Y’all, please stop recommending witchcraft as a replacement for professional mental health treatment. It’s really dangerous. Spirituality is fine as a supplement to treatment, but telling people to drop their antidepressants or antipsychotics in favor of crystals and incense is going to get someone killed. ):
I’m browsing the Pagan tag and I’m noticing some people appear to be confused by what is meant by “closed culture” or “living culture” or “dead culture“, so in the interest of trying to help (and give my BA in religion and culture some exercise) I will attempt to define these terms in a clear and concise manner.
Closed traditions are, as their name suggests, closed off to those who are outside the tradition. You either need to be born into the in group, or (in some cases) be initiated into it to participate. The point is that these traditions are supposed to be kept within a particular group, because of this, closed traditions typically don’t actively recruit converts.
Open traditions, by contrast, have fewer barriers to entry and often actively and aggressively recruit converts. You do not need to be born into these traditions to practice them, although there may be certain rituals you need to perform to be considered a member of the in group.
Note that open traditions can have elements or cults that are closed to certain groups of people. Mystery traditions and religious societies in Greece and Rome were only open to certain people (slaves, women, etc.) or had rituals that were kept secret from everyone but initiates. However, Ancient Rome was enthusiastically imperialist in trying to get everyone to embrace their traditions, so even though there were mystery cults that were technically closed, Roman religion at large was pretty open, aggressively so.
It’s also important to draw a distinction between living cultures and dead cultures. Dead cultures are, well, dead, the people who kept these traditions alive are dead, their descendants have converted to other traditions. This is why we refer to modern Pagan traditions as “revivals” or “reconstruction“ if these cultures were alive, there would be no need for such language.
Since these cultures are dead, there’s no harm in borrowing from them. Sumerian culture is gone. There are no great temples to Inanna and Enki. There are no more public sacrifices or festivals, and pretty much everyone in the area is Muslim now. The point is, no Ancient Sumerian priest is going to materialize out of thin air and be like “EXCUSE ME STOP THAT!” In fact, Sumerian deities would probably be very happy to be worshiped in this day and age as they go hungry without offerings.
Likewise, Heathen cultures officially died when the last Northern nation converted to Christianity. While elements of these traditions survived in folklore, officially the religions died, the cultures changed. Again this is why we refer to “the Heathen revival” or talk about Heathen reconstructionism. This is why the term “recon” even exists, because we are reconstructing or reviving dead traditions.
In contrast, living cultures have managed to preserve their traditions even though there were efforts to stamp them out. Saami culture survived while Iron Age Heathen cultures did not. Indigenous peoples still practice their indigenous traditions despite Europeans trying to kill them all off.
When you take things from closed, living cultures like most indigenous traditions, you are not only taking something that was never meant to belong to anyone outside that group (which is incredibly disrespectful), but you’re effectively contributing to their oppression, not just in the form of propagating racist stereotypes like “Native peoples are soo more spiritual and in touch with nature than us poor white people” but you’re actively making it harder for them to preserve their traditions.
Please don’t be complicit in genocide like that.
Also please for the love of everything listen to people from that culture when they tell you not to touch their stuff. They’re not doing it to be mean. Seriously, I, a white person, should not have to tell you to not touch stuff when people who are actually from that culture tell you to not touch stuff.
Seriously.
Hey I saw this post going around again so I thought I’d make a little update. I now vastly prefer referring to certain cultures as living rather than simply closed (even though closed is still a useful term in some contexts) because 1) I feel tumblr has been misusing the term “closed” 2) It clears up some confusion regarding whether X religion is closed or not (for example, Hinduism and Buddhism, while not “closed” in the sense that say, Judaism is closed, are certainly “living” traditions 3) I feel like this emphasizes the, I guess you could say, vibrancy of these traditions, it feels more organic and respectful
If you have a furry pet, get some of their fur (or feathers) for this spell. You can just use a drawing with their name on it if it’s the kind of pet where this wouldn’t work, like a frog.
Light the candle, and fill the little dish with some dried rosemary. Take the item you are using to represent your pet and wave it gently through the smoke (not the flame). Say the following out loud:
“Bless our pet, he is part of our home
Bless our pet, he is not alone
Bless our pet, keep him well
Bless our pet, with this spell”
Leave the fur or drawing in the dish with the rosemary on your altar while the candle burns down all the way. After that, tuck the object you used away in a safe place.
may the bridges I burn light the way 