Category Archives: Spiritual Development

Books, Paganism, Religion, Spiritual Development, Witchcraft

Let’s talk about “An Apostate’s Guide to Witchcraft” by Moss Matthey

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[Content Note: Brief references to of cults, homophobia, self-hatred, and authoritarian control.]

Happy Monday, dear readers! I thought I’d take a brief break from my polytheology series to talk about a book I recently finished reading. That book is An Apostate’s Guide to Witchcraft: Finding Freedom Through Magic by Moss Matthey. In it, Matthey describes his own experiences leaving the cult he was raised in and finding a home in witchcraft. Along the way, he shares a bit about his own witchcraft practice and offers advice and simple exercises to those readers who might be interested in exploring whether witchcraft might be something they’re drawn to.

In a lot of ways, I found a lot of Matthey’s story relatable. After all, we are both gay men1 who grew up in fairly conservative Christian church2 that essentially taught us to hate ourselves. We both eventually found freedom in our respective witchcraft practices, which bear some unsurprising similarities.

One of the things that I appreciated about Matthey’s approach to the subject was that he was quite clear that he had no interest in spending a great deal of time dissecting the beliefs of “the cult”,3 setting these goals for the book instead:

Through these pages I will introduce you to a world of magic and spirits, where queerness is celebrated and sin does not exist. I will tell you how I left a cult and the lessons I learned along the way. Culture and community will be celebrated through folklore, myth, and folk magic. We may even take a detour into theology and philosophy, though hopefully it won’t be too boring. Above all, we will celebrate the joy and freedom of Witchcraft.

I think he accomplished those goals quite well. I cannot recommend this book enough for those who are coming out of any religion that asserted any degree of authoritarian control. I think those who, like Matthey and myself, experienced abuse and/or trauma due to their sexuality or gender will find it particularly helpful. And if a handful of people read it and find a home in witchcraft, all the better.

Another reason that this book holds special meaning for me is that I think it diversifies the stories available to those deconstructing. I often get the sense that the stories available — both those published in books and those shared less formally — tend to come from who have either found a way to remain in Christianity (albeit a more progressive form) or those who have walked away from religion altogether. While I think both of those trajectories are valid for those who find comfort and healing in them, I don’t think they are the only trajectories available. Also, I feel that the fact that those two trajectories get the lion’s share of the attention means that deconstruction discourse still often focuses exclusively on Christian theologies and Christian understandings of the world. Combined with Changing Paths by Yvonne Aburrow, this book could help provide a needed correction to that.4

Post History: I wrote the first draft of this post on September 28, 2024. I proofread, revised, and finalized it on September 29, 2024.

Footnotes

  1. I want to point out that I’m using these words carefully when describing Matthey. In the book, he notes that he has started to prefer referring to himself as “queer” rather than “gay,” though he affirms the latter is an accurate description. He also notes that his understanding of his sexuality and gender continues to be more expansive. So while everything I’ve been able to find suggests his pronouns are still he/him and it’s okay to refer to him as a man, I want to draw your attention to all this just in case I missed something and am unintentionally misgendering him here. ↩︎
  2. I will note that I don’t feel that my church exerted quite the same degree of control over its members as the cult Matthey belonged to (the Jehovah’s Witnesses) tends to. For example, my family was not instructed to shun me at any time. But that’s the interesting thing you learn when you study cults: There are different degrees of cult behavior, and my church was “bad enough.” For more information on cults, I would recommend Cultish by Amanda Montell in addition to the books by Steven Hassan that Matthey recommends. I will note that I haven’t read any of Hassan’s books, but have looked over his BITE Model of Authoritarian Control (which Matthey also mentions) in the past and consider it an invaluable tool. ↩︎
  3. Matthey only mentions the Jehovah’s Witnesses by name once in the entire book. The rest of the time, he simply refers to it as “the cult.” I’m not sure if this was his reasoning personally, but there are traditions of witchcraft that hold that naming something gives it power, so it is often better to not say the name of those who are a disruptive influence. Again, I don’t know if that motivated Matthey’s choice about how he chose to refer to his former cult in the book, but I think there’s a certain amount of wisdom in that line of reasoning. ↩︎
  4. Of course, once Yvonne’s upcoming book, Pagan Roots, is released at the beginning of next year, I think all three books would make a powerful trio. ↩︎
Paganism, Religion, Spiritual Development, Witchcraft

Synchronicity vs. Looking for Signs: Thoughts while reading “Spinning Wyrd” by Ryan Smith

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Happy Friday, dear readers! For today’s blog post, i want to share some reflections inspired by Ryan Smith’s discussion of synchronicity in chapter one of Spinning Wyrd. While discussing the topic, Smith offers this bit of cautionary advice:

When you accept synchronicity into your life, you should refrain as much as possible from actively imposing meaning where it might not be present. Not all moments of coincidence are necessarily instances of synchronicity. Sometimes a flock of ravens chattering on the power line is just a conspiracy of ravens and not a visit from the god of victory to remind you that your utility bill is overdue or that a blackout is imminent.

Personally, I think this is a much needed warning. I too have noticed some Pagans’ tendency (especially among witches) to look at every moment in their life and try to find some sort of sign or portent in it. This can be anything from seeing an animal on the way to work to wondering what it means when the flame on their spell candle dances. And while I get that this is likely at least partly motivated by an understandable and admirable desire to see the wondrous in everything,1 I think a lot of people take it too far. Sometimes, animals show up simply because they exist in the same world as us. And sometimes, a flame dancing is just a demonstration of chaos theory.2

Smith goes on to discuss some of the criteria he uses to discern whether a given event is truly a case of the powers trying to send a message or just stuff coincidentally happening. His biggest advice is to focus primarily on those events that happen in close relation or proximity to ritual or other mystical work. So for example, he might take a raven or two landing on front porch shortly after holding a blot to Odin as a sign more readily than if he saw those same ravens on a fence while walking through the neighborhood on the way to the park. This strikes me as good advice.

I would also suggest that the problem often comes when we actively look for these signs and portents. In my experience, a true sign from the powers feels substantively different than a circumstance to the point where I immediately take notice even though I wasn’t looking for such a sign. And to be honest, I trust the powers I work with to send another sign if I happen to miss the first one.3 So this allows me to relax a bit and not push myself to be on the constant outlook for such signs, making me less likely to “see” ones that are not actually there.

Of course,this requires a person to have a certain level of trust in their own intuition, including the trust that their intuition will ever kick in to begin with. But that’s a confidence and trust that an be built over time and in my opinion, is something well worth cultivating. Ultimately, I think that once most people experience a handful of signs from the powers, their confidence that they’ll spot them without going looking for them begins to grow and they’ll be able to relax.4

Post History: I wrote the draft of this post on August 3, 2024. I proofread, revised, and finalized it on August 9, 2024.

Footnotes

  1. Though I have also hypothesized that “what does the flame dancing mean” is often a case of someone — especially if they’re relatively new to witchcraft — looking for some sign that their spell is “working.” That in itself deserves its own exploration as building that kind of confidence in one’s magic is a real need. ↩︎
  2. As someone who’s a bit of a math nerd, I must admit that chaos theory is pretty wondrous in its own right. Sometimes, appreciating the way in which such “randomness” can appear beautiful is well worth meditating upon in its own right. ↩︎
  3. This is also why many mystics and witches suggest that paying attention to repeating “coincidences” is another great way to discern legitimate messages from the powers. I think there’s merit to that bit of counsel as well. ↩︎
  4. Of course, even experienced witches and mystics sometimes mistake a coincidence for a sign or even misread a sign’s meaning. This is to be expected, as developing and improving our discernment is a never-ending process. ↩︎
Books, Meta-Blogging, Paganism, Religion, Spiritual Development

Exploring a new book for Friday blog posts: “Spinning Wyrd” by Ryan Smith

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Happy Friday readers! Isn’t it amazing how the Powers sometimes respond to us in interesting ways? Back on July 15, I commented that I really wanted to find a new book to blog my way through on Fridays. And almost immediately, I found what I believe to be that book. This post and the next few Friday posts will be about Spinning Wyrd by Ryan Smith.

I ran across Smith’s book a couple weeks ago when my Kindle app tossed it out as a book I might be interested in “based on my past reading.” I was mildly interested in the book right away because of the subtitle, “A Journey through the Nordic Mysteries.” So I took note of it and thought little more about it.

However, when I finished both books I had been reading (Cultish by Amanda Montell and a novel from the Crowns of Nyaxia series by Carissa Broadbent), I started looking for a new nonfiction book. As it’s been a while since Ive read a book about Asatru or any form of Heathenry/Norse Paganism,1 I started doing a bit of research. I wanted to find a book that was neither just presenting (non-initiatory) Wicca with Norse names tossed in nor written by someone with folkish or other bigoted views.2 Someone on the Norse Paganism subreddit mentioned, another of Smith’s books, The Way of Fire and Ice, as a good book and one that is radically inclusive. So I bought a copy of both books.

I began reading Spinning Wyrd and immediately started falling in love. In it, Smith describes and offers advice on a radical and radically inclusve type of Heathenry that embraces mysticism, which is right up my alley. One of the things I struggle with much of Heatherny, especially Asatru, is that it’s very academic and strikes me as exoteric. While I appreciate delving into the myths and lore of ancient Norse and other Germanic cultures, I’m not interested in creating a perfect replica of those culture’s beliefs or painstakingly recreate rites that match what those ancient worshipers of the Aesir and Vanir did.

Smith seems to share a similar sentiment. In the introduction to Spinning Wyrd, he lays out the following principle for his brand of Heathenry:3

At the core of Radical Heathenry are five points that set it apart from other forms of Heathen practice and define every aspect of this form of spirituality. These are living tradition, inspired adaptation, modern relevance, inclusive practice, and active involvement.

I also fell in love because his own description of wyrd in the introduction is extremely similar to how I view it:

Wyrd is the symphony of life cocreated by the actions of all beings, from the humblest living things to the mightiest of the godly and animistic Powers of Nordic practice.

I’m excited to read and blog about this book because for the first time, I feel like I may have found someone who sees honoring and working with the Aesir and Vanir very much as I do.4 I look forward to learning whatever i can from expanding my appreciation of the mystical side of Heathen practice and possibly further root my current mystical practices in the ways of Heathenry. I’m not quite ready to full on swear my commitment to the Way of Fire and Ice (the tradition founded by Smith), but I won’t deny that it’s certainly a possibility in the future.

I’m not sure I’ll blog through this book chapter-by-chapter like I did with Changing Paths. I figure I’ll just write a post on any aspect of the book that I feel I want to comment on and explore. It’s possible that might result in a post per chapter. Then again, it might result in me making multiple posts for some chapters.

I’ll also note that I feel like I’m going against some sort of rule here by blogging about Spinning Wyrd rather than first reading and blogging about The Way of Fire and ice, as Spinning Wyrd was written as a follow-up book for The Way of Fire and Ice. But the second book’s focus on wyrd really calls to me, so I want to jump right to it. I definitely plan to read both books, though. And I might even blog about the first one later on. Besides, are any of my readers really surprised that I might flout the rules a bit?

Post History:5 I started writing this post on July 20, 2024. I proofread, revised, and finalized it on July 21, 2024.

Footnotes

  1. I appreciate that Smith seems to use these terms relatively interchangeably. I understand why some Asatruar prefer to distance themselves from the term “Paganism.” However, the term has its uses and I’m not sure I want to draw such hard boundaries between myself and other Pagans. Also, I personally haven’t felt comfortabe identifying with Asatru or even Heathenry because I often feel like a lot of Asatuar would not see my own practice as “reconstructionist” or “culturally pure” enough. Fortunately, I think Smith’s book(s) might help me feel differently on that count. ↩︎
  2. To be honest, searching for a book that meets all of these requirements often feels like hunting for unicorns. ↩︎
  3. Smith refers to his brand of Heathenry as both Radical Heathenry and Fire and Ice Heathenry. He and others maintain an organization for people who are interested in exploring and taking part in this tradition. ↩︎
  4. In fairness, I do know of other Asatruar/Heathens who have mystical practices. For example, I’m familiar with Diana Paxson’s work to reconstruct a modern seidh practice and I loved Jenny Blain’s exploration of the same practice in her book. But everything I’ve read by both of them is more academic than practical or instructional. Granted, Paxson does have a couple of practical books on mysticism (Trance-portation and The Essential Guide to Possession, Depossession, and Divine Relationships) they are written outside of any specific cultural context in order to make them helpful to a wider audience. I appreciate that Smith’s books explicitly place his mystical explorations in the Heathen context. ↩︎
  5. I’ve decided to experiment with including a brief history of my process for each blog post. I feel this offers me a lot of benefits, including enabling me to remember at a glance which posts are actually ready for publication. I hope my readers don’t find it too distracting. ↩︎
Introspection, Paganism, Religion, Spiritual Development

#ChangingPathsChallenge2024: The Future

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Note: Today brings #ChangingPathsChallenge2024 to a close. Many thanks to Yvonne Aburrow for creating this challenge. It has been fun — if challenging at times — to create a post for each day this month. I look forward to doing more such challenges in the future. I hope you enjoy my final contribution to this challenge.

For those interested, I’ve also been blogging my way through Yvonne’s book, Changing Paths, on Fridays. Those who have enjoyed my posts for this challenge may want to check out that series as well.

On to today’s challenge topic.

To me, the future is undecided. That’s because I view the future as something that people — indeed all living things — are building together. Every choice we make and every action we take shapes the future and what the world will look like in that future. Personally, I look forward to seeing what that future and the world looks like as we continue the creation process.

Having said that, I am hopeful for the future. I believe that people are increasingly becoming more mindful about the kind of world they want to live in and what they can and need to do to help bring that world into existence. I am hopeful that our numbers will increase and that we will learn to cooperate and strategize together more effectively.

I also think that there will be challenges ahead. I suspect challenges will remain an ever-present reality. There will always be those who simply don’t care about living in or creating a better world. There will always be those whose idea of what a better world would look like is fundamentally different from my own. There will always be disagreements about the best way to create that better world.

As such, I know struggle will be a part of that process. We will have to fight. We will have to counter those who would force us to live in a world that we don’t think would be better at all. We will have to try to iron out differences of opinions on how to go about creating a better world, even among our compatriots and allies.

But ultimately, I believe that ongoing struggle will continue to pay off. We will continue to make progress with each effort and things will move towards the better world we envision, even if that movement is slower than a glacial pace. And I can be satisfied with that. After all, my job is not to reach the destination. My job is to help move us just a little bit closer to it. Future generations can take it from there.

In closing, I would like to give a shout-out and due credit to Andre Henry. His discussion of hope in his book, All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep, greatly influenced my views in this matter. In fact, he said many of the things I said here first and much more eloquently.

Paganism, Personal Development, Spiritual Development

#ChangingPathsChallenge2024: Inspirations

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I don’t think I could possibly list all the people and things that inspire me and from whom/where I draw inspiration. I tend to look for inspiration everywhere. Most of the time, I find it. Whether I’m picking up a book fiction book, reading about the life and work of another person, watching a person live their authentic lives, or having a deep conversation with one of my many friends and acquaintances, I often find myself inspired.

Engagement with life in all of its variety is inspiring. Learning about lives different from my own is both educational and inspiring, gently urging me to expand my horizons and adjust my understanding of the world to be more broad and nuanced.

Inspirations are everywhere, just waiting to be discovered.

(This post is part of #ChangingPathsChallenge2024. For more information on this challenge and a list of topics, see Yvonne Aburrow’s post announcing the challenge.)

Books, Paganism, Religion, Spiritual Development

#ChangingPathsChallenge2024: Books

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I love books. Reading a book can be such a mind expanding experience. I can learn how to do something (at least in part) from reading a book. i can introduce myself to different perspectives by reading a book. I can learn about experiences beyond my own by reading a book.

It’s not just non-fiction books, either. My spirituality and my views have been greatly impacted by authors like Isaac Asimov, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, and Terry Pratchett. Fictional worlds have this way of letting us explore ideas in an environment not quite unlike our own (or totally unlike our own in some cases). And once we come to terms with those ideas, it can them feel almost easier to bring them into our own world and lives.

Of course, that brings me to the limitation of books. Reading is not the same as doing. So at some point, I have to remind myself to put the books down and actually act on these new Ideas I’ve been exploring during my reading. But thank goodness books are their to introduce those ideas to me in the first place.

(This post is part of #ChangingPathsChallenge2024. See Yvonne Aburrow’s post announcing the challenge for more details, including a list of topics.)

Paganism, Personal Development, Religion, Spiritual Development, Witchcraft

#ChangingPathsChallenge2024: My Path

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Some days, i really wonder if I have a spiritual path. This is in part because I often feel like I don’t do much. I’m not a huge ritualist. I don’t spend a lot of time doing fancy rites, complicated offerings, or grand magical workings.

I take some heart when I read Gerald Gardner’s books. He wrote that the witches he met practiced a simple craft and that it often seemed more kike children’s games them some fancy ritual or complicated process. That seems to match my own spirituality, in many ways. I often say that for me, witchcraft is more a matter of perspective. I feel I see and think about the world in certain ways that I consider “witchy.” And most days, that seems good enough for me.

Another thing I often wonder, though, is whether things would be easier if I followed a particular tradition or joined a particular group. I often feel like I’m blazing my own trail. While I often like that and the way it enables me not to get wrapped up in things that don’t really make sense to me, it also leaves me wondering how well I actually know what I’m doing. I often find myself wondering if I could accomplish more under following the tried and true methods of a tradition as imparted to me by a teacher.

And I suppose if I ever found the right teacher at the right time, I might go that route. But until then, I find myself on a certain path of my own making. So for now, I’ll continue to wend m way through things based on my own reasoning and intuition and the occasional insights offered by my deities and any other allies I might come across. Because as much as I might wonder about other paths, a huge part of me still wants to see where this path I’m on will take me.

(This post is part of #ChangingPathsChallenge2024. For more information about this event and a list of topics, please see this post by Yvonne Aburrow.)

Personal Development, Religion, Spiritual Development

Letting go of certainty and being right: Exploring a journal prompt from chapter 10 of “Changing Paths”

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Happy Friday morning, dear readers. I hope you’re enjoying reading my posts for #ChangingPathsChallenge2024 as much as I’m enjoying writing them. I thought I’d briefly mention a couple other blogs participating in the challenge. Of course, Yvonne Aburrow, creator of the challenge, is participating over at the resources blog for the book. I’ve also managed to run across The River Crow, who has written some delightful poetry for many of the prompts. I highly encourage you to check out both blogs and their entries. And if you know of other people participating, be sure to drop a link in the comments!

In the meantime, I wanted to write a post about chapter ten of the book Changing Paths, which is entitled “Unexamined Baggage.” For this chapter, I’ve chosen this journal prompt from the book:

Check your baggage. What ideas or values or assumptions are you carrying around from your original religious or philosophical tradition? Which ones do you want to jettison, and which ones do you want to keep?

I had to think long and hard about this one. I feel like I’ve unpacked and discarded most of what I picked up from my days as an evangelical Christian. Sure, I’ve only recently started examining and working through the ways in which my previous religion was mired in white supremacy. Similarly, I’ve been going through an unlearning process in which I critically examine what my Sunday school teachers, pastors, and other Christian leaders taught me about Judaism and the antisemitism that often gets baked right into some of the common tenets of Christianity. But these are both things I feel like I’m well on my way of ridding myself of.

Eventually, however, I think I thought of something I picked up from Christianity that I still struggle with at times: The constant need to be right and even to prove that I’m right. As an evangelical Christian, I was constantly reminded of the need to “be prepared to give a defense of the faith at all times.” So debates — or arguments disguised as debates — were something I often engaged in. I felt the need to prove that my faith was rock solid and correct. To be honest, that’s a need to is hard shake.

In some cases, I’m not sure I want to shake it completely. For example, I think there are some things that are worth arguing dogmatically in favor of, such as the basic humanity and dignity of all people. Along those lines, I will unapologetically fight for the rights and proper treatment of all people. To do otherwise would strike me as a betrayal of my principles.

And yet, even in these cases, I find myself stopping to check with myself as to why I’m engaging in such fights. Am I doing it because it’s the right thing to do and because people will be harmed otherwise? Or am I doing it in order to be right? In many cases, I suspect both motives play a factor. However, I think only the first one is a motive that should be encouraged. In the end, the well-being of others and the search for justice for them is not about me, nor should it be.

In other cases, I just think it’s important to remember that I’ve been wrong in the past and I could be wrong again. So I try — though not always successfully — to remind myself to hold to many beliefs and view loosely and humbly. Because again, it has to be about a search for truth rather than the quest to be right.

Paganism, Religion, Spiritual Development, Witchcraft

#ChangingPathsChallenge2024: Wonder and Awe

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I know that a lot of people find the term problematic due to the connotations many people associate with it, but I love the term “baby witches.” I also love people to whom the term applies. But then, I also love babies.1

To me, I think of babies and I envision of little humans facing the world for the first time with curiosity and a sense of awe and wonder. Everything is new to them and they’re often eager to explore it and try to understand it. This is the similar to the way I feel when I interact with “baby witches.”

As someone who has been exploring the Craft for two and a half decades now, I love watching people come to it for the first time. I love to see the excitement and curiosity in their eyes. I love the awe they experience as they perform their first spell — and their sense of triumph when they reap the rewards of their first successful spell. I love the amount of concern and attention they often give to making sure they “get it right” when planning their first ritual.2 Like their infant counterparts, they are encountering this new world they’ve found with a sense of wonder.

That’s something that I sometimes have to work to recapture as a more experienced witch. It’s too easy to forget just how wondrous doing ritual and encountering the gods can be after a while. So I appreciate the “baby witches” in my life that show me what that’s like and inspire me to take a moment to rekindle that sense of awe and wonder.

(This post is part of #ChangingPathsChallenge2024. See Yvonne Aburrow’s post announcing the challenge for more details.)

Footnotes

  1. Until it comes time to change a dirty diaper. I changed my sister’s oldest daughter’s diaper once. After that, i decided that was not part of the job description for being an uncle. ↩︎
  2. I will seemingly contradict myself a tiny bit to offer this advice to less experienced witches: Try not to worry quite so much about “doing something wrong,” though. The Craft is a learning process rather than a high stakes game. You will make little mistakes, but the vast majority of them will be of little to no consequence. ↩︎
Religion, Spiritual Development

#ChangingPathsChallenge2024: Drama

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One year, my old coven signed up to organize and lead the public Yule ritual at our local witch shop. One of our members found a delightful short play for the season that we decided to act out as part of the ritual. It was beautifully written and delightful, as it brought home the themes of the festival in engaging ways. Many members of the community who participated in the rite thanked us and expressed how much they enjoyed it.

Such ritual drama can be an important part of of any religious observance. it allows us to embody themes and ideas within ourselves and identify with them in a visceral way. This often moves us from a more academic or cerebral acceptance of concepts to an experience of mystery.

(This post is part of #ChangingPathsChallenge2024. For more information on this challenge, be sure to check out Yvonne Aburrow’s post announcing it.)