Something in the Water
It’s funny how things seem to coincide sometimes, isn’t it?
When I wrote my last blog about local spirits, adaptability, and not being afraid to learn different types of magic, I
had no idea that a blog had surfaced on Patheos that was calling into question the whole idea of working with St Cyprian because he was a Christian.
Just to give a bit of back story here, but Cyprian was a pagan magician who converted to Christianity after getting into a magical barney with someone who used the sign of the cross on him and won. Well, it was a bit more complicated than that (and you can read more about it here), but essentially that’s what it boiled down to. Eventually, old Cyprian was martyred (as the prefix ‘St.’ suggests), and now people are all about that Cyprian shiz because a couple of books have surfaced about Mr Saint’s grimoire.
I feel like I’m saying this a lot at the moment, but so what?
So what if people want to get on down with St Cyprian and work from his grimoire?
The only reason I’m writing this blog is because of the, quite frankly, ridiculous assertion that using the grimoires of Christians – or working with ostensibly Christian spirits is somehow “cultural appropriation”.
Yeah, you read that right. “Cultural appropriation”.
Cultural Appropriation? Cultural Cyprianation?
There are so many reasons why this accusation is ridiculous that I barely know where to start (or how to do so in a coherent manner without sputtering all over the place because of a surfeit of flabbergast).
First of all, as a friend pointed out on her post about the blog post in question, the person who made the accusation worships Egyptian gods; how is this somehow not cultural appropriation but pulling anything from Judeo-Christian culture somehow is? (You know, if we’re going to go there…)
Neither case is cultural appropriation IMO as the necessary power dynamic that makes a thing culturally appropriative is absent in both cases. Judeo-Christian culture is the dominant culture, there is nothing taken in terms of power or wealth from their culture by Pagans who happen to decide that they’ve got a swanky-looking spirit and that a bit of magical interfaith diplomacy might not go amiss. The same goes for the Pagan Egyptians because…well, they’re dead, and unless you’re in possession of some bones and are bullying some spirit, you can’t really oppress people who are dead. The cultures of Pagan Egypt are gone. Still, one would hope that if you worship Egyptian gods, you’d try and find ways to give something back to the culture and country they became eventually. (Not going to get into arguments about who the ‘real’ Egyptians are here.)
Secondly, seeing as most of us are from a Judeo-Christian background, in a sense this is a part of our cultural heritage. As Pagans/Heathens none of us seem to have an issue with looking into whatever Pagan heritage (no matter how far removed by time) we feel we maybe belong to (usually because of cultural or sketchy DNA test result reasons). This shit is a part of who we are. The vast majority of us have at least a thousand years of Christian ancestors at our backs – are we to ignore them too because they were Christian and have Christian cooties that automatically taint one’s pure Pagan soul? Are we now going to decry the simple act of lighting a candle in a church for a deceased Catholic relative as ‘cultural appropriation’, or are we going to see that act for what it actually is – an act of respect towards one’s beloved dead?
Christian Cyprian?,/h3>
And you really think even SAINT Cyprian was fully Christian in terms of his worldview (assuming he existed, of course)? Yes, he converted, but as
many of you can attest, there is no magic wand of conversion. It takes *time*, generations even, to change a worldview. In all likelihood – just like many of the people clutching their pearls about the man himself – Cyprian probably didn’t manage to shuck even a sizable percentage of his Pagan worldview baggage during his life time. I mean, let’s face it, the whole “Wow, that worked awesomely, I think I’ll worship the god you do because I want that same shit” thing is pretty Pagan in of itself. In the Heathen period, people would offer to gods and then if their gifts weren’t met with any kind of reciprocity in return, they worshiped different gods. The whole story of Cyprian’s conversion sounds like he had an expectation of reciprocity from the get go (to be even more shit hot at magic than he already was with the help of his new deity). Reciprocity isn’t really a thing in Christianity from what I understand. I haven’t actually read St Cyprian’s stuff, but I’d be very surprised if a lot of the underlying magical tech can’t be traced back to something that’s a little more agreeable to the Pagan purists out there.
Because that isn’t anything new, a lot of these texts with a Christian veneer have underlying Pagan continuities, and just as you may make offerings to a Christian ancestor in a way that might be agreeable to them, why *wouldn’t* you show a spirit you’re hoping to learn from the same respect?
My mother has an idiom that I think would fit here, “it’s no skin off my nose”. And it isn’t – unless of course, you still think of these Christian things as having any/greater power over you (or like the heroin addict that has to keep away from any sniff of opiates, fear a fall from the wagon). Again, these are the questions that need to be wrestled with. People like to write about doing ‘shadow work’, but why not explore all the negative feelings and fears you hold about your previous faith and try to come to some kind of a peace with it all? It’s only when the chains no longer constrain you that you can really dance freely, and people do so need to dance again.
On the whole, the blog post in question felt like no small amount of sour grapes towards Gordon White (a major voice about things Cyprian) and his current popularity. Gordon consistently puts out quality content, and is advocating for a far freer way of doing things – one in which the individual does not need to look to anyone else’s authority. It is not a worldview in which would-be bishops would do particularly well. And maybe therein lies the crux? People becoming interested in magical arts that need not exist within a hierarchy, is quite threatening to those who would perhaps be that hierarchy. Look at how threatened the church hierarchy was by magic, as Giordano Bruno would tell you, they killed over it. Mr White is simply dancing and showing others that there are many types of dance that are possible. It also felt like there was a bit of the old ‘more Pagan than thou’ tone in there too, but which is more Pagan here: avoiding all things Christian lest you be tainted by those Jesus cooties; or deal with the spirits you come across, as you come across them, without giving more weight to some over others because they happen to be Jesus-y?
‘Cultural appropriation’ seems to be quite an easy target nowadays to get people riled up. And don’t get me wrong – it’s a massively serious issue that negatively affects the lives of many people around the world. We should be calling out the members of dominant cultures who take from more oppressed cultures, make bank off their backs, and give nothing back. But over-applying the term to the point of ridiculousness, in a way that the term does not cover, does not help this. If anything, it helps to detract from the seriousness of actual cultural appropriation.
And with that said, I’m going to go ahead and enjoy my weekend in these stunningly beautiful woods.