pretty tolerant of as long as they aren't playing the "personal attacks and control" game.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

This isn't something I tend to see on this forum; but people who are just starting out on their journey and begin twisting lore/information to make their diagnosed mental illness something that doesn't need professional attention. For example: I'm a psychic/clairvoyant, therefore I know everything and my psychologist diagnosed me as having grandeur-type delusions and bipolar; so I shouldn't have to take the medications I was prescribed or keep in touch when I get depressed.

It's not a common thing I come across, but it is one of those things that just REALLY rubs me the wrong way.

Strangely, the vast majority of other weirdness I'm pretty tolerant of as long as they aren't playing the "personal attacks and control" game.

Like you not very present on this forum but I've encountered people who use their "Illness" to pass for a shamanic illness or death scenario. Don't need any medicine or doctors as the spirits have guided and cured them. Then it has to be the spirits talking to them no possibility of any sort of mental disorder or condition. What makes it so bad, well to me anyway, is they refuse to even ponder the idea that it all could be a mental illness thing or that they could need some sort of medicine.

[Willow]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

Like you not very present on this forum but I've encountered people who use their "Illness" to pass for a shamanic illness or death scenario. Don't need any medicine or doctors as the spirits have guided and cured them. Then it has to be the spirits talking to them no possibility of any sort of mental disorder or condition. What makes it so bad, well to me anyway, is they refuse to even ponder the idea that it all could be a mental illness thing or that they could need some sort of medicine.

Exactly. It's just a sad, frustrating thing. But I think the weight of those situations is why it's a pet peeve of mine; whereas the other things already mentioned really don't tend to have that long-lasting dire effect on the individual's health and on the people around them.

[faye_cat]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

Deosil/Widdershins. (Did I spell those right?) I just don't understand why there's a special terminology.

[thalassa]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

Deosil/Widdershins. (Did I spell those right?) I just don't understand why there's a special terminology.

<--------bad former wiccan just called it clockwise and counterclockwise

[Munin-Hugin]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

Deosil/Widdershins. (Did I spell those right?) I just don't understand why there's a special terminology.

To promote the feeling that you're a special snowflake.

[anunitu]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

WHAT?? I'm NOT a special snowflake??? Man,now I have to go on a vision quest to find my true magical nature...

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

Exactly. It's just a sad, frustrating thing. But I think the weight of those situations is why it's a pet peeve of mine; whereas the other things already mentioned really don't tend to have that long-lasting dire effect on the individual's health and on the people around them.

In the time I've been on PF I've seen it a few times. It's not as bad when it is the person talking about his/her self, but it is really scary when it is somebody who wants a spell or something to cure a child, instead of "exploitive Western medicine."

A parent (IMHO) ought to put the health and well being of a child ahead of personal political protest.

- - - Updated - - -

<--------bad former wiccan just called it clockwise and counterclockwise

Turn to the right!

Turn to the left!

Swing your partner, do-se-do!

[anunitu]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

Left foot in,left foot out,turn around and shake it all about...that is what its all about..now hooky pokky your little buns off.

[eightofcups]

Re: Pagan Pet Peeves

The phrase "you're doing it wrong because that's not what the ancestors did", whether those exact words, or implied.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes to this!

In addition to this, when other people try to control me or boss me around. Generally when anybody is like "this is the only way to do it! my way or you're wrong!". And like you said, Thorbjorn, it's usually because it's traditional. But there are a lot of unsavory traditions we've had that I'd rather not go back to, slavery for example. The ancient people practiced slavery, it was normal to them, but it doesn't mean we should bring it back because "the ancients did it!". Some traditions are best left in the past.