For a Magical Society by any other name would smell as sweet November 9, 2018 8:25 AM   Subscribe

Come ye animists, witches, polytheists, neoplatonists, hermeticists, and wizards! Come cunning folk, sorcerors, enchantresses, and charmers. Come pagans and wiccans and esoteric philosophers! Let's share our learning, wisdom, book choices and internet finds!

A while back I made an internet forum for magical mefites which was cool and all except that we're not living in the 90's and nobody, not even myself really uses internet forums anymore. (Ok, maybe some of you do, but I don't so it's pretty silly to try to run one). Many people were interested and joined, yet then we all remembered we don't use internet forums and forgot about it.

I do however really enjoy facebook groups at the moment (and yes with all the pro's and con's of facebook, I know.) I would love to welcome those who are learning magical arts and traditions, particularly from a humanistic and scholarly perspective which I suspect many mefites are coming from. This is a WOO ACCEPTING zone, so a little different than metafilter though I do a lot of reading from ancient history, archeology, classical texts from the ancient world and I would really love to share them and to hear others finds as well.


Group description:
A compassionate space for students of polytheistic, magical, and animistic traditions to educated ourselves and each other. A place to strengthen each other, build our wisdom and empathy, and to grow in learning of magical traditions and arts. A place to deepen our ethics and commitment to building a compassionate world with justice and respect for human beings and all life. A place to honor our polytheistic and magical ancestors who can still aid us and whose words we may even find in books and inscriptions they left for us. May we help build up ourselves, each other, and our world to live in harmony and respect for life to the best of our abilities.
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Currently I am reading a lot about neoplanists and those who were among the last stand against the brutality of forced Christianity and the destruction of polytheistic and magical faiths in the middle ages. Bring your own topics of learning and interest as well! I am also into addressing the abuses done by polytheists as well, recently I was reading about Symmachus and the very last of the Roman pagans with empathy, when I then read a story about how Symmachus was angry that the Saxons strangled each other before he could have them killed at one of his big parties in the amphitheater. I am reminded to have empathy for the fact that perhaps there were very few servants of human welfare even among the polytheists wiped out by Christianity. There is room to both address wrongs, and also to learn, grow, forgive and heal.

If you dig these kind of discussion message me I'll get you into the Society for Magical Humanities. It's the place to be ya'll. I just made it on the facebook. :D I'm figuring magical oriented mefites will likely get as scholarly/historical and research oriented as I do... perhaps?
posted by xarnop to MetaFilter-Related at 8:25 AM (19 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite

What's the story with the current surge in talk about the occult?
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 9:45 AM on November 9, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm an atheist but I dig this stuff. Count me as someone who sees themselves as an heir to both cabalistic traditions and Druidic traditions.

After all, in my adoptive family my great-grandfather (eight times back) was Reb Wolf Kitzis, one of the founders of Hasidism, and in my biological family my mother was Patricia Monaghan, author of this book, among many others.
posted by maxsparber at 11:30 AM on November 9, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'm sorry I didn't know about the forum, though I also struggle to remember to go to them anymore. I messaged you.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:20 PM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


yyyyesss scholarly wizard matters
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 2:24 PM on November 9, 2018 [3 favorites]


ye this is my jammmmm
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 3:14 PM on November 9, 2018 [4 favorites]


Yes, interested, but I don't even know what ritual and stuffs looks like to me at this point, and I'm figuring that out a lot lately.

Which seems to be vaguely neopagan/naturalist/chaos-ish with a focus on meditations on stillness, quiet, intent and personal growth in spite of an increasingly toxic world culture. I'm interested in sigil as art and art as sigil, the use of energy as a daily practice.
posted by loquacious at 5:33 PM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


This is extremely my jam.
posted by MrBadExample at 8:13 PM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


I’d be fascinated ... but I’m hip deep in a five volume magical series and don’t know that I could avoid gleaning stuff. I intentionally step very far from actual lore, but I’m sure some of it would filter in. My family’s steeped in mountain woo, though, both sides. Hedgewitches, yarb women, “healing hands” and green thumbs...we could get into a feminist discussion about the ways women reclaim power, but the uncanny follows us regardless of logic. (If it’s any comfort to the nonwoo among us, I’m pretty sure it has to do with quantum mechanics, but that is also pretty tough to prove at this juncture. ) Let me wind up this project, and I’ll join you.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 11:37 PM on November 9, 2018 [3 favorites]


I don’t know about magic, but I’m not an atheist, though I don’t know what I am. Some sort of universal spirit that animates this whole “thing,” whatever it is, is as close as I can get to describing my beliefs, I guess it’s part of all of us or we’re all a part of it, or whatever, but I look for bits and pieces of enlightenment wherever I can find it. I celebrate equinoxes and solstices because the represent our being at a particular place in the cycle of our journey & I know that’s common to Wiccan beliefs & others, though again, I have only a passing familiarity.

I’d probably keep up with this when it comes together.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:18 AM on November 10, 2018 [2 favorites]


Not a Facebook user, but definitely interested if this ends up located elsewhere.

(I’d be surprised if slapping a ‘barbelith’ tag on this post didn’t net you a couple more interested folks... I know that I’m not the only MeFite that wandered in here trying to fill the void left when those forums collapsed.)
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 4:16 PM on November 10, 2018 [3 favorites]


Not a Facebook user, but definitely interested if this ends up located elsewhere.

Seconded. Facebook's not safe but would otherwise have interest.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:26 PM on November 10, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm looking into doing some group chats and shared learning by skype- if anyone would like to join in for that let me know! We would pick a spiritual topic like the growing feminine divine movements, grimoires in the middle ages, the last pagan stands in the Christian empire and their words, nature spirits, folk healing and traditions-- and whatever topics ya'll bring to the table!
posted by xarnop at 7:42 AM on November 11, 2018 [3 favorites]


Oh my God as a budding Romantic Satanist with a strong academic and practical interest in ceremonial magic and poison path stuff I would lose my mind to be able to talk to Mefotes about this! And share reading lists!
posted by WidgetAlley at 12:06 PM on November 11, 2018 [3 favorites]


Relevant to my interests, also not a Facebook user. Slack channel maybe?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 1:25 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've never used Slack, but I'm definitely open to learning. I'm trying to limit my Facebook use.
posted by Sophie1 at 9:36 AM on November 13, 2018


I want to subscribe to this newsletter! I am a scientist and an atheist, but have been working with tarot cards for the last year or so, and it is SO GREAT. I'm a cheerful "take what serves you, leave the rest" type in any context, and I get great joy and insight into the self working with my deck. I think I am turning into a witch.
posted by vortex genie 2 at 7:24 PM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'm late to the game but eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee yes I like things!
posted by Katemonkey at 7:45 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


This semilapsed pagan would be interested.
posted by pianoblack at 12:27 PM on November 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


I also would be interested. I sent a join request to the FB group.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 3:28 AM on November 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


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