Or Why the Death of Your Ex Doesn’t Warrant Any Communication

Part 1 - written at the end of April

All I have to say is… wow.

I got a message on Facebook the other day from a friend in England, asking if I had details on the death of my ex-fiancé a week prior. I had none, and was very surprised to hear it as the last time we had talked, he hadn’t mentioned being any sicker than usual - in fact the last time we talked was not a good talk, it was one of those talks that was necessary but painful. Since then, we hadn’t been talking at all since it was becoming apparent that he was trying to manipulate me into staying in a living situation that was untenable for me, even going to far as to suggest that my current boyfriend was manipulating me. I know, he’s dead, but that is what was happening.

Then I find out from a friend 2000 miles away that he’s dead. I called his Mom right away and apologized for not getting in touch earlier, but I hadn’t found out until now. Apparently the anti-Angela Wiccan Press Corps had made it all the way up to Barrie, because she responded with an icy “maybe nobody knew where you were”. Total bollocks. They had my Facebook info, my e-mail, and could have found my phone number if they had searched the internet. Of course they could have contacted me.

So, why didn’t they tell me? Why didn’t I know that he was in the hospital? I am supposing that the fact that I was refusing to live in the same house with my ex and another Wiccan parasite for the rest of my life meant that I didn’t care if my ex died, or this is at least what they told themselves to make themselves feel better about it. I believe the real reason is that nobody wanted to mingle with me at any funerary rites (if these idiots even bothered to organize any). To say that I am thoroughly disgusted with the entire southern Ontario pagan community is an understatement.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m glad I didn’t have to organize a funeral. I’m glad I didn’t have to write and pay for an obituary, although I have been searching for one and apparently nobody bothered. I’m happy that I don’t have to listen to a bunch of Wiccans crying about how he was such a great man and they admired him so much, when a few years ago the same people were deriding him for being a “ceremonialist” (apparently that warranted derison…. don’t ask).

However I am shocked and stunned at the fact that not one of them would do the adult thing and at least send me a message. For all of their professed belief in the Laws, I think they ignored about ten of them in this particular situation. But I guess that is OK as I have ignored most of the laws myself by telling most of them to go sod themselves.

Part 2 - Written in June

I thought I’d sit on the above entry for a while just to ensure that it wasn’t all vitriol and sniping.  I’ve had a good read and it is pretty tame considering what my thoughts were on the subject originally.

I also had a good talk with an old friend last week (incidentally the same one that messaged me from England) about Wicca and the lack of checks and balances that it has.  She responded with something intelligent, which I really haven’t been used to in the last few years considering the company I kept.  She said that if we were to consider developmental stages of a religion, Wicca is somewhere around “Mark” if we want to use Xianity as an example.  In other words, Wicca still has a long way to go.

I also saw a documentary on a cult called the “Children of God”.  Like Wicca, this cult was borne out of the hippie movement and is, at its heart, a sex cult.  Like Wicca, they also had a very hard time policing their own (especially since the largest offender was the head of the cult) and allowed pedophiles and power-mongers to freely operate within the cult.  The similarities were disturbing at best, and I encourage any Wiccan to look up this cult and research it so that they can see the same things I did.  Basically the Children of God is where a Wiccan group can end up if the leaders and group members let it go there; some would argue that the Frosts have been there and kept on going, given the glorification of pedophilia in much of their literature.

The only problem with setting up a central body (like The Vatican) to overlook Wiccan goings-on is that inevitably, the ones who are most corrupted and corruptible would end up on it.  So how can they stop unseemliness from entering the religion?  It really comes down to an individual level.  Each person who decides that they are going to be Wiccan has to police those around them and themselves, including their teachers and especially anyone who claims to be “in authority”.  My treatment at the hands of the community was such that I can never go back, but I urge those who are there to take a careful, hard look at their community and start making changes if they need to be made.  This is the only way that Wiccans can even come close to achieving legitimacy, although I fear heavily made-up members of the faith speaking for everyone on October 31st news broadcasts have already set the religion back decades all by themselves.

On one hand, I couldn’t care less about Wiccans now.  On the other, I think that maybe if I had the opportunity to read an opposing viewpoint that sounded reasonable five to ten years ago, I may have tried to at least do something about the way that the community turns a blind eye to its problems.  So I decided to finally publish this article that has been nagging me in my drafts folder for two months, and there it is.  Take it or leave it.

Posted: June 12th, 2008 under Wicca & Paganism.
Comments: none

I know - it’s a bit strange. Usually Wiccans who are ex- tend to “jump ship” as they are for the most part deeply religious people. I quit practicing because of Wiccan Fundamentalism and general personality disorders of other members of the community.

When I was in University, I was a casual member of a group that helped to combat cults on campus. These cults were for the most part Christian and preyed on international students. When I got out of University, I found a Wiccan group that I thought fit everything that I was looking for, and it really did at the time. High scholarly standards, good people, and a laid back, casual attitude about things like degrees and general ass-kissing of the priesthood. The latter is what really sold me on the group.

After the death of the primary leader (she would have hated to have herself referred to as Grand Poobah, even though she was) her spouse attempted to take over the group on his own, and did a number of things that were really out of keeping with the initial high standards of the group (ie he gave a student who was taking a first degree test a dedication test - and he didn’t know the difference). He also sought out a more “famous” profile in the public community than you are supposed to really keep up if you are a member/leader of a private group, and started hanging out with people who were really into having their egos stroked rather than actually teaching someone Craft.

He had started this process before her death, telling her that they would just be doing things once in a while. It was hardly that. They ended up being out at public events more than 4 times a month, much more than the amount that she had really committed too. I partially blame her death on this as she had numerous medical conditions that she really needed to pay attention to, rather than giving all of her energies to other people. I was frequently derided for bringing her home early, being a “doorstop” so that these people couldn’t get at her, and I got tired of it after a while and just stopped doing it.

Her funeral sickened me. Everyone there was talking about Wicca, what would happen to the public community now that she was gone, etc. Not very many people were actually mourning her. They were all just trying to position themselves as showing the most grief for her passing in some weird form of passion play in order to gain some kind of credence/status in the community. At one point, my partner offered to take her partner home, and was informed that he was in a high level discussion with a Third Degree Priestess and so was unavailable. What business did they have conducting this kind of discussion at a wake? Exactly.

I kept my books even though I no longer practice because I paid a fortune for them, and really am not quite ready to part with them yet (although I am selling off some of the crappier ones to make room in my new small place). Am I still Wiccan? Absolutely not. I would not identify with this group anymore just solely based on the fact that I have seen the worst of human nature, and it has all been displayed by Wiccans. All of the hippie principles of peace, love, an ye harm none, and all of that claptrap are only given lip service by the majority of Wiccans. When it actually comes to making good on any of these promises (ie doing things for people, helping people out, making sure that friends have the tools that they need to do well) I’ve only known one Wiccan who did this and she is dead. The rest are involved in some odd grown-up Dungeons & Dragons game that only they know the rules too.

Now I am sure that this article will make me the subject of derision by the rosy-eyed, new Wiccans who think that everything is peace and love. For you guys, I would say this. Make sure that the private group that you are looking to get involved with has been around for at least 5 years. Check that the coven leaders are financially viable and are not going to rely on membership for funds. Asking for coven dues for feasts, etc. is acceptable, asking members to cover your bills or always pay for your drinks/meals/nights out is not. I haven’t even begun to get into the financial problems that I experienced at the hands of these so-called spiritual leaders, and I think that would take away from the purpose of this article.

To go back to my experience with cults in University, I really have to identify not Wicca in general as a cult, but the community/group that I was part of as a cult. I even had a member tell me that if any of the financial issues went to court, I couldn’t bring up the fact that Wicca was a cult. I don’t know how much more proof I needed that that particular flavour of Wicca was indeed a cult than someone telling (not asking) me to not say that, ever, in a court of law. I was also told that it was against Wiccan law to bring another Wiccan “before the eyes of the law” on any matter whatsoever. I don’t know about these people, but one of the bonuses that I always found great about Wicca is that it HAS NO DOGMA. These people were basically making this crap up to try to keep me from asserting my rights over my own property and finances.

I was definitely “love-bombed” at first, drawn in and indoctrinated, and then taken advantage of personally and financially. All of these items make a cult. And yes, I was stupid enough to join it and get indoctrinated knowing everything that I knew about cults. In my defense, I have to say that when my friend who died was around it wasn’t so much like a cult, although her spouse definitely starting pointing it that way in the 2+ years leading up to her death and then went full bore at it after she was gone.

I think I still self-identify as Pagan to a certain scholarly extent rather than as a product of blind faith. I find it hard to give up belief in ancestral divinity and archetypes, but I think these qualify more as a psychological idea than as belief systems. To me Wicca is very much like Christianity - it has gotten so far away from the core beliefs and principles (which are few enough that it shouldn’t be too hard) that it can no longer represent itself as the same religion in most communities. If you have the perfect Wiccan coven and you have for years, wonderful. I suspect that you don’t though.

What really surprised me about my own personal situation was that people that I had considered true friends just automatically sided with the coven leaders, even knowing what they knew about what had transpired, and knowing and agreeing with me that it wasn’t right. My spouse has been threatened physically (not that he couldn’t defend himself but just illustrating a point), I have been portrayed as over the top crazy even though I was probably the most psychologically and financially stable person in the community, and other things besides that just make me sad to write about.

Would I go back to Wicca? No. Would I recommend Wicca? Frankly, no. Solitary practice, maybe, but even then you end up getting mixed up with some questionable people who you don’t need in your life. I have pretty much decided that any religion that involves any kind of group dynamic whatsoever is prone to fundamentalism and power-mongering. It is human nature, and yes, even the nature of Wiccans.

Just a word in advance about comments on this article - I won’t be publishing anything that consists of “Wika iz da funk, ewz is crezy :0″. If you have an intelligent rebuttal to this article, submit it as a comment and I will publish it and my response as a separate article. If you have your own stories to share, let me know and I’ll set you up as an author on my blog so that you can publish your own story about being an ex-anything to this blog directly.

Posted: April 18th, 2008 under Uncategorized, Wicca & Paganism.
Comments: 2