(Hi, folks! For the time being, some, most, or all of the fol­low­ing links will still revert back to the orig­i­nal Writ­ing About Writ­ing web­page over on Blog­ger. This is not a mis­take. It just takes a long time to move thou­sands of arti­cles. Thank you for your patience as we nav­i­gate this tran­si­tion.)

Woo Filter: Disclaimers & Rules

I am a priest of The Mor­ri­g­an. While it’s not a posi­tion with dis­cern­ment, for­mal edu­ca­tion, and ordi­na­tion like oth­er priest­hoods (Catholics for exam­ple), it is also quite a bit more than sim­ply declar­ing myself to be with colo­nial­ist enti­tle­ment like all the “Celtic shaman” out there. I spent a two years in ser­vice and train­ing and about eight months doing an inten­sive course to pre­pare for this. Con­tin­u­ing to cul­ti­vate the skill sets that will allow me to be a bet­ter priest will be the work of a life­time.

Part of this blog is lean­ing into a series about my exploits about being a priest in a pagan prac­tice.  It’s about being an athe­ist in a grow­ing exis­ten­tial cri­sis. It’s about a god­dess I’d nev­er heard of in a pan­theon I was unaware of sud­den­ly being in every dream I had. It’s about occur­rences I can bare­ly explain. It’s about mov­ing from sim­ple fas­ci­na­tion and increduli­ty to a com­mit­ment to a life­time of ser­vice. It’s about the lim­i­nal spaces between what is real and what is true. It’s about a life inex­orably altered for the bet­ter. And it’s about mag­ic. 

Disclaimers: 

1- I don’t know what I capital‑B “Believe.”

I don’t sit around and wor­ry about what is true. 

I sit around and mar­vel at what is real.

I swim in those pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned lim­i­nal spaces, and I’ve giv­en up try­ing to pin down exact­ly where the edges of “belief” exist. I know some things are explain­able and prob­a­bly not super­nat­ur­al, alter­na­tive, mys­tic, or even spir­i­tu­al beyond a par­tic­u­lar kind of psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly under­stood altered state of con­scious­ness. I know I am a mam­mal with a cere­bral cor­tex that makes me a heat-seek­ing mis­sile for nar­ra­tive, and that I will latch on to sto­ries and pat­terns even in the face of coin­ci­dence and chance. I know I will look for expla­na­tions with a bias for mag­i­cal think­ing. 

I’ve giv­en up try­ing to fig­ure out exact­ly what I “offi­cial­ly believe offi­cial­ly” and have found much more com­fort in chan­nel­ing my atten­tion and focus on what works and how it makes me feel. Whether I’m real­ly real­ly real­ly inter­act­ing with super­nat­ur­al forces or I’m inter­act­ing with a long-dor­mant aspect of my own psy­che brought to life by human­i­ty’s capac­i­ty for inter­ac­tive sto­ry­telling, mag­i­cal think­ing, and con­fir­ma­tion bias, it makes no dif­fer­ence in what has changed in my life and how I have been per­ceiv­ing and inter­act­ing with the world.

This means you can save your “gotcha“s and your increduli­ty and your take­downs and debunks. I’ve already made peace with the idea that I may very well be doing a very com­pli­cat­ed ver­sion of talk­ing to myself. I have beliefs, but I’ve giv­en up try­ing to gal­va­nize them into “Beliefs.” They are bendy reeds that are as like­ly to shrug and say, “I don’t know if that mat­ters” than they are to shat­ter.

2- This is my experience.

I am just going to tell you my sto­ry. My sto­ry has some extra­or­di­nary moments. It has some things I can’t explain. It has some things I can. It has some things that I increas­ing­ly feel like the absurd guy in Men In Black if I try to explain them away. (“Now what you saw was Venus and a light­ning flash reflect­ing off of swamp gas…”) Maybe this is all a bril­liant cas­cade of coin­ci­dences that, accord­ing to the law of large num­bers, was going to hap­pen to some­one, some­where, even­tu­al­ly. Regard­less, I don’t have a way to speak of it oth­er than to tell my sto­ry.

My reli­gious expe­ri­ences are as doubt­ful as any­one’s and as valid as any­one’s. A Chris­t­ian might think they’ve got it all fig­ured out, but I find that to be extreme hubris. An athe­ist might think they’ve got it all fig­ured out, but I find that to be extreme hubris. An alter­na­tive prac­ti­tion­er might think they have it all fig­ured out, but I find that to be extreme hubris. Every­one will try to fig­ure out how my adven­tures fit into THEIR par­a­digm. I’ve giv­en up on any attempt to have all the answers. All I can tell you is what I’ve under­gone, how it’s land­ed on me, how it’s changed me, and how I’ve moved forth.

Per­haps I’m talk­ing to myself and kid­ding myself and in a vast self-decep­tion. If so, I have had the most pro­found con­ver­sa­tions and tran­scen­den­tal moments. Those are real…even if they aren’t ver­i­fi­able truth.

3- I will make no metaphysical claims.

I might navel-gaze con­jec­ture once in a while. (I have this whole idea that the beings we pray to might exist out­side of time and space in some oth­er kind of dimen­sion like right out of a sci­ence fic­tion nov­el, and that we lack even the cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty to ful­ly under­stand the ways they inter­act with us, so we cre­ate these sto­ries as a way of inter­pret­ing our per­cep­tions as best as we can. Or I might think that every liv­ing thing is inter­con­nect­ed and the “fil­a­ments” that bind us to each oth­er have their own sort of aware­ness and as they become vast webs and net­works of peo­ple with com­mon­al­i­ties, they form a kind of social sentience—and these sen­tient webs and net­works are what we per­ceive as “deities.”) But when I think about this shit, I’m just doing men­tal mas­tur­ba­tion, and I’ll say as much. I don’t know the true nature of the uni­verse. I would­n’t even know how to fig­ure that out. I cer­tain­ly don’t think that reli­gious thought in one geo­graph­ic region on the plan­et some­how nailed the Truth, and the rest are wrong. 

Save me from those peo­ple, and save me from ever being one. 

To that end, I also don’t claim that beyond the water’s edge of human knowl­edge, noth­ing can exist that we might be inca­pable of understanding…or of under­stand­ing YET. I’m a rea­son­ably edu­cat­ed lay­man when it comes to sci­ence and log­ic. I know the flaws in reli­gious think­ing. I know that most woo-woo claims (that don’t already map over things like the phys­i­o­log­i­cal ben­e­fits of med­i­ta­tion or the psy­cho­log­i­cal pow­er of altered states of con­scious­ness) have been either debunked or can­not be proven in a dou­ble-blind sci­en­tif­ic study. But I also know that the exact moment of know­ing where a pro­found, life-alter­ing expe­ri­ence from a clin­i­cal point of view ends and a ful­ly super­nat­ur­al event begins is not exact­ly clear, and I resist peo­ple who deny the (admit­ted­ly flawed) lan­guage to express those things we can’t ful­ly yet under­stand JUST as much as I do those who sim­ply deny sci­ence whole cloth. 

I don’t know what is true. 

I only know what is real. 

4- I will not proselytize.

I don’t care what you do.

If I give you some­thing to think about, great. If you want to know more, I’m hap­py to be a guide­post (though I am not myself a resource). I can point to pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary, and ter­tiary sources I have learned to trust. (Hint: 99% of the shit online is absolute crap.) If you want to ask me per­son­al ques­tions that don’t require me to answer as some sort of author­i­ty, I’ll prob­a­bly answer them. 

But I’m not here to drum up fol­low­ers or do out­reach. I’m not here to con­vince you. I’m not here to con­vert you. I just need to tell my sto­ry. 

You do you. 

5- I know how I sound.

I have actu­al­ly stud­ied the psy­chol­o­gy of reli­gious expe­ri­ence. I know how peo­ple of all faiths have con­firm­ing events and deep emo­tion­al ver­i­fi­ca­tion that they are on the right path—even athe­ists have them. I know that visions come with altered states of con­scious­ness and dreams are Rorschach inkblot inter­pre­ta­tions of ran­dom neu­rons fir­ing. I know that it’s prob­a­bly one of the rea­sons my skep­ti­cism is so hard to shed, much to the frus­tra­tion of the spir­i­tu­al, mag­ick, and poly­the­ist prac­ti­tion­ers around me. I know how we grasp for mean­ing from the mean­ing­less. I know about bur­dens of proof and ratio­nal think­ing and how poor­ly many belief sys­tems hold up to that kind of scruti­ny. 

I also know how hear­ing voic­es and see­ing things (to say noth­ing of pres­ences inside my body that can some­times “take the wheel”) are viewed by West­ern med­i­cine. I know how dreams of the same thing night after night fit into a mod­ern psy­cho­log­i­cal land­scape. 

I know I sound crazy. 

And some­times I won­der if I might be. But there are reasons—a lot of reasons—I don’t think that I’m men­tal­ly ill. Rea­sons from the com­mon­al­i­ty of these kinds of expe­ri­ences among peo­ple who are open to them* to the fact that it has only improved my men­tal health in every oth­er facet of my life. 

*Which isn’t to say we’re all “right,” or even that we’re not all delud­ing our­selves, but it isn’t the mark of insan­i­ty.

6- I’m not going to use skeptical language.

Aside from the occa­sion­al acknowl­edge­ment that, AT THE TIME, I had skep­ti­cal the­o­ries about what might have been hap­pen­ing, this post will be the last time I will make a deep and con­cert­ed effort to tip my hat to a skep­ti­cal per­spec­tive. I’m aware of wish ful­fil­ment, pat­tern recog­ni­tion, mag­i­cal think­ing, place­bo effect, altered states of con­scious­ness, arche­types, uncon­scious desires, want­i­ng to believe, con­fir­ma­tion bias, inter­ac­tive sto­ries, uncon­scious mem­o­ries, using foci, med­i­ta­tion, pow­er of pos­i­tive think­ing, and brain hacks into one’s own uncon­scious.

And I can “code switch” with the best of them when it comes to all of this.

How­ev­er, this mode of lan­guage is insuf­fi­cient to the task of describ­ing the full scope of a spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence. I will not tip­toe around it after this. I can say that I talk to an ancient Irish deity in my sleep a lot more eas­i­ly than I can write an entire para­graph acknowl­edg­ing all the pos­si­ble things that could “real­ly” be going on in my head to make me have such a dream.

7- I no longer care.

Of course, I will always won­der if what is hap­pen­ing is real­ly super­nat­ur­al or not. I will always have some doubt. I will always be skep­ti­cal of my own woo-woo expla­na­tions. I will nev­er shed that par­ti­cle that says my uncon­scious made all this up and reli­gious think­ing did the rest.

Always. 

ALWAYS. 

But a lit­tle while back, I stopped try­ing to fig­ure out what the truth was. Like what was real­ly real­ly REALLY™ going on. Not only was it impos­si­ble to prove or dis­prove (and yes, I know it’s impos­si­ble to prove), but it’s not hurt­ing any­one and it’s made me a bet­ter per­son in almost every way.

8- I’m still holding back.

I’m will­ing to share some sto­ries. But some of the things I’ve lived are just too per­son­al, too “out there,” or involve peo­ple whose sto­ry is not mine to tell. 

9- Unver­i­fied Per­son­al Gno­sis

My inter­ac­tions with The Mor­ri­g­an are MY EXPERIENCES and not nec­es­sar­i­ly sup­port­ed by the lore of Irish Pagan­ism. I will do my best to mark every post involved as UPG, but if I for­get, just assume it is…always.

Go here to learn more about U.P.G.

I do my best to under­stand Her, but some­times She meets me where I am cul­tur­al­ly or as an indi­vid­ual, and that can involve step­ping out of Her usu­al roles. Unver­i­fied per­son­al gno­sis means that this is MY EXPERIENCE, might be fil­tered through me, might even be just my own brain play­ing tricks, and is in NO WAY meant to rep­re­sent Her truth as is rep­re­sent­ed by lore.

Rules:

1- Check the truculent atheism at the door. 

I swear, it’s athe­ists who are the worst about try­ing to con­vert peo­ple. They are SOFA KING insuf­fer­able with their “gotchas” and their “well actulista” moments. Bust­ing in on every thread like the Kool-aid man. Mis­sion­ar­ies going door to door got noth­ing on them.

If it’s an expla­na­tion for what COULD be going on, I want you to trust that I’ve already thought it—probably thir­ty times…yesterday. I wel­come your skepticism—I would hon­est­ly ask for noth­ing less in life—but I don’t need it in my face every time I post. I don’t need you telling me what you think I’ve mis­in­ter­pret­ed as super­nat­ur­al. I don’t need your quash­ing ener­gy try­ing to debunk my exploits. 

If that’s all you’re here to do, save it. Take it into your spaces and point and laugh if you want. That’s the price of doing busi­ness to write about myself in the pub­lic sphere. But I don’t need it in my life. 

And if you can’t save it, I’ll show you the door. 

I’m annoyed by peo­ple who think they have every­thing fig­ured out. That’s as true with peo­ple who casu­al­ly say, “you just made that up in your own head” as peo­ple who say, “obvi­ous­ly that’s your sixth chakra unlock­ing.” I can’t even IMAGINE going through a life this com­pli­cat­ed, rich, sub­tle, bold, and mul­ti­far­i­ous and think­ing I under­stood even ten per­cent of what was going on, much less that I had it all fig­ured out.

2- I do not need your woo-woo dogma.

Do you think I should­n’t be doing what I’m doing with the forces I’m doing it with? (“It’s dan­ger­ous to con­tact that deity directly—whatever do you think you’re doing???”) Do you think I can’t be hav­ing the expe­ri­ence I’m hav­ing because I’m not an ordained priest of Glob­gar or a fifth-cir­cle magus (or what­ev­er­the­fuck)? Save it.

I don’t want the titles of author­i­ty or lead­er­ship. I am not here to tell you that I’m a Celtic shaman or that I’m a druid. I’m not inter­est­ed in any­one’s stamp of approval on my expe­ri­ences or some offi­cial decree. These things are HAPPENING to me. In some cas­es, I am inca­pable of mak­ing them STOP happening…or at the very least I am a will­ing pas­sen­ger in one fuck­ing wild ride that isn’t always fun and games. 

I don’t want or need autho­riza­tion.

So if you’re in the tra­di­tion it seems like I’ve been thrust into unwit­ting­ly, and you want to help me be a bet­ter prac­ti­tion­er, I wel­come guid­ance (tru­ly!), but if you want to tell me that I’m not lev­eled up or suf­fi­cient­ly acco­lad­ed or this or that enough to have it happen—especially if you want to tell me that if I took your ($2000) class, I would know that I’m actu­al­ly talk­ing to a trick­ster spir­it named Quin­cy, and any­one ordained would know that, you can move along. Call me a hea­then. What­ev­er.

3- I understand the burden of proof. But I’m not here to prove anything. 

Do I make unsub­stan­ti­at­ed asser­tions? Yes. Could I be lying about all of this? Yes. Do I know exact­ly how my most extra­or­di­nary claims require extra­or­di­nary evi­dence, but then I fail to pro­vide said evi­dence? 

I absolute­ly do.

Here’s the plot twist: I’m not try­ing to con­vince any­one. 

Believe me. Don’t. Up to you. Some days I have trou­ble believ­ing myself. 

This stuff is in my face and dis­rupt­ing my life. I can’t be both­ered to try and get peo­ple to believe me.

But don’t swing by as the super­cil­ious arbiter of “Suf­fi­cient­ly Evi­denced Claims™” to tell me that accord­ing to your supe­ri­or grasp of ratio­nal think­ing, I have failed to con­vince you. I was nev­er real­ly try­ing to, so at best that’s just going to be annoy­ing.

4- I don’t want you to save me.

If you’re work­ing out of a monothe­is­tic tra­di­tion (and I’m look­ing at you Chris­tians and Mus­lims), I do not want your sal­va­tion. Peri­od. End of line.

I gave up on that shit 25 years ago, and I had my rea­sons then. 

5- No decrying Western medicine. 

Don’t do it. Not here.

I’m all for cer­tain alter­na­tive prac­tices in a holis­tic approach, and lord knows I think for some peo­ple a cou­ple of dos­es of psy­che­delics might replace a life­time of ther­a­peu­tic psych meds, but West­ern med­i­cine is going to pull a tumor out of you with laparo­scop­ic surgery and save your fuck­ing life. Your crys­tals won’t no mat­ter how hard you’ve charged them. If you have an issue with a spe­cif­ic pro­to­col (par­tic­u­lar­ly that is quag­mired in sched­uled sub­stance laws, insur­ance bull­shit, or lit­i­ga­tion-dodg­ing), I’m not going to flip a table if you talk about it, but the type of think­ing that peo­ple just need kun­dali­ni and com­muning with trees instead of their depres­sion meds or to do yoga instead of take insulin or to align their chakras to beat can­cer will be shut down instant­ly.

Is this a case where I’m woo in one way and intol­er­ant of woo in anoth­er? Maybe. But it’s my space and I get to be capri­cious, and in this case, I’ve watched peo­ple die when they did­n’t have to because they turned down con­ven­tion­al treat­ments in favor of alter­na­tive ther­a­peu­tics, and I don’t con­sid­er the mis­in­for­ma­tion float­ing around about “West­ern med­i­cine” to cre­ate an atmos­phere of informed con­sent. 

There’s a lot to write about, and I’ve been hold­ing back for about three years, but part of my new phase of devo­tion­al is to share my sto­ry. I’ll be attach­ing a link to this post to every arti­cle I write on the issue. If you can keep the dis­claimers in mind, and abide by the rules, I wel­come you to join me on a tru­ly incred­i­ble jour­ney.

Next: The Jour­ney Begins

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