Defining Terms: More for Wade Long

Wade has complained that our arguments appear to be shifting between various terms.  He has a point. the word "racism" is used to describe a number of different prejudices, beliefs and actions which might more precisely be called classism, anti-ethnic prejudice, and xenophobia. Terms like "white" and "black" are rather blunt tools when used to distinguish the many subtleties of American life.  To clarify things, let's try defining a number of different factors which can come into play in these discussions.  While I have addressed some of these issues in my earlier posts "Race, Tribe, Family, Clan" and "More on Race, Clan, Ancestry and Heathenry" I think it might be worthwhile to consider the issue in more detail.

RACE: A system used to classify human populations based largely on geographic points of origin and physical characteristics like skin, hair and eye color.   The old rule of thumb used to be "White" (European origin), "Black" (African origin), "Yellow" (Asian origin) and "Red" (Indigenous American origin).   Today "White" and "Black" still receive a good deal of attention. Most East Asians would take offense to being called "Yellow:" most South Asians lack epicanthic folds and the characteristic East Asian complexion and in fact have European features combined with dark skin.  (Not surprising if you consider the whole "Indo-European" origin theory...), so they don't really fit the old "Yellow" phenotype anyway.  And while Native Americans may still talk about "walking the Red road," genetic evidence suggests America's indigenous populations in fact originated in Siberia and crossed the Bering Strait over 10,000 years ago when the oceans were lower.  (It should also be noted that many Native Americans dispute this theory, claiming they did in fact originate here and questioning the viability of the "Bering Strait" hypothesis).

Anyone who has ever read a newspaper horoscope has figured out the problem with trying to separate everybody into twelve convenient little boxes.  Racial divisions are even more crude.  A white high school dropout working in a factory in rural Georgia might share skin color with a Harvard-educated investment banker working out of an office in Connecticut, but they have very little else in common.  Barack Obama, Shaquille O'Neal, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Herman Cain are all "black" -- and if I may be forgiven for saying so, they don't all look alike to me.

For purposes of sociology race is important insofar as it trumps other factors and leads to difficult interactions between people of differing "races."  For purposes of spirit work it is not nearly so useful, I've found that spirits are not so interested in "racial" phenotypes as in...

ANCESTRY: You have a mother and a father. They each had a mother and father. And so on, and so on, and so on. Your blood and flesh provides a direct link to millions of deceased souls, each of whom have a personal interest in you and each of whom can provide you with a connection to the Gods they worshipped. This idea is at the heart of many Congo religions: there's a reason why a Palero's prenda has a skull atop it and a dead spirit who serves as a fetch for interactions between the Tata and the Nkisi.  Within Vodou we learn there are several ways one can make the acquaintance of a spirit.  You may have the spirit en sang (in the blood) if your ancestors served it; you may be introduced to it at a fet or through initiation into a société; you may purchase it as a pwen achete (bought point) from one who already works with it.

This notion of ancestry puts paid to the idea that black Americans are/should be primarily interested in working with "African spirits." The majority of black Americans trace their ancestry back to the southern United States and the days of slavery.  And most have ancestors who trace their roots to Europe thanks to that antebellum and postbellum tradition of what they called "miscegenation" and what we today call "rape." And if you've got ancestors from Europe, there's a chance you'll hear the call of the European gods.  A white ancestor in your distant past can provide you a direct link to a whole river of blood. Those who assume that those with visually "African" features should stick to working with African gods are forgetting the "one drop" rule goes both ways.

(I apologize for bringing up an ugly and painful episode in American history. I understand the pain that this rape culture caused and still causes for black Americans and I don't wish to minimize that pain. But if we're going to discuss ancestry, we're going to have to talk about ancestors we might rather forget. We should also remember that no matter how vile Ancestor X was, if you go down the line enough generations you are almost certain to find decent and loving ancestral spirits who recognize you as their child and who are more interested in your blood than your skin).

Not all spirits are concerned with ancestry. I've found the Gods of empire will accept offerings from anyone who honors them.  (This may explain why the Yoruba spirits, who were the gods of a notoriously expansionist and militaristic culture, have found worshippers around the world).  But there are some who are not interested in working with anyone who doesn't have the proper ancestry.  The Jewish G-d would be a good example of this type of spirit: He only allows those who are kohanim by blood to perform certain of His rites and saddles them with extra obligations as well.  But while I've encountered spirits that are only interested in those of a certain ancestry, I've not yet heard of a historical God or spirit who wished to work only with "black" or "white" people.  And given that concepts of "race" had little meaning before the pre-Christian era, I'd be very surprised if I did.

I hope to address more of Wade's concerns in a later post. Right now I need to return to my sadly neglected writing-for-meager-profit.  But I hope this will clarify at least those two terms: next I need to address "culture," "class" and "ethnicity."

And Still More on the Z Budapest Comment Controversy

From an anonymous poster on The Wild Hunt:

Sorry, the blog you linked to doesn't show the alleged comment in its original context. I think the jury is still out on this. The blog you linked to seems somewhat dodgy in the first place. I think you will need more than this to convince the skeptical.

Here is the original post, with the comment from "Z Budapest". 

Here is the post wherein Anya Kless, the owner of that blog, provides the information (IP address, website and e-mail address) connected with that comment from "Z Budapest".

Since the "Z Budapest" commenter does not appear to have logged in via Twitter, Wordpress or Facebook, s/he was presented with a form that required a name and an e-mail address and provided an optional space for a website. Forging that information is a trivial matter. One can comment as "Barack Obama" and provide a whitehouse.gov address if the spirit moves them: there are no verification mechanisms built in to handle that request.  Accordingly, we cannot assume anything from the "zbudapest.com" website or the "zbudapest -at- gmail.com" e-mail address.  

The IP address, on the other hand, is a far more reliable piece of information. It's possible to hide your originating IP address by using TOR or a standalone proxy like hidemyass.com. But spoofing your IP address to make it look like it originated from someone else's computer is considerably more complicated.  75.36.183.63, the IP address used by "Z Budapest," does not appear to be a TOR node or a proxy. It looks in fact to be a residential ADSL line in the SF Bay area, specifically in the Berkeley/Oakland area. 

It could be that this poster used that connection without permission if the owner had an open or an easily cracked wireless setup. But I'd be inclined to think that the message did in fact originate at that IP address, with or without the owner's authorization. So whatever the case it appears that if the poster is not Z Budapest, s/he at least lives in Z's general area. 

Assuming this is a forger, s/he has a strange modus operandi. S/he has obviously taken the time to read enough of Z's writings to capture her grammatical and spelling idiosyncracies: what's more, she's posted a rant which is in keeping with Z's well-known feelings about transwomen.  But s/he appears to have posted one inflammatory comment on one relatively obscure blog and then vanished. 

This isn't the sort of behavior one would expect from someone who has a major axe to grind - and identity-forgers invariably are seeking revenge for some real or perceived slight or spanking.  Given the loons, goons and loony maroons who used to do this kind of crap on Usenet, I'd expect a veritable flood of anti-trans rants spread across the Pagan blogosphere - especially given the explosive response from this one message.  Controversy is to a troll what blood is to a shark: take it from someone who was on alt.satanism back when most of the regulars on 4Chan and Something Awful were still swimming around in their fathers' balls.

But "Z Budapest" doesn't seem to have followed through and fanned the flames. Instead of acting like a troll, s/he is acting like someone who posted under hir own name and then realized sie had just taken an axe handle to a hornet's nest.  Given all this, and given the fact that Z took nearly a year to start talking about people making inflammatory statements in her name, I hope you can forgive me for seeing your skepticism and raising you with my outright disbelief. 

More on the Z Budapest Comment Controversy

In response to somebody who said:

I'd also like to add in reference to Jason's comment that there is no conclusive evidence that Z Budapest actually made the inflammatory "transies" remark attributed to her.

Here is a copy of the original comment, from the blog in which it was posted, complete with identifying e-mail and IP address information. 

Z Budapest
zbudapest.com x
zbudapest@gmail.com
75.36.183.63

Whoever posted that information did it from a SBC DSL account located in or around Berkeley, California - an area which would include Oakland.

WHOIS zbudapest.com

Domain name: zbudapest.com

Registrant Contact:
Women's Spirituality Forum
NA NA ()
Fax:
P.O. Box 11363
Oakland, CA 94611
US

Administrative Contact:
NA
Z Budapest (zb@zbudapest.com)
+1.5108933097
Fax:
P.O. Box 11363
Oakland, CA 94611
US

Technical Contact:
NA
Z Budapest (zb@zbudapest.com)
+1.5108933097
Fax:
P.O. Box 11363
Oakland, CA 94611
US
Status: Locked

Name Servers:
dns1.name-services.com
dns2.name-services.com
dns3.name-services.com
dns4.name-services.com
dns5.name-services.com

Creation date: 08 Jun 1999 22:01:31
Expiration date: 08 Jun 2012 22:02:00

From zbudapest.com

Are you a member of Generation Z? Do you have a teaching event that you'd like to bring Z to be a part of? Contact Z directly to chat with the foundering foremother of the feminist spirituality movement (zbudapest AT gmail.com).

I'd be interested in seeing headers from e-mail sent by Z Budapest. If it comes from an AT&T/SBC DSL line, I think we have a conclusive answer as to who did or did not send that comment.

Sith Lord Sean the Sorcerer Gets His Fifteen Minutes

Responding to my earlier post,  Sith Lord Sean the Vampire Sorcerer said:

Oh come on Filan, you can do better than posting silly pictures and juvenile mockeries can't you? 

Oh, I can do a lot better.  Trust me.

Go ahead and engage my lethal mind at any level you like; I think I would enjoy a good sparring match with one whose arrogance is obviously so unmatched by his intellect. 

I know that "I know you are but what am I?" is considered bad form in a flame war. But dude, rarely have I ever seen a situation where it would be more appropriate.  I suppose your mind might be lethal: the ebola virus is lethal and it can only be seen with an electron microscope.  But from everything I'm seeing here you are to intellectual pursuits what Stephen Hawking is to tap dancing.

Not everything I write is meant to be taken seriously 

 That's good. Because very little of it is.

(even if the humor is lost on you), but I was dead serious in my condemnation of your wretched, humorless PC guilt-mongering, which in my experience is a luxury only affluent societies built largely by the innovations of dead white guys can afford. 

OK, I'll bite. Perhaps your lethal and voracious mind can tear itself away from silly cliches like "PC guilt-mongering" and "dead white guys" and answer this question: do you agree or disagree with this statement from yrs. truly?

I think it is worthwhile, when learning about a culture's traditions, to go to representatives of that culture if possible.  This offers a deeper and more direct introduction to the spirits, the theology and the magic than one can get from research using secondary or tertiary sources. 

Feel free to use both sides of the screen explaining your response. And don't hesitate to include links which support your position. 

By the way, I recently saw you listed on a list of influential Satanists and you were somewhere around #25, which I find rather baffling since I see little that is Satanic about your writing, ideology or ethos.

I am a Satanist insofar as I think The Satanic Bible is a very trenchantly funny book that, like all great comedy, raises a lot of serious and thought-provoking points as well. Anton LaVey was one of the last Great American Curmudgeons, sour SOBs kvetching at witty length about the idiocy surrounding them.  I'd compare him to Twain, Bierce and Mencken: I'd even say that Harlan Ellison could be included in that august company as the last miserable survivor.  His Church of Satan is a great gag to those of us who are in on it.  I realize that some morons - by which I mean you - are unable to get the joke.  That only makes it all the funnier to those of us who do.

Besides, I'm sure to move up in the list once Marilyn Manson finds Jesus.  

Anyway, this may be my parting shot since engaging in battle with one who has so little respect for his opponent is not a very rewarding use of my time. Good luck and good fighting, and if you're so inclined, hail Satan.

When you find a place where people respect you send me a post card.  Assuming they have a postal service, that is.

More for Wade Long - and Welcome Back, Sean the Sorcerer!

First, I'd like to welcome back an old fan, Sith Lord Sean the Sorcerer, who came to the aid of Wade Long in a recent debate that has arisen on an earlier post.

Sean has added to his repertoire since our last encounter.  Not only is he a Sith Lord, a sorcerer whose mind "is a lethal weapon to which very people few can withstand prolonged exposure," and a Ninja trained by Bruce Lee and repeated watchings of Kung Fu, he's also a psychic vampire.

In his words:

It seems that my voracious mind, being so powerful yet so lacking in sustenance, is actually starving my body of energy and bringing me to the brink of death. In this drained condition, my immune system is weakened and I am vulnerable to any number of maladies which conventional medicine is at a loss to explain. The witch therefore prescribed some powerful supplements and herbs which are supposed to dramatically increase my energy level and thereby exorcise whatever demons may possess me. I am rather ambivalent about this approach though, because while it would undoubtedly be advantageous to elevate my energy level to something higher than one notch above dead, I fear that in doing so I may lose my connection to the eldritch realms and demonic entities which so inspire me.

In the interest of avoiding prolonged exposure to Sean's mind (such as it is), I shall refrain from commenting on his thoughts. Those who are interested may check out the earlier post, where a healthy debate has commenced.  Since ethical considerations are being given due consideration there, I'm going to concentrate here on some practical issues I see with Wade's statements.

"there are many white Pagans who want to practice spooky, exotic magic from African diaspora, Hispanic and indigenous cultures but who show an active aversion to actually meeting representatives of those cultures. "

Okay ... but again, why is skin color the determining factor for whether or not they can do it? Why do they HAVE to meet those representatives in order to make the magic work right? Also, there are white people in the Congo, born and bred, who would also be considered "representatives of those cultures" for all practical purposes. Not to mention the Christians and Muslims living there who, even though their skin color might match the Paleros and Brujas you mention, would hardly be qualified as teachers based only on their skin color.

The question here isn't skin color, it's culture. You don't have to be Haitian to practice Haitian Vodou Although there are houses which will only initiate natif natal Haitians and spirits which will only work with those who have a particular ancestry, it is certainly possible for a non-Haitian to serve the lwa honored in the asson lineage with or without an initiation.  But unless you know something about Haitian culture and Haitian history, you're going to miss a lot of the nuances of their service.  You're going to learn things by attending a fet thrown by and for Haitians which you probably will not see at a fet thrown by and for a group of Wiccans who want to honor the lwa in their own fashion, based on what they've read in a few books and learned from available websites.

That's not to say that those Wiccans can't hold a perfectly reverent and respectful service which pleases the spirits and which accomplishes the goals they set out to achieve. But it will be something very different than the fet you see in a yard in Port-au-Prince or in a basement in Brooklyn. And I think it is worthwhile, when learning about a culture's traditions, to go to representatives of that culture if possible.  This offers a deeper and more direct introduction to the spirits, the theology and the magic than one can get from research using secondary or tertiary sources.  I would think this self-evident, but apparently Wade disagrees with me.

As far as the Congo goes, a Portuguese person living in Angola who had been initiated into certain mysteries and attended services in honor of those mysteries might well know more about working with those spirits than a black Angolan Muslim who looked upon those ceremonies with horror and disgust.   But again this speaks to culture rather than race or ethnicity.  And since I've never claimed that skin color was nearly so important as culture, I'm not sure what point that serves in this discussion.

Contrary to Victorian and contemporary magical scholars, I don't believe that you can reduce magic down to some lowest common denominator and use various props to control the current and shape it to your own needs. I'm a Hard Polytheist: I believe that the Gods and spirits are not only real but are individual entities that each must be approached and honored in his/her/its own right. And since I also believe that cultures are the reflections of their Gods rather than the other way around, I think one of the best ways of approaching a particular God is to learn as much as possible about the followers He or She inspired and the civilization He or She helped to create.

Yeah, and how about all those silly pagans who dare work in the Feri Tradition, but have no interest in going to Ireland and meeting real life Little People out in the mounds? I really really would like to know *why* the practice of a particular magic-using tradition should be based on a person's skin color at all. Why do they *have* to meet those people?

Feri traces its roots not to Ireland but to the teachings of Victor and Cora Anderson and Gwydion Pendderwen. Which brings us to another question: lineage. Modern American Neopaganism tends to downplay the importance of initiation and lineage, but the question of "from whence did you receive your teachings and initiation, and from whence did they receive theirs?" has been considered vital in traditions as disparate as Hinduism, Ifa and Apostolic Christianity.

This gets back to the question of culture again.  Wade is (or was) a high-ranking member of an initiatory order, the Temple of Set.  There are certain documents (the "Tablets of Set") which are only given to those members who have attained the proper degree.  PDF copies of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th degree Tablets (at least) are available to anybody with an Internet connection.  Could somebody download those tablets, study them diligently, and get the same experience that they would by joining the Temple of Set and interacting with official members? Or would they miss out on subtleties which a higher-ranking member could show them? Would they tend to run into blind alleys that they could avoid if they had the proper guidance.  Would they reinvent wheels that had already been created and were being exchanged through private channels - or not invent those wheels at all?

In re a Power of the Poppy Review: for Del Schlosser

The awesome and talented Del Schlosser (who, tragically, was recently diagnosed with a terminal illness) posted a review of The Power of the Poppy a few weeks ago. Since I wanted to take a break from the Pantheacon discussions (entertaining though they are), I thought this might be a good time to address one of his comments.

Where my disappointment came in, was that as a fellow spirit worker, I had really hoped there would have been more spiritual information about the spirit ally of Poppy. It gets a passing mention now and again, but there isn’t even a chapter dedicated to those who wish to work with Her in any sort of real sense. I know that Kenaz has worked with Her as a real Spirit Ally, and I would have loved to read a little bit about hir experiences in doing so. I’ll admit; I read the book looking for this part, and when it didn’t show up, I was let down a bit. I get that the book is likely more marketable without all that woo-woo shit, but this is Kenaz Filan, author of the Voodou Love Magic book. I don’t think hir fan base would have been disappointed with a little woo.

There were  a couple of reasons I avoided talking about working with Poppy as a spirit ally.  The first is that I didn't want to encourage the people looking for "Real Hardcore Shamanism" to try anything that might get them in serious trouble.  In my opinion, Poppy literally is "the most dangerous ally" (the working title for the manuscript). Datura will chew you up, spit you out and leave you swearing you will never go near an anticholinergic plant ever, ever, EVER again.  Given the opportunity, Poppy will send you down a decades-long path of degradation, despair and ultimate death.

Providing bored Harnerites with instructions on how to meet Poppy via smoking opium, snorting heroin or even drinking poppy tea like it was ayahuasca would be irresponsible, in my opinion.  (That's not to say I wasn't tempted. That's not to say that at all... ). I took the harm reduction approach instead, providing information to people who were already interested in the topic about how they could approach Poppy in the safest possible manner.  If they wanted to construct their own rituals to Poppy, build a Poppy shrine or otherwise honor her, that was up to them.  I haven't found that Poppy was particularly interested in building that sort of relationship with me, nor have I run into many others who deal with her in that manner.

The second was that I felt many of the movements I described - bebop jazz, Seattle grunge, the Romantic fascination with opium ala de Quincey and Coleridge - showed how Poppy was doing spiritual work with us, even when we weren't approaching her in a shamanic fashion. Just because we don't strike shamanic bargains with allies doesn't mean that bargains aren't being struck. Consider the way Corn has left its mark on us even though we don't regularly make offerings to Corn Maiden anymore. (And whaddya know, it turns out that High Fructose Corn Syrup works on some of the same receptor pathways as cocaine and opiates and may be just as addictive).

And the Comments Keep Coming In: for Wade Long

Responding on G+ to my earlier post on race in modern Paganism and at Pantheacon, Wade Long (who has also offered his thoughts on the Z Budapest flap) opined:

Well, America's three quarters white, pretty much across the board. When you take into account that paganism in general is most embraced by white liberals, you're going to HAVE to simply deal with the fact that there aren't a whole hell of a lot of blacks in the pagan community. It's not just PantheaCon, either. It's everywhere.

Wade is offering as the answer what I presented as the question. I asked why it is that contemporary American Paganism is overwhelmingly white, middle-class and liberal he notes that "When you take into account that paganism in general is most embraced by white liberals, you're going to HAVE to simply deal with the fact that there aren't a whole hell of a lot of blacks in the pagan community." Which is rather like answering "why is the sky blue?" with "when you take into account that the sky is blue..."

I also note that Wade's response (and those of several other commenters) utterly fails to address the comments I posted from several black Pagans as to why they feel uncomfortable in the greater white Pagan community.   One persistent theme among black Pagans was that they feel ignored and marginalized by white Pagans. Given the way their concerns were ignored by many who responded, I think they just may be onto something. 

Then, when you address the fact that most African Americans who do practice magic don't, for the most part, actually participate much outside their own neighborhoods ... well, you just won't be seeing them going to events like PantheaCon. They're too busy doing stuff.

Again: WHY don't they "participate much outside their own neighborhoods"? You are restating the question and presenting it as an answer.  I'd also add that I have some questions about the statistical sampling you used to determine the preferences of "most African Americans who do practice magic." Especially since you seemed to miss several comments from African American practitioners in the post to which you responded. 

Then there's the inherent racism in your sentiments, by stating outright that whites Just Can't Do Magic, and are apparently unable to make Santeria or Brujeria work without having their very own pocket Mexican right there to give them the thumbs-up on it. 

Magic doesn't come from your skin color, any more than it comes from your naughty bits. Saying "No Honkies Allowed" is just as silly and counterproductive as saying "No Transies Allowed". Unless the ritual involves getting a decent tan, white people can do magic just as well as nonwhites.

Seeing as how I never said whites Just Can't Do Magic - and in fact have written books which teach readers white and otherwise how to practice Haitian and New Orleans magic - I am puzzled as to where you came up with that one. What I said (or meant to say, just in case I was utterly unclear) is that there are many white Pagans who want to practice spooky, exotic magic from African diaspora, Hispanic and indigenous cultures but who show an active aversion to actually meeting representatives of those cultures.  (The term generally used for that is "cultural appropriation," something we've been discussing here in other posts as well).

Obviously white people can do Vodou: I'd look awful damn silly saying they couldn't. But I question the motivations of those who want to learn Haitian Vodou but who have no interest in actually engaging with Haitian people.  I have issues with people who want to call themselves "rootworkers" and "conjure folks" but who are terrified of the poor black people who actually originated this tradition.  I find the white folks who will happily buy dream catchers and practice "Native spirituality" while stepping over the homeless drunk Cherokee in the parking lot distasteful.  That doesn't mean they "Just Can't Do Magic."  It means that I find their behavior to be exploitative and shameful.  I harbor no illusions that I'm going to change it, but that doesn't stop me from calling them on it.