Incompatible Pretending
Mr Muldoon steers us to a tale of colliding make-believe:
A very modern headline, I think you’ll agree.
They have training courses, you know, and websites, and a federation. We’re all learning things today.
Ms Howard, it turns out, is a “second-generation witch,” following in the mystical footsteps of her mother, “a high priestess” who “ran a coven in the 1980s.”
A very modern heresy. Resulting in a revoking of membership and denial of access to witchcraft course materials.
The Pagan Federation, however, issued a statement insisting that the womanliness of cross-dressing men is obvious, unassailable and “not up for debate”:
Validity for everyone. Just tilt your head and squint. Apparently, we’re to be told what reality is by people who think they’re witches.
Ah, that Thing That Never Happens.
As these are terribly modern, immensely caring witches, Ms Howard was banned from the organisation’s Facebook page and from the website of the British Druid Order on grounds of being “unequivocally transphobic.” Thereby denying Ms Howard access to the arcane knowledge of “seers and healers,” along with the opportunity to purchase oracle cards, audio recordings of spells and invocations, and “hymns to the divine feminine.” Oh, and guides to coping with stress by wrapping a thick blanket around your head.
No more “walking between worlds,” alas.
At which point, readers may wish to ponder the implied rules of pretending, the hierarchy of make-believe, in which some people pretending to be something that they aren’t are deemed of much greater importance than other people pretending to be something that they aren’t. A world in which pretending one thing now seems to mean that all pretences, of any kind, must be observed.
Further rumblings on the matter, and photographs of uncanny goings-on, can be found here.
By all means consider this an open thread.
LOL.
(Belated ping.)
Bless you, sir. Should you have just spent forty minutes cleaning the bathroom, deterging every surface, such that the toilet is fragrant and positively gleaming, may you not find your beloved other promptly making loud and vigorous use of said amenity.
Excellent – As more normies refuse to participate, the crazies will gravitate to each other for narcissistic supply… frees up time for the rest of us.
Don’t think they’re fearful looks, love.
For some reason, I was reminded of Angela Lansbury attempting to paranormally animate a pair of shoes.
Was it Mrs Thatcher’s fault?
It was the 80s. Everyone was doing it.
He’s gotta go sometime.
“I hate to say this, but don’t do magic against him. He has a form of protection surrounding him that feeds off of magic done against him.”
Or – and hear me out on this – your magic simply . . . isn’t.
I knew some of these “magickal folke” back in the early 90s and the problem I saw was the overwhelming presence of hysterical females. But that’s it, innit? Who are the most vocal in support of “transwomen are women?” Who shows up in arrest videos taken from cops’ bodycams, refusing to simply hand over license and registration when asked? Who are the ones holding the “Musk is a Nazi” sign with a keffiyeh around her neck, most ready to smack a person’s iphone out of their hand for filming?
Going back to the witches, I noticed that “high priestesses” were a dime a dozen – everyone wants her own coven to bully around. BTW, that mention of being a “second generation” witch? That effort to have credentials was always thrown about by these people. If their grandmother told them that one time her mother made some herbal tea to drink for a cold, great-grandmother suddenly became a “healer” and stories sprung about her being recognized as such by her village, and the present generation witch was just “reclaiming” her ancestry, even as her mother and grandmother would say, “But then they came out with Nyquil and we just used that . . .”
And the Unicorn you rode in on
I saw the same thing in the 70’s and 80’s. Lots of neurotics and worse.
That was the first thing I noticed about those people, the transparently neurotic quest for status: “I’m a crystal healer/reader of auras/past lives therapist/etc.” These were overwhelmingly people without real accomplishments who nonetheless longed for high status.
I was briefly married to a woman who committed paganism. She played with crystal healing and did a blessing ceremony on my garden bed, but she was otherwise harmless.
These Bedlamites make me appreciate John Michael Greer, a druid who actually lives his beliefs. He believes in magic, but only as a means of changing the self (as opposed to, say, Harry Potter magic), and he objects to witches casting cursing spells, which he believes opens the door to them rebounding on you. Whatever you may think about this woo-woo, at least it seems like he put the work and thought into his beliefs.
This. It’s an attempt by relatively unsuccessful and boring people to blag some credential that doesn’t take too much effort, and thus be interesting.
See also bored housewives trying to register their cupcake/vintage/craft hobby as a business, because that will make them important.
Related: the people who claim to recall their past lives–and very conveniently those were always lives of high status, never lowly peasant drudgery.
Great Moments in Aviation History:
Wright brothers’ first flight;
Louis Blériot crosses the English Channel;
Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic;
Martin China Clipper crosses the Pacific;
Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier;
Yuri Gagarin orbits the Earth;
…and now, “…a watershed moment in Canadian history…”
I hate to break it to them, but they were not the first…
Thanks for reminding us of the “boring” factor. Dull and silly people trying to make themselves interesting by illegitimate means.
It was the loudness that I found wounding.
It was the loudness that I found wounding.
If you stopped feeding the poor chap on the standard English diet of beans and curries, this would be a self-righting problem.
Meanwhile in women’s sports, a woman wins.
Oh well played, madam. Maximum style points.
Sounds like a Samuel L. Bronkowitz production, Drag Queen Preacher.
Meanwhile, a gentleman with Skittles™ fingernails is upset.
Does it have to be a magic blanket?
You’d think they’d sell them in the British Druid Order gift shop. And the belly stones. Alongside those oracle cards, spell-casting CDs, and whatnot.
Missed opportunity.
The blankets need tightening.
[ Rummages in garden for hefty stones. ]
[ Adds label, Magic Belly Stones. ]
£30 each, mate. Bargain.
My great-great-uncle made the neighbour’s son a cat-food sandwich.
There’s nothing special about being third slave to the left on the triumphal sculpture.
Band name.
You could see if they work on your party of the second part to cure your bathroom woes.
They did the score for Drag Queen Preacher.
Make yourself useful, Muldoon. Help me wash these magic belly stones.
[ Ups price of magic belly stones. ]
Is that another Star Trek thing, like the Romulans?
Help me wash these magic belly stones.
No, no, you don’t wash them, that removes the Ancient Mystic Clay and Soil™ once blessed by druid priests, Roman pontifices, and early Christian monks alike.
No, that’s not ‘holy water’.
Pleasingly absurd: Horse Marines splash into action
But did she spray down her cleats with a fire extinguisher?
I once had a crystal radio set. Does that count?
Apparently, Ms. Howard has no problems with broomsticks. It’s the (bed)knobs she takes issue with. Terfs run rampant in the world of magic and sorcery. Ask J.K. Rowling.
Pleasingly absurd: Horse Marines splash into action
Normally mounted on a jeep, the experiments with recoilless rifle mules met with mixed success…
[ Cancels Air Canada flight, rebooks with WestJet ]
They should tell you at the time of booking. I don’t want to listen to any cat fights from the cockpit. Or should I say front-hole-pit.
Or should I say front-hole-pit.
I believe it is “princess wand pit” now.
For any passing devotees of Ms Lansbury.
Quite liked her portrayal of Nellie Lovett.
I thought the Wiccan creed was ‘an it harm none, do what thou wilt’? I guess the first part is now too modern and judgemental for today’s modern progressive witch.
All disagreement is now defined as harmful.
Happy Pride Month.
Happy Pride Month.
Happy Pride Month, Take 2
I unfortunately hung out with a bunch of hippies in my youth, including some dabbling in magic. No druids however, this being in the US. Such open minds that their brains fell right out. I stayed for the yoga and cute girls…but not for long.
Meme: “Don’t be fooled by those big ol’ socialist titties.”
[ Fetches notepad, pen. ]
Will this be on the test?
Witches used to watch Charmed and run around naked in the woods, now they’re getting back to their Druid roots.
Can wicker baskets be far behind?