#skeptic pagan

[beththeskepticalwitch]

On skeptical witchcraft:

"I realized that most of what I was doing already could be explained through science/psychology, with the placebo effect being the main aspect of it. If I was doing the spells and the rituals in the same way that others do and they were having the intended outcome, how could I not call it magic? Even if the belief behind the way it works differs from most’s. It is about why I do what I do, and what I do to achieve my desired outcome; it is not about how it is achieved."

Quote from @beorhtsgrimoire (reposted with permission)

#skeptical witchcraft #beginner witch #witchblr #psychological model of withcraft #placebo effect #pagan #skeptical witch #paganism #secular witch #psychology #witchy #magick #witchcraft

[criticalthinkingwitches]

Critical Thinking Witch Con 2023 Sept 29th - Oct 1st

Last Chance! Ticket sale end at noon 9/29!

Connect, learn, and get involved with community of science-minded witches and seekers from around the world at this 3 day virtual convention.

All-Access Pass - $35

Saver Pass - $25

Tickets on sale now!

We can't wait to see you there!

Tickets and virtual convention schedule available here

#secular witchcraft #atheist witchcraft #critwitchcon #witchblr #agnostic witchcraft #virtual event #critical thinking witches #critical thinking witch collective #atheist witches #ctwc #skeptical witches #pagan witch #paganblr #witches of tumblr

[faux-ee]

Nikolai is not an Absurdist.

I’ve seen people calling Nikolai an absurdist, while he really is not. He has said himself that the comment regarding himself started with “cuz its fun” regarding gruesome murder (which is a very absurdist attitude, to embrace the absurdity of his actions and to do them despite their meaninglessness) is untrue. His character, however, is an example of a very apparent misconception of skepticism, which describes someone who lives their life in denial of all kinds of order and tries to disprove all established doctrines (specifically human feelings and morals).

Fyodor, on the contrary, is an absurdist (and a Lutheran, believing that he has gods ordinance to exercise power over so called evil, but that’s religious and not philosophical so I’ll not go into details here) rather than a nihilist. Nihilism would suggest that since he is so smart and sees no meaning in secular life, he would abandon all pursuits in life and seek an easy death (exactly like dark era Dazai; for this reason we should also not equate Fyodor to teenage Dazai). However, seeing how he enjoyed causing chaos in Yokohama and the world at large, sometimes not even helping his goal of obtaining the book, one could very much say he has an absurdist attitude regarding the meaninglessness of life.

It’s very interesting how on the surface Nikolai is the crazy one and Fyodor’s the calm one, yet at heart Nikolai deprives himself of all things human, very much trapped within the rigidity of his own logic, while Fyodor pursues undistinguished destruction of an existing system, which is by nature wild and illogical. I think this is also why they understand each other so well; they are each an outward manifestation of the other’s innermost self.

#bsd nikolai gogol #bsd fyodor dostoevsky #bsd meta #help I’m being cringe and casually applying philosophical concepts to my fav anime characters again #i was reading abt skepticism and the common myths abt phyrro of elis is just so very bsd nikolai I had to make this post #*pyrrho #by this definition fyolai are both ascetics and dogmatists #living very unhappy lives trapped within doctrinaire #poor babes #speaking of lutheran #chuuya is like the textbook definition of a good christian #which has to do with the irl author himself and the sheep song's inherent message #strangely the sheep song also refers to the celebration of dionysus the god of wine and pleasure #i need to do more research before i can settle on this issue #i love how i sort of am associating bsd characters with christianity schools #as a pagan this is a super fun thing to do bwahahaha

[booksandwitchery]

Wish me luck because I’m desperately going to need it

#liber null #psychonaut #libernullandpsychonaut #liber null and psychonaut #peter j carroll #peterjcarroll #chaos magic #chaos magick #witchcraft #just witchy things #paganism #witch #neopaganism #witches of tumblr #secular witchcraft #pagan #sasswitchcraft #sass witchcraft #skeptical witch #placebo magick #magick

[radicalitch]

did anyone else fall down the Catholic to pagan pipeline?

#personal #with a lot of meandering in between… #edgy teen atheist…laveyan satanist…temple of satan…witch… #now a pagan occultist omnist skeptic #if I do say so myself

[dove-da-birb]

dove idk what you think about reality shifting but i wanna script you into my arcana dr :0

because like the um like how we have the joke that you’re my maz to my julian

i think you and maz can share stories while me and julian go do crazy silly things yes

Oh yeahhhh, reality shifting! Never personally done it for personal reasons but if you want to script me in, that's cool beans.

Me and Maz are making soup and knitting/crocheting together hoping our respective theatre kids aren't getting into too much trouble.

#luc! #maz is parent/grandmother figure whereas i am more older sibling figure #i remember when reality shifting was super popular; i was skeptical/unsure though since i actually practice paganism #and didn't like messing around with things i didn't know much about #just make sure you're safe m'kay?

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

i spent like six months as an atheist when i was a teenager. and a year or two as a very hyper-rational highly skeptical agnostic deist, which basically felt like being an atheist (just with a secret feeling there was something more).

and i gotta say life is so much more enriching and fulfilling when i believe in gods and spirits and magic and when i care about ritual and tradition. the world just feels so much more alive and full of meaning and excitement.

enchantment is the best word for it i guess. the world is more enchanting.

#increasingly believe that religion is a fundamental part of being human #in my experience a lot of atheists are religious too #either they're in denial #or they replace traditional religion with something else #even when i was a skeptical agnostic i still sort of treated nature/science as a religion itself #nature/science was basically religious to me #and as a naturalistic pagan they still kind of are #but now that religious dimension has greatly expanded #and i feel like my world has expanded too

[juniper-divination-and-witchery]

Critical Thinking Witches is hosting a free online event on magical names!

Magical Monikers: What is in a name? History? Power? Individuality? Culture? Hope? All that and more. We'll gather across countries and time zones, our Far Seeing tool (Zoom) at the ready! Our gathering will open with truly exciting news, transform with wisdom shared about names and their power, and finally unfold with everyone welcomed in to try their hand at crafting something personal and powerful; a magical name.

Sunday August 21st Noon to 2:30PM Eastern Time

(Free) Tickets here

#critical thinking withces #magical events #witches of tumblr #witchcraft #witchblr #pagan #baby witch #magical girl #skeptical witch #beginner witch #beginner witchcraft

[marymagdalenegf]

had another dream about various death & resurrection deities- Anubis definitely, Osiris and Shiva maybe- there was someone blue- and maybe the Rich One? It’s unclear. It might have been all of them. they were conversing casually this time in a marble theater- regarding some coming change or end. I don’t remember what. so. either my dreams are getting colorful or my life is.

#opening this one up to the public forum. literally any input appreciated <3 #i have ocd and do not trust myself re: interpretation at all #kemeticism #(?) #paganism #hades #i think anyway. i am unsure #dream interpretation #as someone who was looking up synagogues i am regarding this w a healthy amount of skepticism i promise

[beththeskepticalwitch]

Saved posts

Here are links to resources/information I like or want to refer back to:

Skeptical witchcraft:

What is skeptical witchcraft? by Sarah Lisbeth

This post by @beorhtsgrimoire

Psychological witchcraft:

Q&A by Rachael Stephen - the video that first introduced me to psychological witchcraft

The psychological model of magic by Áine Órga

Educational blogs:

@hallow-witxh

@eclectic-witchling

_

#I'll add more as I go #witchcraft #witchblr #magick #pagan #beginner witch #baby witch #skeptical witch #paganism #psychological withcraft #secular witch #magic #witchy #psychology #spirituality #athiest witch #witch tips

[lucifinaspissed]

#heretic #atheist #nonconformist #skeptic #pagan #heathen #agnostic #dissident

[queerwordofgod]

owl imagery hasn't been leaving me alone for the last few months - an owl flew straight into our windshield (she was fine), i found a giant stone owl pendant on the work counter that hadn't been there before, people keep gifting me things w owl imagery, i keep pulling owl figurines i didn't know i had... finally this beauty followed me around for about 10 minutes last night. this after someone did a reading for me and swore athena was one of the most prominent energies around me...

ok, ok, i get the message... but i had an English assignment to get done so i went inside and did that instead of acting on it :P

#im usually a skeptic this is just. so much #helpol #pagan #hellenistic polytheism #athena #athena deity

[headspace-hotel]

i'm too...skeptical of a person to vibe with much of the "witchcraft" adjacent spirituality that's popular nowadays

However, one of the most difficult things to understand about The Past is that for many of your ancestors, the distinction between "spiritual" and "mundane" phenomena did not exist.

and this does create problems for the idea that "science is for one set of questions, religion is for another" or at least the idea that "witchcraft" is a religion (exclusively). In The Past, philosophers speculated about the universe from the point of view that there were spiritual realities and that they weren't distinct from material realities. Before the modern idea of gravity, there was the idea that the four classical elements each had a particular nature, with earth being the heaviest and fire being the lightest. This also corresponded to a moral reality about the elements—the lighter elements were more "pure." (This is why in Dante's Inferno at the center of the Earth is Satan himself.) These people weren't assigning morals to substances in the way we now think of it. Their spiritual and moral realities were just "real" in the same way as the physical world.

People asked "From what we know of God, what can we hypothesize about the existence of extraterrestrial planets and beings, and what they are like?" And it's interesting to note that the belief in God didn't obstruct them from asking these questions; instead, it allowed them to ask these questions at a time when they didn't have naturalistic observations to go on.

But I'm getting off track—modern science is derived from things like alchemy and philosophy, and we are a bit biased here because we tend to see Aristotle and the like as precursors to "science," whereas when indigenous people maintain and pass down a collective body of naturalistic observations about their world, that's seen as some kind of cutesy pagan thing. Which is just racism.

In reality, ancient astronomers were also priests, medicine was practiced by shamans. They were people with knowledge that the average person did not possess. If there's a generic word for this type of person, it's "wise woman" or "wise man": the "three wise men" that are said to have visited Jesus were astronomers. The figures we see as "spiritual" often dealt primarily, and sometimes almost exclusively, with physical, natural phenomena. When they did deal with spiritual phenomena, it was for a lot of the same reasons that we do.

(Arguably, we have a worse understanding of some things, because we see everything in the physical world, including our own bodies, as unaffected by the meaning we assign them.)

What this means is that "witchcraft" can and should be to some extent "mundane" and evidence-based. But in my mind, "witchcraft" means possessing some kind of knowledge that is hands-on, practical, and not easily obtainable just by reading books or wikipedia, tempered by wisdom as a guide for when and how to apply it. It's also a social role; it suggests your knowledge makes you important to your community.

...

So I think an auto mechanic is technically some kind of witch.

#random #witchcraft #history #history of science

[what-even-is-thiss]

Saw your post about talking to people at parties. Got any tips for making adult friends outside of the party setting? I’ve been pretty isolated since moving cities and literally just don’t know where to start

Going to places where people expect to talk to each other is generally good. I often go to church to make friends but if you’re not into that there’s other stuff too. Local coffee shops and bars and community message boards often have advertisements for such groups hanging up. Women’s hiking, queer prom, single’s mixers, local clubs, etc. You can also Google (thing you’re interested in or are) group (city). Some places have gay men’s support groups, black women’s networking events, Esperanto clubs, Spanish or English speaking practice, tutoring opportunities, cycling groups, woodworking clubs, sign language classes, Deaf and hoh events, craft fairs, whatever you could want. Bumble also has a friends/bff section if you prefer to meet people online. And if you want the structure or friend aspect of religion without the organized religion requirement there are Unitarian Universalist churches, atheists and skeptics clubs, meditation classes, spiritual retreats, pagan meetups, and other stuff like that you could look into.

[eclectic-misfit]

sometimes learning about paganism and witchcraft can become incredibly tiring and occasionally even terrifying, especially when you haven't lived in a pagan and/or witchy household (but not only in those cases).

there are so many concepts to grasp, so much new information that it becomes overwhelming to see all those things that you think you should know immediately — and overall there's a lot to unpack, be it skepticism or religious trauma or anxiety or any other thing.

i'm here to tell you that it's okay. it's okay to be scared and insecure about all of this, it's okay to have doubts, it's okay to struggle.

my advice is, as simple as it might sound, break down what you'd like to know into small categories, and start focusing on only one thing (if it works for you — everyone learns in a different way!).

you're getting overwhelmed with so many notions about herbs, crystals, pantheons, witchcraft history, etc? choose one topic and start from the basics.

there are many different sources, which can be contradictory — use them all and confront them.

and remember, take it slowly. your practice is yours and it should accomodate your needs. <3

#✉️ @ paganism #✉️ @ witchcraft #polytheism #norse pantheon #norse pagan #norse paganism #hellenic pagan #helpol #paganblr #kemetic paganism #kemeticism #pagan witch #paganism #pagan #witchcraft #witchblr #witch #beginner witch #pagan tips #witch tips

[supernaturalfreewill]

You stared at the man in the trench coat. "An angel. You really expect me to believe that?"

He looked perplexed. After all, he had just appeared inside your house right in front of you. How else could you account for that? "...Yes," he said simply.

Your eyes narrowed. "Aren't you guys supposed to be, like, a spinning wheel of eyes and cyclical wings?" You sounded skeptical.

"My true form would burn your eyes in your skull and cause your soul to splinter. This is just a vessel."

You stared at him again for a long moment. "Fuck off," you said. "I'm too pagan for this shit. Get out of my house..." You actually turned your back on him and started to walk away into the next room. Cas was at a loss. This had never quite happened before. This was new...

"Wait—"

You rounded on him again. "You really expect me to believe that you're some sort of heavenly, super-powered being and your Earth disguise is a dude from probably, like, Ohio and a suit and a trench coat? You look like my dad's financial advisor," you said dryly. "Look, whatever this is, I'm not interested, okay? Thanks for teleporting in, but I'll let you find your own way out... I've got a lot of shit to do for the upcoming equinox..."

Okay... Angel or not, Cas was out of his depth. He needed back-up. Sam and Dean. He needed the Winchesters. He pulled out his phone.

You let out a loud laugh. "A cell phone? This just keeps getting better and better..."

Cas pressed the phone to his ear. Please pick up. Please pick up. Pleeeease pick up.

#castiel imagines #castiel drabbles #supernatural #spn fics #cas x reader #angel of the lord