Down the Rabbit Hole

I had hoped that my next post would be a recap of the ritual for Dionysos and his dead that I helped lead for House Sankofa, but a matter of some urgency has come up and I’d like to address it before the situation gets worse.

After the nastiness of the pop culture paganism controversy a lot of us felt it was necessary to take a break from the toxic environment that the internet had become to get our moorings and refocus on things that truly matter such as honoring our gods and working to restore our ancient sundered traditions. Although I had every expectation that this period of rest would prove revitalizing for those who participated I was, quite frankly, blown away by how well it went for many of us. Here are just a selection of the accounts I saw trickling in in the weeks that followed:

Here, and Not Here.
I’m Back From Sabbatical.
Roaring Into Silence.
Mostly Untitled.
Rebirth in Silence.
What I’ve been up to.

As you guys may have noticed, I returned from the month of silence with a renewed drive to promote the cultus of the Dionysian Dead on the one hand and to help foster a strong, healthy and vital community for devotional polytheists. The key to this, I felt, was first determining what exactly it was people needed (which turned out to be more material on the basics of practice as well as real world contacts.) Secondly I felt that it was important to begin forging alliances and working partnerships across communal and other boundaries. A lot of folks are doing incredible work on behalf of their gods and spirits, often starting from scratch with minimal support and precious little in the way of resources. It takes a massive toll on them — physically, spiritually and financially — but it’s work that must be done, even with such seemingly insurmountable odds stacked against them.

But, I thought, what if these people didn’t have to do it alone? What if we came to each other’s assistance, what if we helped shoulder these harsh burdens collectively, what if we made an effort to extend a hand in kindness and generosity to strangers even if we have but little ourselves to give?

From these questions was born polytheism without borders, and I am so proud of how all of you have stepped up. In just a matter of weeks you guys have been able to accomplish some truly remarkable things. I am thinking in particular of the work that Pete Helms has done just since his appearance on Wyrd Ways Radio — though in truth I could point to dozens of other meritorious folks out there. You guys fucking rock my socks off.

What I didn’t consider is that there would be consequences for this.

I’ve got history. More than that I’m an abrasive, opinionated, misanthropic, all-around nasty prick. I don’t pull punches and I never learned how to play well with others. Truth is, I’ve made more enemies than you’ve got Facebook friends.

I should not be the one leading this initiative and the second someone better suited to this sort of work steps forward I’ll gladly go back to writing obscene Dadaesque poetry full of dense and incomprehensible allusions to obscure figures from antiquity. The way it should be.

Because any project or group that I’m involved with has got a massive liability — me.

When some people catch wind that I’m involved they run to get as far away as possible. And when some other people hear that I’m involved, they start taking notes and names. These people have learned that they can’t do shit to me. I own nothing, I have ties to nothing, I work where no one cares who I am or what I do as long as I’m prompt and act with minimal competency while on the clock. There’s no way to smear my reputation or insult me because I’ve put out there far worse and more indecent things about myself than even Nero could have dreamed up, some small portion of which may actually be true. As Kris Kristofferson once sang, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

And so instead they go after those who are close to me, people who do have things to lose. It angers and saddens me every time that it happens, and it happens every time I get involved with others — which is a big part of why I’ve spent the last couple years avoiding any kind of community involvement.

Although I hinted around this before, I should have made it damn clear when this started. I didn’t, and because of that a dear, sweet and pious woman is suffering the consequences.

Tess Dawson, I publicly and from the bottom of my heart apologize to you. You do not deserve any of this. Your service to your gods is far cleaner and purer than anything I will ever be capable of and yet by trying to use The House of Vines to promote your work I made you a target. I am sorry.

Let us be crystal clear that this is what’s going on.

Aine Llewellyn took offense at my comments during the pop culture pagan debacle and has nursed a grudge against me and those close to me ever since. And that’s why this attack on Tess Dawson was posted.

Go back through Aine’s Tumblr account and blog at Patheos over the last six months as I just did. Isn’t it curious how Aine never mentioned Tess Dawson, Canaanite polytheism, the situation in the Middle East or the plight of the Syrian people until I started attempting to boost the signal for her and now all of a sudden Aine is demonizing her and attempting to come off as a crusader for these causes?

Nor is Aine the only one.

Others have been even more explicit as to their motivations for jumping on the “bash Tess” bandwagon:

The rabbithole just keeps getting deeper. Maybe because she’s hanging out with certain other BNPs with toxic ideas and demeanors.

And:

Woooooow. I just find this so sad because I used to think it was so interesting what Tess was doing, but CLEARLY she has been drinking the same kool-aid as Some People. YEESH.

What I find particularly insidious about this is how they are attempting to spin things and besmirch her reputation.

For speaking eloquently and passionately about the pain of rejection and the centuries of violence and revilement that the indigenous gods of the Near and Middle East have endured, Tess is being portrayed as a self-aggrandizing demagogue, an opportunistic evangelist, a heartless bitch who cares nothing about the travails of oppressed peoples and worse she’s even being called an anti-Semite.

The irony of someone who reveres Semitic culture and Semitic deities being branded with such an ugly label would be terribly amusing if it wasn’t so serious. And it is serious because this form of race-based hatred is one of the nastiest and most virulent in our society, and we see the consequences of it every fucking day. It should have no place in our hearts and in our communities and those who espouse such ideas and especially those who act upon them should be treated as harshly as they would treat others.

Therefore you need to be extremely careful in throwing around this accusation. When you do so casually and without any justification you cheapen it, you dilute it, you strip away any stigma it naturally possesses.

Especially when you do it to score a point in an online debate.

Especially when you do it to shut your “opponent” up and make people hate them, stop listening to them, stop reasonably considering what they wrote.

I’ve studied the Greek masters of sophistry and rhetroric; I can see exactly what’s going on here.

When you use scary, emotionally-charged words like that it short-circuits the critical faculties. All you have to do is plant the seed in people’s head and they’ll see everything through that lens. They’ll sift through a mass of text looking for any little scrap, any ambiguous phrase that confirms, however vaguely, what they already expect and want to find, ignoring everything to the contrary.

Read Tess’ posts. You won’t find her calling people kikes and sand niggers. You won’t find her talking about her plans to torch a synagogue over the weekend or splatter pig’s blood on women in hijabs. You won’t find her saying that the region should be nuked until the desert is turned to glass. However much certain people want to make you think that you will.

Read Tess’ posts and you’ll see that she isn’t that sort of woman at all. She loves her gods and goddesses. She remembers what happened to them and their people. She believes that something valuable was lost and is in desperate need of restoration. And for that she’s being spit and shat upon.

None of which happened before her tentative and loose association with me.

That’s something you need to seriously consider, people.

There are people who hate me with a passion that would better be reserved for honoring their divinities and they are going to go after anyone who gets too close. This isn’t your fight, and there’s no reason for you to get drafted into it.

But you can be damned sure that I’m going to still be here working to revive the proper worship of my gods and all gods, no matter how much that offends certain people. I’m going to put everything I’ve got into creating a strong and vital community so that those who follow me won’t have to do this work. I’m not afraid of a fight and I’ve got nothing to lose.

So come for me all you want, people. Just leave the good ones alone.