(no subject)
Jul. 6th, 2004 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hearthstoneOkay, I have to say it--I do not understand these folks who decide to become heathen or pagan and the first thing they do is look for "a teacher." Seriously, maybe I'm weird, but my impulse would be to do my own research first! Wouldn't it make more sense to try to gain a broader base of information before handing oneself over to some random person? Why would someone think that this random person would be at all knowledgable, or even trustworthy, if they had no exposure to the faith in question ahead of time? How would they be able to tell?
I don't mean folks who ask for information or to be pointed to resources--or who do some work, realize that they've gotten as far as they can on their own, and ask for assistance in going further. That's reasonable. But that's not what you see--what you see is people who are looking for someone to hand them a pre-formed spirituality, whether because they don't want to do the work themselves or because they can't let go of the notion that there must be a single Truth out there--or, I suppose, because they are looking for the secrets of the universe or some such thing, and obviously anyone who happens to be hanging out on an email list would not only possess them but would jump at the chance to hand them out to anyone who asked. I'm not particularly offended by this--caveat emptor and all that--but I just hate to see so many people shutting off their brains before they've even tried to engage them.
I don't mean folks who ask for information or to be pointed to resources--or who do some work, realize that they've gotten as far as they can on their own, and ask for assistance in going further. That's reasonable. But that's not what you see--what you see is people who are looking for someone to hand them a pre-formed spirituality, whether because they don't want to do the work themselves or because they can't let go of the notion that there must be a single Truth out there--or, I suppose, because they are looking for the secrets of the universe or some such thing, and obviously anyone who happens to be hanging out on an email list would not only possess them but would jump at the chance to hand them out to anyone who asked. I'm not particularly offended by this--caveat emptor and all that--but I just hate to see so many people shutting off their brains before they've even tried to engage them.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-08 04:02 pm (UTC)Geez, where do these people come from? Gah! Well, at least they were upfront about it and let you know right away.
The scary thing is that this has to work some of the time because otherwise they wouldn't try it.
I suppose I'm sounding like more of a prude than I actually am, here :). I have no problem with sexuality being an essential part of someone's spirituality, or of a particular spiritual path. Heck, I don't really care what anyone else does as part of their religion, as long as it's mutual and neither forced nor coerced. But some of the things you hear about are pretty creepy. Beginners need to know that they have options, and the call for "a teacher" kind of shuts that down for them before they even get started.