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Kathleen's avatar

Nobody can offend you unless you hand them that power.

When people complain about something being "offensive" what they mean is: "I demand you pander to my personal weirdness and mollify me."

Take a hard pass on that stuff. It's dishonest and manipulative.

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Cameron M. Bailey's avatar

Agreed, 100%. Our society seems to have decided to give power to the easily offended over the past decade or so, but that is, as you rightly point out, manipulative. I think, rightly, that most people have had enough of that now, as I see a lot of signs of pushback.

Ultimately, it all comes down to personal responsibility. Don't like Tarot cards? Have the responsibility and agency to not look at them!

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Lucas's avatar

I’ve heard the same, you can try to educate but that’s about it.

I have raised eyebrows when I’ve told people a 52 card deck is a derivative and can also be “read” to some extent.

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Cameron M. Bailey's avatar

Indeed, there are lots of cartomancers who read with regular playing cards.

And heck, one can use cards for a huge variety of purposes. Last week one of our Brothers pointed me to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcUzoX2tv6I

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Erica Phillips Graves 🔮's avatar

I have lost subscribers for even writing the word “satanism”. It wasn’t even a positive sentence. If they subscribed to my Substack, I am very up front about my witch status, and I am not upset they left.

All I was writing was that it was not my belief and it was based on Christianity. I also likened today’s satanic “church”, who do not hold a dogmatic view, to be very different and separate from the early Crowley days. Witches are not inherently satanic and it is wrong to assume such a thing.

Truth hurts, and opposing long held beliefs of ”evil” things will always be contentious.

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Cameron M. Bailey's avatar

I was a teenager and young adult during the time of the 'Satanic Panic' here in the U.S. More than that, I lived at that time close to Wenatchee, Washington where one of the largest cases of mass hysteria took place, and where large numbers of lives were ruined for no reason as the entire thing was eventually proven to be nonsense.

A people, and a government, gone mad, right here in the middle of Washington State.

For those who might not have been around for that panic, a broad overview is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic

A brief summary of what happened in Wenatchee is here:

https://www.historylink.org/File/7065

In 2021 there was a major documentary series about the Wenatchee panic that aired on Fox, it is now available on AppleTV:

https://www.ncwlife.com/news/new-docuseries-probes-wenatchee-sex-ring-hysteria-of-the-1990s/article_b52e14fb-24bb-5cab-a4b6-bdb47599f76b.html

That was a real witch hunt, that really did destroy lives, right in our lifetime, right here in famously progressive and blue Washington State.

The danger is never quite as far away as we think.

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Erica Phillips Graves 🔮's avatar

Sounds crazy! I am aware of it happening, what a scary time. Mass hysteria at its craziest. I read something about a journalist that helped to kickstart the satanic panic fear. Lucien greaves (of the satanic temple) took her to court for Malicious intent for her spreading lies through media about the temple. Even though she testified that she made most of it up, she still had no repercussions. Since it could not be proven what intent she had, she won the case. Panic indeed.

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Cameron M. Bailey's avatar

I think that the 'witch trials' are not really over, they've just receded. The ability for mass hysteria remains. We may not burn witches any longer, but as Wenatchee (and so many other cases showed) we are willing to completely destroy lives, and imprison. All falsely, just as in more ancient times.

Another example, from our own U.S. past was the panic against Freemasonry, we even had a major political party form here, the Anti-Masonic Party, the aims of which were pushed hard by a former President, John Quincy Adams. Because of course Freemasons have also long been accused of heresy and doctrinal crimes.

That is why, I believe, we must push back whenever we read nonsense like Tarot cards being demonic. We can't let people who would spread panic and fear over nothing gain a foothold, for if we do, terrible results come.

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Erica Phillips Graves 🔮's avatar

Well said. We feel the effects of the trauma of the past. Seems we take 2 steps forward and 1 step back.

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Cameron M. Bailey's avatar

Yes indeed.

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Sergio Gata Trigaza ⭕️'s avatar

Doesn’t Lucifer bring light?

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Cameron M. Bailey's avatar

How we define words, and indeed names, is extremely important. Demonic as it was directed against my use of Tarot was in the sense of evil. I presume that those who would make such accusations would also believe things like the higher self, the holy guardian angel, egregores, and all the rest to be evil.

And of course the danger of such dogmatic thinking is that it leads one to believe that anything in opposition to that particular dogma should be stamped out. One way or the other.

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Sergio Gata Trigaza ⭕️'s avatar

Definition, (and belief), by opposition. A thing to keep an eye on it… I like that concept!

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Margaret Estelle's avatar

Excellent post! And there’s also a huge difference between something being “offensive” versus genuinely harmful. Comparing the history of abuse of people and power carried out by major religious institutions with the mere existence of Tarot cards, it should be easy for any reasonable person to see which is offensive and which causes actual harm.

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Cameron M. Bailey's avatar

Thank you!

Yeah, I'll keep waiting, with bated breath, for the Tarot Readers of the world to unite, create an odious dogma, and start insisting that anyone who doesn't fully believe that dogma deserves to be damned. 😎

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