Over the last month alone I have had:
- People fail to pay me for divination and other spiritual services I’ve provided. (One person even got into a bitchy, entitled huff when I refused to do any further work for them until they made good their debt.)
- People request counseling, research assistance and other help without any regard for my time or labor. (It doesn’t always have to be financial, but there should be some kind of exchange involved.)
- People complain because I didn’t respond to their e-mails in what they considered a timely fashion.
- People complain because I’m not posting to my blog as frequently as I once did.
- People request free PDFs of my books.
- People distribute my intellectual property with no acknowledgement. (One was a case of clear plagiarism, in the others they either removed my author byline or shared material from my classes, failing to mention where it came from.)
- People insult, gaslight and flat out lie about me. This didn’t bother me (I’ve actually come to expect such behavior in online fora, sadly enough) as much as the fact that no one stood up to defend me in the midst of it, including folks I once considered close friends and co-religionists.
As a consequence of this I have removed all of my work from the Bakcheion website, severed ties with members of the Starry Bull tradition and left the Bacchic Underground. I will be starting no new online groups, will be teaching no further classes or hosting religious retreats and gatherings, and will no longer provide any spiritual services except to paying clients, redirecting my efforts instead to cultivating local, real world community with people who don’t pull the kind of shit detailed above. I will continue posting here at the House of Vines, but with the comments turned off for the time being.
In other news things are going really great in my personal and spiritual life, with some incredible opportunities opening up for myself and my loved ones. The Gods are truly gracious and generous, in ways both profoundly shocking and humbling. I cannot wait to see what the future holds in store.