Spirit Writer

It happened in the 80s and 90s with Native American culture and the 90s and early years of this decade saw the explosion of so-called Celtic Spirituality, not to mention Northern European traditions.  Now it's happening with a tradition unique to America, that of hoodoo.  I'm speaking of cultural theft. I came across a post at the Demoniacal blog in which the author, a traditional hoodoo practitioner, discusses a run-in with a Wiccan who wants to create Neo-Hoodoo.  Essentially this Wiccan believes hoodoo is a dying tradition and Wiccans should be able to appropriate it and do what they want with it. This isn't a new attitude and certainly not one that is limited to Wiccans.  I remember in the 90s when sweat lodges were all the rage.  I took part in many but not any put on in a traditional sense that I know of.  Eventually, I saw more of racist attitudes by whites as in "natives don't know their own ceremonial history...

Rosy Cross of the Golden Dawn, Public Domain, WC . I came across an interview by Avalonia of Chic and Tabatha Cicero that's several years old but definitely still worth a read.  They are Chief Adepts in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and have written several books on this magical tradition.  I like their style.  There is a lot of bickering back and forth between magical folks, but here is a quote from the interview that I think sums up their attitude pretty well: "We would like to think it’s because people “get it” that we’re not interested in attracting followers, or pretending that we are greatest magicians on the planet, or trying to fleece people out of their money." On a different note, one thing I've noticed, online anyway, is that sometimes Golden Dawn and other Western Magical Tradition concepts are over simplified by some to be all about positive thinking and that the spiritual beings worked with in magic are all just...