Mr. Dark Snafuus

[Deoridhe]

There has been some rumblings recently about newcommers feeling antagonized or inferior because of a perceived perfection on the part of some of the more longstanding and logically rigerous members of this forum.

This is my attempt to bridge the gap. I ask you give me the benefit of the doubt with it.

Every pagan has or will end up in an overdramatic situation that turns out to be self-aggrandizing pap and sometimes ends up being actually physically or psychologically dangerous. I call there Mr. Dark Stories - a termenology I'm attempting to force into all of your brains for my own amusement. wink

This is a place for longtime pagans ot share their early misteps and what lead them to being humble.

I'll share mine, to get us started, shall I? This one is less funny and more shameful, but I think it explains why I never got caught up in pagan Mr. Dark Stories.

When I was around twelve, I was introduced to the concept of hypnosis via a friend of my older brother's who hypnotized me. Based only on my vague recollections of what he did, and what we discussed afterward, I ended up hypnotizing a few people at a day camp I was attending at the time.

It became a great game. Post-hypnotic suggestions are a hoot, and withing very short order I had a small coterie of people lining up to see movies in their head and be tricked into walking to the water fountain a minute after they woke up. It was great fun.

I went off to a three week summer camp and told my cabin mates about my amazing skills. A couple were uninterested, but many of the rest of us took to drawing aside in our spare time for hypnotic sessions. I'd discovered I had quite a talent for hypnosis, requiring no object other than my voice to induce trance. It was only a matter of time before I had people walking through the landscapes of their mind and describing them to me. From there, it was a short hop, skip, and jump to me trying to "fix" them using these journies.

There were moments of usefullness - like helping a tired friend get a night's worth of sleep in five minutes - but overall it was self-aggrandizing and dangerous idiocy. There were five or six of us who really got into it. I invented animal guides to go with them through the scary parts of their mind, all the while congratulating myself on helping them face their inner darkness and become stronger people.

I was an idiot. A 100% grade A moron.

One girl in particular concerned me. Very withdrawn, her self-image seemed to be non-exisatent. I started taking her deeper and being more aggressive with the commands I gave her under trance.

One day, she described coming to a deep cravasse in her mind. On the other side of the crevass was a door. I was convinced this was the core of her problem - that if we could open that door we'd have her "fixed" and healthy and wonderful. I ordered her to make a bridge, to cross it, and to open the door...

that's when she started screaming.

I paniced. I was, after all, twelve. To my abject shame, I ordered her back out of the door, describe barriers going over it to block it out, and did the quickest rise form the depths I've ever done in my life.

Somewhere, there is a girl walking around with a walled up door in her mind. She was forced to face the contents behind it without being ready. It was borded up by me. It was my fault. My hubris, my need to be important, and my drive for drama lead to scars in someone else's mind.

I have no idea what happened to her, but I doubt I'll ever forgive myself for letting the situation get out of hand like that. She was my responsibility, and I betrayed her. That's not the sort of thing a "sorry" could possibly atone for.  

[maenad nuri]

So, I'm 14, and venturing into the grand world of Paganism, and Pagans online. I'm freshly prepared with my eye-color changing spells, my Cunnigham book and my pretty ideals of Wicca, since of course, I was one. The only other pagans I knew were from a sci-fi chat room back when MSN had IRC chat rooms.

I met my match on one of those diary sites that were popular (you know, back when you had to get invited to LJ, I used other places) I posted an entry to the pagan community.

And it was trashed. Utterly trashed. My thoughts were picked apart, my precious ideas weren't being respected!

I was offended. For like a month, I was offended and upset. But I still read the entries that the community brought forth....and I sorta realized just how much I needed some of my ideas trashed. I salvaged some (I claimed Wicca without any creds for a few years, in the same ways that Tea defends the idea, before trying to get cred) and got rid of others.

I went through other ideas that I would consider naive, but still typical, even valid. But if I hadn't been torn apart (I don't even remember what drivel I posted) I never would have caught on. I wasn't logic-loving then, and it took a lot for me to recognize a good arguement.

I'm so glad I never read Ravenwolf.  

[saint dreya]

i am no where near as long standing as Nuri and Deoridhe, nor is my tale as compelling as their's. i myself don't know what to make of it really.

there are bits and pieces. there are times when i can look back and actually see the good in what i did and times when i should have kept my mouth shut. there are times when i've convinced myself of my worthiness and my power, and times when i've allowed myself to walk all over me.

i came to the pagan scene as a 'witch' after watching 'the craft' *shudder* and together with three of my other friends, we made a 'coven'. we were stupid. i was stupid.

i fell out with a couple of them and hooked up with another friend who had all sorts of books on 'wicca' and she eventually gave them to me. i was a self-certified tree.

my library consisted of buckland, cunningham, morrison, simms and ravenwolf. i soaked everything up, read everything i could find. it seems only the crap is easily seen.

i eventually gave up on the books, but still considered myself wiccan. my friends in high school knew of my beliefs and nothing was remiss with them. one time, one of my friends was getting into a trivial argument with someone and told this other person that i was a witch. the person got wide eyed and i started muttering under my breath (a chant that always succeeded in bringing rain). he got wide-eyed and backed off.

my senior year, a boy sucked me into his perverted universe. i believed him when he said i was very powerful, i believed him when he said he was a vampire, i believed him on so many different things that are as equally stupid. maybe he was a vampire, but not of the definition i knew of then.

he drew me into his twisted world and i willingly went. eventually, i did something completely stupid, and his world shattered in my eyes. he had promised me something, he had failed to deliver and had asked me to do something he had insisted i never do.

at some point during college, i came to this site. after being on occultforums for years and attending a few pagan networking meetings where i live, well, maybe i had accrued more vanity and cockiness than i perhaps had had before. i posted my views on one of the threads in M&R. and was shredded.

i look back, and some of my points i can see as valid, if i had encouraged them and fleshed them out, or tried a better way of explaining it. others, well, i was dead wrong.

even after that massacre, i still felt ill towards those who did attempt to show me another way. i have as of recently dropped those feelings and have started to try to look at those other people and the knowledge they have. i still feel like i have a bit to make up for.

now, i am part of an organization, that while is not quite supported here due to certain terms they lay claim to, it still emphasizes accuracy in worship and staying true to the spirit of it all. i am constantly bombarded with how ignorant i am, and apparently how dull i am for how long it takes me to grasp certain concepts. even now, half the threads i see i can't quite understand. it's a constant shot of humility, one which i'm finally attempting to deal with instead of acting 'all-powerful'.

that chant never worked for me again. after having soaked up all the crap from those books, i find it hard to not only find the more reliable ones but to understand them. i have trouble reconsciling many features i ingrained into myself from those early days. i'm still learning about mine and other's faiths and about myself.  

[TeaDidikai]

I skipped the Mr. Dark experience.

Mostly because had I even started it, my Aunt and Baba would have made me regret it- likely with a firm paddling.

While my views when I am playing Devil's Advocate come across as hardline, to be honest- I'm really only vicious about one subject- and that has nothing to do with paganism unto itself.

I have enjoyed watching many a Mr. Dark within my time working at Occult shops, but it isn't something I can relate to. I can only chalk it up to the guidance my family has given me, and the understanding that not everyone is as lucky as I am in some ways, and not in others. The prohibitions within my tradition are a b***h at times- and there are some things I am very interested in.  

[CuAnnan]

My worst snafu was invoking vassago with excerpts from the rituals in the Goetia.

I had fluffy expectations and when faced with the reality (whatever that may be) of a Goetic demon unbound telling me to cop the ******** on[sic] and grow up was thoroughly unpleasant.

I've also done a ritual or too that were just too much for me and left myself burned out for a day or two. Less unpleasant but none-the-less not an experience I recommend.

I got into an argument with the high priestess of one of Ireland's coven because she wouldn't recognise me as a wiccan, even though I'd done the rituals in my IRAB wixxa book, luckily she has since forgiven me.  

[Deoridhe]

reagun ban

I got into an argument with the high priestess of one of Ireland's coven because she wouldn't recognise me as a wiccan, even though I'd done the rituals in my IRAB wixxa book, luckily she has since forgiven me.

Okay, officially in shock, now. eek

Pheonix-sweetie, you're doing just fine. Trust me. Shaky colt legs grow into strong yearling legs; you just have to give it time and keep walking.  

[TatteredAngel]

I'm in college and still on my shaky colt legs, and though I'd like to think I have been mostly intelligent about approaching this, I gotta say that the OMFG Im a teen Wytch! drama hit me hard enough to be shaming when I look back on it, and even more shaming when I realize it was not all that long ago. Part of the problem was that for a long time I could not accept that maybe I was still searching for a proper path, and uncomfortable with the idea that maybe I didn't have a name to toss into everyone's faces. You know, all those mean Christians ready to persecute me.

After I realized I was being silly about the persecution complex, I still didn't get the rest of it. There was no way I was going to tell my nice Christian friends that I was not as sure about my beliefs as they were about theirs. I tried on names and labels with breathtaking speed for a while- and the online communities I found didn't exactly offer me the slap upside the head I needed. Nor did the local "Wiccan" community- they were just happy generic treehuggy pagans who probably read a lot of Ravenwolf themselves. My girlfriend at the time, a little older and certainly more worldly than me, had me pretty well convinced that this really was what it was all about.

It took a little while to get over all of that, and I'm still sort of feeling my way through what I thought I knew and comparing it with what I can actually back up with research.  

[AvalonAuggie]

Oh, where do my mishaps end?

I started off getting interested in the occult from watching The Craft, thinking it was an absurd movie and wanting to know if people actually believed this stuff. did some very basic reading, got pointed towards Cunningham from AOL chats (such a useful and scholarly resource for inquisitive middle-schoolers!), and got some early warnings against RavenWolf BS.

All the same, my resources were limited. I developed a "Wiccan" persecution complex and all the delusions that go along with it. Did a love spell on a boy I had a crush on during a year I was pretty much depressed. Needless to say it did not work, and I was sorely disappointed. Although I suppose it's a good thing my "teenage rebellion" was of a religious sort instead of self-mutilation or developing an eating disorder.

At some point I ran across "Why Wiccans Suck" and I felt personally affronted. xp ohh, I had such deep moral outrage, it was hilarious. But it turned out to be just the smack in the head I needed, and I started doing more research at that point.

I've been steadily driven away from spellwork because it seems to have no real use in my life. The last time I did anything remotely planned an organized was a general love spell my freshman year in college. It worked well, and I don't regret doing it, but I also got more than I bargained for and a lot of practice at dealing with ridiculous drama.

If there's anything I've learned from my continuing journey through Paganism while at college, it's the value of minimalism. I can't burn things here, and I've learned I don't need a lot of tools to get spiritual fulfilment out of everyday life. ...And I'm constantly reminded of how I used to be when I see the handful of social deviants with their big huge pants with bondage straps and bigass pentacles roaming about campus.

Oh, and there was that one time while journeying that I was bodily thrown down a rather steep hillside by Owl because I didn't want to go where I was being led. That was...embarassing on so many levels.  

[CuAnnan]

Deoridhe

Okay, officially in shock, now. eek

I'm just very lucky she's got a fantastic sense of humour and a forgiving nature.  

[Light Chakra]

Hmm... Well first and foremost, I have you all beaten, I was so ignorant it's not even funny. Well let's start by saying I was very sheltered babtist christian life as a child, so seven years ago I definitely had no idea what was going on in the pagan world, plus I had watched so much Sabrina, and Charmed, and seen the craft like fifty times.

My initial interests in wicca and witchraft were sparked by a small group of total idiots... Well maybe not one of them, but I've spoken with her since then, and realize that she is not that intelligent when it comes to her practice either, but atleast she knew somethings.
Anyway, three people came up to me one day when I was playing around with a deck of tarot cards... Well actually I was having a reading done for me. P.s. this was in middle school.
They basically told me that I was to be their fourth, and being the science fiction loving type I happilly agreed, of course it took quite a bit of talking and three days first.
They said that I was 'overflowing with white magic' and 'my abilities would help them to achieve their destiny'... Oi it was sooo bad I know, let's see...
One of them spouted on about being a demon.
One spouted on about being a powerful witch who was born a witch and she inherited all of her powers from her family.
And the last one just claimed to generaly be incredibly powerful.
Well the one who spouted on about being a demon said that his twin brother was an angel and wanted him dead or something, which I thought "Well an angel wouldn't want to kill anybody to begin with" or something, but the other two basically got me to agree to 'help vanquish the wrongdoer' sounds like a bad episode of charmed right?
And it just goes on and on for like two weeks worth of drama and science fiction b.s. before my suspicions (sp?) completely took me over and I broke it off and started researching alone.  

[ProfessorZed]

Deoridhe

Shaky colt legs grow into strong yearling legs; you just have to give it time and keep walking.

Before I say anything about me, it's only fair to tell you that your words to Phoenix gave me a serious case of the warm fuzzies. I'm really feeling the urge to hug you right now.

But on to me. I admit with some shame that I was an IRAB. Then for a while I tried to be an IRALOB. I was firmly convinced, because I read same in books, that I could be a Genuine Wiccan with all the wisdom I was gleaning from Llewellyn. There was no great incident that broke me of that, just a growing discomfort with the label over the years, exacerbated by the presence of some extraordinarily unpleasant fellow-travelers. I wavered a lot, from the "I'm Wiccan, dagnabbit, and you can't take that away from me" perspective to (thankfully more consistently, and winning in the end) the "I'm not sure I believe that, I know I don't do this, this, and this, and why the hell do I need this little word I don't much like anyway in order to feel legitimate?" perspective.

I dealt with a stack of Spookier-Than-Thou types over the years -- I even made the mistake of founding a circle with one. I was young. It was all very sordid, and blew up in my face. All the same, good things came out of it: most notably, one of the teenagers who came to us in search of some teaching and maybe some meaning was Eladrin Starmist. That was some years ago, and once free of the Spooky-dominated circle, we learned a lot from each other, and continue to do so. I'd argue that our experience with the Spooky Ideologue influenced us to start SSMPA, so that we could (hopefully) save other baby-Pagans from the experiences we had.

It was my experience with all the drama of my circle that really served as the impetus for my journey from Wiccan Wannabe to WIP to whatever I am now. As I'm sure many of you can attest, dark nights of the soul have that effect. In my circle days, there was a general anti-Wiccan sentiment in the air, despite our broad borrowing of Book-Wiccan practices and ideas, and I felt like I had something to defend. The whole time, I was growing farther and farther away from what I'd been reading and absorbing, but I couldn't let go because I had a stake in it. About three months after I left the aforementioned circle, other former members (including Eladrin) started coming to me for advice and some teaching, and I started to realize that I didn't have to hold on to the label to be legitimate, in the sense that I genuinely had insight and ideas to share. The ideas I was developing were not (specifically, at least) Wiccan, and after a while, I came to understand that no matter how hard I tried, the materials I'd been exposed to just weren't me. So there I was: a genuine, authentic WIP...maybe. Recently, I've been recognizing myself in the things I've been reading about the ideology behind Chaos magic, so we'll see where that goes.

So now it's been a few years, and while I've eliminated the Spookier-Than-Thous from my environment, they're always there in the periphery of my thoughts. If there's anything I absolutely refuse to become -- and which I barely escaped becoming -- it's a rampaging ideologue. I can't say for sure how holding on to a label that wasn't mine to use affected my spiritual growth, but it taught me some things, so I guess it's all okay in the end. Letting the current of beliefs and ideas flow has made me so much more relaxed!  

[Deoridhe]

Erishkegal

Deoridhe

Shaky colt legs grow into strong yearling legs; you just have to give it time and keep walking.

Before I say anything about me, it's only fair to tell you that your words to Phoenix gave me a serious case of the warm fuzzies. I'm really feeling the urge to hug you right now.

As much as this guild is meant to snap people out of their fluffy headspaces, it's also for encouraging them in being value-driven and integrated people. The former requires correction; the latter requires encouragement. It's not often easy to marry the two, but it's critical for solid learning that they both exist.

And you can hug me anytime. I love getting hugs. whee  

[Sevendreams]

My finer moments in life, from mildest to worst:

-Walking into a "new age" shop with my newborn son asking "do you have anything cute for babies?"

-Getting my first Tarot reading after reading a tiny bit about it and going "ZOMG look at all the major arcana that popped up, I must be POWERFUL."

-Thinking it would be a Good Idea™ to call upon the sinister energies around me and sending them in the form of a shadowy assailant after our neighbor. He had badly insulted my girlfriend, been repeatedly rude to my rooommates, and been a generally abusive person, so I asked it to injure him by requesting that it break one of his legs. He suddenly disappeared for three days and then was evicted, which was nice, but then my car had one of its "legs broken" (a popped tire) in three places while I was on the highway, after which I felt shaken to my core as a cold whisper in my mind said that payment for the favor had been taken (it was a high price at the time because I didn't have the money to get the car fixed with a baby on the way and had to go around begging for the money). The shadow decided to stick around anyway and try to take even more from me, tempting me daily with thoughts of things it could do to people I disliked. Without ever telling him, one day my best friend and mentor pulled me aside and asked if I had summoned a sinister creature, because it came to his window by way of becoming aware of my connection with him. I finally decided to get smart and devise a ritual to banish it. I have never felt entirely the same since that experience, and have come to deeply appreciate the need for knowing what the ******** I'm getting into before trying it.  

[Fiddlers Green]

Actually... my early idiot moments, and their side effects (between looking like an idiot, and mixing a few things I shouldn't... darn near killed myself with some early attempts at alchemy), were what prompted me to take these studies seriously, and do heavey research before attempting anything.