Devoured by Flame

A recurring problem within the community is that people feel as though the Divine need to be gatekept. They use this sort of thing to their advantage and it’s not for any real reason that is ever explicitly appointed in any theosophical records or any part of any pantheon ever. It is simply humans who are gatekeeping the Divine from humanity. 

The value of knowing that you are intrinsically entwined with the Divine is something that gatekeepers do not intend on telling you. They are afraid that the moment you start realizing that your whole life, you’ve been uniquely attuned to the Divine and you just didn’t see it because they themselves do not benefit from empowering your capacity to be called to the Divine. They make more money off of selling you a fantasy of books that tell you what you need to do in order to better communicate with the Gods and sell some sort of hope that recreating the past is going to make the Gods come back to life again – as if They disappeared and are now making a reappearance. 

However, there are those of us called to do certain work and it can be pretty breathtaking to say the least. Most haven’t any capacity to state their experiences because there is no framework within our society to do so so they grapple with whatever books are there on the market and then gaslight their own experiences to be reconciled with what is already known to be true. They’ll sooner invalidate their own opinion because it is more uncomfortable to be on the fringes than to be considered a popular person in an already niche environment. 

These sorts of people have already been awakened at some point to some degree to this path but the nature of this experience isn’t unique to them – it is unique to the entire human race as it is a gift explicitly given to humans to have this experience. Though all living beings can bear witness to the Divine in action, it is only humans who are aware of this and can make sense of why the Divine are almost a cosmic being while also being capable of living and walking and breathing among ourselves.

We tend to be in favor of gatekeeping to some extent because the gatekeepers normally feel as though it is their responsibility to do what they do and keep the humans separated from their Divine counterparts. The people who are being kept from the Divine are then made to feel as though they cannot have any of the answers themselves and are used and manipulated to have those “teachers” gain from them. Those teachers rarely have their shit together enough to maintain their own practice let alone provide mystical experiences to others. I am not saying all pagan teachers in the modern day have this problem – but most and especially the ones who are more widely talked about. 

All of us carry a piece of the Divine within ourselves. It is evident in a multitude of traditions from Buddhism and Hinduism with the prana, the kami is inherent to the natural environment in Shinto, the parts of the soul theories we have in heathenry tend to recognize this piece of ourselves that is reincarnated and eternal as the Divine hold us – in theory as we have very little evidence. There are many examples of humans working with the Divine closely in creation among other creative uses. There are portions that have been withheld from the history of philosophy because of the fact that the philosophers were connected to the Divine. We have theurgical practices in which the Divine was invoked in humans since Ancient Egypt. 

There is little framework around this calling and need to feel closer to the Divine. We often misinterpret these feelings that drive us toward a more Christian like way of thinking with those believing themselves to be reincarnations of the Divine. It is also common for us to cling to any framework we have as it happens in the godshard and otherkin community as there is no Westernized concept outside of New Age beliefs and so those who pick up on themselves feeling more called to lean towards a Deity and feel a kind of kinship that is difficult to explain in any other fashion. Some pick up on it faster than most. This is all a product of having the Divine being completely separate rather than restoring our connection within the community that this is a common experience that has been happening throughout world history. It is a solid argument for polytheism as it would be a more pluralized tolerance for these feelings and what we feel to be correct about ourselves spiritually.

There are many people who feel called to work with one Deity at any given point in time – no single person can be a priestess for a Deity but there are several people, in fact, who can be a priest or priestess. Polytheism is a pluralist framework that is meant for several people to attain portions of their power in some way through a variety of Divinity rather than one singular model. Each of us have our own individual experiences of who we are to ourselves and each of us have this whether we want to think about it that way or not. It is not self-aggrandizing but rather self-inhabiting something that has been missing in several different ways.

No special singular person is a reincarnated version of the Divine. In fact, we are all reincarnations of ourselves, and the piece of us that is reincarnated is directly connected to the eternal functions of our spirit which is, inherently, Divine. Consider that fragmented parts of the Divine are scattered in humans and cults (no, not like Jonestown or any other New Age bullshit, I mean cults in the way that they are centered around a Divine being) can be derived from making those parts known and bringing the Divine into this world and functioning as a fraction of that Divine embodiment. 

In this sort of way, there is no hierarchical standard to live in but rather a choice to be made whether or not to pursue this Divine embodiment or not. And each human has the capacity to deny or accept that or go about their lives in any other way they are called to do so. 

All of these things are examples that are not extraordinary occurrences in extraordinary times, but rather a part of our humanity that has been beaten and worn over history to make way for Christian and Western influences that separate the Divine from us as a way to ensure power for the people who thirst over it. 

This is reflected in our communities in our teachers who hold the Divine away as though They are innately dangerous and should be kept under wraps in all circumstances. Though there are mystery cults written into Greek theosophy, we can ourselves unravel the mysteries of the Divine in our own ways on our own time. We essentially give the Divine a pacifier and are told to behave lest we shun them away and take Them out of our ritual – as if They were already there to begin with as we have not been able to retain any sort of reconstructed practice that lures the Divine towards us. 

I’m talking about people who say that there are gifted people who are only chosen to work with certain Deities and can only be chosen by that Deity. This is some sort of extraordinary circumstance in which the Divine can choose the human They want to work with but most of the time, it is the human who chooses the Divine. Though we are born with the capacity to experience the Divine in our own way, we are also a product of our natural alignment and in juxtaposition with our reality. Some of ourselves are more prominent than others and some people never even recognize the Divine in themselves ever. There’s reasons why not everyone is called to do this sort of work and are instead called to develop and create in other facets of humanity. 

It isn’t any fault of our own making that makes this be a way for us to be closed off to each other as well as the Divine, but rather a product of the society that builds more ways to keep the Divine out of our everyday lives and makes sure that we are not able to see who we really are. Instead, we are concerned about what we sell to people, what money needs to be made off of it, and gatekeep the very reality of the Gods to other people. It is consistent throughout our modern day history where the people in power stay in power because they justify it by thinking God has decided that they are worth being rich and the rest are destined to remain poor and further from God. As if the Divine have anything to do with prosperity and abundance in the way of the stock market or the economy-driven tactics of capitalism. 

We have essentially destroyed the balance with what we hope to gain from working with the Divine and cheapened it to what material things can we get out of working with the Divine and what it would mean for our lifestyle or career instead of deepening a relationship with ourselves and our world so that we can better take care of those around us. 

Witchcraft in modern times is more about making sure we are successful in some sort of way that we put ourselves over others to be made more powerful and maintain even more resemblance of hierarchy. Witchcraft before this era was always about maintaining a balance between ourselves, the Divine counterparts, and the beings who share this earth. It has nothing to do with how much money you are making, who you fall in love with, what crystals you put on your altar or what herbs you put on your candle. There are beliefs that you should completely shut out all sources of energy before ever doing spellwork. But I’ll harp on that another time. 

The point is, the Divine have been written out of mainstream paganism because of this need to be better than others and grapple for power when the elite have stolen our own hope and autonomy over our lives. 

What better way to control more people than by telling them that you, too, can be rich if you use a green candle and make a money spell without even using any of the spirits or beings connected to the energy from which you draw from? It feels like a ten step plan to success and then boils down to making ourselves feel better because instead of using capitalism and buying a way into success, we are using it to have businesses gain from our poorness and use it to grow their own capital instead. You become sort of psychological guru who knows the ins and outs of our own functions and maintain even further distance from the Divine in such a context.

We have written the Divine out of every part of paganism unless we are on the outskirts, and even then, it is used as a ploy to remain in hierarchy over other people.

“Shamans” who use the shaman sickness to warn others not to touch the spirits and only they can touch it so they can gain something from using their talents and the spirits to make more money. You also have spirit workers and other examples of edgelords criticizing people for not doing things a specific way just because they know more and are gatekeeping it even more from everyone by making it seem like a horrific example of how to be involved with the Divine. 

What gatekeepers fail to mention is that what needs to happen in order for the Divine to even be around is that there needs to be a contract between humans and the Divine. The contract, however, is not so we can sign our souls away and serve them for all eternity and suffer whenever we don’t hold up our end of the deal. The contract is a two way process. If we ignore the fact that the Divine can actually give humans more than They do now, we feel as though it is always going to be one-sided. 

People burn out from spirit work because they do not know what it means to actually be reciprocated. There is no context for the reciprocity that is possible. Instead, they act as martyrs for the work they do with no end in sight and it’s a wonder any of them last nearly as long as they do without completely blowing up. 

They do not allow the Divine to also hold them and keep them. We do not let the Divine be a part of ourselves because we don’t want to be controlled when it is far from being controlled if things just work out in some ways. The power imbalance is made to feel like a threat because other humans use it as a way to control and dominate when controlling and dominating is not how the Divine actually go about using humans to their advantage. They will, however, if it means getting the job done in these modern times and will make examples out of it so they can at least get some sense of the work they need done in this way. 

People have burned out from the Divine entirely by this very notion that the Gods aren’t even capable of reciprocating. We just ask Them for things on the off chance that They will listen and maybe even speak back. 

There are multiple ways in which things can unfold for the better. By building a new sort of practice around knowing the Gods and deconstructing these Westernized ideas of power, hierarchy, and capitalism, we can use these sorts of things to our advantage. We can take the fear out of the Divine – the fear that destroys and limits you – and replace it with a sort of excitement, joy and wonder that should have been there from the beginning. 

We don’t need to uphold the academics and scholars beliefs on what must have happened in a world before our own time with versions of a story that no longer have any place in modern adaptations. I believe we need to build fresh what was destroyed by working and cocreating with the Divine to get there. That takes a willing belief in not seeing the Divine as our bosses or overlords, as we put a human element on a Being that takes no delight in suffering, but rather as partners. We don’t need to see initiations and mysteries as a hierarchical endeavor but rather a choice to include the Divine in our lives or to not. We don’t need to make witchcraft exploited by being keen on only using our material tools to have material gain. 

Some arguments that are prominent in discourse that promote gatekeeping are as follows:

• The Gods do not speak to humans.
• The Gods don’t like humans or respect Them enough to work with the individual and meet them where They are at so you have to be extraordinary to do anything to work with Them.
• Discernment is impossible so believe whatever you want to believe because we all are right all of the time.
• It is impossible for any person to channel a Deity because they get in the way of the direction the Deity wishes to go in and no proper training can ever make it right because it is unethical to do so.
• The Divine don’t understand humans and don’t know what it’s like to be a human and are thus not a good enough resource so we should look to the ancestors.
• There are only special people the Gods talk to and they can relay messages so you don’t have to discern them for themselves.
• All people who relay messages are only trying to scam you out of your money and gaslight you into ignoring what is actually going on.
• The Gods don’t use anyone else to talk to humans because They are powerful enough to figure out ways of reaching humans even when their filters and biases are through the roof and impossible to get through.

All of these points will likely be talked about in more depth in my upcoming blog posts and book I’ve been working on. If any of these ruffled your feathers or maybe are things you’ve heard other people say to you, stay tuned because I have more arguments where that came from.

In summary, it is important to look at the ways in which we practice and taking steps to identify the underlying problems that we seem to keep having. There is a complete and utter lack of teachers within the pagan community that have a sort of efficacy beyond just saying rote knowledge and recreating what other versions they can from the same philosophies. There is no growth in this field of mysticism and those who have tried to grow it are long gone from the internet or the public eye in lieu of being ridiculed and talked down from the fields in which they specialize.

We need to do better as a whole in recognizing the real problems we are facing as a society. We are inclined to rely on those who pretend they know better than we do because some centralized figure from Jesus times said so and a Big Sky Daddy in the Clouds knows more than what we do. If we truly want to go away from Christianity and develop a healthier environment in the pagan community, gatekeeping is not the way to go. We would need to work from the ground up in the community to make this happen. There is no other way.