Hypocrisy

I think I need to acknowledge my own hypocrisy. I recently ranted about how all my buddies from the communicable have abandoned there faith, and I had a good kvetch over letting go of belief after you’ve had a spiritual experience.

But really, I have done the exact same thing. I really used to buy into the whole invocation thing. (Think “voluntary possession”). But lately…not so much. What is different? Oh hum … could it the very same thing that drove away all my esteemed buddies in the first place? I suppose, perspective is everything.

Apologies to any one offended.

Honesty - Honestly!

I have never been a good liar. That was probably a major factor in why I was never a good sales person.

I really don’t believe in secrets and lies – They come and bite you in the ass eventually. I don’t believe that I am some weirdly totally honest person. I do believe in the fine art of withholding information. – Something that I probably don’t engage in as often as I should. But I am confounded by people who lie. Truth has always been terribly important to me. (-Hell the Japanese character for “Truth” has been permanently tattooed in to my skin.)

I seem to sniff out compulsive liars. An old boss Allen, who told me, among other tall tails that he lived with “roommates”. REALITY: He lived with his mother, who frequently called the store asking when her Son would be home and bemoaning the state of his room.

He told me He used to own a large photo studio with a staff of 15 working under him. REALITY: I ran in to an old collage chum of his who confirmed that Allen went to work for Blacks right after collage.

He told me he had gotten a customer service complaint about me that the regional manager had spoken to him about. REALITY: I spoke to the regional manager – there was no such customer service complaint.

There are more, but you get the picture.

In the past year I have caught someone I know in a series of small stupid lies. I don’t know why they are doing this. The lies seem pointless. Igal thinks that they are some sort of strange social lubricant. Something to smooth over patches of conversation that this person wants to avoid. I wonder if this person thinks I am a so naïve is to fall for this stuff?

Am I totally out of whack here or is it just too damn much to ask that people just tell the truth?

Faith and all that Bullshit

I am somewhat angry and some what depressed right now. I am exercising my right to vent my spleen so here it is. I stumbled across Ricks new blog the other day and came across this post about “Community” in it he referred to the wiccan community that we both belonged to as “dysfunctional” and pionted out the moniker “communicable” *in his words* -“because it’s more like a flu-bug than a functioning, healthy, spirit-full community.”

I’m not angry at Rick. The Community was dysfunctional and (it seems) continues to be. I was reminded of this just the other day when I went to pick up some supplies for a third trimester ritual at the occult shop.

I was ringing in my purchases and speaking to a member of priest hood, *Who shall remain nameless* when this person began to spout at me about how they had the victim of “psychic attack” and how there student had had to use “black arts” to defend them.

OY.

Yup Rick, I gotta agree, very dysfunctional. I think the thing that has gotten me in to a funk is that even though (for the sake of my sanity) I have had to abandon some of the people in the community, the spirit of the community still speaks to me.

I still have something of my faith left. But all of the people that I respect from that community don’t really identify themselves as wiccan any more. The few times I have tried to “talk shop” with those people I have been met with polite blandness and responses that ranged from “I don’t really do that any more.” And the very cheerful “I’m ecumenically at large!” (Love you Roben, glad that’s working out for you.)

That’s great that everyone has moved on, and perhaps I should too. There’s a very nice looking Tibetan Buddhist Temple down the road from me and maybe I should just check them out.

But I can help but wonder, all of these people that used to be in this group with me …supposedly we all had beliefs, we all had faith, just because we lost faith in the system did that mean that we lost faith in the belief? Some of these folks have described real-time honest –to-goodness spiritual experiences. One of them invoked Zeus in my living room. Another blithely suggested to me that I should not have been initiated because I did not “see” things. He claimed that he saw auras and got “tv” like results from scrying “all the time” I asked “seeing guy” recently how that whole aura thing was going. His response? “I’m not really in touch with that any more.”

I have never had a vision, never had a deity “borrow” my body. The goddess does not have an on going dialogue with me. I would think that if any of these things had happened to me that it might be a bit harder to simply walk away from my faith.

Perhaps I am wrong.