asksecularwitch:

traegorn:

asksecularwitch:

traegorn:

asksecularwitch:

@traegorn

Actually, I have heard of the revoking baptism and reversing the lords prayer as a mechanism for becoming a witch. Especially in forms of practice that emphasize a hand in hand form with the Devil (in some sense christian in other senses not christian).

Just as I have heard about walking into the mountains with a loaded revolver and silver bullets to shoot the moon and cause it to turn red.

If its the first time you’ve heard of that form of initiatory practice for a witch, I am not too surprised though. I invested minor time in looking into alternatives to initiation as a witch. The shooting the moon one I learned from NWW i believe.

But the reversal and other things I had heard / read in some cases from the witch trails in Europe if I am not mistaken in memory of where I had heard that.

I mean, I really just hadn’t heard of it, and mostly I was just saying it didn’t represent my experiences. Like I’m still not convinced it’s a widespread thing.

But you have to remember —

1. I have never been a Christian, and have probably only heard the Lord’s Prayer forwards less than a dozen times in my life.
2. Admittedly I’m a Wiccan, and therefore most beginner books I’ve read came from this angle — and we like to avoid overt Christian references in our practices.
3. My assertion that it isn’t widespread is not an assertion that it is an illegitimate practice.

Mostly I was just sort of surprised.

I think the majority of the stand offishness with regards to people not wanting anything to do with Christianity (in New Age books), is exactly the representation of denoucing any christian actions that people have had.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with other witches that most of them are converts from one form of Christianity or another. Some of them turned openly against the churches they belong to, some of them didnt feel it was necessary to renoucing those concepts because that wasnt the type or kind of Christianity they had. (Ie, they had a kind where you just needed to believe in Christ and thats that. Not a whole system which is literally tracking you and what your doing and what rites you have and have not been given).

People forget that Christianity is a mystery religion (baptism is a mystery) just like Wicca is (in your case).

Think about what you would want if you ever left Wicca. Do you want to break your Wiccan initiation rites? How would you do that?

To me, this concrete separation and cutting of ties is absurdly common and a discussion I have had with people across the years. I am just surprised that people feel so against the idea that people would come up with ways to do that.

I don’t think I’m remotely against it, but I can see why someone would be?

Like to require renouncing something arguably could be seen as an endorsement of its validity? Like I think that point of view comes from the idea that if a contract was never valid, it doesn’t need to be broken. Like having to overtly break it somehow means a part of the person still sees it as true?

The counter is obvious — that even a dedication to a faith a person now deems illegitimate was still a dedication a person made, and the need to overtly disconnect can be therapeutic and validating. But not everyone comes from that point of view.

It’s a complicated, deeply personal thing.

I think its a point of closure as well. It was valid for that person until that point, and now its over and done with in a way that finishes it up.

You are right that it is a deeply personal thing, but so is working anything related to yourself. If that particular tradition views it as important to close something down, to separate yourself from it permanently, then that is a deeply personal decision.

I think its wrong headed to just jump back from something and stamp your foot (not that you were but that other replies where) with things like how dare you do that and how dare that be a requirement for certain practices. /scoff without considering the obvious point of it.

Closure. An end. A place where you cannot return to.

In almost a way of sacrificing it for something else.

I can see that in that mindset. And I see it as respectful as well, in some ways. Like I respected this religion enough to profane the ties I had to it. If that makes sense? Not to go on my days with a did i/didnt i? Type of deal.

Am i still technically part of this religion i have not actively participated in for years? Etc.

That is, in some ways, why I personally performed a retrieval and severing before beginning in earnest with the Morrigan. (Couldn’t follow up this Samhain due to new health issues, there is always Yule, which was my six week consideration period last contract ANYWAY. Hem. I digress-)

I DID view the contract as made under duress and with very many faults indeed. I called individually on the members of my personal pantheon, asking their specific help and the loan of a few attributes per entity, and asked Morrigan/the Morrigans to bear witness. Since, in my view, I was going to do battle with a Deity on their own ground. In my opinion, asking the war deity; specifically a war deity connected to self sovereignty and vows; you’re engaging with to watch as I renounce vows and assert my self sovereignty is a little… on the nose, yeah?

 I brought my complaints and my wounds before the god I was forced to serve as a child, without consent or understanding, and compared what had happened to me, to what he claimed in his own book to be about. None of it matched up. And a god that allows his followers to be so vile to CHILDREN is not a god I want to follow. I cut those ties, declared my autonomy, renounced my baptism; which in my view was impeding my involvement with other pantheons via “I am a jealous god” “the indwelling of the spirit” “no other gods before me”; I renounced the fellowship, and promised not to seek them out nor reproach them for remaining under the aegis of the church if that’s their desired place. 

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Not everyone needs to do that. Not everyone suffered the abuse I did. Not everyone feels the need to differentiate between parts of their life so strongly, and not everyone needs to make that separation that… distinctive. And, definitely, not everyone wants to approach the Throne of Heaven to have words with the Christian Trinity. 

Me? I was pissed off, traumatized, and had recently ironed out the source of that trauma. I wouldn’t necessarily say I was possessed of God-Killer Rage in that moment, but I was definitely pissed and feeling betrayed. I did what I thought was necessary, and in the instances of “I can TELL people are praying over me” chain-yanking have drastically increased. 

I call that a win.