We've been fairly direct on this point from day one, "Where we differ with Wicca" being part of the original introduction written for our site. But some people just won't bother to read. One of those people created enough problems for us, as to create the need to post this notice at the top of our main page for over a year.

Enough!

January 20, 2003

NOTE: Can it be four years, already? I'm sure you'll notice the rule below that says "Wiccans are not welcome as guests, any more". Part of the reason for this reluctantly adopted policy has been due to the obnoxious and occasionally (literally) criminal behavior of our local Wiccan community. A really major part of it has been the endless stream of terminally clueless individuals, who, no matter how many times we have said "this is not a Wiccan group. We don't do magick" wouldn't hear us, and would keep on asking us to teach them "the craft". Eventually, one just has to say "enough".

It was about four years ago today that somebody helped that joy enter our lives, and God bless him. His name is Athos and he runs a site called Omphalos.net (no relation to the Stele). Athos put us in a section labeled "Covens" in "Wicca and Witchcraft". That has since become "Witchcraft and Paganism", but nobody ever seems to read the second word. We wrote to him, almost four years ago, now, asking that our listing be removed from that section, where we clearly do not belong. We have reminded him several times since. Even so, in four years, he has not budged. Why? We don't know. Maybe Athos could tell us, if only he'd ever answer his mail.

And so they keep coming, especially on Valentine's Day, where one sexually frustrated warlock after another, firmly convinced that we have the love spell that will turn him into a modern Don Juan, writes to us asking if we have any spare virility potions laying around. (Have these people not heard of Viagra?) So, with all my heart, I'm sending this one out to Athos - CUT IT OUT! Remove the listing, NOW !!!!!!! Good God. Four years hasn't been enough to remove one blurb? People get college degrees in four years. But, I guess some people just don't want to get the message.

Epilogue, August 17 : Omphalos.net, apparently, has since become the latest acquisition of a group of cyberpirates based in Hong Kong, who gained notoriety here in Chicago by allegedly hijacking ChicagoFun.org. The clueless newbies, however, are still bringing a crowd of their online friends, a gift that keeps on giving).

Comment added in April, 2004 : We took the previous two entries off our main page on Feb.29,2004. The real question is, will we be able to leave it down? Perhaps we will, under the circumstances, as explained in the passage below, which was removed from the top of the Bravenet copy of the Almond Jar on May 21 of the same year. Once we got past the reading comprehension problems of much more than a few, we found ourselves faced with a far more basic difficulty : a readership that was either apathetic or non-existent, leaving us with the question "why did we ever bother in the first place". The most frustrating aspect of having had to deal with these idiots can be found in this thought: it was all for nothing.

Closing Time?

March 23, 2004

(This was posted on the copy of the Almond Jar over at FreeYellow. Bravenet remains a free website provider, and has given us no reason to date to think that they will cease to be one, so let's not go spreading any wild rumors, OK? I will, however, leave these comments in place, as this site has sort of evolved into a really elaborate blog, and this passage speaks to my point of view at the time of its writing).

I'm not sure that anybody is reading this, but if somebody is and you are one of those somebodies, I'm sure that you've noticed the disappearance of the ads, especially the pop-ups. FreeYellow is no longer a free webpage provider. We have to pay for this space. Aside from the improved quality of the viewing experience, this is a good thing, perhaps, because it has forced us to take stock of the choices I've made, and the ones that I'll make in the future.

I have paid for a full year of service, ending in February of 2005. I probably am not going to renew after that. When I was moderating the first Shrine of the Sleeping Gods, I never ceased to be amazed at how much of my time was eaten up by presiding over a 23 person group. Were that time eaten up by preparation for discussions, listening to members of the group when they felt the need to talk to somebody, or otherwise doing something of value, I probably wouldn't have minded that so much, but that wasn't what was happening. I'd estimate that maybe 90-95% of the time I put in as moderator was taken up by the need to debunk rumors spread at my expense, the Shrine's expense, and occasionally my members' expense by people who either could not handle the fact that they had lost an argument on points in a mature fashion, or that they were asked to leave a meeting or a mailing list after creating a disruption. By this, I don't mean arguing points that we found annoying, but literally disturbing the peace, going so far in one case that we literally had to get the police involved. Wiccans were banned as visitors to the Shrine for a variety of reasons, the fact that we had received death threats from some of the true believers being not the least of them. Having then debunked somebody's attempt at defamation of character, we would then find ourselves having to deal with the people who claimed that we were "slandering" the person whose defamation we had rebutted, because by demonstrating that his accusations were off-base, we made him look foolish.

Picture taking a group of spoiled, screaming kindergartners, having somebody put them in charge of the school, and then trying to deal with the madhouse that resulted. I'll never forget how it was that I became the target of my first "Witch War". I was in a carpool, being driven home from a meeting held by Moonbeats Sanctuary back when I still believed in Pagan networking. We were talking, and I mentioned an article which I had just read online, written by somebody who had converted to Christianity from Paganism. I found it a little annoying at the time, feeling that it had an irritatingly dogmatic tone. One of the other people in the carpool said "what you ought to do is post and ask him about his role in embezzling funds from his old community". I was a little surprised to hear him say that, because I hadn't given him the name of the author, not being able to remember it myself. I expressed surprise, saying "oh, you've heard of this guy" and asking him if he knew for sure that this gentleman had, in fact, embezzled money from his community. A deathly silence fell over the conversation. I was not supposed to ask that question. People were angry with me, because I wanted to make sure that the accusation was true before I made it. That's why the Uniform Base Code of Morality was one of the first items I ever placed on this site. That article is not a spouting of platitudes, it's the start of an argument in support of values I've seldom seen honored by Pagans.

I've had this site up for a few years, most of the history of the World Wide Web to date, as a matter of fact, and I've been waiting to see that light at the end of the tunnel, some sign that there has been a point to all of this. Aside from foolish questions about whether or not I could teach people "the craft", abusive and nosy comments from "hipper than thou" Neopagans who wanted to tell us how to live ("being judgemental is only wrong when the Christians do it"), and the usual unceasing smear attempts and trumped up complaints that make Neopagans such a pleasure to deal with, I've seen little response to the articles on this site, little sign that it was ever even read. Notice that the guestbook for the Almond Jar hasn't been signed by anybody other than me; the older, drabber one at another provider never was signed. Forget about getting a discussion going, I can't even get people to say "hi".

One just gets to the point where one has to say "why am I bothering, and why am I paying $65.95/year for this". $65.95 could buy me a few nice books, and I could certainly find a better use for my time than documenting a rebuttal to somebody's latest piece of libel. If I saw some evidence that I was accomplishing something of value here, I might reconsider, but the evidence is very strong that I won't be seeing that. Perhaps I should have been paying closer attention that night, when I dropped by Moonbeats, or maybe I should have been a lot less willing to go into denial. I remember part of their performance, in which, in a perfectly condescending tone, one of the members of Moonbeats talked about how those silly ignorant scientists had discovered that the world was in "flu-u-u-x", wiggling her hands up and down, saying that the wise New Agers had known this all along. Aside from this being a silly way of describing Quantum Mechanics, there was Reality staring me in the face and discovering that I was too stubborn to look back.

Long, long before the thought of Paganism had ever crossed my mind, I was studying Mathematics and Physics, with some excursions into Engineering, entering a PhD program. I am and was one of those "silly scientists", and had I been looking for a sign of things to come on that night, I couldn't have asked for a better one. I and my entire profession were being insulted right up there on stage, as part of the evening festivities. I was just so in love with the concept of Paganism and so eager to see it work, that I ignored the blindingly obvious truth: that reason is viewed with scorn in the Pagan community, and any attempt to get people to approach Paganism on a serious philosophical level is probably going to be dead on arrival. The very people who would be open to taking part in such an effort are mostly going to be driven away by the anti-intellectual atmosphere of a fluffy-dominated community.

If there is a "you" out there reading this, and enough of you give me some sign that this page has been something other than a time devouring exercise in wheel spinning, I'll consider keeping it around. Otherwise, I've got a world of places to go and things to do, and most of them are far more rewarding than dealing with constant backbiting from people who expect their fantasies to be treated as if they were solid reality, and will go for blood if they aren't. My inclination, at this point, is to play up the Christian side of my religion, and pursue the Pagan side of it as a private devotion, nothing more, to be discussed with nobody, online or offline. I find that I am not alone in this. It's a small Pagan community that we have here, in the midst of a very big world, and if trying to reason with its members or appeal to their better instincts seems to be a lost cause, walking away from them and never hearing from them again seems like a very achievable and promising possibility.

Maybe yes, maybe no, but as always, more joy awaits. You could go back to Why No Wiccans and hear the wolf howl all over again, or head over to the main page for this site. Or you could just close this window.