evile

Jun. 29, 2004

http://www.davensjournal.com/obsidian/Essays/blingin.html

Wiccan Bling Bling
Obsidian

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My first essay of last year alluded to this, and my first essay of
this year will deal with this individual topic specifically: Wiccan
bling bling. I am sick and fucking tired of seeing people plaster
themselves with platter-sized pentacles and dressing like fucking
mallgoths and picking out mediocre names like Lord Lupine or Greyhawk
that sound like they came out of a fucking D&D manual. The blingin'
has to stop, because we ain't got no hood ta reprezent, foo. I
understand the need for identification, but this has got to go.

There are people out there who like to dress extravagantly just
because they like to. I don't have a problem with them. There are
people out there who prefer a two-inch pentacle because they
themselves have huge bodies, and a rinky-dink 1" medallion doesn't
look proportionate. I don't have a problem with them either. What I
have a problem with is people with average to scrawny body style,
trying to look like the besom-mancer from Fantasia or the little
sluts from the Craft.

Below I will compile a list of things that, if you don't have a
really good reason for sporting them (and chances are you don't) and
you find yourself guilty of any of the following faux pas, I will
have no choice but to label you a wannabe fucking poser:
A pointy hat. Pointy hats serve no purpose magically (unless you're
one of the Coneheads or you're really desperate for a place to store
your cone incense, in which case I urge you to buy a chest of
drawers), they look fucking stupid, and they only serve to reinforce
the stereotype that witches follow the same lame-ass yearning to fit
the mould as wannabe djinns do by emulating the show I Dream of
Jeannie. Lose the fucking hat. If it has moons on it, and you wear it
in ritual, you are triply disgraced, and thereby deserve to
reincarnate as a box of "Chicken in a Biskit" to be eaten by some
size-24 wholesome Christian housewife in Missouri watching a Chiefs
game on her cable-unready colour TV that's the size of a Toyota
Sequoia and her truck-driving, malodorous husband with back hair and
a yearning for Yuengling lager.
A broadsword. Look. Swords kick ass, yes. Swords make you feel
powerful, yes. But good fucking gods, what do you need a four-foot
blade of steel for? This isn't Braveheart, and unless you're twelve
feet tall you don't need an athamé taller than most midgets. Sorry,
it doesn't work that way. If you bring a broadsword to ritual,
especially a public ritual, you're a pretentious noob with a chip on
your shoulder, and there's nothing more annoying to serious partakers
of any social gathering, including the public working of magic, than
a complete newbie who thinks they know everything better than you do.
The wrong idols. I have idols, but only of the gods I particularly
worship. I wouldn't acquire a statue of Cybele because frankly,
Cybele doesn't interest me in the least and I want nothing to do with
her. I would never dishonor a god I don't worship by erecting a
statue of 'em in my home. If you invite me to your house, make sure
your accessory gods are taken down OFF the mantle; I don't
particularly want a pissed off rendition of Isis glaring down at me
because you have poor Aset up there basically as a showpiece and not
as the goddess she truly is. Have some fucking respect for gods, even
the ones you don't worship, because someone else does, damnit.
"Theban runes." Lose the "Theban runes"; it's not a good alphabet
anyway. It's just a way to write a bunch of scribbles and look
mysterious. It's not even an efficient alphabet: it's a bunch of
ornate squiggly lines that supposedly look esoteric. It may actually
be based upon glyphs used in Thebes, I don't know, but with my
experience as a guide here (I invent languages, remember?), I feel
that as an alphabet, the "Theban runes" are cumbersome to write
hastily, are difficult to differentiate from one another (especially
if the writer scratched them down in haste!), and when you consider
that U, V, and W are supposedly the same letter, it makes phrases
like "Wu Tang Clan ain't nuthin' to fuck wit" really ridiculous
looking. Then again, if you're givin' props to rappers from da hoodz
in THEBAN, you have another thing coming.
Polyester Voodoo dolls. Look, jackass. You're white. You're a member
of a former British colony (or worse, you're from the UK yourself).
The closest spiritual experience you've come to experiencing true
Carribean culture is a Miss Cleo advert or that song that goes "Pass
the dutchie pon the left hand side". Go watch "Serpent and the
Rainbow" at 3:00 in the morning on a waning moon, and then go back to
worshipping Gardner in timid desperation, folks. The "little Voodoo
kit" ain't gonna do SHIT for you because you're just trying to be all
hocus-pocus-woogy-woogy instead of finding magical practices that
ride similar to your own cultural and geographical identity.
A bookcase of nothing but Llewellyn books. Yes, they're the largest
publisher of metaphysical books. Wal*Mart is also the largest retail
distributor. If all of your toiletries are "Equate" off-brand, you're
a cheapass. Now, this isn't the problem; after all, I'm a cheapass.
But I don't go around displaying my collection of off-brand
toiletries and calling myself the freshest-smelling, classiest person
in town. Llewellyn is the largest publisher for two reasons: Silver
Ravenwolf and Scott Cunningham. Between them, a freshly spun cotton
pillow looks like a sack of marbles. My advice is to get off the
fluff post haste, but if you do choose to remain a fluffball, at
least have the common decency and respect to admit that you're a
wannabe and not a serious magical practitioner because you can't do a
goddamn thing that isn't printed in some Llewellyn book. Or shit,
even worse...
A bookcase of nothing but meta books, PERIOD. I have two bookcases'
worth of books, the bookcases each six feet tall, with twelve shelves
between them. My meta books comprise a little more than a tenth of
that space. See, unlike some people, I have the ability to be
interested in multiple things. My mother is a fundamentalist
Christian, who has a bookshelf full of nothing but Christian
literature: six copies of the Bible, the entire Left Behind series, a
bunch of how-to books for prayer and Bible study, Christian parenting
books and half of the Chicken Soup for the Invertebrate Soul series.
Similarly, I know people who individually foot Llewellyn's bills for
a month. I see little difference between the two, except that Jesus
and Cernunnos are different individuals. See, fundamentalism is a
sign of narrow-mindedness. And people who absorb themselves into
religion completely, REGARDLESS of the actual religion they're
immersing themselves in, are bound for a life of ignorance, stupidity
and deference of blame. My mother claims to be dead certain I am
bound for hell, and little Lord Lupine over there claims to be dead
certain Aradia is real. Mom thinks I'm evil because I have an altar
to my gods erected in my living room. Little Lord Lupine thinks I'm
evil because I've come to the opinion that what most people think is
Wicca is really just a load of bullshit. Grow the fuck up, learn to
read something that doesn't have the word "Witchcraft" on the cover.
Get a hobby. Grow some facial hair. Plant a garden. Get into
whittling. Go fishing. Pick up the flute. But PLEASE, get something
else in your life besides your religion, because if you let it
encompass that much of your life, you're only going to drown in a
pile of bullshit, and you're going to be miserable. And no matter
which religion you immerse yourself in next, the vicious cycle is
going to repeat itself. Religion is meant to SUPPORT your life, not
SUPPLANT it.
Having the words "Lord" or Lady" in your name. There is a site on the
Internet featuring a list of stupid magical names. Now, mostly it's a
way to make fun of someone else (after all, I'm listed there twice),
but there are some genuinely stupid magical names there. Granted, a
rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but I still refer
to my betta as Flutter. Names represent the things they identify, and
if your name recalls Bambi or Fantasia or a Harry Potter movie, I'm
going to laugh at you. There's no reason for you to have the
name "Lady Unicorn" or "Lord Lupine" or "Ravens Cry" or "Greyhawk"
or "Dark Angel" or "Maiden Besomrider". Those names just suck. So do
names like "Dark Master Baalthazar" or "Lord Goth" or "Necromancer
Nicolai" or "[insert AD&D monster here]". Those names show that
you're so desperate to be feared that you try to emulate scary things
in order to try to look scary yourself. Another movie analogy: if I
am "the Exorcist", little Lord Goth is "Scary Movie 2". K? Get a real
fucking name, or use the one your parents gave you. At least that has
some power behind it.
And, saving the best for last: Excessively large pentacles. The one
vice of this list I was actually guilty of. My friend Aprel disposed
of my 3" pentacle in a most humourous manner, placing it around the
neck of a giant stuffed Eeyore. There is no reason to wear pentacles
that big unless you're a Jotun. Ever seen 665's "Fat Goths are Funny"
series? If you look like one of them, you need to have your face
pulverised with a ball-peen hammer. If little 140-pound you insists
on wearing a pentacle platter around your neck, you might as well
upgrade it to an altar tile. You may as well paint the word "WYCCAN"
on your forehead (remember to replace the I with a Y, they thynk yt
looks ancyent thys way), wear a green muu muu with 6" purple
pentacles on it, drag around that broadsword, and throw on these Uncle B
Marley shackles and chains while you're at it too. At least that way,
the mental burdens would be physically represented (quite accurately,
I might add). Or even better yet, grow the fuck up, develop some self-
identity, find some self-worth, and start acting like yourself. I
did, and I turned out just fine.

This rant ended up being longer than I anticipated, and I
inadvertently gave out one of the hidden core messages the Obsidian
Mirror has been subtly trying to convey: religion is meant to SUPPORT
your life, not SUPPLANT it. Fundamentalism is the bane of Wicca, and
indeed of any religion altogether. Just as Jerry Falwell and Pat
Robertson destroy Christianity, just like Usama bin Laden and Hammas
corrupt Islam, and just like the Nazi Party and the KKK brought shame
to white pride, these little Wiclets Gone Wild are in the process of
irreparably ruining what could be legitimate neopagan traditions. I
only implore that you, dear reader, please not be one of them.

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